Page 34

As I sat down here, waiting for my mom to come down, I couldn’t help but notice that things didn’t feel the same. I haven’t been over here since my mom shot his ass up. Back then, whenever I walked into this house, it’s always felt like home to me. We weren’t a perfect family by far, but this was the home that I grew up in, so even at thirty years old, I would still get that warm feeling of being home.

Shit felt heavy in here today. All the shit my mom was carrying, I felt like the room was carrying it. Because it was so quiet, it made the burden sound so loud. I didn’t like this feeling. As much as I didn’t like it, I also didn’t want my mom to get back with his ass, feeling like she had to make this house a home again. Since all this happened, me and her have had a few long talks, and she’s so sure that she doesn’t want to come back. She wants to live on her own and start the process of divorcing my father. I respected that. So badly that I told her whenever she was ready to start, I would put her with a lawyer, so she could have his ass served.

While I was deep into my thoughts, I heard the front door open. I wasn’t expecting anyone to come over, so hearing that caused me to quickly raise from the couch, and I rushed over to the door to see who it was. Kendrix was the first person that I saw. I’m thinking this nigga was walking through the door alone, but I saw my pops next. He was sitting down in a wheelchair.

That’s when Kingston came into view. He was the one wheeling my father in. Seeing what was happening here, I shook my head, mainly at Kingston. I just got off the phone with this nigga about an hour ago. He knew that I was bringing our mom over here, so that she could grab a few things. He knew that she didn’t want to be anywhere near our pops. He could have told me that he was bringing our dad over here and I would never have brought our mom over.

“Why the fuck wouldn’t you have told me that you were bringing him home? Emaye upstairs and you know that she’s not trying to be around this nigga!” I snapped at Kingston the second he wheeled our dad in the house and closed the door behind him.

“Nigga, everything happened so fuckin fast once I got to the hospital. They made it seem like they weren’t discharging him until tomorrow, but when I got there, they said they were letting him go today!” he snapped back at me.

“You could have picked up your fuckin phone at any moment to shoot me a text or something, letting me know that you were bringing him. I would have held out on coming over here with Emaye. I don’t see how the fuck you run a business. Stupid ass act like you can’t motha fuckin think!” he had me hot.

It took a lot to even get our mom over here. She’s been telling me all week that she wanted to go back to the house to grab some things, but she didn’t want to have to run into our dad. I convinced her that she wouldn’t have to see him. She’s been in a good mental space this entire week. The second she laid eyes on our pops, I’m sure he was going to fuck all that up.

“Ay nigga, watch your fuckin mouth. I’m back and forth running shit at my house, at the business, and going down to the hospital to be there with pops. What the fuck have you been doing? I ain’t see you show up to that hospital not one fuckin time!” he roared, coming over to get in my face. I pushed the shit out of his ass.

“And if his bitch ass was still in the hospital, I still wouldn’t have come! Look around you, motha fucka. This shit is no longer what it used to be. They about to get a divorce. All because of his ass! Fourteen years of lies man. A whole son out there that none of us knew about. A daughter that’s coming soon. This nigga has had my mama crying for three weeks straight! I’m supposed to check in on him at the hospital after what he did? Nah. Ya’ll could handle that!” I shot. The way I was speaking, you would think that our pops wasn’t in the same room with us.

“Wolf, let me talk with you,” our dad said to me.

“Nah. All I got to offer you is disrespect, homie. We don’t got shit to talk about,” I replied.

The second I said it, my mom started coming down the stairs. I’m thinking she was getting ready to come down with suitcases that were filled with clothes, but that wasn’t what she had. She had a folder in her hands, and I’m not sure what was inside the folder. I’m sure it was important documents though.

She slowly walked down the stairs, and with each step that she took, you could see her getting a little angrier. Five men were down here, but the only man that she seemed to gaze at was our father. Not in a loving kind of way, either. She had a look in her eyes like she wanted to finish this nigga off. Go back for his stash and really kill his ass this time around. I didn’t want her to feel like I might have set her up, so I was the one to speak first.

“I didn’t know he was coming home. Emaye, you know I wouldn’t do that shit to you,” I said the second she made it down, and she walked over to us.

She nodded her head, and then stepped closer to me, stood on her tippytoes, so she could kiss me on my forehead.

“Trust me son, I know you wouldn’t. I know the child that I raised. You wouldn’t lie to me. You would never manipulate me into believing one thing, while you were doing something different behind my back. You damn sure wouldn’t betray me. You don’t have to explain yourself to me,” she said.

Everything she said that I wouldn’t do were things that she knew my pops would do. Things that his ass already did to her.

“Liya, we gotta talk. I don’t want you to feel like you owe me shit, so it doesn’t even have to be a long conversation. Let me just get five minutes. I want to be able to give you a real, genuine apology. I owe you that,” my pops started pleading his case.

He was in a fucked up state right now. You could hear it in his voice. Hell, you could see it in his appearance. I wasn’t sure if he was eating while he was in the hospital, but in a matter of a few weeks, he looked like he’d lost a few pounds. His eyes looked heavy, as if he wasn’t getting enough sleep. You could see the bags underneath them.

When it came to his maintenance, my father was a lot like me in that department. Since I was a kid, he’s always kept a fresh line up, the hair on his face was always nicely trimmed, and till this day, I didn’t know anyone with sicker waves than him. That’s not what he had going on today. His hair damn near grew out into an afro. His facial hair was all wild, making him look like a caveman. He looked like he could be the one with the nickname Wolf.

“There isn’t anything that you can possibly say to me. You cannot mend me in five minutes. 37 years of hurt. You’ve spent 37 years hurting me. 37 years lying to me. Cheating on me. Taking my kindness for weakness. You can’t apologize your way back into me being the woman that I used to be for you. I gave you 37 years to love me right. I’m going to need at least 37 more years to heal from you loving me wrong. Make sure you stick around for the mail. You’ll be receiving something soon,” is all that she said to him.

Before she walked out of the door, she kissed Kendrix on his forehead and did the same to Kingston. My mom wasn’t upset that my brothers were keeping in contact with our dad and going to the hospital to see him. She encouraged it. She’s been telling me that I should go to the hospital to see him, but I refused. Even with all the anger that she had for him, she’ll never hate him enough to the point that she didn’t want us to have a relationship with our father.

I went ahead and opened the front door for my mom. She walked out, heading in the direction of my Range Rover. Not wanting her to open the car door, I opened it for her, allowing her to get inside. I went around for my side, opening the door and stepped in.

It was hot out, so I quickly started the car, letting the AC blast. I didn’t want my mom to have to sit in front of a house that held so many memories for too long, so I pulled out of the driveway. After I backed all the way out, I turned my head to look down at the folder in her lap.

“What’s in the folder?” I wanted to know.

“Basically, an exit folder,” she replied, and I turned to look at her again because I wanted to see the look on her face. I wasn’t sure what the fuck she was talking about.

“What you mean an exit folder? What’s inside?” I asked again. My question caused her to sigh. She sighed, while looking out of the window.

The neighborhood was massive, so it took a while to get out and over to the front, where the gates were.

“I knew the kind of man that I was married to at the end of the day. I stayed, but I knew that there was going to come a day when Wallace would fuck up so badly that I would leave. I didn’t think that outside children would be the cause though. I never expected that in a million years. I thought that one day, I would wake up and just get tired of the cheating. Because I felt this way, I’ve secretly handled my business for 30 plus years,” she started, and then took a long pause.