Hush Baby, Hush

Him, Him and Him

The following Monday  I woke up particularly pissed off. By some luck on their part and ignorance on mines, my twin sibs had snuck into my room and created a booby trap.

Nothing says good morning like a whipped cream face mask and tomato bathed feet.

“What are you going to do about this?” my knuckles nearly whitened as I squeezed my nails into my palms. The initial pain faded to a dull throbbing, but I knew that a faint line of blood would be there. My daddy’s wife, the monstrous twins’ mother barely looked up from where she sat stirring her coffee.

Long black hair, possibly weave from the audacious sheen of it hung around her face and a thick fringe nearly covered her grey eyes. Her thin lips lifted at the corners and she chuckled.

That’s right she chuckled, because apparently she didn’t think that ten year old bastards sneaking into their sisters room to spray whip cream on her face and set a paint tray full of icky tomato base on the side of her bed was troublesome at all.

“Kids will be kid’s,” she chuckled again and sipped at her coffee, “Would you mind dropping them off this morning at school?”

At that moment I had a brain fart, I know we’ve all had it and right then and there I had it multiple times, over and over and over again.

Until it nearly consumed me.

“W-wha,” the stutter didn’t faze her though, she was too busy flipping through the morning paper and sneaking peeks at her iPhone. This woman, this woman who had dared to steal my father away from me and burden me with her two children was doing absolutely nothing.

She was just there sitting at the dining room table with her dainty pale hand playing with long strands of her faux hair. The sun, the sun even loved her because it created a halo around her willowy frame as it danced through the windows.

They weren’t my children, for one I was seven years their senior and two after living with them for mostly the entirety of their lives I had no doubt that children would be the farthest thing from my mind. I mean seriously, her children had snuck into my room!

So yeah I stuttered and yeah I had to hold myself up as I sagged against the counter in dejection and fury.

“You’re not going to spank them?”

That was white people talk for a black person saying, ‘you not gonna beat that ass until it’s black?’

She wasn’t completely white though, she was half and half but her mannerism threw me completely off. Maria was the exact opposite of my mother; whereas my mother raged Maria laughed as if everything was the most darling thing. The shit drove me insane, on both ends, which was why I spent the majority of my free time trying to stay away from my father’s house and trying to dodge my mother’s phone calls.

It wasn’t so hard to dodge my mama though. Ever since the divorce of her and my dad nearly fourteen years before she had made a new life. She remarried to a white man and produced my brat ass 12 year old sister Mina. From then on I was sent back and forth. First I’d been forced to live with my mom during the school year and spend weekends and the summer with my dad but then as time went on I preferred my dad’s home and finally when I turned 14 I requested to live permanently with him.

Mama didn’t shed a tear, only one child to take care of? God, it must’ve sound like heaven to the bitter biddy.

“Please Crystal? I promise I’ll make it up to you. I’ll clean everything up myself ok?”

My mama would’ve whipped me silly and shouted, ‘betta getcha ass up and scour that gotdamn floor before I put my foot up your ass’

But I was tired and didn’t feel like arguing. As long as my room was cleaned then I was fine. If she wanted to spoil the brats then whatever.