Free Double Dippin' by Allison Hobbs Page A

her, to help her, but that lady held him firmly; she wouldn’t let him go.
    Mommy
, Shane whispered, still holding the container of fruit punch.
Mommy!
    No one would ever understand his pain and how guilty he felt that he wasn’t able to bring her back to life. If only he’d been able to break away from that social worker’s grasp. He would have saved his mother. He would have shielded her with his body. Or maybe he should have head-butted the policeman, grabbed his weapon, and hauled ass with his mother and Tariq safely at his side. Shane shut his eyes and shook his throbbing head. It gave him a headache to think about the things he should have done.
    “Whatchu say? I hate it when you start talking to yourself,” Tariq announced.
    But Shane was preoccupied with thoughts of how he should have saved his mother; maybe if he’d broken free and just picked her up—perhaps that would have helped. “
Mommeee
,” he uttered in the voice of little boy.
    The container slipped from his hand and splattered across the kitchen floor. The color reminded him of the red bird that flew away with his mother. His mother, who never had a funeral or a memorial service. He wondered if she even had a grave. The last time he saw her she was lying in the park—never to be seen by her children again.
    Shane didn’t bother to clean up the spilled fruit punch; he couldn’t. Fighting to hold back tears, he tried to rush past Tariq.
    “What’s wrong?” Tariq asked, perplexed, reaching out to console his brother, but Shane jerked away and ran toward the stairway. The tears began to flood down his face the moment his feet hit the stairs.
    Resignedly, Tariq cleaned up the mess, cocking his head in bewilderment toward the sound of his brother’s muffled sobs. He clambered up the stairs and knocked on the closed bedroom door. “You okay, Shane?”
    “Go away!” Shane cried. Words of consolation only made Shane angry; he didn’t like being reminded of his weakness. The weakness he had for their mother.
    She was a saint
, he’d whispered countless times to Tariq.
The cops killed her. She died for us, man. She was like an angel flying away to heaven
.
    He knew Tariq had only a foggy memory of their mother. But Shane remembered everything about her and his memory of the day she’d gotten killed was particularly vivid. It angered him to no end that Tariq could barely recall the most important day of their lives.

    Dolores Holmes stood in her second-row position with the choir’s alto section, but she kept hitting the wrong notes. Necks craned in disapproval. “What’s wrong, Sister Holmes?”
    “I’m having a bad night; I just can’t sing on key. I think I’m gonna sit this rehearsal out.”
    No one in the choir disagreed. The women’s choir was serious about their singing and Sister Holmes was making them sound bad.
    She patted her feet and bobbed her head as the choir praised the Lord with song. She pretended to be absorbed in the spirituals, but Ms. Holmes was actually ruminating on the terrible turn her life had taken. Feeling too sinful to sit in a house of worship, she gave a sigh, slid out of the wooden pew, and lumbered toward the restroom. She peeked around to see if any of the choir members were watching. Satisfied that no one seemed to notice her, Dolores Holmes eased out of the church and got in her car.
    She sat in her old Ford for a minute before turning on the motor.
I’m in a heap of trouble
, she thought and shook her head.
After all these years of living sin-free, that no-good, rotten Satan has finally had his way. It’s not Shane’s fault. Satan has him in a tight grip. I have to figure out a way to put things back like they’re supposed to be or else I’m gonna have to let those two pretty boys go
.
    The thought saddened her, but she was rushing fast toward ruination. It was just a matter of time. She turned on the ignition and with a heavy heart, Dolores Holmes headed home.
    The house was quiet. Tariq was