Page 6 of The Prettiest Outlaw

On everything, I wanted to snap my fingers in front of her face. I didn’t. “Is my mother okay? Where she at?”

“Oh, yes. Umm… I noticed that her lower extremities were swelling, so I brought her here. They’re running tests. Come on.”

“I’ll be right back,” I told my brothers who nodded.

“We’ll be here,” Dolton assured me.

I followed Lana to one of the curtained-off bays where they kept emergency room patients while they assessed them. My mother was propped up on the examination table, fiddling with her phone.

“Bianca.”

She looked up. “What child I gave birth to is now calling me by my first name?”

“You scared the… you scared me.” I walked over and studied her legs. They were swollen, but not so swollen that I was overly concerned. “Have you been taking your medicine, Ma?”

“Why didn’t you bring my baby son with you?”

Of course, I noticed that she curved my question, but I didn’t want to fight with her.

“Why haven’t you been taking your medicine?”

“I can’t believe that Dono making you come to the hospital all by yourself.”

“I’m not by myself.”

Her eyes grew large, and a smile broke out across her pretty face. “You have a lady friend with you? Why didn’t you tell me you were seeing somebody?”

My face twisted up into a frown. “I don’t have a lady friend with me. I mentioned to Dominic that I was on my way to the hospital. Him, Dolton, and Dorien met me at the entrance.”

The smile remained on her face. “That’s so nice of them. The best thing that coward Briscoe Hill ever did was give you and your brother other siblings. I’m glad you guys found each other. Are they out in the waiting room?”

I nodded my head. “They are.”

“Have them come in. I want to see them.”

“In a minute. Has the doctor been in here, yet?”

“He has. They’re not going to keep me. They’re giving me a prescription for a diuretic, and she suggested that I follow up with my PCP.”

“Let me get the guys, so you can see them. I’ll be right back.” When I turned away from my mother, I immediately spotted Lana. “Oh hell, Lana. I forgot you were here. Please feel free to leave. I got it from here. Thanks for calling Donovan and for getting my mother here.”

“You’re welcome.” She said her goodbyes to my mother.

The two of us walked out together.

Lana went on to exit the facility, while I grabbed my brothers and took them back to the little curtained off space that housed my mother.

Everything was party and bullshit as my brothers visited with my mom. I believed that she had a little crush on all three of them—Dominic because he was the spitting image of Coe, Dolton because he was so sure of himself and cocky like Coe, and Dorien because he was the charmer of the group… just like Coe.

When the doctor finally came by, he brought the nurse with him so that they could discuss my mother’s test results. While she was ready to go home and I was ready to take her, her blood sugar numbers were through the roof. They planned to admit her. They were just waiting to get word about an available room.

I usedto love Christmas time. It was actually my favorite time of the year up until three years ago. Three years ago, my daddy died unexpectedly of a massive heart attack. On top of that, my favorite sister got married and started a family. And as if those two things weren’t enough, my mother took up with a new man whose passion was jet-setting all over the world and taking my mother with him. Three years ago, she sold the family home, talking about, “Too many unpleasant memories there, Juli, too many unpleasant memories.” And she moved in with her new friend, Marcellus Devonshire.

Marcellus was a nice man—kind, fun loving and generous, but things were too different. The dynamics were too different, and I could not find my footing. There were just too many changes for me to process or handle. The only thing I could manage to do was to slowly retreat inside of myself.

During the Christmas season, all I wanted were the familiar comforts of family togetherness. I wanted to bake cookies with my sisters, decorate the oversized Christmas tree at my parents’ house, and wrap presents for my nieces and nephews, but everything was different. I no longer had parents. Now, I only hadoneparent.

My sisters were both married and didn’t have time to bake cookies with just the three of us. Now, they were baking cookies with their children and making memories that didn’t include me. Since Jianna and her husband, Dolton, couldn’t stop getting pregnant, I didn’t just have Jia’s boys as nephews anymore. Now, I had two nephews from Jia and a nephew, two nieces, and another niece or nephew on the way from Jianna.

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