Black to the Past

Chapter 17

"Meredith?"
"Yeah," Meredith said coming out of the closet. It was iffy but she'd been through Halle's closet and having always envied Halle's amazing sense of style, Meredith had chosen a hi-lo sweatshirt in red and a pair of fair isle leggings in red, black, and white.
"How does it look?" Meredith asked circling to show the outfit to Halle.
"Looks better on you than me," Halle chuckled. "Come on, let's get out of here. I think we can sneak down the back stairs and avoid some embarrassment to my mom."
"How is she?" Meredith asked timidly.
"Yeah, I don't know," Halle said, shrugging her shoulders. She turned to take a last look at herself in the mirror, fixing her hair.
"Halle?"
"Yeah," Halle was turning from side to side, looking at her hair in the back making sure there wasn't a stray hair out of place and making sure that you couldn't see where her own hair lay over the weave.
"Why don't you wear your own hair anymore?"
"Because everyone doesn't have beautiful, long, flowing hair like yours," Halle told her as she yanked on a section of Meredith's long hair.
"But your hair is so pretty. I used to always envy your curls."
"Huh? Yeah, right!"
"I did, honestly."
Halle just stared at her for another second then went to the door she normally kept locked to head down the back stairwell that went straight from her room to the door that led to the garage.
"I wonder if anybody worked on the project," Meredith asked her.
"I don't know. We sure didn't! Well, I didn't anyway."
They'd almost made it out the door when Maya called Halle's name.
Halle nodded for Meredith to go to the car. "Yes, Maya, honey."
"It's mommy," Maya said coming around into the small hallway off the kitchen.
"What's wrong with her?"
"She's crying," Maya said with tears in her own eyes. "I can't make her feel better."
"Okay, honey. Where are the boys?"
"In there," Maya told her, pointing to the kitchen.
The scene in the kitchen was of pure mayhem. The boys had decided to have a food fight. Her mother was nowhere to be seen and Maya was in tears.
"Where's mom?"
"She's on the floor in there," Maya pointed through the kitchen doors into the family room.
Halle went around the corner and saw her mother sitting on the floor, back against the couch, crying buckets of tears into her hands.
Halle sighed, "Mom? Come on, mom."
"Halle, I can't. I can't live like this anymore. I'm so, so sorry," Sherry cried harder.
"What's happened? I heard you and dad last night but," Halle just stopped talking and sat next to the woman who had mothered her since before she started school.
"I don't know. I'm pregnant. I wasn't ready to be pregnant again. I'm very tired, you know. It's so much work. I love all you kids," Sherry tried to explain.
"Mom, you don't have to explain your love, I know you love us. But even if you don't want to be pregnant right now, you are mom. You can do this. I will help you. I promise," Halle told her holding a finger under her mother's chin to get her to look in her eyes. "You're the best mother a girl could have. But today, please mom look at me. Today, you have three little ones depending on you. I'm going to call nana and tell her you need her help."
Sherry nodded her head. Halle stood up and grabbed her phone out of her back pocket and dialed her nana. "Nana you gotta come over here. Mom needs you," Halle explained what she could briefly and Nana having had five children of her own understood and was on her way.
"Come on, Maya," Halle took her sister's hand. She went to the kitchen and prepared to clean but Meredith was already inside sweeping the floor while singing Disney songs to the boys who were happily entertained. "Thanks Mare. I didn't even hear you in here."
"I was trying to keep them quiet so we made a game of it."
"This is a mess," Halle told her. "She is really depressed. My dad has her completely messed up. I'm so pissed at him."
"I'm sure," Meredith picked up the sweepings from the floor.
"I'm hungry," Maya complained as she climbed into the booster seat in her chair.
"Somehow I don't think we're making it to school this morning," Meredith laughed. "Can you call me out so that my mom doesn't get a message?"
"Yeah, you call me out too," Halle agreed with her.
They each personated the other's mother's voices and read off the phone numbers that they knew would never be called. Although the school had an attendance secretary all the kids knew that if a parents real phone number was left on the voicemail the secretary would assume the kids wouldn't call themselves out and give their real parents phone numbers. Halle scrambled eggs and made toast for everyone. She checked on her mother in between stirring the eggs while Meredith buttered toast.
The front door bell rang. Maya hopped out of her seat to answer the door, Halle was on her heels. "You don't answer the door, little girl."
"It's nana," Maya said happily.
"Let's make sure," Halle reminded her of the rules of safety and checked the front window. Sure enough her grandmother's Mercedes was in the driveway. If the saying that you often repeated the life of your parents and became them were true, nothing was more truer than that than this situation. Halle's nana was married to a hard-nosed Judge just like her father had become. He was hard on her nana and all her aunts and uncles. They'd had five children back to back so nana completely would understand how her youngest daughter, who'd walked right into her shoes, would be feeling.
"Nana," Halle hugged her hard and Maya wrapped her tiny hands around her nana's legs.
"It'll be okay, sweeties. You should be in school, my dear," Nana said worriedly.
Halle shrugged her shoulders. She pointed to where her mother was crumpled, still crying, against the couch. It pained them all to see Sherry like that. Sherry was usually so strong. Her mother had warned her against marrying a man like Harvey. He was so similar to Sherry's own father, Howard in every way. Of course, at first he'd come off as loving and caring. But a man with that much ambition was bound to be a hardnose type of man.
"Okay, you girls go on. I'll be in there soon, Halle."
"Mom, don't say I told you so," Sherry said looking at her mother.
"I'm not. I don't have to obviously," Anna told her daughter.
That was the last thing Halle heard of the conversation. She went into the kitchen and finished her breakfast. They left for school an hour later. Before she left, Halle was relieved to see her mother's tears had disappeared and although her eyes were still puffy she had at least had a smile for the little ones.