Free Life's A Cappella by Yessi Smith Page A

laughed, a forceful burst without any real emotion attached to it. Why would anyone go through any kind of trouble to find someone who obviously didn’t want to be found just tell them their mother had died? A mother the person in hiding obviously didn’t want any part of. It seemed like a stupid waste of tax dollars. Unless she had done something to instigate her death. Which, in all honesty, wouldn’t surprise me.
    “Five months ago.” Gonz looked at me, gauging my reaction. And what was my reaction? Indifference.
    I stood up so I could be at the same eye level as Gonz when I spoke to him. “I appreciate the trouble you must have gone through to find me, but my mother and I are estranged,” I said with all the confidence I could muster up. “She’s been dead to me for much longer than five months.”
    “Yes, okay,” Gonz said, looking nervously from me to Trent, and I sighed in frustration. I wanted to shake him, demand that he spit out whatever he had to say. It didn’t matter anyway. I’d be leaving Miami soon enough, starting my new life elsewhere.
    “You have a sister,” Gonz told me, almost making what he said sound like an apology.
    “No,” I laughed, “I don’t.”
    “She’s four years old,” Gonz continued as if I had not just spoken.
    “What? That’s impossible,” I shook my head at him, trying to do the math. “She wasn’t pregnant when I left,” I said, not realizing I had spoken.
    “How long ago did you leave?” he asked.
    “I dunno,”I lied. I knew exactly how much time had lapsed since my escape: four years, seven months, and twenty-one days. “About four and a half years ago.. But she didn’t tell me she was pregnant,” I demanded, already knowing she wouldn’t have. Resigned, I looked down at my hands waiting for Gonz to continue.
    “Her name is Shayna Kerr, like you she has your mother’s last name. The police heard about you and it took them five months to find you. Your sister has been in foster care since.”
    “How did she die?” I asked, because my mother’s death made more sense than having a sister.
    “Overdose,” he said, and I nodded. “A neighbor found her a couple days after her death and called the police. Shayna was with her those few days.”
    “My sister?” I asked and he nodded. My sister. More than ever I hated the only mother God had given me. She had no idea what it meant to be a mom, to be supportive or loyal, to be compassionate or kind. She wasn’t fit to be a parent, but that didn’t stop her from having another one to call her own. Another child to screw up. “So what now?” I asked.
    “We don’t know who the father is, so that leaves you as Shayna’s only living relative,” Gonz told me, his eyes studying me. I shut down, not allowing any emotion to cross my face.
    “So I have to go to Alabama to get her?”
    Gonz nodded. “There’s some stuff you’ll have to take care of so you can become her legal guardian, but yeah, they wanted you to go over there soon as you could. The man I spoke to, Miller, is worried about Shayna and thinks her being with family will be better for her.”
    Family? I wanted to laugh. Family, like I had any idea what that meant. And now I was supposed to take care of a child? Who’d probably been exposed to the same bullshit I had gone through. But worse, she’d been locked up with her dead mother for days. Shit.
    Camilla and Trent tried to speak to me after Gonz left, but I didn’t hear them. I only had one thing on my mind; escape. I had to leave. They’d have too many questions, none of which I had the answer to. Already I felt my restraint begin to waver. I had to get away from them. From myself.
    As much as I hated my mother, I hated myself more. This life I had created had all been an illusion, and I should never have allowed myself to feel anything for anyone. Now I felt too much.
    Trent grabbed my shoulders, a far distance embrace that made my heart hurt.
    “What’s going on Erin?