Part 2: Blood Don’t Always Make You Family Them Secrets Run Deep

Part 2: Them Secrets Run Deep
Atlanta, Georgia.
The city lights hit different when you runnin’ from your past.
Sheena sat in the passenger seat staring out the window while her best friend, Toni, swerved through traffic blasting old-school Keyshia Cole.
“You gone wear a hole through that window,” Toni muttered.
“I’m just thinkin’.”
“Nah, sis. You spiralin’.”
Sheena sighed and leaned back in the seat.
Three days.
That’s how long it’d been since her whole life got flipped upside down.
Three days since she found out the man she called Uncle Junebug was really her daddy.
And not just her daddy…
Her mama’s uncle.
Every time she thought about it, her stomach twisted all over again.
“You still ain’t answer none of they calls?” Toni asked.
“Nope.”
“Not even Marvin?”
That made Sheena pause.
Outta everybody in that family, Marvin was the only one who kept calling nonstop.
Voicemails.
Texts.
Even emails.
Baby girl please call me. I need to explain. I love you regardless.
Sheena rubbed her forehead.
“I don’t even know what to say to him.”
Toni smacked her lips.
“Well… technically he the only daddy you ever knew.”
“That don’t make this less sick.”
“Nah, it don’t,” Toni admitted. “Your mama foul as hell for hidin’ that.”
Sheena stared down at her phone.
Fifty-two missed calls.
Mostly family.
She blocked half of them already.
When they finally made it to Toni’s apartment in southwest Atlanta, Sheena felt like she could finally breathe. The place smelled like vanilla candles and fried fish. Music floated softly from the neighbor’s balcony.
Normal.
That’s all she wanted right now.
Normal.
But peace never lasts long when your family built on lies.
The next morning, Sheena woke up to an unknown number blowing up her phone.
Decline.
Phone rang again.
Decline.
Again.
“Girl answer that damn phone,” Toni yelled from the kitchen.
Sheena rolled her eyes and answered.
“What?!”
Silence.
Then an older woman’s voice came through soft and shaky.
“You Sheena?”
“…Who asking?”
“My name is Lorraine.”
Sheena frowned.
“Okay?”
“I knew your father.”
Her chest tightened instantly.
“Which one?” Sheena snapped.
The woman went quiet for a second.
“Julian.”
Sheena almost hung up.
“I don’t wanna talk about him.”
“But you need to hear this.”
Something in the woman’s voice made Sheena pause.
“What?”
Lorraine inhaled deeply.
“Julian wasn’t the only man in that family messin’ with young girls.”
The room got cold.
“What you mean?”
“I mean them Walkers had secrets goin’ back YEARS.”
Sheena sat up slowly.
“What are you talkin’ about?”
“Your grandmother covered up a lotta dirt. Your mama wasn’t the first victim.”
Victim.
That word hit different.
All this time Sheena been lookin’ at her mama like she was disgusting.
But suddenly…
What if Denise had been groomed?
Manipulated?
Broken long before Sheena was born?
Lorraine kept talking.
“Your Uncle June liked control. Everybody knew it. Some folks ignored it cause he had money.”
Sheena’s stomach turned.
“So why tell me this now?”
“Because your mama ain’t tellin’ you the full story.”
“And you know the full story?”
“I know enough.”
Before Sheena could respond, Lorraine said something that made her blood freeze.
“You need to ask Marvin why he stayed.”
Click.
The line disconnected.
“Toni!” Sheena yelled.
Her best friend rushed in holding a spatula.
“What happened?”
Sheena looked pale.
“I think… I think this whole thing way bigger than what they told me.”
That evening, Marvin showed up at Toni’s apartment unannounced.
Toni peeked through the blinds.
“Girl… your daddy outside.”
“He ain’t my daddy.”
Toni turned slowly.
“You sure about that?”
Sheena rolled her eyes but walked to the door anyway.
When she opened it, Marvin looked exhausted.
Like he hadn’t slept in days.
“Can I come in?”
“I guess.”
He stepped inside slowly, looking around awkwardly.
Toni grabbed her purse immediately.
“I’m finna go to Target. Y’all handle… whatever this is.”
The second the door shut, silence swallowed the room.
Marvin looked at Sheena with watery eyes.
“You okay?”
She laughed bitterly.
“That’s what you askin’ me?”
“I deserve that.”
She crossed her arms.
“So why you here?”
Marvin sat down heavily.
“Cause you deserve the truth.”
Sheena stayed standing.
“Ain’t nobody in my family know how to tell the truth.”
Marvin nodded slowly.
“You right.”
For a minute, neither spoke.
Then Marvin finally looked up.
“I knew you wasn’t mine since the day you was born.”
Her throat tightened.
“Then why stay?”
Marvin rubbed his face.
“Cause when your mama got pregnant… she was scared to death.”
“She should’ve been.”
“She was only fifteen, Sheena.”
That hit hard.
Fifteen.
“She told me what happened with Julian.”
“And you still stayed with her?”
“It wasn’t that simple.”
“It look pretty simple to me.”
Marvin’s eyes got glossy.
“You gotta understand the family threatened her.”
“What?”
“They wanted it buried. Said it would destroy the family name if folks found out.”
Sheena blinked hard.
“So everybody protected HIM.”
“Back then… people handled things different.”
“No,” Sheena snapped. “They handled things WRONG.”
Marvin nodded in shame.
“You ain’t lyin’.”
He looked down at his hands before speaking again.
“I stayed because somebody had to love you innocent.”
That broke something in her.
Marvin finally cried.
“I knew none of this was your fault.”
Sheena felt tears creeping into her own eyes now.
“I used to wonder why you treated me different.”
Marvin swallowed hard.
“Because every time I looked at you… I saw what they did to Denise.”
Silence filled the room.
Painful silence.
Then he whispered something that shook her again.
“But I loved you anyway.”
Sheena looked away fast before the tears fell.
All these years she thought Marvin hated her.
But maybe…
Maybe he was hurting too.
Then Marvin reached into his jacket pocket.
“There’s somethin’ else.”
He handed her an old photograph.
Sheena looked down.
Her breath caught instantly.
It was a picture of Uncle Junebug standing beside another little girl.
A girl who looked exactly like Sheena.
On the back, written in faded ink, were four words:
YOUR SISTER IS ALIVE.

Sheena tracks down the mysterious girl from the photograph and discovers Uncle Junebug had another secret family hidden in New Orleans. Meanwhile, Denise finally tells the horrifying truth about what really happened the night Sheena was conceived and why the family covered it up for decades.