Page 31 of Pretty

“I would head out of town for away games, and when I returned home, my house smelled like someone had been smoking weed, and she didn’t smoke. She would claim it was one of her girls. Or I’d smell men’s cologne, and she would swear it was one of her male cousins. I told her she had one time to let me catch a nigga in my place, and I was busting his ass and hers.”

“Did you ever catch someone in your home?”

“No. She had an older son, and his dad would drop him off and pick him up. He’d linger a little longer than I thought he should have, and no sooner than I’d step out the house, that nigga would dip. She disappeared earlier this year during the Super Bowl, and she didn’t bring him to the game or the parade like I asked her to. When I returned home, I couldn’t find her. She finally reached out and told me my kid was with her mom. When I popped up at her mom’s house, she said she hadn’t seen them in a while.

“I started talking about getting a DNA test, and in so many words, her mother encouraged me to do it. I left and found my son. He was at the park with her and her older son’s daddy, but her son wasn’t there.”

“What did you do?” I feared there might have been an altercation.

“Snatched my kid and left. Wasn’t shit for me to say. I wasn’t arguing with him or fighting over her. She wasn’t worth that to me. I just wanted my kid. When I looked at him and my kid, I saw the similarities—the light-colored skin, the curly hair, and the big red lips. I didn’t say shit. Just took li’l man, made an appointment to get a DNA test, and headed to a hotel to hide out. I didn’t want her to show up at my house and snatch him before I had a chance to take the test. I took the test, and when the results came back, it was everything everyone had ever said; he wasn’t my kid.”

“And you knew it already? I mean, deep in your heart.”

“Yeah,” he answered in a thick voice. “Shit wasn’t easy, though.”

“Of course not. You’d developed a bond with that baby, loved him, taken care of him, and I can’t imagine it would’ve been easy to walk away.”

“Nah. It wasn’t.” He turned his head sideways and looked at me. His eyes were red and narrow. He rubbed his hands together and then pulled his hand over his mouth and through his beard. “I never told anybody this, but I cried like a baby when I got the results.”

I reached my hand out and rubbed his back. He closed his eyes for several long seconds.

“Was he with you?”

He shook his head. “Nah. She’d come to get him a few days earlier.”

“What did she say when you told her?”

“Wasn’t shit she had to say to me. I had the results set up to be delivered to her via courier at the same time that I received mine. I made sure that she had to sign for them. I got the receipt from the courier service, and I confirmed that it was her signature, so I know she got them. She called me afterwards, blew my phone up. Left all kinds of voicemails and text messages.”

“What’d she say?”

“That someone switched the results, they didn’t test me, they didn’t test him, something was faulty with the test, and then she apologized. She said she was sorry, and she didn’t mean it. She said she had no idea, but it was a close time between us being together and her ending things with her other baby’s father. She had every excuse. She begged me to forgive her.”

“Have you spoken with her?”

“No. We ain’t got shit to say to each other.”

I stood and headed inside, gripping his shoulder first. I grabbed a bottle of wine, a couple of wineglasses, and a box of tissues. I sat beside him again. After I handed him the glass of wine, I handed him the box of tissues.

He looked at it and then at me. A tiny smirk came on his lips, bringing a smile to mine. Before I knew it, we had both cracked up laughing. After we regained our composure, he looked at me and asked, “We’re pitiful, aren’t we?”

“We’re entitled to one day of pity, and then we must move on!” I exclaimed, holding a finger in the air.

We drank the wine, talked about our pasts some more, and he finally declared, “I want to let go of my pain and build a beautiful life for myself. I regret nothing, but I don’t want to continue making foolish mistakes. I want a brighter future.”

“I would like that, too, but I don’t know how to grab hold of it.”

“By living one day, one moment at a time.” He reached out his hand, and I took it.

“You make it sound so easy.”

“It can be. We can take the journey together to discover how to truly live free of the pain of our pasts and embrace a life of happiness and peace.”

I squeezed his hand and smiled at him. “I’d like that, Drew.”

He lifted my hand to his lips and kissed my knuckles. A peace settled over me that I hadn’t felt for a long while.

ONE WEEK LATER