15. JB
JB
Iain’t say shit until we were in the car and pulling out of that parking lot.
Too many phones had been out back there, and too many people had seen my hand go to my piece.
I damn sure wasn’t sticking around to find out if somebody had called the police.
All it took was one scared-ass parent telling them some Black man had a gun at the pumpkin patch, and the whole situation was finna turn into something else.
I checked the rearview mirror as I turned onto the road. JJ was strapped into his car seat, cheeks still wet from crying, while Hannah sat beside me staring straight ahead.
“But Daddy, we ain’t get our pumpkin,” JJ said from the back.
I looked at him through the mirror. “We’ll get you another one, lil’ man.”
He frowned and turned toward the window, and guilt twisted through me because my boy didn’t know shit about what had just happened. All he knew was we had dragged him out of a pumpkin patch before he got his damn pumpkin.
Once we were farther down the road, I looked over at Hannah. “Who the fuck was that nigga?”
She slowly turned her head toward me. “You cannot be fucking serious.”
“I asked you a question. You know that nigga?”
“How the fuck I’m supposed to know him, JB?”
“I know them hoes at your shop talk.”
“Talk about what? Don’t nobody even know Lee out for real.”
I glanced over at her. “What you mean don’t nobody know?”
“Exactly what I said. She ain’t posted no pictures of herself.
Ain’t been out to no clubs. Ain’t been back to the hood.
Shit, half the people that know her probably don’t even know she home yet.
” Hannah folded her arms and turned toward the window.
“So no, I ain’t got no damn tea on Leona.
Whoever that nigga is, your guess is as good as mine. ”
My hands tightened around the steering wheel because that ain’t make me feel no fucking better. “Clearly she know his ass from somewhere.”
Hannah sucked her teeth. “And here your dumb ass go.”
I looked over at her. “What?”
“Your whole shit just blew up. She found out about me, JJ, this baby, you damn near pulled a gun at a pumpkin patch, and you sitting here worried about how Leona know another man.”
“I ain’t worried about shit.”
“Nigga, please.”
“Mommy? Daddy?”
Both of us shut up at the sound of JJ’s voice. I checked the rearview mirror again and found him watching us.
“Don’t fight.”
Hannah turned around first. “We not fighting, baby.”
“Yes y’all is.”
I almost laughed, even though none of this shit was funny. “We done, lil’ man. Ain’t nobody fighting.”
He stared at me like he ain’t believe my ass, and I couldn’t even blame him.
I kept my mouth shut after that, and Hannah did the same.
Every couple seconds, I checked the mirror and caught JJ staring out the window, sniffling every now and then.
I ain’t want him hearing no more of our shit. He had already seen enough for one day.
After a while, JJ’s eyes started getting heavy, and once he settled against the side of his car seat, Hannah finally spoke again.
“So what now?”
I kept my eyes on the road. “What you mean?”
“She know now. Ain’t no more hiding me or my kids. So what now?”
“I gotta talk to Lee.”
Hannah gave a short laugh and looked out the window. “Of course you do.”
“We got fifteen years, Hannah.”
She looked at me for a second before turning toward the window, and that was the end of the conversation.
When I pulled up to the house, JJ was damn near asleep in the back seat. Hannah got out, opened his door, and unbuckled him. He reached for her, and she picked him up, settling his head against her shoulder while I stayed behind the wheel.
She made it a few steps toward the house before stopping and looking back at me. “You coming in?”
“Nah.”
“Where you going?”
I glanced down at my phone. “I’m finna make sure Lee ain’t got that nigga in my fucking house.”
Hannah stood there staring at me for a second. “JB.”
“What?”
“Don’t go over there doing no stupid shit.”
I looked at her, but she wasn’t backing down.
“I’m serious.” She shifted JJ higher on her hip. “You already reached for that gun once today. You got kids to think about.”
My jaw tightened. “I ain’t finna do shit.”
“That’s what niggas always say right before they do some stupid shit.”
“Hannah, I said I got it.”
She kept watching me like she ain’t believe a word coming out my mouth. “Whatever, JB. Just remember you got people depending on your ass.”
She turned and carried JJ inside, and I waited until the door shut behind them before I pulled off.
The whole ride over, I kept picturing that nigga with his arms around Lee.
I knew why he grabbed her. I had been standing right there when she tried to get at Hannah, so that wasn’t the part fucking with me.
It was how comfortable his ass looked doing it, how quick he stepped in, and how Lee told me she came there with him and was leaving with him too. Friend, my ass.
When I turned onto her street, I was already looking for his truck. It wasn’t in the driveway or parked out front, which eased some of the pressure sitting in my chest.
I pulled in and sat there for a second, staring at the house. Maybe she was inside cooling off. Maybe I had beat them there. Either way, I needed to see for myself. I got out and went straight to the door. As soon as I stepped inside, I knew something was off.
“Lee?” The house stayed quiet.
I shut the door behind me and looked around.
“Lee!” When she still didn’t answer, I went through the living room and into the kitchen.
Her practice hand was sitting on the island beside an open bottle of top coat.
Her coffee cup was in the sink, and the little pouch she bought in Colombia was sitting beside her charger.
Her shit was everywhere, but there was no sign of her.
I checked the bedroom and bathroom before heading into the garage. The second I hit the light and saw her car sitting exactly where she always kept it, something in my chest dropped. She had actually listened when I told her to get the fuck out my house before I get there and leave my car too.
I rubbed both hands over my face. “Fuck.”
I ain’t mean for her to really leave. I had been pissed, and seeing that nigga with his hands on her had me talking out the side of my fucking neck.
The problem was Lee ain’t know none of that.
All she knew was she had just found out I had a whole family behind her back, and instead of fixing any of that shit, I told her to get the fuck out. So she did.
I pulled out my phone and called her. It rang until voicemail picked up, so I hung up and tried again with the same result.
I opened our messages.
Where you at?
Then:
Lee, answer the phone. We need to talk.
A few seconds later, both messages showed as read, but she didn’t reply.
I started typing again.
I’m sorry.
I stared at the words for a few seconds before erasing them. Sorry wasn’t fixing this.
I’m coming to get you.
I sent that instead.
If she wanted to ignore me, cool. I knew somebody who might know where her ass was, so I called Anika.
She picked up after a couple rings, with music and people talking loud as hell in the background.
“Hello?”
“Where Lee at?”
“Shit, I don’t know. I ain’t seen her since this morning.”
I frowned. “She ain’t called you?”
“No. I’m at the hookah lounge. Why?”
I ain’t say nothing.
“JB?”
“What?”
“What happened?”
“Ain’t shit happened. I’m just looking for her.”
“Nigga, please. You don’t call me asking where Lee at for no reason.” The music got quieter, like she had stepped outside. “What happened?”
I looked back toward the house. “She found out.”
Anika went quiet for a second. “Found out what?”
That was when it hit me that Anika ain’t know either.
“I’ll call you back.”
“JB, found out what?”
I hung up before she could ask me anything else.
Anika ain’t seen her, Lee damn sure wasn’t at the house, and something told me she had gone to the same place she always did when shit got bad. Her mama’s house.
I headed back outside and got in the car, trying not to think too hard about what I was gonna say once I found her. Lee was mad, hurt, pissed the fuck off, whatever, but I kept telling myself she was gonna talk to me.
A few blocks from Maisie’s house, I had damn near convinced myself she was coming back with me.
I knew the script. Lee got mad at me, cussed me out, cried sometimes, and other times stopped answering my calls long enough to piss me off. But eventually we talked, and eventually we got past whatever the fuck had happened.
That was us. We had fifteen fucking years behind us.
We done lost a baby, and she done went to prison and kept my name out her mouth for five whole years.
She came home and still wanted me. Five years behind a wall ain’t break us, so I damn sure wasn’t ready to believe one fucked-up afternoon at a pumpkin patch was about to do it.
She was gonna be mad, and she had every right to be, but she was gonna listen. Once I got her to listen, I could fix it. At least that’s what I kept telling myself.
I’d explain Hannah and how that shit started while Lee was gone, how it wasn’t never supposed to turn into all this.
JJ was different, though. I loved my son, and I wasn’t apologizing for being his daddy, but his name was something else entirely.
Lee and me had already picked Jabari Junior for our son, and after we lost him, my dumb ass turned around and gave that same name to the son I had with somebody else.
I ain’t have no explanation for that shit, and for the first time since I left the pumpkin patch, I wasn’t sure there was one.
I pulled into Maisie’s driveway, killed the engine, and got out. The first thing I needed to do was get Lee to come the fuck outside so I could talk to her. Everything else could wait.
I went up the porch steps and banged on the door. “Lee!”
The door swung open before I could knock a second time, but it wasn’t Leona standing there. It was Maisie.
She ain’t invite me in or look surprised to see me. She just stood in the doorway staring at me like she had been waiting for my ass to show up.
“Lee here?” I asked, trying to look past her into the hallway.
Maisie shifted enough to block my view. “She sleep.”
“I need to talk to her, Maisie. Move.”
“What part of she sleep don’t your thick skull understand?”
“I ain’t here for no shit.” Even I knew that was a lie. “I just need to talk to my girl.”
“She ain’t your girl right now.”
I tried to step forward, and Maisie reached behind the doorframe.
“Maisie, move.”
When her hand came back, she was holding the same damn shotgun she had kept around since I was a teenager. I stared at it, trying to figure out if this lady was really serious.
“LEONA!” I yelled past her.
Maisie lifted the gun. “Don’t you do that.”
“LEE!”
“Jabari, I’m telling you right now.”
“What’s going on?” Lee’s voice came from somewhere behind her.
I looked past Maisie as Lee walked down the hallway, and one look at her told me she had been crying her ass off. Her eyes was swollen, her face was all puffy, and she had on some big-ass T-shirt with no makeup. Her hair looked like she ain’t gave a fuck what it was doing.
I hated seeing her like that, and I hated knowing I was the reason for it even more. Still, when she stopped behind her mama and looked at me, the first thing that came out my mouth was, “Get your stuff. Come on. We going home so we can talk.”
Lee ain’t move. She looked at Maisie, then back at me.
“I am home.”
That shut me up for a second. For fifteen years, Lee always came back to me. Even after five years in prison, she had come straight back to me. Now she was standing behind her mama telling me this was home while I stood on the porch like I ain’t belong there.
“Stop playing with me, Lee.” I damn near laughed because she couldn’t be serious. “Come on. Let’s go talk. I’ll explain everything.”
“I don’t want your explanation.”
“You ain’t even heard it.”
“I saw Hannah. I saw your babies. I heard his name.”
Her voice cracked on that last part, and I ain’t have shit to say.
Lee wiped at her face. “Then you reached for a gun and put me out. What you finna explain, JB?”
“Jabari, get the fuck away from my house,” Maisie said.
“I ain’t talking to you, Maisie.”
The shotgun made a loud clack-clack, and my mouth closed immediately. I looked down and realized Maisie really had that damn thing pointed at me.
“And you ain’t gon’ be talking to nobody if you don’t get the fuck away from my door.”
I looked at Maisie, then back at Lee, waiting for her to say something. She knew her mama was crazy as hell. Any other time, she would’ve already been telling Maisie to put that damn gun down, but this time she ain’t say shit.
“Lee?”
She just stood there looking at me, and that shit hurt worse than I expected. I backed down one step, then another. I ain’t know if Maisie would really shoot me, but looking at her face, I damn sure wasn’t finna test it.
“Aight.” I kept my eyes on Lee as I backed off the porch. “You can’t run from me forever.”
Lee stepped a little closer to the doorway and looked me dead in my face.
“I ain’t running from you,” she said. “I just ain’t going with you.”