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“Ma, I love you like you birthed me, so I’m going to show you respect, but what do you mean this is a long overdue conversation? I was owed this conversation when I was five years old, and my mama dropped me off to your house for the first time, with him there! Ain’t no conversation between him and I that needs to be had. If we want to be real about it, I still would have been walking around this bitch in the damn blind had my mama not said anything to me about it. Let me get the fuck from up out of here,” Mahogany said.
She was just as mad as she was the last time that she had to face him.
“And Mahogany, I understand that. I don’t want you to get it confused and think that I’m taking his side and trying to give him what he wants by allowing the three of you to talk because that’s not the case. I’m looking out for your feelings right now. You weren’t told the whole truth yet, so please, just for a second, hear him out. Nobody is telling you that you have to accept his apology. No one is saying that you have to want to have a relationship with him or any of that. Baby, you deserve some type of honesty. Let me have the baby and take her to the back while the three of you talk. That’s all I’m asking,” my grandma pleaded.
I could tell that this wasn’t what Mahogany wanted to do, but she still ended up handing my grandma the baby. True to her word, she went to the back with Jamaria, making sure to close the door behind her. I wanted to crawl under the rug and just hide there because this was so damn awkward. No one was sitting; everyone was standing, and I could literally feel the heat radiating from Mahogany’s side of the room. My dad looked like a damn lost puppy, but my sympathy wasn’t for him; instead, it was for my sister.
“I was a few houses down, finishing up painting the house over there when I saw y’all pull up. As much as I want to run away from this shit and pretend that this never even happened, that would make me look even less of a man that I’m already looking. On some real shit, Mahogany, I’m sorry from the bottom of my heart. I don’t even have the right words to express it, that’s why I was putting it on hold for so long.
“I feel like there will never be anything that I can say to excuse or justify what I did. I want to say the whole thing about me being young, which is why I chose to walk away, but that would excuse then, but it can’t excuse now since I’m a grown ass man. I knew what I did was foul. Your mama knew what we did was foul. I’m trying to be careful with my words because I don’t want it to sound like I’m putting the blame on anybody else besides myself. What your mama and I did wasn’t even supposed to happen—”
“But it did! It happened, and on multiple occasions, like you said. I fell out with my best friend the last time we had this conversation, so I’m taking that into account this time. Like you, I’m trying to be mindful of my words, but it’s so fuckin’ hard because I’m angry, I’m hurt, and I feel so damn betrayed. It’s like, I can’t even say that you were a dead-beat daddy because, growing up, whatever you got Shae, you got me. I remember on her birthday, you would buy something for me too because you didn’t want me to feel left out.
“You did for me, so I can’t even knock on you that. You had to know that there was a chance this shit would come out. You had to! Nothing stays in the dark forever,” Mahogany said, and I nodded my head at that because he had to have known.
“Honestly, no, I didn’t. Marissa said that she would take it to the grave, and I believed her,” he said, and Mahogany shook her head.
I swear he wasn’t making the shit any better by saying that.
“Dad
dy, you gotta come better than this. This shit is still not making any sense,” I said, jumping in. I watched as his eyes watered, but before a tear could fall, he wiped his eyes.
“I don’t know what the fuck I’m so supposed to say, other than the fact that I’m sorry. I’m so fuckin’ sorry. Your mama didn’t even get the chance to push out the fuckin’ placenta before she died right there on that hospital bed, man. For years, I was motha fuckin’ hurt when I lost your mom. That lady was my everything. I was angry, okay! I lost my woman, and I wanted everyone to know that I was angry, including Marissa. Deciding not to step up in Mahogany’s life was my way of feeling like I was hurting Marissa and standing firm on my word about not being there like I told her I wouldn’t.
“I wanted her to know that the only lady I ever gave a fuck about was your mama. I wanted to put her death on everybody. Call me crazy, but we can say that your mama didn’t know, but I know she did. I’ll never forget what she said to me the moment she pushed you out. Her exact words were that I’ll be experiencing this again in a few months. She said that because in a few more months is when Mahogany was born. She knew. She died of a broken heart. Marissa and I were the only two who knew that she was pregnant with my baby. I wasn’t crazy enough to tell my woman some shit like that, so I knew that it had to have been Marissa. I hated her for that shit, which is why I chose to do what I did. There you have it. That’s the truth,” he said.
When he finished, he was crying. I was using my hands to wipe away my tears, and Mahogany was crying too. I knew her well enough to know that she was crying tears of anger, though.
“The same way you didn’t want anything to do with me then, keep that same energy because I don’t want to have shit to do with you either. My mama was better off sticking to the story of my daddy being in the army or her famous one of she’d fucked so many niggas that she couldn’t remember. I used to think that I was the one who took a loss on not having my daddy in my life, when in all actuality, nigga, it’s your loss,” she said and attempted to push past him, but what he said next stopped her.
“What about now? I want to have a relationship with you and my granddaughter,” he said.
She whipped her head around, looking at him like he was bat shit crazy.
“That’ll never happen. Like I said, keep that same energy that you had years ago. Hell, the same energy that you had just one month ago. You know, the one you had when you were treating me as merely your other daughter’s best friend? That energy, nigga,” she said right before she went to the back to get Jamaria.
I flopped down on the couch and buried my face in my hands. I heard the front door slam, so I knew that he’d left.
Later that night
“You barely even touched your food, shorty. What’s wrong? You don’t like it? I can send it back and tell them to make you another one,” Miami said after noticing that I’d barely eaten anything.
We were having dinner at Smith & Wollensky, and any other person would have devoured the medium well steak that I had sitting in front of me with the baked potato that had shredded cheese on it, bacon bits, and butter, just how I liked it. I still had my crab cake in front of me as well, which was an appetizer that I had Miami order that I hadn’t even touched yet.
My mind was still on the heated conversation that went down earlier today at my grandmother’s house between my dad and Mahogany. Two people that I loved more than anything were at odds, and I felt like I was right in the middle of it. This was one of those things that I felt like I had to stay the hell out of. I didn’t know how Mahogany felt, and I couldn’t tell her how to feel because anything that I said would kind of come off like I was taking my daddy’s side, and I didn’t want her to think that.
I’ve known Mahogany for twenty-five years, and I knew how that girl could hold a grudge. I hate to say it, but I didn’t think that she would ever want anything to do with my daddy. This was the same person who’d just gotten back on good terms with her own mother after not talking to her since she was eighteen.
“I’m just going to take it with me to go. I can’t stop thinking about what happened earlier. I’m sorry. I won’t talk about it. I don’t want to feel like I’m fucking up our dinner,” I said, gazing over at him.
Miami looked so handsome tonight. He was in a long-sleeved denim shirt, which exposed his neck and his chest that were filled with ink since he started the buttons on the fourth one. Even with him sitting across from me at the table, I could still smell his intoxicating cologne from where I was sitting. He wore white pants, and a pair of low top Forces was on his feet. He wasn’t afraid to bring his diamonds out tonight because a silver Cuban link chain was around his neck, and diamonds bounced off the walls every time he moved his head. He wore the matching bracelet on his right arm, and he even wore one of his huge boxing rings that he won a few years ago, which was big enough to fit on two of my fingers.
His perfect hairline and perfect waves were making me seasick, and his perfect facial hair and beard were nicely aligned, making it so obvious that he’d had an appointment earlier today at the barber.
“You good, shorty. You not fuckin’ up anything. I appreciate you for even wanting to still come down here with me tonight, especially after the shit that happened earlier. What I am going to tell you is to stress less. I get it, you’re right in the middle of this shit, but shorty, you got a choice to fall back from anything that’s going to cause you stress. At least for the next eight months. We got a baby on the way, and I need you healthy, alright? I get that’s your daddy and your best friend, and not even trying to sound like I’m not being understanding, but you have to let the two of them figure it out. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it may not even be shit to figure out because you said your girl made up her mind already, so chill out. A’ight?” he asked me, and I nodded.
As soon as he finished talking, our waitress walked past our table, and he flagged her down, catching her attention. Once she came over, he had her take both of our plates to the back and box it up. When she came back, Miami dropped four one hundred dollar bills on the table, and we stood up to exit.
