I stepped out of the car, and I locked the doors behind me. I walked up the driveway, took the two steps up, and before I knew it, I was standing in front of the door.
I knocked. It took about two minutes, and then the doorknob turned, and it was my cousin, Mark standing there, and right in front of him was a baby that didn’t look any older than one years old, and he had the same face on him as Mark. The baby was standing there in just his diaper, and when he saw me, he smiled. My eyes left the baby, and they glanced up, looking at Mark. Mark was a 38-year-old man, and where he was standing is where he lived. No idea why he thought it was okay to stillbe living with his grandmother at his age, but hey, I guess that wasn’t any of my business.
“What? Mark, you had another baby? I didn’t know you had another son,” I released, my eyes not on my cousin anymore because they were too busy on the cute little boy that was in front of me.
Like he knew me, he was giggling, and he walked over to me, hugging at my leg. I bent down, so that I could pick him up, and hold him in my arms. This had to have been Mark’s 4thchild, I want to say. Honestly, I’d lost count.
“Of course, you don’t know that I had another son. We don’t fit your aesthetic, so you don’t come around these parts,” he spat, with no sign of what he just said being a joke.
I groaned and rolled my eyes because I was barely in the house, and the shit was already starting.
“Here we go. Please don’t start that shit with me today,” I snapped at him.
“Shit, I’m just calling it like it is. I’m lying?” he asked, walking close on me, and I reached my hand out, that wasn’t holding onto the baby, so that I could push his ass back.
I just thanked God that when Tank asked me earlier if I needed him to come with me, that I told him I was a big girl, and could handle it on my own. If Mark would have gotten in my face like this while Tank was here, I know for a fact that Tank would have beat his ass for it.
I left Mark right there, while I stepped inside, and he closed the door behind me. I followed where the noise and the smell of food being cooked was coming from, which was the kitchen. The kitchen connected with the family room area, so when I walked in, that’s where everyone was. I was still holding onto Mark’s son, and he was still clinging onto me like we were long lost friends.
When I walked in, all eyes turned to look at me, and I just wanted to blend in with the damn wall because I felt so intimated. I didn’t want all of them to gang up on me and do me the same way that Mark had just done me at the front door.
“That’s my grandbaby that just walked in here? Girllll, you know I got a bone to pick with you!” my grandma sassed me, just like I knew she would.
She had been standing in front of the stove, and she was frying something, but the second she saw me, she stopped what she was doing, so that she could walk over to me.
My grandmother was beautiful. She’s where my father inherited his rich, chocolate skin. My dad looked just like her. Height is something that she’d passed down to him as well because my dad was tall, and I was tall as well. She’s always been on the slimmer side, and even with all the soul food that I know she loves to cook, she still has been able to hold onto her slim frame over the years. The long, fine hair that my dad had before prison was something else that he’d taken from his mom. My grandma had long gorgeous hair, and right now, as she was in the kitchen, frying food, she had it styled in two pigtail braids, making her look Ethiopian. It’s no wonder why my daddy was so handsome, and my features were so unique, and beautifully made because look what him, and I were a product of.
“Hey ma,” I cooed, calling her by the name that I’ve always called her since I was a little girl. Ma is what my daddy would always refer to her as, so it had stuck with me since a kid, and I would call her the same thing.
She had her arms out for me, so that I could hug her, and I did just that. She rocked us as she hugged me, and no lie, I felt bad. I missed out on coming to her 75thbirthday party because my need to protect my peace and not wanting to be around my dad’s side of the family had me skipping out on it.
I was just waiting on the moment when she threw that up in my face too because I knew that it was coming.
“Look at you! Looking like a top model. I don’t know what Antoinette was thinking by not putting you in modeling, girl! You get prettier every time that I see you. You know I only get the pleasure of seeing your face maybe once a year. Look at you, Dionne, and what’s this?” she asked, putting her hand on my stomach.
Mind you, you couldn’t even tell that I was pregnant. I looked at myself plenty of times in the mirror before I left the house today, and I asked Tank a few times if I looked pregnant, and he assured me that I didn’t.
I just chuckled to save myself from the embarrassment because everyone in the room was still looking at me.
“Nothing. I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lied to her, looking her right in her eyes.
“Yeah. We going to talk,” was all she said.
My cousin Jaz came over, and she hugged me. I went around the room, giving hugs to anyone that looked like they wanted something to do with me, and for those that didn’t, I just waved at them. There was an empty spot at the island, so I sat in the stool. Jaz was right on the side of me, which I was happy about because at least I was sitting next to someone that probably liked me, and could keep me calm.
“Mark, go and get everybody from out back, so that we can hear what Dionne has to say about my baby coming home,” my grandma said, getting right to the point, once she moved back over to the stove, so that she could finish frying the food.
There was an aluminum pan right next to her, with a few sheets of paper towel lying inside, so I was able to look over, and see that she was frying some tilapia. On the other eye of the stove, there was a big stainless steel stock pot, which I’m sure held grits inside. My grandma could cook her ass off, so I wasgoing to make it my business to stick around long enough to get something to eat.
“You look so pretty girl. You know that I follow you on social media, so I see when you post from time to time, but those pictures don’t really do you any justice. Your ten times prettier in person,” Jaz said to me, tapping my arm, so that she could get my attention.
I looked over at my cousin, and I smiled. Jaz was younger than me. She reminded me of Tommie a little bit. A hot head, said whatever she wanted to say out of her mouth, and she would fight in a second. Jaz just didn’t have children like Tommie did though. In the past, Jaz has gotten into trouble, which caused her to serve some time in jail. A lot of her crimes were petty crimes, but still, because of it, it fucked up her record, making it hard for her to get a good job. Last I heard she was working at Walmart.
When I launched my business on social media, she was one of the many who messaged me, telling me that she was going to come for an interview, and I let her know that I would be waiting. Just off the strength of her being my cousin, I was going to help put her on. All she had to do was show up, but she never did that, and I never reached out to her to ask her why she didn’t.
“Thank you, Jaz. You’re so pretty too. You know I always tell you that whenever I see you. Speaking of social media though, you reached out to me, telling me that you were going to come for an interview, but you never did. What’s up with that?” I wanted to know, picking up my baby cousin from my lap, and I changed the way that I was carrying him. I cradled him in my arms because he was dozing off.
It’s crazy because he didn’t know my name, and I didn’t know his, yet he came to me naturally, and he was falling asleep on me like it was nothing.
