“Are you going to have big fun?”
“I can’t have big fun without you,” Jahlil shared, tickling her.
Sanaa’s frowned turned into an infectious laugh. “Yes you can. You don’t ever have fun. Or laugh. You just walk around big and mad. You been mad since mommy said no more. Why? Are you sad?”
Sanaa tugged at a loose string that Jahlil thought he tucked away. He couldn’t lie to her. Sanaa was his truth serum. Hard facts he had to come to when he looked into her eyes.
Sanaa didn’t need him to answer, she just reached out and touched his face. The way she’d done a year ago when he thought she was sleeping and he let a tear slip. “Don’t be sad. Find something to make you happy. Like Drewy. He’s happy when he’s kissing that girl from next door.”
“Drew is kissing?”
Sanaa nodded her head. “Mmhmm, caught him in his room all like…” she paused her snitching to demonstrate what Andrew was doing. “And when he saw me, he said get your nosey ass out of here.”
“And what did you do?”
“Stood my nosey ass right there,” Sanaa stated in a matter of fact tone. “What’s other word for ass. The nice one?”
“Behind.”
“Blah, boring. I like color, daddy. I need my words to be in glitter,” Sanaa said, scooting off the bed. “I get to pick dinner tonight. What you want?”
“Steak,” Jahlil shared before muttering, “since I couldn’t enjoy last night.”
“Okay, I’m going to cook it. You shower, wash everything.”
5 /EMANI
“What kindof wife leaves her home unattended for a week to traipse around a school she didn’t even graduate from?” Janet asked as Emani walked into the house from a day full of work. No hi, how are you, how was your day, just judgement from the gate.
Emani dropped her bag by the door and looked at Janet, who was making food for what appeared to be an army. “Is someone coming by? Is that why you’re here?”
“My son called me because you weren’t answering and told me he had a hard day at practice. So I used my key. This was an emergency,” Janet quipped, a frown instantly made its way to Emani’s face.
She looked and didn’t have a missed call from Malik. “I don’t feel like this.”
“You feel well enough to shake your ass in a mirror though,” Janet poked.
Emani stopped her shuffle to the couch to ask. “Do you know who I am? Are you aware that there is a world outside of Malik where I exist? Where I’m just as much a big deal as he is? If I want to shake my ass in the mirror, I’m doing it and you don’t have a say so about that.”
“I do. You’re marryingmyson. You’re takingmylast name. You need to learn how to be a wife and be available for him,” Janet huffed, as Malik strolled into the open living space.
“I can’t be available for someone who didn’t call me but called his mama,” Emani snapped back. “Like what is it going to take for you? It’s always something with you.”
“Because it’s always something with you!” Janet shouted, now that she had an audience. “All these men hanging off of you and you want us to believe you’re just friends. Have you slept with all of them? That’s what it seems like to me.”
Emani snapped her eyes to Malik and pointed. “You’re going to let her continue?”
“Ma, chill,” Malik said, his eyes on his phone.
“Can you put the fuckin’ phone down for five minutes and pay attention, Malik?” Emani snapped. Between the botched engagement to prove he had a bigger dick in the imaginary dick measuring contest, his mother’s disrespect, and him attached to that phone. “Who the fuck keeps calling that you can’t focus on this?”
Malik groaned, tossing his phone on the counter. “What is the problem, now?”
“Now? What’s the problemnow?” Emani scoffed. “You don’t hear your mother yelling at me?”
“Y’all need to work this out. I got bigger shit to handle,” Malik spoke, grabbing his phone and walking away.
Emani glared at his back. “I’m not doing this shit. Not today. I’m fucking tired, can’t get peace in a house I pay to live in too.”
