Chapter 2 #2
“Don’t do that again. Ever Simone.” I grabbed her by both of her arms, as my heart beat fast in my chest. “Don’t ever stand over me like that while I’m sleep.
I could have smoked you.” I said, pointing to my gun on the coffee table that I jumped up to reach for.
I hated to be spazzing like this, but I’d just gotten a threat on my life and any false move was sending me over the edge.
All I knew was how to survive in case some shit popped off.
She stepped back and looked at me with her hand on her chest. “I was just trying to wake you up. Why are you on the couch? Why weren’t you in bed last night and what the hell got you acting like this?
I don’t like this shit at all,” she said, looking at me as if I’d lost my mind.
And maybe I was. So much had transpired in 24 hours, I was feeling crazy as hell my damn self.
“I couldn’t sleep. Didn’t want to keep you up, so I slept in here.”
“You’re sweating.” She was studying my face like she always did when she thought I was keeping something from her. “And you just grabbed me like somebody was breaking in. What is going on with you?”
“Nothing. I just woke up paranoid. You know I don’t like being snuck up on.”
“I wasn’t sneaking up on you Gutta I was coming to wake you. You know we don’t sleep in this late.” She crossed her arms.
“Talk to me and don’t tell me that it’s nothing.”
I looked at her standing there in her robe with her hair wrapped and her eyes reading everything on my face.
Simone was my baby, I wanted to tell her.
Everything in me wanted to put it down and let somebody else carry some of it for a minute.
But I looked at her and thought about what telling her actually meant.
I provided my girl with a soft life and never had placed none of my life problems on her to carry.
I was a man, and it was my job to make sure my bullshit never touched her.
I had to keep this shit to myself. From the threatening call, Sandra, Amara, all of it. I knew she wasn’t ready for that conversation anyway, and honestly neither was I.
“I’m good Simone. Real talk. I just had a lot on my mind last night and didn’t want to toss and turn and wake you up. That’s it.”
She looked at me for a long moment and I could see her deciding whether to push it or let it go. She let it go but I could tell it bothered her to do that.
“I have two houses to show today,” she said, going to the kitchen. “After that, I need some real time with you. I don’t like how this feels. I want us to have a nice dinner. Just us. And we need to talk.”
“I got you. Wherever you want to go. I don’t want you feeling no type of way, so tonight, I’m gonna make it up baby.
You know we have a lot riding on Streets next fight, then I’m transitioning over to being fully legit and shit just a lot to carry for real.
But tonight, it’s all about you baby.” I said as I walked up and kissed her lips.
“Somewhere nice Gutta. Not wings. And you know you can always come to me. You don’t have to keep shit bottled up to the point where you sleeping on your damn couch and reaching for a pistol, fresh off the wake-up.”
“I’m sorry baby! Ima do better and I’ll make it up to you. I’m getting my shit together just be patient with me. Whatever you want tonight it’s all about you.”
She kissed my lips, while I grabbed a handful of her ass. She pulled away and walked off, looked back at me over her shoulder and something in her face softened just slightly. “You sure you’re okay?”
“I’m sure. Go handle your business. I’ll see you tonight.”
She got dressed, left and I stood at the window and watched her car pull out of the lot and then I grabbed my keys and went to handle mine.
Any other morning, I would have fucked the shit out of Simone before we started our day, that’s the real reason why her ass was waking me up.
Today, I just had too much shit on my mind, a nigga probably wouldn’t have been able to stay hard any way.
—
My momma house was twenty minutes away and I made it in fifteen.
I needed to talk to her, because how I was feeling, she was the only person who could make a nigga feel better.
I was a man to the fullest, but I’d never be too hood to admit, I was still my momma baby.
And today, I needed my muthafuckin momma. A nigga head was spinning.
I let myself in with my key the way I always did.
She knew that I was liable to pop up at anytime and she knew not to have no nigga over or I would get on his ass.
She could date, but I had to approve of the nigga.
These days, men preyed on single women and would try to take them fast. That wasn’t gone happen on my watch.
I’d catch a body behind mine and think nothing of it.
I called out to her so she wouldn’t think somebody was breaking in.
I could hear voices coming from the kitchen before I got there and when I walked through the doorway my mama was at the table with my auntie Kat, and they both had tea in front of them.
They were laughing about something that must have been funny before I walked in.
“There he is,” my momma said.
Aunt Kat looked up at me, smiled and stood.
I hugged her tight. She always smelled like wealth, even when we were all struggling.
Today was no different. She hugged back tight and with love— like she meant it and wasn’t in a rush to let go.
She was my aunt by blood but she had always felt like a second moms and I think she knew that even if we never said it out loud.
I loved Street, Melo and Mazi like brothers because that’s how she raised us to be.
I pulled up a chair and sat down between them.
I had driven over here with the full intention of telling my momma what I had seen in that grocery store.
Amara’s face, Sandra’s reaction, all of it.
I wasn’t gone tell her how I knew or got with Sandra.
. I wasn’t that crazy. My momma always stood on morals and principles, so there was no way I’d sit up in her face and tell her that the woman I may have gotten pregnant was married, and that she was someone I’d kidnapped. Hell nah.
Now, sitting here looking at the two of them at this kitchen table I needed to feel it out first before I dropped it on her straight.
“Can I ask y’all something hypothetically,” I said.
My momma looked at me sideways immediately. “Hypothetically.”
“Yeah. Just hypothetically.”
“Boy what did you do?”
“Momma, I didn’t do nothing. For real. I’m just asking a question.” I leaned forward on the table. “How would y’all feel if you found out that I had a baby out there that I didn’t know about until now. And she was like three years old.”
The kitchen got quiet.
My moms set her mug down slowly. “Deon.”
“Hypothetically. Remember that Ma.”
“Are you joking or are you being serious right now? Because I have different answers for different situations.”
“I’m just asking. For real. Tell me exactly what you’ll say and how you’ll feel about it.”
Aunt Kat put her hand over her mouth and looked at me with wide eyes but didn’t say anything. Street didn’t have kids, but my auntie always begged for some. Street was so damn stuck on Bri, a baby wasn’t coming no time soon.
My mama sat back in her chair and looked at me the way she looked at me when she was figuring out how serious a situation actually was. She had a way of doing that — stripping everything down to what was real and what wasn’t before she responded to any of it.
“I’ll tell you exactly what it is,” she said.
“First thing I would need to do is lay eyes on that baby myself. Because my heart and my eyes will know before any test tells me anything. I know my blood.” She pointed at me.
“And then you’d be getting a DNA test. Period.
Because one thing I will not allow is for my son to be made a fool of.
Women see you doing well, see you elevating, and all of a sudden babies start appearing. I’ve seen it happen too many times.”
“So you don’t think if a baby popped up, it could actually be mine without the mother trying to take me fast?”
“I didn’t say that. I said we verify first before we do anything else.
That’s what smart people do.” She paused.
“And I want a grandbaby more than anything in this world, but I want to protect my own child even more than that. You and Street both know that. So if there is a baby out there that belongs to you I want to know about her or him.” Her eyes narrowed.
“And if by chance this ain’t just hypothetical, God help that woman if she’s been sitting on this for three years.
And God help you too if this is about to hurt Simone because I love that girl like shes my own daughter. ”
I thought about Simone. About dinner we’d planned for tonight, the houses she was showing right now, and the way she had looked at me this morning when she thought I was keeping something from her.
I dropped the subject. Hurting Simone would hurt me too damn bad. I knew that she wouldn’t have an understanding for the timing although that baby happened before she was even my girl. I was still chasing her ass when I ran into Sandra all them years ago.
“I’m just asking hypothetically,” I said again and picked up the mug my momma had slid toward me. She was the only person that could get me to sit up and drink some damn hot tea. Now, everything that I’d driven over here to say was put on pause.
She looked at me like she knew exactly what that meant and chose not to push it. That was the thing about my mama. She knew when to let something slide.
Aunt Kat had been quiet since I said it, but she reached over and patted my hand. I could feel in that pat that she was worried even though she didn’t say anything. She always stayed out of conversations that I had with my moms unless she just had to get involved.
After a few minutes of silence, she shifted and looked at me with something else on her face. It looked like worry.
“Have you seen the twins since they’ve been home?” she asked.
“I saw them a couple of times. Not much, you know they be in the wind,” I said, remembering not to tell her that Mazi had gotten shot. His lil ass was keeping that from his momma, and I understood why. She didn’t play when it came to getting on them twins ass, and keeping them in check.
She nodded slow. “Something’s going on with that Mazi.
Melo don’t sit down long enough for me to know what’s up with him.
He went from visiting for the summer to getting on the highway for that girl every other day.
His ass may as well have stayed in Austin for all that.
” My auntie huffed. Her ass was jealous that her baby boy had someone else he wanted to spend all his time with.
My moms went through the same thing. You just have to let boys be boys.
My aunt told me that Mazi been having nightmares. Waking up in cold sweats. He’s not himself, is what she said. I always knew it was from his lil ass getting shot at. She shook her head. “I don’t know what that child has gotten himself into but something is sitting on him heavy.”
I thought about Mazi in that hospital bed the day he got released.
I slid on him before he got discharged so that I could catch him alone and talk some sense into him.
The way he had looked when I explained to him that these streets didn’t love nobody, and how he was basically spitting in his brother face by doing the bullshit he had no business doing.
His big brother sacrificed his entire life for them, so I couldn’t understand what Mazi was doing.
I needed to talk to him again.
Soon. Before whatever he was into got worse than a graze.
I stayed another hour and left with my mama calling behind me to not be gone so long and to bring Simone to Sunday dinner soon.
I got in my car and sat there for a minute.
Then I pulled out my phone and called Sandra.
It rang.
Rang again.
Voicemail.
I called back immediately.
Voicemail again.
I called a third time and this time it picked up and I could tell from the sound on her end that she had stepped somewhere quiet. Her voice came out low and tight.
“I told you not to contact me.” She answered with a damn attitude when I was the only muthafucka who had the right to be pissed off about some shit.
“And I told you we needed to talk,” I said.
“So here we are.”
“Yes? What do you need Deon? I’ve done my research and I know all I need to know about you.” She said into the phone.
Why else would she be doing research on me unless she knew or thought that I was her Baby’s father? I did not give her my name when I let her go. And I damn sure wouldn’t have gave her my real name.
“Tomorrow,” I said. “You and baby girl need to meet me somewhere. Somewhere public, somewhere simple, I don’t care where. But it’s happening tomorrow.”
Silence.
“Sandra.”
“I can’t do that.”
“You can and you will.” I kept my voice even.
“Because if you don’t I’m going to come to that house.
The one you share with your husband. And I’m going to knock on that door and whatever happens after that is on you not me.
I don’t want to do it that way. But I will, and you know I don’t give a fuck if shit go left.
I’m on that time about something this serious.
More silence. Longer this time.
“You wouldn’t do that! Especially when you are the one who keeps inconveniencing my life. I didn’t ask you to kidnap me, nor did I ask you to pop up now all of these years later.”
“Try me. This ain’t about you, and that’s what I want you to understand.”
I heard her breathing on the other end. Slow and controlled the way people breathed when they were trying not to let you hear that you had gotten to them.
“There is a park on Riverside,” she finally said. “Eleven o’clock. We will be there for thirty minutes and then we’re leaving and after that you never contact me again.”
“I’ll be there.”
She hung up without another word.
I sat in my momma’s driveway and looked at my phone. I thought about what I was walking into tomorrow. A woman who wanted me gone. A little girl who didn’t know I existed before yesterday. And a husband who was sitting at home right now thinking everything in his house belonged to him.
I started the car.
Tomorrow was going to change everything.
I just didn’t know for who yet.