“Get down, boy,” my mother let out, catching him mid flip. “You ain’t about to flip me into the emergency room.” Sitting back down next to me, she handed me a piece of construction paper that EJ had colored on.
“What’s this? A deconstructed family?” I laughed, holding it up to try to distinguish where the head began and feet ended. Idid make out three circles and what I assumed was hair on two of them.
“Come here, EJ. Come tell Daddy what you drew,” she prompted.
EJ crawled into my lap, and I gave him the paper.
“Who did you tell Grandma this is?” She pointed to the circle in the middle.
“EJ!” he shouted, pointing to himself.
“And who’s this?” She pointed to the circle to the left of him.
“Daddy!” He grabbed my face and kissed my cheek.
“Mannn, get outta here.” I playfully mushed him, and he put his small hands up like he wanted to fight. “Type shit,” I muttered proudly.
“EJ, look.” My mother called for his attention, pointing to the circle on the right. “Who’s this?”
“That’s Mommy!”
My head snapped back slightly. My mother didn’t laugh. She just glanced at me then back at the paper.
“What’s Mommy name?”
“Tyri!” he shouted confidently.
I stared at the picture, wondering when EJ had started to put Thyri and mommy together in his little head. He traced the picture absentminded, not knowing he’d dropped a bomb bigger than anything Funk Flex could have done on the radio. I looked over at my mother, and she nodded once knowingly.
“That means something, Enzo,” she said softly. “It means a lot. Children don’t attach titles to people easily. But they do know who and what makes them comfortable and safe. I knew Thyri did that for my grandson by the way he latched onto her at the Christmas party. Her singing him to sleep that night when y’all were on the way to dinner further proved it.”
I thought about what she said and agreed. I hadn’t coached him. And Thyri hadn’t done anything other than show up as herauthentic self. She didn’t overstep. She didn’t play the role of mommy to EJ. They just bonded, making it easy for him to get attached to her. Making it easy for me to know that she was the one. She adored my son and made him happy. In turn, that made me want to make her happy.
“When’s the last time you heard from Kennedy?” she asked a question I never thought I’d hear from her.
“The night me and Thyri were out to dinner. She came by the table and introduced herself as EJ’s mom then proceeded to tell me how we needed to be adults for his sake and let her see him.”
“She did that in front of Thyri?”
“Yeah.”
“And what did Thyri say? Because this gon’ determine whether or not she can hang with the Sullivans. You know we’ll cuss a bitch smooth out from here to LA with style and grace.”
Smirking, I nodded. “Then, you’ll be proud to know that she told Kennedy and her husband to get the fuck on but in a classy way due to the setting.”
“My girl. And Ms. Kennedy has a husband, huh?”
EJ climbed out of my lap and handed me the remote off the coffee table. I turned on the TV for him and sat him up on the couch.
“A husband and a kid.”
“I could say I’m surprised, but I’m not. That girl is trifling. Did her husband say anything to you?”
“Tried to but you know he ain’t get far. I think he got the hint that I’m not the nigga you can just say shit to.” I left out the part where I let him know that by breaking into their home and making it clear.
“It may be time to have your lawyer draw up them custody papers, son.”
I shook my head. “I’m not tryna go to the courts and risk them giving her joint custody. Kennedy got her shit together, ahusband, house, and she fits the look of a good mother, even though she’s a deadbeat. And in the eyes of the court, I’m nothing but a single father with a business and plenty money coming in, who’s been taking care of his son for the last two years. They don’t care about how she walked away. All they gon’ see is she’s here now.”
