Chapter 18
Wyndi and I sat on the sofa in my family room. The television was on, but we weren’t watching it. Her feet were in my lap as she ate a slice of the pizza we picked up after we left the game.
She let her head fall back, and she moaned slightly as my hands massaged her feet. “That feels so good.”
“Listen,” I said as I continued to rub and massage, “I know I was distant this last couple of weeks or so.”
“You were, but I deserved it.”
My face twisted up, and I stopped rubbing her feet. “What? Nah. You didn’t deserve to feel like you didn’t know where my head was at. You—”
“Be serious, Kaynaan. I did deserve it. You’ve spent this entire time that we’ve been dealing going out of your way to make sure I know where your head is at. Where your heart is at. And instead of matching your energy, I run and hide every time I—”
“You needed time to work up to matching my energy, Brown Eyes. I got that. I came into the picture right before everything exploded. We were just getting to know each other. You had a right to take your time.”
“Taking my time is different from running and hiding, boo. It was the fear.”
“I get that,” I told her softly.
“I could’ve handled it better.”
“And I could’ve handled it better.”
She giggled. “Stop trying to take the blame for something that was my fault. I’ve been talking to a therapist. So I’m very much aware that my actions are my own fault. I made the decision to hide, instead of talk to you about what I was feeling and thinking.”
“And I made the decision to come on strong. Probably too strong for where you were at the moment.”
We were both silent, and the foot rub resumed.
“I wanna tell you something.” She broke the silence.
“Okay.”
“I’ve never told anybody except LoLo. Not even my mother. But the therapist thinks you’re safe for me. So, I should tell you.”
“Okay,” I repeated.
“Channing, my ex, when he used to go through his struggles he would be . . . different. He was really mean. Like, he would say the meanest, cruelest things he could think of. And I had just lost a baby. So most of his vitriol was aimed at the fact that I didn’t carry the baby to term.
” She took a deep breath. “I knew Channing inside and out. I mean, we’ve been in each other’s lives since birth—our mothers are best friends.
To have somebody you know like the back of your hand switch up on you .
. . you’re blindsided. I didn’t have any sassy clapbacks for the things he said to me.
I was too much in shock that Channing was talking to me that way.
“Now here I am, pregnant again. And you’re being so kind.
You’re involving yourself when you don’t have to.
You’re stepping up to do things and support me when you don’t have to.
There’s no way for me to think that’s normal, when my normal is somebody who loved me for years starting to verbally abuse me. Does that make sense?”
What she said hit me like a ton of bricks. “Yeah, sweetheart. That makes perfect sense. Instead of assuring you that I was down for you, my behavior probably made you more anxious as to when the other shoe would drop.”
“I didn’t want to feel that way. I wanted to accept that you care about me and the baby. But it’s so hard when the only frame of reference I have for a relationship is watching while it morphed from love into an unhealthy situation.”
“I hate that you went through that.”
She sighed. “I have mixed feelings about it. I hated it at the time. I hated watching a relationship that I put my trust in and gave my all, crash and burn. But I’m thankful that Channing and I didn’t get married before he got his diagnosis.
I know myself. I would’ve suffered in silence in that marriage.
I would’ve felt like it was my responsibility to protect the image of my marriage and my husband.
“I mean, the reason I never told my mother that Channing was treating me like trash was to protect him. My mother is his godmother. I never wanted her to think bad of him. If she’d known how he was treating me, she would’ve started to dislike him.
Then she and my aunt Cecilia would’ve fallen out.
I didn’t want to be responsible for that. ”
“Is that why the thought that you caused the beef between my grandmother and me bothered you so badly?”
“Probably. I never want to be the reason there’s beef.”
“You weren’t the cause of that beef.”
“Well, your mother told me the history between your dad, Kenya, and your grandmother.”
I nodded. “My grandmother’s preoccupation with optics bugs the shit outta me. But she adopted that shit from the generations before her.”
“Is your grandmother from wealth, too?” She grinned at me. “Did your grandparents have an arranged marriage to keep the wealth in the family?”
“Kinda sorta,” I admitted.
She clapped her hands together. “I knew it! I knew it! Georgia Israel just seems like one of those stuck-up debutantes who was groomed to marry into a ritzy-titzy family.”
I chuckled at her characterization of my grandmother.
“Uh, before my great grandfather, Zion Israel, started Grand Aviation, he was a scholar. He was naturally gifted with brilliance. His family was lower-middle class. His father worked on the railroad, and his mother was a talented seamstress. My great grandfather was able to go to school for aeronautical engineering, working on airplanes. He worked as the lead technician at Eastern Airlines. He had a good job and was able to give his son, my grandfather, all of the same advantages he was given, Apparently, when the debs came out the year that my grandfather, Judah Israel, turned eighteen, he was one of the hottest commodities.”
“Your grandfather’s name is Judah?”
“Yeah. The tradition of naming the Israel offspring after biblical locations goes back to my great grandfather. My great grandfather was Zion. My grandfather is Judah. My dad is Jericho, and I’m Kaynaan.
“Anyway, the way my grandfather tells it, he only had eyes for Georgia. But Georgia was busy spending all her time with some other cat, whose father was the first black judge in the county.
“Judah chased her and chased her, but Georgia wasn’t on that type of time. Finally, Judah gave up. No sooner than he gave up was old boy Georgia liked drafted into the war. All of a sudden, she was on Judah’s dick.”
She cracked up. “I can’t believe you said that about your own grandmother.”
“Listen,” I said with a shrug, “the truth is the truth.”
“So, was Judah still interested?”
“He was. But in the interim, when Georgia was still chasing dude who died in the war, Judah started running around with some other chick.”
“Okay. Okay. Well, if she wasn’t interested and he was an eligible bachelor . . . I see nothing wrong with that.”
“The problem was that Judah apparently didn’t take Georgia’s affections as being sincere. I mean, she jumped off of dude’s dick and onto Judah’s pretty quickly.”
“I wish you would stop saying that.” She giggled.
“He maintained his . . . relationship . . . with the other woman, Sylvia. Now Judah, rumor has it, that he was laying it low and spreading it wide.”
She howled with laughter. “Oh my goodness, shut up! This story is so good. It’s like a soap opera.”
“Uppity ass Georgia was pregnant after less than a year of dating. Pregnant and unmarried. It was a disgrace. Judah’s parents and Georgia’s parents got to putting together a very hasty but ostentatious ass wedding.
As soon as the announcement came out that Judah was engaged to marry Georgia Arlington, Sylvia cornered Georgia at the dime store. ”
“Not the dime store, Kaynaan! Are you making this up?”
“Nah. I’m telling you my family history.
The Israels ain’t always been squeaky clean.
That’s why it bothers the fuck outta me that my grandmother tries to portray us like we’re perfect.
It’s dumb as hell, when the family name’s been scandalized since the beginning of time.
Anyway, Sylvia’s ass was pregnant, too.”
“What?”
“What, what? I told you Judah’s ho ass was laying it low and spreading it wide.”
“I didn’t know that was what you meant. I didn’t know he had two women pregnant. Ooh! That’s so YN of him.”
“Say word. Ghetto ass family.”
She cracked up. “Your family is far from ghetto, Kaynaan.”
“You’re saying that, but you haven’t heard the rest of the story.
“Continue.”
“Long story short—”
“Don’t shorten it. I want all the details.”
I had to chuckle. “Anyway, when Judah’s mother found out that Sylvia was pregnant, she was pissed.
Sylvia’s family was poor and known for cutting up in public.
You know, being drunk, being unruly, stuff like that.
Anyway, before a scandal could erupt about the double pregnancies, Sylvia conveniently fell down a flight of stairs and lost the baby. ”
Wyndi’s mouth was on the floor. “What?” She narrowed her eyes. “Who did it? Georgia’s mean ass?”
“My father told me this story, and he said that my grandfather always believed that his mother did it.”
“Why? Why does he think his mother did it? What was his mother’s name?”
“Lillian.”
“Was Lillian coldhearted enough to knock poor Sylvia down the stairs? If she was, then I guess she ended up with a daughter-in-law who was cut from her same cloth.”
“My great grandmother was known for caring more about appearances than almost anything. My father said there was no way she was going to accept Sylvia into the family, let alone a baby with her blood running through its veins. Besides, not too long after she lost the baby, Sylvia’s parents came into possession of a baby blue, loc’d out Cadillac Eldorado. ”
“Your great grandmother knocked their daughter down a flight of stairs, made them lose their grandchild, and then paid them off with a Cadillac? Oh shit. I guess I better be thankful that I only have to deal with Georgia, because I would’ve had to have some YNs slide on Lillian’s ass.”