Page 52 of Right Side of Paradise

A Crying Shame

My mother looked at peace. That permanent smile she wore was a little brighter and the twinkle in her eyes was impossible to miss.

She didn’t know I knew about her reunion with Brock, and my stomach was tied up in knots, not knowing if he’d already told her about yesterday. He could barely walk into his hotel room last night, but there was no telling what he’d done when he woke up this morning.

That left me working with a whole lot of nothing. Between the sweat on my palms and the moisture gathering behind my knees, I was gonna slide off this damn massage chair and embarrass myself in this nail salon.

“You mighty fidgety today.” Cadence, Lyric’s older sister, studied me through the curtain of her dramatic lashes as she rubbed the mango sugar scrub over my feet and up my calf. “Chill, girl. This is supposed to be relaxing .”

A tight smile was all I could offer. “Sorry.”

“Mhmm.” She narrowed her eyes at me, before looking at my mother who was the picture of calm, but said nothing else.

My heart was still galloping, and my throat was dry by the time we made it out to my mom’s car afterwards.

She had the A/C blasting, ready to put the car in reverse when I settled my newly manicured hand over hers. “Mom, can we talk before we leave?”

Her serene smile fell when she looked at me. “What’s wrong, sweetie?”

“I need to tell you something, and I need you to listen.”

“I’m listening.”

“Last night, I saw Brock?—”

“Oh, honey, I was gonna tell you about that. Nothing’s set in stone yet, but life is too short not to try.”

My lips twitched. This woman didn’t even make it three seconds into “just listening” before she was cutting me off.

“He told us about that, but that’s not what I want to talk about.” I held her hand. “Mom, please just listen and I’ll explain whatever you want me to after. Okay?”

There were already questions in her eyes, and the lump in my throat grew bigger. I couldn’t remember the last time I felt this nervous to tell my mother anything. We didn’t have secrets between us. But…

Keeping my eyes on her wood grain dashboard, I told her about Rico. And Soul. And Christian. And to her credit, she let me talk. But when I looked over at her, her mouth was open like she wanted to say something, except the words got stuck in her throat.

“Mom?”

“Harlow Evangeline Westbrook, you better be joking.” There was an edge to her voice I’d never heard before. My posture straightened when she snatched her hands from mine and stared through the windshield.

“I wouldn’t joke about something like that, Ma. And I wanted you to hear it from me instead of someone else.”

She laughed. A dry, callous sound that sent goosebumps over my skin. “What happened to the man you were dating this summer? Were you lying to me?”

“It was them. It’s always been them.”

Another laugh erupted from her, this one louder and drawn out. “Harlow, please.”

“I—”

“I can’t wrap my head around this. Rico is your stepbrother.” She scoffed, throwing her hands up. “I never questioned you only having male friends because they were so protective of you, and I just knew they wouldn’t cross the line.”

“They didn’t?—”

“You mean to tell me they’re passing you around like a collection plate and you want me to be happy about it?”

That hurt . Any shred of reasoning I wanted to do with her went out the window. Of all the people I expected to slut shame me for my choices, it wasn’t my mom. Not even Brock had stooped that low.

“Okay, you clearly need some time to sit on this, so I’m gonna?—”

“Were you doing this under my roof?”

“No, mom. We fell in love as adults. We were twenty-one the first time we acted on anything.”

“That was almost ten years ago. You’ve been sleeping with your brother for a decade and didn’t think to tell me once?”

“If you’d just let me talk, I could explain.” A foreign surge of frustration clouded my senses. She wouldn’t listen to me, and I was just about done trying to make her. “What we did at twenty-one happened once. That’s it. Everything else was this summer. After you and Brock were divorced.”

My mom kissed her teeth and hid her face in her hands. I thought she was sitting with it. Processing what I told her. And that was my fault for getting my hopes up.

It took me thirty years to discover Yvette Donovan had it in her to get angry. Yet here she was, mouth pinched, and no light in her eyes when she looked at me. “If you think those men love you, you’re sadly mistaken.”

“ Mom —” Every ounce of hurt I felt was in that word, and she didn’t care.

“I mean it, Harlow. Never mind the fact that one of them is your stepbrother , what man do you know willing to share a woman he loves?”

I could name three. With certainty. But I was over this conversation and so was the sore muscle in my chest. “Okay, I’m done. We can talk about this later.”

She sputtered when I reached for the door handle. “Where are you going?”

“I’ll get myself home.”

“Harlow—”

I closed the door, drowning out her words.

The afternoon sun beamed down on me with a vengeance, and it still wasn’t enough to heat the icy chill settled over my skin. “That went fucking terrible,” I mumbled, stepping back onto the sidewalk to wander around Rainbow Row.

Soul’s spa was two doors down from the nail salon. I could go in there. He’d want me to. But I couldn’t bring myself to show up at his job like this. So, I turned and sought out the only other familiar face within steps of me.

The melody of a seashell door chime announced my arrival when I walked into the air-conditioned space. Right away, the mingling fragrances of coconut, vanilla and gardenia made my next inhale easier.

The woman behind the counter was the only other person in the shop and glanced up from the string of beads in her hands with a beam. “Hey, girl.”

“Hey, Lyric.”

I didn’t care what anyone else said, people who could talk about anything were the backbone of society. And people who could talk about anything with little feedback while I tried not to cry in public were saints.

Lyric Dawson could talk her little heart out, and I’d never appreciated that more.

There hadn’t been a lull in conversation since I walked in an hour ago.

Not when she told me she was technically closed and just in the shop today to catch up on online orders.

And not when Simeon showed up with a salad and green juice for her.

She talked him right out the door with the straw to her lips.

And the smile plastered on Simeon’s face told me he was just happy to be acknowledged.

“How’s that going?” I wanted to know.

“How’s what going?” Her brow climbed up her forehead as she tucked a pen in her pile of braids, “I ain’t thinking about that man, but anybody who wants to buy me food is alright with me.

” She placed a shipping label on a box and tossed it in a pile with others.

Then she picked up her green juice again.

“Oh, right.” I knew a woman in denial when I saw one and wasn’t gonna burst her little bubble.

Not yet.

“I don’t have an appetite,” I told her when she offered me half of her salad.

“Hmm, suit yourself.” She dabbed at dressing on the corner of her mouth with a napkin and took another bite of her lunch. “Tell me more about this hometown project you emailed me about.”