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I heard him sigh before he requested, “Can you look at me, Vann?”
I did, lifting my head and looking him in the eye. “You wanna get a closer look at the damage? Here it is. Fucked up, right?”
“No,” he said softly. “It’snotfucked up, and no, I’m not trying to get a closer look at the…damage. I just don’t like you looking down when you’re around me. You’ve been doing that since you were a boy.”
With tented eyebrows, I asked, “Oh, you noticed that? I’m surprised since you’ve only bothered to visit me like seven times in my forty-three years. There was that one time I came to visit you, though. Remember that?”
He nodded, trying to seem unaffected, but the reddening of his neck that could be seen just above the collar of his nice dress shirt told the truth. “I do remember that.”
“You still feel the same way?”
“Would I be here if I did?”
“You’re here for me?”
“Of course, I am. Why else?”
“My mother.”
A plate appeared before me, and at the same time, my mother said, “He’s not here to see me, Vann.” Before I could respond to her, my mother left the kitchen, stepping through the back door onto the porch.
“V is right. I’m not here for her.”
“But she called you, right?”
“When you were first diagnosed, she called me, and I’ve kept up with things by keeping in touch with her ever since. I didn’t think you’d want me to call you because…you know.”
“Yeah, I know. So you said you don’t feel the same as you did back then, right? You ready to claim your nigger son to the world? No more hiding me? No more paying me to stay away from you?”
His gaze left my face, and I had to smile. Shaking my head, I took a bite out of a biscuit, grabbed a piece of bacon, and left the kitchen with my question loudly answered with his silence. He wasstilla liar, a fucking coward, and Istillhated him.
CHAPTER5
BROOKLYN
Bailey was chatty the entire way there, excited about the upcoming week, and who could blame her? Isaac, my ex-husband, and I had been sharing custody of our daughter since we divorced some three years ago, and he was and always had been a great father. Plus, his home was her first home, herrealhome, and instead of a cramped apartment with a tiny balcony, she was able to enjoy a much larger home situated on a sprawling piece of property. Her bedroom there was fit for a princess. Hell, I would’ve been excited, too, if I were her.
“I can’t wait to performLike a Virginfor Papa! Oh! And I’m going to see if he’ll buy me a dress for my Whitney Houston performance,” Bailey prattled on.
I stiffened in the driver’s seat of my vehicle. “I can buy you one, sweetie.”
“No, Papa has more money, so that’s why I’m gonna ask him to buy it.”
The fact that she was aware of this at six years old broke my heart. I was going to have to do better, keep a job, start selling ass, something! I did not want her to grow up feeling the way I felt as a child—vulnerable, afraid, and most of all, hungry. My childhood was the entire reason I’d sought to marry a man like Isaac. I’d decided before I really understood how babies were made that mine wouldn’t grow up poor, and Isaac Dembelé was far from poor. He was also a good man, emphasis onwas. But I supposed my behavior may have prompted his change in character.
When we’d finally made it to my former home, Bailey had shared all her upcoming Whitney Houston performance plans with me. She made me smile, and that always eased the tension of these hand-offs. Pulling to a stop on the curved driveway right in front of the front steps, I slid out of my truck and grabbed Bailey’s unicorn duffel bag, grasping her hand as we climbed the steps together. She rang the bell, her tiny chocolate body swathed in a sunny yellow dress and vibrating with excitement. Closing my eyes, I willed Isaac to be the person who answered the door, but that was futile, because a minute or so later, the front door eased open to reveal Bailey’s stepmother who also happened to be her grandmother.
Mymother.
She was beautiful. Always had been, but the flowing gold kaftan that covered her petite frame especially complemented her midnight skin. She was only eighteen years older than me and had often been mistaken as my sister. Her small but penetrating eyes brushed over me before focusing on Bailey. “Hey, Bailey Baby!” she greeted in her usual way. “Your Papa is waiting for you in the living room.”
“Hey, Gigi!” Bailey trilled, giving my mother a quick hug before turning to me and waving goodbye. In a split second, she’d rushed inside the house, my cue to get the fuck out of dodge.
“Wait, Brooklyn…” my mother softly said in her sultry voice.
I did stop before descending the steps, but I kept my back to her as I said, “What?” in a far less than friendly tone.
“How’ve you been? How is school going?” she asked rather timidly. But was it timidity or guilt for having swooped in and started screwing my ex-husband when the ink on our divorce papers was barely dry? Not to mention the fact that she’d married him. She’d married her former son-in-law! Yeah, I’d fucked my marriage up all on my own, but damn!
