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“We knew,” DJ says, and I wanted to kick my own ass for allowing fear to keep secrets from my mother.
“Well, damn,” Jabarri says.
“And what do you feel about us, Momma?” I asked because her opinion and feelings about this means everything to me.
“How do I feel?” she asks, and I shake my head. She looks over to DJ who has been pretty quiet for the most part, then back to me. “It’s about time.” she says and I take my first real breath.
“Jabarri,” DJ calls him.
“Yeah?”
“That is my wife’s daughter, and for all intents and purposes, my daughter. If you’re not about to step up and do right, leave this shit alone now.”
“We’re engaged,” he drops yet another bomb, and I drop my head in exasperation.
“Jabarri,” I say almost exhausted from his bomb dropping today.
“That’s good because if you hurt her, lie to her, betray her trust, not be gentle with her, or don’t love her right….she’ll be a widow. Mohio?”
“Understood,” Jabarri says and DJ nods at him, but the look he’s leveling on him says try me.
“Savvy?”
“Yeah?”
“I have been wanting to ask you this for a while now, but I couldn’t figure out how I could without tipping y’all off but, uh, where is her cousin?”
“Jabarri,” I try but he just grabs my other hand, holding it never taking his eyes from my mom.
She looks over to DJ, who gives her a slight nod. “Skai only asked once and never asked again and I gave her a generic answer, but she is old enough and healed enough to know. He’s dead.”
“Ma, he’s dead?”
“Graveyard dead. Your father and I went to talk to him. We were going to press charges on him, and we walked in on him doing the same thing to another cousin that was even younger than Skai. He lied and tried to blame it on her, but when that didn’t work, he bolted, running from the house, and he stayed hidden for a while. One day, I was on lunch and spotted him. He was living in a studio in a not-so-good part of town. We went in that night, and let’s just say he’ll never be found.”
“Ma,” I whisper out because for all of these years, I lowkey felt like my mom didn’t do anything about what happened to me, but she literally killed him.
“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you feeling guilty about it, one, me taking someone’s life and, two, someone’s life being taken because of what he did to you. I didn’t want you living with all that guilt. I know you felt like I swept it under the rug, but I promise you I didn’t. You are my child and I didn’t feel one moment of regret or grief over it. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you, your brothers, or my grands,” she says, and I am off the sofa and in her arms in seconds, crying.
“Well, that explains why I couldn’t find him,” I hear Jabarri say to DJ. “Knowing Savvy, I should have known.”
“I love you, Mom.”
“I love you too, baby. Now let’s talk about how we plan to keep you safe.”
“She’s with me pretty much all of the time.”
“But there are going to be times when she can’t be with you,”
“True, so we’ll coordinate someone else being with her, and I will begin digging to try and find who is gonna end up dead. I just got you, baby, and I refuse to lose you to anyone,” Jabarri says, hugging me when I pull back from his kiss.
“Not in front of my momma,” I tell him, looking at him like he is crazy.
“Really, Skai?” he asks.
“If you want us both to live long enough to get married, you better act with some decorum in front of my mother,” I tell him.
“Well, if we are going to set up a schedule to protect you, I suggest we go back out front so everyone can help figure this out around everyone’s schedule,” DJ says as he pulls me in for a hug that has Jabarri pulling me out of.
