The Mad Sister 2

By Carol Mitchell

Mercy Jean Diamond was the highly intelligent, un-liked daughter of a good, but philandering doctor, and deranged mother, who hated her. Though they were the richest family in all Parish, California there were problems. After ten-years of abuse and being the only child, Mercy Diamond is ecstatic when her parents have adorable sister Roxy Ann Diamond so, Mercy takes exemplary care of her sister until an unpredictable tragedy occurs. Unfortunately, father Fred is having a hot affair that rips him away from reality. So, when the family's empire goes up in smoke, the Diamonds, blame Mercy for Roxy's tragic demise in a horrific house fire. Mercy returns from the corner store below the flames and is so devastated over her sister's death, she goes mad! Later, Mercy is focused at Yale, she is top in her class while making front page news for being the first African-American to break untoward advances in medicine. Unlike her father doctor Fred Diamond, a well-respected family practitioner, Mercy, the talk of the medical world - is a mad doctor that is pruned to remake dead sister Roxy into a quite believable clone. 20 years after Roxy's death, "the great doctor Mercy" sets up shop in Parish, California, where all hell is going to break loose after she builds an escape airplane on her property lot. Will the brilliant Dr. Mercy J. Diamond succeed in her mad efforts to bring back sister Roxy as a clone? Or will her untoward GENIUS, be her downfall?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Carol Mitchell
• Release date: Jul 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005464028

Carol Mitchell

Carol Mitchell describes herself (in jest) as being in self-imposed exile from her Caribbean home. She holds an MFA and teaches writing in Virginia. She is also a fellow of the Virginia Center for Creative Arts. Her short stories have appeared in various Caribbean journals and four of them have been long-listed for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. She has written 18 children’s books. What Start Bad a Mornin' is her debut adult novel.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Mercy Jean Diamond born July 12, 1928, and her beloved sister Roxy Ann Diamond born on the same day in 1938, was as close as siblings could be. In 1943, when Mercy was fifteen and Roxy was five the adorable child was the love of Mercy’s life. They grew up in a working middle-class town in what used to be a worn-down shack on the corner of Continental and 105th avenue what we called The Pink Palace in Parish, California. Parish is located on the border of Oakland, and San Leandro, California where neighboring San Francisco, California was the notorious sister to us less-influential surrounding East Bay towns. The Diamonds lived on the same lot that Mercy was living on during the infamous raid of June, 1987, when what they called, The SWAT Team rolled in to this town like bulldozers tearing The Pink Palace down.

Mercy’s mother, a homemaker and her father, a heart surgeon should have loved the two girls; but Mercy’s mother Maggie was a lazy, selfish low life that left the raising of little Roxy on Mercy. Had Mercy’s mother Maggie Diamond been doing what she was supposed to be doing as a parent with her lowdown behind, the fire would have never taken place, but I’ll tell you about that later. Anyway, Maggie was a crazy mother. She was pretty but she was cock-eyed, the kind of woman that would sell her soul to the devil to keep a man. She put Fred Diamond over her children shamelessly. All she cared about was pleasing Fred Diamond, thinking that if she didn’t keep on top of him, that one of them nurses at Parish County Hospital would run off with Fred’s behind.

Fred, he was a good-looking Duke Ellington type of brother, with the straight red hair, trimmed moustache and all of that, only Fred was darker. He was a short man, about 5’6" who wore gold wire rim glasses like President Truman. He was a thin man who looked good in his clothes. The girls liked him cause’ he was smart and sophisticated; and, the town loved Fred, cause’ he acted like he had a little class when he put on that white coat going to work to be a doctor. Maggie, his wife, was high-yellow and one shot short of being a midget. Whenever Fred left the house, Maggie sat in that brown rocker at the window and she rocked, and she rocked, until that man came home. Maggie had long, red, crinkly hair, Carnation cream-colored skin, a nice round behind and a mean switch what brothers called, a walk that wouldn’t quit. She pleased a Brotha’ at the expense of her two daughters and didn’t give a good hot pepper what people said about it, because of course, Maggie Diamond was better than the rest of us in Parish, California.

Maggie hated her daughter, Mercy with a passion. There’s just no other way to say that. And she loved little Roxy, so we all thought. One time Maggie hit Mercy so hard in the face, sounded like she was breaking branches off that broad elm tree that hovered exquisitely over that pink house they could barely afford. She spanked Roxy, but she beat Mercy with thick tree limbs into some horrifying seizures. That was when people minded their own business letting people raise their kids without putting their two-cents in. When Maggie beat Mercy, that girl got to shaking and spitting up white stuff and all we could do was say, Oh Lord, and pray for that poor child. Mercy’s slanted light-green eyes would get to twitching, with her arms drawing up to her chest. And when it was all over, Maggie called that beating Mercy’s Epilepsy Fit.

Before Maggie got so arrogant, everybody knew Maggie was working like a slave to put Fred through medical school. She took in laundry, sewing, cooking, baking, anything that allowed her to stay home and rock in that chair, waiting for Fred to come home. Looked like she was building that Brotha’ up just to show those in Parish she had something nobody else had. Maggie had a lot to prove since she was a runaway foster child from Alabama, who happened to meet Fred Diamond when she was just fifteen at the Greyhound Bus Station on her way to meet a Parish pimp, Bobby John. Bobby told everybody she was coming back to Parish again this time to be his special one. Bobby waited for Maggie a good spell, knowing everybody said that Maggie was incredibly special, cause’ she’d been to Parish the year before whoring until Parish Police arrested her for standing on Continental and sent her back home. But that’s the way Bobby liked em’ back in the day. It was hard to control a whore with a good mind. He’d take the pretty slow ones like Maggie, put em up and then put em out on the corner for a spell until the cops put em’ in jail, sent em’ home or until somebody killed em. But as good luck would have it, Maggie was in the right place at the right time. It was Fred Diamond who saw pretty Maggie before Bobby ever showed up for her that day. And, ever since Maggie met Fred Diamond getting off what we called the ho’ bus in ’25 it was full steam ahead for Maggie and Fred.

Mercy was only five that day her momma slapped her in the face, and everybody opened the window to see what had broken, when Maggie beat Mercy into that seizure. It was obvious from the start that Maggie Diamond was too tired in the mind to care for either one of her kids properly. Even with the disgrace that Maggie was, the Diamonds lived a lot better than most of us in Parish.

When little Mercy got older, and her father was finally working as a real doctor, Mercy didn’t mind one bit that the raising of Roxy had fallen onto her young shoulders, because Maggie, who was Mrs. Diamond, now surely didn’t mind either. Mrs. Diamond spent so much time tending to that philandering Brotha’ of hers or rocking, that if you looked out the front window on any given day Mercy was caring for her some Roxy. It was a magnificent sight to see Mercy love a child so. She kept the child’s head in books, kissed her little sister, braided her long, curly hair or she straightened out her little clothes, tied her shoes and all of that, what many say a mother should have been doing for her child. Watching Mercy with Roxy was like seeing a Hallmark TV commercial. She always made sure she put that little girl before her own needs. Parish took heart to Mercy’s love for her sister, but Maggie was a hot mess, of the first kind. If Maggie was proud of anything it was how she had nurtured a shack on 105th avenue into being a home and how she found a good-looking Brotha’ out of Chicago and turned him into a pretty good doctor. Maggie made sure that she was always one step in front of the Jones’. The Pink Palace used to be a lot nobody wanted. The property was too large. There were too many weeds, and nobody wanted the place until Maggie begged Fred to buy it for her. And to her credit, Maggie fried all the rats that used to run up and down those tattered walls. She pulled up grungy clothes, Coca Cola bottles and whatnot. Wasn’t nothing to see her out there wrestling with filthy sheets, everything to turn that shack into a lovely home using hard work into making that old, forgotten hut into a remarkable little place to live, while Mr. Diamond proved his salt as a doctor.

***

Big Red, Roxy called out to her big sister one day. Roxy was a cute girl with a sweet, soothing, melodic voice. She loved Mercy’s red hair so much, little Roxy called Mercy Big Red. The name caught on and it fit the girl perfectly until everybody in Parish called her that. The first day she called Mercy Big Red was at Mabel’s mother’s house at the Parish annual picnic. We had one every year. Neighbors barbequed ribs, chicken and links, other’s baked peach cobbler, sweet potato pie and bread pudding. We had fun. That was in the good old days before the war when people respected one another. It wasn’t anything to go to a neighbor to borrow a cup of sugar or milk without somebody pulling out a gun to your head. That was a time when people could leave their door unlocked all night and not have to worry about somebody coming in. That was a time when we talked out a problem and shook hands on things, rather than wanting to kill somebody, and we hung our clothes out on the clothesline not worrying about somebody stealing em."

Well, on this day, Mercy was holding the sweet girl in her lap, sitting on Mr. Washington’s pleasing freshly mowed front lawn at a red picnic table. It was covered with a red and white tablecloth with a crystal bowl full of iced red punch placed smack in the middle of the table. Everybody was sitting there talking and eating, having fun. Music, Dorsey, Ellington, and Holiday was blasting in the background. Some children were getting wet in the sprinklers, while old folks sang along with Holiday, or they talked about war times and how good it felt to have a decent job. Young girls wore colorful cotton dresses, flapper hats, earrings and pearls as they flirted with the boys, whose hair was cut short, they wore white shirts, and lined Sunday pants with a belt around em’ and everybody was just laughing, smiling, drinking punch and having a wonderful time.

Mercy was kissing Roxy on her apple cheeks. She’d get a laugh from the joyful child and then she’d tickle Roxy and kiss her again, doing the things Maggie should have been there doing for her child. Mercy was always like a mother to her sister. We had asked Maggie to come too, but Maggie used every excuse in the book to stay away from the town gatherings, thinking people would forget her past if she’d never come around. She also feared that somebody would snatch that good husband from her, so when it came to the lovely Parish block picnics Mrs. Diamond faked a headache,

"Naw Ms. Thompson, Maggie said in her squeaky voice, Y’all go on without me today, I have a headache. I’ll send Mercy and Roxy over there. I got to get well for some important people from the hospital are coming over for dinner later," she’d say.

Okay baby. We understand that. Just send the chillin,’ on over. We’ll be sure they’ll have a fun time, my mom would say. Maggie couldn’t join the girls today or any day. It touched the town’s hearts to hear Roxy tell her sister Mercy: I love you Big Red, and everybody on that block was forever touched by how smart Roxy Diamond was and by how much she loved her some Mercy Diamond. When the town heard about what happened in the Diamond family pool in 1942, our hearts were broken. Had Maggie been watching those children properly; there’d be nothing to say about it.

***

"I want to get in the pool with you four-year old Roxy said to her older sister one lovely summer day in 1942. As a young teen Mercy knew from the moment her sister Roxy was born on her birthday that she was the best thing to ever happen to her family. Mercy had waited a spell for Maggie and Fred to have another child. The couple had struggled in the beginning waiting for Fred to become a certified doctor. So, Mercy was ten by the time Roxy came along. Mercy loved how such a small smart child had nicknamed her Big Red and she nurtured her sister’s incredible intelligence. Today, as usual her mother had left baby Roxy in Mercy’s care. Mercy didn’t pay it no mind. And as usual they were readying to go out to the backyard pool where it was not uncommon for Mercy and Roxy to stay all day.

Come on baby. Put on your red swimsuit, Mercy told her younger sister. It was hot in Parish, California this wonderful summer day of 1942 and the girls couldn’t wait to get out to the pool. Mercy, who rarely got in the water because of her Epilepsy – was still able to teach her beloved little sister how to swim and little Roxy had won several local swimming and diving awards, because she was Parish’s youngest champion swimmer. If you opened your window on any warm day you could hear Mercy teaching Roxy what to do and whatnot in that pool.

Keep your arms straight Roxy and kick harder! Mercy yelled.

I can do it! we’d hear Roxy say back.

I think you can too! the excited Mercy yelled back to her swimmer. It was a magnificent sight to watch those sisters and the love they had for one another. Mercy guarded Roxy like a fox in that water, but she rarely got in the pool because of seizures and whatnot.

I love you so much Mercy, she said one day as Mercy carefully buttoned up her sister’s one-piece swimsuit. They had been truly fortunate to afford an Olympic swimming pool because nobody else in the neighborhood had one. But Mercy let everybody in the neighborhood who wanted to enjoy that pool on a scorching sweltering day. Lord knows everybody in Parish was not that lucky to live like the Diamond’s did on a doctor’s salary. Mercy was generous that way, and Mercy was immensely proud to have taught Roxy how to swim so well. The striking chocolate young girl had these immense brown eyes and wild, curly hair that seemed to dominate her small thin frame. She had perfect white teeth and a smile that could light up New York City. Whereas Mercy was light-skinned with nappy, wild red hair and sick looking, beady green eyes. She loved her sister’s darker doll looks and vowed to protect her for the rest of her life to anybody that would listen.

Roxy is my own China Doll, she’d tell people.

One summer morning after breakfast – Mercy washed the dishes while her mother sat in that chair rocking and reading the newspaper. She had given them the same warning to watch it out there – as her father was just walking out the door to go to work at the local county hospital. Maggie had an irritating screech in her voice, like nails to a chalkboard that could chase a wild cat up a tree she sounded so bad. Every time she talked to her children, it sounded like she hated them. Fred did a little better with the girls – but he was never home enough to care for them properly.

Y’all be safe in that pool today, Fred Diamond warned his daughters, as they waved bye to him. Wearing a crisp white lab coat that sorry behind wife of his Maggie, made sure people knew Fred was a doctor. She made Mercy spend hours ironing and starching those white lab coats creases and all. Today as Fred got in his used, apple red 1942 Buick Road Master to go to work, he was so anxious to leave the house; he didn’t spend more than a few seconds talking to his kids, who had raced to their father for a kiss good-bye.

I’m a great swimmer Daddy, little Roxy proudly said to her father. The child was out of breath she was so excited to tell him that.

Daddy knows that baby. Got to go, he said kissing Roxy on the cheek and ignoring Mercy as he got into the car.

Come on baby. The sun is out and we’re gonna have a lot of fun today, Mercy said to her younger sister. If Mercy had a dime for the many times her father and mother had hurt her feelings, she’d have been a rich girl. Mercy quickly got over such ignorance so long as Roxy was there to love her.

Will race you to the pool, young Roxy said, as the two blissful children raced from the front yard to the gated area on the side of the house that would let them into the guarded pool. Soon as they let themselves into that gate, Mercy was careful to hold on to her sister’s tiny hand, while Roxy dragged her favorite blonde doll with the other one. Next the two girls sat with their feet in the water talking like they did every day for hours, waiting for their friends to come join them. Back then the only thing prettier than a child’s laughter was the blue robins that sat perched on the pink trim on the Diamond’s lovely home.

Chapter 2

I can’t wait until you are bigger so I can teach you about boys Roxy. The young Roxy looked up at her sister – unable to believe how much she loved her some Mercy and how lucky she was to have a sister that cared for her so nicely to want to prepare her for the world. Little Roxy’s heart did beat faster when Mercy was around. She loved telling her friends she had an older sister who was smart and, who was teaching her the world.

I love having a big sister. I will be in the kindergarten next year Big Red? she asked Mercy. Mercy leaned over to Roxy. You’ll have fun in Kindergarten like I did. I hope mother puts you on a pretty dress with a bow like I had on my first day. I can’t wait until you start school Roxy and grow up to be like me. I wish mama and daddy hadn’t waited so long to have you, Mercy said pushing back the long curls that had fallen on to precious little Roxy’s face. They laughed for hours never running out of things to say to one another. Roxy was an endearing child who got everybody’s attention from the moment people laid eyes on her. And the more people complimented her sister, the happier Mercy was about it.

What a fine-looking child, people would say about Roxy. They tended to remember that Mercy Diamond existed in such a lovely child’s presence. Today, Roxy was a mature little girl mostly because Mercy Diamond never ran out of things to teach her beloved little sister. Her mother rarely came out of the house except to bring them snacks or tell them it was time to come in. When it was time to read to Roxy before bed, Mercy did it because Maggie was forever tired. Mercy didn’t mind. She fixed her sister’s plate for meals, bathed her at night and enjoyed each moment she spent with Roxy. In fact, she looked forward to mothering Roxy where her own mother wouldn’t or couldn’t. Mercy never once complained of her enormous duties. Mercy couldn’t have been happier at this time in her life. Mercy had taught Roxy how to play chess and she could read better than kids twice her age. The young child was so smart; she could beat Mercy in many of the games she’d tutored the child.

Roxy, you beat me again! Mercy shouted gleefully, as they pushed the board game aside on the lawn table. Roxy’s favorite game was Chess and in no time, she’d beat Mercy in that too. Mercy was sure when they grew up they’d both be doctors like their father or checkout girls at the local supermarket, or maybe they’d even open a business together one day.

After board games they played in the heated water until mama brought them some chocolate chip cookies and pink lemon aide. Maggie told Roxy how nice she looked in the red swimsuit that Mercy had picked out for her that day. And then she scolded Mercy for being too fat in her yellow one. Maggie sat the plate of cookies on the white lawn table. Next, she wiped her hands on her white apron, picking up the board games to take back into the house as she scolded Mercy for being so large.

You’re such an ugly child Mercy for real. You’re fat you’re yellow like a stick of greasy butter. Maybe you should let up on the cookies today and let Roxy eat them and share them with the neighbors, their mother Maggie suggested. Maggie would say these things openly and if you had your window open it’d break your heart for poor Mercy. The insults from her mother and father were always so fast and furious that Mercy learned how to ignore them. She was already approaching two-hundred pounds at age fourteen. But despite all of that she and little Roxy ate each one of those chocolate chip cookies together. And then they played with the neighbors and let other kids that didn’t have a pool join in on their fun. Before long, the other kids had been called home for dinner and she and Roxy were alone again until Maggie called out the kitchen window telling them they had to come in too and please remember to bring in those glasses and that plate.

Just as Mercy turned her feet around to grab Roxy to pick her up out of the pool to take her in for dinner, she had an epileptic seizure and fell into the water. Acting fast little Roxy jumped into the water not having time to alert her mother that her older sister had fallen into the pool with another of her seizures. The fast-acting youngster looked to save her sister’s life. Mercy breathe! the little precious girl insisted as she pushed her much larger sister to a safer part of the pool. Without thinking about her own life, Roxy used her entire small body to boost a sinking Mercy away from the deep end of the pool and then up to the top, as she used her small arm to make sure that water did not get into her floundering sister’s mouth.

A thick white, foam raced out of Mercy’s mouth, while her body was jerking wildly as the strong Roxy struggled to get her larger sister out of the water. Little Roxy, a great swimmer - used all her strength to save her sister’s life, never doubting that she’d let Mercy drown. She swam underneath the much heavier Mercy, pushing and breathing hard to save her sister’s dwindling life until the younger child miraculously succeeded in getting Mercy to safe water. Next, Roxy pushed her sister up to the concrete begging her to keep breathing.

Don’t give up. Don’t you ever do that! The child pleaded. Mercy hung on struggling while Roxy climbed back up to the edge. Using all her might Roxy tugged on giant Mercy, keeping her sister’s head above the water just in time.

Mommy come quick, Roxy hollered. Mercy had water shooting out of her nose, ears and mouth but miraculously she was still alive.

Breathe Big Red. Don’t give up, Roxy screamed as Mercy struggled to spit the water out of her lungs. Thank God Mercy’s body had stopped jerking when little Roxy placed her mouth up to Mercy’s insisting that she breathes.

Breathe Mercy, breathe, the young child kept saying. Thank God Maggie Diamond heard the faint screams of her small child. Dropping a pot roast on the floor, Maggie raced outside in time to aid little Roxy in bringing Mercy Diamond back to life.

Thank goodness it wasn’t you Roxy, Maggie said, pulling on Mercy, getting her away from the edge of the pool. Maggie then pulled the heavy teen Mercy onto a dry beach towel and then she administered CPR cussing the big girl out between breaths.

"This could have been your sister you lazy cow. How could somebody as big as you are Mercy