Chapter 7
APRICOT
Had I been open to taking my father’s money, I could have been living the life. Just as quickly as the thought entered my mind, I shook it off. Remembering the vivid details of his and Marlo’s shooting along with Lonzo being beheaded weren’t things I could get used to.
My eyes narrowed when I saw the corner of something pink poking out from underneath a bunch of papers and books in the bottom drawer of my father’s desk.
Curiously, I reached for the item and pulled it out.
My heart raced as I realized that I was holding Kiwi’s iPad.
I had purchased the pink cover and the stickers that adorned it myself.
If my father had found the person or persons that broke into my house and got our stuff back, he would have told me and Kiwi.
He would have given her the iPad back despite replacing everything that was stolen.
There was no need to be confused. I knew exactly what kind of man my father was, and he had my house broken into.
That was the only way to explain why he had my child’s iPad locked away in his office.
I was willing to bet my last dollar that he decided to scare me into moving in with him.
That would explain why my home was broken into despite everyone in the area knowing I wasn’t supposed to be fucked with.
Every muscle in my body tensed as I came to the realization that simply falling back from my father would never do.
I had to completely cut him off which would be almost impossible to do because my daughter adored him.
Kiwi didn’t have a father. The presence of my father in her life was critical.
But enough was enough. My poor child was still having nightmares thanks to the shooting.
My father wanted me to move into a house purchased by him so badly that he had my house broken into.
Devin Jennings was insane on another level, and I was tired of biting my tongue.
Standing up, I left the papers on his desk.
I wasn’t taking anything to his accountant. He could handle his own affairs.
I did walk out of the office with Kiwi’s iPad in hand, however, and I was going straight to the hospital.
My father was much better and a bit on the grumpy side, so my mother had finally stopped spending day and night at his bedside.
It didn’t matter to me if he was alone or not.
I was going to say what I had to say to him.
Despite the money he had, it was very bold of my father to think he could simply go around doing whatever he wanted to do.
I drove to the hospital fuming. By the time I walked into my father’s room, I still hadn’t calmed down. He didn’t have any visitors, and his reading glasses were on his face as he scrolled through his phone.
“Hey, babe,” he stated after looking up, but his face fell instantly when I held up the iPad.
“Want to tell me why Kiwi’s iPad was in the bottom of your desk drawer?”
Slowly, my father removed the glasses from his face. “You know I have connections. I fo?“
“Are you serious?!” I screeched with a frown.
“You’re about to look me in the face and lie to me?
Had you found out who broke in my house and got our things back you would have said something.
What was the point of hiding the iPad? You just would have let Kiwi keep both of them. Please don’t insult my intelligence.”
“You are my daughter, and Kiwi is my granddaughter. No matter how much you hate it, you are attached to me, and you didn’t need to be living in that area.”
“And please do me a favor and tell me just how safe me and my child were moving in with you? We still damn near got our heads blown off.”
My father’s caramel colored skin turned red as his jaw muscles flexed. “I have never met a more ungrateful person in my life.”
“Ungrateful?” I seethed. “I’m ungrateful because I knew the very thing that did happen could happen? Do you realize that Kiwi is now afraid to sleep alone? My child is traumatized and for what? Because you’re in your fifties still engaging in street beef?”
“You want me to apologize for not having my wife and child standing in the food stamp line and living in the projects?”
Exasperated, I threw my arms up. “You just don’t get it. A father is supposed to be his daughter’s first love. All you’ve done is shown me the kind of man that I don’t want.”
My father’s nostrils flared with anger. Before he could respond, his room door opened.
I didn’t even look to see who it was. If it was the nurse coming to put me out, I would gladly excuse myself.
If it was my mother, I’d probably still leave because something told me she would find a way to take my father’s side.
When the color drained from my father’s face it prompted me to look over my shoulder.
I had never before seen the 6’2 guy standing in front of me.
He looked to be about twenty maybe a little older, and he had the same complexion as my father.
His low cut was full of waves, and he had almond-shaped cognac-colored eyes.
His orbs darted between me and my father, and my chest tightened.
The air in the room was thick. The tension was thick enough to be cut with a knife.
No words were spoken as the three of us had a staring contest. The door opened yet again, and my mother walked in with a smile on her face.
My mother’s steps halted, and she too began looking around the room. Her eyes landed on all of our faces. “What’s going on?” she asked visibly shaken.
I was certain she didn’t know who the young man in the room was either, but anyone with eyes could see exactly who he looked like.
The man staring at me looked more like my father than I did.
He looked so much like my father that I was sure whoever his mother was didn’t have to have a paternity test done the way my mother had to have one taken for me.
“Devin, you better say something.” My mother’s voice was trembling.
Since my father had obviously lost his voice, his mini me decided to speak up.
“I’m DJ. Devin Junior. I’m Devin’s son.”
Kiwi was in her room asleep, and I was sitting on the couch staring at the television which was turned off, drinking wine.
My child was already going through enough so no matter how hard it was, when she got out of school, I didn’t let on that anything was wrong.
She’d been asking about her grandfather every day, and I finally told her she could call him.
Kiwi shouldn’t be punished because the adults had issues.
I forced a smile through dinner and helping her with her homework.
I read her a bedtime story and lay with her until she fell asleep.
Life had turned into me constantly having to reassurance her that we would be okay and no one was coming to hurt us.
I prayed that my daughter would get past what happened, and I even contemplated putting her in therapy.
I just didn’t want a therapist all in my family’s business.
I was pissed at my father after finding out that he was behind my home being broken into but learning that he had a son was an entirely different scenario.
It turned out that DJ was twenty-four. Three years younger than me.
The moment he announced that he was my father’s son, my mother stormed from the room.
She didn’t even try to get answers. I didn’t have anything else to say to my father, so I left too.
Of course, over the years my mother had suspected my father of cheating.
No matter how much they tried to hide it, I heard the hushed arguments and my mother venting on the phone to her friends.
I wasn’t aware of how many times she’d ever actually caught him and what was just speculation.
I knew there was a time when I was in middle school that my father didn’t come home for six days, and my mother was livid the entire time.
Any time I asked about my father, she said he was out of town for work.
The moment he got back home, they went in the bedroom and locked the door, and I swore I heard furniture moving.
They were in the room straight thumping.
I later found out that my mother broke a lamp over my father’s head and all.
Those were times I couldn’t figure out if it was love that kept my mother there or the money. Maybe it was both.
The ringing of my doorbell snapped me out of the trance that I was in. With a frown, I stood up to see who was at my door uninvited at that time of the night. There weren’t even five people that had my address. When I looked out of the peephole and saw Uno, I was thoroughly surprised.
“Hi,” I greeted him slowly after opening the door.
Uno’s brow hiked. “You good? I called you twice and got no answer. I know there’s a lot going on, but this isn’t the time to be ignoring me. At least shoot me a quick text and let me know you’re good.”
If my life with my father and family wasn’t such a shit show, him checking me might have turned me on. “I’m sorry. It’s been a day from hell, and I haven’t even looked at my phone in a few hours. I have it on do not disturb.”
“Your pops good? He still coming home tomorrow?” Uno looked genuinely concerned, but his questions made me snort.
“I’m not sure. I wasn’t at the hospital long. I was confronting him about having Kiwi’s iPad, and then his long, lost, illegitimate son came in the room and shut shit down.”
Uno’s face contorted. “Wait, what? Hold on. First thing, what do you mean he had her iPad?”
“The one that was stolen from my house. He had it hidden in his office in the bottom drawer underneath books and papers. It’s obvious that he was trying to hide it. He had someone to break into my house.”
Uno was calm, and he had a poker face for sure, but something about the way he didn’t ask any questions or seem shocked struck a cord with me. My body heated up as suspicion made me tense. “Do you know who my father had to break in my house? And please don’t lie to me.”
Uno ran a hand over his curls. “I’ve asked you respectfully not to do that. I work for your father. I’m not going to be dry snitching or giving you inside information. That’s not how this is gon’ go.”
I stared at Uno. He was always so confident and unapologetic. Yet, he couldn’t even look me in the eyes as he spoke to me. My stomach quaked, and I took a step back. “Was it you? He got you to break in my house?”
When Uno looked at me with eyes full of regret, I grabbed handfuls of curls with both my hands and spun around in a circle. “Wow, wow, fucking wow. I am so damn stupid. You’ve been smiling in my face this entire time. Wow.”
“Don’t do that shorty. Your father asked me to do it and maybe I should have said no, but the shit was easy as hell. Break in, take a few items, and get paid a few racks. You and Kiwi weren’t even home. No one would have gotten hurt.”
I glared at Uno with the hatred of ten men brewing inside of me. “You try and act like you’re different, but you’re one of my father’s little minions too. He says jump and you say how high as long as the money is right.”
Uno’s scowl deepened. “Hold up ‘cus I’m not a hoe ass nigga. There’s plenty of things that are off limits that I refuse to take part in. I’m a grown man. Nobody can make me do shit I don’t want to do.”
“Exactly. So, I don’t buy that shit when you say it was just a job. I’m sure you’re not hurting for a few thousand dollars. This is the lamest shit I’ve ever been a part of. I’m done with my lying ass father, and I’m done with you. Did he tell you to fuck me too? Was that in the job description?”
Uno gripped the back of his neck. “I understand you being upset. Swear to God I do, but I had never even held a conversation with you. You and Kiwi weren’t home, and I knew we’d be in and out.
Everything that we took was replaced. Please don’t mistake me for being out here doing anything for money and doing people I fuck with dirty.
How was I supposed to just come out and confess that shit to you once we became cool? ”
“It’s all good. Like I said, I’m done. I don’t want anyone around me that I can’t trust. You keep hollering that my father offers you paying jobs.
So, you’d sell your soul if the price was right, huh?
I’m good. I’m so good on this.” I sucked my teeth and folded my arms across my chest. Everybody had me fucked up.
“I can’t blame you for being upset. I’m sorry that you found out this way. I know I dropped the ball and messed up. You probably view me as a fuck nigga, but I’m for sure not that. Take some time to yourself, but you got to know I’m not letting you go that easily.”
“Please get out,” I practically whispered.
It was going to be hard working for my father and ignoring him, but I was done with Devin Jennings. I had no way of knowing if my mother was leaning toward forgiving him or not, but I knew who wouldn’t be forgiving his ass.