“My other mommy can’t give me presents but I know she had to love me to find me a mommy like you. I’m glad she carried me in her tummy but I only want you for my mommy. You love me and take care of me and I love you.”
It was wild to hear but this little girl couldn’t have been over five and was getting emotional thinking about how much she loved her mom. Billy, of course, was trying to hold it in but she had watery eyes and Destiny did too.
“Thank you, baby. I love you, too. So very much.”
“I know. I’m a superhero. Daddy said I saved his life.”
Billy choked up then and a tear fell down her face and she didn’t bother to wipe it away. Instead, she just smiled and nodded at her daughter. “You saved mine too, baby. But give your Gigi the phone okay? I’ll see you when I get home.”
“Okay, Mama. I love you.”
“I love you too Desi girl.” Her mother came back to the phone, and she quickly assured her everything was fine and Billypromised her she’d be home within a few hours to help with dinner.
“Now, you were saying?”
“That seemed too easy.” I wiped my face because I wasn’t ashamed at how I’d been moved by the way they were talking to and about one another
Billy used her napkin to blot at her face and she took a sip of her water to calm her nerves. “It’s not. Her parents were on the run for their lives and dropped her off at a hospital. It was easier for them to leave her here in their minds without them than to have her go back home without means to take care of her. Coby’s foster mother is a social worker so she found her and called me immediately. She forced Coby to be selfless at a time when he was so bogged down in grief that he became severely depressed. I’d just had a miscarriage and we were on the verge of a divorce. I wasn’t eating and things were just bad between us.”
“The two of you? No way.” That man looked at his wife as if she were the center of his entire world. The same thing with his children but I’d clearly missed the tragic part of their fairytale and was only witnessing their living happily ever after.
Her eyes looked stormy like even thinking about that time dredged up the memories all over again. “Love is a tricky thing. Because as much as you have it if you can’t receive it and work through your shit it won’t be enough. But tighten up.”
“Me?” She went from being all sweet to getting in my ass.
“Yes you. I get it. I swear to you I do. You’re in a situation where you don’t know where you stand not just with the baby, but with the man. Jacoby had the same feelings because we weren’t technically together when I decided I wanted to move forward to adopt Destiny. He started to come around and I got knocked up without even realizing it.”
My mouth was hanging open and I was getting all her business today. “Not theDesperadosbeing like damnDynasty. Y’all got all kinds of shit going on.”
“Girl, this team has more drama thanThe Gamedid.”
“And now I’m a part of it. But what made him decide to adopt her?”
“I went back and had the paperwork amended to add his name when I saw he was going to do right.” She smiled brightly and I swore I was the one with the bright-eyed look.
“Were you worried?”
“No. The ring on my finger and his didn’t make my decision for me. If he wasn’t going to act right I would’ve filed the paperwork and represented myself. But he showed me who he was again. Battled the darkest parts of himself, worked on himself once he got over his depression and was there the way he was always meant to be. He put in the work and there was no one I would want to do life with but him. I was grateful that he got his act together because I wouldn’t have loved anyone the way I loved him. But I wasn’t pulling his deadweight.”
“Damn. Looking at the two of you I wouldn’t have ever thought that either of you had known a minute of sadness in this world. But to hear everything y’all went through—”
“It’s comforting?” She grinned like she knew I wanted to say yes.
I felt bad because yes was exactly what I wanted to scream but it seemed rude as hell.
“Well, no, because I feel so bad for you. The idea of how much sadness y’all would’ve been going through is so heavy. But right now I feel like I can commiserate. I don’t know what is going on with my future but I am so attached. I feel like her mother and even when I try to keep myself away from the attachment, I can’t. I’m so in love with this baby—”
“And her daddy.”
I wasn’t about to deny it because the truth was there. “And her daddy. We feel like a family and there is a part of me that has me wondering if that’s what he wants.”
“Ask him.”
I pouted and threw a mini tantrum in my seat. “I can’t. He says I’m her mama but talk is cheap. It all feels good and sounds good but she’s still not mine. And I know I need to stop stressing about it but I don’t want him to pull her away from me. It would break my heart to be a day without her.”
“Not having Destiny would’ve gutted me for sure. Extremely.”
“Now imagine losing Jacoby and Destiny at the same time.”
