2. Love you, Baby Girl #2
“Hey, Baby Girl,” I said quietly. The words slipped out naturally.
Her eyes watered instantly. Mine did too, and I didn’t bother to wipe them. I needed her to know this moment meant the world to me.
She looked away first. “Nobody’s called me that in years.”
Because I wasn’t there to do it. That truth sat heavily between us immediately. I shoved my hands deeper into my jacket pockets to stop myself from reaching for her too fast.
“You got taller,” I said stupidly.
A small laugh escaped her.
“There’s no way you thought I was still four feet tall. I didn’t know if you’d actually come,” she admitted quietly.
That surprised me enough to frown. “Why wouldn’t I?”
She shrugged but wouldn’t look directly at me now. “I don’t know. People say things.”
“What people?”
“Everybody promises you the world and can’t deliver.
” Her voice sharpened slightly then. “Mom always tried to explain things, but she ended up causing more lies with her sugarcoating. Aunt Kenya kept saying you loved me, but I never felt it. Journalists still randomly get my number and ask me questions about you.”
I clenched my jaw immediately.
I hated that. Hated strangers having access to pieces of us.
“People talk too much,” I muttered.
“That’s easy for you to say.”
I nodded slowly. “You’re right.”
She finally looked up at me again then. “You spent all that time behind bars, and you really didn’t do it?”
She was for sure my kid because only a child of mine could get straight to the wound.
No easing into it.
No softening.
I held her gaze.
“No, I didn’t.”
She studied my face so intensely it felt like an interrogation.
“Not any of it?”
“Not what they put on me.”
I wouldn’t look my daughter in the eyes and pretend to be perfect. I wouldn’t pretend to have lived a life that didn’t cause others pain, but I wouldn’t take heat that wasn’t mine. Prison taught me that honesty was different from innocence.
Jazlyn caught it immediately, too.
“You did other stuff, though.”
I exhaled slowly through my nose. “Yeah. I did. I grew up too fast, and I used to make a living in ways that hurt others.”
She looked down at the ground.
“I appreciate you not lying.”
It hurt that my baby girl was so jaded because it meant she expected lies first. We stood there quietly while students flowed around us.
Finally, I spoke again. “Your mama did what she thought was best. I know you wanted the truth, but it’s not fair to expect her to tell you my truth.”
Jazlyn’s eyes snapped back to mine immediately.
“She kept me away from you. She didn’t believe you were innocent.”
“She was trying to protect you.”
Jazlyn stared at me for a long moment after that. I recognized that look because I wore it myself. The Davis side of the family had always processed emotions as if they were evidence in a courtroom. We were quiet at first, but had big feelings later.
“You know what’s crazy?” she said finally.
“What?”
“I used to imagine that you were mean.”
That made me laugh. “Why?”
She shrugged. “Because everybody else was scared of you. The kids at school would taunt me with your mugshot.”
Damn.
The word settled heavily in my chest.
I looked out across campus, watching students move between buildings while a cold wind cut through the courtyard.
“Being mean-looking was one way to survive where I came from.”
She studied me carefully. “You don’t seem scary.”
I glanced at her then.
“That’s because you’re my daughter. I should be scary to everyone except you.”
Jazlyn looked down at her hands. “Mom used to say that, too.”
“What?”
“That underneath everything, you were gentle with people you loved.”
Jackie still saying things like after all of these years touched my heart. Jacqueline had carried my child, raised her mostly alone, and still somehow preserved pieces of me I hadn’t earned the right to keep.
“That woman is too good for the both of us,” I muttered.
Jazlyn smiled faintly. “Yeah. I guess Mom is aight.”
We started walking slowly through campus after that.
Side by side. It felt awkward at first, but she was warming up to me.
She pointed out different buildings while we walked.
“That’s the communications building.”
I nodded.
“That one over there is law studies.”
Another nod.
“You okay?” she asked finally.
“Yeah.”
“You keep looking around like somebody about to jump out of a bush.”
I snorted softly.
“Old habits.”
“You really can’t turn it off?”
“No matter how hard I try.”
The honesty surprised both of us. I rubbed my beard slowly while students brushed past us, laughing too loudly and talking too fast. A group of boys walked by smelling like weed and expensive cologne. Somewhere nearby, music blasted from a dorm window.
I wondered what kind of person I would’ve been if mine hadn’t stopped at twenty-three.
“You know,” Jazlyn said carefully, “Mama almost brought me to visit you one time again after I was seven.”
I looked at her immediately.
“How old were you?”
“Thirteen.”
Thirteen was old enough to understand prison wasn’t temporary.
“What happened?”
“She cried in the parking lot before we even got inside.”
Jazlyn shoved her hands into her sweater pockets. “I think she wanted me to know you. She just couldn’t handle seeing you there. I think it hurt her more than she ever admitted, and she blamed her inability to go there on me.”