“I…I.” More blood came through her mouth.
“No, you gotta get through this shit because I need you. I need you, wife.”
When I pulled up to the house, I wasted no time parking and getting out of the car. Loosening my tie, I ascended the four stairs into my home. The nurse that I hired to care for Surah opened the door. She’d just had her final surgery a few days ago and the doctors restricted her to bed rest, but my baby didn’t understand that shit. The second day after she was up claiming she was bored.
“She up?” I asked not wasting any time greeting the nurse.
“Yes. She refused her pain meds earlier.”
“Why didn’t you call me?” I asked walking further into the foyer toward the stairs. After she didn’t respond fast enough, I started to climb the stairs toward my bedroom. I’d ask her hardheaded ass myself.
“Because she?—”
“Because she is grown. Because she is tired of staying in the house on pain and anti-anxiety pills.” Surah’s annoyance was evident and flowed directly through her tone as she finished the nurse’s statement for her.
“I know she better sit her ass down before it be problems in this motherfucker.” I walked into the bedroom and ended herlittle angry crusade. She was just healing from her fourth fucking surgery and her doctors all said the same things, she needed to give herself time and rest.
When I saw that she wasn’t in the bed, I was about to throw a fucking fit, but before I could open my mouth, I heard the toilet flush. Then after the water came on for a few seconds and went off she opened the door and stalked into the bedroom.
“Are you refusing your meds shorty?” I asked.
“Yes. I’m not in pain and they make me high. Plus, I don’t have anxiety or depression. I’ll take the antibiotics, but that’s it.”
I just looked at her. She sounded about right, and I damn sure wasn’t about to stuff those fuckingNarcosdown her throat. I didn’t like the fact that she had to take them in the first place.
“How was the funeral?” Instead of going back to get in the bed she walked up to me.
“Like the funeral of a straight up crackhead. There was nobody there but me, Niema, the funeral people, North and Ommy. Don’t nobody really give a fuck about a crackhead dying.” I shrugged.
“Namari.”
“What?” I grabbed her hand and pulled her back toward the bed so she could sit down. She might not have been sleepy, but the incision in her abdomen told me that her ass needed to be seated.
“She was still your mom, no matter how fucked up her choices were.”
“Nah. She was a mother to that dope. At first, I wasn’t fucking with that, but I’m cool with it. At least she died the way she lived.” I shrugged then decided to change the subject. “You’re giving that nurse hell, ain’t you?”
She laughed. “Nope. I told her I wasn’t in pain and that she could go home, but she insisted on staying here. I wonderwhy?Let me find out she’s trying to do more than her job and not even a surgery will keep me off her ass.”
Now it was my turn to laugh. “Ain’t nobody looking at that damn lady.”
“Good. Can we get some food?”
“I’ll order it. What do you want?” I already knew she wanted more than the food. She wanted to get out of the house.
“No. We can go get something and maybe go to Target? You did technically move me into your house, and I don’t have much here. Remember when you went to get me pads? You brought me back diapers.”
“Okay and? The bitch at the store said they were good.”
“Namari.” She gave me that expression that had me ready to bend to her will.
“Fine. But you’re riding in one of those chairs and afterward we might fuck around and stay at my brother’s house. That way we ain’t gotta rush back out here tonight.”
Immediately she got to nodding her head excitedly. I could understand why she needed some time out of the crib, but I wasn’t about to let her exhaust that. I was giving her ass two hours tops then we’d be in the comforts of North’s place.
While she got her shit together, I called my brother.
“Where are you?” I asked the moment he answered the phone.
