Bri strutted off, and I went back inside the restaurant. Shiloh was seated in a booth with our food on the table. His eyes darted across my face. “I don’t see any red marks or any blood. She didn’t slap the taste out of your mouth?”
“Yeah right,” I scowled sliding into the booth. “Bri isn’t crazy. Putting her hands on me probably never crossed her mind. She’s mad not stupid.”
“I hear you, homie. You ready to get down to business?”
“I was born ready.”
CHAPTER 13
APRICOT
Not even thetears swimming in my mother’s eyes could change the mood I was in. I didn’t want to hear lies or excuses. All I wanted was the truth. I let my mother read the message that DJ had sent me, and the color instantly drained from her face. From the way she was fidgeting and couldn’t even look me in the eyes let me know that what he told me was indeed true. I wanted answers, and I was growing impatient. There was no need for her to be uncomfortable. I wanted her to woman up and tell me the truth.
“DJ’s mother used to be one of the most popular girls at my high school. Everyone wanted her including your father, but she chose someone else. Once she started dating a big time drug dealer, your father chose me. Everything was good until Asha and her boyfriend broke up. Your father cheated on me with her and got her pregnant. He made her get an abortion, and she got mad and told me.”
I needed to hear the entire story, so no matter how anxious I was for her to give me the answers that I was seeking, I didn’t interrupt her.
“I was hurt, and I left your father. We broke up for five months, and he swore to me the entire time that if I took himback, he wouldn’t cheat on me again. Foolishly, I believed him. Not even a month after I took him back, he cheated again. With her. I was devastated and heartbroken. One drunken night, I met your father at a house party. One thing led to another, and I got pregnant. The same day I found out, Devin came to me crying begging me to take him back. He’d started getting good money out in the streets. I was scared and confused and agreed to take him back to get the money to get an abortion. He saw me throwing up and gaining weight and put two and two together. He assumed I was pregnant by him, and I didn’t correct him.”
My mother looked down at her hands while I processed the information I’d been given. “Who is my father?”
“His name was Rico, and he was killed when you were two months old. He robbed a bank and took the police on a high-speed chase. He lost control of the car and hit a tree going more than one hundred miles an hour.”
My chest tightened. I didn’t know what to think or feel. “What happened with the paternity test?” I asked in a flat tone.
“I paid the person at the lab to alter the results. She did it, but I couldn’t live with the guilt. I confessed to your father, and he wasn’t happy. In fact, he put his hands on me. I had never seen him angrier. The rage that bubbled out of him scared me so bad. For a moment, I thought he might even kill me, but he didn’t. And shockingly after a few days, he came around and agreed to raise you like you were his own.”
“Wow.” I clicked my tongue. “I just want all of the skeletons out of the closet now. My God, I don’t want to find out anything else. And you don’t know anything about my father’s side of the family? Do they even know about me?”
“He was from Baltimore and obviously living a double life. His obituary named a long time girlfriend. Devin had already agreed to raise you. I didn’t have the courage to approach Rico’s family.”
“This is crazy,” I whispered. “So if you did that, and he forgave you, why did you leave him when you found out about DJ?”
“Honestly, it wasn’t just about DJ. But even though I was afraid that your father would leave me, I still told him about you not being his because I loved him, and I couldn’t keep lying to him. So to know that he lied to me for twenty plus years was heartbreaking. He could have told me about DJ. It would have hurt, but I doubted that I would have left. We both did each other wrong at some point. And to know that it was with her was even worse. It’s like he couldn’t leave her alone, and I’ve always wondered if he loved her.”
“And you two never planned on telling me?”
“Apricot, you were raised by a wonderful man that loves you. You had a good life. What’s the sense in reliving the past?”
“Because it’s who I am!”
“Kiwi is a part of Lonzo, but you don’t want her to know the truth about him.”
“Unless you were raped, please stop comparing the two situations.”
My mother held her palms up in surrender. “You’re right. I’m sorry. If you’re going to be angry with anyone, please be upset with me and not your father.”
“This is insane,” I chortled. “Absolutely insane. Mentally, I don’t even have the energy to deal with this. Thank you for answering my questions.” I stood up, and my mother pushed out a deep sigh.
“I’m sorry.”
Between my mother and my father, I was over it. Uno had become my safe space, and I couldn’t wait to talk to him. I went and picked Kiwi up from summer camp and tried to listen as she told me all about her day, but my thoughts kept drifting. It hurt knowing that I had been lied to and that the man whoraised me wasn’t my biological father, but I couldn’t doubt that he loved me and my daughter. I almost let a tear or two fall, but I remembered that Kiwi was in the car, and I blinked them back.
There would be no crying. I had just walked in the house when Uno called. Kiwi had her air pods in, but I still went into another room to talk. “Hey, how did it go?”
“In regular shit show fashion, I got a few apologies. But that doesn’t change the fact that I’ve been lied to my entire life.” I relayed to Uno the story as it had been told to me.
“Damn that’s a lot. It sounds like you need a vacation. How about we take the kids to Disney?”
