“I was supposed to protect him, Goo. Be his mama and I failed,” she sniffled, looking down at her hands.
This was the Inez that I missed. She didn’t have on clothes from three days ago, her hair wasn’t unkempt. She was clean, her hair washed and brushed into a bun, and she didn’t have that spaced out look in her eyes that she usually had.
My chest tightened as I sat in one of the kitchen chairs. Just like she felt guilt, I felt the same thing. “I was supposed to protect him. I’m his big cousin, and I was fucking locked away in a cage. I can never forgive myself for that shit, Inez.”
I took pride in protecting my family and would always take the blame because I wasn’t here to protect them.
Since I had been old enough, I had always been here for Khaos and Inez. I remember when my aunt had to work nights, so Inez would stay the night over our house. My moms always made sure she had porridge on the stove before she had to leave out to catch her bus.
It was up to me to get both Khaos and Inez up and walk them to school before I got on the bus and headed to school too. After a while, I stopped going and it was my uncle that knew about it first.
He knew he couldn’t stop me from doing what I needed to do. The same shit that called him to get into the streets was now calling me. I was a man way before I should have been, and that feeling alone made me want to make the load easier on my mother.
She shouldn’t have been working two or three jobs just to make ends meet. If she had her way, she would have taken on more jobs to make sure that me and Khaos remained in school and went to college.
That was the life she wanted for us, and in a perfect world, we probably would have accomplished those things. A degree hanging on the wall was the least of my worries. I was concerned about taking care of my family.
When Inez came into my room at fifteen, holding a positive pregnancy test, I knew I couldn’t play it small anymore.
Even before my uncle was locked up, my mother refused his money. She was scared that his way of living would rub off on me and Khaos. I always saw my uncle and admired that shit. The gold grills, gold chains hanging from his neck and the foreign cars.
He hung with niggas that had the same shit going for them. Anytime he came to visit, he would be getting out a different whip and had a new chain around his neck. Soon as he smirked, his mouth was full of gold too.
I wanted that shit.
He’d pull out a knot of cash and peel off some bills, and hand them to me, making me promise not to tell my mother. I would go behind her back and pay some bills. Hand some extra money to the landlord, go and pay her tab at the corner store. Small shit that I knew would make a difference.
Once my uncle put me onto hustling, I couldn’t be stopped. The money touching my hands and being able to make the load lighter for my moms was worth it to me. I had the landlord lying for me, making it seem like he had received grants from the city to lower the rent.
As I was staring at Inez with that positive pregnancy test, I knew what I had to do. I had to take care of us and make sure my little cousin had everything she needed for the baby that was coming.
Both my aunt and mother were livid with her. Inez was stuck in her decision to have the baby and raise him. My aunt put her out because she couldn’t bear to stare at the mistake she was making.
Inez was supposed to graduate and go to college. She was supposed to be the family’s success story. Chef taught Inez how to play basketball, and she fell in love with the game. When he was home, they would watch the WNBA games together.
She ended up joining the basketball team in school, and she was good. Inez was 5’7, and she dominated the court, always the point guard. Outside of school, you could find her playing in the park, taking money from the hustlers who were betting against the game.
It was when she met her boyfriend that shit went left. School wasn’t important to her, and basketball fell by the wayside.She was no longer interested in going away to college to play ball.
That nigga Rylan was all she was concerned with.
Inez started smelling herself. Acting like niggas ain’t did shit, and Rylan was her ticket out the hood. Forgetting that her mother put her out, and four people were sleeping in a one-bedroom apartment.
I gave up my bed for Inez and slept in the living room with my mother. None of that shit mattered because she was so caught up in a nigga that wasn’t no good for her. He had her skipping school and practice to ride around in his whip.
Rylan was nineteen and fucking around with a fifteen-year-old.
“He’s my boyfriend, Goo. You either deal with it or don’t… I’m having his baby and I’m not breaking up with him.”
“Lawd a mercy!” Aunt Max hollered and fell back onto the couch with her hand over her forehead.
My mother stood in the kitchen. After working a twelve-hour shift, she still came home to prepare a meal with no complaints.
“Likkle girl… what have you done to yourself?” She looked at Inez, who looked away. All that mouth she had with me moments ago was sucked in.
“He’s going to take care of me and the baby. Rylan is nineteen and has his own place and car… I didn’t sit down and have a baby with a bum.”
I felt like I had hallucinated because she clearly hadn’t told me that her boyfriend was nineteen, while she was fifteen. Whenever my thoughts were wild, I remained quiet.
