Chapter 2: The Question

"Christine, can you do a favor for me?" I asked already giving her puppy dog eyes.

"What do you want now?" Christine replied, still pouring over her math homework.

I swear that we're pretty much geniuses but what is it with Calculus that makes homework so hard?

"Can you tell momma that I'm going to go visit my mom's grave this weekend?"

"No."

"Why not?" I looked at her surprised. The only time she ever said no to me was when I asked her to do my English homework.

"Two reasons, first, you can't manage a trip like that in a day-in-a-half and secondly you're old enough to ask and the woman in that grave isn't my mother."

Ouch, that hurt, that was a low blow, I thought but what I said out loud was "What's with the hostility and that was three reasons not two."

"Oh, shut up." She replied punching me on the arm.

"Ha ha like that hurt!" I yelled running away from her and up the stairs and knocked on the door to Mrs. Clara's room on the third floor.

"Who is it?" asked Mrs. Clara in her tiny frail voice.

"Housekeeping." I replied in a high-pitched woman voice.

"Elijah come in here honey I know that's you."

Laughing, I stepped into the room.

"Hey momma, how are you feeling?" Mrs. Clara was one of those women you would have to see to believe, cause even though she had arthritis in her knees and at this time was just getting over pneumonia she could still run and jump like she was still as young as us.

"I'm just fine," she said "and since when have you become the housekeeper, boy I can hardly get you to clean your room without you complaining."

She had to go there. So I had to start putting the puppy dog eyes to work to keep myself from rolling them.

"Momma, you know you love me right?" I started as I sat down on the bed.

"Oh hell, what you want boy?" she said cutting to the chase. She never did fall for that line, no matter how good we played it.

"See what had happened was…" I started again.

"Boy, I'm going to kick your butt out this room if you don't spit it out." She interrupted again, this time a smile creeping up on her face.

"Okay, what's with this hostility today?" I asked clearing my throat. "Well this weekend is May 21st, and I was wondering if I could go and visit my mom's grave since her birthday and the day she died is the day after the other."

"Boy, you didn't have to start a speech, just get to the point next time." She replied giving me a hug. "I would love for you to go, but you have finals coming up next week and you need to study, plus I want to come with you."

"Awesome! Really?"

"Yeah I want to see the mother that gave me the reason that I have another family." Mrs. Clara and her husband were married twenty years before he had died in a car accident thirteen years ago, two years before I came along. She has two kids of her own named Laila who is thirty-one and her son who's Damari and he's thirty, she hasn't seen them since the death of her husband over a decade ago. So when I came she sort of got a second family.

"That's cool," I said tears welling up in my eyes; I wiped them away before I continued. "I would really like that."

"Well that's good," she replied cracking a smile. "Elijah, you know you love me right?"

Oh no, I thought, she's going to pull a fast one on me.

"Yes momma?" I said leaving some fear in my voice wondering what she wanted me to do.

"I need you to go to the store and get some things for dinner." She laughed as I blew out air in relief and wrote down a list. "Take the car because if you mess up the food you will be in so much trouble."

"Okay momma." Smiling I took the paper from her hands, gave her a kiss on your cheek, and jogged down the stairs.