Forever Never

Chapter Ten | Death, Pain and Daisy

Tyana

Three things are certain in life. Death, pain and Daisy throwing a tantrum anytime I had to take her to daycare. Whenever I would be away from home for a long time I'd take her there so my baby didn't have to be all alone. Mostly to be a responsible parent, but also to avoid any vases or important amenities getting destroyed.

Daise could always tell when I'd be taking her to daycare days before. Her intuition should honestly scare me but maybe I was just underestimating her intelligence. Maybe animals could in fact recognize people's tells, especially ones they've known all their lives. Or animals can't do that and I'm actually just housing a demon.

"You can't hide forever!" I told her, my voice loud enough to be heard from anywhere in the apartment. "Come on girl I thought your ass loved treats."

Regardless of how smart she was though, it wasn't a match for me so I left the bowl I'd poured her favorite snack into and went into the living room. If you sat at the right place then you could see everything going on in the kitchen. It would take time though before she came out, as per usual, so I entertained myself with my phone in the meantime.

I texted Tim contact info of the three shrinks I found for him to talk to and get a feel for who connected with him the best before I went to insta to waste time scrolling through my feed. Finding a good shrink for yourself was work on its own. But with the right one, starting that journey of working on yourself instantly became a lot easier and undoubtedly lead to more productive sessions.

A post from Leroy from a while ago where he was posing with Elle in the gym came up amidst my scrolling. I went to his profile, shamelessly scrolled through that too and lingered on the rare pictures of him either shirtless or in tank tops. Admiring from afar like this was the safest bet. And considering he admitted to checking out mine, I didn't feel as ashamed. The man took good care of himself and most importantly he had a personality, interests he shared freely which was refreshing.

Eventually the shame caught up with me and I exited from the app altogether before I accidentally liked one of his posts. Instead I went back to observing in anticipation for Daise to show her little ass, the same way I'd sat countless times over the years watching on a screaming match going on in the kitchen. She would sit in my lap and I'd pet her the way she loved to ease her distress, her purring and soft fur in turn easing mine.

Daise's intuition had always been on point all her life. Like a scammy psychic she could always sense when the energy in a space was off and it was always off whenever dad came home drenched in alcohol that even innocent young me could smell off him. He'd sit somewhere, eerily quiet and humming creepily to himself and just wait. Like a lion observed its prey for an opening to pounce. Smallest thing and he'd instigate a fight.

First it would start small and rather calm, but he always had an ability of igniting something in mom that made it grow bigger. He made her feel like she was the one that blew things out of proportion, the crazy one, the reason things escalated to the point they did. Because she wouldn't let him talk on her the way he did.

Like dad, mom also had phases to her. The one where she was bright, bubbly and always had something to smile about. This was the phase of her that was happy to wake up at the crack of dawn and go to church every Sunday morning. She would always bring something tasty that made all the aunties and her friends flock to it and mop it up real quick.

She would go to work like a kid on Christmas morning and come back tired but happy to come home to the people she loved the most. Music was the thing that brought us together. Our mother-daughter thing. When she wasn't teaching me about music notes, she was teaching me how to take care of my hair and my own body and to not fear it.

Her friends always came over and they'd chat and laugh over freshly baked goods, giving me advice, sometimes unsolicited but still useful which I only realized when I got older. But over time that other phase of her eclipsed and they stopped coming over.

She still went to church every Sunday morning, but looking like a ghost. As if something in her had been switched off. She rarely baked, and if she did it was an attempt to smooth things over when it got bad with dad. Work turned her into a walking zombie both before and after a day of work. We didn't have music anymore. At this point in her life all she had was dad, and me but I always felt like I came second to him. To his feelings she felt obligated to coddle before she could be there for me.

For a while in my life I lived with grandma because mom couldn't afford to house all of us just on her salary and a big portion of it went to dad's devotion to alcohol. I hated how when it came down to it she always chose him. She could've kicked him out and it would've been just me, her and Daisy but instead she chose to fight the losing battle of trying to get back a man that wasn't there anymore. That version of him was dead but she didn't wanna see it.

I had a song about her too, but that one would just have to live out its lifespan within my notebook. What I would end up saying about her scared me enough to keep it that way. My mom wasn't a saint but I could see now as an adult that she was merely consumed by the blaze that was Edouard Johnson.

Living with grandma was a bit like going back to the old version of mom again. Instead of music though, grandma and I had our own made up holiday where we celebrated our family. Grandma never liked dad so to her our family was only the ones on my mom's side.

The first ever Killian Day I got a locket that was basically a family heirloom. It had been passed down for generations, each woman in my family to her daughter. Mom never cared for it. It was collecting dust in her childhood room so I got it.

As if she could telepathically read my mind from miles and miles away, I had an incoming facetime from grandma. She had her phone a little too close to her face as per usual and I had to almost laugh. Wrinkles decorated her face, around her eyes and mouth which was proof she'd laughed a lot in her life. She always managed to make grey hair work for her.

"Grandma how many times do I have to tell you to not have your face too close to the camera?" I went.

"And how many times I gotta tell ya not to get smart on me?" she replied. She confirmed with me that she was coming here for K-day this weekend. We took turns hosting K-day. Last year's was spent in her house so this one's at mine.