by Love Belvin
“Damn!” Van cried. “Everybody in here now? Y’all chill with that. Give this man some room!”
I was good, even if Danny wasn’t.
Wynter glanced around. “Where’d you get that from?” she eyed the envelope I gave her uncle.
“My neph-in-law just blessed me.” He offered me love again, and I reciprocated. Then he whispered so Wynter and I could hear. “I thought this was some bullshit when you first told me about it. Glad to see I had it all wrong. Fuck them blogs!” And he shot off to the front door.
I caught the whiff of liquor on his breath.
“I already gave him a gift,” Wynter grumbled.
“What?”
“This damn party!” She rolled her eyes. “I’m over it already.”
I didn’t like the hidden cry in her voice. But there was no time to react to it. There was way too many nosy people all around, I understood, curious about my appearance. They could finally confirm she was connected to me after hearing story after story in the media. I got that. My plan was to play it easy until she was ready to go. My morning had consisted of packing, too, before and after spending some time in the studio and taking a call from Frank Cramar from Universal.
Someone called Wynter from the back of the house.
“I have to go finish bringing the food in here. It’s supposed to rain so we gotta set up here,” she explained. “You and Danny G have a seat.”
Mya stepped around her. “You wanna beer or something?” Her mannerisms just as sweet as they were the first time we met.
I held my arms out for her instead of responding.
“Awwwwww! I get a hug!” she giggled as she melted into me.
“I’m good, sweetheart. Good seeing you,” I greeted while letting her go.
“You sure?” she asked.
“Mya, let’s go before it rains on my damn head!” Ivie shouted at her, giving some energy I didn’t get.
I decided to ignore it. Mya excused herself and followed the girls out back.
“Oh!” I turned around and found an older woman staring me up and down, her eyes dancing with lust. God forgive me, but I recognized that look from women of all ages. “He here, huhn?”
She was standing in the archway between the hallway and living room, hanging on to a walker. Wanda and a few others were filing in behind her. The woman’s breathing was harsh and she was big. Bigger than Grandmother.
I twisted my head, keeping my eyes on her. “MaMa?”
Her brows frowned, but her eyes still glimmered and mouth pouted playfully. “How you know my name?”
“Your granddaughter’s said it a lot.” I stepped over to her. “I’m Ragee. Sorry it’s taken this long to finally meet.” I was sincere in that.
Our whole set up was so foul. But I wouldn’t change it unless it meant I could find Wynter and make her mine the right way.
She didn’t take my hand and I figured it was because she needed her own to hold on to the walker. So I tapped her soft skin instead.
“I know ya name!”
Okaaaaaaay…
I backed up to bring Danny G in view.
“Well, I brought this for you. I hope you enjoy it.”
Danny lifted the gift basket filled with fresh fruit, flowers, tea, nuts, and chocolates. I even had Jashon throw a Visa gift card in there.
“Uuuuunnnnn…” she hummed, studying the basket in Danny’s arms. “Reign, come get this and lock it up in my room,” she called to be heard behind her.
Reign’s little body shouldered through the narrow hall and when she stepped out, she smiled shyly, avoiding my eyes. I would have spoken, but I was picking up weird vibes and didn’t want to put myself out there any more than I already had.
I moved out of the way so MaMa could come into her home. And she did, sporting a smirk I didn’t understand.
I sat in a chair against the wall in the dining room. Danny preferred it that way, not wanting anybody to be able to walk up on me from behind if I sat at the dining room table. Wynter never sat much. Even while we ate, she squatted in a chair to the right of me for a few minutes, cleaned a small plate of salad and dressing, then collected plates for the trash. She was off. Nervous-like. But I didn’t speak on it.
MaMa sat at the head of the table and Van at the other end with his friends and family mixed in. The rain started thirty minutes ago, but Wynter and the girls seemed to have gotten the party inside in time. I couldn’t say I felt at home, considering the constant stares, blushes, and even a few whispers. I also learned MaMa was no Grandmother McKinnon. She was a loud and mouthy woman. She cussed and criticized a lot. She drank, too. None of it offended me, but it helped me understand my wife a little.
MaMa was Queen B, Wanda’s energy was hidden in plain sight, Van was the head of the family, Wynter was the quiet worker bee, and Reign was lost in the mix. She chased after her kids and played servant to MaMa. MaMa not one time asked Wanda to get her food, something to drink, an old photo album to show a family member of theirs, a picture she recalled of her the other day, or to fetch the phone.
Van loved his niece, though. He hugged her a lot and kissed her affectionately, though it annoyed Wynter, I could tell. They shared short private jokes, that left the whole room out.
“Would you two just stop that shit?” MaMa demanded when the photo album got passed down to him and he wanted to show Wynter something in it. “Damn! Her man here. Your girl here. Y’all look like kissing damn cousins!”
“Oh, cutie, cut it out!” Van playfully dismissed his mother.
“Wynter, I ‘on’t know who gone get all this trash outta here. I damn sure ain’t,” MaMa complained again.
Van responded for Wynter. “Who you think gone take care of it, woman?” He laughed. “I got it. Plus, Wynter and her old man gotta skirt after this.”
MaMa sucked her teeth at that, and everyone seemed to have ignored it. They ignored a lot of her crazy energy. Wynter did, too. And when MaMa said something slick to or about Wynter, Van would step in and shield her, using humor. I peeped all of that. She was showing that ironclad Wynter that was impenetrable. She only gave it to people spitting fire at her.
God, did I do that to this girl?
Crazy thing was I didn’t know Wynter when I was cold to her. Even when I had her fly out to Arizona by herself, it killed me. This was her grandmother, someone who should have some love for her. Wynter was a good girl. It was clear to me, the people here liked and respected her.
“Aye, yo!” Van stood from the table, snatching the attention of the noisy room. “Lemme get everybody’s attention for a minute!” The room hushed, people tapping shoulders to bring their eyes to Van. “Thank you. I know Wynnie gotta skate soon, and she gone be hitting me over the head about my manners.” A few people snickered. “I just wanna say thank you to everybody for coming out to show the kid love. It was a crazy seven months, something I ‘on’t ever wanna go through again. It was one thing to hold it down and demand respect from the few who tried to test me in the pen. But the harder part was being disconnected from my seeds, my girl, my momma.” Then his head twisted in search of something.
Wynter so happened to walk into the dining room with a cake. Ivie was behind her, carrying plates and forks. Mya was last with napkins and a lighter.
“But one thing I had that made the whole ride bearable was my number one.” Wynter’s head popped up and her eyes widened with an emotion I could name. And my jaw clenched, not caring for another man having a bond with her. It was wrong. Selfish and unfair, but my truth. Wynter’s attention made you that territorial of it. The room awwwww’d. “Y’all know she more than family. This big ass pain in my ass is my fucking everything.”
Wynter smiled. It looked sad and proud at the same time. I watched her closely since I got here; couldn’t help myself.
“I always said if I got stranded on a island, I only need one. My rider.” He waved her over to him as people awwww’d again and took flicks.
Wynter glided over to him
and my chest tightened when she buried her face in his shoulder.
I could hear him almost whisper to her, “Nobody know what you did for me. Nobody know us…our story.” Wynter nodded and I heard a sniffle.
I leaned over, ready to jump to her. Danny G grabbed my arm on the low, telling me to chill. I needed the reminder. This was her family.
At least Van is…
“You crying, yo?” he asked angrily, but smiled. “When the hell did you start crying?”
“Oh, my god,” Wanda sang from the other side of the table.
Wynter wiped her face, her mascara smudged, and my stomach turned over. She sniffled again and tried giggling. “I’m a married woman now. Of course I cry, Van!” she playfully yelled at him.
His eyes rolled over to me and I silently hoped he’d say something slick. That quickly and senselessly I’d turned on him, all because the affection they shared was being played out in my face. Here I saw how, understandably, she’d found herself in a shady deal with a Mike Brown. She loved this man more than I’d ever known a niece to love her uncle. Maybe it was because they were only twelve years apart. Maybe because her pops died so close to her birthdate.
Subconsciously, my mind went to his death date. I did the math. January fourth, nineteen-eighty-eight. That was over a year before she was even conceived. That had to be a typo.
My eyes rolled over to Wynter leaning into Van. Something was off. There was something wrong about the math and their closeness.
“You gotta big family?”
Danny G nudged me, and I realized the question was posed to me. My eyes swept from Wynter and Van to where a pathway was cleared so MaMa could see me.
“Me?” I asked like an idiot, my mind was still shot to pieces with this paternity thing.
That’s why she don’t have her father’s casket nameplate?
“Yeah, you!” MaMa giggled, upper body jiggling as she did. “You and him the only strangers in the room.”
I stretched my eyes, trying to fight through this mental fog. “Yeah. I guess it’s pretty big.”
“You ‘on’t be carrying on like this, do you?” She flicked her finger down the table. “It’s fuckin’ weird.”
“Yeah. Kinda.” I sat back. “I gotta cousin I was pretty tight with.”
“Is it that Myisha girl I follow?” Mya asked from the other corner of the room. “I thought she was your girl, at first.” She laughed.
“Yeah,” Wanda chimed in. “I thought Wynter was getting into some sister-wives shit.” She laughed, too.
Wynter frowned and rolled her eyes, going to the cake she brought in.
“That wouldn’t be far off for her,” MaMa mumbled, but not to be unheard. “The apple wouldn’t fall too far from the damn tree,” she snickered, rolling her eyes.
She crossed the line. “Pardon?”
“MaMa!” Van tried to cut in as Danny G grabbed my lower arm again.
“Please!” Wynter spoke over everybody to MaMa. “Not today. Okay? We’re having a good time celebrating your baby boy.”
MaMa mumbled something, lifting her little plastic cup to her face. She gulped and put it down, watching Wynter with the candles.
“Oh, we ain’t babies in here. Shit, I heard them rumors about him. That’s all they talk about when they ain’t going crazy over his voice. Maybe y’all make the perfect freaky couple.”
“Somebody take that damn cup from her!” The Van I met in Essex County jail had showed.
He was seething. Only thing was, he scaled it back, probably because it was his mother whose head he wanted to rip off.
“Ain’t nobody taking nothing!” MaMa spat then turned over her shoulder and hollered, “Sheldon! Come bring me my cigarettes!”
“The fuck he doing here?” Van growled.
A clank at the table could be heard around the room that now seemed turned down. Little Asia’s eyes bounced from face to face at the table, I noticed as she took to her mother’s lap.
Wynter leaned over the table with her eyes closed, as though trying to calm herself. Every inch of my body tensed. I couldn’t knock Van’s mother out. Couldn’t even cuss her out because of the vow I made with God last week, but I wouldn’t sit back and watch Wynter be disrespected.
What’s this about?
She never told me she had beef with her family.
Did she?
“Please don’t,” Wynter’s teeth were gritted, I could tell.
“Honey, I ain’t do shit to you.” MaMa sucked her teeth then looked over her shoulder.
Some dude came through the doorway leading into the dining room.
“Why the fuck you still here?” Van stood from the table and I leaped to my feet right after. Danny G was right with me.
This was Sheldon? The Sheldon she told me about?
Wynter backed into me like she was trying to cover and calm me at the same time.
“Damn!” MaMa laughed. “She told you about Sheldon, huhn?” she directed at me and slapped the table. “See Reign! I told you she still want ‘im. She told her lil husband ‘bout ‘im.”
Van moved around the table toward Sheldon. “I told you when you was done to go. I ‘on’t even know why you came in the first place, homie!”
A few guys tried jumping in the middle of Van and Sheldon. Danny pulled me farther back, even though they weren’t that close. Wynter, unknowingly, turned and pushed me, too.
“Just keep calm.” Her eyes begged me. “Okay?”
I ignored her and fixed my attention back on Van and his old friend. Why was he here?
“I told him to come! Damn, Van!” MaMa yelled so hard, she spat. “I said I’d take care of the grill. Y’all know I can’t stand over it to cook, so I had him do it! I ‘on’t know what your beef is with him. A man’s gone do what a man’s gone do! It’s up to your fast ass”—she flexed her fingers—“niece to keep her fuckin’ legs closed. Fuckin’ up friendships around here!”
I had to go and now. If I didn’t, I’d be cussing this old lady the fuck out and repenting later.
“Man, fuck this,” Sheldon finally spoke. “C’mon, Reign. I ‘on’t need this bullshit.” He tossed Van a nasty eye, watching him flex while being held back.
“Naw!” MaMa yelled. “Reign family. You her man. You stay. Fuck feelin’s.” Her face balled tightly. “Van go somewhere and sit down!”
“Why?” Wynter shouted so loud, she jumped right in front of me. “Why do you accept her and never me?”
MaMa’s head popped back, and her chin dropped. “Maybe ‘cause she know her damn place.”
“It’s equal to mine. We’re equal in this family!”
“No the hell you ain’t, and you know it!”
“Ma, would you quit!” Van yelled.
“Hell naw!” She slammed her heavy hand into the table again. “She ain’t gone take that tone with me ‘cause her man rich and famous—if that’s your real man! I heard what they saying about you on t.v.! Could be fake! Like I said, hoe apples don’t fall too far from the damn hoe tree.”
“I’m not my mother!” I could hear the tears in Wynter’s voice.
I tugged her and Van shot by her side. She yanked away from him.
“You think you better?” MaMa asked.
“Is Reign better than her mother?”
Reign’s eyes bounced back and forth no different than Asia’s. She was like a damn kid.
“That’s your fuckin’ problem, Wynter! You always focused on her. She ain’t even your age. She too damn young for you to be hatin’ on.”
“Ma!” Van barked again.
“And you’re too old to be hating on me!” Wynter charged. “Since I met you, you’ve been mean to me. I was here the day he brought her and your reaction—your response was so much different!”
Ivie and Mya began toward Wynter. That meant they were coming toward me, and Danny G didn’t like it no more than I did. Everybody tried calming Wynter. I didn’t want anybody touching her.
Wynter’s hand went up
to her girlfriends, telling them to stop. “Just go in the back and get my things, please.”
Good. We were leaving.
Mya and Ivie took off.
“Fuckin’ bye, Wynter! Nobody want you here anyway!” MaMa’s drunkenness was clear now. She even slurred a little, but it was clear to me there was so much truth in her venom.
“Fuckin’ bye to you, Tabitha!” Wynter yelled and Van’s hands shot up to his head. MaMa’s mouth dropped. “I’m sick of you treating me like I’m buried with him. I never tried to bogart my way into this family. I never disrespected you.”
“You disrespected me when you was born!” MaMa’s voice was so hard, so deep.
“Your husband disrespected you when I was born!” She pointed to Reign, who now stood behind Sheldon like she was scared. “He disrespected you when she was born! He kept disrespecting you, but I’ve been the only punching bag!”
“Fuck you!” MaMa spat like she had no better words to fight with.
Asia and Van shouted at the same time.
“Aye!” Van cried. “Wanda, get her!”
“That’s not nice to say to Blue, MaMa!” Asia fell into a crying fit.
Wanda’s arms went in the air, saying she didn’t know what to do. “She talking about Daddy or Junior?”
Van shook his head like he was communicating to shut up. But it was clear to me now. Junior wasn’t Wynter’s father. Wanda wasn’t really her aunt. MaMa wasn’t her real grandmother. Van wasn’t her uncle. He was her brother. Real brother. But Reign… Reign was her real sister.
“‘Bout fuckin’ time. Get this bitch her shit so she can get the fuck out of my house,” MaMa mumbled as Ivie came back with Wynter’s pocketbook, jacket, and bags.
I couldn’t believe she was getting put out.
“Hol’ up!” Van’s palm went out to Wynter. “You ain’t leaving like this. Everybody else, get out! We ‘bout to have a family meeting.”
“Not today, you ain’t,” I told Van the nicest voice I could produce in the moment.
His heated regard swung over to me and my forehead lifted to let him know I was ready for whatever rebuttal he had. No way was I leaving Wynter in this heated position.