Not a minute after nine, Dee. Nobody makes a fool out of me …
Dee knelt down beside her mother’s bed. “Cheer up, Mom.”
“Oh, Baby, I’m fine,” she confessed, reaching out a shaky hand to
stroke Dee’s cheek. “I just wanted to do something with you. There isn’t much
we can do together these days. And we used to love watching The Wiz. That’s
all.” She tried to lean forward, but Dee accommodated her instead, allowing
her mother to place a kiss on her forehead. “Tell me a story from school. Oh,
and how’s Rocky?” she inquired, her forehead creasing with concern. “You
haven’t said anything about her in a while.”
Dee’s best friend Rachel—“Rocky”—Big Rock’s daughter, had
been steering clear of Dee when the cancer caused a downward spiral of her
mother’s health. It seemed all Dee did when they got together was cry. Guess
Rocky got tired of that.
“Nothing much is happening at school,” Dee said gently smiling.
“How ’bout a verse of ‘Slide Some Oil to Me?’” Dee pantomimed that Dance
of the Tin Man in her mother’s favorite movie.
“No, Baby,” she replied, shaking her head. “You know the song that I
want you to sing.”
“Come on, Mom,” Dee whined. “How about something upbeat?”
“That’s upbeat to me,” she countered, her expression solemn. “It’s
about strength. How to be strong. How to have courage. Life’s a ghetto bitch,”
she whispered. “She’ll just keep coming at you until you put her down for
good. You gotta have courage to stand up to that.”
For her mom, Dee took a slow breath, lifted her head, and belted out a
rendition of “Be a Lion” that would rival Diana Ross any day.
Her mother sighed, sank lower into the pillows, and closed her eyes.
Tears made tracks down Dee’s face, but she kept singing. By the time
she reached the chorus, her mother was asleep. Sleep was a good thing.
12
From Behind the Curtain
64 Naleighna Kai Literary Cafe Magazine July/August 2017