Chapter 4 #2
“Just your luck baby, I fried fish today,” she replied proudly. “It’s Crew’s favorite and Jassy girls too. I’m just trying to get something in both of them because they haven’t been eating as they should. Stubborn.” She replied, shaking her head.
“I’m not being stubborn mama. I just don’t have an appetite.”
“I know, but I told you just chew and swallow, baby. You don’t have to enjoy it. Once our baby gets out of that hospital, he is going to need his mama to have strength, right? Eating is important for that, am I right?”
“I agree,” I added, finally looking directly at Jasmine again.
She didn’t say anything back to me, but her lips pressed together slightly like she was trying not to let emotions rise.
“So how about both of y’all come in here and get a plate? I have fish, plenty of sides, potato salad, and some beans too. I don’t make them, my girlfriend from church does, but she is famous for her beans.”
“That sounds good,” I admitted. “I’m happy to be able to eat during the day again.”
“Oh yeah, I know you are, baby. Come on inside. Jas you come try and eat too.”
I held my hand out to help Jasmine up from the stoop. She hesitated for a second, glancing up at my hand like she was debating whether she should take it, but eventually her fingers slid into mine.
The second I pulled her up, I realized how light she felt.
Like grief had been eating at her physically too.
For a second she stumbled slightly once she got to her feet, and my hand moved to her lower back to make sure she didn’t fall.
As we stepped inside the brownstone, the noise from outside dulled behind us, replaced by the familiar sounds of family packed into a house together. This was the way it used to sound when Mecca would throw large dinners for our family and the close members of his organization.
When I walked into the kitchen, there was already a platter of fried fish sitting out on the counter along with a bowl of potato salad and a pan of rolls smoking and dripping with butter.
The whole kitchen smelled warm and seasoned, like the type of meal made with love instead of just ingredients.
Crew’s mama quickly started fixing both of us a plate making her blindness look like a minor inconvenience before waving me toward the kitchen table.
“Sit down Amir, baby.”
Jasmine sat across from me, resting her head against her fist like she was completely worn down mentally and physically.
Looking at her sitting there so quiet made me realize I really didn’t know what to say to her.
I wasn’t good at grief or comforting people.
I wasn’t Delilah and all I really knew was the Quran and what it taught me about hardship, loss, and faith.
Once the plates were set down in front of us, Crew’s mama remembered she needed to go speak to one of her daughters about making more sweet tea, so she hurried out the kitchen and left Jasmine and me sitting there alone together.
I started eating, and the food was good as hell, but after a few bites I noticed Jasmine was barely touching hers, only breaking apart tiny pieces of fish small enough to only keep a bird alive.
After hearing that she hadn’t been eating, I couldn’t watch her sit across from me and not eat anything.
That was making me enjoy the food in front of me less.
“You know, Jasmine,” I started carefully,
“I know me and you got two different religious backgrounds, but the Quran says that hardship and trials are part of life. Allah tests people in different ways, and sometimes pain can be the thing that bring you closer to your faith instead of further from it.”
“I’ve been trying to keep my faith, and today honestly helped a lot but.”
She stopped talking suddenly like she was afraid she had already said too much, but I found myself wanting her to continue. One thing Delilah had taught me was that holding shit in only made it heavier.
“You was about to say something else? Don’t worry, I’m listening.”
She stared down at her plate for a second before finally sighing.
“I just, I guess I feel so angry that I haven’t had space to have faith,” she admitted quietly.
“I’m filled with anger and so much regret about a lot of things, and even though I know I’m wrong for certain shit I’ve done, I still feel like I never did anything to deserve this.”
“That’s what I was saying about the Quran. It teaches that life is going to test us with trials and tribulations, but we have to put our faith in Allah even when we don’t understand what’s happening.”
“Yeah, that sounds good,” she muttered before looking at me curiously. “But can I ask you a question?”
The expression on her face almost reminded me of a child trying to understand something too big for them, and I wiped my mouth with the napkin beside my plate before nodding.
“Of course.”
“If you believe in the Quran so much, and what you just told me about trials and tribulations, why does your anger make you do bad things?”
“Bad things like what?”
“You know, what you and my brother do?”
“To be honest with you, some people deserve the shit I do to them in my eyes. And if I don’t feel like something is just, I won’t do it. Just like what happened with my brothers back in the day when they took Pernelle. That shit wasn’t right, and I knew it. That’s where my faith came in.”
“Yeah,” she said quietly. “I know that my faith has to come in for me during the times where I want to go over to Reggie’s fucking house and scratch his eyes out for not watching my baby as he should've. That nigga wouldn’t even tell me which cousins he was outside with at the time he got hurt.
Something tells me that they weren’t even cousins and just some random kids around his mama’s house.
He probably just won’t admit it because he knows I’m going to go left again on his ass. ”
Her voice got sharper with emotion the more she talked.
“I mean, I can’t believe they even had kids playing back there knowing that fire escape was broken, that was so fuckin dumb of him.” Her hand slammed down on the table.
“Yeah, something definitely needs to be done about that shit for sho.”
“And I don’t even have the strength to go over there and see what it looks like.
I know Reggie is mad at me for his own reasons, and weirdly sometimes I want to understand why, but at the same time I don’t.
You supposedly love RJ so much, but you let that happen to him and then you don’t even come see him anymore?
His ass has given up before he even knows the truth. ”
“You plan on finding out the truth? Besides how that fuck nigga Reggie feels, I’m sure Hov wants to know if that’s his son.”
“Yeah, I know,” she replied softly.
The look on her face started changing after that, and instantly I felt bad because I could tell the conversation was becoming too much for her emotionally.
“Excuse me,” she mumbled suddenly.
She pushed away from the table and hurried down the hallway, and seconds later I heard her throwing up her fuckin guts in the bathroom like her body was trying to reject every bit of stress and grief sitting inside her.
That shit didn’t disgust me at all. If anything, it placed more anger inside of me for her.
My empathy for women was the reason I been handing Delilah the way I do now, because seeing a woman sick had always done something to me mentally.
That's why I even been sending Amelia’s ass money every week.
I'm not sure if she was getting better but I know the money could help if she uses it the right way.
I couldn’t just sit there listening to Jasmine throw up her guts in the bathroom, so I quietly packed up my plate and walked out to the stoop.
“Yo, Pernelle,” I called out as I came down the steps.
“You might want to go check on Jasmine. She in the restroom throwing up.”
Pernelle’s face instantly shifted with concern.
“Ahh, damn, I was hoping she was in there eating something. I’m about to go check on her,” she replied, running back into the house.
I walked over toward the cars where Crew and the rest of them were standing around still smoking and talking.
“My boy,” Crew called out the second he saw me approaching.
“Did my mama hook you up with some of that good ass fish?”
I laughed lightly and nodded my head.
“Yeah, shit was fire too. I’m going to put my leftovers in the air fryer later on.”
“And it will still hit the same. I told niggas my mama throw down.”
“You not lying,” I agreed before adjusting my watch and glancing down the block.
“Well, yo, I have to slide. Some shit came up I need to handle.”
“Everything straight?” Crew raised his eyebrow.
“Yeah, I have some personal shit I need to take care of.”
“Aight then. Hit me up later, bro. Safety.”
I dapped him up before stepping away from the group. I told Crew I had somewhere to be, but little did he know, I was on my way to Jasmine’s baby daddy’s spot.
I only knew where that nigga lived because I had to talk Crew out of killing him two nights ago when he and I were riding to my crib together to get ammo.
The entire drive over there, he drove with one hand on the steering wheel while clutching his pistol so tight his knuckles looked pale.
When we pulled up to her baby daddy's spot, I had to remind him that he had too much to lose to throw his life away over revenge.
“But that nigga should’ve watched my nephew,” he kept saying angrily. “He should’ve watched him better than that.”
And honestly?
I agreed with him.
I just didn’t want to see Crew lose years of his life and miss time with his family because of one emotional decision. So eventually we pulled off, but I made note of the street and the home address as I always did.
Back then, I didn’t know why, but it eventually came in handy as I knew it would. I wasn't going to kill the nigga tonight and I damn sure wasn't going to do anything sloppy. This shit is premeditated to say the least.