Get It Together

Chapter 8

*4 months later

Kaleena Brown

We've been taking shifts at the hospital with Da'Lani. She's been in here almost 5 months now. She caught an infection so recovery has been taking longer.

I meant what I said to Tanya that night.

I've been talking to Hector and Jose about arrangements for her because all that's been going on is unacceptable. They wouldn't let Hector take her so I talked with Kenzo and Kenji about her living with us but they wouldn't let us take her either.

I don't know what's going on but all they could say was her mother had some type of restrictions. It doesn't make sense and now that she hurt herself emancipation is off the table as of yet.

I was drowning in my thoughts on what to do when I was interrupted. "Kaleena, how's she doing?" Karlissa said. She, along with Melvin have been coming by but mainly at the hours she was sleeping.

"What y'all doing here? You know just like I know what happened at that party Lissa. I love you both but being here isn't best for her recovery. But She's up, they took her for a walk around the hospital to get her strength up. She's basically learning how to walk all over again. She did a number on herself that night and the infection made it worse. They've been working day in and day out with her she's made a lot of progress but she still has a long fight ahead. She keeps up with her school work as much as she can online. Kenji and Juju come and help her out when they can. the school is pretty understanding" I said truthfully. This whole situation is sad.

As adults none of us thought to ask questions until it was too late. We all missed the signs with her. We didn't question enough why she wasn't around.

She's a child and we didn't fight for her at all, She needed to know somebody grown had her back and she wasn't alone.

I personally should have been more involved with her and my son. I didn't know he was carrying this weight with her just as well as Juju. I feel so bad.

I'm so disappointed in my nieces and nephews behavior. They all played a role and turned on her. It's more to the story than what's being told on their end.

I know them and that's out of character, yes people act out but for them to be that disrespectful? what lead to that because if the excuse is still her not showing up I'm not buying it.

The part that breaks my heart the most is none of them apologized nor have they came to see about her or even ask.

I just don't get it.

They may not be mine but I helped raise them and I feel like I failed with them. For them to do such nasty things and have no remorse doing it really shocked us all.

I'm still in disbelief but it's hard to be in denial when the proof is in the pudding. Lani the proof and there are videos of this going down. The look on her face was just so heartbreaking.

"I know we all feel terrible about it, we didn't raise our kids like that. Devin, Melanie, and Marcus are here with Jasney" as soon as she said that Hector walked in with Jose and Juju. Kenji is with his dad training but he'll be by later. It took a lot to get him back into a routine.

It was an awkward silence until everyone else came in the room. I looked to Hector to see what he was going to say. I'm grateful he even allows us here.

"Umm hello I'm Melanie and this is Marcus we are Jasney parents, this is Dev-" she was cut off by an unamused Hector. " I know who you are, what you do, and where you live. I have no patience for the theatricals so state your reasoning for being here" he said as he typed on his phone. I noticed Juju staring Jasney down like she wanted to hit her and Jose sat around with a blank expression.