Family Lies

Marilyn

1999

"Treasure," Dollie came in the room wearing the same clothes she was wearing the last time I came over here to check on Tré. I shook my head as she bent over to pick up a random backpack and I smelled her all the way from where I sat on my little sister's bed. She threw the bag on the floor next to the mattress. "Pack this bag. You spendin' the weekend with your Daddy." She lit up a smoke and left the room exhaling her stank ass breath into the air.

I rolled my eyes as disturbing memories of how many weekends I'd spent with my Daddy rolled through my mind. I looked over at Tré and watched her leave her bed to go through a trash bag that was full of clothes on the floor. 

"Why don't you just go stay with Aunt Donna? I know it's tight but... she really doesn't mind makin' room." Tré shrugged her shoulders slowly as she started folding clothes into the bag Dollie told her to pack. "Like you said... it's tight over there. Besides, I got a lil under the table situation goin' now and I can afford to eat. Buy some clothes every now and then. And I really don't wanna be any more of a burden to Aunt Donna. You see I kept my girls here for as long I could," Tré said in reference to our three baby sisters— Summer, Kashmir, and Jam.

"Well they were never your responsibility in the first place. You just a kid yourself and you out here lettin' Dollie make you raise hers."

"It wasn't that bad. They look up to me now. I was a pretty good role model if I do say so myself." I shook my head. "Come here. Sit down." I reached out my hand and Tré grabbed it and sat beside me. "So... you go to Raymond's often?" Tré twisted her lips up before taking her hand back from me. "Not really. I ain't been there in a few months. Why?"

"I was just wonderin'. You got your own room over there?" She shook her head no as she started tapping her foot. "What? So where you sleep? Where he sleep?" Tré stood to her feet and crossed her arms over her stomach. "Why you askin' me all these questions?" I stood with her. "I'm your big sister. I'm posed to ask you questions."

Tré didn't say anything and I sighed. "Mahzya told me somethin'." I searched her face as her brown cheeks blushed. "What she tell you?"

"She told me that she snuck over to Raymond's when Dollie sent you over there when y'all were kids. And she told me somethin' happened."

"What did she say happened?"

I took a deep breath as I reached for my little sister's hand. "She told me that... he molested you." Tré snatched her hand away from me. "What? Zya's lying."

"I know she ain't lying Tré," I insisted as she went back to sitting on the floor to try and pack her bag. "How the hell would you know anyway?"

I sat across from her and pushed that trash bag to the side. But Tré didn't seem to want to look at me.

"Because he did it to me too." She looked up at me with glassy eyes like she could start bawling crying. But she looked more angry than anything. "You lying!" She pointed at me and I shook my head. "I wish I was, but I ain't." Tré shook her head like she didn't believe me. "Bitch my Daddy wouldn't dare touch you like that!" She seethed but I couldn't be offended when I was once the one in her shoes. Raymond and all his mind games once had me fooled into thinking we shared something unbreakable too. And by Tré's demeanor and tone I could tell that he and Dollie were still playing that sick nasty game. 

"I see right through you Treasure. I was you. Right now you feel mad, hurt, betrayed... because you can't believe that you not the only one who he made feel 'special'. But you ain't baby. And you are special but not for the reasons his nasty ass been try'na make you think. Raymond and Dollie... they just using you! Dollie need to get high and she so far gone that she don't mind using you to pay for her next fix— you can't tell me you cool with that! They're manipulating you Tré."