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Nico paid her no mind as he continued to fuss and throw his little body back and forth in the highchair, wanting me to come pick him up.

“Nothing. His auntie just walked in here and now he’s doing the most,” she said to whoever she was on the phone with.

I went over to Nico, removed the tray and then unfastened the straps. The second his little body was in my arms, he immediately stopped fussing. I cleaned his face with my hands, and I chose to sit down at the island. She had barstools, so I pulled one of the chairs back, sat down, while holding him in my lap.

My mom had her back turned to me. Even though the bitch got on my last nerves, I’ll give credit where it’s due and admit that she looked good. She was forty, but she looked like she could be my peer. Body was still banging, even after having two children. She didn’t lie on a table for it, and I also knew that she wasn’t in the gym, either. Just good genes. Nothing about the way she looked gave off that she was a grandmother. She looked like she could have a toddler at home.

Looking at my mom was like looking at me. She just had features about herself that were different. She didn’t have the chocolate brown hair color I had. Her hair was light. That number four color that I was born with. Same fine hair as I had. My mom didn’t wear weave though. Her hair was always styled in a silk press. Really healthy hair that she took care of, so you could only imagine the length, and the fullness of it. Since she was in the kitchen right now, she had it wrapped up though. She wore a tank top with cotton material shorts, and house shoes. Just in the house, chilling in her lounge clothes.

“No. Ima stay here with Nari and the baby tonight. I gotta keep an eye on her ass. Nico supposed to go with his daddy this weekend, and Nari gonna go with Twan. We can just do something this weekend,” she said.

That statement shocked the hell out of me. I was used to her being an outside mom, always on the move. Those nights at the club when I would get a break, I would call my sister to see what she was doing, and most nights she was in the house with Nico alone. Nari coming so close to death shook all of us up. My mom was home more often. Just like the rest of us, she was keeping an eye on Nari.

She finished up her conversation, tossed the phone down on the counter, and now there was an awkward silence. Nico wasn’t even cooing like he usually does. As I held him, he rested his little head on my chest, as he played with my fingers. I knew he was going to doze off.

In this moment, with it just being my mom and I, I couldn’t help but to think about that night in the club when I ran into my father. Well, according to him, he wasn’t my father. I’m sure if I asked, it would spark an argument between the two of us, but I still wanted to know. I’ve never been the kind of bitch to be afraid to speak up, so after a few seconds, I went ahead and threw it out there.

“The night Nari took all those pills, I saw Fred at the club,” I expressed.

The second I said it, she sucked her teeth, turned around and looked at me. Her arms were crossed, as she looked over at me like she wanted to slap the shit out of me. It was that same hateful look that she would give me whenever I spoke to her.

“That concerns me how?” she asked.

“Oh, it concerns you. When I told him who I was, he told me that you were the same lying ass bitch that you were over twenty years ago. He told me not to believe anything that you tell me. Look, at this point in my life, I’m over the stage where I crave to have a father. My childhood is over. I’m a grown ass woman, but at the same time, I at least want to know the truth. Is that my father or not? I’m hearing two different things,” I shot.

“That fuck nigga isn’t your father. He’s your daddy. There’s a difference. What the fuck I get out of lying to you about some shit like that⁠—”

“Was a DNA test ever done?” I cut her off to ask. Because she had that same honey brown skin complexion as I did, I watched the way her face turned red after I asked that question.

“What the fuck did I need to take a DNA test for? Your daddy was the only person I was dealing with. I lost my virginity to him! He knows the real reason why he won’t admit to you being his child. The next time you want to go having conversations with him, ask him how old I was when he started fuckin me. You know how old I am. He’s five years older than me. I had you at seventeen. Do the math. Of course, he’s going to lie to you and tell you that you don’t belong to him because he doesn’t want to come off like a fuckin pedophile!” she yelled at me.

“So why you couldn’t just say that shit years ago? Why you had to say all that other hateful shit that you told me? You ain’t have to tell me shit like he didn’t want me and⁠—”

“He didn’t fuckin want you! Would it have made it feel a little better if I dressed it up a little bit for you? I told you the truth!” she screamed.

“And you didn’t want me either, right? You made sure that I knew that growing up,” I threw that part in there and when I did, she waved her hand at me and rolled her eyes.

“I didn’t want you because I was a fuckin kid, Deja! I lost my virginity to this man, let him talk me into not wearing a condom because he told me that it would feel better that way. I was young. I was dumb! I believed what he told me. He told me that I couldn’t get pregnant. I believed that, only to find out that I was pregnant, and when I found out, the only option that I had was to continue in the pregnancy. Imagine how traumatizing that shit is!” she shouted.

“But you took trauma out on me! A fuckin kid! How the fuck were you so traumatized, but you still had a picture of that nigga on your dresser? You treated the nigga on the dresser better than you treated me. I remember one time I tried to take the picture and sleep with it in my room, and you damn near tried to fight me over it. Growing up, I used to beg you to let me live with auntie Twan or my grandma. When I would suggest that, you would scream at me, telling me that you weren’t letting anyone else raise your fuckin kids. Look at the expense of it though. You wanted bragging rights. You wanted to be able to go around and tell people that you raised your kids, but on the flipside, you were beating me, calling me out my name, and degrading me every chance you got!” I yelled, hating that I was going there with her, but here we were.

“Listen Deja, at the end of the fuckin day, you or Nari never wanted for shit. Your daddy might not have been in your life, but you wasn’t missing out on shit. Best dressed in school since you were in daycare. I had you going to school in fuckin designer. Your hair stayed done. You had your own room. Closet full of shoes, clothes, and purses. You can sit there and act like you’re better than me all you want to, but when you going down memory lane, make sure you remember the part where you were well fuckin taken care of. You think I wanted to strip? No! I did what the fuck I had to do to raise my kids!” she finished.

No matter how many times I continued to call her out on her mishaps over the years, she was never going to see the wrong in all the things she’d done. Since she kept a roof over my head, clothes on my back, and food in my stomach, she thought that that was supposed to excuse all the other poor ass behavior that she’s done.

When she finished, all I had the energy to do was laugh in her face. I laughed and stood up with my nephew. I had to get just one final thing off my chest though.

“You think because you sent me to school in designer and because I had a roof over my head that that’s love? Man, you did the shit that you were supposed to do as a mother. You were my primary parent! It was your job to feed me, cloth me, and keep a roof over my head. You always call that out like you expecting a fuckin trophy. When I think about my childhood though, I’m not thinking about the designer clothes I had. The nice room. I don’t think about none of those things. I think about the amount of times you called me out of my name. The times you made me stay home from school so my busted lip could heal,” I had to catch myself because I got so worked up that I almost started crying. I shed so many tears in front of her during my childhood. I’ll be damned if I stood here and gave her more.

“At the end of the day ma, respect is due to a fuckin dog. Just imagine what the fuck was due to me,” and that was all that I had for her.

I had to pick my battles. She wasn’t going to back down because she saw things one way, and I wasn’t going to back down either because I saw things my way. The only thing that was going to come out of this was the cops getting called if I stayed out here and continued arguing with her. Plus, I didn’t want to get Nari all worked up. Even when I came over earlier, Nari told me that she had a good day today in school. I wanted to keep her happy. I know that it upsets her whenever me and our mom started going at it, so to avoid all of that, I left her ass standing there and walked to the back.

Nico had fallen asleep by this point. Instead of laying him down on his own, I lay at the head of Nari’s bed, placed Nico on my chest, rubbing my hands through his hair. Ten minutes into that, Nari walked into the room. She had her phone in her hands, with a towel wrapped around her body. When she saw me lying in bed with Nico, and that he was sleep, her face immediately frowned up.

“Why would you let him fall asleep, Deja? It’s only five. He’s going to have me up all night! Then, you got him laying on you. You’re the reason he doesn’t like to sleep by himself. You’re making him rotten!” she snapped, walking over to me, trying to take him away from me, but I reached my hand out, pushing her out of the way.

“Deja, stop! Give him to me!” she fussed.