10,000 Hours With A Rich Menace (Caselli Family Book 1)

My mom always joked that I would be late to my own funeral because I was always running behind on time, and so unorganized. My mother had OCD, so growing up every room in our home was perfect.

Well, except mine.

She would always joke that she birthed her complete opposite, but we were thicker than thieves. After my parents’ divorce, my mother tossed me into everything to help soften the blow of my father being out of our home.

Although, he wasn’t ever there to begin with.

I don’t know how many times I had to sit in the middle of my bed and listen to my mother and father scream back and forth because my father was gone for more than a few days. She would scream, trying to get him to understand the effect of his daughter having an absentee father in the home.

He never cared.

It was funny that she said I would be late for my own funeral, and I was on time for hers.

Well, it wasn’t funny.

I stood in front of her casket, and stared at her beautiful chestnut skin, her favorite peach lipstick that she would buy from Mary Kay covered her lips. Her curly hair was pushed back away from her face, and she looked like she peacefully resting.

Like I usually found her when she came home from a long day of work. As a therapist, she sat and listened to everyone’s problems, and no one ever listened to hers. Every time she came home, she would say, “Stevie, my brain is just tired,” and would go rest on the couch to avoid oversleeping before dinner.

The couch was her favorite place to sleep and enjoy her time. So, it was no coincidence when I came in from work and discovered her napping on the couch. After showering, painting for a bit, and then deciding on dinner, I decided to wake her up so she could change out of her work clothes, and we could enjoy dinner together.

Her hands was cold to the touch, and she had no life or breath in her body.

Gone.

Long faded from the world where I was. My mind wouldn’t allow me to believe that she was gone. It told me she was napping, and I needed to continue to prepare dinner for her. My heart nor my mind couldn’t take my mother being gone.

She was my best friend. My everything, and the only parent that I had. My father had always been in and out of my life, never sticking around for too long. He was an associate more than a parent.

As much as my brain and heart wouldn’t accept reality, here I stood in front of her casket in a small church in Flatbush, Brooklyn, with a few of her colleagues, my cousin, Skyler and her mom, and the man from her favorite corner store saying goodbye to her.

I heaved a deep breath as the tears fell down my cheeks. I’ve always been such a time bomb, never knowing the proper timing to show up somewhere, being messy, and always forgetful. I talked to myself most days and even answered myself. It was safer to live in Stevie’s world than the actual real world. My mama was the person who kept the train wreck on its track and now she was gone.

Forever.

“Whenever you’re ready we can go,” Mario, my boyfriend, put his arms around me and gave me a tight squeeze.

I looked up at him, his bronze skin, curly hair, and freshly plucked eyebrows. Mario was way too pretty to me, and it was to be expected. I met him on a photoshoot set while working as an assistant. I was fixing one of the model’s nails that day, and Mario came over and asked me to give him a quick manicure.

His height and perfect chiseled cheeks was enough for me to give him the manicure, and instead of offering me a tip or something since I wasn’t his assistant, he slipped his number to me on my way out.

I would have much rather the money.

Still, this was a model that clearly was interested in me, so I couldn’t turn him down over non-payment for a funky manicure. Oh, how I wish I would have turned him down because the pressure for sex, attitude problem, and his fear of commitment had been more of a headache than the damn manicure.

I continued to try with Mario, knowing that neither of us were going anywhere. He didn’t want to be in a relationship because he wanted to do him, and I was just being strung along for the ride.

My mom told me she thought I was settling by being with Mario, and I didn’t understand what she meant. Mario was a model, and from the amount of women that stayed under his comments, he was well wanted from all walks of life.

And he wanted me.

Well, only a piece of me since he couldn’t seem to commit to being my boyfriend and wanted to keep things light.

What did that even mean?

The creak of the old wooden church doors caused us both to turn, and I landed eyes on my father. Steve Raye. My mother was so in love with my father that she decided to make me his namesake, with a little extra flare.

Everyone called him Raye, and it been like that for as long as I could remember. He came in dressed in a black suit, with his hands tucked in his pockets and his head down. Too ashamed to look me in the eyes because he showed up late to his own ex-wife’s funeral.

Not only that, but he also refused to help me with her funeral arrangements. Mama had health insurance so that paid for everything and left me behind a decent chunk of change. She worried, so I knew she wanted me to be taken care of well after she was gone.

My mother was an only child, and her parents had both passed on. Aside from a cousin or great-aunt here and there on her side, she didn’t have much family. My uncle, cousin, and aunt were all from my father’s side. It had always been just the two of us, and with as much love as my mother had given me, I never needed anything else.

Tessa Raye was the most overbearing loving mother that I could have asked for. At times we would butt heads because she wanted to control my life. While I lived my life day by day, my mother planned her entire day and life down to the second.

Despite our differences, she was my best friend, and she always meant well. I feared what would become of me now that she was gone. I didn’t have any one to wake me up when I overslept in the morning or reminding me of important things that I would always push off until the last minute.

“Hey Baby Girl.” My father made it to the front and peered over at the casket, at his ex-wife. I was old enough to know that Steve Raye was the love of my mother’s life, but she wasn’t the love of his.

Gambling was.

Even at fifty-five, he was sharp as ever with his low-cut fade, thick beard, and freshly lined hairline. His coca skin glistened and he smelled like coconut butter and shea butter combined, the only vivid thing that I remember about him.

“Hey.”

Mario kissed my temple and left me alone with my father, standing in front of my mother’s casket. I thought he would have been first to go, not her. Honestly, I would have been happier if he went instead of her.

I needed my mother.

“She looks beautiful,” he broke our silence.

Skyler’s mother sucked her teeth, clearly disgusted that my father had bothered to show his face.

“I did her nails.”

“Hmm.”

I move closer and stared at her once more before kissing her forehead. “I love you, Mommy. I promise I will make sure I keep it together… whatever it is,” I sniffled.

My father stood there unsure of what to do or what to say. He should have said sorry. Sorry for not being there as a husband or a father. Sorry for stringing a woman as great as my mother along for years, knowing that he had no intentions of being a good person, husband, or father.

All Steve Raye cared about was himself and gambling. Give this man ten dollars and he would bust a blood vessel trying to turn it into a hundred. For as long as I could remember, I had sat with my father in underground casinos while he tried to double his money.

A few times he had people knocking on our door looking for him because he owed them money. Steve Raye’s favorite words were, “You know I’m good for it.” He was in fact never good for the money.

“Stevie, I know I haven’t been there for you. I’m in a good place right now… got this gig lined up and the money is good.”

He was too stupid to realize how much of a slap to the face it was to hear that he had a good thing going and couldn’t contribute to helping me bury my mother? I wasn’t even concerned about the financial aspect of it. He could have made a call, arranged the church, something would have been anything while I mourned my mother.

I was her only child so everything was left up to me handle – alone.

“You always in a good place, but it’s never mentally.”

He screwed his face up. “You sound just like that damn woman.” Skyler gasped when the words left his mouth.

I had heard my mother tell him that more times than a few and he always brushed her off. Never wanting to change for his family. “That damn woman was my mother… your ex-wife. She deserves to be addressed as more than that damn woman, Raye.”

He choked. “I am still your father, Stevie Raye.”

“When? When have you ever been a damn father to me, Steve? What doctor appointments have you ever attended or school conferences you sat in on? When mama was tired and doing it all alone, where were you? So, please spare me with the bullshit of being my father only when it’s convenient to use. Where have you been since I called you to say she passed? Your fucking daughter called you distraught and you took four days to get back to me… so Steve, move the fuck around and leave me alone.” I shoved past him, walking down the aisle and out of the church.

What the fuck has Steve Raye ever done for me? The only person I ever had was about to be buried six feet into the ground. It was Stevie Raye up against the world – alone.

Some family.

No friends.

Alone.