Two Years Prior
July 1982
"Karen, baby, you've gotta speak more to the doctors," Mattie sighed. "That's the only way you're gonna get out of here."
"Momma, don't pressure her," Jacky spoke up as she watched her mother plead with her sister.
Mattie had been coming in every day except Sundays to see Karen since she got admitted to Primrose. Twinkie and Denise would come with her on Fridays and Dorinda would come on Mondays and Wednesdays after she took her daughter to daycare. Jacky, who recently became a nurse at the facility for the sake of keeping her eye on her sister, would watch her family members come in and try to get Karen to speak more to her doctors and nurses so that she could come home, but they didn't understand that it would take time.
"I'm not pressuring her Jacky," Mattie denied. "She just needs to come back home. You girls need to get back out there again and sing to the people. For your fans, for the church and for God."
And for you
Jacky thought to herself.
Jacky shook her head. Her mother always thought of the church over everything else. Maybe that's why she couldn't see how long Karen hadn't been okay. Jacky was home with her sisters more than their own mother, even with her own children to raise. Maybe that's why Karen spoke more to Jacky than her mother when she visited.
"Momma, the church understands that Karen isn't well right now," Jacky reminds her mother. "They have patience and they'll continue to pray for her and for us. They're not worried about when our next hit single is gonna be released!"
"Don't you raise your voice at me, Jacqueline," Mattie said softly as she kept her eyes on her baby girl. "I just want her to get better so that we all can."
As silence engulfed the room, there was a knock on the door. Jacky got up from where she sat and opened the door to see Dorinda standing there. It was a Saturday. Dorinda never came on Saturdays.
"What are you doing here?" Jacky questioned.
Dorinda shrugged, "I had some free time." She looked over Jacky's shoulder. "I didn't know that you or Momma were gonna be here around this time." She whispered so her mother wouldn't hear her.
Dorinda liked to visit Karen sometimes without her mother being there because it was the only time she could actually speak with her. Whenever Mattie was there, she would speak the entire time and try to get Karen to answer everything she said without including the other sisters in the room, and Dorinda didn't like that.
She knew that Karen was also her mother's child and her mother wanted her to get better so she understood, but she didn't like it. She also knew that Jacky would take weekends off and not visit during because she would be here five days a week. So, when Jacky opened the door, Dorinda was a bit annoyed.
"We're actually about to leave," Jacky told her. "We've been here since 10am." She looked down at her watch to see it was almost one. "Momma has a choir rehearsal to be at in thirty minutes, but you know how she gets with Karen."
Dorinda nodded and stepped inside the room. She sat back in a chair near the door, not wanting to disturb her mother's time with her sister. When a few minutes had gone by, she watched as her mother got up out of her seat and walked over to Karen's side of the table to give her a goodbye kiss on the cheek.
Mattie grabbed her purse and locked eyes with Dorinda on her way out, "Who's watching Nikki?" She asked, knowing that Dorinda's husband worked on weekends.
