Toto and the Boys III: Dannie

Chapter 29

"Okay. Good night, Danica."

"'Night, Troy."

She stayed outside the apartment for a while just staring at nothing in particular, reassuring herself that she could handle it on her own. Just this once, she'd try to face her fears alone. She'd face her and say what was on her mind.

Her phone beeped a message.

Troy: Text or call if you need anything. I mean it, Danica.

Dannie smiled, got up and walked back inside the apartment.

*****

She didn't tell Jackie or George. Her newlywed friend was going away for her honeymoon and she didn't want her worrying over her. And Jackie talked a lot whenever she was nervous or upset and Dannie wanted her confrontation with her mother to be a secret.

George hugged both of her friends goodbye, a bit longer and tighter than last time, before she went away with Jordan.

After they left the airport, Jackie wanted to spend the day with her but she said she had somewhere else to go.

"Where?" her friend asked suspiciously.

Dannie just shrugged.

"You're going with Troy again, are you?"

"Maybe," she replied.

"Dannie, tell me one thing...are you going out with him? Have you made up your mind?"

She shook her head. "No, not yet. But I will soon. Just call Dean and tell him to pick you up or something. I need Toto."

Dean arrived at Calea to pick Jackie up and the couple left Dannie with Toto. Dannie took a deep breath and sighed. She knew where the woman lived. The problem was that she had not been to that place for a very long time.

*****

The place looked very familiar yet different altogether. The street and the houses had somehow changed, but the smell and the air around triggered a lot of memories from her past.

The house looked a bit better though. She must have done some fixing since she came back, Dannie thought. She had heard that her father had been home before he died years ago. She barely had any reaction when the sisters relayed the news. She knew her mother was living alone now, but why couldn't she care?

She squared her shoulders and knocked.

She heard something scramble inside and before she knew it, the door opened.

The shock on her mother's face was apparent.

For the first time in many years, Dannie was face to face with the woman. She saw the traces of years in prison and stress in her mother's face. She was almost taken aback at how old she looked up close. Her eyes had gotten deeper, her eyelids more droopy; the lines around her mouth and eyes were more visible now. She could see some strands of gray hair peeking out of the woman's neatly tied hair.

"I came to tell you something," she said in a low voice.

The woman started to cry and stepped aside. "Come in," her mother said.

Dannie looked at her from head to foot. She was not doing well, but she looked healthy. Her beauty had been abused in the years she was away. She was wearing a simple yet clean black shirt over a green long skirt that reached her knees. Her slippers were getting thin and her nails looked like it had met a handful of bad nippers. Her eyes left her mother and to the darkness inside the house. She didn't need light to know where things were inside. She clasped her hands together and shook her head. Her feet took a step back as she said, "No. I'll stay here. I just came by to say something."