Chapter 5 Jabali #2
“Same as me. She said she nine. But she little. I’m taller than she is.”
Nine.
Ten years since that Thanksgiving break… minus nine months of pregnancy. Nine-years-old. Heat rushed through me so fast I saw spots.
“That means Kyleigh left here with my baby, a baby that got my damn middle name,” I spat.
“Don’t jump to conclusions, man. I thought that was the other lady’s baby. That’s the only person I’ve seen her with. Well, Mr. Benton drives her places sometimes,” Braeden reasoned.
I shook my head, laughed once, sharp and bitter. “Nah. Aziza? Aziza and Azizi? Come on, man. Y’all hear that. Y’all know what that is. Much as she hated me when she left, why else would she do it?”
“Even Zo just said she be outside with Ms. Serena. I’ll bet Ms. Serena her mama,” he argued.
“No, Uncle Brae! Ms. Serena her teacher. Her mama be busy writin’ her books,” Zoriah commented.
She didn’t even look up from her gingerbread as she blew up my world. Somehow, I was on my feet. I didn’t remember standing up.
“Jay,” Truth said quietly.
Rage hit me so hard then my hands shook. Ten years of not knowing slammed into me in one second. I started for the door.
Zahara jumped in front of me, palm to my chest. “Uh-uh. Where you going?”
“Where you think?” I snapped. “Up that hill. She got my child behind a fence like a secret? For nine years? I’m not—”
“Jabali. Stop.” Ajani’s voice cut through, low and commanding.
I wanted to ignore him. To do that, I had to run over Zahara, though, and I would never do that shit. My whole body buzzed. “Y’all don’t understand,” I said, breathing hard.
“You right, it looks bad,” Braeden said carefully. “Real bad. But you charging up that driveway tonight, banging on that door ain’t gon’ fix nothing. You know that.”
“She hid my baby from me,” I said. “For nine years.”
“Jay…. You hid yourself, too,” Honesty said, her voice soft but deadly.
That one sank straight in. She didn’t sound mean, just honest, like her name. Always like her name, even when it hurt.
“You left, too. You stayed gone. Took crazy missions and tried to forget everything. We couldn’t even get you to come home when Uncle Brady died. I’m not saying she right to keep that baby from you. I am saying she didn’t make this mess alone,” Honesty said.
Zahara cupped my face, forcing me to look down at her.
“Listen,” she murmured. “I’m not on nobody side but that little girl’s.
Not yours, not Kyleigh’s. That baby didn’t ask for none of this.
If you go up there right now, banging on that door, yelling, you not hurting Kyleigh. You scaring that child.”
Her words sliced through the fury just enough to have me picturing a small, terrified face on the other side of that fence.
I leaned my forehead against the door frame, eyes squeezed shut. “So, what I’m supposed to do?” I asked. “Act like I didn’t just find out I got a daughter?”
Daughter.
The word felt strange and beautiful in my mouth.
“All right. I’m listening.” I dropped into a seat, waiting to see what they could possibly say.
“No, you not,” Zahara shot back immediately. “You vibrating. You one wrong word away from flipping a table.”
She wasn’t wrong. My leg bounced so hard the chair shook.
Truth started, “We just saying, think—”
“Man, I am thinking. And every thought in my head say I gotta see her. Tonight. I can’t sit here and eat chicken like I didn’t just find out I got a nine-year-old with my name under my nose.”
Braeden put his hands up. “Jay—”
“Nah.” I stood up so quickly Braeden reflexively balled his fists. “Y’all can stay. Y’all can talk strategy, lawyers, petitions, whatever. I’m going up that fucking hill.”
Ajani stepped in my path, eyes calm but firm. “You sure you want to do this like this?”
“No,” I said honestly. “But I can’t breathe any other way right now.”
Zahara cursed under her breath and grabbed her keys off a hook. “A’ight then. If you going, I’m going. I’m not letting you go up there by yourself acting crazy with no witnesses and no counsel.”
Truth pushed off the couch. “I’m rolling, too.”
Honesty sighed, got up, and snatched her coat from the back of the chair. “Loyalty, stay here with Zo,” she ordered.
“Yeah, I got this,” he said, suddenly serious.
The next few minutes were blurred. Coats, shoes, doors, chilly air, Christmas lights blinking like the whole block was watching.
We piled into two cars, me and Zahara in the front, Truth and Braeden behind us.
Ajani and Akeira followed. The drive up that hill felt too long but not long enough.
I barely registered the music on the radio or the way the town glowed around us.
My mind was stuck on one image: a little girl’s face in the dark by a fence.
Aziza.
Our tires crunched on the gravel near the Grindley gate.
The big house rose up ahead, the windows glowing with warm light.
On the second floor, the outline of a small Christmas tree and its blurred white lights were visible through one of the windows.
We didn’t drive through the gate. Instead, Zahara parked and killed the engine.
“Last chance to turn around,” she coaxed.
I opened the door without answering. The cold slapped me in the face, but I barely felt it. Behind me, I heard my family getting out. Nobody tried to grab me this time. They knew better.
Mr. Benton opened the gate for me again.
I approached the front door I had just left earlier tonight.
My knock wasn’t polite this time. I hit the wood hard, three times, enough to rattle the glass.
For a second, there was nothing. Then I heard Mr. Benton’s voice inside and footsteps.
The door opened a crack, security chain still on.
Mr. Benton’s eyes narrowed when he saw me—and then widened when he clocked the crowd behind me.
“Mr. Christopher, we were not expecting—” he began icily.
“I need to speak to Kyleigh,” I interrupted. My voice came out flat, deadly calm. “Now.”
His gaze flicked over my shoulder again, landed on Zahara, on Truth, on Ajani, on all of them standing there in the winter air, faces set.
“This is highly irregular,” he said.
“Mr. Benton, it would be best for everyone if you let her know her visitors include an officer of the court. We’re not leaving,” Zahara cut in, her voice in its crisp little lawyer mode.
He studied her for a moment. I guess he saw something in her eyes that convinced him that she was not to be played with.
He shut the door. The wait was only a minute, but it felt like forever.
My heart pounded against my ribs, hands itching to knock the damn door in if Kyleigh played with me.
I could feel my family at my back like a wall.
The door opened again, this time all the way. She stepped into the doorway with her chin up and one hand on the jamb like she owned the whole damn hill—which she did.
Kyleigh.
T-shirt, dark jeans, bare feet with pretty, pink-polished toes, like she’d had time to relax after I left.
She wasn’t wearing makeup now, just her bare face, tired but still so pretty.
Her eyes wandered over the crowd on her porch, then landed on me.
Her little dog launched into a fit of high-pitched barking, like he actually scared somebody.
“Max… it’s okay, boy. Max… calm down. Max… Maximillian Al Ca-Bone Grindley!” she finally snapped.
That almost made me smile. Mr. Benton scooped up the noisy little mutt, and they vanished. I knew he probably hadn’t gone far. He loved Kyleigh and was protective of her. He didn’t have to worry about her… physically. My eyes met hers.
“Mr. Christopher, I believe I was very clear earlier. You are not welcome here,” she voiced calmly.
The cold in her voice was cutting, but shorty had me fucked up. Earlier was business, and I played by her icy little rules. But this shit was personal, and I wasn’t backing down to her attitude.
“You was clear about trees. I’m not here about trees,” I said.
She raised an eyebrow. “Then you definitely shouldn’t be here.”
Zahara stepped up beside me. “Evening, Ms. Grindley. I’m Zahara Christopher. Tytus and Katelyn’s daughter. Jabali’s sister. I’m also an attorney licensed in the state of Louisiana.”
Kyleigh’s mouth tugged at one corner like she wanted to laugh. “Of course, you are. This town is so dramatic about—”
“I’m not here for drama. I’m here to make sure this conversation doesn’t go left,” Zahara interjected.
“This conversation shouldn’t exist. I already told him I don’t know him. I don’t know y’all. And he has no rights to anything or anyone on this property,” Kyleigh answered.
The words hit me like a hammer. My hands curled into fists at my sides.
“Say that again,” I said quietly.
She didn’t blink. “You have no rights to anything or anyone on this property,” she repeated. “This is private property. You’re trespassing.”
I locked my eyes on her. “Really? So, I don’t have rights to Aziza?” I growled.
She stilled, just stopped everything, even breathing. Then, in a soft lie that she didn’t even believe, she said, “No.”
“Then, what’s the significance of her name?”
She frowned. “Excuse me?”
“Aziza… Why you name her that?”
Her face didn’t give away much. Still, for a second, she looked like that anxious girl on the stage again. Then, her mouth curved into a cold little smile.
“Why does it matter to you? She’s my daughter and nothing about me concerns you.”
That wave of anger I was struggling to hold back threatened to submerge me again. “Kyleigh. You keep fucking with me, mama, and I—”
“Jay,” Truth’s voice was quiet, but enough to pull me back. I swallowed hard, trying not to crash out on her ass.
“I’m not asking about you. I’m asking about her. Why that name?”
I wanted her to say the words, to admit the significance. Behind me, I could feel the whole family holding their breath. She studied me, long and slow, like she was trying to decide just how much she wanted to fuck with me tonight. Finally, she laughed once. It was an ugly sound.