SAJE #3
While we’d been getting to know each other, I noticed what a great job her grandmother did raising her, so I sent her a million dollars to use however she pleased.
She’d given up a big portion of her life to take care of my daughter.
It wouldn’t make up for my absence, but I felt the need to offer something, especially since Basheer could no longer look out for her.
There were many things I wished I could have changed. The consequences of all my actions had finally caught up with me. I had to sit in this shit and take it. I brought it on myself.
But this was my life. My past couldn’t be rewritten, but what I chose to do now could change the trajectory of my future. All I knew was that I never wanted Baislee out of my life ever again.
Baislee and I put Basheer in our new van, and we went for a drive. I had a destination in mind, and I hoped having my daughter with me would lead to a different outcome, a positive one.
It was time for my father and mother to meet Baislee and hear the truth from me. I hadn’t talked to my father since the gender reveal, and I missed him so much.
When we drove up to their house, I parked and took a second to take a deep breath. I told Baislee to wait in the car while I went to test the water. My mother was known to say outlandish shit sometimes, and I didn’t want it to scare Baislee.
Before I could make it to the last step that led to their front entrance, the door flew open, and my mother’s angry face came into view.
“Hey—”
“Why are you here?” she interrupted, cutting me off.
Damn. She was still on the same shit.
“I came to visit y’all. That’s why I’m here. And—” I looked behind me and noticed that Baislee was staring at us. “I brought someone here for you to meet.”
“If it’s who I think it is, I don’t want to meet her.”
“What?” I asked, feeling myself getting mad.
She stepped outside and got in my face. “Saje, a baby at sixteen years old, really? Your father told me everything.”
“We’ve all done things we aren’t proud of.”
“That’s your excuse, I see. All your sins have come to the surface, and now that you have no one in your corner, you find your way to our door.”
“I won’t blame you for what I did, but I will say if y’all had paid more attention to me instead of chasing a check, maybe things would’ve turned out differently.”
“Don’t you dare blame us for your fast ways!” she barked. “You’re not welcome here anymore! Get!” she shouted at me like I was a stray animal nobody wanted.
My eyes narrowed as I fought back tears. “Was I ever really welcome here to begin with?”
“I suppose not, since you started smelling yourself as soon as you turned eighteen. Look at you. You decided to go to acting school, and look where you are now… not on nobody’s screen, I heard.”
Ouch. She had hit below the belt with that one. My mother never forgave me for going to acting school.
“Where’s my father?” I asked instead of responding to her smart remarks. This was how I knew I was putting in the work to change. The old me would’ve dragged her ass off that porch and beat her ass for talking to me crazy, mother or not.
“Why? He was the only one who rooted for you, and I told him one day you would disappoint him, and you proved me right.”
Sadness hit me hard, but I was determined to see my father before I left their house. He was always the levelheaded one around here. “Please call him out here for me. I just want to see him.”
“Girl, leave my husband alone and get away from my damn house with all your bad juju. I can’t believe I gave birth to you. And I’m glad I declined the invitation to that awful gender reveal. You’ve embarrassed this family for the last time.”
Suddenly, my father appeared at the door. “Delilah, what’s going on?”
“Your piece-of-shit daughter is here, that’s what’s going on,” she said, rolling her eyes at me and then looking at him. “I blame you for the way this girl turned out. Always running to her rescue, and she still found a way to make a mess of her life.”
“I can’t take this shit anymore.” My father disappeared into the house and came rushing out with his car key in his hand. He brushed past, not even acknowledging me.
“Roland, where are you going?” my mother yelled after him.
“Away from you! From both of you. I always tried to protect Saje from you, and while I was trying to save her, she was slowly turning into you.”
Shit. Tell us how you really feel. It was then that I knew he was giving up on my mother and me. We both drove him to a point of no return.
“Come back here, Roland!”
“No! Delilah, I’m done with your miserable, controlling ass.”
“If you leave, you are no longer allowed back in this house!” she shouted, chasing behind him.
He hopped behind the wheel and rolled his window down. “Another thing, while you’re judging Saje for her whorish ways, don’t think I don’t know about you having an affair with our neighborhood mailman. Now, you and him can be together. I’m fucking done!”
My father circled out of the driveway and drove off, leaving us standing there.
My mother’s eyes looked like mini balloons as she watched him drive away.
I looked at her and shook my head. “And you had the nerve to look down on me,” I said as I turned around and walked toward the van.
All I heard behind me was her front door slamming loudly.
I got back into the vehicle and drove away, disappointed that Baislee would never have a relationship with her grandparents.
I was torn to pieces. This was a pain I’d never felt and wouldn’t wish on anybody.
But I was thankful she was able to experience having a loving grandmother her whole life.
Ms. Odessa and Basheer had given my daughter more love than my side of the family and I ever could.
“Mom.”
I turned so fast I almost rammed into the car in front of me at the red light. Did she just call me mom?
We pulled up to a red light, and I stared at her before asking, “What did you say?”
“I said, Mom,” she repeated.
“Y-Yes,” I stammered as I pulled into traffic when the light turned green. A simple word had my heart racing because it was something I never expected to be called, but it did sound nice.
“I forgive you.”
She reached over and grabbed my right hand off the steering wheel as I used my left hand to steer. For the remainder of the drive, Baislee held my hand.
This was my new life, and I would embrace it.
With tears filling my eyes, I looked in the rearview mirror, and could’ve sworn Basheer’s face had softened, even if it was just my emotions playing tricks on me.