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.
