" . . . an urban fairy tale, a rollicking and robust tale of incest and love, sister and mother bonds, career success, and the lure of the streets. . . a fast read with lively and likable characters. The Freeman women are hot-blooded in every way: They love their men and they're tight with their sisters. Do them wrong and expect a fistfight."
THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
"Elegantly written and simplistically conveyed, I’m Telling
is the story
of a dysfunctional family with a secret that spans decades and ultimately
explodes."…
RAWSISTAZ BOOK CLUB
" . . . From the first page, the reader will been pulled in and never let go.
This story is an action-packed emotional ride. There are no lulls in this book
so get comfortable because you will read it all in one sitting. The characters
jump off the page because of rich dialogue and pertinent flashbacks which help
you understand each character. Ms. Miller tells a compelling story about facing
the truth and forgiving oneself."
ROMANCE IN COLOR
.
Synopsis
All her young life, 11-year-old Faith Freeman had been told that it was her responsibility to look after her twin sister, Hope. So when she sees her stepfather in bed with her twin she immediately tells their mother, thinking that Miss Irene will take immediate action – throwing Papa out in the street, but not before calling the police.
But she’s surprised and hurt when Miss Irene does no such thing – deciding to keep Papa in the household as long as he promises to leave Hope alone. The decision sets the family into a tailspin that it seems they may never recover.
As the twins grow into adulthood, Hope develops a love/hate relationship with her mother – showering her with gifts one day, and striking at her very core the next. Miss Irene, though, is no innocent victim. She can be a loving mother one moment, and maliciously attacking her daughter the next. And Faith, who loves them both, is caught in the middle. She realizes if the family has any hope of a return to normalcy, their dirty little secret has to be aired.
Prologue
I squeezed my eyes real tight, but I couldn’t get what I had just seen out of my mind. My stepfather’s face in between my twin sister’s legs. Even with my eyes closed I could still see them. And I could smell them too. A funny smell. Kind of like sweat and something else. And I could hear them whispering and scrambling around like they were trying to grab up their clothes. I kept my eyes shut and squatted down in the corner of the bathroom, covering my ears and clenching my teeth so hard they hurt.
I wanted to run downstairs and hide under the blanket in my bed, but if I did I would have to run past the bedroom door where I had just seen them doing the nasty.
“Faith?
What are you doing up here?” I heard Papa call to me real quiet like.
I
bit my lip and cursed to myself. I was kind of hoping that we could just keep on
playing the game that we’d been playing for about a year. Me knowing him and Hope
were doing bad things when Mommy wasn’t around, but pretending I
didn’t. Well, I didn’t know exactly what they were doing, but I knew they
were doing something. That’s why Hope had become Papa’s favorite all of a
sudden. Not that I cared about that all that much about him having a favorite. I
never did like Papa, not from the very first time Mommy brought him to meet us
when me and Hope were 7-years-old. My big brother Allen liked him all right,
because he taught Allen how to talk to girls. And my little brother Johnny liked
Papa too, because Papa took him to baseball games. But me, naw, I never did like
him. There was something about him.
Hope
took to him right from the very beginning, though, hugging and kissing him good
night all the time. Then last year, just after me and Hope turned 11, I
noticed that they were hugging and kissing a whole lot more and a lot longer.
Something wasn’t right about it. They started spending a whole bunch of time
together, and they whispered to each a whole lot when they didn’t think anyone
was looking. I was always looking, though, because I was the big twin, and all
my life everyone always told me it was my job to look after Hope. I hated it
when I saw him rubbing her shoulders and touching her face and stuff, and I
hated the way she giggled when he did. I wanted to tell, but I didn’t really
have anything to tell. I mean, I knew something was going on, but I didn’t
know exactly what. I thought about asking Hope, we always used to share
secrets, but I was afraid of what she might tell me if I asked. So I just kept
my mouth shut. I guess I really didn’t really want to know.
So
if Hope and Papa were in the room together and I needed to get in for some
reason I would always stomp real hard on the floor when I was walking so they
could stop whatever it was they were doing before I came in. Because I knew they
were doing something. I know they knew why I was doing all that stomping, I know
they did. And so it was like we had some kind of a deal. I didn’t do anything
to try and catch them, and they didn’t do anything too bad right in front of
me.
But
dang, dang, dang, how come all of a sudden they didn’t close the dang door
before they started doing the nasty? And especially since Mommy was right in the
house. Right downstairs. But no, not even when I came stomping up the stairs to
get to the second-floor bathroom. When I saw the Mommy’s bedroom door open I
thought everything was cool, else I would never have turned my head when I
passed to get to the bathroom. Papa looked up from in between Hope’s legs
just as I turned my head and we looked
straight dead in each other’s eyes before I could run past.
“Faith?”
Papa’s voice seemed more uncertain this time, and for a minute I thought about
not answering him. Maybe he would think it was just his imagination, my walking
past. But then I heard him whisper to Hope to go in the bathroom to see if
anyone was in there. I wouldn’t have been able to stand that, looking into my
twin’s face, and having her see in my eyes that I knew what she had been
doing.
“Yeah,
it’s me, Papa,” I called out quickly. I stood up and walked to the bedroom
doorway as if nothing happened. I was thinking maybe we could go back to the
game. Maybe I could pretend I really didn’t see anything.
“What
are you doing upstairs?” Papa’s shirt was off, but his pants were pulled up
and his belt was even buckled. Hope was standing next to bed looking down at
the ugly green shag carpet, not saying anything. I got really mad when I saw she
was wearing a yellow dress. Mommy always bought us the same style dress, but in
different colors. Hope’s dresses were blue, and mine were yellow. Hope was
wearing my dress while doing nasty with Papa.
““Mommy
said for me to get her pocketbook so I could go get some brown sugar from the
store because she’s going to surprise you with a pineapple upside-down cake
for your birthday and we didn’t have any brown sugar so I’m supposed to go
the store to get some, but I had to get Mommy her pocketbook so she could give
me the money so I could go to the store but she said she left her pocketbook in
the upstairs bathroom, so she sent me upstairs to get it for her so she could
send me to the store to get the brown sugar.”
I peeked up from the floor at Papa when I finished talking but then I
looked down again real quick. His zipper was open, and part of his thing was
hanging out. Eeww. I don’t’
think he realized it, though. He was staring at me real hard, like he was trying
to figure out something to say.
“Okay,
I’m going to get Mommy’s pocketbook so I can go to the store. Bye!” I ran
to out the bathroom and snatched up Mommy’s black patent-leather pocketbook
off the dirty clothes hamper, and I was ready to run past the bedroom and down
the stairs, but Papa stood in the bathroom door.
“Look,
Faith, you don’t have to tell your mother everything you know, okay?” Papa
was talking real slow, like he was picking his words real careful like. “And
get yourself whatever you want while you’re at the store. I’ll tell your
mother it’s okay.”
I
could feel tears come all the way down from my brain to my eyes, and I tried
real hard not to blink because I didn’t want to be crying. But why couldn’t
he just have pretended that he didn’t know I had seen them? Now he went and
said that, and that meant I would have to tell Mommy because if I didn’t we
would all be playing another game – one called “Let’s All Hurt Mommy.”
And I didn’t want to play that game. And even if I did, he might go ahead and
decide that since I was playing he could do nasty with me, too. I didn’t put
him past him, because he was such a nasty old man. And Hope was nasty too,
because she was doing the nasty with him. But if I did tell Mommy I would be
telling on Hope, and I never told on Hope and she never told on me. Not
ever. But then again, if I did tell, Mommy would put Papa out, and that
wouldn’t be such a bad thing. But then Mommy would be all sad, because even
though she was real pretty and real smart and went to college and everything,
she weighed almost 400 pounds, and she probably wouldn’t be able to get
another man to like her. And then Mommy would be back trying to support me and Hope
and Allen and Johnny on the pay she got as a bookkeeper in the real
estate office on 116th Street. And she would cry at night like she
used to before Papa started coming around. And it would be all my fault for
telling.
“Okay,
Papa.” I said real quite like as I walked around him. “I’m going to the
store now.”
“Okay.
And be a good girl.”
I
could feel his eyes watching me as I walked down the hall. I heard the door
close when I was half way down the stairs. Back to finish what they were doing,
I guess. But even through the closed door I could hear my twin ask, “Do you
think she’s going to tell?”
I sat on the bottom step and
put my face in my hands. But I was too confused to cry.