"Cause if you let me,
here's what I'll do
I'll take care of you"
Allaya is just a girl from the Caribbean trying to make it in NYC. She's too busy going after everything she's ever wanted to be bothered with the drama that comes with love and relat...
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I had a dream.
No, I was having a dream.
It had to be a dream.
Because there was no way that I somehow morphed into my eighteen year old body overnight.
And there was no way in hell that I was sitting across from my now deceased mother at our favorite Sunday brunch café in Grand Turk.
"What are you thinking about getting Laya?" She was too busy perusing the leather bound menu in front of her face to notice my startled expression.
I couldn't help but to examine how she looked. She wore her favorite metallic pleated skirt with a white button-down top that she tied at her waist. Her arms were adorned in colorful beaded bracelets, her ears held thick gold hoops, and cat eye reading glasses covered her eyes.
But it wasn't her clothing and jewelry that left me dumbfounded. It was her hair and facial features that caught my attention. My mother's face was full, her cheekbones were angled and highlighted in coral blush and her hair...her hair was in its signature long black braid that fell over her right shoulder and down her chest with a curl at the end.
That's how I knew none of this was real. When I was eighteen, mommy was at the beginning of her illness. Her face had sunken in from her sudden weight loss and she was basically bald from chemo.
I finally moved my hand across the white table cloth to touch hers. My thumb rubbed the coldness of the gold ring with the emerald stone that her father left her. It was the same ring that I wore on a chain in her remembrance.
"Mommy?" My voice came out in a shaky breath.
"Hmm?" She hummed still engrossed in the menu. "The lobster paella sounds good. I wonder what the fish of the day is..."
"Mommy??" She ignored me.
"Anthony honey?" She raised her hand to call the waiter that always served us at this restaurant.
"What can I get for you Mrs. Deveaux?"
Mrs. Deveaux? She dropped my father's surname when they divorced.
"What's the fish of the day, Anthony?" She finally looked up from the menu at the scrawny waiter.
"Well we have a delicious pan seared grouper with..." I totally fazed out his voice. Still shocked by the entire interaction.
"Mom..."
"Mommy..." I still called her name again but she was too enthralled listening to today's brunch specials.
"That sounds lovely. I'll have that, the Mediterranean omelet for my husband, the berry french toast for my son, and what do you want honey?" She finally looked at me with her big hazel eyes.
