“Son, you ate?” she asked.
That was hello in her house.
“Nah.”
“Fix you a plate.”
“I’m good.”
“You’re not good if you ain’t ate.”
I kissed her cheek and opened the fridge for her. “I’ll take something with me.”
She gave me a look but didn’t argue. “Your father is in the living room.”
“I know.”
I grabbed a water and walked in there.
My father was in his chair with a blanket over his legs, oxygen close by, medicine on the table, and an old movie playing. He didn’t turn his head right away, but he knew I was there.
“You locking those buildings up at night?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Security staying on rotation?”
“Always.”
He nodded once.
I sat on the couch across from him.
That was how he was. No soft greeting. No long talk. Straight to what mattered in his mind.
My father raised me well, even when I was hard to raise.
I was troubled as a kid. Fighting. Talking back. Toting guns. Going to juvie. Running with older niggas before I had enough sense to understand what that meant. But I came from a good home. That was the part people never understood. Everybody thought troubled kids came from nothing.
Nah.
Sometimes trouble came from having everything and still feeling too much inside.
My father didn’t play with me. He put fear and discipline in the same sentence and called it love. At the time, I hated it. As a grown man, I understood most of it.
“How is the project moving?” he asked.
“It’s moving.”
“It’s moving ain’t a report.”
I smirked a little. “Units moving on schedule. Design team moving faster than expected. Some delays with materials, but nothing serious.”
“Delays become serious when you let people explain too much why it ain’t on time.”
“I hear you.”
“Then don’t let them.”
