AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I crumple the letter in my hand, then throw it across the room. “Julius, eat the inside of my ass, bitch. And eat it goddamn good ’cause I am goin’ to bring you down, niggah. If you think I’ma let you take my son from me without a good fight, you gotta ’nother thing comin’. And you know I love a good goddamn fight so buckle up, bitch.”
I hang up on his ass, then march out into the livin’ room. I stand at the bottom of the stairs and call out, “Joshua! Get yo’ . . . ” I catch myself from goin’ off on him ’cause I know he ain’t the enemy. His fahver is. “Joshua!”
“Yes?” he says, standin’ at the top of the stairs.
“Come here, boo. Come talk to Mommy.”
He looks at me suspiciously before comin’ down. He must think I’m tryna lure him into some kinda trap, then fuck him up or somethin’. I let him know he ain’t gettin’ a beat down. “Oh, okay,” he says, soundin’ relieved as he follows me to my room. I tell him to shut the door behind him.
I sit on my bed, then pat the space beside me. “Come sit, boo.” I wait for him to sit, then shift my body, tuckin’ a leg beneath me. I reach for his hands. “Do you know ya fahver wants you to live with him?”
His eyes widen, then he lowers them to his lap.
My heart drops. That dirty motherfucka! Tryna backdoor me, goddamn him! I lift his chin up and look at him. In my head, I’m smackin’ his damn face up ’cause he looks so much like his fahver. In my heart, I know he ain’t the problem. That motherfuckin’ Julius is! “You knew about this?”
He nods. “Yes.”
“So you knew that motherfu . . . ya fahver was gonna take me to court and you ain’t say shit, Joshua, why?”
“Daddy told me not to?”
“Oh, so you turnin’ ya back on me, huh? You choosin’ that coon motherfuc . . . I mean, ya fahver over me, is that it, Joshua? After all I’ve done, you tryna do me, too?”
“No, I’m not tryna do it to you, Mommy. I wanna live with you and Daddy. But Daddy said it’s better if I live with him, and come stay here on the weekends.”
“Do you wanna live with him?”
He nods. “Yes, sometimes I do. But I don’t want you to be mad at me.”
I gasp, clutchin’ my chest. I feel like someone has set fire to all my Louis heels and red bottoms, then opened all of my handbags and tossed hot shit in ’em. “Why, boo? Why you wanna live with that motherf . . . ya fahver?”
He shrugs. And I feel like shakin’ the shit outta him ’cause I know he knows why he wanna abandon me. “Don’t do me, Joshua. I’m not gonna go off on you. I only wanna know why you wanna leave ya brothers and sister. I wanna know why you wanna leave me.”
“I don’t wanna leave you, Mommy. I wanna stay the weekends with you and some of the summer. But . . . it’s too many kids here. And Isaiah and the twins are always goin’ in my stuff.”
“Well, that’s what brothers do, boo. They ’posed to go through ya shit and get on ya nerves. But you ain’t ’posed to wanna turn ya back on ’em and wanna move out.” I squeeze his hands tighter. “You ain’t ’posed to do this to us, goddamn you. All my life I’ve fought to keep all’a you together ’cause I’m ya mother. You ain’t ’posed to wanna break us up.” Oooh, I feel so goddamn betrayed. Now I’m shakin’ him. And he’s lookin’ at me like I’m crazy. I catch myself before I swing him into a wall, then grab him and pull him into my arms. I hug him, tight. “That ain’t what brothers do, Joshua. They stick together. They ride or die with each other. Not run off. But I ain’t mad at you. If you wanna go live with ya fahver and leave us, then you go right ahead.” I choke back my anger at that no-good motherfucka. Oh, he’s fuckin’ with the wrong one!
“You promise you not mad at me, Mommy?”
I take a deep breath. Push back a tear. And you know I don’t do drama or goddamn tears. “No, boo. I ain’t mad at you.” His eyes water with tears. I wipe them as they fall. Then kiss him on his forehead. “Mommy loves you, boo. And anyone tryna take you from me gotta pay. I don’t give a goddamn who it is. But if you wanna go live with ya fahver, then I ain’t gonna stop you.” I let him go. Tell him he can go on back upstairs. He gives me another hug, then walks off toward the door. He opens it, then turns back to me.
“I love you, Mommy. And I’ma call you every day, okay?”
I nod, forcin’ a smile. That’s all I can give him. He done sliced me open, then snatched my heart outta my chest with this shit. And that motherfuckin’ fahver of his gave him the blade to do it. He quietly closes the door behind him, leavin’ me sittin’ on my bed, starin’ at the shut door.
“Cass,” Dicklina says, snappin’ her gum in my ear. I am layin’ across my bed on my back starin’ up at the ceilin’. “That’s what you get for havin’ babies wit’ a motherfucka who wanna be a daddy. Shit, all these no-good, deadbeat niggahs you coulda had and you get one who wanna play fahver of da year. Shit don’t make no sense.”
I blink. I’ve been on the phone with Lina for the last two hours, ventin’. But now I see that this bitch is extra special and severely retarded and I had no goddamn business callin’ her with this shit. “Lina, I’m glad the niggah wants to be in Joshua’s life. I just don’t want him tryna take him from me. I like things the way t
hey are. But now this niggah wanna play dirty. And I’m not havin’ it.”
“Boo, and that’s why I’m sayin’ you shoulda got knocked up by a bum niggah. Bum-niggahs got that good dick, too, Cass. Shit, look at Candy and Tina’s fahvers. They ain’t seen’t their daddies since they were two or three months old. And they don’t want nuthin’ to do wit’ ’em either. And that’s fine by me ’cause I ain’t gotta worry about the dumb shit, or my girls bein’ around they other bitches.”
I frown. “Lina, you sound cuckoo crazy, boo. Kids need they fahvers in their lives. They just don’t need the motherfuckas tryna take ’em away from good goddamn mothers.”
“Mmmph. I guess.”
I take a deep breath. This bitch ain’t gotta clue. Both of our mothers were junkie-hoes. Hers to dope, mine to crack. She didn’t know her fahver, but at least I knew mine. He was in my life. And I remember him givin’ me a hug, and tellin’ me he was gonna come back to take me for ice cream. But the niggah never did. A bullet got ’im in the head, first, for gettin’ caught fuckin’ some other niggah’s wife. I was eight. My junkie mother didn’t want him in my life ’cause he ain’t wanna be in hers. I swore I’d never be like that. I promised myself that when I had babies I was gonna make sure my kids at least knew who their daddies were, even if the niggah didn’t wanna know them.
