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“Shorty, you breaking my fuckin’ heart crying like this. I know it hurts, but you can be holding Prosper in your arms in a minute. Come on. Push for daddy,” he whispered in my ear.
He kissed my lips and then pulled back. His words woke up something inside of me because this time, when that contraction came, I pushed… and I pushed… kept pushing. When I heard the women in the room scream, and my doctor and the nurses said that they could see the head, I pushed some more. It felt like I was having the biggest bowel movement of my life. Sure enough, less than one minute later, I felt the baby come out of me.
I cried big time when my doctor lifted a beautiful little girl, who was screaming her little lungs out. He lowered her onto my chest, and not even caring about the vernix on her little body, I kissed her. I looked over at my husband, who was crying too. Everyone in the room was crying.
“Little girl, you just caused me so much pain,” I spoke through my tears as I looked down at my little hairy baby.
She was still crying her heart out. She stayed on me for about five minutes, and then she was taken, so she could be weighed and everything else. Billionaire leaned his head into me, thanking me repeatedly for giving him this beautiful little girl.
I wiped the tears that were still falling from his eyes, and we engaged in a kiss that held more passion than any other kiss that we’d ever had before.
“I’m a mommy,” I said, breaking the kiss and speaking through my tears.
“You are. A perfect one at that. I love you,” he assured me.
“I love you too. I know just the colors and the look that I want for my she shack,” I told him, not forgetting about the bet that we made two months ago.
“Normani, after what you just did, you can have whatever the fuck you want,” he let me know.
Just like that folks, I was now a part of motherhood. I couldn’t wait for the nurses to finish cleaning my baby up because I was ready to love on her, sing to her, kiss her, and tell her how my labor with her was hell.
Five months later
Pastor Davidson
“This doesn’t have to be the end, Pastor. This just means that you have to start over. Go back to your roots from when you were ministering in the projects. All the people who left, that just only means that they weren’t loyal to you, to begin with. Let’s just start all the way over,” my assistant, Martha, said as we stood outside of what used to be my church.
All kinds of graffiti was written on the church building with signs posted, advertising that it was for sale. They wanted to beat me down, rob me of everything I had, well, they succeeded. Ever since that asshole, Billionaire, came to my church and exposed my truth in front of my bible study class, my congregation had dwindled. For about a month, I still had several members, but those members were only coming to be nosy. I knew they were waiting on me to address what had happened in bible study that night, but I wouldn’t.
As Sundays went by, the congregation just kept getting smaller and smaller. With no money coming into the church, it was hard to keep up with this place. Every day for about six months straight, Billionaire had those thugs standing outside of my church, protesting to get my church shut down, and it worked. I really wished that Saint wouldn’t have been such a coward and that he had just done the job that I paid him to do. I never even got back the ten grand that I’d given him, and you can just bet he stopped coming to church after that, so I never saw him again.
I couldn’t care less about the money, though, because I honestly lost so much more. I lost Normani a long time ago, so I didn’t care too much about that; it was the fact that I lost Naomi too and Melody. Melody was the one person who I just knew would stand by me through anything, but she left me, just like everyone else. Yes, I did some bad things to her over the years, but I asked forgiveness from God for those things years ago.
I hated that she exposed our dirty laundry like that in front of our children. To bring up my son, who she knew we vowed to never talk about again, was crazy. We didn’t even know where my son was, so it was irrelevant for her to even bring that up.
Life for Melody was good. I guess she finally got everything she wanted. Her church was the most talked about church in Miami. She even had her own segment that came on TV on Sunday mornings. She was ministering, and a couple of days ago, I even heard her new single on the radio. Good for her.
I wasn’t broke, but I was nowhere near as wealthy as I used to be. There was no use in me continuing to pay the bills there, only for no one to show up. With Melody having her church, I knew that I would never have a big congregation like I did over the years because it would be too much to compete with her. This was the part where I would walk away from it all.
If I was asked the question of if I had any regrets, the answer was no! Imagine folks being so mad at me, just because I loved my daughter so much that I wanted better for her when it came to her love life. I give it a couple of years before that thug that my daughter is with shows his true colors. I’ve fought, and I’ve fought with my family about this for months, and I was tired.
My home was already packed up, the house was sold, and I was getting out of Miami. This country boy was moving on, and hopefully, wherever I moved to, I could start all over again. Hell, who knows? Maybe I’ll find my son out there and work it out with him. I guess, at this point, I was desperate since none of my daughters wanted anything to do with me.
“Martha, I’m tired. I’m tired of fighting. I’ve let this church consume me for almost thirty years. I did my part. I spoke His word. I’m ready to walk away from it all now. After what got out about me, nobody is going to support me, and I’ve accepted that. Take care, and thank you for all that you’ve done to help with this church over the years,” I told Martha and put my hands on her shoulder before I walked away.
On my way to my car, I had to pass the church’s garden. The same garden I planted with Naomi and Normani when they were four years old and eight. I remember that day verbatim. A lone tear fell from my eyes as I thought about my girls. I knew the God I served; therefore, I didn’t believe in superpowers, but this time, I would do anything to go back in time and start over from that day.
Denim McCloud
“My room so big, Mama. I don’t want Cinderella this time around. I’ve outgrown that. I want to do Trolls this time,” Khari said, running over to me as I sat on the floor at our new townhouse, breastfeeding my baby, Kelsey.
I went with Kelsey for my daughter’s name because it meant brave. This little girl was definitely brave, especially with the things she had to endure when she was growing inside of me. My daughter was beautiful. I just hated that every time I looked at her, the only thing I saw was Reggie. She had his entire face, so as much as I wanted to forget about his entire existence, all I really had to do was look at her, and I would have no choice but to think about him.
Reggie’s mother had contacted my mother a couple of months ago by sending a letter to her house, which was meant for me. She was basically reaching out and requesting to have a relationship with her granddaughters, but that would never happen. That part of my life was over. Her son would rot in that prison cell, and I just wanted nothing to do with them. I was raising three beautiful girls, and I needed to get my shit together for them.
Everyone around me had a talent, and these days, mine was jumping into the hair business as a loctician. Nobody could re-twist dreads and style them like me, so I was actually using my talent these days. After months, I’d finally found a nice little spot for my kids and me, and we no longer had to live at my mother’s house, on top of each other, because we all had our own room this time around, even the baby, even though I would keep her sleeping in the room with me for a while.
Billion and I were cool; we kept it about Khari, and that was it. I still didn’t fuck with Normani, and she didn’t fuck with me either. Her daughter was beautiful as hell, though. She and I would probably never get along, but my daughter liked her, so I guess that’s all that mattered.
