I woke up at midnight and decided I want to write a new chapter. It's 5:am and I'm sitting here editing while the rest of my town is fast asleep, dreaming good dreams, hopefully. If that's not dedication – obsessively so – then I don't know what is.

I'm sad to say Seeing Red is winding down now. The climatic chapter is right around the corner, and after that, not much remains ( this is a 30,35 at most, story *sad face*) but let's enjoy it while it lasts! Vote! Comment!

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https://youtu.be/Azqv46WFxZE

Ashley

"Beautiful?"

"Yes, Momma?"

A moment slipped away. "What do you want for breakfast?"

I shrugged. I was angled to look out the window, at the sky, hoping the blue would return like it had last night. But it never did, no matter how hard I tried to will it back. Maybe because I had no idea what triggered it in the first place.

"I'm not very hungry," I murmured. I was trying to speak as quietly as possible since Kenzie was still asleep in the bed adjacent to mine, half his feet sticking out of it, since it was a twin. The rest of his body was covered in the thin quilt that Momma had bought us a few weeks ago when she scrapped enough money together to by an air conditioner for the summer months.

"I got a call from Mrs. Devon," she continued. "Dennis left a few things in his room that she thought you might want to have."

"Like what?" I mumbled. What on earth could Dennis have at their house that belonged to me? I hadn't been there in years.

"Pictures," Mom said. "Of you two." She let the wind blow silently for a few seconds. "She asked me if she could speak to you today."

"How?" I muttered. I traced the window with my fingers. "We're surrounded by news trucks." I saw a helicopter flying overhead earlier. I hadn't turned on a tv set since last night and I honestly wasn't interested in seeing the wild stories that both the liberals and the conservatives had begun to spin.

I could only imagine what idiotic things Mrs. Red was forcing Reece to approve. He hadn't called either, which did not really surprise me. 

"She is willing to bypass them to talk if you are willing to discuss some...hard truths," Momma said. "I didn't realize that she didn't know Dennis was gay."

"Not everyone's mother is as accepting as you," I mumbled. "We aren't a part of some progressive black neighborhood. This is the Bronx. He knew his mother grew up in the Bronx and once you've reached a certain age, your morals, your thinking has sunken into your skin, and there is no changing them."

"I changed mine," Momma buzzed, as softly as a lady bug.

I looked at her, standing by the edge of my twin bed, still in her night gown. Her hair wrapped in cloth, her eyebrows a bushy mess, no make-up, dots and craters indented into her skin. She looked radiant.

How beautiful we were when we weren't trying to look beautiful.

She sat at the edge of my bed and patted the space next to her. "Come hya, Beautiful."

I sighed and trudged over, sitting next to her. Her hair blew slightly from the ceiling fan that Kenzie still turned on, even though the a/c was cold enough.

"You think I was always okay with this gay thing?" she asked.

I shrugged. "I would have liked to think so," I replied. "Thanks for ruining the illusion." 

She shook her head. "Everyone wants to believe their parents are good people. That they have their same ideals. Back when I was growing up, that was the case. There was no internet to read about a range of differing opinions. My Momma forced me to go to church. The hatred for gays was palpable, Beautiful. Being gay was worse than being a murderer – 'at least a murderer can change' my Momma said. A gay man never can, not really. So, he's cursed to Hell. No matter how much he tried, he's cursed. I believed it because it's what I was taught. One plus one equaled two and gay men were abominations: those were just facts. Until I had my second child."

I turned my head and she patted my knee with her hand. I looked back at her. "I could tell you were different from a young age, Beautiful. You weren't as outgoing as Gorgeous. You hated basketball, you hated confrontation; you read all day, listened to Beyoncé when all the other boys were talking about Lil Wayne. And the way you lit up whenever Dennis came over." She gushed, laughing a tad.

I felt my cheeks burn. She laughed a bit more.

"Your entire voice change – it got softer, sweeter. Your movements changed – they were more careful. Your smile grew brighter. Your eyes shined. That's when I knew that you were gay." She sighed. "I asked Bishop about it, and he suggested bringing you in to make sure you didn't suffer from any afflictions and if you were, he suggested counseling. I prayed about it, asked God to help you. 'Do not let my son walk with broken path alone, Jesus'. Then when your father saw you kissing Dennis and blew up at you, kicked Dennis out, and I could hear you crying into your pillow through your door while your Dad ranted and raved, something clicked in my head: I wasn't going to let my child go through this by himself. So, I told your father if he ever threatened to hit you again for being gay, I'd knock his ass out."

I snorted. "Pops has like almost two feet on you."

"A 120lb mother can lift a a truck if her child was being crushed under it." She smiled. "There is nothing more powerful on the face of this planet than a mother's love," she said. "We worry about you constantly. We worry that you haven't eaten enough when you just ate a full plate. We worry about your health. You are our world from the day we find out you're inside of us, until the moment we're gone – you're our last thought, your safety. I pity those you do not know a mother's love. "

"So, I should talk to Mrs. Devon, then?" I said, with a huff. "She's going to ask me questions that I won't be able to answer."

"Yes, you can," Momma replied. "You will either way. Silence is usually an answer in of itself."

"Dee hoped that she would never have to find out that he was gay," I added. "For his sake. And hers. I don't think she will be able to handle the death of her son and learning about him."

Mom adjusted herself on my bed, throwing one of her legs over the other and resting both her hands on her knee. "Sometimes the truth sets you free, other times ignorance is bliss," she said. "I wish there answer was obvious. But the truth of the matter is, you won't know the right answer until you do just that: answer."

I nodded and looked back at a sleeping Kenzie. I could still Lauryn Hill playing from his phone. "I guess I don't really have a choice, do I?"

"No," Ma said. "Not if you're who you say you are."

My phone rang before I could answer her.

She smiled and rubbed my knee. "Go and be different, Beautiful." Then she got up and left the room, grabbing the broomstick that was lying next to the door. "These news people won't stop me from my Sunday cleaning," she muttered and a few seconds later, gospel music set our home on fire.

I smiled, allowing myself a bit of happiness. But the moment passed when I looked down at my phone. Duty called.

"Hey, Lola," I answered.

"On a scale of one to ten, I'm at a cool 15 in the pissed off department, an 19 in the regret department and a 109.7643 – not rounded – in the I'm going to break my sister's neck department."

"Adopted sister," I mumbled.

"Oh, fuck yourself Ashley," she snorted. "At least that means I don't carry the murderous gene she and Dad apparently have living in their DNA."

"How can I help you, Lola?" I asked. "I'm tackling several problems at once and I need to see if this is one I really want to take on right now."

"Oh." She stopped. "I assumed you were watching the news."

I shook my head, and then stopped when I realized she wasn't here. "I haven't used any form of media since I got home last night."

"Strange, I remember Erika telling me how you didn't sleep the entire night Trayvon Martin dominated the news cycle," she said. It sounded like she just drank a shot of hot sauce. "How you came to work, hair all over the place, still in your pajamas, reeking of cologne since you probably didn't shower with a twelve page article ready to be posted."

"It was thirteen pages," I mumbled. "And I was angry back then, not sad." I could barely eat anything, let alone spend the night writing.

"Well, when you're feeling like rejoining us in the world, turn on the tv. I guarantee you it's going to make you write a damn screenplay by the time you turn it off back."

"That bad?" I asked, but of course it was. She was calling me. She would be calling Erika right now if she could. I wondered if she had spoken to her. I wanted to ask, but denied myself the answer to it. Ignorance is bliss.

"It's worse than what you're thinking," she said.

"Did Beyoncé retire?" I asked.

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but...worse," she muttered. "Don't stay down too long."

"Have I ever?" I asked.

"yes," she said. "I heard you stayed in your room for three weeks after you found out you were been cheated on by Dennis," she drawled.

"Yeah..."

"Too soon to bring that up, huh?" she asked, her voice shrinking. "I'm sorry about his passing."

"Don't be," I mumbled. "You're not responsible."

"I know, but I'm sorry still," she repeated. "For Erika."

"Erika isn't your fault either," I said. "I trusted her just as much as you did. She was the one who knocked on my door after Dee cheated on me, she was the one who got me to come out and eat. Now, I don't have that. Now, I have to get up and out of this room on my own."

"Have you?" she asked.

I looked at myself, seated at the edge of my bed, legs firmly planted on the ground and my knees pressed together. "I'm working on it."

"Lying ass nigga," she muttered. "Anyway, don't stay down too long, playboy. We need you."

"I won't." I may or may not have been lying. "I promise."

I opened the front door. "Mrs. Devon," I greeted as the lights flashed from cameras flashed behind her and the crowd threw questions our way.

Mrs. Devon smiled, and stepped inside with a shoe box in her hands. "How are you dealing with all those people out there?"

I closed the door and sighed. "By pretending they aren't out there."

She sat down, neatly in her jeans skirt and flowing blouse, that by the lighter shade of grey, must've been either yellow or maybe a pink or orange. 

She had on makeup and it was aging her a bit. Parts of the crow's feet around her eyes weren't properly concealed and one half of her face was brighter than the other from the foundation she was using. The dark lipstick she had on barley covered the frown she was trying to hide.

How sad we look when we tried to hide that sadness.

When I came over and sat across from her, she cleared her throat and rested the shoe box on the coffee table. "I found these among his things."

"What are they?" I asked, even though I was pretty much aware of what they were.

"Pictures. Letters. Letters addressed to me he never sent. Letters addressed to you he never sent. Letters to him that you sent." She stopped. "I didn't want to read the letters to you or you to him, so I left those alone." She swallowed. "But I read the letters to me." Her eyes shook. "Was...my son....were you and him....I mean, you were over by my house in his room with the door closed...did you two..........was my son gay?"

I looked at the box, just to not look her in the face. "That depends on how you'll react to a yes or a no."

"I always knew something was up with Dennis," she said. "A mother always knows, but...he never told me. I thought we were close enough for him to tell me if he were gay or not."

"Your son was gay, and we dated for about a year."

She closed her eyes. I watched as her chest went in and out slowly and then quickly. Her hands went to her chest and she played with the buttons of her shirt, clutching and un-clutching them. "Here I was afraid that if he were gay, I'd never see grand-kids." She reopened her eyes. "I should have been worried about him being black, not gay. Either way, my only child is gone."

"I'm sorry."

"Everyone's sorry," she answered. "Everyone is offering condolences. It's a nice gesture. It won't bring Dennis back. It certainly won't bring his father back from whatever woman he's with this week. I won't see his smile anymore. I won't hear him call me Ma. I won't hear him say how proud I will be to see him dance. No one knows what it felt like to really know him – except you, if these pictures are to be believed."

"I loved him," I said, to her and to myself. We both needed to hear it.

"So did I," she said, because who else could she tell in that house by herself? "His funeral is next week Saturday and I need someone to eulogize him. I'm not strong enough to, but whenever Dee and I ate dinner together in front of the TV, he would go on about how much of a strong person Ashley was. It was always Ashley this and Ash that."

"What exactly are you asking me?" I asked.

Mrs. Devon pressed her lips together and tried for a smile. She failed. "I would like it if you wrote the eulogy for my son."

"I-"

"Don't answer right now," she said, before I even had a chance to process an answer. "Just take the box, and give me a call in the morning when you've come to a conclusion."

She stood up and I followed suit. "You're allowed to invite who you feel would want to be there," she said.

Then she left me in this house with this box.

I took out the pictures first, and smiled at them. Dennis did this dumb ass thing where he'd write what was going on in the pictures. I kept telling him we weren't white teenagers from John Green novels and it was pretentious as hell. He didn't seem to care about that.  

Whenever we did take pictures together, he'd greyscale them so we would be seeing the same photo, for whatever color I had been missing at the time. 

They remind me how beautiful our love was. Brief in hindsight – 4 seasons ain't that long – but an eternity in my mind. Those memories will replay in my dreams until the day I stopped dreaming. 

I took them out, one by one and just...remembered. 

There was a single letter addressed to me. It was unfamiliar to my eyes. 

For you.

I wish I believed him.

I had stored the box under my bed. Kenzie was still fast asleep and he was in my bed now. Harambe was sprawled on his. Probably kicked his ass out.

I retreated downstairs, deciding that maybe eating wasn't such a bad idea. But, by the time I got back downstairs, I noticed the TV was on in the living room. Muted, but on. I guessed Mom had left it before heading to bed.

It was on RED NEWS CHANNEL and Marie Luther's show was on. With her special guest.

It was Erika.

She was seated next to Marie with the ticker at the bottom of the screen reading ACCLAIMED JOURNALIST ERIKA BRIDGEWATER on the death of young black man

"They aren't even saying his name," I mumbled, because just saying it in my head wasn't enough. His picture wasn't there, nothing. Just Marie Luther and Erika smiling on screen.

I grabbed the remote and unmuted the television.

MARIE: WHAT COULD HAVE HE DONE TO AVOID BEING SHOT

ERIKA: NOTHING, REALLY. HE WAS SHOT BECAUSE HE'S BLACK. HE WAS KILLED BECAUSE THE COP FEARED HIM BECAUSE HE WAS BLACK. THAT'S WHY REECE, YOUR BOSS, SURVIVED AND THIS YOUNG BLACK MAN, THAT I HAD THE PRIVILEGE OF KNOWING FOR SO VERY LONG, WHO I WILL MISS SO MUCH IS GONE.

MARIE: HE WAS A CLOSE FRIEND?

ERIKA: VERY CLOSE. A BROTHER. SUCH A LIGHT. SO SPECIAL. I WILL BE AT HIS FUNERAL THIS COMING SATURDAY AND I WOULD ASK MY FELLOW BLACKLIVESMATTER PROTESTERS TO JOIN ME IN TURNING THIS TRAGEDY INTO A CELEBRATION OF BLACK MEN AND BLACK PEOPLE AT LARGE.

MARIE: COMING UP NEXT: THE SHOCKING SUICIDE OF ANNA ELSE, THE NEW YORK SOCIALITE TOOK HER LIFE THE SAME NIGHT THAT OFFCIER CLARKE TOOK THE LIFE OF THIS YOUNG MAN.

ERIKA: SUICIDE IS NEVER THE ANSWER, I HOPE EVERYONE WATCHING REALIZES THAT.

I turned off the television.

I stood still for a moment. Feet clasped together, fingers barley saving the remote from freefalling to the ground.

She was going to profit from this. She was going to be the star of the show. She was going to win. If I did nothing. And the only thing I could do was what she threatened to do if we went to the police. Mutually assured destruction.

I had to take away her ammo. I had to tell Reece the truth.