Chapter 12 – Calm Before the Storm
Jason
There were so many questions whizzing around in his mind. He really felt like he hadn’t had chance to think properly when she was here, because the simple word ‘pregnant’ had thrown him off course. He couldn’t believe this had happened, but then he thought back to the night they slept together, and he didn’t remember using protection. He didn’t really remember much about that night other than her body, how good she felt, and the rest was a blur. He felt slightly embarrassed that he was still doing things like this at 25 but he knew it was too late to start having regrets now. Shit had just got serious. He wondered if they could make it work. They both lived in different states, and he was never in one place for too long when he was working. Would he be one of those fathers that prioritised his career over his family? He frowned at the word ‘family’ as it came to his head. He couldn’t exactly call this girl family. She was a woman that he had slept with once.
‘She’s carrying your baby’ his mind told him.
As he lay on the bed, he suddenly felt restless, and sat up resting his head in his hands. He didn’t know what to think, nothing felt real to him anymore. He couldn’t help but wonder what he was going to say to his family, his friends, his fans even. When did he even decide to say something?
He had always wanted a family of his own. Seeing Tom with Carmen and baby Lydia made him envious sometimes of what he had. Sure, he had his career but he saw Tom’s eyes light up every time he saw Lydia smile, or say ‘dad’, he knew it was probably a whole different feeling altogether. Still, he had always dreamed of doing things properly, of meeting the right woman and getting married before they had their children. He never imagined it could happen like this for him. Not that he thought he was better than anyone else; it just wasn’t what he envisioned for himself. He imagined what his mother would say, and though at first he imagined her shock, he imagined her shouting at him for making it all about him. She would tell him to stop being so selfish and think about what it must be like for the woman, and for the baby. ‘A child doesn’t ask to be brought into the world, Jason’ he heard his mother’s voice say in her southern twang. He smiled thinking about his mother and suddenly he felt like he wanted to share his news with her. Though he was nervous of her reaction, he felt she would know just what to say to make things seems better. She always did. It was strange how they had more than a mother-son relationship; she really was his best friend. He had always felt he could tell her things, even as a teenager. Sure, it was embarrassing when his mother bought him condoms and had the sex talk with him, but it somehow made them closer. He didn’t feel like he had to hide anything from her. Well, most things anyway.
Before he thought about what he was doing, or the implications of his actions, he had picked up his phone from the bedside table. As he found his mother’s number, he pressed the call button and saw the picture of her he had taken last week light up on the screen. It suddenly made what he was doing very real but undeterred, he put the phone to his ear and listened to the ringing before a familiar voice answered.
“Hey baby! How’s it going?” his mother chirped. She sounded happy.
“Hey mom. I kinda need to talk about something.”
“Okay...” his mom said, as she waited for him to continue.
Jason swallowed. “I’ve done something stupid.”
“How stupid?” his mom asked, and at that moment he heard the family dogs barking in the background, as if they were joining in the conversation.
“I...” Jason swallowed again, feeling as though the words were getting stuck in his throat.
“I got someone pregnant.”
Jason heard the dogs still barking in the background but his mom had gone quiet. He heard her breathing quietly on the other end of the phone, so he knew she still had the phone to her ear. He expected she was having the same shocked thought processes that he did himself.
“Who is it?” his mom asked quietly after a minute.
“Just, a girl I met out here.”
“And is she keeping the baby?” his mother asked.
“I think so”
“How do you feel baby?” his mom asked, and he couldn’t help but think he was surprised at how calm she sounded. He appreciated the calm tone of her voice though; it was making him feel calmer speaking to her.
“I don’t know. Shocked. Scared, I guess.”
“You need to find out what her plans are, see what she wants. It’ll be okay.”
He knew he had done the right thing calling his mom despite his reservations.
Dee
Though Dee had become pregnant for the first time at 18, it wasn’t a huge scandal in her family. Her best friend Tip had his first baby at 14, and half her class were pregnant by the time they left school. It was pretty normal for people to have babies as a way of life, rather than find a job and make it big through their own avenue. Dee was already in a relationship with Trey for a number of years before she became pregnant, and her mother liked trey, so when she had told her mother she was pregnant, her mother was excited to be getting a grandchild. She went to work the next day and told everybody that her daughter was pregnant, as if she had just won a Nobel Prize. When Dee had found out she was having a boy, her mother bought her baby clothes and bragged to everybody she knew that she was having a grandson.
This time, Dee knew it was going to be different. She knew because she wasn’t in a relationship, and her mother didn’t even know she was sleeping with anyone. For the most part, she knew it would be different because the father was a white man. Maybe she would change her mind when she found out he was rich; she would probably think that was the reason she got herself pregnant. A lot of women around them would have done just that. Not Dee. She had already told her best friend Shaneeka the news and swore her to secrecy, which she knew she would keep. Dee had waited until the evening, when she had put Tushaun to bed. She knew she would have to tell her mother and her sister first, and then she could tell her brother at the next prison visit, she didn’t want to tell him on the phone.
While Dee had decided to tell her mom and sister in her own way, waiting until they were sat down together and relaxed, it seemed her mother had other plans. They had just finished eating a meal Monique had cooked and Kiki was washing the dishes at the sink. Monique had just put some music onto the speakers in the kitchen. While most mothers would be on the sofa on an evening with their slippers on watching soap operas, Monique wasn’t like most mothers. She preferred to sit in the kitchen with music on, drinking and checking her social media on her phone. They didn’t have a computer in the house so she would go on Facebook on her phone and use up all her data for the month in a week. Then she’d ask everyone else to use their phones to use the internet. Dee couldn’t count the times she’d just told her mom to get a better phone contract with more data, or to buy a computer, but she wouldn’t listen. As her mother sang along to the song on the speakers, she got up from her seat at the kitchen table and carried her wine glass to the counter where she filled it up with wine.
“You want one?” her mother asked Dee, looking her way as she watched her daughter fill up a tumbler glass of water from the tap as Kiki moved over to let her in.
“Nah, I’m good” Dee replied, taking a sip of water from the glass.
“No? Not pregnant are you?”
The sentence was a joke, quite clearly. Her mother had said it before, and she’d say it again, whenever Dee refused something she wasn’t in the mood for. Usually, Dee used ‘no’ as a quick fire answer followed by a dirty look, but this time, Dee just stood there looking at her mother. She wasn’t sure why she didn’t use her usual answer, but then, what was the point in lying. She figured she’d planned to tell them tonight anyway so she may as well come out with it. Monique looked at her daughter as she avoided eye contact and suddenly her eyes bolted open wide.
“You pregnant?”
Dee managed a quiet ‘Yeah’ before her mother set
the glass of wine down on the counter and came toward her with a frenzied look in her eyes. At the same time, her sister took her hands out of the washing up dish and turned around to face her sister, dripping suds onto the floor before she grabbed the nearest tea towel to dry her hands.
“Who’s baby is it?!” her mother asked, sounding more like an accusation than a question.
“Is it Trey’s?” her sister piped up, looking at her with the same accusatory state her mother had.
“No, it’s not Trey’s.” Dee replied, giving her sister a dirty look at the sheer thought of it. She should know she wouldn’t go there again.
“Then who girl, who?” her mother questioned again.
“You don’t know him. I barely know him”
“A one night stand?”
“No. It’s not like that.”
“So you dating this boy?”
“No. We just, met a couple times. He walked me home once.”
“So he’s interested?”
“I don’t know mom” Dee answered.
“You don’t seem to know a lot do you?”
“I just found out, I’m confused.”
“Confused? Like keeping it confused?”
“No, I’m keeping it. It’s my baby.”
This time, Kiki, who had been remaining quiet, spoke up.
“Does the guy know?”
“Yeah”
“What did he say?”
“He was shocked, but he said he’d be there for us.”
Monique, who had now picked up her full wine glass and took a sip, scoffed at that statement.
“That’d be a change.”
This time, Dee turned to her mother to try and change her disapproving attitude.
“Mom, I don’t think he’s like that, he’s...not from round here. He’s kind of, businessman type.”
“He rich?” her mother asked, clutching her wine glass close.
“Yeah. I guess.”
“Well, least he can provide financially. Maybe I won’t be taking care of another baby up in my house.”
Dee and Kiki were silent for a second. That last comment had hit Dee hard, like her mother had just used her words to stab her in the stomach. She knew exactly what it took for her to ask her mother for help, for her to bring Tushaun to her mom’s with all his things, to tell people that her son lived with her mother and not her. She didn’t know why her mother had to be so cold sometimes. It was like she didn’t even think about things before she said them.
“Mom, that’s not fair!” Kiki exclaimed, looking at Dee with a sympathetic look.
“Oh? I’m not fair? Don’t I look after you and your brother and sister, and your nephew? Don’t I hold down three jobs while I do it? And don’t your brother and sister keep reproducing try’na eat me out of house and home? Don’t talk to me about what’s fair Kierra.”
Kiki was quiet after that. It wasn’t very often that Monique used her children’s full names, and they knew she was really pissed if she did. She thought better than to argue back with her, plus it wasn’t her argument to have. This was her sister’s mess. Monique had moved back to the table with her glass of wine which she was still drinking as she walked. As she sat it down on the table in front of her, she turned to Dee and continued her argument.
“As for you Deleisha, I suggest you find out who this dude is. You say he rich but I don’t be seeing no rich man walking round these streets unless they doing something illegal, and that never end well.”
Dee was starting to feel pissed off by her mother’s tone. She never asked for her opinion on the situation, she simply thought it was about time she told her family what was going on in her life. She hated the way her mom was trying to take the high and mighty stance when she had screwed up her life royally all by herself and subsequently screwed up her kid’s lives. She had been good with Tushaun and she did love her mom, but she hated the way she tried to act as if she was a saint now that she was off the drugs. It was like she was trying to pretend that period in her life never happened, but Dee didn’t forget that easily.
“I told you!” Dee yelled, raising her voice as she felt the anger inside her rise up. “He’s not from round here! He’s fucking famous!”
Wrong thing to yell.
Her mom was weirdly silent. It lasted for all of thirty seconds before she stood up from her seat.
“So let me get this straight,” she said with an air of calm in her voice, though Dee and Kiki both knew it was the calm before the storm.
“You got yo’self pregnant by a rich, famous man that you barely even know and he said he’s gonna stand by you while you have his baby?” Her mother scoffed once more, and then her voice began to rise.
“I thought you was a smart girl Dee, why do you believe these men? Are you stupid? He’s gonna be off with his nice rich wife and you not gonna see any of that money, let alone a DNA test. You can’t prove it’s his. You gonna be another washed up woman on these streets with a baby of each colour.”
The whole time Monique was talking, she was getting closer to Dee, pacing up slowly, vindictively. At the end of her sentence, Dee closed the gap between them and squared up to her mother. Kiki, who was watching the scene unfold in front of her, was sure Dee was about to swing for her mom, and so she stood in the middle of them shouting.
“Stop it! Both of you! Just stop it!” She lightly pushed them both apart before taking Dee’s arm and leading her away from the kitchen. Dee couldn’t decide whether she wanted to punch her mother or burst into tears at her words. Considering she never cried, she decided she would settle with the feeling of wanting to punch her, but as her little sister led her away, she realised how crazy that sounded. Dysfunctional family to the max.
Chapter 13 – First Date Nerves
Dee
The next morning, Dee woke up at her own home, the duvet cover wrapped around her so tight she could hardly move. She untangled herself from its Webb, and sighed as she sat up, her back against the headboard. She had always moved around a lot in her sleep, and usually found the duvet either off the bed or upside down, but it was always worse when she was mad.
After her mother’s harsh words, her sister Kiki had taken Dee home, staying there all night to listen to her rant and rave about what she had said. Their mom could be hard on all of her kids, and sometimes she could be hard to handle, but Kiki found it easier to distance herself from her mother. She simply didn’t entertain her when she was in a bad mood; she removed herself from the situation. Dee and her brother Jarell weren’t like that. Their tempers caused them to become confrontational, and neither one of them liked to back down from a fight. Kiki, unbeknownst to Dee, had cancelled her plans to stay at her boyfriends that night to stay with her sister. After hearing the news she was pregnant, she knew she was going to need all the support she could get, especially if her mother’s attitude didn’t change.
As Dee sat for a moment, staring into space and allowing her mind to wake up, there was a small knock at the door before her sister entered the room, a cup of tea in each hand. Dee looked up at her sister, who was already dressed for school, makeup and hair done too, and she smiled.
“Been up long?” Kiki asked, setting a cup of tea next to her sister’s bedside table and sitting herself on the bed.
“Just woke up” Dee replied, picking up the tea from the table and cupping it in her hands.
“Look at you all ready this time of morning!” Dee commented, watching her sister take small sips of her tea.
Kiki shrugged. “Couldn’t sleep that well,”
“Sofa ain’t the comfiest is it?”
Kiki shrugged off her comment.
“Sorry Keeks. Thanks for staying last night.”
“It’s Ok. She’ll come round you know, she’s just shocked.”
“Mmhmm” Dee murmured.
“She will” Kiki protested. “You know what she’s like.”
Indeed, they both knew exactly what Monique was like.
After they
finished their tea, Kiki announced she would take Tushaun to pre-school on her way to school. Dee protested, knowing it was her job to care for her son, but Kiki insisted, knowing it would be difficult at the moment for Dee to face her mother’s house, given the pent up hostility. In the end, Dee agreed to let her take him, but ensured she would pick him up later. Once Kiki had left to pick him up from their moms, Dee got out of bed and got herself showered and dressed. She really appreciated having a sister like Kiki, especially when her brother was inside. She needed somebody to lean on, and though her friends were amazing, she knew how lucky she was to have such a good sister. At only sixteen, Kiki was most definitely the brains of the family. She cared about school, and wasn’t about to drop out without getting any grades. She didn’t have the same anger issues as the rest of her family, and she found it a lot easier to walk away from an argument. She could use her words to diffuse a situation, rather than her fists. While she was street-smart, she was also too intelligent to let herself get into a bad situation. She had never had a real fight, she had never been excluded from school; the worst thing she did was get a little drunk or high at the weekends.
It had been a few days since she had told Jason about her pregnancy. He was adamant they could make it work, and while he’d text her later that night to say they should meet up, and get to know each other better, they hadn’t set anything in stone. While they had been speaking on and off the last few days, he hadn’t yet brought up the subject of them meeting.
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