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“Watch your fuckin’ mouth, Mahogany. I don’t give a damn how old you are, I will still slap your ass in the mouth for talking crazy to me! I don’t pick up the phone and call you because I tried to do that for years, and then eventually, I just gave the fuck up. You are my only child, still my baby, my world, but how much rejection is a person supposed to take before they just tap out? Yes, I lied, but I only did it to protect you and—”
“Protect me how, Ma? Girl, I was telling all types of people that my daddy was in the fuckin’ military! I believed that shit until I was thirteen. How exactly did that protect me? All you did was make a wound even worse because, back then, you knew how much having a father meant to me. It meant the world to me. Then, you brainwashed me, put all that shit in my head, making me believe that all men weren’t shit. You know what? I’m not doing this shit. I swear I’m not doing this with you,” I said and pulled my dress up from the bottom, prepared to walk away from her ass.
“You want to know the truth so badly, Mahogany? Go have a talk with Jahir,” she said, and that had me frozen in place.
I turned around and looked at her like she was crazy. Jahir? That was Jashae’s daddy! What the fuck could he possibly have to do with any of this shit?
“Jahir, as in my best friend’s daddy? Why would I need to talk to him?” I quizzed.
“You’re a smart girl. I raised you, so I know you’re smart. Figure it out.” With that, she walked away.
I stood there, still frozen in place. By this time, Jabari had run over to me and was asking question after question, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.
“Take me to Jahir’s house!” I demanded as I pulled my dress up so I could start walking again.
“Shae’s daddy? For what? Fuck we gotta go over there for?” he questioned, just as confused as I was.
“Just take me!” I screamed, sounding like a spoiled brat who didn’t even want to talk about it.
Jashae Johnson
“It’s good, Daddy. It just don’t taste how grandma’s,” I said as I took another spoonful of the seafood gumbo that he was making.
My daddy found himself cooking this evening, and because he knew that I would die for some seafood gumbo, he’d invited me over, and I came running. Only thing is, I probably should have come walking because it didn’t taste nowhere near how my grandma made hers. I mean, it wasn’t bad, but it was just missing something. When my grandma made gumbo, it tasted like the gumbo that they have in New Orleans. My daddy’s… ummmm, not so much.
I had Maya sitting to the right of me, and she had a bowl of her own. Judging by the way she was picking over it, I could tell that she didn’t like it either. I was in a good mood today. I got a call from my lawyer, and it turns out that Taylor’s mother wanted to drop the entire case, so I didn’t even have to worry about going to court. I wasn’t sure what made her change her mind. Maybe the fact that she saw that her daughter wasn’t as innocent as she thought she was.
I remember that day verbatim, and she tried to make me out to be a crazy person, swearing that her daughter didn’t have my son’s bag inside her bedroom, only for it to be in there, just like I thought it was. I never got a chance to go back down to the church and thank Olivia for giving me that piece of information. Crazy how I didn’t know the first thing about Olivia, but I trusted her word. It was the look in her eyes that showed me that she wasn’t lying about the information that she gave me.
On the other hand, we had another lawyer on deck who was getting everything situated with the arrangements for Maya. We’d already sent paperwork to Krystal, and she pretty much signed over all of her rights, so now we were just waiting to see how this thing was going to play out. I’d jumped headfirst into mommy mode for a child who didn’t even belong to me. A child who didn’t even have the same blood running through her body as me.
Maya had gotten better. She had days when she didn’t even question me about Krystal. She was also ge
tting better at not peeing in the bed so frequently. Next, I was working on getting her signed up for school. I needed to get her a therapist for speech and a therapist in general to help her cope with life. I felt like Maya had some problems that I didn’t have the proper knowledge to fix. Little things that she would say and do had me worried about her and the lifestyle that she used to live before I came into the picture.
I said it before how fragile she was. It didn’t take much for her to become scared. It was like she was living in the army with strict ass rules before she came with me because even when I told her that she didn’t have to ask me to go to the bathroom when we were home, she still did it. I had no idea what the hell Krystal was doing to this little girl, but all I knew was that she had definitely scarred her for life.
“You’re pregnant, so your taste buds are a little off. Damn right it don’t taste like your grandma’s. My shit tastes better!” he shot back, obviously in his feelings.
That got Maya to laugh. I loved when she laughed. It showed that she was happy. It showed the progress that she was making.
“Can’t nobody make spaghetti like you, though, Daddy. You make a mean spaghetti,” I said, telling him the God honest truth.
He waved me off while he continued to stand over the stove, adding more ingredients to his gumbo, thinking that would make it taste a little better. He was going to mess around and it would be too salty. No one would definitely want it then.
“Still can’t believe you about to give me another grandchild. I still feel like you’re that thirteen-year-old girl again. Remember that day? Remember you told Ma that you thought you were pregnant? She beat your ass, as she should’ve! No matter how mad I was with you, I couldn’t put my hands on you. Shit, you were my baby. Still are, no matter how grown you are,” my daddy said, making me smile.
“I still have flashbacks about that day. I have never in my life been more scared of anything. Tore my ass up right in that room. I didn’t even know grandma had what it took to beat me. I deserved it, though. I made you a grandparent too early and her a great grandparent even earlier. I don’t have any regrets, though. I love my baby. That was the greatest gift that God could have ever given me,” I said.
“I just knew I was going to jail that day. I beat your ain’t shit ass baby daddy up like he was a grown ass man. How old was Trip at the time? Fifteen, ain’t it?” he asked me, and I nodded.
Now that we’d already lived through that part of life, I could look back on it and laugh. Trip grew up without a daddy, so a man had never put hands on him before. My daddy beat Trip like he was his son, and my dumb ass stayed in the bathroom, looking out the window and crying. We both got our asses beat that day. Literally, the same day that I found out that I was pregnant, everybody from our projects found out too because that’s just how fast word got around.
I didn’t even get a chance to respond to my daddy because all of a sudden, there was loud banging on his front door. Like he still lived in the projects, he took a gun that was hidden in one of his spots—which was in the back of one of the kitchen drawers—held it in his hands as he went to see who it was.
While he did that, I quickly stood up so I could rush and throw out me and Maya’s food while he wasn’t looking. In the middle of me throwing the food away, I heard what sounded like my best friend’s voice at the door. Why the hell was Mahogany there? Most importantly, why the hell was she yelling at my damn daddy?
I put the plastic bowls in the trash and rushed to the front door to see what the hell was going on.
