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“Well, it was worth the try. She’s got them in the tea shop already!” Consuela laughed.
“Mommy!” a tiny, heart-thumping voice cried. I heard pitter-patter charging down the grand staircase. I turned to find her little right hand gripping the wide glossy railing. Amy held her left as she watched her next step. “Mommy! Mommy!” she shrieked.
“Oh, my goodness, Cupcake!” My eyes weld with pride…and guilt. “You’re such a wonder!”
Once at the landing, she cut from Amy and ran to me. I captured my heart and world in my arms, lifting her into the air and spinning around. Joy was in the squeeze of her little muscles around me as she giggled. I felt lightheaded with elation.
When I placed her down to get another look at her, she asked, “No more work?”
Consuela and Amy sighed with amazement aside from us.
I delivered her the night of our baby shower nearly three years ago. Sex in the last weeks of pregnancy for some women isn’t the best idea unless trying to deliver. She was only a couple of weeks early, and I was still very much attached to her, so much that I expressed it physically above our festive guests. The maelstrom of emotions I felt that day after learning basic information from Jas had been living in my heart ever since. Some days the bitterness was intense, but on most, I learned to function with it because of the culmination of our passion. Anger and resentment was instantly overshadowed with love and an adoration I never knew when I gazed down at those chocolate eyes surrounded by the softest skin.
Chivon Ojasvi Sinclair was a wonder to have birthed. She was perfect. A brown-skinned girl with dark kinky hair and the biggest countenance known to our family. My daughter was a ball of joy and the twinkle in all of our eyes. Most affectionately, we called her Chi-Chi, a pronunciation deviation from my own name, though audibly, theShiin Shi-Shi andChiin Chivon were one in the same. And she had quite the community. Her father and I were rivals, contending at number one in her heart. But Chi-Chi was adored by Consuela, Frankie, Juggy, Charmagne, my father, Noelle, my mother, and Cecil. Of course, all of my friends and family loved my daughter, but these folks gave Chi-Chi a front-row seat in their lives one way or another. The magic she wielded was adorable and unlikely at the same time.
I nodded. “Yes. Mommy’s still working, Cupcake.”
“I gonna go?” Her silky brows met.
My forehead stretched. “Do you want to come to work with Mommy?”
The muscles in my baby’s face tightened as she thought on it. This wasn’t my favorite conversation, but one I took gravely serious.
“Daddy come?”
She was asking could sheandJas come with me. The girl owned that man, and even in her young two-year-old mind, she somehow knew it, though she didn’t understand how powerful it made her.
“Ummmm…” I scratched my chin, then dropped to my hunches to get closer to her height. “I think Daddy has to work, too, Cupcake. But remember: whenever you want to come to work with Mommy, you can. Cousin Cecil will bring you. Okay?”
As rapidly as soon-to-be three-year-olds do, Chi-Chi switched gears. Her expression opened to express excitement. “Make biscuits, Mommy?”
“Oh,” I dipped my chin. “is that what you want to do with Mommy today? Bake biscuits?”
The request warmed me. When I was a little girl, each time we visited my mother’s family inDella, South Carolina, Aunt Rose would take me either straight into the field to pick vegetables or fruits, or she’d call me into the kitchen to bake a cake or pastries from scratch for the house. She was so consistent with it, I didn’t realize until having my own child that Aunt Rose was using those experiences to bond with me. Completing those tasks not only taught me about food preparation and cooking, but it also forced me to have time in her presence and learn her energy. I’d been cooking with Chi-Chi since she could walk.
My baby nodded. “Juggy said biscuits!”
Consuela and Amy laughed.
My head reared back. “Oh, so it’s Uncle Juggy who wants the biscuits. Huhn?”
Innocuously, Chi-Chi nodded, laughing, too. God, I missed her. I missed my baby every day. And she seemed to have grown since I saw her last month. She still looked like her dad, too. It was uncannily how her features changed every so often. When she was born, she favored my father. By six months, she was all Jas. Just after turning one, we saw Charmagne. Finally, she favored my toddler pictures to a T until I saw her in Coconut Grove last month. Currently, she was all Jas in the face with the deep brown piercing eyes, classically carved nose, and full lips.
“Okay,” I pulled in a deep breath as I stood to my feet. “First, let’s see the first position.”
After processing my request, Chi-Chi’s eyes blinked, and she quickly adjusted herself to stand straight, bringing her heels together and cupping her hands at her pelvis.
“Second!” I sang dramatically.
That took her a few seconds to arrange, too. Her little feet widened in distance, and she stretched her arms out wide, chin forcefully in the air.
“Still struggling with this, I see.” I straightened her little arms, shooting them out like arrows aside her. Then I lowered her chin, closely observing her position. “Third position!”
Chi-Chi leaped into the air, bringing her heels back together and pushed her fingers down toward the floor. Of course, I had to adjust her little body so she could feel the proper stance. I rounded her arms and tilted her pelvis, feeling herPull-Upstraining pants. She was only to wear them when she had an accident, which had been few and far between lately.
“I had accident,” she quickly explained, knowing my feelings about her progress.
“I heard, Miss Thing,” I groaned, then patted her on the tush.
