Chapter 12 - Kyleigh
If anybody had told me a month ago that I’d voluntarily get in a truck to go buy Christmas decorations with Jabali Christopher and two nine-year-old girls, I’d have blocked their number.
Aziza and he had plotted this mess yesterday, when I was still too dazed from his kisses to object.
I was still stuck wondering how that happened, why that happened, and most irritatingly, when it might happen again.
But for the moment, here I was, standing in my foyer, watching him walk in with another child at his side like it was the most regular thing in the world.
Aziza squealed when she saw her. “Zozo!”
“ZiZi!” the other little girl yelled back.
They collided in the middle of the foyer, hugging so hard they almost took Max out at the knees. He dodged at the last second, whimpering like he was offended, but wagging his tail anyway.
I knew Aziza had made friends with a little girl who walked by sometimes when she was at the bottom of the driveway with Serena.
How ironic that she belonged to Jabali. She was probably how my secret had been found out.
I stared for a second, taking ZoZo in. She had deep, glowing brown skin, those beautiful, liquid brown eyes, and her hair was in two big puffs, gold ribbons tied around them.
She had that same “I’m cute, but I fight” energy Aziza had.
It made sense… they were sisters, after all.
The daughter Jabali had had with Donique was gorgeous, but my stomach did something ugly.
Not toward her; never toward this baby. A child didn’t ask to be part of grown folks’ mess.
It was just the proof of Jabali’s relationship with Donique.
That pissed me off because I was supposed to be over it, beyond caring.
When I was pregnant and hiding in Houston, Donique had been posting pictures in Emancipation looking very unpregnant.
I thought she’d had an abortion. I knew they’d gotten together again after I left.
Maybe this baby had come after Zi was born.
“Hi, baby. It’s nice to meet you. I heard you and Aziza been talking through the fence,” I greeted, shaking her little hand.
“Yes, ma’am,” she said politely. “I’m Zoriah. Thank you for letting me come help y’all pick ornaments.”
“Of course. I’m glad your daddy brought you,” I said honestly.
I knew my baby got lonely sometimes. A sister around her age would be a perfect playmate… as long as Donique had matured. Jabali’s hand on my arm pulling me around snapped me out of my reverie. He was frowning at me.
“What are you talking about, Kyleigh?” he asked, his voice tight.
I opened my mouth but stopped when Zoriah laughed.
“He’s not my daddy! He’s my Uncle Jay,” she explained.
Uncle.
I blinked. I took a second to regroup, then looked at him.
“Uncle?” I repeated.
He frowned. “Yeah. She’s Zahara’s. My niece. You good?”
Heat rushed to my face. “Wait. This is Zahara’s daughter?” I knew I sounded silly, basically repeating what he was saying.
“Yes. Why did you think she was my daughter?” he demanded in a heated whisper.
I lifted my chin, defensive and a little embarrassed. “Donique was pregnant when I left. She looks old enough,” I hissed back.
His mouth dropped open. “What the—” He looked at the girls and stopped. “We gon’ talk. Later. For the record, Zoriah belongs to Zahara and Ishaan Meriweather.” He raised his voice. “Now that we got that straight, you ready to take all this chaos to the store?”
“Hey! We’re not chaos. Mama says children are blessings,” Aziza protested, grabbing her cousin’s hand.
Jabali raised an eyebrow. “Oh, you’re definitely blessings. Just loud ones.”
Zoriah giggled. “Uncle Jay, you wrong,” she said.
I exhaled, the knot in my chest loosening just a tiny bit. It didn’t fix anything that mattered, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t relieved.
“Okay, well, hi, niece Zoriah,” I gave Jabali the evil eye as I emphasized the word. “I’m Ms. Kyleigh. Y’all two ready to go completely overboard in a store?”
“Yes,” they chorused.
“Absolutely not. We’re going to be reasonable,” I corrected.
Aziza looked at me like I’d just suggested we celebrate Christmas with a single sticker. “Reasonable is so boring, Mama,” she said.
Jabali watched us, something amused and indulgent in his face. When his eyes met mine, he sobered a little.
“You sure you wanna go?” he asked quietly. “That village yesterday was a lot for you. We can let Zahara take them. Or Serena. Or my mama. You don’t have to go back down there and let people stare at you today.”
“I don’t want to, but I also don’t want to hide in this house while people act like I’m some myth on a hill.”
His jaw flexed. “Ain’t nobody gon’ bother you today. They can look, but that’s it. And if they look too long, I’ll look back harder.”
I smiled. “That’s supposed to make me feel better?”
“With me?” He shrugged. “Yeah. It should.”
The way he said it, all self-assured and unbothered, made something low in my stomach flutter. I ignored that on purpose.
“You sure?” I asked, quieter now.
He held my gaze. “Ky, I’m not perfect, but you know one thing about me. I don’t bluff. If I say I got you, I got you. You get tired, you say the word, and we out. Ain’t nobody gon’ play in your face today.”
It wasn’t exactly romantic, but I guess my body didn’t care about “exactly,” the way it was heating and melting. I bit my lip. He smiled like he knew. I nodded once.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s go buy shiny nonsense.”
Aziza squealed. “Ornaments!” she yelled.
“Glitter!” Zoriah added.
“Headache,” I finished.
They didn’t care. They were already halfway to the door.
“Max, you on house arrest, little traitor. Watch the hill,” I told my dog when he tried to follow.
He huffed and flopped dramatically by the stairs as we walked out. We piled into the truck, girls in the back, Jabali and me in the front. It felt weirdly domestic, and I refused to think too hard about that.
“So, what kind of ornaments you like, Ms. Kyleigh?” Zoriah asked, leaning between the seats
“Simple ones. White. Silver. Maybe one accent color. Classic. Elegant,” I said.
Aziza made a gagging noise. “That’s boring. Christmas supposed to be colors and sparkles. I want candy canes and reindeer and dinosaurs and ornaments shaped like donuts.”
“Donuts?” I repeated. “On my tree?”
“Our tree,” she corrected sweetly.
I sighed. “We’ll see.”
“Translation: she scared,” Jabali said under his breath.
I scowled at him. “I heard that.”
He smiled, eyes on the road. “Good. I meant for you to.”
We went to the only place in town equipped to handle this level of foolishness: Bellarose’s Beautiful Baubles. She was open year-round with home décor, but at Christmas? Oh, at Christmas, Mrs. Bellarose put on a show. The parking lot was packed. I tensed as soon as we pulled in.
“You good?” he asked, putting the truck in park.
I shook my head. “But I’m going in anyway.”
“I know y’all excited, but stay close. If I can’t see you, we leaving,” he told the girls as he opened their door.
“Yes, sir,” they sang, already bouncing.
Inside, the store was a chaos of colored lights, fake snow machines, inflatable Santas, and Mariah Carey playing just loud enough to annoy me. Aziza gasped like she’d stepped through the pearly gates.
“Mama, look!” she breathed, spinning in a slow circle. “I love it. It’s like Christmas is everywhere.”
“It’s like Christmas threw up,” I mumbled.
We hit the ornament aisles first. On one side was my wish: simple glass balls, white and silver, beautiful and breakable.
But that other side… Lord, have mercy. Candy canes, glittery stars, tiny dancing Santas, plastic tacos, flamingos wearing scarves, and things that looked like they’d been designed by bored elves on too much sugar.
“Zi, we not buying anything that lights up and makes noise. Pick one. Lights or sound,” I instructed.
Aziza held up a tiny ornament shaped like a boom box that did both. “What about this?” she asked.
“No.”
“What about this?” Zoriah showed a glittery pickle.
I gagged. “Absolutely not. Put that down. That’s a felony.”
Jabali picked up a glass ball. “This is nice. Simple. Grown. I like this.”
I warmed that he chose what I liked, then watched in betrayal as he reached for a pack of neon-colored snowflake lights with the other hand.
“For their rooms. Compromise,” he coaxed.
“You say that like you know what that word means,” I said, thinking about what he had coerced me into.
“I do,” he assured me.
The girls were in heaven, darting from display to display, debating the importance of glitter.
“Mama, can we get these?” Aziza held up a box of rainbow string lights shaped like dinosaurs.
“What does a dinosaur have to do with Jesus?” I asked.
“He made them. Before people. So, they celebrated Christmas first.”
I just looked at her. Her silly ass daddy grinned.
“See? She thinking outside the box. I like that.”
“You would,” I muttered.
While the girls argued about whether they needed more reindeer or more penguins, I slipped toward the other side of the aisle and picked up a box of glass ornaments—frosted white, clear, a few with delicate silver patterns. They calmed my brain just looking at them.
“Don’t worry, baby, I see you. You coming home,” I whispered to the box.
“You talking to the ornaments now?” Jabali asked, appearing at my elbow.
“Yes,” I said. “They’re the only ones who understand me.”
He laughed, quiet. “We can get those. We not turning your house into a kindergarten class. We just adding some energy.”
“Energy is not the word I’d use. Chaos really is more accurate,” I sighed, watching Aziza put an ornament shaped like a slice of pizza into the buggy.
“Chaos is Christmas for the people of Emancipation. It’s in my baby’s blood,” he said.
I side-eyed him. Before I could respond, a familiar voice cut through the aisle like a trumpet.
“Well, well, well.”
We all froze.
“No,” Jabali muttered. “Oh, hell.”
I turned.