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Once she was close enough, she pushed me back, so she could really see. Her hands started shaking, her eyes watered, and she screamed. She screamed so fuckin’ loud that I had to pull her ass to me and put my hands over her mouth.
“Normani, shut the fuck up screaming! Khari is going to wake up, asking fuckin’ questions! Chill the fuck out, and no, I ain’t kill nobody!” I roughly told her in her ear.
Because my hands were wrapped around her mouth, I felt when one of her tears hit my hand. I could just imagine how she would react once I told her the back story to this shit. This was why I didn’t plan to tell her anything. She would not let the fuck up and just let the situation be, so I knew I would have to talk. I let her mouth go, and she quickly turned around to face me again, eyes going back to my shoes.
“So... what happened then, Billionaire? What the hell happened?” she asked. This time, she was speaking in a harsh whisper.
“Call your daddy, Normani, and ask him what happened,” I said as I put the cold items in the refrigerator.
“Wait, what? That’s his blood? Billionaire, what the hell happened? You’re going to make me lose my damn mind! I’m trying not to freak out, but you are being really standoffish right now with your revelations!”
“Yo, when I see your daddy, he gotta feel me. I been sparing the fuck out of that man, off the strength of you, but how many times am I supposed to let the fuck nigga try me, and I don’t do shit? A nigga hates me because I treat his daughter good. Imagine that! Meanwhile, he takes his fake holy ass to the front of that church, treat everybody else all good, but look how he do you! I know I told you a couple of months ago to stay away from that nigga, but I mean that shit this time. Go around that nigga, Normani, and me and you going to have some problems! Trust me, I’m the last nigga you want some conflict with,” I let her know.
“Okay, but baby, what happened? You still aren’t telling me anything,” she said.
“Your daddy paid a nigga twenty thousand dollars to kill me tonight. Well, ten G’s upfront, and he was supposed to get the last ten G’s, once I was dead.” I told Normani, and her hands went over her mouth.
She covered her mouth to quiet down the loud outburst of a cry mixed with a scream that she just let out. My wife did exactly what I knew she would do, which is why I didn’t want to tell her. I grabbed her by the back of her head and pulled her into me. Her head went crashing into my chest as she hysterically cried. Knowing her, she had to have been thinking about the fact that I could have died tonight, leaving her and my kids by themselves.
“Ima handle it,” was all I told her because, shit, I was still mad about this shit my damn self.
This old ass nigga was playing with me like I was a fuckin’ toy. I would have done this bitch ass nigga so dirty if this shit had happened a few years ago. It’s like, I was trying to change, but the devil was right there on my back, and he was slowly trying to reel a nigga right back in. It was to the point that I had to question if a nigga like me could even change. I was being tested, and it was only a matter of time before I just nut the fuck up, and everyone would have to feel me.
“Why can’t he just allow us to be happy? All I want to do is be happy,” Normani kept saying.
It took me at least twenty minutes to calm her down. I knew she was pissed when she didn’t even want to eat the sweets and shit that she had me pick up for her. As far as her daddy went, I couldn’t wait to do a pop up on him tomorrow.
I walked through the semi-crowded restaurant and did a quick scan of the place, so I could find my mother. We were meeting today for lunch. I’d texted her first thing this morning and asked if she could meet me there because I wanted to discuss the things my husband shared with me last night. I wanted to know if she was aware of the things that her hateful ass husband was doing! From now on, I wouldn’t even refer to him as my father. I planned to address him by his first name, or I would continue to call him my mother’s husband.
The things that Billionaire had told me last night had me so disturbed that I didn’t get an ounce of sleep. I tossed and turned all night, and at one point, I’d gotten out of the bed, prepared to take that drive to my parents’ house to confront him, but Billionaire wouldn’t let me leave. I just couldn’t see how he could sleep so easily last night after letting me know that someone had pulled a gun on him and was just seconds away from killing him.
When the incident happened to me in Mexico, I could hardly sleep that night because it was the only thing I c
ould think about. Closing my eyes for a good night’s rest was literally the last thing I forced myself to do. Billionaire and I came from different walks of life, and he was able to handle things that I couldn’t handle, but he literally came into the house last night like nothing even happened. This man had beaten death, yet he still made his way to Walmart to go grocery shopping for the things I told him to get for me. Is that not weird? Like, really, how the hell is that even okay?
I wondered if he would have even told me what happened had I never seen the blood on his shoes. Maybe I was tripping, but I couldn’t help but wonder if he was keeping anything else from me these days. I liked to think of my husband as my confidant and my best friend because I knew I could go to him with anything. Someone pulling a gun out on him should have literally been the first thing he told me as soon as he walked through the door.
Billionaire just hadn’t been the same person in over a week, and I didn’t know what it was. I didn’t know if it was finally hitting him that maybe we were moving too fast or what, but I felt like he was holding back from me. Every time I tried to talk to him about what was going on, he had a way of shrugging it off, as if it wasn’t a big deal. Initially, I thought it had a lot to do with him being stressed about this closing he had coming up in the next few days, but I was starting to think that it was deeper than that.
Eventually, I found my mother sitting at one booth toward the middle of the restaurant. I let the hostess up front know that I was there to meet someone, and then I made my way toward the table. My mom’s back was facing me, so she didn’t see me when I approached her. I could tell from her body language, though, that something was off with her. After her birthday, I called her that night, just to see if she was okay, and she assured me that she was. It was something about how her husband had disrespected her that night in front of us. His behavior didn’t seem like it was new. It came off like he had a habit of disrespecting my mother, but this time, he just ignored his surroundings and let it come out in front of other people.
“Hey, Mommy,” I said as I squatted down to give her a hug.
She leaned in to hug me back and kissed me on my cheek.
“You look beautiful,” she told me once I took a seat in front of her.
I smiled at her compliment as I sat on the other side of the table. Although my mother wore a little bit of make-up, I still saw the heavy bags under her eyes. I saw weariness, I saw unhappiness, and I even saw sadness. Instantly, I reached across the table and held her hands in mine. Anyone who knew my mother would say that she was easily one of the nicest persons anyone would ever meet. Tiny like me, but let her get up on a stage and talk about God… I’m telling you her voice would fill up a whole church.
I had seen my mother minister on many occasions, and she’s brought grown men to their knees with her words. When I was a little girl, my mother would pastor too, but she would only do it on certain occasions, like her birthday month, Mother’s Day, and I remember my father letting her preach for Easter Sunday as well a few times. These days, she really only taught bible study, and sometimes if she was called to do a sermon at another church, she would do it. She was just taking her role as a first lady.
For many years, I wondered if that role was all my mother wanted to do, but I was scared to ask. My mother could blow when it came to preaching. On top of that, she had a singing voice out of this world. Knowing the type of man my father was these days, I wondered if it was him quieting her down… you know, dimming her light. I sat across from the most beautiful woman to me and tugged on her hands.
“What’s wrong, Mommy?” I asked, truly concerned about her.
I could see the hurt in her eyes, and I didn’t even know if I wanted to bring up what I’d planned to come down there and tell her. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt her, especially when it was so obvious that something was causing her great pain. Something just told me that she didn’t know what her husband had done.
“Just tired, Normani. I am tired. Never mind me, though. What’s going on with you? What did you have to speak to me about this afternoon? I read your message this morning, and I could feel the urgency in your words. I really wanted to pop by your office, but I decided to just wait because I’m sure I could have just been fearing the worst,” she said.
