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“No, baby!” Chess’s voice trembled. “I was just-”
Jay shouted, “You lied.”
Tazeem should’ve been gratified to see his son react just as he had, but all it did was fill him with distress. He shouldn’t have come here tonight. He should’ve listened to Chess when she’d said that she needed to talk to Jay first. He shouldn’t have started a screaming match outside her home and let Jay overhear them.
So much regret filled Tazeem, and he took a step forward. He wanted to go and console his distressed son. But before he could, Jay dashed away towards the house.
“Jay.” Chess immediately gave chase. “Jay.”
Tazeem rushed after them, but just a few steps in, he realized that it was a bad idea. His presence was what had caused Jay’s suffering, staying would only worsen it. Maybe Chess was right about him just giving them a little space to breathe before barging into their life.
Feeling more miserable than he’d ever felt in his life, he trudged to his car. He started the car and headed out the gate. He only made it up to the junction that connected the neighborhood’s avenue to the main road before his sadness overwhelmed him.
Before he knew it, he was crying.
JAY WAS CRYING. CHESS WAS crying too. They’d both been crying for the last five minutes. Chess wanted to stop, but it was hard to stop the tears from falling while watching her son sob his little heart out. So instead, she tried to stop him crying, but he wouldn’t even let her touch him.
The child was now buried underneath his Incredible Hulk comforter, sniffling. Every time Chess touched him, he jerked around violently in a non-verbal yet very loud attempt to make her leave him alone. After a while, she just sat at the edge of his bed, watching him as rivulets of tears trailed down her cheeks.
This was her fault.
She couldn’t possibly have handled this whole thing worse than she had. Now Jay was hurt and mad, Tazeem was hurt and mad, and all she could do was cry and regret. The consequences of her eight-year decision had caught up to her, and she wasn’t sure that she could handle them. No matter how much she wracked her brain, she couldn’t think of a solution that could make everything better.
“Baby?” She stroked Jay’s back. Once again, he jerked, but it wasn’t quite as violent as the previous time. “Can we talk for a second?”
He jerked around and sniffled.
“Mama is really, really sorry.” She bent to kiss his shoulder over the covers. “I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
“Mmmfff.” He mumbled something beneath the covers.
“Sorry?” She prodded since she hadn’t heard anything.
He paused for a second then drew the comforter off his face so he could accuse, “You lied.”
Chess’s heart ached when she saw the little boy’s red, puffy eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“Why did you lie?” Jay demanded.
Chess didn’t know how to explain without going into adult things, so she hedged, “I thought that I was doing the right thing.”
“How can it be right?” He sniffed. “You always say lying is bad.”
“It is.” She stroked his cheek even as she tried to think of words to justify her actions. “Mama made a mistake.”
Her answer didn’t satisfy Jay. He shifted a little so he could see her better as he asked, “Is he a bad man?”
It would’ve been so easy to say ‘yes’. But Chess couldn’t bring herself to throw Tazeem under the bus especially after she’d hurt him so badly. “Not really.”
“Then why did you say he died?”
“I just-” She paused for a beat “There was some stuff going on with me and your dad that made me not want us to be with him.”
“Stuff like what?”
“Adult stuff,” she said. When Jay’s bottom lip jutted out like he had more questions, she added, “Stuff you don’t need to know about now. But I didn’t mean to make you cry. I’m sorry.”
Jay was quiet for a long while later then he asked, “So I really have a daddy?”
