Don't Make Me Over 37
"Dionne Warwick sings the classic version, but Sybill's version is pretty cool, too. I heard your mom singing it for work on Unique's show. She wanted Tina to sing some songs, but Unique ended up making her sing them instead and got Tina to sing some other stuff because her voice isn't quite like Jonesy's. She's an amazing singer, as you'll find out sooner or later. Probably sooner, though. Like, I imagine she'll be like singing you lullabies or something. I hope. Knowing your mom, she might very realistically put you to bed with Nicki Minaj. Personally, I'll sing you some decent pop, good old country, bit of soft rock, maybe a pinch of the hard stuff..."
"What are you talking about?" Jonesy groaned, half asleep.
"Me and Babycakes have been talking about hit songs from black female artists for like 45 minutes. She woke up way before you. Don't Make Me Over just went off." She sat up to see him adoring the bundle cradled in his arms, with his laptop nearby. "I've been adding everything that comes on this Pandora station to a playlist. I'm gonna draw up a paper copy to put in her baby book. Babycakes' First Day Playlist." Jonesy stared at him, unsure if she was touched by this or irritated by his loud voice. "Didn't mean to wake you, but she IS probably hungry."
"Don't they cry when they're hungry?" She wondered.
"Well, she probably got distracted by her daddy's excellent knowledge of songs on the Whitney Houston station," he said walking over.
"Where is everyone?" She wondered.
"Visiting hours are over. The moms will be back in the morning. The godparents will be back within the next couple of days. Bree is at the house keeping Ra. From the last update, she was gonna put her to bed after several hours of her gawking over Krueger. Now, your sister wants a snake. I asked Bree to wait until I was around to share this information with Ryvie."
"What is wrong with you?" she asked with a smile.
"So many things… but looking at this baby makes it all alright." He sat on the bed. "You were right, you know. I thought for a while that the trauma had made you lose your mind, but I'm looking at these eyes and this little bunny nose and honestly it makes my chest hurt how cute she is. She looks a lot like your mom. Mama said that's because babies come out looking like the person that gets on your nerves the most when you're pregnant. That's silly, though. But, she does look more like your mom than you look like your mom."
"MY mama says that she don't lose at nothing, not even passing on genes," Jonesy joked.
"I was gonna say that can't be real, but knowing Ryvie, it might be."
Maryvonne Jones listened to black opera singers in the morning. Sometimes, she wore her phone and played it from there as she moved around and did her things. However, usually (like this day) she listened to vinyls on a record player, with the static and crackling in the back. There was something about it that reminded her of being a little girl and wanting to sing on a stage, blowing people's minds with her excellent tones. Her parents had not been extremely supportive of that dream, so she let it go. She decided to focus on her studies, her grades, her future as a career woman…
A future that was postponed when she got pregnant and married in college at 19. Mercedes had been unexpected and life changing. She tried to continue to go to school, but her family wasn't in support of a young woman gallivanting off to school when there was a baby to be raised. Her mother had been a housewife with a college degree. Her father was the breadwinner. Her siblings were all either career oriented or domestic… Without any of their support in her educational efforts, she became a domestic, much to her displeasure. And, she was not cut out for it. That wasn't hard for her to admit, now.
She found that she didn't have that nurturing ability that she saw in her sisters. She didn't have that longsuffering that she witnessed her mother live with. She was tough, hard, cold, and fierce. She could be downright ferocious. Also, (she could admit now) that she was slightly bitter on days that she was not extremely bitter. But who could she blame but herself? She had made choices and stuck with them, whether or not she actually liked them.
When Mercedes was interested in the arts, Maryvonne pushed her. When Mercedes was interested in travel, she pushed her. She insisted that Mercedes should do whatever would help her to excel forward. In her mind, Mercedes was self destructive. In her mind, Mercedes sabotaged her own life. In her mind, since she was not very good at nurturing or long-suffering, she was supposed to at least be able to push her to be the greatest at whatever she wanted to do. She also had deep beliefs about protecting and avenging. That was what the ferocious did. She set out to do just that.
In the time that she went back to college in her thirties, she wasn't as attentive to her daughter as she probably could have and should have been. She wanted to be in a position that when Mercedes turned 18, went out on her own and did her own thing; she wouldn't be trapped in her situation. She at least wanted to be able to afford her own apartment in the likely inevitable event that Godfrey told her that since they no longer had a child to raise together that she could pack her bags.
Maybe it was melodramatic. Maybe, Godfrey changed the way he felt after she fell ill. But, now none of that mattered. She had her business degree, though she never really used it much. She and Godfrey were properly raising a daughter, and their estranged daughter was back in their lives and the opportunity to protect her and avenge her was once again within Ryvie's grasp.
Godfrey came into the kitchen and shook his head at the little record player on the island, near Ryvie's breakfast. Between that and her holding a newspaper, he was going to make a joke about having traveled in time, but she spoke before he had the chance to. "Finn Hudson is dead," she said.
He froze, took a deep breath and looked at the sky, "Ryvie… what did you do?"
"Pleased God, Herself - I guess. She's smiled upon me," she said, jokingly. He sat in a chair next to her. "Apparently, he got wind of Jazz's documents - the name on her birth certificate, the clause that she never be bothered by his mother, the fact that everyone close to the situation signed agreements and received a little financial incentive to never speak of him to her, or to him of her and he must have just not been able to handle it. They say he stabbed himself in the throat."
"Of all of the ways that he could have harmed himself, a stabbing to the throat is what you want people to believe that he went with?"
"I don't want or need people to believe anything. I'm just telling it to you the way my friend, the warden told it to me. Sit down and have some breakfast with me. I'm feeling peaceful and comforted, today. My heart is very content and I'm happy."
Godfrey listened, awkwardly joking, "Sure hope that you never have to see any news in the papers about me."
"Sure hope that's not why you're still here. Because you could hit the bricks if that's the case." He laughed and reached for a piece of her fruit.
Sam was asleep, with his hoodie pulled over his face and a baby wrapped up on his chest, looking around, semi confused at surroundings that she couldn't focus on when her mother stroked his left ear gently to relax his hold and gave him kisses on the nose as she collected the baby. She carried her to the window and looked out of it while she prepped to feed her. Weeks had passed and she was still taking her time off in solitude and peace, with the exception of visits from her friends when they weren't busy.
He reached for his phone and saw that he had gotten a few texts and a few missed calls. Honestly, he was still getting congrats, weeks after the fact, so he didn't think too much of it all he cleared the badges and went to find Jonesy. She was in the kitchen, sitting in front of her laptop, not typing or listening to music, or anything. "Hey - What are you doing?"
She blinked away tears and turned to look at him with a small smile, "Nothing. I was just reading. Is she awake?"
"Yeah," he said as Jonesy came over to reach for her daughter and kiss her all over her fingers and neck. He noticed a story on the screen. "Wait… Finn is dead?" He read.
"I don't want to hear that name or talk about it," she said in a sing-songsy voice and took Babycakes out of the room, to the nursery. Sam took up her seat and read it for himself before coming to find her.
She was sitting in the rocking chair to feed the baby, and her face looked unreadable. He couldn't tell if she was troubled, at peace or what. "I know you want to ask me things, but I really can't do this right now."
"No, I just wanted to see how you were and if I can get you anything."
"Think I want some cheesecake tonight."
"Like… As your dinner?" He asked, seriously. She laughed. "I mean, it wouldn't be the first time, but it'd be the first time in a while."
"Like, for dessert. Pasta of some sort for dinner. Maybe something with seafood. I'm going to pump some milk so that I can have a glass of wine. I want to light some candles, enjoy a bath and snuggle up in the safety of my home without any technology interruptions."
Sam nodded, "I am on it!" He backed away, still looking at them, then took a step forward and said, "I'm relieved. I worried that one day it could become a problem, and now I know it can't. I feel peace about it." She quickly looked up at him and he held up both hands and backed away, "I'll go now."
When Jonesy logged on, one of the first things she did was went to Unique's site, where apparently, she had received multiple messages either asking "Isn't this the guy that burned Unique's warehouse down?" or stating that he was. She went to social media sites and saw some out of the loop mutuals posting their condolences to the family and in the loop mutuals either expressing their acknowledgement of hearing about this or asking her if she had. Many messages were to ask her how she felt about it. A few of them were unsuspecting persons asking her to donate to his mother's fundraising page for arrangements. They didn't know how much that would trigger her. How could they?
She tried to control her breathing as she deleted each request, made sure all of her pages were linked together, so she could post at the same time: Hi, Everyone. I know that some of you wish to speak with me or ask me about my feelings at this time. However, I would simply like for everyone to give me some peace while I take out some time to myself, not to mourn, but to enjoy every possible moment with my new, precious and perfect baby girl. Thank you for your consideration and your compliance.