The Family Business 3(51)

Vegas protested. “Oh, hell naw. You best believe Pop would not want to die with the mess you’ve made of things.” He was glaring at Orlando, who jumped up, ready to go to blows. I stepped in between them.

“We need to respect this document. We need to respect LC’s wishes,” Harris insisted.

“Fuck you, Harris. And f*ck you,” Vegas yelled at Orlando.

“Stop it! Stop it right now!” We’d been too busy engaged in the drama to notice when our mother entered the room. Suddenly everyone snapped into line, like little children scolded by Mommy.

I glanced over at Sonya, who was still moving around cautiously, getting our food ready. I could tell she wished she was invisible at that moment. Clearly my mother had seen her, but she didn’t say anything.

London walked in with a tight scowl on her face, like she couldn’t understand how we had upset our mother at a time like this. This was just one more example of why we all referred to her as Little Chippy behind her back.

“Your father is in that hospital fighting for his life, and you, Harris—I told you not to show that paper to anyone.”

“But we need to address this,” Harris said. “What could be more important at a time like this than figuring out how to let LC go?”

“Is that why we’re here? To make a decision about Daddy?” Paris’s words squeaked out. She looked like she was about to break down as she flopped onto one of the chairs and buried her head in her hands.

“Initially, that’s one of the things we were going to discuss, but right now we can’t,” Ma said calmly.

She went over to Orlando and stood behind him, gripping his chair. From my position it appeared like she was about to deliver one of her “Come to Jesus” speeches. We’d all experienced them.

“Orlando, you are supposed to be our leader, so I don’t care what you have to do, but you boys have to do it together. You all are not only coworkers, but you are family. There are all different types of leaders. Orlando, you’re the head of the family. Vegas, you are the heart and soul of our family, and we need both of those things. So you two need to work together.

“And Junior?” She turned her attention to me. “I’m not happy with your decisions lately, but you are grown, and I’m not so old that I’ve forgotten your father having to defy others when he chose me. But I need you to hear this: We are a family, and that means that you are not allowed to run off anymore. We’re all in this together,” she said, making a motion to include Sonya.

“But what are we going to do about Daddy?” London posed the question we’d all wanted to ask our mother.

“If that health care proxy is what he wants, then that’s what he’s going to get,” Orlando said.

“Whoa, whoa!” Rio chimed in. “I don’t give a damn what it says he wants. We all have to make this decision.”

“No! None of you are making this decision. You may all have a part in the family business, but when it comes to my husband, I am his health care proxy, and I’ll make the decision.”

We looked at her expectantly. I don’t know about the others, but I was praying she wasn’t ready to pull the plug.

“I’ve listened to everything those experts have said and to all of your emotional pleas, but ultimately the final decision is mine and mine alone.” Mom took the paperwork off the counter and tore it up, making certain that Harris was watching.

“I know your father better than anyone else in this room, and I’m telling you that LC would not want this happening, not now. Not while Sasha is missing. She is a Duncan, and at one point or another she has saved every one of your lives, so bringing her home safe needs to be our priority. Only after Sasha is home will I sit you all down, and then I will tell you exactly what I am going to do about LC.”





Chippy





34


“I know that this is difficult.” Donna stood next to me as we watched LC lying helpless in his bed, tied to God knows how many different tubes and machines. It had been days with no real progress, and I felt like as hard as I was fighting to keep it together, I was slowly going out of my mind.

“You do? You know what it’s like to watch your husband of over thirty years lie in a coma and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it?” I snarled at her, tired of every damn body trying to tell me that they knew how I felt. As far as I was concerned, unless they were standing in my shoes, no one understood a damn thing. Hell, I couldn’t be sure that I even knew how I felt sometimes. My feelings were coming like tiny hurricanes of emotion, catching me off guard. I should have felt bad that Donna was bearing the brunt of my frustration, but I was too damn tired to care.

“Chippy, you know that’s not how I meant it,” Donna apologized as best she could. “LC is important to me too.”

“Yes, he’s important to a lot of people,” I replied, hearing the hostility in my voice. It wasn’t her fault, but I just couldn’t deal with people talking about LC as if he were public property, like some reality show star that everybody felt the need to spout opinions about all the time. Right now, my kids were about all I could handle outside of my husband, but I knew that didn’t matter to Donna. She had appointed herself as LC’s watchdog, and she wasn’t going anywhere.