Black to the Past

Chapter 2

On the other side of Cleveland Heights, Halle was lying under a Sherpa blanket on her queen-sized four-poster cherry wood bed. Refusing to get from under the thick, teal-colored, blanket Halle sighed at the sound of her mother's voice calling from down the hallway. Halle was the oldest of four. The other three were all under the age of five. Halle was her father's daughter from another marriage. It might as well have been a different time period, Halle often thought to herself. Her step-mother was only eighteen years older than her but she was the mother Halle remembered most.

Sure she could remember that her bio mom was tall and thin with a singing voice so lovely that sometimes Halle heard it in her sleep! Sometimes when she thought really hard, Halle could remember her mother singing some silly tune from Sesame Street to her. Her favorite one was Sing-a-Song. Her mother used to sing to her every night some lullaby until she drifted off to sleep. Halle wished she could hear her singing now but that wasn't the case. Her mother had passed away when Halle was just about four. The cause was unknown and her father didn't like talking about her mother much. Halle even had to hide a picture of her mother in her drawer so her father couldn't take it away as he'd done with all their other memories of her mom.

Ten years ago, Halle's father had married a very young, very beautiful and fresh out of law school, Sherry. Sherry was happy to be the assistant to one of the most powerful, black lawyers in Cleveland. At forty, Harvey J. Blackmon III Esq. was a bachelor with a six year old. He was tall, dark, and handsome. He was just beginning to grey and had that distinguished look with eyes that crinkled when he smiled, thick dark lashes, over hazel eyes. Women went crazy over him. Only one captured the heart of a six year old, Halle, and she was the one who captured the heart of Halle's father.

Sherry wasn't lawyer material. She was Dionne from Clueless. All beautiful bronze colored skin, the same hazel eyes, braids and a wardrobe that was enviable by any model's standards. She was unintentionally smart. She figured things out when she had no choice but to. She was teachable. But she had a heart of gold, she loved children, and she was put on the earth to mother hers and everyone else's too. Halle loved her. But right now she did not want to hear her voice, calling her name, to get out of bed.

Halle pulled the covers up over her head farther when she heard the door to her large bedroom creep open. Immediately she knew that it was her two-year old brother Seth. Seth could never resist coming into her room each morning. He climbed the stairs to her tall bed and sat at the bottom and waited until she roared to life. It was a routine he never could get enough of and since Stephon was the newborn getting all the attention, Halle appeased him, day in and day out.

Lying still as she could, Halle slowly stretched her arms above her head then sat up as fast as she dared and "roared" like a lion at the mini me of her father. Seth screamed and clinched his arms by his side and laughed all at the same time. Then he jumped on Halle's stomach and started to tickle her, or so he thought he was tickling her. His little fingers dug at her sides but she could barely feel it through the thick cloud of her blanket.

"Alright, little man. That's enough. You got me," Halle laughed.

"I got you, Hal," he laughed giving her one last pinch. "Mommy said you're late."

"Is that right," Halle asked him, grabbing her iPhone XR off the nightstand. "Shit, I mean shoot, she's right."

"Shit, shit, shit," Seth repeated after her. Jumping off the tall bed and landing on his butt on the floor. Halle picked him up and booted him out the door with a kiss. "Don't repeat that word to mom," she told him before she closed her door.

Halle dashed into her personal bathroom off the hallway of the third floor where she slept. She had the entire floor to herself. It had been labeled a teen suite when her parents bought the house. They moved her upstairs promptly at thirteen. It had been the year after her sister was born. Sherry really wanted Halle's room for the nursery. So she'd painted and decorated the teen suite then but her father wasn't ready for his baby girl to head to a different floor. When he saw that Sherry wanted more kids, he agreed to let her have the suite at thirteen. The timing was perfect since Seth came shortly thereafter.