Chapter 7
CHAPTER 7
JACOB
W hen I walked into the family barn, I immediately found a seat. My ankle was killing me. The minute I did, my phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out to see a message from Mekayla. My eyebrows hiked up, and I sat up straight in my chair.
We can talk tomorrow at your session. I have some things to say to you as well.
I breathed out a sigh of relief. She was going to give me a chance. I didn’t know what had happened to change her mind, but I was grateful for it. Letting my trauma overtake my life wasn’t a good thing. Trouble would always be there, but it was how we reacted to it that mattered. My reaction was fucked up because it was coming from a place of hurt. Talking about Joseph did that to me. This situation with the Andersons was wearing on me as well.
Not talking to Mekayla had only made things harder than what they had to be. If she was the woman I wanted, I couldn’t shut her out like that again. She was the woman I needed. Knowing that she could be the woman in my life even made me want to be better. She didn’t deserve a broken man.
“Nigga, you must be talking to a woman.”
I looked up and saw Kane standing over me. Quickly standing, I hugged him on his good side, being sure not to bump his other arm. He looked fine… like I was worried about nothing. “Man, how you feeling?” I asked.
“Better than you. I saw you walk in here. Whatever going on wit’chu, you need to fix it. It’s affecting your healing.”
I stared at him for a moment, and I knew he was speaking wisdom. He wasn’t just talking about physically. He was speaking about my mental as well. I nodded. “You sound like Uncle Kenny, but you’re right. Listen, I’m sorry about?—”
“Nigga! Don’t apologize to me no fucking more. Obviously, there is more going on than either of us know about. That’s why we’re having this meeting. Chill out. You saved my life. I love you, cuz. Let that guilt shit go. I’m fine. I’m gon’ get this arm back in shape, and I’ll be back on a horse before you know it. I’m a fucking Henderson, so I can’t go out like that… and neither will you. You got me?”
I slapped his right hand and smiled. “You speaking wisdom, lil cuz. I’m gon’ soak it up.”
Kane was only twenty, but Uncle Kenny instilled some shit in his kids that we didn’t seem to have at a young age. It was like he prepared them for adulthood while they were still kids. He groomed them to be responsible and to go after their dreams full throttle while exposing his own bad decisions and mistakes to drive his points home. He didn’t wait until they were about to graduate high school to teach them about the evils in the world, nor did he allow them to make excuses for shit.
We had evil right there in our house. My mama was just trying to survive and make sure we were okay. However, that shit made me na?ve to how shady and underhanded people could actually be. I didn’t know why when I saw how my own father treated us. Jameka had used me just like I was using her, but she was trying to make a come up. I was clueless to shit like that. I should have picked up on that before I even slid between her legs.
When Mr. Berotte and Mrs. Taylor walked in, Kane said, “I guess we finna get down to business. I’ll holla at’chu later.”
“A’ight, cuz.”
Uncle Storm shook their hands as Uncle WJ went to the mic. Everybody was here, even Malachi and his family. We didn’t see them much anymore since they’d moved to Houston. Malachi Junior was practically grown now and was a country rapper, like Mal did back in the day when he first started bull riding. I kept up with what was going on with them, although we didn’t see them as often. My grandfather and Mal’s dad were brothers, so we were close kin.
Mal’s brother and sister were in town with their families and their dad was here too. Whatever Shy had to say must’ve involved them in some way, and I was just ready to know what the hell was going on.
“What’s up, family?” Uncle WJ said, greeting everyone. “We have some serious issues that we need to get a handle on and rectify, or we gon’ forever be dealing with fuck shit from people. This situation doesn’t seem to be letting up no time soon. Shy and his team have found out some things we need to know. So, let’s give him our undivided attention.”
He nodded at Mr. Berotte then took his seat. Shy went to the microphone with a folder in his hand that seemed to be bursting at the seams. “I’m just gon’ get down to it, y’all. I’m gonna start from the present and go backwards so y’all can see this chain reaction in real time. This finna fuck y’all up. So, the first thing, Jacob, that ain’t yo’ baby. But you already knew that. The DNA test just proved to them that you were right.”
I rolled my eyes and sat back in my seat. Stupid bitch. We shouldn’t have even been going through this shit. Her foolery ignited this shit… probably all over again since there seemed to be some drama in the past that we weren’t aware of.
“So, Jameka pursued Jacob because of Courtney. They felt they could all somehow get Henderson men to take care of them. Kane got shot because Courtney’s younger sister, Shakima, wanted him, but he didn’t take the bait. So she told her cousin that Kane insulted her and called her a bitch.”
He rolled his eyes then looked at us from the paperwork. “Where do y’all find these ignant muthafuckas? I ain’t never in my life seen no shady, petty, jealous shit like this that spans decades.”
He shook his head as Uncle Storm chuckled. There wasn’t a thing funny, but that nigga could find humor in anything.
“So, Jameka’s mama got her ass handed to her back in the day by Tiffany over her trying to mess with Tiff’s boyfriend. Mama been carrying that with her all these years, so y’all had to pay for that shit.”
The way he was reading that foolery was comical as hell, although he was serious. It was reading like a whole toxic ass reality show. I wasn’t sure how he got his information, but apparently, it was all accurate so far.
“So, WJ, you remember a nigga named Dale?”
All eyes were on Big Dawg, and he looked to be thinking hard as hell. “I can’t say I do. From how long ago?”
“High school.”
“Man, that was over forty years ago. If he wasn’t in my circle, which mostly consisted of my family, I didn’t know him.”
Shy chuckled, but not in a way that was funny. He seemed completely blown away. “Well, you slept with his girlfriend in eleventh grade. He’s their cousin. I swear y’all, this shit is just getting better and better. Apparently, he was somewhat soft and didn’t say shit, because he knew he would get his ass whupped. There’s a lot of other petty shit in here. Storm, they just didn’t like your mean ass. They wanted to get at you too, but after you brought a gun to school, they chose to let that go. Nigga, you took a gun to school?”
Everybody laughed as Uncle Storm said, “Hell yeah. My name ain’t Storm for nothing. I’m destructive as fuck. I walked right down that hallway with my hunting rifle, ready to fuck that nigga up. He better thank God they caught up with me before I caught up with him, or y’all wouldn’t have seen the greatness I have become and the greatness I produced. I would have been locked up for life.”
Almost every person in the barn rolled their eyes, causing Shy to chuckle. He continued. “Jen, your name was mentioned in this too. Nothing you would have known about though. Just that they were jealous of your skin color and long hair.”
After flipping a couple of pages, he continued. “Y’all can read this shit on your own time. Is Mister Wesley here?”
My grandpa waved his hand at him, and I could see the room grow tense. The secrets he held nearly tore this family apart on a few occasions. “Good evening, sir. There was an incident with JT Sullivan back in the sixties. According to the police report, he was trespassing on your land and was trying to steal a tractor or something. Is that correct?”
“Yes, sir. I beat his ass before calling the cops.”
It seemed everyone released the breath they were holding. We could deal with shit like that. I thought he was gonna read that he’d fathered a child with them people that he wasn’t taking care of, like Uncle Marcus. “JT was Jameca’s grandfather. Who’s Thomas?”
Uncle Thomas was my grandfather’s younger brother and also Malachi’s dad. I figured his name would come up somehow for them to be here. He lifted his hand, and Shy asked, “Reesie was your wife, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
Shy rubbed his hand down his face. I could tell that whatever he had to say would be heavy. He looked back up at Uncle Thomas, and he seemed nervous to say anything. “It’s okay, Mister Berotte,” Uncle Thomas said. “I know she had an affair.”
Everyone’s eyes widened, and Mal stood from his seat in shock. “So, she had an affair with this same JT guy. There is so much intertwining between y’all and them, it’s unreal… unbelievable. There is record of her having a child not long after.”
Uncle Thomas lowered his head and shook it slowly. “My only daughter.” He turned to Cousin Rhonda, and said, “JT is her biological father. I took him to court to strip him of his parental rights since he was a known thug and drug dealer. I loved Reesie to the death of me. She cheated because I cheated first. I just didn’t make any outside kids. When she said she was pregnant, I knew it was his and so did he. Reesie told him because we hadn’t had sex in months. There was no possible way for the baby to be mine. Had she not told him, I could’ve just pretended you were biologically mine without taking him to court.”
Cousin Rhonda stood from her seat and walked out, her husband right behind her. This shit was a lot. My mama and Aunt Chrissy went after her as well.
“Please tell me you ain’t got much more, man. This shit is getting ridiculous,” Uncle Kenny said.
“Getting? This shit been ridiculous,” Uncle Jasper added. “Please tell me you about to wrap this shit up. I need to smoke.”
“You and everybody else,” Uncle Marcus added.
Mal was still pacing, but then he suddenly sat down. His wife grabbed his hand and kissed it, doing her best to console him.
“There’s one more thing. This shit finna blow y’all fucking minds. I kid you not. I had Ali go over the shit a few times to make sure he’d gotten the right information.”
He slid his hand down his face again. “Mister Wesley, Mister Thomas… y’all’s mother, Sedonia… she’s the product of a rape. The apples don’t fall far from the tree. Her mother was raped by Jameka’s second great grandfather. Her husband killed that nigga and raised the child… Sedonia as his own, just like you did with WJ, Mister Wesley, and how you did with Rhonda,” he said, turning his attention to Uncle Thomas. “Back then, rape was swept under the rug. The shit is sad. Basically, y’all kin to those muthafuckas… way down the line, but y’all kin.”
“Hell fucking no!” KJ yelled. “Fuck that shit,” he said, grabbing Cassie’s hand and damn near dragging her out of the barn.
When the realization of what bothered him hit me, my mouth dropped. Uncle Kenny, Aunt Keisha, Kingsley, and Kane ran after him. It was way down the line, but technically… Cassie was related to us by her biological mother. Cassie’s second great grandfather had raped my second great grandmother, producing my great grandmother. I felt like I wanted to throw up, so I could imagine how he felt. They’d just gotten back from Dubai, having the most peaceful time they’d had since they’d been together, only to find out this shit.
“I’m so sorry, y’all. This shit could be anybody’s story. There was so much rape and incest back in the day. Your own siblings are probably your cousins too. The point is, these people have been after y’all. When Sedonia married a Henderson, they were jealous of the family she married into. The Hendersons have always been a powerhouse family. Now let me tie all this shit up for y’all.”
He took a deep breath and flipped a few pages. “The Andersons back then were sharecroppers, meaning they leased the land and farmed on it. That land belonged to a white man named Frank Westinghouse. It was discovered that this man was sleeping around with the women in the Anderson family, some still young girls. A couple of them had babies from him, which tied their families forever. Well, guess who the judge is related to? That white family. And guess who’s being blackmailed by the Andersons with that information? Yep, you guessed it. The judge.”
“So let me get this shit straight,” Aunt Tiff said. “The Andersons can’t stand our black asses because we made something of ourselves. My great grandmother turned fucking lemons to lemonade by carrying and raising a child that reminded her daily of her assault. Then her daughter… my grandmother married a Henderson and leveled up in the game, adding insult to injury.”
“You right so far, Tiff.”
“Since they can’t win with our asses, they are recruiting help from that judge because they have secrets about his family that they are threatening to go public with, that could possibly destroy their family’s reputation.”
“Correct. Cassie’s biological mother, Shayla, has an ancestry account, and the judge is listed as one of her DNA matches. So, for her to be there the night Kane got shot makes sense. She already has an inherited hate for y’all too, but when Cassie married KJ, that shit tore her fucking insides up. She so damn jealous of her own daughter it’s ridiculous.”
“Ain’t no way we kin to those muthafuckas... Martha either. They not like us. I’m gon’ mess around and fuck up the first one I see after all this information. Sometimes you gotta pop out and show niggas,” Uncle Storm said.
That nigga was wearing that damn Kendrick Lamar song out like he was studying it. “Shit! How did Ali find all this shit?” Jakari asked.
“Man, I don’t know. I don’t ask questions, because that nigga will never say. He’ll kill me before he tells me his secrets. He’s always accurate as hell, though, as you could see by the info I provided and what y’all were able to confirm. I’m sorry all this shit seemed to destroy some of y’all, especially Rhonda, KJ, and Cassie. I’ll have to tell him what my homeboy’s nasty ass used to say once he can joke about it.”
“So how can we even fix this?” Uncle WJ asked. “I’m not seeing a solution. Is JT still alive?”
“No. He died a few years ago. There isn’t much you can do to rectify any of this shit. None of you were wrong for what you did. They started the shit with the rape back in the day. They shouldn’t be angry about your family’s reaction to their bullshit. I just don’t understand it, man. I swear, I was blown away earlier with all the shit Ali gave me. Mister Wesley and Mister Thomas, y’all have my respect. Mister Thomas, that was real man shit what you did. I hope you don’t have any regrets.”
Uncle Thomas swallowed hard and glanced toward the foyer where Rhonda was. “I just wish I would have told her instead of her finding out this way.”
The tears seemed to pour from his eyes. Malachi and Thomas Junior embraced their father, and I swore I was about to cry too. The shit was painful to watch. I couldn’t believe our family had been through so much with them niggas. It was like Romeo and Juliet without the love connection. My second great grandfather had killed one of those muthafuckas, and now, I had too.
I slowly shook my head as Christian made his way to me to help me from my seat. “So it seems like Courtney and Jameka reignited all this shit, huh? I wish we would have been thinking with the right heads.”
“You and me both. I think I’m gonna go meet Uncle Jasper. We finna be at the throne of grace together.”
“Shiiiid, I’m wit’chu.”
When we walked outside, Rhonda was seated on a bench between our mothers, crying her eyes out. I didn’t know if she’d felt like she didn’t belong or if she went through anything as a child to make her feel like something wasn’t right, but if she did, her questions were now answered. Uncle Thomas made his way outside as well, and Rhonda stood from her seat and ran to him, falling into his embrace.
I took a deep breath and nodded, knowing that they would get through all this bullshit. KJ, on the other hand, would take a lot longer. He married his cousin, no matter how distant; that shit would fuck with anybody. While it was distant, it wasn’t that damn distant. I knew it affected Cassie as well. Before they could fully get out of the door earlier, I could see the tears falling down her cheeks.
How do you knowingly continue to sleep with a woman, the love of your life, knowing that you’re related? That was the bullshit they would have to overcome, and I felt sorry for them. I was more than sure Karima would have her hands full in a little bit. I couldn’t dare reach out to her to talk to me when I knew she would be trying to help KJ and Cassie through their feelings.
I got in the truck with Christian, and we made our way to Uncle Jasper’s. I hoped Unc had enough shit for the entire family because I could imagine that no one would get much sleep tonight.