His mother remained quiet, knowing it was a rhetorical question.
“I don't want to believe any of it.” His voice cracked with frustration.
Jio sighed deeply as he stroked his beard. “I don’t man… that’s my daddy. I’m supposed to look up to him.”
The little boy who never got to express his feelings was crying today. Jio swore he was going to be the best father in the world. He was looking at his dad sideways lately but didn’t want to discredit what he did do right. He credited him a tad for shaping him into the man he was now, but his grandfather for sure did the majority of the work. His daddy taught him how to throw a baseball, he showed him how to put a condom on and how to work a stick. He was also the first person he ever got some pussy with and had his first blunt. His dad showed him how to clean, shoot, and hide a gun if needed. He’d spent his whole life trying to make him proud but those days were over with.
“I keep telling myself everybody has enemies and if you don’t have haters, you not doing something right, but then the nigga started moving weird and talking strange, and now what I’m supposed to think?” He leaned forward. His eyes were misty. He wasn’t expecting to feel like this, which told him that his dad’s behavior was affecting him more than he recognized.
“He's locked up and I still feel like he's manipulating everything.”
Disloyalty was unacceptable.
His mother inhaled slowly. “Jio...”
It wasn’t much she could say to him that he hadn’t heard before.
“I'm trying so hard not to hate him.”
His mother's eyes immediately filled and he looked away because the words hurt to say although he’d meant every word.
His voice dropped to almost a whisper. “But every day it gets harder.”
The kitchen fell silent.
His mama reached across the table and grabbed his hand. She wasn’t considered nurturing but she could hold space for him when he needed it.
When she finally spoke, her voice was barely audible. “Your father is many things.”
Jio lifted his eyes.
“He has done shit that I know for a fact that nigga is going straight to hell for and nowhere else, but he is also your father and he loves you. Jio, you’ve always been his greatest accomplishment. You’re his pride and joy. He would never do anything to hurt you,” she promised.
A tear slipped down her cheek as she squeezed his hand.
“Prison has given him something he never had before.”
“What's that?” he questioned.
His mother looked toward the window. “Time.”
“Your daddy ain’t never sat still this long. He’s bored and messy. You don't have to become him.”
Those words hit harder than anything else she'd said. She’d brought life to his biggest fear. He didn’t want to be him at all. Jio was his own man.
“You hear me?”
Jio nodded.
“You don't have to carry every mistake your father ever made.”
His mother squeezed his hand one final time. “You only have to answer for the man you choose to be.”
η
One thinghis mama was going to do was call him back-to-back like it was the biggest emergency ever. He often asked her,“Does it ever cross your mind that maybe I’m busy handling business?”
To which she would respond with the rolling of her big ole eyes and in a raspy voice she would say, “Nothing’s more important than ya mother. Some people wish Heaven had a phone.”
