2/Danielle #2
His face brightened at the sight of her. He and Mama have always been close, even when I wished they weren’t.
“Why don’t we all have a seat and talk about this like adults?” Mama suggested.
“There is nothing else to talk about,” I replied with a defiant tilt of my chin.
Mama nudged me in the hip. “Yes, there is. Now sit!”
I growled in protest but took a seat when it was the last thing in the world I wanted to do. Time was ticking. The only thing on my mind was going to find Ron and trying to work things out between us.
Alvin took a seat on my couch and rested his elbows on his knees. “Okay, I want to know what’s going on. Where’s Portia?”
“Probably still in the kitchen crying,” I replied with a snort.
Puzzled, he looked from Mama back to me. “Why? What’s going on?”
Mama intervened. “I sent her up to her room.”
“Can someone please tell me what’s going on?” Alvin repeated.
“She lied. All this time she’d been lying, claiming that she was pregnant by my man.”
“What! Pregnant by your man?” He shot out the chair. “I thought she was pregnant by some boy at school.”
“She is, but she lied and said it was Ron!”
Alvin shook his head with disbelief. I can’t help it if he is having a hard time accepting that Portia is no longer his little girl. Maybe this will help bring him out of la-la land.
“How do you know she’s lying?”
I wanted so badly to hit him. What in the world did I ever see in him? “Because I read her journal.”
“Read her journal?” He took a step toward me and gave a strangled laugh.
“You’re putting her out because of something she wrote in a journal.
” Alvin looked as if he wanted to say something else and would have if my mother hadn’t been sitting there.
“I’m going to go and talk to my daughter.
” He took the stairs two at a time and I heard him knock on her door.
“This has gotten out of hand,” Mama said, trying to sound calm, but I could tell she was not happy.
Well, too damn bad.
“No, the only thing out of hand is my daughter, and I don’t want to deal with it anymore.”
“Danielle, you can’t keep turning your back on your daughter.”
“Mama, I love Ron more than I’ve ever loved a man.”
“And you’ll probably love a handful more. What’s wrong with Calvin? He seems like a wonderful man.”
Just the mention of Calvin Cambridge caused me to sigh with despair.
“He is a nice guy, but he’s just not Ron.
” I hated that I was going to have to break Calvin’s heart.
We’d only been dating a few weeks, but I was going to get Ron back.
I felt a flutter at the pit of my stomach. I couldn’t wait to see him.
Mama snorted rudely, then rolled her eyes. “Ron is history. And it’s probably for the best.”
“The best for who? Definitely not me.” I rose and moved into the kitchen to start cleaning up. As soon as Alvin finished talking to his daughter, I was putting everybody out of my house and going to find Ron and make everything right.
“Danielle, you need to go upstairs with Alvin and talk to your daughter.”
I pursed my lips and tried my best to keep my temper. Mama hadn’t even been here an hour and already gotten on my last nerve. “Mama, I really would appreciate it if you would stay out of this. This is between me and Portia.”
“Then why did you call me over here? Huh? That’s what I want to know.” She planted her hands at her hips and started tapping her foot.
I groaned inwardly. “Because I know I would have strangled her if you weren’t here.”
Mama shook her head. I know she didn’t agree with the way I raised my child.
Too bad. I never wanted my daughter to turn out like me and my siblings.
A bunch of spoiled brats. We grew up in a middle-class family, and Kendall, Constance, and I got everything we wanted with a pout and a few tears.
Portia acted the exact same way, which was why she had my parents wrapped around her little finger.
When she was a little girl, I had thought the behavior cute, but over the years I learned that my child was a manipulator, and I’ve done everything in my power to try and nip that shit in the bud.
“Since you’re not listening, I guess I’ll go upstairs with Alvin.”
“Mama!” I stopped her from going upstairs to make the whole situation even worse than it already was. As soon as she saw tears, she’d start taking up for Portia’s lying ass, and I wasn’t having it. “Go home.”
“What?” she cried, shocked.
“I said, go home. Let me and Alvin handle this.”
She released a heavy sigh. “Fine. I got sense enough to know when I’m not wanted.”
I watched her leave, then took a seat and waited. When Alvin finally came back downstairs, his hands were tucked inside the slide pockets of his dress slacks.
Portia followed, came halfway down the stairs, and took a seat.
“Well?” I asked impatiently. “So how are we going to handle this situation?”
Alvin started popping his knuckles. He knows I hate when he does that. “I need a moment to get my temper in control, because after what my daughter just told me, I’m ready to go to jail.”
“Jail?” I barked as I glanced over at the smirk on Portia’s lips that she quickly shut down. “I told you before you went up the stairs that girl is lying.”
“She isn’t lying.”
Portia dropped her head.
“That’s all your daughter knows how to do is lie.”
Alvin was so angry, his gaze was shooting venom. “I’m going to have that thug arrested.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Portia, honey, go get your things. You’re going home with me.”
Obediently, she moved up the stairs.
Uh-uh, no, he didn’t just come in and make my ass look like I’m the one to blame.
I sprang from the chair. “Make sure you take all your shit, because you ain’t coming back here!”
Alvin rocked on the back of his heels and said, “You sound like a fool.”
“No, you’re the fool believing your daughter, but then she gets it honest so that explains it all.”
“That’s the reason why we’re not still together.”
“We’re not together because I left your sorry ass.” I put my fingers in his face and he had the nerve to laugh at me.
“I blame you for our daughter being pregnant.”
“What! How is spreading her legs with some nappy-headed boy my fault?”
“If you were giving her the guidance she needed instead of chasing after all those young thugs, none of this would have ever happened.”
I started laughing because I was so angry and because he sounded crazy as hell. “Go right ahead and press charges against Ron, and I’m going to let the entire world know what kind of tramp your daughter is.”
“Yes, well... and I’ll let the world know that if you weren’t so busy dating men half your age, this would never have happened in the first place.”
“No, if she’d kept her legs closed then none of this would have happened.” I was too through with him. “I don’t have time to be arguing with you. I’ve got something to do.” I turned on my heels, grabbed my keys and my purse from the living room.
“Where you going, to find that nigga?”
I pierced him with an icy look. “Don’t worry about me. Just take your daughter and be out of my house by the time I get back.”
I hurried to my Durango, then peeled out of the parking lot and immediately put the vehicle in drive.
My cell phone rang and I looked down to see it was Mama.
I didn’t feel like hearing her mouth because for once in my life, I knew what I was doing.
I loved Ron and he was my man and from now on, he had to come first.
I just don’t know how I could have been so stupid.
Something in my gut had told me my daughter, who had a habit of crying wolf, wasn’t telling the truth, but no, I listened to my friends and did the motherly thing and believed my daughter’s word, even though deep down I knew something wasn’t right. Even after Ron pleaded his innocence.
Portis had been a problem since she started high school.
Meeting men over the Internet. Running away from home, accusing a college student of manipulating her.
Portia had been out of control. And when she accused Ron of seducing her, I believed he fathered her child no matter how much it hurt me, because it was the right thing to do. What a fool I was.
As I drove, I thought about the last few weeks and had to blame my boo as well.
Damn you, Ron! If he had told me months ago that Portia had walked in on him coming out of the shower, then I would have known how Portia knew he was uncircumcised.
Instead, everything had spiraled out of my control and left me with no choice but to believe my daughter.
What mother wouldn’t? I know several hos that put their men before their kids.
I know of a girl in Portia’s class who had tried to tell her mother her stepfather had been abusing her, but her mother refused to believe her and kicked her out onto the streets.
Two days later, the girl hanged herself.
It had been all over the news. And that was why I had chosen to believe Portia.
Angry tears streamed down my face as I made a right at the next comer and then a left.