“Did he also tell you why?”
“He did. Which is why I asked you to come in here with me. Before I had Sin, I had three miscarriages. I just knew I would never be able to give my husband a child. In my eyes, a woman’s body was created to bear children, and I couldn’t do that, which made me incomplete. For years, I felt less than. I didn’t attend baby showers, or none of that shit. Talkin’ about jealous, giiirl,” Mrs. Renee dragged while laughing. “I was jealous as hell of everyone that had the power to do something that I couldn’t. Then, I got pregnant with Sin.”
“There wasn’t a minute of the day I wasn’t touching my stomach once he got to a size where I could feel him moving. I would push on my stomach every few minutes just to feel him kick. He was tired of me before he even came out. I was just worried and feeling him move, reassured me. My doctor never said anything was wrong with me, so I couldn’t wrap my head around why I could carry my children to full term. Same as you, I stayed in bed, hardly moved, and I would still lose the baby.”
My face quickly scrunched up.
“I’m just saying, don’t sit around and not continue to live your life because what we can’t do is predict what’s going to happen to us. I carried Sin past my due date. That baby didn’t want to come out at all, and I didn’t care as long as he was still kicking inside of me. He arrived, and then his siblings came. Totally unexpected. You gotta get out of that bed and get it together. Don’t worry because that’ll only bring you more stress, and we don’t need that. We want a happy baby coming into our family, not one that already need to smoke a cigarette to relax.”
Laughing, I tried to cover my mouth because I was loud as hell.
“Thank you for this. I’ll try my best to get myself together. I’m not going to promise that it will be an instant fix, but I’ll try.”
“That’s the only thing I can ask for.”
Getting up from the table, she gave me a hug just as Sin walked in. “You ready to roll, Beautiful?”
“I am. Thanks for dinner, Mrs. Renee.”
“You’re welcome. Tell your sister to make Zeus happy again, and she’ll get a bigger plate the next time.”
“Who gotta make me happy?” Zoo came around the corner and asked.
“What I tell you ‘bout walking into folks’ house?” Sin fussed.
“You said don’t walk into yo; house, this my auntie house and she don’t care.” Strolling over, he kissed Mrs. Renee on the cheek then stuck his tongue out at Sin. “Who gotta make me happy, Auntie?”
“That PJ girl. I only gave her a scoop of food because she had my nephew all in his feelings.”
“You for real?” Zoo released his arm from around her shoulder then leaned against the counter to get a better look at his aunt.
“Absolutely,” she replied as if she was proud with what she did.
“Now, Auntie, you always told us to treat folks how we want to be treated. You shouldn’t have done her like that. Whatever wehave going on, will either get fixed or it won’t but that wasn’t nice to single her out in front of everyone.”
Well damn.Even Sin was shocked but didn’t speak up like he normally would. I guess he felt the same way but didn’t want to say anything and would rather Zoo be hated by her than him.
“I guess I’ll get her number from you and apologize. You must really like this girl?”
“Why you say that?”
“You are risking this entire meal for her because of the way you just spoke to me.” Mrs. Renee unwrapped the plate and walked over to the trash.
“Auntie, I do like her a lot. We just got some things to get in line. If you want to throw the food away, that’s cool but you still were out of line, and I’ll stand on that. No matter how hard my stomach is touching my back, wrong is wrong and yea I’ll risk eating over Pen if it came down to it.”
I clutched my pearls because I knew she was about to go off. Instead, she turned around, wrapped the plate back up, and passed it to Zoo.
“You are finally growing up, I see. I like that. If you like her this much, don’t keep hiding from her.”
“I ain’t hiding,” Zoo quickly retorted with a mug.
“You ain’t come eat because she was here, that means you are hiding. You know seeing her would bring all of those feelings that you are trying so hard to keep away, back to the forefront. I’m telling you now, she’s a beautiful woman. Don’t keep playing around too long. Now all of y’all get out of my house with ya disrespectful asses.”
Sin kissed her forehead while Zoo pecked her on the cheek again. Waving bye, I left out of the house on two toes, trying my best to get to the car fast to tell my sister what had just happened. She may not have fucked up for life after all.
I fumbled around with things on my dresser, trying to find the CD that Dr. Coco gave me at my last visit. She told me to bring it with me each time I got an ultrasound, so they could record everything on there. Frustration built up inside of me before I knew it because regardless of where I looked, I didn’t see it. How could I have been so careless? Of all things I could’ve misplaced, the sound of my little one's heartbeat should have never been one of those things.
Tears settled at the pit of my eyelids. If I blinked, they’d surely fall. Thoughts of how fucked-up of a mother I was already, started to take over my mind. Within minutes, I found myself sitting on the floor with my back to the dresser, no longer trying to hold in tears. My eyes scanned the floor behind the blur of tears that I held at bay. I tried to look at what I could without moving. Still nothing. Thoughts of Mrs. Smith telling me not to stress played in my mind but this right had me stressed to the max, and I couldn’t help it.
