by Zi'ere
“Yeah, he has a job here.”
“I’ve got this on lock over here. This is what I do.”
I stare at him for the hint of an untruth.
“I’m just saying when you hear about it don’t be surprised. You won’t be going to the funeral either.”
“Damn, so you’re my daddy now, huh?” I snap at him.
“No. But I am his daddy and I’m not allowing either one of you to be put in danger.”
He points from my belly to my chest.
“Tell me what you did?”
“I haven’t done anything Babe, let it go.”
He kisses me on the forehead before he gets up to allow the movers onto the property.
Decorating my son’s bedroom takes over my feelings of sadness and turns them into pure joy. Different shades of blue mixed with a cranberry red sports theme is the concept. Broderick Jr. will be sleeping in a circular crib with panels attached to the ceiling, draping the top of the crib.
The dark oak meshes with the colors perfectly. It is a job that takes Broderick and the guys from the furniture store four hours to set up just right. He tips them extremely well, while I sit in the rocking chair with my feet up on the matching ottoman in my little guy’s room taking in the entire space. I rub my huge belly, as I take in my surroundings. If there is a closer step to heaven, then I am now on it.
A few minutes later Broderick joins me in the nursery again.
“Babe, I know that I have you closed off from the world. Is there anything that you want to do or is there something that you need to go get that can’t be delivered?” He asks with concern on his face.
“Yes, as a matter of fact there is.”
“Say the word, Ms. Lady.”
“I’m getting ready to have your child and I’ve never met your parents…so how about a lunch or dinner date?”
He takes a deep breath, as if he is holding his breath.
“I knew that this was going to come up, I hoped that I would be able to tell you on my own. You know, under my own terms.”
“What are you talking about? Talk to me, Baby. We are in this together, what was back then…it still is now. I don’t want for you to ever feel like that you can’t talk to me.”
“In Hawaii, when I left you?”
I nod my head.
“Well I left because Sanye called to say that my mother had been in an accident.”
“Oh my God Babe, is she okay?”
“No, actually she was banged up really bad. There was too much fluid around her brain, just all kinds of shit. But she passed away. We can go and put some baby blue flowers on her grave if you would like to do that with me?”
“Yes, I can do that with you.”
He smiles.
“So when you came back to the states, you were with Sanye?”
I realize that I told a lie.
Yes, he can tell me anything but that won’t stop a barrage of questions from coming his way about the circumstances. I need to know in my heart if he chose for that winch to be beside him during such a personal and emotion time.
“Sanye Reese Baker is deceased as well, Kam. I wouldn’t leave you to be with her!”
“Deceased?”
“She’s dead, Ma.”
“Punishment?”
“Revenge.”
He looks as if he has just ordered at the drive thru. The loss of life doesn’t affect his emotions at all.
That’s some cold ass shit boo! I hope that you are paying attention!
“I have never been so scared in my life.”
A chill sweeps over me and the hairs stand up on my arms.
“So a tooth for a tooth?”
“There are consequences for everything that you do Kam, you know that.”
“But who made you the judge and jury though?”
My neck and facial expressions are stank.
“The streets.”
He walks out the room, ending the conversation.
I am unsure of what title to put on the relationship that he and I have had going on ever since he got here. But what I do know is that Sanye was a busy girl. She had been just as busy as Jai. I recall the phone call that I made on that issue.
I can only come to one conclusion: When you are in a position to make calls like that...Then that’s what you do. I am no better than Broderick and vice versa. I can never tell him what I have done to someone who has betrayed me. That’s how I know that I can’t sit and judge the man. The perks of this life is to avenge with your hands always remaining clean.
100
With two rocks forward, I am able to finally get my ass out of the rocking chair. I find Broderick hard at work organizing his large closet. I walk up to him and attempt to wrap my arms around him from the back. Between my belly and his huge size, my arms only make it to his sides. He laughs. All of a sudden a hard kick catches him in his back delivered by his son.
“Wait a minute, did he just kick me?” He turns around in a flash.
I laugh.
“Obviously, you are too close to his Mommy!”
For the next few minutes, Broderick talks to my belly as he runs his hands over it to feel the kicks and punches. All of a sudden, his face changes to a worried look. I scan the room to figure out what has been done to make his mood change so fast. I know that he gave the construction and designers pure hell over the house. The man knows exactly what he wants and he spares no expense at making sure that the paint is just right.
“What’s wrong babe?”
“There is something wrong, Kam!”
“Wrong with what?”
“Put one hand right here.”
He places one hand to the right side of my waist.
Now put the other right here.”
He then places my left hand on the left front side.
I feel kicks on both sides.
“My shorty can’t have three feet!”
He pulls his phone from his hip.
Before I can even process what it is that he says, he’s on the phone with my obstetrician’s nurse. He talks and walks, heading to the far side of the master bedroom to my oversized closet. He then returns with designer flip flops and drops to his knees as he puts my puffy feet in them. I notice that he has my purse on his shoulder.
I want to laugh but the situation is not a laughing matter. I will probably irritate him even more if I say one thing to him to make light of the situation. I can’t say for certain if I am feeling a butt on one side and fist on the other. Nonetheless, my hands are still on my belly.
He is all business on the phone. I think to myself that he needs to pay the nurse something extra because he has been worrying her ass to death about me and his son. So much so that he has the direct number to the on-call nurse on the weekends.
Any woman would love to have their baby’s father, which keeps me on hush mouth. Not ten minutes later, he is helping me into the back of his new Yukon. To throw the streets off, this truck is teal green.
The windows are tinted to match the color of the car and you cannot see inside of it at all. Because of front seat airbags and a whole bunch of shit that he spits at me about the dangers of riding in the front seat, I keep my lips sealed.
The man is living in a world all of his own with this pregnancy. I’m not sure if he has noticed but I am not Michelle Obama having a baby. Regular folk have babies every single day!”
As if he has his own valet, we screech to the front doors of the doctor’s office. He stops in front of the doors and then he escorts me inside. Behind his back, I frown and shake my head at him to the receptionist who is giggling at him, as he attempts to sign me in.
“What’s going on, Kamille?”
“Sweetheart, I am really unsure. Dr. Adams here decided that I needed to come into the office.”
The ladies and I all laugh.
“It’s better to be safe than sorry! I can’t believe that you are taking this so lightly!” Broderick’s patience is on zero, as he scolds us all.
My ass doesn’t even touch the seat cushion in the lobby before my name is called to come back to an exam room.
“How are you doing today, Kamille?”
“I’m doing fine but I think that Dad is not so good.”
I listen to him ask for an ultrasound. He needs to hear and see that his son is one thousand percent good in my belly.
“Okay, you haven’t had an ultrasound since right at four months. That’s when we determined the sex. I can’t bill your insurance for an emergency ultrasound without a threatening reason,” the nurse explains.
“Whatever the costs are they will be paid today by cash.”
Broderick has no time to waste.
“Well then, let me grab Renee and we will be all set. Kamille go ahead and lift your top up for me please.”
I do as I’m asked. I look over at my boo sitting in the chair with his nerves on edge. The scene is too cute and I know that I will never forget it.
“Why don’t you look at this? That explains so much! Renee grab me another heart monitor.”
A few minutes later Broderick and I are listening to three different heartbeats at the same time. On the screen we can see one boy holding on to his brother’s foot even though he is behind him. On the right side we see a little girl with her legs wide open.
“Is that three got damn babies in there?”
All of the ladies in the room laugh. My giggles are mixed with tears. God works in mysterious ways. I had no family left but an extended family last year. In less than two months, I am going to be in a family of four. And that’s no matter how things turn out between Broderick and me.
“That explains so many things, Kamille: the weight gain, the swelling coming early on, and the pressure on your lungs. You are carrying a team, Sweetie! You’re having two girls and a boy . . . Triplets to be precise. Dr. Harrison is going to be so excited. He hasn’t had a natural conception of triplets in years.”
I notice that the ladies are chatter boxes full of conversation but the only man in the room who was doing all of the talking before is now mute. I look over to find him hugging the wall damn near. He is leaning back as if he has been knocked back.
“Susan, look at dad over here!”
The room erupts in laughter again.
101
Broderick and I are seated in the back of the Cheesecake Factory, processing the news of our even bigger family to be. I can’t stop smiling because for one, I am feeding my face with good food and the second reason is that my man’s color still hasn’t returned to his face.
He is already pale but he’s still looking like Casper. He doesn’t say much to me because he knows that I’m going in on all of the food that I ordered. He is now on his phone and the iPad adjusting to the news.
“Hi Andy, this is Broderick Adams. You had some guys to come out and set up my nursery earlier this morning.”
Silence.
“Yes, everything went good and the pieces are beautiful.”
Silence.
“My only issue is that now after an emergency doctor’s appointment, I’m finding out that I need a nursery for three, instead of one.”
Silence again. He has his hands massaging his temples as he talks. He looks like he is stressed out to the max.
“I understand but we are less than two months from delivery and because of it being a multiple birth we could end up going in even earlier.”
My eyebrows respond to the bull shit statement that “we” could go in earlier. I am pretty sure that I will be the only one in the room with my legs spread eagle, pushing out three watermelons from a gently used straw.
“Money isn’t a factor. I need another set up like the dark oak for another boy and then I need a set up in white for a girl. When I ordered the first time, I saw the girl version of the boy’s set…So that’s what I want for her.
I also need another tall chest of drawers in the oak, then the mirror chest and a tall chest of drawers in the white. Oh and don’t forget about the panels that hang down from the ceiling.”
Silence.
“One hundred thousand dollars, huh?”
Silence.
“One fifty to rush?”
Silence.
“Okay, that is what I need, so it doesn’t matter. I can’t cry about it. I did make their little privileged behinds!”
Silence.
He starts to laugh for the first time since we’d been on this field trip.
“Well these boys have until twenty-five to show me something special. But my daughter will have her entire life to be in my pockets.”
Silence.
“Okay, my man. I will definitely be at the house on Wednesday morning with a space available and ready to go. Is there any way possible that you can send that same crew out? I don’t want a lot of different people in and out.”
The phone call ends but he is still holding his head.
“Babe, I can write you a script for Xanax.”
I laugh at the suggestion.
“See, it’s always the pretty girls that get you in trouble!”
“Oh, so I got you in trouble? Is that the way that you want the story that I tell to your children?”
“Children…yesterday we were on some one child shit. Now we’ve got children.”
He shakes his head.
“Remember how you had my legs wrapped around your waist? I think the way that it went was, let me do the work…let me make you feel good…And that’s how you got triplets!”
“There are no triplets or twins in my family. So they have to have come from your side!”
I drop my fork onto my plate when the first tear drops. I can’t believe that he would bring up my lack of family knowledge at a time like this. I have no idea what my family looks like, not to mention any background information. My feelings are hurt. I gather up my purse and then I exit the restaurant from the same side door that we’d entered in, leaving him at the table alone.
As much as I cried in my first trimester, I haven’t had a good cry lately. I can’t even see, as I attempt to search for tissues in my purse. I realize that the keys to the truck are in my purse and that makes me feel better. I hop into the driver’s seat and then I take off. Broderick has been careless with his words and I have no desire to be in his presence for a while.
I do not have a chance to tell him that I have found my father. For him, that means that he knows even less than I do about my family. I decide in that second that I am going to fly to see Keith before I give birth. Keith and Carla were married once upon a time, so I figure that he will know some things about his wife’s family.
He will definitely be able to tell me something about my African American heritage because I grew up with Carla telling me how close that she was to his family at least twice. I know that the trip is going to have to be top secret. I don’t know if I need to use this time of disagreement as ample opportunity to get away.
With tears still falling I pull into a gas station to get something to clean my face up. Once I make it back to the truck with a box of Kleenex, Pain and Tiffani are leaning on the driver’s side of the truck.
FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!
I have been foolish to only take my debit card with me. My purse is in the truck but it won’t do me any good either way because I don’t carry a gun anymore. The worse thing that I can do is to mace the both of them but I’m not even using my keys.
“My girl told me that you were pregnant and that’s why Stymy dropped her ass but I didn’t want to believe it!”
Tiff doesn’t move a muscle, as she talks like we are old friends. Pain is intent on watching his surroundings.
“This shit works good for me! I know he ain’t finna hang out with kids that aren’t his own, so you are scratched off of my list in that regard but now my girl is missing. Our girl is missing.”
She points between her and Pain’s chest.
“We loved her more than he ever did. Now we know that he loves you like we loved her…s
o now it’s time for tit for tat. He took her, so now we are going to take you.”
“Except for the fact that ya’ll are sloppy as fuck!” Ant steps from behind the truck and he holds a gun up to Tiff’s head.
“Kamille get home NOW!”
I watch him yank Tiff out of the way, while Pain stands there with his hands up backing up back. One step too many and he backs up to the tip of another gun held at the base of the back of his skull. The sun is just beginning to set but here are two gunmen standing in the line of camera’s view with guns drawn on two people.
I don’t require the need to be told twice to leave. I jump back into the truck and then I speed off. The situation makes me cry even more. I am out here being grown and I have placed myself and my babies in harm’s way. Stymy is going to lose his mind. I never have had the pleasure of meeting him while he was angry and I do not plan on starting today.
102
I park his truck in the garage in its own spot. I hustle throughout the house as fast as I can to get a few things ready for a trip. I have already sent in my information for the background check to visit my dad. I have the okay from the feds, so all I need now is a plane ticket. In an hour, I am out of breath and in my Benz I head straight to the airport.
I don’t have a minute to waste on checking flight times either. I realize that I am going to have to go with the flow and be patient with the process. Broderick won’t ever expect for me to be on the first thing flying out of Arizona tonight. My stomach is in knots and I can’t believe that I am hungry yet once again. At the airport, I have only twenty minutes to get aboard the plane. I am thankful.
Keith…I hope that you are ready to see me because I am coming to see you.
Both phones ring nonstop during the ride on the plane. I can imagine my kid’s father being beside himself with anger and probably covered in blood. Pain and Tiffani are going to leave their children parentless for the stunt that they had the nerve to pull. There is no getting around it.
It’s no doubt that he wants my ass on a platter as well for leaving him in the restaurant and for being out alone. Short of the plane going down abruptly, there is no way that I am going to answer the phone. They think they are slick having Ant to call a few times. I don’t fall for the setup. I lean back in my seat and try to relax my mind.