AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He came over, took Jamaria from my arms, and held her. Two minutes into him holding her, she’d calmed down. Her little head rested perfectly on his chest as he slowly walked with her like he had been doing this his entire life. Seeing that I couldn’t be the one to calm my daughter down had caused a flood of emotions. I didn’t want there to be two crybabies in the room but seeing how Jabari had easily made her stop crying had me temporarily switching places with Jamari as I cried too.
“Really, Mahogany?” J
abari asked, seeing that I was in bed crying my eyes out.
I knew I had to have been annoying to him and every nurse and doctor who had been in my room that day. Yesterday was such a happy day. We welcomed our daughter, and we both got to live in the moment of being first-time parents, but day two was such a struggle for me. I wasn’t mastering breastfeeding, and I felt like I wasn’t mastering motherhood either. I watched my mom, Jashae, even Jashae’s grandmother, all come into my hospital room today and hold my baby, and Jamaria didn’t shed a tear. She even gave a lazy smile to my mom. When I held her, I felt like that’s when she did the most crying, and I just didn’t know how to handle it.
“I’m sorry. It’s… it’s justtt… I don’t think… I’m… I’m doing a good job,” I stuttered, scrambling over my words as I tried to get it all out.
I was so emotional that I could hardly speak. I knew I was working Jabari’s nerves, and I could tell by the way he released a sigh and then walked over to the bed to stand on the other side of me.
“She’s a baby, Mahogany. All babies are going to cry. That don’t have shit to do with you not being a good mom. You’re doing a perfect job in my eyes!” He said it harshly, but he was whispering because Jamaria was falling asleep.
“No, I’m not! All she does is cry when I hold her,” I screamed, making our baby jump and start crying again.
Jabari sucked his teeth while he gave me a look that screamed his aggravation with me.
“That’s because that’s all you fuckin’ do when you hold her! Go to sleep, shorty. I got her,” he said, and then he walked away.
Jabari continued to pace the room with Jamaria in his arms, and like the last time, she calmed down. I was so jealous. I wanted to be the one holding her and getting her to stop crying.
After five minutes, Jamaria and I had both calmed down. Jabari walked over to the bed, still with her in his arms, and he sat next to me. He leaned over and kissed the top of my forehead, which was enough to really get me at peace.
“You're too hard on yourself, shorty. This is only the first two days. We’re both still learning. I also meant to tell you this earlier. It won’t be the end of the world if you don’t get this breastfeeding shit down pat. Nobody is going to look at you as less of a mother if you don’t do it. You can’t try to do what everybody does, shorty. You gotta do what’s best for you and my daughter. If it’s causing you too much pain like you say it is, then there are other options, and you know that. Get some sleep. I got the baby,” he assured me.
I didn’t want to fall asleep; I didn’t want to look like I was lazy. There were plenty of other women on this floor with me who had just given birth, and I doubted that any of them were sleeping. What about the single moms who probably did it all by themselves with no family and friends for support? I was sure that she didn’t have the option of getting any sleep.
I sat there for over twenty minutes, trying to fight my sleep. Every time I felt my head hitting the back of the pillow, I would jump up and stretch my eyes in an attempt to stay up. Each time I did that, I could feel Jabari’s eyes on me.
Jamari was still lying down on him, and he had the television on ESPN, but the sound was turned down low. I was so tired. My eyes were so heavy. I guess it wouldn’t make me that bad of a mom if I just closed my eyes for a few minutes, right? Maybe if I closed them for a short period, I could have some type of strength in a couple of hours, and I would know how to properly give Jamari all of my attention. Pretty soon, I was no longer able to fight it. My eyes had closed, and I drifted off to a peaceful sleep, which wasn’t something that I’d had since the day before I gave birth to my daughter.
Jashae Johnson
“Ima drop you off to your grandma,” Miami said after about five minutes of us being in his car together.
We’d just left the hospital from seeing his father, and he didn’t look well. I swear I don’t see how we didn’t notice that something was wrong with him before. Then again, it wasn’t this bad yet. He’d lost a ton of weight, the hair that he did have on his head had all come off, and watching him lie in that hospital bed, I could just tell that he was suffering. Although he fought so hard to act like he was okay, everyone could see that he wasn’t.
I couldn’t help but feel so sorry for Miami. He had such a great relationship with his father, and to have witnessed him like that, I knew that it had to hurt. Having to watch firsthand Miami’s experience this with his father made me think of my own father and the fact that he and I were in a bad place right now in our relationship. Like I said before, I lost a lot of respect for that man. It just wasn’t right what he had done. There was literally nothing that he could ever say that would be enough to justify what he’d done. Nothing! Especially not when he had so many chances to come clean with the truth.
I could see if Mahogany was someone who he never got the chance to see once her mom had her, but that wasn’t the case. This man was around her since she was five. I used to think the world of my daddy, really believing in my heart that this man could do no wrong, but after all of this had come out, he had shifted my beliefs. I knew that pretty soon, a conversation was long overdue with me, Mahogany, our father, and Mahogany’s mother. We all deserved to hear the whole truth, but out of everybody, it was more so Mahogany because she was the one who had been hurt the most.
So, not only was I dealing with that right now, but Miami and I were at each other’s throats as well. I never in my life though that he and I would not be on the best terms because since we put a title to what we were doing, I literally ate, slept, and breathed him. I felt like I needed Miami just to breathe. He was everything to me, and I think that a lot of my dependence on him came from me losing my son. I still felt that way about him, but these days, I didn’t so much know how he felt about me.
Me choosing not to tell Miami about Trip calling plus him dealing with the sickness of his father had tainted our relationship. It wasn’t the same. I wasn’t sleeping at home because Miami didn’t come home! His nights were spent out doing God knows what, and because I ran to my grandma’s house for every little inconvenience in my life, that’s where Maya I had been sleeping lately. I was hurting these days, but I felt like I couldn’t say anything because then I would come off as selfish and inconsiderate of what Miami was dealing with.
I just wanted him to at least acknowledge that the baby and I exist. He doesn’t even touch me and barely looks my way twice. Miami looked me in my eyes a week ago and told me that he didn’t know where he and I stood, and that hurt me so bad. I regretted lying to him about the reason why I changed my number. When I came home that night, I should have told him about the heated conversation that I had on the phone with Trip on the way home from work. I swear my actions were pure; I was only trying to keep the peace in our relationship, and now it might have cost me it.
I could put myself in Miami’s shoes and see where he might have thought that I was being sneaky, but I wasn’t. For him to tell me that I was protecting Trip really did hurt me because I knew that wasn’t my motive at all. Then, I thought about the fact that I took Maya in, which was a product of Trip, and I wondered if I did too much. Was it wrong for me to do that to Miami? If he wanted to leave me, I guess he had every right to because I was sure that his life was much more peaceful before he pursued me.
When I did finally make the decision to keep Maya, that decision was only made after Miami had assured me that he was down with whatever I was down with. Miami was the type of man who supported me with anything I did. Now, I wondered if that was one of those things he just pretended to be down with for me, but deep down, having to accept another man’s child really wasn’t something that he wanted to do. Then again, Miami wasn’t the type of man who would ever do something that he didn’t want to. Plus, he adored Maya. He treated that little girl as if she was his own. Even with him and me not talking, he still made it his business to come and see her while I was at my grandma’s house. She’d started school now, and he played a really big part in the preparation of that, such as making sure that she had all of her school supplies, uniform. He even bought her tons of shoes and three new book bags, when she really only needed one.
“Where are you going? It’s almost ten at night, Toddrick. Why are you throwing me off over there?” I questioned.
“I’m throwing you off over there, or are you running over there, shorty? Every time shit don’t go your spoiled ass way, you go running over there. I’m just taking you to your comfort zone since it damn sure ain’t me. You make that perfectly clear!” he said.
I whipped my head, looking at him like he was fuckin’ crazy.
“Nigga, you don’t come home, so how the fuck can you be my comfort? Why would I sit in that big ass house by my fuckin’ self? Don’t put this shit on me, Miami!” I screamed.
