My Mother

"Just call and I will do the whatever," she said with both her hands on her face.

Jake smiled and started to call the names out one by one as he waited for her to raise her head and see the reaction in her face. They had already gone through five names and Jake was not seeing any name fit for her. Every name he called didn't seem to give him the feeling that he wanted from her. 

Dee was doing this intentionally, she wanted to see what is it that Jake wants and how she is going to use it against him. 

Jake was giving up when he looked at the last name, he didn't know which names will fit her best.

"Maybe you are overthinking, do you think I am cheap like sweetie, small like baby or dear?" Asked Dee with a pouting face.

Jake looked at her and he thought that she was mored and didn't live the way he was calling her. 

"Sorry I didn't mean that, okay?" He asked as he held her hands. 

"Maybe look for something expensive, like madam," Dee smiled and Jake pinched her chubby cheeks, "call me cement, I mean that's important for building foundation and I am the foundation to your heart."

"Excuse me, what are you madaming, plus you are not a teacher, mschew," told Jake while forming his lips like a duck.

Dee laughed at his expression. She was getting to see the side of Jake that us hidden. She felt excited doing this with him, 'at least you are comfortable, but not for long," said the voice in her mind. 

She ignored her and went on watching Jake as he scratched his head trying to think. She wondered if something small as a name makes him think this much, how about a business?

"Okay, let's try this last word," he said and Dee went to her old self, acting all afraid before he pronounce the name. 

"Hun," Dee felt her heartbeat, the way he had pronounced the words stressing every letter, made her smile before she slowly lifted her head to look at him.

"Yes, got you," he said while throwing his fist in the air with excitement. 

He pulled Dee closer and watched her beautiful eyes, "tell me what I do to deserve you, hun?" 

Dee blushed before hiding her face in his chest, she didn't lift her head even when Jake tried to remove her face from his chest.

"At least I know what makes you shy and blush," said Jake as he kissed her blond curls. 

"At least I know what turns you on," mimicked Dee.

Their game went on and they had a moment of trying to know each other, Dee talked to Jake about her family, and when it came to the cancer part, Jake told her they will figure that out.

"It's your turn, you've never talked about your stepfamily, ever, you just talk about your sister, Clare," said Clara as she tapped his nose.

"Well, I talk about my sister because in terms of behaviour you two tends to match each other. Though she was shy she always stood for what she wanted. She would force me to get her something even if it was at midnight but thank Dominic who knew how to work with him very well, though I don't know why she never told me about the abuse, Dominic knew some of it and he told me once but I assumed and it kills me till date. Though most of the time I feel like she is somewhere watching me make sure I am doing the right thing and it kills me I never did something good for her," 

Dee watched him speak and she realized that today of all the days he was not too emotional, "was she the eldest?" 

"Yeah, two years older but to me she was young and I never looked at her as my elder sister, because at some point she was fragile but not when it comes to slapping my cheeks, actually you are the second to slap my cheeks after her," they both laughed at the idea before Dee placed her hands on his cheeks where her fingerprints were still visible.

"Sorry, you just went overboard," said Dee as she rubbed on his cheeks.

"About my stepfamily, I rarely talk to them because, they don't matter hun, like my stepbrother who doesn't even care about me, we have nothing in common, he loves doing drugs and parting all the time yet he is twenty-four, my dad is not even worried about him and his mother doesn't care, like he gets everything he wants, when we were young my dad sent me to boarding school but for him, he enjoyed being at home because his mother feared he would be bullied in boarding. I just don't care about him. I don't even know where he is right now, maybe snorting some cocaine in his nose with some girls in Miami and I don't care." 

Noticing that he didn't want to talk about them, Dee didn't pester him about it that much, if he doesn't care about them, that doesn't need to bother her. 

"But I can talk to you about my mum," he started again and Dee excitedly crossed her legs to listen to the story about his mum.

"Well, for starters she was beautiful, here," he showed her a picture of a beautiful young lady in her mid-twenties.

"Wow, she had a cute baby face," said Dee as she looked at the picture Jake was showing her. 

"Yeah, but she was tough, you wouldn't just wake up and expect her to have cooked your food and you eat it, she would make sure you have at least done some work in the house, even if it's to walk his favourite pit bull or water her little orchard she will give you food. So my sister and I, would wake up early, go for a run with the pitbull, water her garden and do our laundry so that when she wakes up she finds everything ready and we are given our meals. Not hat we didn't have any house helps, we had them but that didn't mean they did anything for you, 'she is here to work for me, not you,' she would tell us and our nanny never touched anything, we make our bed, wash our clothes brush our teeth, her work is to cook for us," 

Dee laughed at him, she admired the parenting where his mother taught him how to be responsible when he was young. 

"But at least, she groomed you at a young age you can be proud of that," said Dee and Jake nodded in an agreement.

"Yeah, though for us we thought that was child labour and we wanted to use him, too bad she was friends with the child support commissioner and we could do nothing," replied Jake. 

"How was life when she left?" 

Jake didn't respond quickly to the question, Dee watched as his body tensed and he stiffened from the question. She wanted to tell him not to answer but he cleared his throat. He looked at Dee with his hooded eyes and slowly laid between her legs like a baby who needs to be cuddled. Dee opened her arms and embraced him as she rubbed his hair. 

"Life was not the same, things just turned around, though we were used to doing things my stepmom found an opportunity to make us slaves, we would work most of the time, my sister started becoming sick and no one noticed, we rarely got a chance to speak with our father and that made us grew apart.   When we tried to talk to him my stepmother couldn't allow us, my sister and I decided to move to a boarding school but things were not going well for my sister, I had to make sure that she is not sick every day. I could be doing that forever because when she started senior high school she couldn't manage the cold weather of Russia sue had to come home.

That's when the assault started but she kept white about it. It was not until Dominic came into our lives that he was able to charm her and they could mingle most of the time, during holidays, we could escape with Dominic to his little hideout, he was an or0han but every opportunity he got, he would jump to any public school and have classes. I can say Dominic tried to make life easy for us because our dad never cared where we were, as long as school fees were paid, he couldn't make any further communications. So life was hard but we adapted quickly."

Dee kissed his forehead and wiped the lone tear that was threatening to roll down his cheeks. 

"I am happy you didn't give up, and now you are here," 

"Me too hun, I am grateful for you."