It was too much time to spend alone for someone who believed her world was caving in around her. But she had no choice. Being caught taking pharmaceutical drugs from the office supply quickly dismissed her from her job, leaving her all alone since college classes were in full swing. Not even bothering to sign up for fall classes, and with no friendship other than the one she chose with Mercy, Stoney sat in her apartment, literally looking at the four walls closing in.
She tried to settle on the words Mercy had spoken over her life, the prayers her friend had called out on her behalf, but couldn’t let them sink in. If God had been listening, wouldn’t he have let her life finally iron out? why did she have to keep going through storms the average twenty-one-year-old didn’t have to go through?
Not able to make sense of her life and how she’d been dropped off and raised with a grandmother who should have been watched by someone herself, Stoney only had energy to reminisce. Thinking back always made her ponder if things could have been different: could she have done something opposite of what had been done? Could her grandmother have made her mother take her? Could her grandmother have looked for her mother and given the information to Stoney before she had gotten as bad in the mind as she had? Deep down Stoney knew her grandmother had been barely able to find herself.
By the time she had finished grade school and advanced to junior high, Stoney’s world was all but steady. There were days when she’d have to feed herself, dress herself, and get herself ready for school. Those were the days when Grandma Susie was plagued by her spells, the same spells the doctor labeled as schizophrenic.
From time to time, neighbors would come and check on Stoney, but didn’t make it known to social services because they knew the girl would be taken away. Stoney didn’t know if this was at all beneficial for her or for her grandmother. At times she wished someone with common sense would have intervened. It would have saved her years of what she called torture, and it could have possibly rewarded her with a real family.
“You know Susie Gene love you, girl. Just like she did your mother,” her grandmother’s good friend, Mrs. Inez, would share with her. “She can’t help that her mind done up and left her, Stoney. When your grandfather was killed in that car accident years ago, your grandmother held on as long as she could. But she didn’t have no know-how.” Stoney would look up with her big eyes. “She couldn’t read or write. No one would help her. She couldn’t pay her bills, and raising Maeshell the best she could obviously wasn’t good enough for that girl.” Inez would hold a scowl on her face anytime Maeshell’s name would leave her lips.
After she would hear all she could for the day, a young Stoney would jump off of Mrs. Inez’s porch and head across the street to check on her grandmother.
In the middle stages of Grandma Susie’s illness, the pills, the strict diet, and hardly any sleeping all caught up with her. Stress, carried over from the years, pounded her life. From what she could tell, when Maeshell had abandoned her mother, it threw Grandma Susie over the edge.
The lifestyle changes that needed to be made in order for her to remain balanced were all the things Grandma Susie didn’t know how to control. Being young and having no real understanding about her grandmother’s illness, Stoney didn’t know when too much of anything was too much, so she just went along for the ride.
The struggle the years brought added more confusion and doubt about life, and distorted Stoney’s direction. When her grandmother’s way worsened to her thinking everyone was against her, even her grandchild, Stoney, kept praying, kept going to church, and finally found out how to keep herself together: by taking the pills her grandmother refused.
The more her grandmother’s mind became that of someone else’s, the more Stoney just played along, hoping sometime soon someone would come and rescue her. No one ever did.
“Mama,” Grandma Susie would call out to Stoney as if she were a child herself. “Mama, I’m hungry too. Can I have some?” she’d ask Stoney, who could barely stand taller than the gas stove, but had no choice but to try to prepare breakfast. It was either that or starve.
After years of the entire “baby scene,” as Stoney called it, she caught on and learned to just ride the wave when Grandma Susie’s mental side broke through.
“Yes, chile. I’m going to feed you,” she would announce to her grandmother, who would sit patiently at the kitchen table with only her underwear on.
Pills that Grandma Susie’s doctor had started giving her to calm her down had seemed to take effect and allow her to relax. The prescribed medicine made her walk upbeat, and Grandma Susie was even nice to be around during those times. That only lasted so long. Once Stoney reached high school, not even the pills seemed to work.
Over time Stoney’s grandmother forgot more things, people, and the way of life. She held attitudes longer and talked to invisible people and eventually declined all together the medication Stoney tried to administer. That’s when Stoney became nervous, sad and found herself using the same medication for her own relaxation purposes. To Stoney, the pills were the only means to keep herself intact for any mood her grandmother would be in.
“It’s just not fair.” Stoney wallowed and rolled to the other side of her bed. For the majority of her unproductive day, Stoney lay around and thought about what all she had endured in her life with Grandma Susie. Thinking deeply on the conversations she and Grandma Susie had had over the years, and knowing her grandmother had never really been in her right mind, Stoney wondered how much she really should have retained from their one-on-ones.
With her hands folded, Stoney laid her head on the backs of her hands. Right as she felt the rough patch of skin on the inner part on her wrist, Stoney’s mind took her back to one of the days in her past, which had pushed her to the edge.
“Did you do what I told you to do, girl?” Grandma Susie questioned Stoney right as she walked through the doors from her day at school.
“Huh?” Stoney retorted.
Halfway running toward her granddaughter, Susie raised her hand just to let it land as hard as she could across Stoney’s face.
“Ugh,” Stoney yelled out, and grabbed her face. “What are you doing?” she asked.
Not backing off, Grandma Susie asked, “Where is she? Where is my baby? Where is MaeShell?”
“I…I don’t know. I don’t know,” a young Stoney answered, and tried to run from her grandmother’s grip.
Able to sprint past her ailing and only grandparent, Stoney then locked herself in the restroom and planned to end it all. Yelling through the thin, wood-framed bathroom door, Stoney swore she would end it all if her grandmother didn’t back away from her.
Staring in the mirror was always her way of coaching herself through the bad times she’d have to endure with Grandma Susie. The tears, the anger, the pain, and loneliness, the hurt, distrust, confusion and doubt all crowded her thoughts on the day she fought to end it all. Just as she had made a ragged incision on her wrist and small drops of blood began to leave her body, shouts on the other side of the door were heard from the neighbors Grandma Susie had run to get help from.
Today was no exception. The air was thick. The thought of defeat plagued Stoney’s mind so heavily. Being that she didn’t converse with any neighbors, Stoney figured if she did away with her life, no one would come looking for her.
With Mercy out of town, and Vicky and Mike going on with their lives, Stoney rocked from side to side in her bed, trying to decide if she wanted to continue breathing or if she wanted to give it up.
Hearing a knock at the door, Stoney became still, thinking someone had the wrong door. Not expecting company, especially since Mercy always called before she came over, when the knocking continued, Stoney got out of bed and did a sneaky walk toward her front door. With her phone ringing simultaneously, she almost lost balance and fell.
Stopping short and picking up her cell phone on the way, Stoney saw Vicky’s number. Peeping through the peephole, she saw Mike. When Vicky became visible through the peephole, Stoney couldn’t believe it.
“What are they…” Stoney whispered as she saw her friends.
“Stoney, we know you’re in there. Who does she think she’s fooling?” Vicky seemed upset. Stoney didn’t know whether to be glad that someone actually cared enough to come looking for her, or mad because she wanted to be alone. As soon as a smile spread across her face, her hurtful anger wiped it away.
Seeing her friend shrug, it seemed to Stoney that Vicky was at a loss for words. “Dunno. I really do appreciate you answering my call. Since she was let go from the doctor’s office, no one has been in contact with her.”
“And with her not coming to church for the last few weeks, I don’t know what to think.” Mike hadn’t put his guilt away. “I should have been a better friend. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
When Stoney saw the two finally make their departure from her door, down the stairs, and out into the parking lot, the breath she’d been holding was let go. Trying her best not to give God credit, Stoney still knew he’d shown up and stopped her from doing the unthinkable.
“So what’s up with you?” Mike chanced a new conversation with Vicky as they made their way from Stoney’s apartment.
With a roll of her eyes, Vicky slowly exhaled. “What are you talking about?”
Having picked her up from her job, when Mike spotted Vicky standing at the doors of the hospital entrance, he tried to steady his heartbeat. No matter how many times she rolled her eyes in his direction, he still got jittery in her presence.
“Well. We did date once,” he wanted to remind her.
“We went out on a date, Mike.” Vicky glanced in his direction, making sure to correct him.
“Went out to eat, a movie, coffee. Whatever. I never heard from you again. Was it that bad a date? I thought we had fun.”
“We did. You were just that bad a liar.” when she viewed him out of the corner of her eye, Vicky was ready to spill her guts. She’d been holding in her suspicions for far too long. “I had to hear through the grapevine that I was a guinea pig.” She wanted to know if he would admit to what she was talking about. “You didn’t tell me you were trying to date women again. I had no idea and I think it was very unfair.”
Now with the understanding of how things had changed, Mike steadied the steering wheel and eased off the gas. When Vicky raised her hand to express herself in conversation, Mike closed his eyes, thinking she would lay a good one on him. When he didn’t feel any pain burn his face, he opened one eye at a time.
It had been told to him that being up front was his pathway to living a straight life. And that was just one of the things he wanted and needed to talk to Keithe about. With his friend having his own life crisis, Mike winged it the best way he could.
Thinking he could start over without telling others about his former lifestyle was obviously the wrong way. “I see,” he released slowly. “I didn’t know how to say it. How to tell you.”
“How about, I’m gay, or I was living a homosexual lifestyle?” she waited. “I had to find out through Facebook. A friend of a friend of a friend let me know they knew you.”
“But that’s just it. They don’t know me, because if they did, they’d know I’m not rolling like that anymore.” Mike defended himself as he drove on.
“‘Anymore’ is the key word, Mike.”
“You’re right.” wanting so badly to compliment Vicky on her outward beauty, especially when she was angry, Mike knew how much of a groupie he’d look like since Vicky had on scrubs and a lab jacket. “But I haven’t for a while, either. And I don’t plan on it ever again.” adding sound to his car’s speakers, Mike drove, allowing the silence between the mutual friends to flow in the midst of their own thoughts.
The short ride back toward the hospital was nearing an end and Mike didn’t want to leave their silence the way it was. “I’m really truly sorry.” Mike pulled into a parking space. “I just don’t want to be associated with that lifestyle anymore.” he looked up at her, seeing her concern. “Not that I want to pick it up at another time either, Vicky.”
“Well, from now on, Mike, you’re going to have to be honest with women you date. You can’t make the choice for me—I mean, them. You can’t just think they’re going to be fine with anything and everything in your past. I was up front with you about me having a child out of wedlock. I mean, seriously, I can’t judge you, but I have to be able to make those types of decisions for myself. Any woman will have to.”
“You’re absolutely correct. I really hope you can forgive me. More than that, I really hope you can believe me.” he wanted so badly to ask her for another chance.
Not able to deny his handsomeness and his ability to make her smile, Vicky’s stomach tugged. “I can only believe what you give me to believe,” she said.
Getting geared up for the deep conversation, Mike was willing to try his hand. “See, that’s where you are wrong. I didn’t treat you just any kind of way. Or come off like I was holding on to my past when we went out, did I?”
Giving it a quick thought, Vicky said, “Um. No. Actually, you really didn’t.”
“So?” he sang.
“So…what?” she asked.
“How about I take you out on an ‘I’m sorry’ date. Can I do that, please?” when she didn’t give an answer right away, Mike asked again. “Please?”
“Hmm. Sure. We can be friends again. Not promising anything else.” She laid the foundation.
“And that is all I’m asking. A second chance is a first chance. Thank you.”