Chapter 10 #2
“Yeah right. What do you call tossing it in the cart when I’m not looking?”
“How was I supposed to know that you weren’t looking? Ain’t nobody watching you that hard. Now c’mon I’m tryna get home and get out of this shit.” She was right but I wasn’t about to tell her that.
Namari
When I left my mother’s burial I went home. Not only the physical home, but also the home that I’d build inside of another. Not a moment went by that I didn’t think about how I almost lost that home. I almost lost her and that tore me up inside.
Blood was everywhere, it was coming out of her mouth and all of the holes in her body. I didn’t know what to do, but I had to get her to the hospital as fast as possible. I needed her to make it through this.
“Run the fucking light, Kasey!” Aura yelled at his brother. They were both in the back seat while I sat in the back cradling Surah’s body against mine. I needed her to make it through this, but it didn’t look good. Blood was everywhere and she kept trying to talk.
“You gotta stop talking, baby girl.”
“I…I.” More blood came through her mouth.
“No, you gotta get through this shit because I need you. I need you, wife.”
When I pulled up to the house, I wasted no time parking and getting out of the car.
Loosening my tie, I ascended the four stairs into my home.
The nurse that I hired to care for Surah opened the door.
She’d just had her final surgery a few days ago and the doctors restricted her to bed rest, but my baby didn’t understand that shit.
The second day after she was up claiming she was bored.
“She up?” I asked not wasting any time greeting the nurse.
“Yes. She refused her pain meds earlier.”
“Why didn’t you call me?” I asked walking further into the foyer toward the stairs. After she didn’t respond fast enough, I started to climb the stairs toward my bedroom. I’d ask her hardheaded ass myself.
“Because she—”
“Because she is grown. Because she is tired of staying in the house on pain and anti-anxiety pills.” Surah’s annoyance was evident and flowed directly through her tone as she finished the nurse’s statement for her.
“I know she better sit her ass down before it be problems in this motherfucker.” I walked into the bedroom and ended her little angry crusade. She was just healing from her fourth fucking surgery and her doctors all said the same things, she needed to give herself time and rest.
When I saw that she wasn’t in the bed, I was about to throw a fucking fit, but before I could open my mouth, I heard the toilet flush. Then after the water came on for a few seconds and went off she opened the door and stalked into the bedroom.
“Are you refusing your meds shorty?” I asked.
“Yes. I’m not in pain and they make me high. Plus, I don’t have anxiety or depression. I’ll take the antibiotics, but that’s it.”
I just looked at her. She sounded about right, and I damn sure wasn’t about to stuff those fucking Narcos down her throat. I didn’t like the fact that she had to take them in the first place.
“How was the funeral?” Instead of going back to get in the bed she walked up to me.
“Like the funeral of a straight up crackhead. There was nobody there but me, Niema, the funeral people, North and Ommy. Don’t nobody really give a fuck about a crackhead dying.” I shrugged.
“Namari.”
“What?” I grabbed her hand and pulled her back toward the bed so she could sit down. She might not have been sleepy, but the incision in her abdomen told me that her ass needed to be seated.
“She was still your mom, no matter how fucked up her choices were.”
“Nah. She was a mother to that dope. At first, I wasn’t fucking with that, but I’m cool with it. At least she died the way she lived.” I shrugged then decided to change the subject. “You’re giving that nurse hell, ain’t you?”
She laughed. “Nope. I told her I wasn’t in pain and that she could go home, but she insisted on staying here. I wonder why? Let me find out she’s trying to do more than her job and not even a surgery will keep me off her ass.”
Now it was my turn to laugh. “Ain’t nobody looking at that damn lady.”
“Good. Can we get some food?”
“I’ll order it. What do you want?” I already knew she wanted more than the food. She wanted to get out of the house.
“No. We can go get something and maybe go to Target? You did technically move me into your house, and I don’t have much here. Remember when you went to get me pads? You brought me back diapers.”
“Okay and? The bitch at the store said they were good.”
“Namari.” She gave me that expression that had me ready to bend to her will.
“Fine. But you’re riding in one of those chairs and afterward we might fuck around and stay at my brother’s house. That way we ain’t gotta rush back out here tonight.”
Immediately she got to nodding her head excitedly. I could understand why she needed some time out of the crib, but I wasn’t about to let her exhaust that. I was giving her ass two hours tops then we’d be in the comforts of North’s place.
While she got her shit together, I called my brother.
“Where are you?” I asked the moment he answered the phone.
“On my way home, bitch. Why are you all over here? Are you good?”
“Yeah, we’re sliding through in a bit. Shorty needs some air. Is my sister cooking?” I had fucked around and had some of Ommy’s chicken noodle soup a few weeks ago, now I was hooked on whatever she cooked.
North laughed. “Nigga yeen slick.”
“Ain’t tryna be. That’s my fucking sister. She said I could eat whenever she cooked.” His ass was stingy, and he knew it.
He laughed me off. “We’re headed to pick up Ssiah. We should be at the crib in a few.”
When I hung up with my brother my eyes found themselves on Surah.
I was in deep dumb ass love with her little ass and the night everything went down solidified that for me.
The fucked up part about it was that I still didn’t know who pulled up shooting, and not for my lack of trying.
I told myself that once she was out of the woods I’d bleed these fucking streets, but then my mother died.
It didn’t matter to me though, because nothing would stop me from finding out who came through blasting that night.
Right now, they probably thought they got away with some shit, but I was determined to catch a nigga when he least expected it.
I wanted a nigga’s head when his guards were down, and he was on top of the world.
This shit was far from over, but I took great pride in letting a nigga think it was.
Just like I thought she would, she got her ass lost in this fucking store talking about all of the shit she needed.
I couldn’t believe I had even allowed her ass to drag me in here, it was a fucking trick because I for sure only expected her to be able to go through this store for about twenty minutes.
Especially because they didn’t have any of those moving chairs.
“Yo, we’re about to get out of here.”
“Why? I’m ok—”
“Surah, is that you? Oh my God girl I thought you—”
“Bitch go find you some business.” Surah didn’t even get the chance to look away from the shampoo aisle she was obsessed with.
“You don’t have to talk to me like that. She’s still my fucking friend even though we had our misunderstanding.”
Surah started laughing. “Girl bye. Baby, do you want to try the Tea Tree mint or Vanilla-Coconut?” she had dismissed Bobby and now she was focused on me.
“Get both of them.” I didn’t take my eyes off old girl’s snake ass.
She was the type to hit my bitch with a buggy to get her lick back.
It would be just her luck too because I didn’t go anywhere without my shit.
For old girls’ sake I was glad that she walked away.
I didn’t have to catch a body in my girl’s favorite store.
We spent about an hour longer in the Target before I told her ass we had to go or we weren’t getting shit.
That was enough for her to follow me to the register.
After we did the self-checkout, I paid for everything and we left.
I was glad for that, because I was starving, and she needed to sit her ass down.
Fuck it, I needed her to sit her ass down.
It didn’t take us long to get to my brother’s place considering this nigga stayed in the busiest part of the burbs.
I didn’t know how he dealt with it. Folks were too loud and those damn trains.
I hated anything that was unnecessarily loud.
The closest things to me were the trees and that gave me nothing but peace.
“Did you call yo’ mama back?” I asked her when I parked in North’s driveway.
“No. I will but she wasn’t calling for me.
She was calling to check on her son-in-law.
” Her facial expression after saying that had a nigga cracking up.
I met her the night at the hospital and then had her out to the crib for two weeks while Surah recuperated.
She would’ve still been at the crib had Surah not put her out.
I liked her moms, and she said exactly what the fuck was on her mind at all points.
“You mad? Fuck it, give mom dukes my number that way she ain’t gotta call your funky attitude having ass.”
“I don’t have a funky attitude. I just don’t understand why she is so attached to you. Does she not realize that you have a stank ass attitude and you’re mean as fuck?”
“Because you are. Girl, you love me, just like I love your crippled ass.”
“Namari.”
“What? Say you don’t.” I sent a mug in her direction.
“I do love you, but you didn’t have to call me crippled asshole.” She crossed her arms across her chest.
“Aight, I’m sorry yeen cripple. Lemme kiss it and make it better.” I leaned across the middle console to kiss her.
She leaned forward to kiss me but stopped a few inches in front of me. “Tell me you love me back first.”
I smiled. “I love you too, Surah.”
Then she smashed her lips into mine. When I pulled back, I got out of the car and adjusted myself before going to her side.