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child.”
    Mattie sat back down. “Susan has nothing to
do with this.”
    “She has everything to do with it. I was the
same child that Lily is… born from an adulterous relationship. But
Bishop and Susan took me in.”
    Mattie scoffed. “Those people never had to
take you in. Not like you’ve done for Lily. They kept you on the
weekends, big deal. Till this day, that man still hasn’t admitted
to anyone outside of his immediate family that you are his
daughter.”
    One of the kids started crying. Grateful for
the distraction, Cassandra went upstairs. She knew even before she
reached the room that Aaron had woken up. His cries, which turned
into screams, always alerted her that his nap was over. She didn’t
understand why some babies wake up peacefully while others always
had to start a riot. But maybe Aaron was protesting the fact that
he had to leave beautiful dreams to once again enter an unfair and
cruel world. Cassandra wanted to scream herself awake sometimes
too.
    She opened the door to Jerome and Aaron’s
room, and like she suspected, Aaron was sitting up in his Spiderman
toddler bed screaming his head off. Jerome, thankfully, hadn’t
stirred at all. Cassandra put her finger to her lips as she tiptoed
over to Aaron. She picked him up and rushed him out of the room. As
they headed back downstairs, she rubbed his back and said, “Its
okay, honey. Nothing to worry about, I’ve got you.”
    Aaron wiped his eyes and then wrapped his
arms around his mother’s neck as if she alone could save him from
the boogie man that chased him awake.
    “Grandma Mattie is here. Do you want to see
her?”
    Aaron lifted his head off Cassandra’s
shoulder and smiled while vigorously nodding his head.
    “Yeah, she wants to see you too.”
    Mattie met them in the hallway and took Aaron
out of Cassandra’s arms. “Hey my little man, I missed you all day
today.”
    “I saw you,” Aaron said, in that mumbled tone
of a nineteen month old.
    “Yeah, but that mean old daddy took you away
from me.”
    “Mother,” Cassandra’s tone was rebuking.
“Don’t talk about JT in front of my children.”
    “Whatever.” Mattie waved her hand in the air
and turned to walk into the family room with Aaron on her hip.
    Cassandra shook her head but followed behind
them. The phone started ringing, so Cassandra picked up the
receiver in the family room. “Hello.” The line went dead so she
hung it back up and turned on the television.
    “Who was it?” Mattie asked.
    “I don’t know. They hung up.” Cassandra
picked up the remote and put the television on the developmental
cartoon station for Aaron. Aaron jumped down from his grandmother’s
lap and sat in front of the TV and watched the ABCs float across
the screen.
    “Why don’t you and the boys pack your stuff
and come back home with me?” Mattie asked.
    Cassandra noted that her mother did not
invite Lily as she sat down in the chair across from the couch
Mattie was sitting on. “I can’t just up and leave. I don’t even
know when JT is coming back home.”
    Mattie harrumphed. “You’re back home less
than a month and that no-account is already out of town on a secret
rendezvous.”
    Cassandra rolled her eyes at that comment.
“JT is at the Charity Hospital in New Orleans visiting the son of
an old friend, Mother. Nothing more. I really need you to stop with
all your accusations against JT. I’m having a hard enough time as
it is adjusting to being back home.”
    “That’s because you never should have come
back here. You should have shook the dust of this bad marriage off
your feet and kept on trucking ‘til you found something
better.”
    Mattie’s words hit Cassandra right where she
lived. She had wondered if she had come back too soon, or if she
should have come back at all. Cassandra knew that she loved JT. But
was he truly the best God had for her? At that moment, Cassandra
was sure that if she listened to her mother long enough, she would
go upstairs, pack their