Chapter 36
The Mitchell brothers, Set, Shu, and my father, Jah, were all behemoths of men—tall and muscular—with Set being the leanest of the three, and my father, the biggest. They were all cordial and had opted not to bring their families to this first meeting. My Aunt Taneisha hadn’t stopped crying in the hour since they all arrived. She, too, had come without her family.
As we all sat in the living room, Ishmia by my side, I felt…better. Not exactly elated, but like some hole in me was partially filled.
“…I know it all sounds convoluted,” Aunt Taneisha was saying, “but you have to understand how we were raised. I want you to trust that my sister would’ve never thrown you away. I’m here today not only to lay my eyes on you, but to answer any questions I can to clear my sister’s name.”
“I want your questions, too,” my father interjected. “If you’re ready to ask them.”
“Okay…uh, you said my mom didn’t have time between when she found out she was pregnant and when she was sent away to tell my father about me, right?”
“That’s correct,” she responded.
“You were still in school, though. You said you went to the same school as he did. You knew he was her boyfriend. Why didn’t you tell him?”
“Oh, I couldn’t. I was told not to tell anyone.”
“By my mom?”
“By our parents. You see, you were never supposed to come back with her. You were to be given up before Tierra returned home. The plan was that the baby would never know his family, and the community would never know my sister was even pregnant. I was forbidden from mentioning the pregnancy to anyone, especially Jah. What if he wanted it? My parents wouldn’t stand for any of that. Like I told you, I always complied. They told me not to tell anyone, so that’s what I did.”
I nodded, shifting my attention to my father. “So, you didn’t wonder where she disappeared to?” I asked him.
“I was fifteen years old, so all I knew was what my folks told me. Tierra’s mom told my mom they sent her—Tierra—away for being disobedient and defiant. I knew shit was rough for her at home, so it made sense to me. Months passed, and the whole family moved. I cared about her. She was probably my first love, but my home life was more than a little fucked up, too, so I didn’t have room to dwell on what happened to her even though I missed her for a long time.”
I didn’t reply, trying to let the words sink in.
“And I owe you an apology, Jah,” my aunt said. “I should’ve contacted you long ago, even when Tierra refused to. I think for the longest, she believed you had something to do with the baby going missing. After she passed, I wasn’t sure what to do. I did the DNA thing more than two years ago. I’d almost given up hope.”
“It’s all good. I-I forgive you, ‘Neisha. My home life was so bad; I wouldn’t have wanted my parents to have a chance to fuck my baby up like they did me and my brothers,” my father uttered.
“And they sho’ woulda fucked him up,” Set confirmed. Shu just nodded his agreement. He seemed to be the quietest of the three.
“But I wish I’d known before now. It don’t feel right that someone else took on a responsibility that was mine. I done missed a whole lifetime with my son, my only child,” Jah shared.
I dropped my head and shrugged. “I don’t know. I think…no, I know I had a good upbringing. My mom—the woman who raised me—loved me to her core. I never doubted that, and I’m proud to be able to say I’m her son. So, I don’t want y’all to feel bad about that. I ended up where I was supposed to be.”
“I’m happy to know that, but this is still something only time’s gonna heal for me. Right now, I’m just glad to be in the same room with you,” my father verbalized.
I looked up to find him staring at me and said, “Yeah. Same.”
* * *
Later that night, everyone left except for my father, and Ishmia had gone to bed as we sat on my balcony drinking beers and watching the cars below come and go.
“Do you believe the story about my mom giving me to your mom and then me coming up missing?” I asked, breaking into the companionable silence.
He looked over at me. “Tierra was a good girl, a little rebellious when it came to her parents, but not malicious. It would be hard for me to believe she’d just dump you somewhere, and my mother? I wouldn’t put shit past her. She barely mothered me and my brothers. She wasn’t exactly nurturing. But I still needed some type of proof, and I couldn’t get it from my parents because they’re both dead.”
“Damn, sorry to hear that.”
“Don’t be. I’m not. Anyway, I got an aunt that’s still kicking. She’s scared of me, so I figured if I asked her about it, she’d tell me the truth, no bullshit.”
“And you asked her?”
“Yep. Went to see her at her place.”
“She-she confirmed the story?”
“See for yourself,” he replied, pulling a cell phone from his pant pocket. I watched as he tapped the screen a few times and handed the phone to me.
It was a video. An elderly lady was in frame. I could hear my father’s voice from behind the camera.
“Aunt Clem, can I ask you something?” my father was saying.
“Yeah, you know you can,” the lady answered. She was petite and medium brown skinned with her gray hair in a tiny Afro. The easy chair she sat in seemed to swallow her.
“Okay…do you remember anything about my mother taking a baby to New Orleans? It would’ve been back when me and my brothers were in high school,” my father boomed. He sounded louder than I’d grown accustomed to him speaking in these few hours. I surmised Aunt Clem was hard of hearing.
“Let me think. Hmmm…New Orleans? I remember something about one of you boys getting some girl in trouble. Charmaine said she wanted to keep the baby, but Omar wasn’t having it. He told her to get that baby as far away from him as possible, especially because it was a boy. He didn’t want any more boys in the house, told her to take that baby somewhere before y’all got home from school. So, she asked me to ride with her, and I did. I don’t think she knew where she was going until she got there. She cried the whole ride, almost eight hours. I sat in the backseat and held the baby. She never told me which one of y’all the little guy belonged to. Precious little thing slept nearly the whole way. Never made a peep. She had some formula and diapers with her, so I kept him dry and fed him when he did wake up. We spent the night in that car, and I could tell she really wanted to keep him. She loved you boys so much. I think she saw y’all in that baby.”
“Uh-huh, what’d she end up doing with the baby?” my father cut in, sounding majorly irritated.
“She drove around until she found the welfare office, took the little one in and came out empty-handed. She said they had some program where they could get him placed. After that, I never heard another word about the baby.”
There was silence until the lady—Aunt Clem—spoke again. “Oh, Lord…that was your baby, wasn’t it?”
That’s when the video cut off.
Frowning, I asked, “What happened after that? Why’d the video cut off?”
“I got the hell up out of there before I fucked something or someone up,” he said matter-of-factly.
“Well, shit. You’d fuck up an old lady? For real?”
“Not her, per se, just the first thing I saw moving besides her. Look, I might as well go ahead and tell you this. I used to fuck niggas up for a living. I ain’t necessarily proud of that, but I do like fighting. Shit, I love it, but you and whoever you care about ain’t got shit to worry about. I take care of those I love, will fuck up the world for them. My wife’ll tell you.”
“Love?” I squeaked.
“You’re my son. The default setting for you is love. Same for your lady—good catch, by the way—and the baby. I love y’all, will tear some shit up over you. On everything, I will.”
I nodded. So…my father was a psychopath? Made sense.
“Hey, we don’t have to do the father-son thing. I just wanna be in your life. I wanna get to know you. I wanna know the baby. That’s all I’m asking for,” he reiterated.
I stared at him, his eyes mirroring mine. “I had the best mother but no father. I don’t mind giving the father-son thing a try, and thanks for the video. It’s good to know my birth parents didn’t just throw me away.”
“I would never do no shit like that. I ain’t perfect. I can be violent, but I love who I love, and I’ma always do right when it comes to them.”
“I believe it. You know, as good as my mother was to me, I always felt like something was missing. I think it was you. Like, I knew you were out there somewhere without knowing it.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah…uh, I’ve been meaning to ask Taneisha this, but…do you know when my birthday is? Did she tell you?”
He nodded. “That was one of the first things I asked her. It’s February twenty-second, according to what she said Tierra told her.”
“I really am a Pisces,” I muttered. “Let me ask you this…did you think we were part Asian?”
“Hell yeah!” he said through a chuckle. “Those results shocked the shit outta me.”
“Me too. It’s the Khoisan blood. I looked it up. They’re known for these eyes.”
“Shiddd, we the first people. Our ancestors were probably the first to have those eyes.”
“True.”
“I bet your baby gon’ have them, too.”
“Yeah. Uh, thanks for coming.”
“I would’ve come even if I had to crawl. Never thought I’d have kids, but I saw you on that video call and thought, that’s mine right there. Wasn’t a doubt in my mind. Ain’t shit I won’t do for mine.”
I don’t know where those damn tears came from, but there they were, accompanied by a sob that leapt from my damn soul. I closed my eyes and dropped my head when I realized there was no stopping the flood, and when I felt him grab me and pull me into a hug, I only cried harder.
“That’s okay. Let it out, baby boy. I got you. I got you,” my father promised.
And I believed him.
I believed him.