I looked around the condo, admiring the open floor plan. The place had four bedrooms and three bathrooms. It was veryspacious for a condo, with three levels and a master bedroom I was sure I’d shed a lot of fuckin’ tears in.
I took a deep breath and walked around, to the kitchen, where I stood at the massive island. Running my hand over the smooth granite countertop, I nodded and said, “Yeah. Um…yeah, you can put the application in.”
I swallowed and blinked a few times, the gravity of reality rained down on me like a ton of bricks. As Natalie pulled the application up and explained the process to me, I halfway listened. My mind was on what was going on in my life. The kids mostly and how this transition would affect them. The divorce was already taking a toll on them, I could just imagine how going from staying with me every day to every weekend would affect them.
Yeah, that was what she wanted. Weekend visits and to keep the house. I wasn’t fighting her on shit. Felt like I’d done enough of that. Besides, after catching her with dawg, there was literally nothing left to fight for. I spent a lot of time fighting for our marriage, trying to make shit work, just for it to end like this. Crazy how life and God worked, right? For months—shit, really years—I'd been begging God to restore us. Asking him to help me, and to see us through just for it to end like this. With me having visions of her having sex with another man every couple of minutes.
Couldn’t say I didn’t deserve that shit though. I’d just fucked Talia not too long ago. It was torture, what was happening to me. So much torture that I couldn’t see a silver lining. Was there one? What was the purpose of all of the shit that’s happened to me? I couldn’t see one. Just felt like punishment after punishment. A nigga had lost hope. Hope in everything. I was literally just coasting through life, getting through the best way I could, trying to keep my head above water.
After I applied for the condo, I headed back to the house. I hated home now because she was there. A constant reminder of something I wanted but couldn’t have.
“Dad!” yelled Sparkle, running up to me when I walked into the crib.
Just as she was about to jump on me, she stopped and pulled her lips into her mouth. It’d been a few weeks since the accident and I was still recovering. She'd been so careful about it.
With a grunt, I leaned down and picked her up with my free arm. Kissing her on the top of her head, I asked her how her day was.
“Goooood,” she said. “Mommy let me put seasoning on the chicken!”
“She did, huh?” I asked, as I walked into the kitchen where Mahogany was standing at the stove, flipping chicken in the cast iron skillet.
Seeing her from behind pissed me off more than seeing her face because that was how I found her. Bent over, ass up, getting smashed by another fuckin nigga. Every time I thought about it, I wanted to hunt dawg down and unload a clip in his bitch ass. But... that wasn’t me. I wasn’t that type and he was just doing what any other nigga would do—accept the pussy being thrown at him. Bitch nigga didn't owe me any loyalty—she did. She betrayed that. I refused to go to jail behind some shit she did, so I said fuck it. He hit. And if he was able to hit, Mahogany was never really my bitch to begin with.
Nah.
I was tweaking.
She was everything for a long time. Somewhere along the line I just lost her.
"Wassup y’all,” I said, generally speaking to Honesty, Gabe, and Mahogany as a collective.
Mahogany dryly said, “Hey.”
We weren’t pretending to be happy anymore but for the sake of the kids we had to be cordial. Around them, at least. If on the rare occasion that the two of us were in the house at the same time alone, we didn’t say a single word to each other. Shit was hard to adjust to but that’s the way things were now, and I was starting to reach a point of contentment.
Honesty walked over and gave me a hug. “Hey dad.”
Gabe chucked his chin, grabbed his drink, and headed out of the kitchen. Before he could get too far, I stopped him.
“Ay, G, let me holla at you for a minute,” I said, jerking my head in the other direction as I put Sparkle down.
He took a deep breath and told me okay as I walked by him so he could follow me upstairs. I had to talk to him. I was finally getting around to it. Life had been hitting me left and right with bullshit. Although I was still buried in it a little, I had to make time. Things were moving along and before I moved into my new spot, I wanted to have that much needed conversation with him.
When we got to his bedroom, I closed the door and sat on the bed. He sat in his chair where his gaming set up was at.
With a deep breath I said, “Shit been weird around here, huh?”
He nodded but said nothing.
“Use your voice when I’m talking to you."
He sighed and said, “Yeah dad. Very weird.”
I ran my hands down my pants as they got a little sweaty. I stared across the room at him with a deep breath, wondering if I was going to kick it with him on some real shit or if I would continue to lie. I hadn’t had a real talk conversation with either of them, and I felt like the best person to start with would be Gabe. He was a growing man, and I felt like me keeping it a buck with him would make for a better future for him. I didn’t know. Didn’t know how to approach this parenting shit from this angle for real. Telling him the real could make things worse. Lying tohim could bite me in the ass in the long run. I didn’t know what route to take. Parenting was a big learning experience. There wasn’t a book out this bitch that could really prepare you for the stages we went through. We just had to tackle the shit as we went.
“I notice you been short with me lately. Real short. For a minute now. Wassup?”
“I just don’t know what’s going on. I think you hit my mama.”
