“She was also my mother, daddy. Although she wasn’t my birth-mother, she raised me too and she raised me well. Because she believed in me, I am where I am right now. A big singer. I can choose my concerts. Every respectable singer or band want to sing with me or have me in their show. So her death infected me too. By the way why didn’t you believe in my singing abilities?” Kit reacted with tears in her eyes.

Her father looked down, thinking about how he would explain the kind of person he was back then. An angry man, an angry black man offended to the bone. And because of that, he pushed away all the people who truly cared about him. What did he do? With tears in his eyes he looked up and looked Kit straight in her eyes.

“Baby, Kit, it was never a question that I didn’t believe in your singing abilities. But I saw what it had done to your mother. The touring, the humiliation…………I didn’t want that to happen to you. Your mother started to drink. Not only because of her being tired of the tours and the way she was being treated as a black woman. But also, or maybe I should say, more of the way I treated her. I was jealous. Your mother was a very beautiful woman, what I didn’t knew then but what I know now, is the only person she loved was me. She broke a lot of hearts and I broke hers. I thought she cheated on me. I asked her and she denied, because she didn’t cheated on me. I didn’t believe her so I thought by beating her, she would give me another answer. But she stuck to her answer because it was the truth. On the contrary, I was the one who cheated on her. When she found out, she confronted me with it. She was willing to fight for our marriage. I wasn’t. So one night when she asked me about a certain woman, asking me if I dated her, I beat her up. I’m not proud of what I did, but that’s what I did and that is when I broke your mother mentally. Your mother was a strong and proud woman untill that night. She started to drink. The booze messed up her voice but because she was such a good singer with a good reputation, people didn’t mind that her voice didn’t sound that good. Needless to say, your mother was a very technical singer so she could hide the decline of her voice for a long time. But she needed a good home and I couldn’t provide. So in the end, she couldn’t hide her messed up voice no more. And to ease her pain, she started to use drugs because the alcohol wasn’t enough. That’s when I kicked her out. I guess you were two years old at that time. I didn’t want you to be exposed to someone using drugs. If I had paid more attention, I would’ve noticed that it was her last call for attention. A few days later, she was found dead. I didn’t cry, I didn’t care. The moment I started to care was a few years ago. I went back to the South where I met a great-grand-auntie of mine, nanna Mae. I didn’t recognize her at first but she did me and what she told me, really hit home. I will tell you that story when your sister’s here. But when she was done talking to me, explaining my behavior, I started to understand and that’s when the tears came. I had a good thing with your mother, I messed that up. The only good thing left out of that relation is you. I got a second change with Bette’s mother. I married her for the wrong reasons though. But she gave me a daughter and she raised my first-born. And she raised you really good. She took the humiliations at home but she never took it out on you. On the contrary, she supported you not to oppose me but because she truly believed in you and loved you with all she had. And Bette, you two were smitten. I never said it but when I watched you two I was proud! I should have cherished what I had. Maxine didn’t abused substances, instead of that, she got cancer and died. There was a moment I softened but that was like a minute in a life time………….