“So you were saying something happened between aunt Clarisse and mama?”
“Can we talk about it later?”
Faye than went to make a phone call to Clarisse. She explained that she was in LA. She talked about the family. She explained that she had not met Helen as of yet, but her daughters are nice and how well mannered the kids are.
“Me and Deja, she’s the middle daughter, we hit it off almost immediately, and the oldest one. Her name is Yvonne, she’s racially and politically aware like me.”
Later on, they all went home to get out of their Sunday clothes. After sitting home for about an hour before heading to the beach. At the beach, Deja and Faye found a spot in the shade to set up for the day while the kids rushed to the water. “Y’all have fun” Faye said as she got her beach chair out and put her bag to the side of her. While Deja puled out a decorating magazine, fay e looked over and said. “I meant to say it yesterday, but you have good taste. The dining room furniture was superb”
“Thanks” Deja said, before resuming the discussion from last night. “You were talking about our grandmother”
“Yeah” Faye said, “she was an alcoholic and her older children caught hell. She was sweet one minute and barbaric the next. According to mom, she was quite abusive and often pitted them against one another in order to get what she wanted. She didn’t begin to get help until after Uncle Mark was born.”
“Wow”
“Tell aunt Clarisse that Mom said she was sorry she wasn’t able to stop it”
“Stop what?”
“Let’s talk about this later…..”
“We can talk about this now; you’ve opened up this can of worms”
“I’ll go into more detail later, but I can say for now that it was a beating, or more or less an assault left she alarmed her”
This bit of information stayed on Deja’s mind for the time. She then suggested a shopping center with a few restaurants to go out to later.
“One in Santa Monica right?”
“Yeah, we can go there.”
LUCINDA’S CHILDREN LISTED BELOW. GIRLS IN PINK, BOYS IN BLUE.
While the Martins were at the beach, Yvonne was having Lunch with Helen when Helen asked what they think of Cousin Faye.
“You know?” Yvonne asked surprisingly.
Helen affirmed that she knew and that Deja had informed her that she reached out to her. “Her father was a bum, who talked a smooth game. She met this guy in Natchitoches. Wanted her to abort the baby. She met him during a mixer; he was down in LC on business doing construction on a highway”
Yvonne went on give a bit of information on Faye. She mentioned that she had four children and that she worked in the cable industry. “We’re supposed to go out tonight and hit up the town, you should come” Helen tried to resist but Yvonne instead. Helen had not seen Clarisse since her last visit to Lake Charles approximately 30 years ago. It was not until this conversation that she even know that Clarisse moved to California that long ago.
“Faye wants me to tell you that she knows about the fallout. She knows that your mama was a manipulator.”
“Manipulator?” Helen scoffed “That would be an understatement.”
Helen grew up in a time where anyone under the sun could physically discipline anyone’s child. Not only that, one could do anything to their child short of killing them and Lucinda took advantage of that. While Helen and Yvonne were talking over lunch, Deja called.
“Hey, Dee what’s up? You outside?”
“Yeah, I’m at the beach, what’s happening on your end?”
“Having lunch with our mother, is everyone still going out tonight?”
“Yep, have a good lunch”
QJ and Darius came to sit down, wanting a short break from splashing. “There’s some Capri Suns in the ice chest”.
“Thanks mom”
“Thanks cousin Deja”
After they got their beverages and a snack, they sat on beach towns next to the lounge chairs. The boys sat down for half an hour, watching the end of a volleyball game then went back to the water afterwards.
“Stay where we can see you” Faye reminded them
Deja then told Jr. that they would be heading out around five so pay attention to the clock. “You can probably see it from where you’ll be. You see that clock over there?”
“Yes ma’am”
“Use that to kind of time yourself, you’ll probably want at least 30 minutes to dry in the sun”
“Alright mom”
After running off Deja asked how long Faye would be in town because she wanted to cook for them tomorrow.
“Oh, we’ll be leaving Tuesday evening”
They were briefly interrupted by Aundrea to ask if she, Alexis, and Ramona could take a walk
“Sure honey, stay together”
“We will”
To resume conversing Deja asked if Faye knew about aunt Anna.
“Have family from out of town. This is my cousin Ian”
Ian shook Juan’s hand and said “Hey bro, nice boat”
“Thanks! You two wanna ride?”
“Sure!”
Around 4:00 pm, the boys got out of the water to walk the beach and dry out in the sun. The realized they were quite a distance away from where their moms were sitting when QJ said, “we probably need to be heading back”.
“Despite being able to see THEM, I know. My mom doesn’t even like the shallow end of a swimming pool so yeah, I feel ya”
They headed back and pushed the remainder of water out of their shorts prior to getting in the van. At home while waiting to shower, Quincy asked if they had fun.
“Yes sir” Ian replied.
Ian then begin talking to Malachi about how the beach puts him in his best state of being.
“Leave hot water for everyone else” Quincy exclaimed. “Remember, we got company”.
After everyone showered, they went to sunset Blvd. for the night.
Azalea arrived with her all three kids.
“These are my 3. You’ve met my oldest one. These are my youngest two. Gabriel is 3 and Mia is 1″
“Aww they’re so cute” Faye said as Azalea reaches to put them in the stroller.
They women and girls went to several clothing stores while Quincy and the boys went to a sports store.
After looking in a few shoe stores, the ladies got ice cream and then Faye sent the girls off.
“Hey girls, I need to talk in private”
“Drea” Deja said, “you might want to leave for this one, you guys see that bench over there? I need you to go sit there for a minute
Faye then continued, “mom tells me about a beating that your mom received after church picnic. She told me that she was initially supposed to be the one on the receiving end of the punishment, but Helen was right there and she wanted someone to hit, so she made up something.”
“What was the problem. What was she mad about” Deja asked.
“They were teenagers and they were beginning to show an interest in boys. The pastor caught them talking to some guys that were there and when confronted she asked them where the hell they were, never mind the fact that this was an outdoor function and there really were no private areas. She felt my mom was getting to be too fast for her own good and assumed that she had gone off somewhere to lose her virginity. She basically blamed your mom for my moms offense and beat her to a pulp. Her excuse was that she was older and shouldn’t have influenced Clarisse into being so irresponsible and that if she were to end up pregnant it would be her fault. She took a pluming pipe and beat her to the point that it forced her to have her period and even while she was having her period she continued to hit her. They fell out, relationship’s been very rocky ever sense”
Everyone was silent for a moment, Deja with her mouth wide open.
“You see in those days, you could do everything short of killing your kids. It was only considered to be abuse if it resulted in hospitalization or death. There was no refuting any point with Lucinda. Once she made her mind up about something, there was nothing you could do to convince her otherwise.”
“Come to think of it…….Mom told me about her ways when she was in college”
Deja interjecting saying that their grandmothers ways is probably what drove Bessie to drink.
“Well, Aunt Bessie had other battles.” Yvonne said
“Yeah, she had a child out of wedlock when she was 17 going on 18 that she was forced to give up. Mom told me that she was sent to spend some time with an aunt until the baby was born”
Yvonne asked where this child would be at this point.
“We have no idea..She’d be 53-54 by now”
The all met up later in a common area after getting takeout dinner. The ride home was a rather quiet ride. How would Helen and Clarisse reunite now? How would Deja and Faye pull that off now, knowing what happened? Deja spent the rest of her night grading essays going to bed around 3:00 AM.
[fastfoward to Monday afternoon]
Faye and Clarissa took the kids out for the day while Deja slept in. The boys split off and went to a bookstore while the girls went to Bloomingdales.
Ian expressed that he hated shopping with his mother as she looks at the same outfit for an hour. “Like buy the damn thing or don’t!”
Darius agreed.
“So what are we going to do for the next six hours?” Malachi asked. “Supper’s not until 7”
“Knowing mom, she’ll have bags full. She has a shopping addiction. How about we go see a movie or something while we’re out here?”
TO BE CONTINUED WITH EPISODE 15
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