Chapter 54 Vincent
Vincent
Shemari is quiet.
She’s on the couch across from me, eyes locked on mine, while JR climbs all over me. I can’t believe how much bigger he looks. He’s gonna be tall, just like his daddy.
I keep smelling him, too. And every time his little hands grab my face, I break into a smile. A real one. Seeing my son cracked open something in me that’s been locked up tight since I went down in that plane.
“Did you miss your Daddy?” I ask him.
“Yeah.” He wraps his little arms around my neck. “Daddy. I luh woo Daddy.”
“I love you too, little man.” I squeeze him so tight, I worry I’m gonna break him.
He wasn’t talking when I left. He’d said da da before, but now, my little man is using sentences. I feel like I missed half his life. The boy ain’t even in diapers no more.
I hug him again, squeezing my eyes closed.
“So…”
I open my eyes and look at Shemari.
“How are you?” she asks.
I take a breath and answer as honestly as I can.
“I don’t even know.” My eyes rake over her. “You changed your hair.”
She flips her long burgundy sew-in over her shoulders.
“You look good,” I say, because she does. Mari always been fine as fuck. She’s a little thinner, though. I wonder if that’s because of me. Because of worry.
My Aunt Avery walks in from the bedroom with her phone in her hand. “James said the hotel restaurant is closed. He wants to know if we want pizza. There’s a place down the street.”
“Why y'all ain’t just have one of my people get some food?”
Avery makes a face. “All your people are still in Atlanta.”
“Bash?” She’s my manager. “Tyrell?” My assistant.
Avery nods. “It didn’t make sense for them all to come when we’re going right back there tomorrow.”
I nod. “Pizza’s fine. Do you want pizza?”
She shakes her head. “I’m not hungry.”
My head drops at that. I shouldn’t be hungry, either. They lost their son, and my sister Vanessa, who’s still in the bathroom, lost her son. Nobody should have an appetite.
But I do.
Fuck. Maybe I trained myself to keep eating in the midst of death and depression. I don’t know.
Avery puts the phone back to her face. “James? Yeah. Just get three of ‘em and come on back.”
I go to reach into my back pocket for my wallet. It’s a habit whenever I’m around my family. Or anybody, really.
“Don’t worry about it,” Avery says.
She sighs and leans her weight against the wall. “The embassy called earlier.”
“About what?”
“The bodies. They recovered them. What was left of ‘em,” she adds sadly. “They’re doing identification and autopsies tomorrow before we can get them home.”
“I’ll pay for it if need be. Just let Tyrell know.”
She nods.
“So who baby is that?”
Me and Avery both look over at Shemari. The question catches me all the way off guard, because it ain’t the time or the place, and because it seems like it should be fuckin’ obvious.
“How long was I gone?” I ask.
“Almost nine months.”
I give her a look that says you already know the answer to that question.
Her eyes fill with tears, but her voice is steady. “Avery, can you take JR to the room?”
My aunt grabs JR’s hand and leads him away. As soon as they’re out of sight, Shemari gets started.
“What the fuck, Vince?”
My shoulders droop under the weight of this. “What you want me to say?”
“Explain this shit to me. Please.”
I rub a hand over my face. “It should be self-explanatory.”
“Well, it’s not!” Her eyes go wide. Her nostrils flare.
“They tell me they found yo ass, and I’m all giddy and shit cuz I thought you were dead, and then you waltz your black ass in tonight with another bitch who’s carrying your fucking baby?
And that’s supposed to explain itself?” Her voice breaks at the end. “You done lost yo damn mind.”
Tears spill down her face. I’m surprised, because Shemari don’t cry like that. Not when she’s mad.
“Listen—“
“It’s bad enough that I got left at the fucking altar, but then you show up with your side bitch and the bitch is pregnant. And she’s old enough to be my mama! What the fuck am I…how the fuck am I supposed to feel, Vince?”
“First off, she’s thirty-seven,” I correct. “And I don’t know how you should feel, Mari. I ain’t you. I can’t tell you how to feel. Just like you ain’t me. You didn’t see what I saw. You didn’t deal with the shit I had to deal with.”
She rolls her eyes.
“It’s too soon for this shit,” I say. “I wanna give you all the answers to all your questions and whatnot, but I need a minute to get my fuckin’ head right.”
“Oh yeah?” she snaps, swiping at her tears. “Maybe I should call your plug. So you can get your head right. Right?”
That one hits a little too deep.
I get up and walk past her, stopping at the bathroom door.
“Vanessa? You okay in there?”
I don’t wait for an answer. I open the door and find my big sister in a ball on the floor.
I drop to my knees beside her. “I’m so sorry, Van. I’m sorry.”
She looks up, eyes swollen. “I told him not to go,” she sobs. “I told him.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
That’s all I can say, really. He was a grown man, technically, but I guess to a mama, you’re never truly grown. And I’m the one who promised to look after him and not let him get into anything.
And now he’s dead.
I pull her into my arms and hold her tight. “He’ll be home soon,” I say. “I’ll take care of everything.”
She nods, but what the fuck does that even mean? It’s just money. She’d rather have her son back.
I get her out of the bathroom finally, but I feel hollow after, like I left part of my soul in there.
I take out my phone and text my assistant.
Need some shit handled. Find me a baby doctor. Security. A driver. A nutritionist. A house in ATL. And keep this shit close.
I hit send and feel a little bit of weight lifted. It ain’t much. It ain’t even the half. But it’s something.