Renee’s bags are packed. I guess I’d be smart to assume she’s going to be moving in with you, huh?” Brenda said after she opened the door to let Regina in.
“Huh? What are you talking about?” Regina quickly scanned the living room as she entered the house. Renee was sitting in a chair in the corner, bent over sobbing, and Camille was gently rubbing her back. Furniture in Brenda’s usually neat home was upturned, and Renee’s junior prom picture, which had hung on the wall, lay smashed on the floor.
“Tell her not to cry, Mommy. She can move in with us, can’t she?” Camille said as she ran to her mother.
“What’s going on?” Regina picked up her daughter and wiped her tearstained face. “What happened?”
“Nothing,” Brenda said sullenly. “Except that my daughter is a dyke. A butch. A lesbo. A freak.”
“Mom . . . ,” Renee wailed from the corner.
“Don’t call me Mom,” Brenda snapped. “You’re not my daughter. No child of mine would lay down with someone of their own sex. It’s unholy, and this is a holy house, dedicated to Jesus, son of God.”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute, Brenda. Hold on.” Regina put Camille down and walked over to Renee. “Let’s everybody calm down here, okay?” She bent down and cradled Renee in her arms and looked at her older sister. Brenda stood in the middle of the room, her arms crossed, her face tight and hard. Regina had never seen Brenda like this, and it almost scared her.
“What the hell is going on?” Regina asked again.
“Stop the act.” Brenda almost spat as she talked. “Renee told me she already told you. Thanks for letting me know what’s going on in my daughter’s life. She is my daughter, you know. Not yours.”
“Well, I mean . . . ,” Regina stammered as she tried to think of something to say. “I was going to say something, but I thought I would give Ray-Ray a chance to tell you herself.”
“Well, she didn’t! I had to hear her on the telephone with the girl . . . that Liz . . . talking about how much she loved her. Talking all that homo shit with Camille right there.”
“Camille wasn’t in the room, Aunt Gina. She was downstairs with Mom,” Renee wailed.
“She was in the house, wasn’t she? If you don’t have any respect for me, or respect for yourself, you couldn’t even respect your own little cousin enough not to be talking blasphemy in this house while she’s in here? At her tender age?” Brenda walked over and slapped Renee in the face hard enough to leave a red handprint on her cheek.
“Whoa!” Regina caught Brenda’s hand before she could hit the screaming girl again. “Just calm down. You don’t have to be hitting on her. Let’s talk this out.”
“Damn it, Regina, don’t tell me how to chastise my child,” Brenda said. She snatched her hand away and swatted at Renee’s head.
Regina stood up and grabbed Renee close to her, shielding her from her mother. “Brenda, stop it. You need to calm the hell down. You don’t need to be hitting on this girl.”
“Didn’t I just tell you not to be telling me how to chastise my own daughter?” Brenda said, struggling to get at Renee.
“But you said she’s not your daughter,” Camille said in a teary voice as she tried to maneuver herself between Brenda and Renee.
“Camille, stay out of this.” Regina pushed her out of the way.
“But, Mommy, she was beating Ray-Ray with an extension cord before you got here.” Camille started crying full force.
“She what?” Regina swung back to face her sister. “Brenda, have you lost your fucking mind? Beating her with an extension cord? What the hell is wrong with you?”
“I’ll beat her with anything I want,” Brenda shrieked. “I’m gonna beat Satan out of that child if it’s the last thing I do.”
“Not while I’m here, you’re not.” Regina pushed Renee and Camille behind her. “You’re gonna have to hit me before you hit her.”
“Oh really?” Brenda put her hands on her hips. “Well, don’t think I won’t. You’ve spoiled that child, and that’s probably why she thinks she can do whatever she wants in my house. Including sleeping with her girlfriend right here in my house.”
“I never did that, Aunt Gina,” Renee said through her sobs.
“Shut up!” Brenda yelled. “Nobody was talking to you, now, was they? Get up in your room and wait there until I come up and finish with you.”
“Get your stuff, Ray-Ray. You’re coming home with me,” Regina countered.
“She’s not going anywhere with you! You think you’re her damn mother? Well, I’m the one who gave birth to her.”
“Didn’t you tell me when I walked in here that you have her stuff packed and for me to take her?” It was Regina’s turn to put her hands on her hips. “Well, that’s what I’m going to do.” She turned back to Renee. “Get your stuff and let’s go,” she said, pointing to the door.
Renee moved toward the door, but Brenda darted around Regina and grabbed the girl. “Well, I changed my mind. Don’t think I don’t know that it was her being around you with your loose ways that made her like this in the first place.”
“Get the fuck off her.” Regina wrapped her hand around Brenda’s long hair and yanked her off Renee.
“You get the fuck off of me!” Brenda yelled as she swung at Regina but missed. “This shit is all your fault. If you hadn’t been screwing around with—”
“Renee,” Regina called out, tossing her niece a set of keys, “you and Camille get in the car. I’ll bring your stuff out with me.”
“Don’t you dare walk out of this house!” Brenda stomped toward them, but Regina blocked her path, pushing her back.
“Go ahead and get outta here now!” Regina told them.
“Have you lost your mind?” Regina demanded after they left.
“I’m serious. I don’t want my daughter around you anymore. You’re a bad influence on her. It’s probably because of all the men she saw you running in and out of the house with when she was a kid that made her hate men and think she wants to be with women. Selling your body to men for money like a whore.” Brenda turned and spat on her own floor, then turned back to glare at her sister.
“Oh really? Is that a fact? Well, first of all”—Regina put up one finger—“I never brought any man to our house. Second”—Regina added another finger—“I may have been selling my booty for money, but it was to support the daughter you abandoned. You were out there selling pussy for crack. And for all the shit I’ve done, I never sunk as low as you. Or do I have to remind you about the time you put on a show with a German shepherd for three bags of crack?”
“That’s a lie!” Brenda said, advancing toward her.
“No, it’s not, and you know it. Puddin’ used to mess around with the guy who paid you for the night’s entertainment.” Regina snickered. “Now, I didn’t wanna go there, but don’t you ever—you hear me, ever—put on a holier-than-thou act with me. You may have pulled your act together now, but I know the real deal. Okay?
“And third,” Regina continued, “you need to get over your resentment of the fact that I raised Ray-Ray instead of you. It’s not my fault you chose a crack pipe over your own child.”
Brenda stood in the middle of the room, facing her sister, her eyes brimming with tears as she bit her lips. “Well, to hell with you, Regina. You accuse me of resenting you, but why don’t you admit that you resent me because I am her mother and you want her to think you are? You resent me fulfilling my God-given role, and you’ve done nothing but try to undermine me all these years.”
Regina sneered. “You know what? You need to get a fucking grip. Now, I’m taking the kids home, and I’ll call you tomorrow to see if you’ve regained your senses.” Regina took another long look at her sister, then turned and walked out the door.
She took a deep breath to collect herself before getting in her car. Renee was sitting in the passenger seat with Camille in her lap. The two were crying and holding each other as they rocked back and forth.
Regina reached over and pulled Renee into her arms.
“Don’t worry, sweetie, everything’s going to be okay,” Regina said soothingly. “Your mother’s just upset now, but you know her. She’ll calm down in a couple of days and then she’ll be calling my house begging you to come home. You just watch.”
Renee shook her head. “Aunt Gina, I’m so sorry. But I swear Camille wasn’t in my room when I was talking to Liz. She was downstairs with my mom. And I didn’t know Mom was gonna pick up the phone and listen in on the extension.”
“She did, Mommy,” Camille said through her tears. “I saw her.”
“I believe you, honey.” Regina kissed Camille on the cheek and then Renee on the forehead. “And I believe you, too, Ray-Ray. And even if Camille was in the room, I wouldn’ta been mad, baby. But we don’t need to talk about this right now. I want you both to calm down, okay? Everything’s going to be all right, I promise. Now, did you guys eat? You wanna stop and get some pizza on the way home?”
“Oh, Mommy, no.” Camille started crying louder, then buried her head in her mother’s lap. “No, no, no.”
Regina tried to lift her daughter up into her arms, but the little girl resisted and continued sobbing.
“Camille, what’s wrong?” Regina said frantically. “No what?”
“Mommy, please, I don’t want pizza,” Camille said in near hysteria. “You said when you picked me up from Aunt Brenda’s you was taking me to McDonald’s.”
Regina and Renee looked at each other for a moment, then exploded in laughter.
“Okay, Camille. You’re right—I promised,” Regina said, rubbing Camille’s back. “So stop crying and we’ll go get you a Happy Meal, and Ray-Ray and I are going to split a large pizza, and then we’re all going to stay up all night and watch old movies on TV.”
Camille looked up and wiped her eyes. “Or maybe we can watch The Little Mermaid on the VCR?” she asked in a tiny voice. “That’s me and Ray-Ray’s favorite movie. Right, Ray-Ray?”
Renee smiled and nodded. “It sure is.”
Regina started the car. “Okay, McDonald’s, pizza, and The Little Mermaid it is, then. Anything to make my little girls happy. So, Camille, get in your car seat and let Renee buckle you up, and let’s get the hell outta here.”
“I love you, Mommy,” Camille said with a yawn after she was settled in the car seat.
“Me, too,” Renee added as they pulled off.
“And I love you both,” Regina said. “And always will.”