Free Family of Lies by Mary Monroe Page A

teenage daughter, Sarah, lived with Lois’s mother. The article didn’t say but I assumed Lois’s mother was one of those elderly sisters who had been beaten down by life in more ways than one and who had lost her man many years ago. So typical. Women like Lois got pregnant with babies they didn’t need and the grandmothers or some other family member ended up raising those babies. The last time I got a call from my mother, she complained about how my three younger sisters left their numerous children in her care for days at a time. “I can’t keep feeding all these kids with just my pension check,” she informed me. Of course, the real reason my mother told me about her latest setback was because she wanted me to send her more money. I didn’t mind helping out family. But it seemed like the more I did for them the more they expected. I had been sending money and expensive gifts to my mother and my sisters ever since I married Kenneth. It had begun to get on my nerves, so I had slowed down considerably. And what made the situation even worse was despite all of the financial aid I had provided, my mother and sisters were no better off than they had been before my help! It had made me quite bitter. I felt like I had been taken advantage of, which I knew in my heart was the case, but I never threw it in their faces. I had always felt that you didn’t kick a person who was already down. You just got bitter and resentful. Paying all that money to Lois had made me even more bitter and resentful about “helping” people.
    Sarah was no longer my problem. I was off the hook! I wanted to protect my investment in Kenneth more than ever now. I had no payment plan with Lois’s mother, so she wouldn’t be getting a plugged nickel from me.
    I couldn’t wait to speak to my lawyer and tell him to stop sending those cashier’s checks to Lois’s post office box. I didn’t have my cell phone with me, so I called him up from a pay phone at the pharmacy I’d stopped at for condoms on my way to Tony’s apartment. It was almost 2:00 p.m. I’d just come from a two-hour session at the spa where I’d enjoyed a Swedish massage. I always needed to be extremely relaxed when Tony got a hold of me or my body would take days to recover from all the ecstasy he put me through.
    “Mitch, this is Vera Lomax. You can stop sending the checks to Lois Cooper, effective immediately. I hope I caught you in time so I won’t be out any money this month.”
    “Hello, Mrs. Lomax. Well, due to the holiday and my secretary being on vacation, we’re a little behind. I am glad you called me today because this month’s check was about to go out in this morning’s mail. May I ask why you’re making this adjustment?”
    “She’s dead. She died in an automobile accident last week.”
    “Oh for goodness sake! Well, my condolences. I am so sorry to hear that the child is deceased.”
    “Not the child, the child’s mother.”
    “I see.” My lawyer cleared his throat. “The child is still a minor, but you wish to discontinue the payments? Is that what you’re telling me?”
    “That’s what I’m telling you. For all I know, that woman might not have even been using the money to take care of that child anyway! You’re a brother from the hood, so I know you know how trifling some of our sisters are! Lois Cooper got married somewhere along the line and the grandmother’s been raising the child for God knows how long.” For the first time, I regretted that I had not communicated with Lois from time to time. Had I known she had married and dumped Kenneth’s child on her mother, I probably would have modified our arrangement. As far as I knew, that heifer could have been using my money to help support the man she married!
    “Hmmm. Well, come in so you can sign off on a few documents. I’m available this afternoon from about three p.m. to six.”
    “I don’t like signing anything that connects me to that woman. I don’t like leaving a paper