Chapter 45
forty-five
“Son, these pots are hot, stop running around the kitchen,” Kamilla fussed, before trotting to the other side of her island to catch him. “Ohh, I got you!”
She tickled him and kissed his face. His laugh always seemed to regulate her spirit.
Like the air she breathed, she needed Kairo.
This innocent being she was blessed to guide through life’s ebbs and flows was her reason to work as hard as she did.
Altering her life for him was so worth it.
Even before Cairo’s freedom was a thing, she was prepared to do this alone for the rest of her life.
“Mommy,” Kairo shouted as he laughed and wiggled in her arms. “Not fair.”
“It is fair,” Kamilla replied with a laugh. She sat him on the counter and looked at her lover’s twin warmly. “You ran, I caught you. That’s fair. That’s the game. When you run, you get caught.”
“Anybody catch you?” Kairo posed.
“Mmhmm. You did,” she answered.
“No, like a biiigggg person,” Kairo corrected. “A giant.”
She laughed softly, remembering Cairo before he was pulled out of his shell. Overgrown hair, hiding in plain sight; housing the same pain she was. A trauma bond that they dropped and landed in love. Kamilla took a long blink to reset.
“Mmhmm. The biggest,” she shared.
“Did you scream?”
She nodded. “And kicked and tried to run again and the giant kept catching me.”
“How you get out?” Kairo was so inquisitive. He always asked all the right questions, so enthralled with the layers, taking things apart and putting them back together. “Kick, you punch him?”
“No, I wanted to.”
“Did you bite him?” Kairo continued. “How you get out, Mommy?”
Kamilla huffed and kept her even expression. Kairo was locked in with her emotions and changes in her expressions. So much that she made sure it wasn’t anything that could distract him from being the child. She wouldn’t do to him what her mother had inadvertently done to her.
“If I ever get out, I’ll let you know. Until then, my moon, can you do mommy a favor?”
“Mmm, depends,” he countered.
“Play in your playroom or the living room, not in the kitchen with the hot pots. If it burns you, Mommy will have to dive deep, deep, deep into the ocean, wrestle a biiigggg fish, take its skin and put it on you. I don’t like my Kai Baby with fish skin.”
“Fish skin is stinky,” Kairo commented, pinching his nose. “Ugh, nasty.”
“So are we going to run in the kitchen?” she asked, kissing the top of his head.
“Yep,” Kairo said as he wiggled off the island. “Are you making me that juicy chicken?”
“I am,” Kamilla assured with laughter at his assertion. He was going to do what he wanted when he wanted to do it. He was his daddy’s son. “With your sticky rice and veggies.”
“Oh yeaahhh,” Kairo grunted and danced away. “Go chef mommy!”
She laughed more while watching him run through the living room to his playroom and back again. She was going to let him tire himself out because if he got a nap, she got a nap. Dinner done and on the counter, she let it cool while she grabbed her pint-sized tyrant.
“Dinner is ready, let’s wash up. After a baby nap, we can go get ice cream,” Kamilla shared.
“I’m not a baby. No baby nap. Can you make the ice cream here?” he propositioned her. “I can sleep in your bed with you all night.”
Kamilla looked at her son tiredly and pretended to hate the idea. “I can dig it as long as you don’t kick me.”
“Can’t promise, I’m a wild man,” he stated, running off to the bathroom with his head of curls flopping in the wind.
“You are indeed a wild man,” Kamilla stated as a knock furiously beat against her front door.
The knock felt threatening and anyone who needed to be here had a code along with a call, telling her they were coming.
Considering the amount of break-ins, she quietly closed Kairo in the bathroom while he splashed and went to retrieve her gun and her phone.
Seven missed calls from Dania and another one coming through.
She bypassed that for the cameras, finding her giant.
Red face, nostrils flared, and his car haphazardly parked in her driveway.
“Ahh shit,” she huffed, putting the gun back in its hiding spot. It was time for her to face her fate. As she pulled the door open, Cairo forced himself in and glared down at her. “Hi, hello, how are you?”
“Don’t. Don’t play those fuckin’ games with me” he warned. “Where is my son?”
“First of all, temper that shit,” Kamilla warned in return. “Second, this is my house. Take your shoes off.”
She turned on the balls of her feet, stomach in knots as she walked back toward the bathroom where she’d left a bad ass five-year-old unattended. Opening the door to Kairo wrapped up mummy-style in toilet paper and water everywhere, she huffed.
“Who is that?” Kairo asked, frowning at his father. “And why you beating on my mommy’s door?”
Kamilla shook her head and unwrapped him. “That’s your dad. Remember I told you about him?”
Kairo nodded. “You said he was far away.”
She squatted down to eye level with him. “What else did I tell you?”
“That he was the moon and I came from the moon. He looks like me,” Kairo said, looking up at Cairo, was who fighting to hold it together.
“Mhmm. I told you. From your hair to your eyes. That frown and that smile. Do you want to say hi?” Kamilla asked, feeling like she was in another heartbreak psychosis where Kairo said yes and then she woke up.
“Yes,” Kairo answered, watching his mother gather up the toilet paper, wipe his hands and move out of the way.
Just like his father, he was shy. Kamilla took charge. “Kai Baby. That’s your daddy, Cairo.”
Cairo cut his eyes at her and then looked down at his son.
“Cairo, this is Kairo-Palmer,” she shared, stepping fully out of the way and into the hall.
Cairo squatted down to his son’s level and gave him a warm smile that combatted the frown. “You stole my face.”
“Mm mm, you took mine. You’ve been on the moon,” Kairo-Palmer quipped, reaching out to touch his father’s thick brows. “You staying?”
Kamilla watched the exchange from the hall and swiped a tear from her cheek.
“I’ve been away too long already,” Cairo answered his son. “What you doin’ wrapping yourself up like a mummy?”
Kairo leaned in and whispered loudly. “I was going to run out and try and make mommy chase me. She’s the giant I can’t get away from. She said she has a giant too. Can you get her giant?”
He chuckled, realizing he was the giant in question. “Yeah, I’ll see what I can do.”
“Good. Mommy, can Daddy eat juicy chicken and sticky rice with us? And make ice cream?” Kairo-Palmer quizzed.
“If that’s what you want,” Kamilla replied. “But you have to clean those toys up.”
Grabbing his father’s hand, he barely gave him time to fully stand up before running off to the living room. Now that they were distracted, she grabbed her phone and answered another call from Dania.
“Oh thank God, he didn’t kill you,” Dania pushed out a sigh of relief.
“No, but I should kill you,” Kamilla whined, moving into her sunroom to the right of the foyer. “Who gave him my address? Who even told?”
“Your niece and her big ass mouth. I’ve been in denial about her being like me. She’s just like meeeee. Mila, I’m so sorry. Did he snap?” Dania asked.
“You should probably do all this questioning after I get him out of here,” Kamilla grumbled. “All that back and forth, I’m saving until Kairo is knocked out. He will not be subjected to it.”
“Tomorrow,” Nate sounded off. “He ain’t leaving.”
“He is,” Kamilla stated. “He has his space; I have mine. That’s just how it’s going to-”
“Mommy, we’re ready!” Kairo shouted.
“If she don’t hear from you by tomorrow morning, I’ll know he’s knocked you out, stuffed you in a trunk and is on the way out the country,” Nate called out, making Kamilla hang up.
“Dumbass jokes from a dumbass,” she grumbled, exiting her study. Both Hendrix men looking at her, one still had his shoes on. “Your shoes…off.”
“Oh, she’s using her timeout voice,” Kairo-Palmer blew.
“Your momma don’t scare me,” Cairo rumbled to her back.
As she tossed her hair over her shoulder, she was sure to flick him off in the process. “Come eat, KP.”
“Better take those shoes off,” Kairo-Palmer directed to his father. “No shoes in the house. Ever.”
“Any more rules?” Cairo asked, removing his shoes.
“No running in the kitchen. No sad eyes for mommy. No sleeping alone for mommy. No dirty hands at the table. No mean words. I think that’s it,” Kairo rambled off, walking through the kitchen to the dining room. Kamilla had two bowls placed side by side.
“Where’s yours?” Cairo questioned.
“You’re not here for me. Go eat dinner with your son,” she directed.
He chose to follow the rule of no mean words while his son was alert.
That and the look in her eyes told him that protecting Kairo was always front and center.
From the kitchen, she watched them talk, watched Cairo evolve into another version of himself.
Each better than the last. But more than anything, she saw the light in her boy shine brighter because his puzzle was whole.
She cleaned the kitchen, loading the ingredients in the ice cream maker all while swiping tears from her cheeks. Almost forty minutes later, Cairo came in with the dishes off the table.
“He wanted to show me his Legos but he’s passed out on the floor. Where is his room?”
“KP’s room is up the stairs, second on the left.”
“KP?”
“Yeah, Kairo-Palmer.”
He glared at her. “Kairo Palmer? You serious.”
“Yes, Kairo-Palmer Hendrix.”
“Uh huh,” he grumbled, walking away.
She mocked him, rolling her eyes. “Uh huh. Poking his chest out at me.”
While he was gone, she washed the plates. Put the ice cream in the freezer and wiped down the table. When his presence was impossible to ignore, she asked. “If you want to come back and get him tomorrow, you can.”
“Why the fuck you playing with me?” he snapped, the comment pissing him off.
“I’m not playing with you. If you want to come back tomorrow and get your son, you can. I’m not keeping him from you,” she retorted.
“Not anymore. Suddenly you’re caught and you have an attitude with me? Fuck outta here, K. When did you become a liar?”
Her eyes snapped to him, all the years of hurt she had to swallow on display. “Who the fuck you feeling like, C4? Huh? Who? Don’t barge into my house and talk to me fuckin’ crazy.”
“You could’ve told me we have a son the minute you saw me in La Bega,” Cairo pushed back. “And stop calling me that.”
“All that prison water has gotten to your fuckin’ head,” she argued.
“Oh, she cusses and lies,” he continued, going back and forth with her. “Why didn’t you tell me when you saw me. You had chances, K.”
“I don’t know, C4. Probably the same reason you fuckin’ blocked me and when you pop up, you want me running into your arms. This shit don’t go how you want it to go.
The moment I found out I was pregnant, I was there to tell you.
I waited in that lobby for three fuckin’ hours only to find out, my nigga – the man who promised me the moon – the one that said he wasn’t leaving me, not for nothing or no one in this world, blocked me. ”
“I wanted you to move on. Twenty-five years, K. That was my sentence. It would’ve killed me to have you give up your life to come entertain me once a month.”
“So now that’s a problem for you? You’re a hypocrite.”
“Fuck out of here with that. You don’t get it.”
“No, nigga. You don’t get it. Moving on from you was never an option.
It didn’t matter that I let you block me without sending Nate to blow up your spot.
Didn’t matter that I moved out the city to the valley.
Or that I went to night school until I had him and scrubbed floors and toilets during the day.
Sometimes I’d leave a night class and go clean a house.
I sat in a two-bedroom house with my titty in his mouth doing online courses and working,” she stated.
“I did exactly what you wanted me to do and still couldn’t move on.
You haven’t even looked at your accounts.
Had you, you wouldn’t be here talking to me like I’m a bitch off the fuckin’ street who hid your baby from you and fuckin’ on the next nigga. ”
“What are you talking about?” he fussed.
“How much did you leave me?” she quizzed, hands on her hips so she wouldn’t fly across the table and punch him in his handsome ass face. She’d feel bad then kiss him and before she knew it, would be pinned to the table taking dick.
“Almost three hundred g’s.”
“Do you know how much you came home to? After five years, factor in your legal fees and that house you’re in,” Kamilla continued.
“The account you’re looking at is only your royalties from Ekho’s album.
That other one you haven’t logged into is well over three million.
From the businesses you own, from the investments I made for you, off the strength that you were mine and we made something so magical.
Even after blocking me and refusing to fight for yourself, I kept fighting for you.
I kept trying to steal the fucking moon.
I loved your son for the both of us. I’ve worked this fucking hard for the both of us.
I made sure you had the best fuckin’ lawyers for the both of us. It wasn’t Nate or Fahaad. It was me.
“So don’t you ever come into my house throwing the weight of your dick around and look me in my face and call me a liar because your feelings are hurt.
My feelings have been raw for years. Off some shit you caused because you quit.
I have lived and breathed you every day, so bad it hurts.
The moment I attempt to move on, corny nigga or not, it feels like guilt ripping through me.
And the heart you own refusing to beat if it’s not for you.
Every day for five years, I’ve had to look at him and know that it should’ve been me because I didn’t listen. ”
She paused to wipe her face. Cairo tightened his jaw, wanting to touch her, but she refused.
“Don’t. Don’t touch me. If you want to come get your son tomorrow, you can. He wakes up at seven,” Kamilla finalized.
“I’m staying.”
She laughed dryly. “No, you aren’t.”
“Why the fuck not?”
“Because I am so angry that you won’t wake up. He’ll be up and ready to go by eight. Sundays are the days him and Malayna hang out. But you’re his daddy, you’ll figure it out.” Kamilla walked past him and turned the lights out. “You can see yourself out quieter than how you came in.”
She left him there and climbed the stairs with her phone in tow.
From his cemented spot, he watched as she walked into Kairo’s room, scooped him up and then moved across the hall to her bedroom.
When the sound of the lock turned, he let out a long sigh.
He’d hurt the one person who loved him more than herself.