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“Don’t start that, Gregory. I don’t mind letting you or your mom see him. You two are the ones that never show up when you say you are. Your mom never shows up when she says she’s going to pick him up. She’s hardly ever home when she asks me to bring him by. I’m not about to keep playing games with her. No wonder you’re so unreliable.”

“Don’t talk about my mom, Shiloh. You know she has a life too.”

“She can have one. So do I,” I spat.

“OK, well that’s not what I called to talk about. I need you to go get him yourself today. I got shit to do.”

“Can you see if your mom has time just this once? She can bring him to me if she can’t watch him until I close. I just can’t leave.”

“I don’t even know why you insist on slaving when I can take care of you.”

“We’re not even going there. I don’t need you to take care of me. I’m capable of taking care of myself. If I had to depend on you, Lord knows where I would be right now.”

“Somewhere sleep at this time of morning instead of up sweating like a damn hog trying to feed people. Let me take care of you. I know you miss me, Shiloh. Stop fronting, baby.”

“Ain’t nobody fronting. We are over. I wish you would accept that.”

“You still mad ’cause a nigga forgot a few pickups and appointments?” he asked.

“No, I’m still mad that you were so busy getting your dick wet that you forgot to pick your son up from day care multiple times while I was at work. I won’t even get into how many times you left me at work to make a play or trick off.”

He scoffed. “You love bringing up ancient history.”

“Nah, you love bringing up ancient history. Us together is ancient history, Greg. You proved that you didn’t deserve me long before Trey got here. I’m not going back to that. Look how you’re acting right now. You can’t even be bothered to pick our son up from day care for running the streets.”

“I said I got business to take care of, Shiloh. I’m not missing my money for you and nobody else.”

“OK, good to know!” I yelled before ending the call.

There was no use in going back and forth with him. I would figure it out on my own just like I always did. I should have known better than to try to depend on Greg. He didn’t even have enough sense to apologize for letting me down time after time. I didn’t know why in the world he thought there was a possibility of us getting back together. I would have to be the biggest fool in the world to let a man who had never done right by me back into my life.

After the initial appointment to verify that I was pregnant, he hadn’t come with me to any of my prenatal visits. Even when he found the time to drop me off, he would find himself too busy to pick me up, causing me to have to find a ride home. I had so many complications with my pregnancy that I got laid off while I was pregnant with Trey.

My car needed a new transmission and had been sitting in the shop for months, waiting to be repaired. Eventually, I scraped up what money I had saved and went down to the shop to see what the holdup was, only to find out that Greg had never paid the damn people.

I was convinced that he loved that I had to depend on him to get around, leaving me stuck at home most of the time while he was out doing everything he thought he was big enough to do. I spent almost every penny I had saved to pay for my car to get fixed, and used what was left to buy supplies to sell baked goods.

Our relationship ended the same day that I figured out I couldn’t depend on him. He wanted to keep me under his thumb but wasn’t even reliable enough to come through when I needed him. My first bake sale was such a success that I started having one every weekend.

With the money I made, I was able to keep my rent paid, the lights on, and food in my and my oldest son’s mouths. Eventually, I expanded my business to sell breakfast a few mornings a week. I had customers that came by every day that I was open. By the time I had my baby, I had a full-blown business going.

Greg kicked in a little money to help out with the baby, but I needed more than money. I needed help. I needed him to take him to appointments and pick him up from day care so I only had to pay the half-day fee for him. Since Theo was in school, there was only a partial day fee for him.

I needed my expenses to be as reasonable as possible because at the end of the day, it was just me. Who knew when Greg would come through, and Theo’s dad still had a few more years left on his sentence.

My main thing was being self-sufficient. With Greg, it was one thing after another. He had to make a play, he had car trouble, his phone died, his mama was sick, somebody needed him to do something. Everybody and everything came before us. I didn’t expect any more or any less from him at this point.

Since I refused to call and ask Trey’s mom for a damn thing, I let Rhonda know that I had to step out in the middle of lunch to get my son from day care. We had already had issues about him being picked up late due to me trying to let his dad be a dad.

Hopefully Greg got it together before Trey was big enough to realize how unreliable he was. He was only seven months old. I was still breastfeeding his big ass, so there was time for him to get it together. At this point, I was no longer holding my breath.

As soon as the rush started to die down, I left the truck in Rhonda’s very capable hands and headed out. It was about a fifteen-minute drive from the location where I liked to set up shop to my sons’ day care. It was just after one when I pulled up to the center, so hopefully I didn’t have to hear about being a few minutes late. I hopped out of my car and rushed into the building.

“Ms. Lane, can I speak to you for a minute?” The owner of Tiny Scholars stopped me as soon as I walked through the door.

“Uh, sure. I know I was a little late, but I had to leave my job since his dad wasn’t available,” I said, following her into her office.

“Oh, honey, don’t worry about that,” she told me, closing the door behind me. “I just wanted to remind you of your balance.”