LITMIR.BIZ

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      She smiled, shook her head. This place. What a beautiful mess of contradiction.

      The day was perfect. Cool but sunny. The wind coming off of Charleston Harbor was redolent with the unique scent the locals called pluff mud. Thickly pungent, strong enough to tickle the insides of your nose. To a Charlestonian, it was a sweet perfume. But then, Charlestonians also thought that the tip of the peninsula was where the Ashley and Cooper Rivers merged to form the Atlantic Ocean, so there’s that. To Tiana it smelled like... Hmm. Funky oysters?

      They made their way to the South Carolina Aquarium, which was one of Lily’s favorite things about her new hometown. From the giant shark tank to the smaller exhibits, Lily loved it all, everything in an around there. After her first visit to the aquarium, she’d decided she wanted to be a fish doctor when she grew up. As Lily skipped ahead of them, Tiana linked her arm with her mother’s.

      “Any thoughts on going back home?”

      Vivian swiveled her head and raised her eyebrows. “Are you trying to get rid of me?”

      Yes. “No. I’m just starting to feel selfish, keeping you here so long.”

      “You aren’t ready for me to leave yet.”

      “We’ll be fine, Mom.”

      “Who’s going to watch Lily when you work late? How are you going to get her to school when you have to be at work before her school even opens?”

      Tiana watched as Lily leaned in to get almost nose to nose with one of the smaller sharks in the big tank. That was a problem. Her work schedule wasn’t compatible with school hours. “I’m working on that. A few of the other nurses have kids in the same school. They take turns getting the kids to school and watching them after.”

      “So you’re going to let total strangers watch after your baby?”

      “They aren’t total strangers, Mom. I work with them. And speaking of total strangers, what about all the kids you normally watch? Who’s taking care of them now?”

      “They’re all in school now. I haven’t had little ones since Lily.”

      Tiana’s heart sunk. There went her main leverage to get her mother moving. Her only hope was if one of her sisters got pregnant. That would be perfect. She considered just flat out lying and saying one of them was trying. But the retribution she’d get for that would make trying to get her mother to go home look like a day at the beach.

      Vivian pulled her arm away and stopped walking. She turned to look Tiana in the eye. “Do you want me to leave?”

      “I don’t want you to feel like you have to stay.”

      “That’s not what I asked.”

      Glancing at the shark tank, Tiana noted Lily was in deep conversation with a little boy about her age. They were pointing at various fish and nodding with great seriousness. She must have found another future fish doctor. “Let’s sit down,” she said, gesturing at the row of benches.

      “I don’t want you to leave,” she said, feeling her way slowly along the words. “It’s just that Lily is so used to being with you, which isn’t your fault, it was my choice...”

      “And she sees me more as a mother figure than you,” Viv finished.

      Blinking against the sudden sting of tears, Tiana nodded. “I feel selfish about it, but yeah. She calls me Mom, but she still goes to you for everything. She bumps her knee, she goes to you. She wants a snack, she goes to you.”

      “When she wanted a cuddle this morning, she went to you.”

      Tiana dropped her head and stared at the floor. “Yeah. I guess. But that was for fun times. If she’s scared or hurt, she goes to you.”

      “Don’t feel selfish. It’s normal. We both know it’s going to take some time. She knows you are her mother. She’s just used to coming to me.”

      “Because I wasn’t there.”

      She couldn’t look at her mother as she spoke the words. Instead she watched Lily, who was slowly pacing along the edge of the tank.

      “I’m not fighting this same old battle with you, Tiana. If you want to beat yourself up about it, go ahead. You had a hard choice to make. It was a huge risk. You took it. Yes, you lost some of Lily’s childhood while you were gone. But you gave her a future.”

      Vivian walked to Lily as Tiana leaned forward, staring at the floor and feeling pretty much like a six-year-old herself. Pouty and petulant. She hated it. Hated feeling at odds with her mother. But there it was. She was jealous. Of her own mother. She looked up as Lily scampered back with Vivian trailing behind.

      “Did you have fun looking at the pretty fish?” Tiana asked.

      “Yes. There’s a pink one today,” Lily answered.

      “Pretty. I wonder if we could find you a pink fish for your pet.”

      Lily’s eyebrows came together in an all too familiar frown. “I want a kitten.”

      Tiana sighed. Mission not accomplished.

      “Ready to go, darling?”

      “Yes.” Lily looked up at her grandmother. “Can we get ice cream on the way home?”

      Vivian lifted a hand to point at Tiana. “Ask your mother.”

      Tiana tilted her head up to catch her mother’s gaze. Dipping her head in a quick nod, she stood. “We can go get some sorbetto, that’s better than ice cream,” she said, taking Lily’s hand in hers. As they made their way out of the building, Tiana hooked an arm around her mother’s waist for a quick squeeze.

      “It’ll be all right,” Vivian said.

      That made her smile. That was her mother’s answer to everything. A broken nail. A bad grade. A dead car battery. A flat tire at midnight in the middle of nowhere. Tornado. Hurricane. Exploding septic tanks. It’ll be all right. And it usually was. Except the exploding septic tank. That hadn’t been all right at all.

      * * *

      DESHAWN HAD SPENT most of Monday morning out at the former Charleston Naval Base, which was now being repurposed into private and industrial usage. The building of a railway extension to serve a shipping container facility included moving two major highway intersections. And moving two intersections meant a lot of data gathering. Even the best coat and hat couldn’t protect against the winter cold seeping in after several hours outside.

      He was more than happy to return to his desk at the headquarters and, once he thawed out his fingers, upload all the information into the computer, where he could prepare it for presentation.

      “What’s the grin for?” his office mate asked as he returned from lunch.

      DeShawn shook his head. He hadn’t realized he was smiling. “Just happy to be out of the cold,” he said.

      That was only part of the truth. He couldn’t believe he’d done it. Sometimes, he’d stop and look around, completely stunned that this was his life now. He had his degree. He had an awesome job. He loved the orderliness of it. Data. You gathered it. You put it together, you applied it to your project. Adjust as necessary. Simple. Factual. Same with the rest of his life. Simple. Orderly. No crazy family creating drama. Tiana’s face flashed in his mind’s eye and he felt a little tug of disappointment. He really wanted her involved in his project. He’d have to figure out a way to change her mind. How, he had no clue.

      “I wouldn’t complain. Wait until July and August.”

      “Not complaining. Not at all.”

      He returned to the task at hand. He wouldn’t complain about surveying in the heat of the summer either. Well, not too much. His cell phone buzzed from inside the top desk drawer where he’d stashed it. Pulling it out, he saw an unknown number. The happy feeling he’d been riding fell away. He

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