"Writing fiction is the act of weaving a series of lies to arrive at a greater truth."
― Khaled Hosseini
"First time, you beat me out here."
"Nice night."
Granny kept her eyes fixed out on the distant landscape that had faint traces of long-ago memories that evaporated upon hearing the sound of Uncle Charlie coming out to join her. Not once did she turn her attention towards the voice and the steady stride of his old work boots that thudded against the worn-down wood as he walked to take up the rocking chair next to her on the front porch.
"Good weather for sitting. Just the right temperature, I say."
"Indeed, Uncle Charlie."
"Slowed down some of these mosquitos and house flies."
"Indeed."
"Good to have a break from the same ole same ole."
Granny nodded her response.
"Takes a lot getting used too is all." Uncle Charlie sensed the melancholy in the air of the night. "Not a time you ain't tending to them, crumb snatchers. Washing up, cleaning up, and inspecting, you deserve a break. Not every day we got a daddy here, I say. Daddy busying about with them. Reading to them, making sure they all accounted for before bedtime. Peaceful, I say. More time to enjoy and remember what peace feels like and sound like."
"Peace be still, I say." Granny fingers curled around the outside corners of her bible that rested upon her lap.
"Those two have to demand it. I think if they keep working hard on it, demand it; things will be fine."
"What are you talking about, Uncle Charlie?"
"Two places you should be able to demand peace. Peace in your mind, and peace in the home. If you ain't got peace of mind and peace where you lay your head at night, right there is a problem."
"You talking about peace as if those two can keep up with one mind."
"They've been doing pretty good."
"Not all the kids, Uncle Charlie, is what I'm saying. They shouldn't be allowed to take them all!"
"But they're their kids. Who are we in telling them they can only take this here boy child but not this here girl child?"
"I'm sick about it, Uncle Charlie."
"I have only one Girl Child, and she's past the age of me ever having control over. Her kids. His kids. If the Daddy says, he's taking his family shopping, who am I to tell him any different?"
Granny wasn't unreasonable. She knew Uncle Charlie was right. It was just the mere thought of her Grandchildren two towns over with two people she wouldn't trust to be mindful, was enough to make her almost physically ill. Granny didn't dare stand in the way. What Uncle Charlie spoke was the truth. There was nothing she could do about it, nothing at all.
"Right now, those kids inside that house learning a new routine, and they got a good Daddy from every which way I look at it."
"I still think you should have agreed with me, Uncle Charlie. They listen to you more than don't. Two people, who shouldn't have any kids taking all the kids out shopping? It just makes sense to leave the younger ones here, like Andre, Marty, Glady's, and Knight. Take the ones that can speak up and not run off or heaven knows. Just having all eight of em? Make it make sense?!"
"Make what makes sense?" Michonne asked, walking in on the conversation. Neither Granny nor Uncle Charlie had to respond because the screen door swung open with Rick entirely focused on his very pregnant wife.
"I need you to come back inside, Michonne." Rick directed.
"No."
"You need to eat something."
"No." Michonned continued like a defiant child.
"Please? It ain't healthy." Rick remained insistent.
Michonne felt her suspicion were valid when she made her accusations regarding his intentions. "Making me fat isn't healthy. I'm gaining weight. I'm trying hard to lose it, and I can't if you keep telling me to eat!"
Granny was about to chime her two cents worth, but the light touch from Uncle Charlie was enough for her to stay silent.
"Why are you so damn stubborn?" Rick exhaled.
"You don't know?" Michonne's eyes traveled down towards his waist and stopped at his crotch. His erectile disfunction had her confused and highly insecure.
Instantly, Rick turned beet red with embarrassment. "Are we going there?" He was finding it difficult to maintain an erection ever since it was evident Michonne was pregnant, and there was indeed a baby inside of her womb that may not want any intrusion of his father penis in close-proximity. He was willing to oblige the unborn even if his wife had no awareness. This was all at the insistence of Sinclaire to keep it a secret for as long as possible. At some point, it was going to be impossible if Suzanne didn't remain vigilant at deluding Michonne into thinking she was overweight and nothing more. This delusion was detrimental to Michonne and the unborn baby's health. This was never going to sit right with Rick.
"There? There is nothing there. Nothing for the last two weeks, three weeks, month, nothing. Nothing. What do you expect me to do?"
"Can we discuss this in the bedroom for the love of God?!"
"What God is that?" Granny asked under her breath unheard by the one with the question and the other who stormed back inside without ever getting her original question answered when she had stepped out on the porch.
"Down." Knight struggled for freedom to get down from his Daddy. He kept wiggling in hopes that his feet would eventually reach the floor.
"You are not getting down, Knight." Rick refused and kept a firm hold.
"Down." Knight persisted.
"No. Marty, Andre, I need you two to stop what you are doing right here and right now. Do you two hear me?"
Andre and Marty stopped long enough to nod that he was heard. The moment their brother spoke, the two younger boys went back to what their Daddy told them to stop doing. This was the most fun they ever had in their lives, and it didn't matter that they were tethered to their Daddy by a rope and tangled in and around the clothing racks.
"Which one can I have, Daddy?"
Carlton was hesitant to make a selection between his two favorite shirts that were in his favorite color.
"What do you mean, which one?"
"I like this dark blue one. I like the stripe one too. My favorite color is blue. This shade."
"You like them both?" Rick failed to understand what dilemma was being experienced by his eldest son.
Carlton nodded.
"Then both."
"Do I have to take back my shoes?"
"What? Why?"
"Do you have enough money?"
"Why would any of that concern you when I am here?" Rick spoke more stern than he meant too. He had his hands full with Knight wanting to get down, and Marty trying to play hide in seek with Andre keeping him forever tangled and twisted.
"Sorry, Daddy." Carlton fought back his tears because it was the second time his Daddy was very gruff with him.
The sound in his son's tone was enough to cause Rick to focus and readjust his. "I'm here is what I mean. I have more than enough money is what I'm saying. I want you to have what you like and if it is every shirt on this rack and the next, so be it. I need for these two to pipe down or I-," Rick couldn't think of a valid threat now that the honeymoon period was long over.
His children weren't concerned about behaving to keep him from running off, and Sinclaire wasn't volunteering any suggestions other than a hand to bottom. Rick refused, and Sinclaire sat it out. Rick was left entirely alone to handle the two most rambunctious of the eight. And Knight wanted down to play too. He was going to lose his mind if it weren't for the shared faraway thought that lingered in his gut.
Where in the hell is my woman?
The dressing room was hot. She had all four of her daughters with her. It was in the full-length mirror Michonne caught a glimpse of herself. She hadn't realized just how much weight she gained. In her mind, it was a rapid transformation, and the dress she wore did little to hide the fact.
Suzanne was losing her train of thought. She was right in the middle of a rant of what was considered girly things and masculine things. So many words were spilling forth so fast and from different aspects warring with one another that she was losing, shifting perspectives.
Jasmine Amber Jean didn't like any of the pretty dresses her mother picked out for her to try on. She wanted tracksuits, jeans, and jerseys.
"When I was your age, I had nothing, and I was made out of nothing. I wanted everything. I was given nothing. I want you to pick a dress even if you never wear it. Choose one because you can."
"Mama?" Jasmine watched her mother collapse on the dressing room floor atop a pile of green, white, and yellow frilly dresses that cushioned her fall.
What Michonne remembered was delivered with a powerful punch that knocked her out and stayed with her, days even weeks later. She noticed the locket on the dresser. It wasn't there before, and she didn't have to wonder who put it there either.
"I caught Granny in here. She put it there. Do you want to talk about it?"
"I don't want to talk about the locket."
"Let's talk about the woman in the locket. Is that your mother?"
Michonne shrugged.
"What do you remember about her, Michonne? Do you remember anything?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing?"
It was a partial truth that came attached to a fuzzy memory of how she came into possession of the locket in the first place. A woman who had happened to walk in on a Mister trying to have his way. He repeatedly did before the intrusion. There was a struggle between the Mister and the woman who happened to come on inside like most would at any time. There was a fire.
"Nothing."
Rick didn't press for more. The next day the locket was gone from the place on the dresser when he had awoken to get ready for his day that day. Standing in the mirror, he realized he didn't recognize himself nor his surroundings. The furnishing was different. He was different. Hyper-aware that his time was stolen before it became his own. He was in his old bedroom, where he had once lived years ago. He could almost hear his children and a baby crying in the distance, somewhere in the house, there was a noise as his senses began to connect and place everything in context.
"He's going to keep asking until you tell him."
"Who mentioned it?"
"A photo album. A trip to the attic. Your mother, Rick. Your father. Senior. They are saying good things. I don't know if they are understanding there are bad people. Not everywhere but Carlton wants to join."
Rick remembered that night his mother showed his children the boy scout uniform he wore when he was eight years old. His mind traveled at warp speed to a past that he had long forgotten. Rick saw it all clearly, the scoutmaster, and the teen scouts who were all involved with molesting him. The memory was enough to make him physically ill. He burned the uniform, awards, memorabilia that night in the middle of the lawn while his kids were sleeping and at the dismay of his parents who were held back by Uncle Charlie from trying to go and reason with him, them, they. The rage would more than likely cause Sinclaire to kill them both if they had approached.
There was a swoosh and pounding in his ears. His blood pressure was climbing.
"Carlton is waiting for an answer, Rick. Can he join the Boyscouts?" Michonne tried to remain openminded even though to ask caused her gut to twist in knots. She was apprehensive and could feel his pain as if it were her own.
"No."
"Okay."
Rick reached for Michonne's mishappened belly. The palm of his hands caressed where a new life once thrived on the inside. She was accepting of his touch and the curious look that came along with it each time.
"You've already had our baby?"
"Yeah. Weren't you there with me, Rick?"
Michonne stood extra close to him, drawing his eyes to look at her. Stressors were everywhere for him and she had to fight more than she thought she would want to in order to keep him connected, present, aware.
Rick was honest and he expected nothing less from her. "I was there for the most part. I was. Some I was not."
"I got my tubes tied."
"Good."
"I've been trying to accept it. You?"
"We have nine kids."
"11."
"How?"
"The hell if I know."
"We started with eight. Where three come from?"
"Where you think?"
"Are you doing some fuzzy math about Andre not being mine?"
"If I were, then I would say 10. Stop being stupid."
"Stupid is jumping from eight to eleven."
"As if it is impossible?"
"How many years slipped past me for two more, Chonne?"
"I hate you. I hate everything about you. Your superior act makes me sick. I'm sick of you. Get out of my sight." Michonne's blood was boiling, "And take every single one of them with you and don't come back until you have the right number."
"What number is that?"
"ELEVEN!" She screamed at the top of her lungs.
The voice was masculine, but it was hers. There was no take over. It was her, and it was her all along. This reality frightened her. Michonne went into a full-blown panic attack after being swept by the darkest rage with self and the recklessness attached to the admission.
Rick fell to his knees. He was at the mercy of his current twisted reality and his role where he was and had to be cognizant regardless of how overwhelming the situation became for him. Even this was too much; he thought singularly as if it had always been that way to think.
"What are we going to do with eleven fucking kids, Michonne?!"
Neither was aware that Granny was outside their bedroom door by happenstance. Granny lost headcount in a large house, such as the one they were staying in with Rick's parents. They were invited to stay until Uncle Charlie's house was fully renovated from the foundation up. There was no such thing of repiping and re-wiring when it all needed to come down, due to health and safety hazards, including wood rot. Uncle Charlie trusted the Daddy to make it right and not have no one claiming his property now that the debt was fully settled, and his boy child and Michonne had read to him a hundred times from the paper that said it was for true.
"Shoulda thought about that with all that hunching, you ask me," Granny replied to the lament she heard clearly on the other side of the door. She didn't care if they heard her as she continued on her search from room to room for three heads that needed tapping. If no luck she would knock on their door to put their crazy act on hold until all kids were accounted for.
Granny had counted eight. The newborns kept things easy enough. There were three more that wouldn't sit still no matter unless they were sick, Andre, Marty, and now move about the house Knight with or without Gladys the last couple of times of late. There was a lot a curious child could get into, and Granny had to remain on high alert to the point of exhaustion.
Senior and Ella were still experiencing the honeymoon phase with spoiling them all rotten. Granny had to do a lot of taking away in order to bring order or allow chaos to grab a stronghold if she didn't. The introduction of newborns who didn't have their mother bonding with them had Granny and Ms. Ella constantly busy. The triplets had to be bottled fed because Michonne refused to breastfeed them like she had done willingly with the others. Eventually, her milk dried up, and there was no going back on her decision if it had crossed her mind. It didn't.
Granny found all three boys fast asleep in one of the spare rooms inside of a makeshift teepee. She finished her headcount without disturbing their slumber.
"Nine, ten, and eleven." She caressed each head.
She sat down in one of the spare comfy chairs to take off one of her slippers preparing to take to some bottoms when they woke up, but the act of bending was a little too much. She rested long enough to take a brief nap herself after humming a brief tune that soothed her mind, and spirit.
A/N: There is a great deal to unpack in this chapter. I agree. Keep in mind, stressors are triggers too. This builds on previous chapters and seeps undisclosed events. A clearer picture each time. I will come back to fix errors. I wanted to push this out there.
