The Darkest Day
“She is so beautiful. My lil chocolate grandbaby.” Irene was smitten with her three-month-old granddaughter.
She wasn’t happy when her son came to her at eighteen to tell her that he’d gotten his seventeen-year-old girlfriend pregnant. There were so many issues with it all. The first, of course, was that they were teenagers. Their teenage asses shouldn’t have been sexually active in the first place.
Secondly, Travis, Irene’s son, was in the streets heavily. She didn’t say much about it, because, at the end of the day, it was the main reason they were able to be alright. When their son was twelve years old, her husband Chance died in a bad car accident that she was also involved in. While the car accident had killedhim, it permanently disabled Irene. Chance provided a great life for them, and Travis learned his street ways from his father. The disability check that Irene received didn’t even cover the basic bills in the house. Travis jumped off the porch at fourteen and hadn’t looked back since.
With Travis’s street ways, it baffled his mother how he’d met his child’s mother. Travis and she didn’t attend the same high school, and he didn’t go to church. That was where that little girl spent all her time when she wasn’t at school with her parents. The Bulbs were an overly religious family. They were what Irene described as too heavenly minded to do any earthly good. Those people were incorrigible.
“Ma, you’ve had her all day. Let me get my baby girl,” Travis fussed. “You know she loves her daddy too.” He reached out to take his daughter from his mother.
Irene handed her over begrudgingly. She loved having her grandbaby in her arms, but she loved to see her son love on his daughter more. Brenda, or BB, and James Bulb did not allow Travis around their daughter while she was pregnant. In their eyes, more Brenda than James, he was the devil incarnate.
They were surprised when they got the call from James to come to the hospital after the baby was born. The biggest surprise was that they wanted Travis and Irene to take baby girl with them. They wanted nothing to do with the baby and didn’t want their daughter to have anything to do with her either. She simply wasn’t ready to be a mother. Irene had no problem with that and was happy to take her grandbaby with them.
When it was solidified that they would take the baby, Irene sat down with her son to give him the layout of the land. Yes, she loved her chocolate drop, but she would not be 100 percent responsible for her care. Travis stepped up to the plate in a big way.
In the three months since he had his daughter, he made sure he took on the bulk of the responsibility. He still did his thing to make sure that he, his mother, and daughter ate. He learned how to delegate so that he could be in the house with his daughter more.
Travis looked at his baby with amazement. He was happy that, at the least, her mother named her the name that he suggested. Gorjess Irene Bulb was a beauty. He wanted her to have his last name, but BB thought it wasn’t a good idea. Her claim was that it would make him look bad since he was nineteen and her daughter was seventeen. That was foolish to Irene because Travis had just turned nineteen three months before the baby was born. Furthermore, they were ashamed of the baby, so why would they want the baby to have the same last name as them?
The battle now was that he wanted his name on the birth certificate. They were giving him hell about that. The Bulbs knew that Travis would be hesitant to go to the courts behind the whole situation because of his occupation. Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department had been itching for a valid reason to get into Travis Carter’s business. It was the same for his father, Chance, before he died.
“Wait, is that her smelling like a damn city dump?” Travis asked. “The fuck! Why it smells like that?”
Irene laughed at the dramatics of her son. “That’s her mama’s breast milk. It runs through her. I’m about to give her little ass some cereal to hold her.”
“I gotta change that? Mama, I might die. My baby needs me. I can’t die,” he whined.
Irene looked at him like he was crazy. “Boy, if you don’t change that baby’s diaper. Hurry up too. Her little ass stinks like hell.”
Travis huffed as he got up to take his daughter to her room to change her diaper. He walked into her room and laid her on the changing table that sat on top of the dresser. He took a moment to look around with a smile. Irene had a thing for butterflies, so they took over the decor. Gorjess even wore a butterfly bangle and necklace.
“Let’s change this stinky diaper,” he said to his daughter, who cooed and smiled. She was such a happy baby. It took him longer than it should have to change her diaper, but it was a liquified mess. Once she was clean, he took a moment to play with her.
When he got back out to the living room where his mother was, he was shocked to see Gorjess’s mother. “Ari, what’s up? What you doing here? You bring more milk?”
He admired her beauty, which was what attracted him to her. As churchy as her family was, Ari had a habit of climbing out of her window in the late hours of the night to hang with the hoodrats and misfits. That was how he was introduced to her. She wore the good girl mask with perfection. Her pregnancy blew that mask off her face and out of the water.
Her parents hid her well though to save themselves the disgrace from their Baptist church congregation. There was no way the head of the usher board and a trustee could be looked upon as less than because their daughter was a pregnant, teen whore. Well, that was more BB’s feelings than James’s.
“Hey, Travis. I wanted to know if it was alright with y’all if I could keep her for the weekend. I talked to my parents, and they said it was fine. They are going out of town for a revival, so they won’t be around. They figured if I have Gorjess that I’ll be too busy to get into stuff,” she said.
Irene chuckled. Those Bulbs were something else. She would keep her mouth closed, though, and let her son handle it.
Travis glared at Ari blankly. “So, you only want your daughter to occupy your time at your parents’ request. Not because you just want to spend time with your daughter.”
When Ari came over to drop off milk, she sat with Gorjess for maybe ten minutes. That was only if her mother wasn’t with her. BB was a saved ass bitch. There was no Jesus in her, no matter how much she prayed, read her bible, and ran around the church while she spoke in tongues.
“Travis, please. You know things would be different if it wasn’t for my parents. They take care of me, so I’m beholden to them. I can’t take care of myself, and they refuse to take care of a bastard baby.” Ari held her hands up in surrender. “That’s what they call her, not me. I just want to spend time with my baby girl,” she begged as a tear left her eye.
Irene’s heart went out to Ari. She understood the hardship of a teen mother. She and Chance had Travis at the tender ages of fourteen and fifteen. The odds were against them, and that was what drove Chance to the streets. Whether it was hook, crook, or steal, he took care of his family.
When Travis looked at his mother for silent approval, she gave it. Neither of them wanted to keep a mother from her daughter. “I guess it will be alright since your people won’t be there. Ari, if I call, you better fucking answer. I don’t give a damn if it’s two o’clock in God’s morning.”
With a wide smile and a slight hop, she said, “Okay, I will. I promise!” When he asked her if she had any supplies for the baby, she shook her head with shame.
He had her follow him to her room so that a bag could be packed. Ari’s gasp was loud when she entered Gorjess’s bedroom. It was her first time going past the living room. “Oh my God, this is beautiful. You really love her.”
