Page 6

“An abortion,” Eden thought to herself as she lay in the middle of her childhood bed.

She was in so much pain that she couldn’t think straight. The cramps that ripped through her body were unlike anything she ever experienced. In addition to the cramps, resentment now resided within her.

Never in her wildest dreams did she think she’d have her first child vacuumed from her womb. But she had. She was a married woman. In normal circumstances, the thought of a wife aborting her husband’s child didn’t seem right, but this situation wasn’t normal, and she didn’t think that she had done anything wrong.

“I thought you were asleep. How are you feeling?” Eve asked when she felt the wetness from Eden’s eyes on her thigh.

Eden opened her mouth to tell Eve that she felt like shit, but before she could her mother’s thick Louisianian accent floated in from the doorway.

“I never get tired of watching you girls love each other.” Marie said proudly as she admired her daughters .

Though she hated the circumstances that brought her children home, she was glad to have her girls staying under her roof again.

“Ma, I swear you’re like a cat skulking around. You move around without making a sound like you’re trying to catch someone off guard. How long have you been standing there eavesdropping?” Eve joked.

“I don’t skulk or eavesdrop in my home. I just walk up and listen,” Marie joked.

She was hoping the quick and witty response would bring some sort of smile to Eden’s face. But the grim look that covered her daughter’s normally angelic face let her know that she didn’t have the energy to laugh.

Marie sighed.

“How are you feeling Edy? Not just physically, but mentally and emotionally?” Marie asked as she crossed the threshold of the room that her daughters shared as children.

The question made more tears fall from Eden’s eyes. On the day she witnessed her husband deep dicking her sister, she hadn’t shed a single tear. Now she couldn’t keep the tears in her eyes to save her life. Jermaine had cut her too deeply for her to even pretend that she was ok. She couldn’t cry in front of him, but in front of her sister and mother, she didn’t have to pretend.

She could never use the “I’m fine” lie with her mother. Marie had always been able to read her daughter’s true emotions like a bestselling book. Marie was born to be a mother. And a lie, no matter how small, would be easily detected.

“Ma, I’m devastated. No scratch that. Devastation isn’t strong enough to describe how destroyed I am. Of all the females in the world, he had an affair with my sister. Envy has always gone out of her way to make our lives hell. I know she busted it wide open for a few of my exes, but somehow, I never thought she’d have sex with my husband,”

Eden was in mental hell. Feeling the thick maternity pad between her legs tormented her psyche in a way she didn’t think was possible.

“I swear Envy is adopted. No one else in this family acts the way she does. Envy can’t be a real Merci,” Eve said as she sucked her teeth.

Marie diverted her eyes. Her fair light skin turning lobster red.

Both Eden and Eve noticed. They stared inquisitively. The look on Marie’s face was a dead giveaway to a secret. Whatever the look on Marie’s face was, it had the girl’s attention. They couldn’t understand what they said to make her react that way because they’d called Envy worse names than adopted in the past.

“What’s wrong?” The sisters asked in unison.

Marie could feel her daughters’ inquisitive stares without looking at them. Blowing out a breath, she began to unburden the secret she had held for years.

“I never thought I’d be telling you all this. As much as it hurt me, I vowed to take this to my grave. But giving the circumstances, I think it’s about time I shared the Merci family secret.”

“Merci family secret?” They asked confused. As far as they knew, there were no secrets between the three of them.

“Yes, all families have secrets. Ours is no different. I was stern with you two because I never wanted you girls to make dumb mistakes that could haunt you throughout your life. I gave you both unconditional love and attention because you are my babies. I couldn’t do that with Envy because she’s not my daughter,”

“WHAT?!” Eden and Eve screamed out in shock. They had never truly suspected that Envy was adopted. It was just a joke that they shared since Envy had always been the black sheep of the family. This revelation stunned them.

“Wait a minute. Are you saying that Envy isn’t our sister? She’s really adopted?” Eve asked. The surprise on her face would have been comical if the situation wasn’t so serious.

“I didn’t say that. I said she’s not MY daughter,” Marie said with emphasis on the word my. “Envy is your sister. She’s Everett’s love child,”

Revealing the truth, even though it was over thirty years later, made her heart ache. The pain that shot through her body was just as sharp as it was the day she found out her husband had gotten another woman pregnant.

“Envy is Daddy’s daughter? How is that possible?” Eden asked in disbelief.

Her stomach sank to the floor because her mother’s words confirmed that she was a bad judge of character. Her father was the first man that she had ever placed on the “can do no wrong” pedestal . Jermaine was the second.

The fact that her judgement led her to be wrong twice had her second guessing everything she believed was right. Eden wanted to speak but she couldn’t say a word .

“Daddy had an affair and had a child? Envy is the product of Daddy’s affair. Ma that can’t be right. Daddy preached the importance of family, togetherness, and finding a perfect mate. He wouldn’t disrespect you or us like that. Would he?” Eve asked nearly on the verge of tears.

She was so caught off guard by her mother’s admission that she couldn’t make sense of the words. She didn’t want to believe it. She didn’t want to believe that her loving father could disrespect their family by bringing an outside child into their home.

Marie could see the genuine hurt on her daughter’s face. Her daughter’s, but especially Eve, had always been daddy’s girls. They doted on him as if he were a king. The knowledge that Everett Merci was nothing more than a flawed mortal was hard for them to accept.

“Yes, to all of the above Sweetheart. Yes, he had an affair and had a child. Yes, he would disrespect us. Men lie. I taught you girls that a long time ago,” Marie answered.

She refused to sugarcoat anything. The truth was the truth and what was done was done.

“Did you girls ever wonder why you weren’t allowed in our bedroom?” Marie asked .

“I assumed you didn’t want us in your marital space. My girls aren’t allowed in my room. They have their own bedrooms, a game room, and a lounge. My bedroom is Jason and I’s personal space. My room, my rules.” Eve said repeating the line that her mother repeated to her and Eden when they were children.

Marie chuckled dryly because she knew that’s what her children believed.

“I did tell you girls that didn’t I? That was a lie. The truth is after Everett brought his illegitimate bitch of a daughter here, I had the king-sized bed replaced with two full sized beds. I never wanted you girls to see that we slept separately because at the time I didn’t know how to answer the questions I knew two little girls would ask,” Marie said truthfully.

“I can’t believe that Daddy would bring his side baby home for his wife to raise. Who did he think he was Denzel in Fences?” Eden asked.

Marie chuckled. Though the 2016 movie had won several awards, because of that very scene, she could not bring herself to complete the movie.

“Ma, if you don’t mind me asking, how did Envy even end up here?” Eve asked.

Marie wasn’t flustered or caught off guard by her daughter’s questions. She was expecting them after telling the truth .

“Honey you are old enough to know that a man will do whatever he thinks he can get away with. Like Edy said, Everett brought that baby to me like he was Troy Maxson.

Envy’s birth mother died from a drug overdose when she was six months old. Because Envy was clearly biracial, her white mother’s family didn’t want anything to do with her. Her grandmother literally put Envy in her car seat and placed her on the curb with the trash.

After the sheriff arrested Envy’s grandmother for child endangerment, he called Everett to pick his daughter up from the Sherriff’s Department. Everett brought Envy here and had the audacity to say,

“This is my daughter Envy. Take care of her as if she’s one of yours and I don’t want to hear anything about it. If you try to get uppity and think you’re going to leave, just remember that you don’t work. How are you going to take care of yourself and the girls without me?”

Eve and Eden gasped for the second time. They were learning things about their father that they couldn’t believe. The man they knew would have never spoken to their mother as if she were just a common tramp. In public, he spoke to her with the utmost respect. Hearing the things he said in private made them sick .

“That was the day I lost it. The calm demure Marie Antoinette Merci had left the building. I endured so much in my marriage. The lies, affairs, physical abuse, spousal rape when he was drinking, were some of the things I dealt with. Him bringing a child that he made in the streets into my home was the straw that broke the camel’s back. That was a level of disrespect that I refused to accept.

Without realizing it, I slapped Everett so hard that my Lee Press-On nails popped off and flew across the room. He was stunned and so was I, but I was too hurt and upset to care. I said,

“ When I divorce your no-good ass, it’s still going to be you that takes care of me and my girls. Here’s how adultery and divorce work.

Since I’m a wife with small children, no job because you forced me to quit, and since I have proof of your affair, half of everything you own belongs to me. This house is mine because, like you said, I have small children. No judge is going to put a wife and mother on the streets.

I’m going to take every dime you make because I have kids to feed. By the time I’m done with you, you and your bastard will be on the corner begging for loose change to get a cup of soup. Whatever bitch you had this child with, can keep your trifling ass. All I want are my girls and your money. ”

That was the first time I ever disrespected my husband. The look on your father’s face was priceless. That was the first time that Everett genuinely apologized. But his betrayal was too massive for me to forgive. It was God’s job to forgive him, not mine.

Even though Envy’s mother died when she was a baby, she acts exactly like that tramp. Hateful, manipulative, and spiteful. She’s nothing like us, because she’s not one of us. She was conceived in lust and sin, and she carries on that tainted legacy,” Marie said truthfully.

Eve and Eden were lost for words. They never expected to hear that Envy was only their half-sister.