𝚂𝚞𝚗𝚜𝚎𝚝 𝚅𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚊: 𝚃𝚛𝚞𝚝𝚑 𝚋𝚎 𝚝𝚘𝚕𝚍.

                                     ᴘᴏᴠ ᴏᴅᴇᴀɴ✾

After a few glasses of the wine that was brought to our table, the concrete silence was broken by Petrona.

I place my glass on the white tablecloth and found my thoughts wondering for a minute.

The jubilant triumph that I had expected now seem like this white tablecloth marred by the spilling of the dark red wine if I was to lose my grip on the wine glass.

The truth was going to be like the wine seeping into the pristine fabric of my hopes and dreams spoiling it.

"Let's get this show on the road shall we," I said looking over at Petrona who sat there her wine untouched and absentmindedly running her finger along the stem of her wine glass.

Pet seem to be more agitated as the silence resumed and Peggy appeared to get more forlorn.

What the hell did they know that I didn't?

I watch Petrona who was now avoiding looking at us. She appeared all polished and sophisticated from the top of her pixie cut hairstyle to the tip of her canvas wedge heel ankle tie slippers but her eyes were sad and fill with pain.

"What the hell a gwaan?!" I ask beginning to get disconcerted by their behavior.

"I..."

Petrona cleared her throat and started again as her voice was barely audible.

"I am your father's half-sister Odean, you are my nephew."

My hand did eventually bounce the wine glass after all. It seems I had a premonition. Like de-ja-vu I watch as it soaked into the table cloth making a garish dark pattern.

Wha the hell did she just seh?!

I look at Petrice and Patrice hoping to see if I could gather any semblance on the matter but they too were clearly not expecting this.

"Mama...? Nooo! No way!" Petrice gasped as her mind try to fit things together.

Ms. Murl and Mama had children for the same man?

"Your grandmother and my mother had children for Vincent Davis three months apart. I am three months older than your father OD."

"Vincent Davis? But a nuh suh yuh name. I mean yuh nuh name Davis!" Petrice said in a rush her mind as well as mine in overdrive.

I look back to Petrona my mouth working like a fish out of water as I tried to formulate words.

"No, my surname is Mama's mother's maiden name. But my name, if things were different would have been Petrona Renea Davis."

"Why Mama neva seh nothing, why she neva jus mek mi know the truth?"

I look at a bewildered Patrice who looked whiter than when she first came in her mouth moving in silent speech after she had asked her question. I figured she had drawn a conclusion but it was not it.

"Patrice Mama loved your grandfather with all her heart. He was her one and only but Ms. Murlene ended up in the place she thought she would have been. I can't tell you why he chose to marry her and leave Mama alone but I knew it broke her to see another woman building a legacy she thought would be hers to create. I guess for Mama silence seemed the best option to deal with what happened.

"But it all came crashing down years later when Ricky and I started to get close. He was my best friend out of all of Ms. Murl's children. We had this different bond."

I watch as a reminiscent smile played on her red lips as her mind drifted to a special part of her past.

"We were convinced we were in love and that love would break the animosity between our mothers. If only we knew the reason we would not have rebelled and used every chance we got to find ways to be together and when I got pregnant with Patrice I was elated but it brought forth a bigger storm."

Wait a weh the bloodclaat this? Mi Uncle a Patrice father? He was the only child from Ms. Murl's second marriage and he had died in a bike accident at twenty-two. I never knew him.

"Can you imagine when Mama found out I was carrying the grandchild of her nemesis?

Never have I seen Mama so angry and in her anger, she broke her silence and revealed to me that Ms. Murl's husband was my father and we should have nothing to do with her family because she was a bitter woman who will stop at nothing to destroy our lives.

"I was not going to let anything stop me from having my love. I shun Mama and her warning not taking heed of anything she said."

Why did this sound so familiar?

"It was not like Ricky and I was family. I loved him and wanted to be with him. I had already had Petrice and her father was not the dependable kind and he was long gone from our lives. He never wanted the responsibility of being a father. Ricky was different. He never once turned his back on me."

A sob escaped her causing her words to become mumbled but after steadying breaths, she continued to speak.

"God how I wish he had turned his back because he would have been alive now. He would not have entered that bike race to get money for us to run away if I had just listened."

Was this some twilight zone shit? Was I asleep? Was I in some warped existence?

Nope, it was all real. This was happening. I was hearing all this in live and living color. The wrong that Ms. Murl had created had become a generational curse; a vicious cycle that became Patrice and I undoing.

I knew my grandmother was no saint but to rob, a person of love was a wicked deed that would never result in prosperity and happiness.

Where was her satisfaction? I knew she had none.

I now realize why my grandfather was never happy and why all my life he was a bitter drunkard that lived a dismal unhappy life.

I watch Petrona reach for Patrice's hand and grip it.

"You can just imagine how Ms. Murl acted as she blamed me for her son's death. She treated me vile and in my despair, I became depressed and broken."

Her eyes were glistening with unshed tears and as she closed them tears spill down her cheek. Her voice trembled with remorse as she open her eyes and spoke to Patrice.

"I can't make up for running away and leaving you here and I know sorry can never suffice for the pain my actions, the deceit as well the suffering this humiliation has and is going to cause.

I owed you the truth years ago but I could not bare the loss of Ricky and the guilt every time I look at you. I never meant to hurt you but I did and I am truly sorry you suffer a broken heart because I fail to be responsible for my actions."

I look at the stain again. I let my eyes travel the outline it created in the white cloth, as my mind wrapped around what I have just learned I look to the parts untouched by the wine.

Did this represent my life? Where the unscathed parts going to remain so are would it in time be stained by the truth that was revealed?

I look at Patrice thinking how my heartache for all the pain, uncertainty, and sorrow that was swirling around her at the revelation of what was so dreadful my grandmother was willing to die with it.

I wanted to reach out to her to comfort her how a man should the woman loves but I just had to sit there and watch her painfully come to terms with the truth that surrounded our existence.

How ironic that I thought whatever I was going to discover today would propel Patrice and me together. I would rub it in Pretty Boy Floyd's face that his time with Patrice was up.

I would show my grandmother that she could not stop destiny. That it was fate for Patrice and me to be together and her death was the doorway for us journeying into the love that was denied to us.

There was nothing to show, nothing to gloat about. I had nothing but dreams that were battered to pieces by a storm that I had to weather without the woman I adored.

I need to get away from here.

Life was brutal and I wish I could wrap my hand around its neck a squeeze the life out of the malicious bitch.

Why did we have to suffer for my grandmother's wretchedness? All we ever wanted was to love.

Why should we have to be the ones to suffer the horrendous torrential downpour of the storm she created?

I got up from the table with such haste that the chair went toppling over with a loud crash that had curious eyes looking our way.

"Odean," Petrona said rising to reach out to me. "I am sorry."

"You do not need to be sorry Petrona you suffered as much," I told her.

My eyes went to Patrice and I shivered with the pain that I would never be able to console her and see her through this awful circumstance that raged like a tempest in our lives.

"If you'll excuse mi."

If my feet had wings I would have flown from the dining room.

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Please👇

Nuff love 🇯🇲