CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Yah-Yah
Seventy-two hours had came and went, and my baby still wasn't home.
I couldn't sit still. I couldn't eat and I couldn't fucking sleep.
I couldn't do shit but pace back and forth in the living room like a caged animal.
My feet were hurting, my head was pounding, but I couldn't stop moving because if I stopped moving I'd have to sit with the thoughts, and the thoughts were too dark, too scary, and too fucking real.
Sosa had been gone all morning, he said he was handling business, but something felt wrong. Something felt off.
Every time a car drove past the house, my heart would jump. Every time my phone made a sound, I'd snatch it up thinking it was news about Sontae. But it was never nothing. Just people sending prayers and condolences like my baby was dead.
He wasn't dead. He couldn't be dead. I wouldn't survive that.
"Mya, what time is it?" I asked, my voice hoarse from crying.
"Almost two," she said softly from the couch. She'd been staying with me, trying to keep me from losing my mind completely, but I could see the worry in her eyes. She thought I was already gone.
The doorbell rang.
I froze mid-step, my heart slamming against my ribs.
"I'll get it," Mya said, standing up.
"No," I said quickly, moving toward the door. "I got it."
I opened the door and it was a UPS driver, holding a small package. I could see Sosa’s truck pulling into the driveway as well. Bout time his ass got here.
"Delivery for this address," the UPS guy said cheerfully, like this was a normal fucking day.
"I didn't order nothing," I said, staring at the box.
"No return address," he said, checking his tablet. "But it's addressed to this residence. Can you sign here?"
I signed with a shaky hand and took the box. It was light, smaller than a shoebox. The driver walked away and I closed the door, turning the package over in my hands.
"Who's it from?" Mya asked.
"I don't know," I said, my stomach churning. Something about this felt wrong. Real wrong.
I carried it to the kitchen table and grabbed a knife to cut through the tape. My hands were trembling so bad I almost dropped it.
"Yah-Yah, maybe you should wait for Sosa—" Mya started.
But I was already opening the box.
The flaps came apart and I looked inside.
For a second, my brain couldn't process what I was seeing.
I couldn't make sense of it. There was something small wrapped in plastic, and tissue paper, and— I pulled it out.
And then I saw it. A finger. A tiny fucking finger.
A baby's finger with Sontae's Spider-Man Band-Aid still wrapped around it.
The scream that came out of me didn't sound human. It was something primal, something from the deepest pit of hell. I dropped the box, stumbling backward, my whole body shaking.
"NO! NO NO NO NO NO!"
Mya grabbed me but I couldn't stop screaming. I couldn't stop seeing it. That tiny finger. My baby's finger.
Sosa came running in from the back of the house, his eyes wild.
"What happened? What's wrong?"
"LOOK!" I screamed, pointing at the table. "LOOK WHAT THEY DID! LOOK WHAT THEY DID TO MY BABY!"
He moved to the table and looked down. I saw the exact moment it registered. His whole body went rigid, his face draining of color.
"Did you pay them?" I asked, my voice breaking. "Did you pay the ransom, Sosa? Please tell me you paid it!"
He didn't answer. He just stood there staring at the finger.
"SOSA!" I screamed, grabbing him, "DID YOU FUCKING PAY THEM? DID YOU GIVE THEM THE MONEY?"
"I..." he started, but his voice cracked.
"Answer me!" I was hitting him now, pounding on his chest. "Did you pay them? Tell me you paid them!"
"I didn't," he finally said, his voice barely above a whisper.
Everything stopped. The world stopped spinning. My heart stopped beating.
"What?" I breathed.
"I didn't pay them," he said again, louder this time. "Ain't no nigga gon take me for all my fucking bread. Fuck these niggas, they thought—"
"YOU DIDN'T PAY?" I screamed, and this time I really hit him, with everything I had. "THEY HAD OUR SON AND YOU DIDN'T FUCKING PAY THEM?"
"Yah-Yah, listen—"
"NO!" I was swinging on him, crying so hard I could barely see.
"YOU LET THEM KILL OUR BABY OVER MONEY? OVER FUCKING MONEY?"
"I was gonna pay, I just, I was trying to negotiate, I thought I could—"
"NEGOTIATE?" I shoved him as hard as I could. "YOU THOUGHT YOU COULD NEGOTIATE WITH THESE NIGGAS? THEY TOOK OUR BABY, SOSA! THEY TOOK HIS FINGER!"
I collapsed, my legs giving out, and Mya tried to catch me but we both went down. The box fell off the table, and the finger tumbled out onto the floor along with a piece of paper.
Mya picked up the paper with shaking hands and read it out loud
"Now you can bury your baby boy." The room went silent except for my sobs.
Now you can bury your baby boy.
Bury. Bury. My baby. My two-year-old baby who loved trucks and asked me for pancakes every morning and called me "Mommy" in the sweetest little voice. Just gone, just like that, all because his father wouldn't pay.
I looked up at him through my tears and I didn't recognize the man standing there. This wasn't the man I loved. This wasn't the father of my child. This was a stranger. A monster who valued money over our son's life.
"Get out," I said,
"Yah-Yah—"
"GET OUT!" I screamed with everything left in me. "GET THE FUCK OUT! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU SO MUCH! YOU KILLED HIM! YOU KILLED OUR BABY!"
Sosa stood there for a moment with tears running down his cheeks. Then he turned and left the house. I heard the door slam, then I heard his truck start and him peel out of the driveway.
Then it was just me and Mya, the silence and that tiny finger on the floor with Spider-Man smiling up at me like everything was okay. But nothing was okay. Nothing would ever be okay again.
I crawled over to the finger, picking it up with trembling hands,
"Sontae," I sobbed. "I'm so sorry, baby. Mommy's so sorry. I tried. I tried so hard to get you back."
But I didn't try hard enough, because my baby was gone. And I would never hold him again. Never hear his laugh again. Never kiss his forehead or tuck him in at night or tell him I loved him.
I laid on the kitchen floor, and I screamed until my voice gave out. I screamed until there was nothing left inside me but emptiness, rage and a pain so deep it felt like dying.
Maybe I was dying because the part of me that was a mother, the part of me that lived and breathed for Sontae, was gone with him.
And I knew, in that moment, I would never be whole again.