Keith Turner

Big Mama's Plan

Sherie stood there smiling until the agent actually put the keys in her hand. The moment that happened she loudly screamed Halleluiah while continuously jumping up and down, around and around the room for several minutes. Although Henry Akin had experienced many other clients of his expressing jubilation during the process of completing a home sale he was certainly taken aback by Sherie’s act of joyful celebration. After several minutes of watching her try to calm herself he finally asked if she were ok and then stated, I bet your parents are quite proud of you for being able to purchase yourself your own very first home. His words stopped her dead in her tracks. She stood motionless for a moment, gathered herself and quietly replied to the agent. No. She said I truly know that they are not proud of me at all. As her tears started flowing uncontrollably, she stood there momentarily, but in her mind she stood there a lifetime reminiscing about so many of the hurtful events of her life with all of its trauma, tribulations and tears. She knew that this man could never comprehend how much that word home was resonating in her heart, mind, and soul. Home is not a word that she could or would have ever used before as a description of any place that she had ever lived. Sherie had just recently celebrated her 19th birthday alone in the same unremarkable hotel room that she had been renting for the past six months. Although the cost was making a serious dent to her limited bank account, she would continue her personal vow to never return to her mother’s house under any circumstances nor for any reason. Freedom could not be complete until she was able to accomplish her set goal of securing her very own home. For now that hotel room had provided the rest and security that she had so desperately needed for so awfully long as protection from her mother’s threats and control. With her grandmother now gone there seemingly had been no other place she could have run to for even the limited amount of sanctuary Big Mama’s house had sometimes provided. The recent few weeks of time that she had been able to stay there mostly alone had been such a blessing in that it was the catalyst to the incomprehensible changes that were now happening in her life.