by Kareem
“It’s me, baby girl. Gosh, you’ve gotten big! And you so pretty!”
“Thank you.” She looked up at me while in my embrace, blushing hard. “I swear I thought someone was playing with me!” she repeated.
“Boy, how long you been out?” her mother interrupted and playfully hit me on my shoulder while smiling.
“Not long,” I said, kissing my daughter on her forehead. Her embracing me like I had been in her life and never left made me feel so good.
“Well, come inside. It’s cold out here.” She led the way, with Olivia holding my hand.
“Damn, look like Santa gon’ be good to somebody!” I said, checking out the many gift-wrapped presents underneath the well-decorated tree in their living room.
“Santa? Yeah, right! Olivia knows who Santa is. Her hardworking mother!”
I looked at our daughter who was standing next to me, with her arm still wrapped around me and mine gently around her neck. “My mom out of it, Daddy,” she whispered, shaking her head and pursing her lips. “Completely out of it.” She then twirled her index finger around her ear as if to indicate her mother was cuckoo.
“Korey Taylor is finally out. Lord, I can’t believe this!” Shamika said, putting her hands together and making a loud clap. “Oh, my God!” She smiled harder than I saw Hammer smile when he first saw me. “Well, y’all sit down while I get some hot chocolate,” she said, about to walk to her kitchen.
“Oh, I got someone out in the car waiting on me. So . . .”
“Who? One of your boys? Tell him he can come in.”
“A’ight, cool. I’ll be back.” I released my daughter’s hand and headed toward the door.
“Olivia, come help me with this hot chocolate.”
“I’ll be back, Daddy.” She looked at me and smiled before following her mother into their kitchen.
It didn’t take me having two eyes to see that my daughter’s happy demeanor let me know that she was extremely excited about me being home. Her and her mother both were, which made my fear instantly go away. For some reason, though, I assumed that my daughter’s mother would be looking stressed out, out of shape, and all that type of stuff that comes with having to raise a child alone with little education and little financial support. Since she only sent a few pictures of our daughter and none of herself while I was incarcerated, I honestly had no real idea of how she was looking. To my surprise, though, not much had changed. She still had that chocolate skin tone, she was petite, and she was still the pretty black-haired girl I fell in love with at first sight years ago. She had her pretty silk black hair in a French wrap; and she was wearing a red turtleneck sweater that came down past her buttocks, with some black tight leggings that were hugging her nice little thick thighs wonderfully. She never was the type who dressed up her face with makeup. She didn’t have to. God had done a great job blessing her to be naturally beautiful.
I stepped outside. Keisha was in the car, bobbing her head and singing to the melody and lyrics of Stevie Wonder’s “All I Do.”
“KeKe, would you like to come inside with me?” I asked. I wanted her to meet my daughter and her mother.
“Sure.”
KeKe followed me inside. The moment we stepped inside, my daughter’s mother was coming out of the kitchen, carrying two cups of hot chocolate. She literally stopped in her tracks when she saw KeKe behind me. She gave me a crazy look like, “No, you didn’t bring a bitch over to my house!”
I downplayed how she looked at me. If she could have a man, certainly I could have a woman, I figured. “KeKe, this is my daughter’s mother, Shamika. Shamika, this a friend of mine, KeKe.”
“Nice to meet you, Shamika.” KeKe gave a friendly wave with a toothy smile.
“You, too,” Shamika shot back while handing me one of the hot chocolates that she was carrying. She kept the other one for herself, being funny. She wasn’t about to serve another woman. That’s just how she was.
“Livia, bring your daddy’s friend a cup of hot chocolate,” she yelled before sitting in a chair across from the black leather sofa we were sitting on. She was evil-eyeing me the whole time while sipping her hot chocolate. “So, how long have y’all known each other, Korey?” she asked. I got the impression that she couldn’t wait to ask that question.
“Not long.”
“What’s not long? A year? Two years? Three?” she asked, wanting me to be precise.
Before I could respond, my daughter emerged from the kitchen carrying two cups of hot chocolate. “Sorry it took me so long, Daddy. But here you go.” She handed me the cup of hot chocolate for me to hand Keisha and she kept one.
“Thank you, cutie,” I said to her. Keisha smiled and followed with a thank-you of her own for my daughter. “Olivia, this is my friend, Keisha. Keisha, this is my li’l princess, Olivia.”
“How are you doing, Ms. Keisha?” my daughter greeted her with a wave and a polite smile.
“Not bad. Nice meeting you. You look just like your dad!” Like me, Olivia had light skin with hazel-green eyes and pretty black wavy hair like she was mixed with a race other than that of color. She was. My mother was half Cherokee.
“That’s what everybody says. Don’t they, Mama?” she said, looking over at her mother.
“That’s what they say,” her mother replied, still giving me that “how dare you” look.
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing, Ms. Keisha?” My daughter turned to KeKe, eager to hear the answer.
“Why, it’s a good thing. You’re very pretty!” She reached and playfully tapped Olivia’s nose then sipped on her hot chocolate.
“Oh, my God, puhleeze don’t tell her that! She already stays in the mirror for hours!” Shamika interjected.
“Yo, I can’t count the days I spent in prison thinking about you, Olivia. We’ve got a lot to catch up on, baby girl.”
“Like what, Daddy?” She sipped on her hot chocolate, looking up at me.
“Like how you doing in school, first of all.”
She looked over at her mother and smiled. “Mama, my daddy doesn’t know, does he? I’m hopefully graduating this year a straight A honor roll student! So far, that’s all I been getting on my report card. I’m a straight A student.”
“It’s true. She’s very focused. But she knows I wouldn’t have her no other way. She can’t talk to boys at all, and I definitely don’t allow her to go to parties and sleepovers! That’s where girls sneak around and get pregnant. And she knows I better never hear that she has taken a drink or put a cigarette or a joint of weed in her mouth! ’Cause I work too hard to make sure she doesn’t want for anything to have her jive around with her education and life. It’s not happening on my watch!”
“Sometimes you are a little too strict,” my daughter said, shaking her head.
“Maybe so, but I promise you this: you won’t end up pregnant and having to drop out of school and struggle just to make ends meet!” Shamika said sternly, no doubt having in mind her own experience of getting pregnant young. She dropped out of school when she was sixteen all because she wanted to have her independence, party, and have what she called fun with her friends.
Her parents were in the military most of her teenage years, so her grandmother raised her. Her grandmother did the very best by giving her right guidance, but when she got with me, it was a wrap!
Like most chicks I had back in the day, Shamika loved my thug swag, my hazel-green eyes, and the way I took my time with her in that bedroom. And since I was making a lot of loot in the streets in those days, I made it my business to have her looking nice at all times. I knew it’s not all about material things, but a week didn’t go by that her hair and nails didn’t get done. Shamika was no stranger to Gucci, Prada, and Dolce & Gabbana. All her little girlfriends were jealous of her. Then she popped up pregnant. Shortly after having Olivia, I was on my way to jail.
“Your mother certainly has her reasons, Olivia, for being strict,” I said to her because I could discern that our daughter wanted
to do some of the things that other young teens were doing. “There’s a time and place for everything, though, sweetheart.” I kissed her cheek. There was no way I was going to go against Shamika and how she was raising our daughter. She was doing a helluva good job and, deep inside, I was proud of her. Now it was my turn to do what I hadn’t been allowed to do, and that was be her father.
“So, tell me, Olivia, what do you hope to major in when you go to college in a couple years?”
“I want to be a lawyer.” She wasted no time answering me like this was something she had thought about over and over again.
Keisha looked at me and lifted her eyebrows when my daughter said she wanted to be a lawyer.
“Okay, that’s what’s up.” I nodded. “Keisha here is an attorney.”
“Really, Ms. Keisha?” My daughter’s eyes widened. “You’re a real lawyer?”
“Mm-hmm,” Keisha affirmed. “I handle civil cases.”
“As in winning lawsuits for people?”
“Yeah, I guess you can say it like that. What type of attorney would you like to be?”
“Criminal attorney.”
“Oh, okay. Why criminal law, Olivia?”
Olivia looked over at her mother, who spoke up for her. “When her father was in prison, she would always ask me why he had to be incarcerated so long and if there was a way to get him out early. I would respond by saying that if she wanted her father out of prison, she should consider becoming an attorney so she could fight for his freedom. She’s been wanting to be an attorney ever since.”
“Wow. You love your dad just that much that you would focus your attention on becoming an attorney someday? That’s a beautiful, unselfish thing, Olivia. What a good heart you have,” Keisha said to her.
“Yep.” Olivia looked at me and nodded.
Tears came to my eyes to know that my daughter thought of me and wanted me home so that I could be in her life. All while I was in prison, I thought of her and hoped that I was on her mind a time or two. I sent many pictures and wrote many letters so that she would know what her daddy looked like and how her daddy felt about her. Being in her presence at this moment made me feel like I was in heaven.
Shamika’s phone started ringing, snapping me out of my thoughts. “Korey, y’all, excuse me a minute,” she said, getting up to answer it. It was probably her man, I figured.
While Shamika was in her bedroom talking on the phone, Keisha and my daughter and I continued to chat about this, that, and a third. My daughter wanted to know everything! She wanted to know if Keisha and I were a couple. Where was I staying? How did I get out of prison so early? And what was I getting her for Christmas? While she and I conversed, Keisha’s cell started lighting up. She answered it. It was Kolanda, wanting to know how much longer she and I were gonna be because she had cooked, and she and Hammer were waiting for Keisha and me to arrive before they sat at the table to eat. Keisha told them to go ahead and eat because it was already late.
Shortly after Keisha hung up the phone and told me who it was and what was up, I kissed my daughter and hugged her tight. “I’ma call you tomorrow, princess, so that we can talk some more. But Daddy will never leave you again to go off to prison. That’s a promise, you hear me?”
“Yes, sir.” She nodded.
Her mother stepped back into the living room right about the time Keisha and I were about to bounce.
“Korey, I’ll be out in the car. It was nice meeting you, Olivia.”
“Nice meeting you too, Ms. Keisha.” They hugged.
“Nice meeting you too, Shamika.” Keisha waved at my daughter’s mother on her way out.
“Have a good one,” Shamika replied, waving her good-bye.
The moment Keisha went outside, Shamika looked at our daughter. “Give your daddy another hug, Olivia, and let me speak with him a moment in private.”
“Daddy, I love you, and I’m glad you’re home. Don’t forget to call me, okay?” She hugged me tight.
“I won’t, sweetheart. I promise.”
My daughter obeyed her mother and went straight to her room. When she did, Shamika walked up to me and held her arms out to hug me. “Korey, God does answer prayers,” she said, embracing me. “I’m so glad that you are home because Olivia really needs you. All she does is talk about her daddy.”
“So why did you stop writing me and bringing her to see me?” I wanted to know immediately.
“Now isn’t the time to talk about that, Korey. I had my reasons. What’s up with you and that lawyer girl? Is she your lady?” She looked me in the eyes for the truth.
“Doesn’t matter, Shamika.” I waved it off, turning my head.
“Since when did it stop mattering, Korey?” She cupped my chin, directing my face back to hers for eye contact. She looked like she was about to cry.
“When you left me hanging to do twenty dayum years by myself!” I stared into her eyes and made tight my lips. I just couldn’t believe she abandoned me like she never loved me at all.
“I told you I had my reasons, Korey.”
“You always got your reasons, Shamika!” My voiced raised a little for her to know that I was hurt by what she did.
I then walked out of her crib without looking back, leaving her there to think about her leaving me hanging while in the joint. Words couldn’t express how I felt thinking about her and not being by my side. For years, I didn’t even get a card for my birthday from her. And for years, when I wrote to her, she wouldn’t even respond. I loved this woman. Woulda married her had I not gone off to prison. I couldn’t count the times we lay up in bed after good sex and I heard her whisper in my ear, “Korey, I love you very much,” only to discover later, while I did hard time in the fed, that her love was the type of love that would leave a brother hanging. What I really wanted to ask her was, “What did I do to deserve you leaving me?”
Chapter 12
What’s Wrong?
Keisha
“A’ight, we can roll out now,” Korey said, having come out of his daughter’s mother’s place and slamming my car door once he was inside. His face was flushed with anger.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“Not slamming my door like that, you aren’t. What’s wrong?”
“Let’s just get from over here,” he said, nose flared and lips tight. He wouldn’t even make eye contact with me.
“Well, we’re leaving. Don’t worry. But why the sudden change, Korey? Just moments ago, you were all smiles hugging on your daughter. What happened?”
“My daughter and I are fine.”
“Then what is it?”
“It’s my issue with Shamika.”
“What about her?”
“Told you. She bounced on me while I was in the joint. I want answers as to why.”
“Okay, but, Korey, you’re home now and—”
“True, but that doesn’t change the reality of what she did. When I went to the fed, I didn’t leave her on bad terms. We were in love. Hell, I thought that she was going to be the woman I married. She was the person I least expected to not ride with me.”
“People change, Korey. You were gone twelve years! But, again, you’re home now. Put that behind you and move on. You have to, or it’s going to eat you up!”
“Some things you can’t move on from until you get answers. That’s where I am with that. Bottom line.”
“Never say what you can’t do, Korey.”
“That one I can’t move on from without answers, Ke. I just can’t.” He shrugged.
I hit the highway but continued to talk to him about the issue. “Did you ask her why she left you?”
“I did, but she doesn’t want to talk about it. Says she had her reasons, though, and that now was not the time to go into it.”
“Then give her some time if that’s what she needs.”
He looked over at me like, “Are you serious?” and then said, “I been gone twelve years, Ke. Five of which she was not in my life. How much
damn time does a woman need before she’s able to give an explanation for her disloyalty?”
“I can’t speak for her. But don’t get impatient is all I’m saying. You’ve waited this long. Waiting a little longer, I’m sure, won’t hurt you, Korey.”
“Psss.” He blew air through his lips and gave me a dismissive wave of his hand. That made me feel like shutting my mouth because apparently, I wasn’t telling him what he wanted to hear. He faced the window and began stroking the hairs on his faint goatee as if in deep thought on the matter.
I turned up the volume on my Stevie Wonder’s Greatest Hits CD. “All In Love Is Fair” was playing. I couldn’t imagine being in prison and having someone I love mistreating me. That would break more than my heart. It would totally crush my spirit. It would cause me to have trust issues and diminish my wanting to fall in love again. Baby boy needed answers that only his daughter’s mother could give, not Keisha Monica Harris.
But I did want to tell him that, although I had never been to prison where a loved one left me hanging, I had been hurt. Hurt by a man I thought loved me very much. That hurt made me angry and bitter inside toward the man who hurt me. I’d become somewhat reclusive since, isolating myself from the thought of falling in love ever again. That hurt was why I wanted my brother-in-law to fuck Josh up! I wanted him to scar that bastard’s face up like he scarred my heart. And, yeah, I knew I told Korey to put the issue of his daughter’s mother leaving him behind him and move on. It would seem a girl would take her own advice and do the same. Well, you could call me a hypocrite. I didn’t always practice what I preached. I’d move on after Josh got his ass kicked!
“You going to be all right or what, baby boy?” I looked over and asked Korey, who was now resting his head back on the seat’s headrest with his eyes closed. I turned the music down.
“I’ll be a’ight. Thanks for asking,” he replied softly. I could see he had calmed down.
“You hungry? I know I am,” I said, having pulled into a KFC drive-through.
“Yeah. Hell, order me whatever you’re having.”