The First Lady Read Online Free Page B

really loved each other.
    Unfortunately, that love we shared wasn’t strong enough to overcome the love I had for crack. At some point, Thomas Kelly found God and cleaned himself up. When he asked me to get clean with him, I refused. He ended up moving to New York with his new mentor, a man named Reverend Jackson. He never knew that I was pregnant when he left me, and I never blamed him for going. It wasn’t until many years later, by the strangest coincidence you could ever imagine, that Thomas Kelly and I reconnected. I had moved to New York but was still too strung out on crack to go looking for him, even if I had wanted to. Anyway, by that time he had his church, a son and a daughter, and his wife, Charlene. Our paths probably never would have crossed if it weren’t for Tanisha.
    Thomas Kelly didn’t know it at the time, but Tanisha, the woman his son Dante was about to marry, was his child, the daughter I gave birth to after he had cleaned himself up and left Virginia. Now, you know all hell broke loose when the truth was revealed at Dante and Tanisha’s wedding, but it’s not really as bad as it sounds. It turned out that Charlene was already pregnant when she met Thomas Kelly, so he was not Dante’s biological father. Things were crazy for a while until all the facts were pieced together, but Dante and Tanisha were eventually married, and I became a part of the bishop’s extended family. After some initial strained feelings, they accepted me into their family and even helped me finally get clean, but I had no idea that Charlene had felt the way this letter said she did.
    I glanced at the letter one more time, then reached for my phone, dialing my daughter’s cell number. Tanisha and I never really had a mother/daughter relationship, mostly because my addiction made me incapable of properly mothering her. By the time she was able to take care of herself, Tanisha was trying to be the mother to me. She was a good kid and made a lot of sacrifices for me over the years. I was so happy she’d found happiness with Dante.
    “Hey, Momma, whatchu doing?”
    “Nothing. Um, just wanted to ask you something.” I picked up a cigarette and lit it.
    “What, Momma? Everything all right? Is Aubrey okay?” That girl sure knew how to worry. She must have got that trait from her father.
    “Everything’s fine, Tanisha. I was just thinking about asking a male friend of mine out to dinner. What do you think?”
    There was silence for a second, then my daughter said sadly, “Did you say somebody asked you to dinner, or you’re gonna ask somebody to dinner?”
    Now, I know she wasn’t hard of hearing, but I repeated myself anyway. “I was thinking about asking somebody.”
    Again there was a brief silence, then that sadness to her voice when she finally spoke. “Whatever you wanna do, Momma.”
    “You mad at me or something?”
    “No, Momma I just—” She stopped herself. “If it’s gonna make you happy, Momma, ask him out. You deserve all the happiness you can get.” She could play like she was happy for me, but she wasn’t. I knew my child.
    “Tanisha, what’s bothering you? And don’t tell me nothin'. I know you, girl.”
    She took an audible breath. “I don’t know. I guess I was just hoping that you and the bishop might get back together now that Ms. Charlene is gone.”
    A smile came to my face, but I didn’t know if I should tell her about the letter, because I didn’t know if she’d believe me. I wasn’t sure if the letter was authentic myself, but it had me thinking. “Why? Do you think your father’s interested? Or are you acting like every other child who wants to see their parents get back together?”
    “Of course I wanna see my parents together. I love you both. No disrespect to Ms. Charlene, but I think she’d wanna see the bishop happy.”
    “Well, I’m gonna tell you a secret, and I don’t want you to tell your husband. I’m going down to the church, and I’m planning to ask Thomas