Never Keeping Secrets by Niobia Bryant

Author:Niobia Bryant
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corp.
Published: 2013-04-11T04:00:00+00:00

“Latoya . . . Latoya. Wake up.”

She smacked her lips and fought hard to raise her head from the pillow. She fought and she lost. She opened her eyes and the bright light of the bedside lamp caused her to wince and squeeze them back shut.

“Latoya, you in the bed and these kids are here?” Taquan asked, his voice filled with reprimand.

“You wake now, Mama?” Tiffany asked.

Latoya fought her limbs, feeling like dead weight, and sat up on the edge of the bed, rubbing her eyes before she opened them. Her line of vision rested right on Taquan Jr. sitting in the middle of his playpen with his legs open wide to help him sit up. She could tell from the massive swelling of his Pampers that he was wet. Very wet.

Sometime around noon she had taken more pills and she absolutely did not remember falling asleep. She was trying to make the kids lunch, preparing her speech for the Women’s Night during the annual conference, coming up with ideas for a church fund-raiser, trying to clean the house, making appointments for Tiffany to get her shoes in preparation to start school next week, needing to finish up her school shopping....

The list went on and on.

Top that with her sister and parents getting into it and she getting thrown in the middle when Latasha let them know the offer was on the table for her to live with Latoya. Sweet baby Jesus. That was a two-hour conversation and berating from both her parents on children of all ages honoring and respecting their parents. I told her fast behind to wait and let me mention it.

Add on a nearly sexless marriage, an ambitious husband, a judgmental church board, and missing her career working for DYFUS. Latoya didn’t know any other way to make it through her day.

She stood up and stumbled to her left, holding her hands out in front of herself to keep from falling. “I think it’s something I ate,” she lied to her husband as he continued to watch her. She sat back down on the bed. “I just dozed off for a few minutes.”

“Tiffany said she’s been trying to wake you all day,” Taquan said, coming to sit down on the edge of the unmade bed beside her.

Latoya shifted her eyes to her daughter as her husband checked her neck and forehead for signs of fever. She smiled at her and was rewarded with Tiffany coming over to sit her favorite pink elephant in her lap. “You can hold Bungee until you feel better, Mama,” she said.

“Thank you, baby,” she said softly.

“Well the kids are all right. Praise God for that,” Taquan said, bending to press a kiss to her forehead.

Latoya successfully rose to her feet. “Let me get myself together and I’ll make dinner, baby,” she said, running her hands over her unkempt hair and tasting the residue of her pills and sleep in her mouth.

“Actually, I have good news and I thought we would go

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.