Chapter 16 #2
Fifteen minutes later I was dressed, hygiene handled, hair pulled back, and I made my way downstairs.
When I walked into the living room, my father’s eyes lit up the second he saw me.
Something in me felt like a little girl again.
No matter how pissed off I was, the love for my father was still there.
“Good morning, baby girl,” he said, then caught himself. “I mean, Tatti.”
“Dad,” I greeted him, dry, no warmth behind it.
Kaseem told me he’d be in the next room if I needed him, then left us alone. I motioned for my father to sit on the couch, and I sat across from him instead, keeping that distance on purpose.
“You wanted to talk to me,” I said. “So talk.”
He sat there for a second, hands clasped together between his knees, and I could see him gathering himself up before he actually started.
“First,” he said, “I want to say I’m sorry I disappointed you.
That’s the one thing in this life I never wanted to do to you.
You are my baby. My first baby. And the place you hold in my heart, ain’t nothing or nobody ever gonna fill that space.
Yes, as a man, I made mistakes. Plenty of them.
But as your father, I always tried to do what was right by you. Even when I didn’t always know how.”
“If that’s the case,” I said, my voice going hard, “why’d you sell me off just to cover yourself? That don’t sound like love to me. That sound like a man protecting his own name and not worrying about what was in my best interest.”
“I didn’t sell you off,” he said, shaking his head.
“I been around this family a long time, Tatti. I knew Kaseem since he was a little boy. I knew you’d be in good hands, or I never would’ve agreed to none of it.
They needed the connection, and I needed to stay in their good graces to protect what we built also.
So yeah, I gave your hand in marriage. But not the way you thinking. ”
“So you didn’t do it so the murder and the affair could stay covered up?”
“Tattiana.” He looked at me straight on, no flinching.
“I know you might not believe this, but I didn’t murder him.
That whole thing was set up to look that way, and I have been trying for years to figure out who set me up to possibly take the fall for that.
I can’t for the life of me crack it all the way open, but I’ve been working it myself this whole time.
I can show you everything I got so far, if you want to see it.
” He paused. “As far as Lashara goes, that started off as a mistake. I ain’t gonna sit here and tell you it wasn’t.
But it turned into something we both needed at the time.
I’m not proud of it. But I will tell you, I love her.
She’s been good to me. And she a good mother to our daughter.
” He spoke honestly and that stung my heart.
“So you just don’t love Mom no more? You don’t think this gonna hurt her?
Now, I’m not gonna sit here and pretend she ain’t been nothing but a pain to me since I was a teenager, but I still don’t want this for her.
You are everything to her, and all she ever cared about was how you’d feel and what you’d think.
” I said, replaying what she’d told me when she found out about my pregnancy.
She was willing to disown me for her husband’s reputation.
“If we finna have this conversation,” he said, his voice going low, careful, “we got to lay it all out. No matter how ugly or heavy the truth may be. You ready for that?”
“Yes,” I said. “I need the truth. All of it.”
He nodded slow, like he’d been waiting years for somebody to actually ask him for that.
“Tatti, I know everything about you. Every small detail another person would miss completely. When you were a kid, I could tell when you were dehydrated just from looking at your skin and I’d make you double up on drinking your water.
I could tell when you wasn’t sleeping enough just from the way you moved through the house, and by the way you talked.
That’s when I’d make you go to bed earlier.
I knew when you were sneaking and talking to boys in high school before your mother ever caught wind of it.
I know it all, cause I been watching you your whole life and I know my child. ”
His voice started catching a little.
“So I knew, when you came back from your aunt’s that summer, that you were different.
Your light was gone, Tatti. You lost interest in everything you used to love.
You gained weight after being the same size for years straight.
I knew something happened to you but I couldn’t figure out exactly what it was.
Then when I saw that little baby girl, I never believed Nariyah was Shantel’s daughter, not for one single day.
She looks just like you. I know my daughter.
And I damn sure know my grandchild when I’m looking right at her. ”
Tears started building up in my eyes hearing that.
“I been paying the mortgage on Shantel’s house for the last five years,” he said, “ever since I figured it out on my own. Your mother denied it every time I brought it up. Your aunt denied it too. But I felt it in my heart the whole time. I knew that little girl belonged to my daughter.” He shook his head slow.
“And then the way your mother started treating you after that, the coldness, the way she held something against you, that’s what pushed me further and further away from her.
I couldn’t stand watching her look at you like that nor treat you like that.
Anytime I’d call her out on it, things blew up into a huge argument. ”
“So why didn’t you just ask me?” I said, my voice breaking. “Why didn’t you just come to me and ask me what happened?”
“Yes, I was wrong for not pushing harder for the truth,” he admitted, and his own eyes were wet now too.
“Part of me didn’t want that confirmation, part of me didn’t want to hear the truth out loud.
That would have made things too real. All I did was step up and show you more love, hoping one day you’d trust me enough to come tell me yourself, in your own time.
I ain’t want to force it out of you and make you feel cornered all over again. ”
He wiped at his face.
“That whole situation, watching what it did to you, watching your mother turn cold on her own daughter for making a human mistake, that made me stop loving her the way I used to. And unfortunately, I cheated behind that. Then I fell in love with Lashara. It was never supposed to go that far. But it did. Neither one of us were happy in our marriages anymore and we leaned on one another unintentionally.”
I sat there crying while he talked, everything in me softening a little even though I didn’t want it to, even though part of me still wanted to stay angry at him the way I’d been since I found out about his affair and his other child.
His explanation of why he did what he did, that didn’t make things any better. But sadly, I understood what he meant..
But hearing that he’d known the whole time that I had a child of my own, that he’d been quietly taking care of Nariyah and helping my aunt without anybody knowing, that he’d been carrying his own version of this secret right alongside mine, that changed something in me.
It made the revelation of his secret life sting a little less.
“I don’t forgive you for everything,” I said finally, wiping my face with the back of my hand.
“Not yet. There’s still a lot I got to sit with.
But I understand you more now than I did yesterday.
And I’m willing to be open to starting over with you, Dad.
Slow though. You gotta give me time. I need to process all of this. ”
“I can do that,” he said, nodding fast, relief washing over his face. “However long you need. I’m not going nowhere.”
“What are your plans for your marriage? You can’t keep this up. You need to be honest and leave mom if that’s what you want.”
“Leave? You know it’s not that simple. It’s years, money, and time invested into my marriage. Me leaving would kill her.”
“You keeping up a double life will kill you. It’s too much lying to keep up with on a daily.
Don’t you know people have the right to change their mind and no longer be in a situation that they feel doesn’t serve them?
You are only hurting yourself right now.
Don’t be miserable trying to make her happy.
Leave if that’s not where you want to be.
And as far as Lashara, I don’t respect how you two got started, but if you say you love her, I’ll have to try and be okay with it, but only when you do it the right way.
You have to know, it will never look right for you to have your partner’s wife on your arm, but that’s not my call to make either. ”
My father sat with what I had just said, and I saw his mind spinning.
He nodded slowly, and we started another conversation.
A part of me was feeling relieved, it was clear that I have been missing him, and didn’t want to admit it.
In this moment, I appreciate it my husband for forcing me to have this shit out.
For the rest of my talk, my father, continue to apologize and tell me how much he loved me.
He spoke so highly of his other daughter, and wanted nothing more than for us to have a relationship.
I allowed him to show me pictures, and tell me all about her.
As hard as this was, it was my reality, and I had to deal with it.
To have a toddler sister was insane. But, nothing about my life surprised me anymore.
My seven year old daughter, had a four year old aunt.
All that I could do was shake my head.. I made sure to let my father know how crazy that sounded, too, thankfully, today, we could actually laugh at that.