Chapter 1
Sindi found herself huffing as she pushed herself from the table, walking over to the sink, “face it,” she said. “The ring unfortunately does not keep any man. Neither does a baby.” The glass table rattled as tan hands slammed onto it. “You have got to stop talking to me like you’re mama or something! I’m hurt!” Carolina, the younger sister, shouted. Those tears rolled down her flushed freckled cheeks, “maybe if you had any feeling, you’d find a man and be happy. Like me!”
“Girl, you aren’t happy.” Sidni shook her head, her voice raising in volume just a bit due to the sound of her turning on the faucet to clean her younger sister (who was so appreciative of the bed that Sidni let her stay on for the night, clearly) a mug so they could calm down from the week of broken-hearted screams and cries. “You’re sick inna head. He made you that way.” She let out a dry scoff, shaking her head again, “you’re gonna make it worse. So sit your tail down.”
“And if I don’t? You aren’t the boss of me.”
“Clearly,” Sindi finally turned around to face her sister, “y’ain’t the boss of yourself either.”
Pink lips quivered, those hot tears like little lava drops. She was still tired, so she saw no reason to keep going back and forth with the other woman. Carolina sunk into the seat, her fists tight as she rested them on the table. Her sister was right.
When the steam stopped spewing from Carolina’s ears, Sindi again busied herself with making their tea. She hated talking to Carolina like that, but Carolina sometimes needed a taste of her own medicine. Treating her the way she treated Sindi always seemed to bring the rich bachelorette back down to earth with the rest of the peasants.
When the tea was ready, it coated the house in a nice floral aroma; lavender. With a few cubes of sugar and a splash of milk, Sindi was walking over to the table with two teacups, placing one down in front of her sister and the other in front of her own chair, where she pulled it from the mahogany table which was covered in an old tablecloth, their mother’s.
A quiet ‘thank you’ left from Carolina as she clasped her still shaking hands around the glass, looking down into her reflection in the brown liquid.
“Start from the beginning,” Sindi said, bringing her own mug to her lips to take a sip of the tea, “what exactly… happened?”
Carolina pushed over a wave of curls from her shoulder as she looked at her older sister, her eyebrows knit. “Didn’t I tell you? He kicked me out.”
“You told somethin’. I couldn’t understand you cryin’.”
“I spoke the king’s english!”
“You spoke like a slave being separated from their family by the very white men you lay with.”
Once again, Carolina was stunned to silence. She couldn’t fight against Sindi’s very true words and just how calm that delivery was. She finally took a breath, “he found another girl. White girl. Blond hair. Got a farm or two.”
Sindi finally sipped her drink, taking in the information being told to her. She never did like her sister’s husband, Al. There was always an air of entitlement with him, especially him being a white man. There was always that sparkle in Al’s eye when he looked at the beautiful Carolina, yet Sindi could never quite finger where the air of uncertainty was. Was it the way he dressed in sleek suits and hats? The way he spoke? The demeanor? The way it was so easy for him to acquire a woman like Carolina. She wished she could’ve been a fly on the wall when the marriage came to a screeching halt.
“Do you know where this woman came from?” Sindi asked as she reached across the table, silently taking Carolina’s hand in her own, squeezing the slim fingers gently as if to say you’re doing well.
“The surrogate.” Carolina spat, her own fingers wrapping around her older sister’s as if to say thank you for holding me, “he enjoyed his alone times with her to the point where I knew her perfume that would be on him…”
