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“Can I at least take a shower first?” she finally asked.
I stood up from the foot of the bed and walked out of the bedroom. There was a linen closet in the hallway, so I grabbed her a clean washcloth and a towel. I brought the items with me inside the bathroom, and I searched under the cabinets for a new bar of soap along with the Cantu shampoo that was down there for when my daughter comes over and I was either forced to wash her hair, or my grandmother would do it. Just in case she didn’t have shit to change into when she was out, I put one of my Nike shirts on the counter for her and walked out of the bathroom.
I let her know that she could go ahead and take her shower, and she quickly walked out of the room. Now, that it was just me in the bedroom, my mind went straight into overdrive. Did this nigga throw her in the garbage or some shit? Now that we were inside where there were lights, I could see little cuts and bruises on her knees that had me wondering where the hell did those come from. What did that nigga do to her that was so bad that it got her to take her ring off? It was like physically, she was there with me, but mentally, she hadn’t been there since I called out her name when I saw her in the parking lot.
All this back and forth, trying to figure out what he had done was giving me a fuckin’ headache, so I went into my stash to roll me up a fat one. I needed some type of drugs in my system to help me deal with the shit that I had gotten myself involved in. Once I had rolled the perfect joint, and I had the potent inside, I took long, deep pulls from it, releasing that good smoke. The headache that had been coming on was slowly easing away with each pull that I took from this blunt.
It had been about thirty minutes since Takari had been in the bathroom, and had I not just heard the bathroom door open, I was going to go busting in there just to make sure that she wasn’t in that bitch trying to harm herself. She came out of the bathroom looking like a completely different person. She threw on the Nike shirt that I had given her, which fit her small body more like an oversized dress than anything. Her long hair was still wet from her washing it, and it was hanging loosely down her back.
Of course, the hurt was still very much evident in her eyes, but her beauty overpowered that shit. The clot
hes that she’d just taken off were in her hands, but she quickly placed them inside the bag that she came into the house with. I watched her from the corner of my eye as she walked over to the bed and took a seat at the foot of it. She started playing with her fingernails, and then she released a sigh.
“I’m so scared. I’m scared that he’s going to take my kids away from me. The only way that I can keep my kids is if I decide to stay with him, and I can’t do that. I won’t do that to myself. I’ve been mentally abused by this man for years now, and I can finally say that I want out. This man threw me out of our home and into the driveway while I was butt naked. I stood outside, begging him to unlock the door for me, but he wouldn’t. As if he didn’t already humiliate me enough, he came outside and poured trash all over my body, which explains the smell in my hair.
“Za’Kai, he has the power to do whatever the hell he wants to do. He’s the one with the money, he’s the one who owns everything that we have. There’s no doubt in my mind that the judge will give him full custody. I can’t lose my kids behind this,” she said, and she finally broke down.
I quickly stood up from the chair that I was sitting in and closed the bedroom door because she’d forgotten to close it when she came back into the room. Crazy how I could feel like I was affected by her cries, but years ago when I was with Breshay, I felt like her cries were the most annoying thing in the fuckin’ world! I’ve seen Takari in “mommy mode,” so I knew that she was a damn good mother. If that husband of hers planned to do some shit like that, it was fucked up on his part.
“Give me the nigga’s address. I’ll pull up on him right now,” I told her.
She laughed through her tears while she shook her head no.
“What you mean by he’s the one with the money? You not working?” I asked.
It just hit me that I really didn’t know much about shorty.
“My husband is successful. He’s the CEO of a company that was passed down to him by his father. I have the daycare that he’d purchased for me as a gift, but that doesn’t really count because he owns that too. When I had the twins, we both decided that my job would be to take care of the kids, although they’re older now, so I do go into the preschool at least three times a week to handle whatever I have to handle there as far as paperwork and things like that. I have to be the stupidest person in the world,” she said, followed by a forced, sarcastic laugh.
“I’ve been smart my entire life. I was never put into the same classes as my friends when I was in school because I was always in advanced courses. I went to college on a full four-year scholarship, and my mom didn’t have to come out of pocket for anything. I didn’t even stop my degree with my bachelors. I went further, and I got my master’s as well. I have a master’s in business, and I never did what I really wanted to do with it.
“Yes, I wanted to one day open a daycare, and I thought that it was the best thing once my husband gave it to me, but because he pretty much owned it, I didn’t have a say so. He put the preschool right in the heart of Miami Beach, which isn’t what I wanted. I wanted the preschool to be right in the heart of the projects so the parents who couldn’t afford daycare services could be able to afford mine. I had so much planned for that daycare, but like I did a lot of things that happened in our marriage, I just shrugged it off. I have to be a better example for my children, especially my daughters,” she went on to say. She had said a mouthful.
I heard everything she said, yet I was still on the beginning part of the story where she said the nigga threw her out of the house butt ass naked and threw trash on her. That was some gay ass shit. Not only was she his wife, but she was the mother of his children. I swear, these new niggas nowadays were cut from a different cloth than I was. Breshay and I didn’t get along all the time, but the fact of the matter was that she was my children’s mother, so respect was always going to be given to her. My kids wouldn’t be here if she didn’t carry them for me, and I think a lot of niggas tend to forget that shit.
“Don’t tell me you signed a prenup,” I said, and with her head down, she shook her head yes that she did. “At least tell me that you have a shoe box with some money stashed in that bitch. You from the same hood as I am, Takari, so I know you have some street smarts to add on to your book smarts,” I said.
“I don’t have a shoe box with money, but I do have a separate savings account that he doesn’t know about,” she told me, and I nodded, thinking that we were finally on to something.
“Alright, that’s a start then. Look, I’m not sure if I’m the best one to be taking advice from, but at least just hear a nigga out. I know you not trying to move back in the projects with your three kids. With the money that you have saved up, I say use whatever you have to use from that so that you could put a deposit down on a nice little apartment somewhere or a townhouse. Hell, whatever is suitable for you and your kids. I’m pretty sure your background is squeaky clean, and shorty, you have degrees under your belt so anybody would be lucky to hire you. Find you a little job because you want to be able to prove to the courts that you can financially take care of your children.
“You’re going to need all of the proof that you can get to prove to the courts that you deserve to be the primary guardian of your kids, so if I were you, I would take pictures of every cut and bruise that you have on your body from tonight,” I let her know.
I could look at her face and tell that she was taking everything in that I said. There was an awkward silence between the two of us, so I went ahead and said something, so I could make things less awkward for us.
“He white, huh? Niggas don’t do corny shit like that,” I asked her, and she laughed.
“No, he’s black. Thank you,” she said and playfully rolled her eyes.
“I can bet you my last fuckin’ dollar that he’s not fully black, though. What is ole boy mixed with?” I asked her.
“He’s mixed. His mom is Puerto Rican,” she said, and I laughed while nodding my head, like him being mixed actually meant something.
“Isn’t it crazy how life works, though?” she asked. I raised an eyebrow, basically telling her to elaborate on what she was talking about. “I just feel like we meet people for a reason. I couldn’t stand you at first. I guess because I’m pretty, guys let me get away with saying whatever to them, but you quickly showed me that a pretty face is just that... a pretty face. Then, I met you again for the second time. You hurt my feelings that day, talking about I had the body of a little boy. I cried when you left,” she said, and I smirked.
“I was just fuckin’ with you when I made that comparison to you having the body of a little boy,” I said, and she looked at me like, yeah right nigga, you meant it!
“Sure! You meant it, I know you did. No need to cover it up now. I’ve heard just about every joke that you can make about my weight, so I’m not tripping,” she let me know.
