by Jahquel J
It pained me that my uncle killed Zamari’s father. If that didn’t make matters worse, he basically tossed us out on the streets. Ro came to the hospital room and handed me this baby carrier, diaper bag and a bag of clothes for myself. Ro was hurt and I could tell from his expression he wore. He could barely look me in the eyes and each time I tried to speak he would hold up his hand to silence me. As much as he was hurt, I was too. My baby would be born without a father because his great-uncle decided to murder him. Why couldn’t he understand that I was hurting too? I had to deliver my baby the same day that his father was murdered. Did he understand the psychological damage that could do to a person? Having to celebrate my son’s birthday on the day his father was brutally murdered right in front of me. Zoe had his shit with him, but did he deserve to die? Did he deserve to be taken from his family and child? No. No one did and that’s not what Ro understood. His mother not only had to bury his little sister, but now she was burying her son too.
The door swung open and a woman with blonde colored dreads pulled on top of her head stood at the door. “Can I help you?” she questioned with a hint of annoyance in her voice.
“H...” I cleared my voice. “Hi, my name is Kiss Mooney. Me and you...” I got choked up but caught myself. “Me and Zoe were dating.”
“Girl, every little fast tail with a short skirt and high heel has come by here claiming that. Did you think because you came with a carrier that it would be different? I don’t have time to play these games. I lost my son and daughter. Please leave my property.” She turned to close the door.
“He gave me this.” I pulled out a gold rosary that Zoe insisted that I put on our son the moment he came out the womb. Because I had a C-section, I couldn’t bring it into the room, but I held onto it since the day he gave it to me.
She gently took the rosary away from me and stared at it like it was magic or something. Her eyes got moist and she looked at me. “Is this Zoe’s child?”
I nodded my head.
She bent down and pulled the blanket off the carrier and gasped when she looked at him. “He looks just like my Zoe-Zoe when he was a little one,” she wiped the tear from her face.
I spent so much of my pregnancy hiding and being angry with Zoe that imagine my surprise, his son came out looking just like him with a head full of thick and curly hair.
“I’m sorry about your loss.” I touched her shoulder and she jumped slightly. Her body was so tense. Losing two children probably did that to you. “I loved Zoe so much. We have nowhere to go and I’m scared,” I broke down crying.
When I was discharged, I had to be strong. I had to put my big girl pants on and get rolled out that hospital like I had a plan. The truth of the matter was that I had no plan and nowhere to go. Ro told me that my home was no longer mine, and Justice told me that she couldn’t get involved with me and my uncle’s drama. It hurt me because I thought I could trust her out of everyone. I knew she didn’t want to step on toes, but I needed her more than I had ever needed anyone, and she declined to help me. I took a long bus ride, walked down long blocks, and climbed a hill, all while keeping a brave face. I could feel the warmth of her home and it made me break down and cry into her arms.
“My Zareena bean wasn’t too much older than you,” she whispered. “Come inside,” she picked us both up off the floor. I went to grab the carrier and she stopped me. “I’ll grab him.”
She welcomed me into the craftsman style house and closed the door behind me. There were pictures of Zoe, Zeek and Zareena all over the home. She had figurines and other family pictures around too. I sat on the velvet red couch and closed my eyes. After all I had gone through to make it to her home, sitting on this couch felt like I was sitting on a small piece of a cloud. She sat the carrier down beside me.
“Where are your parents?” she asked as she went into the kitchen. “I’ll make some tea.”
“My mother died when I was younger, and my father wasn’t really in my life.” I replied. “My uncle kicked me out because of our issues we have with each other.” I couldn’t sit here and tell her that I was mad with my uncle because he killed her son. People could be forgiving, but not that forgiving.
She came back with a tray with a tea pot, two cups and cubes of sugar with small stirring spoons. “You’re just a baby yourself.” She sighed.
“I don’t have time to be a baby. I have to be a woman and a mother to my son. Zamari deserves that.”
“Zamari,” she smiled as she poured tea into my cup and then sat the tea kettle down. I watched as she gently pulled him out of the carrier and snuggled him closely. “Just feeling a piece of Zoe next to me has made this week better than the last,” she spoke out loud.
“I can’t imagine what you’re going through. If something was to ever happen to Zamari, I wouldn’t know what I would do.” It was the truth. The moment my son was pulled from inside of me, I felt a love so strong that I was willing to kill for it. My son meant the world to me. Everything about him made me want to be a better person for him. He didn’t deserve to be born into our situation, but I’d be damn if this remained our situation. I wanted to give my son more because he deserved more.
“I sit back and think of all the silly arguments we had. How I would kill to have just one of those arguments right now. I would even let him have his way,” she let out a chuckle. “Zoe was so stubborn, like me. We butted heads a few times, but we could never let the day close without making up. I just miss my son,” she spoke up into the ceiling. “Just one more moment with both my babies.”
I reached out and touched her hand. “They both are going to look over you. I’m praying for your comfort in this situation.” She kissed Zamari on the forehead.
“Thank you.”
I took a sip of my tea. “I should feed him soon. I couldn’t breastfeed on the bus,” I replied, and she handed me the baby.
I wiggled out of my coat and lifted my shirt. Zamari latched on quickly and started to feed from me right away. “I welcomed you into my home and haven’t even introduced myself. Everyone calls me Sassi,” she broke our silence. “You know… Zoe always told me that he wanted to be a police officer. I always laughed because I knew in the neighborhood we lived in, it wouldn’t take him long to hate the police that failed to protect us. With Zeek being older, I never expected him to get so knee deep in the streets. The streets took my babies and didn’t give a damn about how I felt,” she sniffled as tears fell down her eyes.
“Again, I’m so sorry. There’s nothing I can do to take that pain away from you. Zoe is inside Zamari. He left a small piece of him that we need to embrace and love.”
“You’re right,” she agreed. “Now, I know you’re a single mother and young. I have no problem taking guardianship of my grandson so that I can raise him up right.”
I snapped my neck because she was bugging with what she had suggested. “Um, I have no plans on giving my baby up. I’m going to raise my son up good and go to college,” I explained to her.
“How? You’re in my living room crying about not having anywhere to go. How can you give this baby a good life being homeless?”
I stopped breastfeeding Zamari and gathered his things up, slipped him in his snow suit and into his car seat. This woman wasn’t about to attack me and think that I was going to sit here and put up with this shit. She was wrong.
“I don’t have much, but I will. I’d go home and beg my uncle before I allow someone else to take my baby from me.”
“I don’t mean to upset you. As a mother you have to think logically. You can’t run around here without a roof over your head when you have a baby to provide for.”
“Who are you to tell me what I can and cannot do? Can I have my rosary back?” I held my hand out and she reluctantly dropped it in the palm of my hands, before I carried the carrier and our bags to the front door. Putting the carrier down, I opened the front door and Zeek was about to stick his key in the door.
“The hell you doing here, Kiss?” Even w
ith the beef he had with my uncles, he never treated me different. He always said that we had nothing to do with the decisions our families made.
“I had nowhere else to go with the baby. Your mom is tripping thinking that I’m going to sign my baby over to her. I’m sorry about y’all’s loss, but this baby is mine,” I replied and struggled down the stairs while he stood there confused.
“She wants to take the baby?”
“Uh huh. Look, Zeek… I know shit is bad now between you and my uncles, I get that. Please leave me and my baby out of it. I’ve lost my baby’s father and first love, that’s enough,” I pleaded with him. I didn’t need to plead for my uncle’s lives because Zeek was as good as dead. They had taken two lives for the price of Summer’s death. There was no stopping them once they fucked with one of us but being that me and my uncle were on the outs and I was out here alone, I needed his reassurance that we were good.
“As bad as I want to get at your uncles, you’re always going to be good with me. Enough innocent blood shed has been spilled. Seeing my mother hurt and blame me for my brother and sister’s death is enough for me to leave everyone that is innocent out of our beef.” You could tell that Zeek was breaking, if he wasn’t already broken. His eyes didn’t appear to be the same, he seemed smaller and zoned out too.
“Like I told your mother, I’m sorry about the death of your siblings. Be well.” I turned my back and struggled back down the hill and the two blocks like I came. It sucked that me and Zoe’s mother couldn’t connect on the love we shared for her son. Instead, she was so focused on trying to keep a small piece of Zoe to herself. I didn’t know where I was going, but I knew that wherever I went, my son was coming right with me.
“You really need to just come home,” Justice said as she hugged and kissed all over Zamari.
We sat in Brothers pizza on Broad street. I had come here to grab some Chinese food from my favorite spot, but while waiting, we decided to grab some garlic knots to share. When I finally found a charger, I had over a dozen messages from Justice. It hurt that I didn’t see any messages from Ro. Were we really in such a bad place that he didn’t care to check on me? When I called Justice, she didn’t hesitate to take one of Ro’s cars and meet me in Stapleton. Last night I spent the night riding the ferry from the Staten Island side to the Manhattan side because I didn’t have anywhere to go or any money. I wished like hell I had saved the money that Ro tossed at us on the regular. Even my savings account, he terminated my card and denied my access. That money would have come in handy and I needed it badly. My breasts were sore, and my eyes felt like they were about to bust out my head because I was so tired.
“No. Jus, he hasn’t called or cared about me. Roshon thinks he’s right and hasn’t once considered that he hurt me.” I lowered my voice and leaned over. “He killed my baby’s father in front of me and hasn’t apologized to me once.”
“I understand. He should have spoken to you about that because that is probably one of the hardest things you’ve been through, besides losing your mother.”
“He knows how death affects me and he didn’t give a damn about my feelings. I’m trying so hard to be strong and raise my baby, but I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. Me and my baby shouldn’t be sleeping on the ferry,” I sighed and leaned back on the seat.
“Woah, what? You guys are sleeping on the Ferry? Kiss, it’s the end of February and he’s a preemie, although he’s big, he was still a couple weeks early from your original due date.”
“What else am I supposed to do? I don’t have any money or anything.”
She sighed and then reached into her purse while she held my baby. “Get you guys a hotel room. It’s not much, but this should be enough for a few nights until I think of something.”
I appreciated that she cared enough to make sure that I was good. With her and Ro being together, I knew she probably felt like she was in the middle of our beef. She didn’t have to care or offer to help me out of my situation.
“Thank you, Justice. I really appreciate it,” I accepted the money and put it inside of my purse.
“We need to find a solution between you and your uncle. You’re doing more harm to your baby by staying out here. Come on and apologize to him.”
“Apologize? You got me fucked up. I’m not apologizing for anything that I did. My life is my own and Ro can’t control the decisions I’ve made. He should come and apologize to me, what the fuck did I do to him?”
“Let’s start by how ungrateful you are, Kiss. That man put his life on hold to make sure you girls stayed out of foster care. He could have signed those papers and you and your sisters would have been a ward of the state. Instead, he put his dreams, goals, and life on hold to make sure he could give you guys a better life. That man has missed out on so much because he worries about you and your sisters so much. He’s in his thirties, did you ever think that maybe he wanted kids or a wife?”
I folded my arms because she was pissing me off. “How could you blame me for what he chose to do when I was like six or seven? I had no control over his decision and even if I did, I was fucking seven.”
She laughed to herself before she spoke. “You’re seventeen now. Have you once said thank you? You couldn’t control or understand much then, but you damn sure could control now and you haven’t once opened your mouth and said thank you. Even being pregnant, your uncle has made sure that you were good, and you didn’t give a damn about him. He has niggas gunning for his head, have you cared?”
“Ro is too smart to get caught up like that.” I rolled my eyes.
My uncle tried to keep me away, but I heard all about him and knew what he was capable of. The boys in my private school had no clue, but the boys at New Dorp High school and Curtis High school knew all about my uncle and what he could do. Even with how angry and hurt I was with him, I still prayed over him and my sisters daily. I couldn’t bare losing my uncle to the streets.
“Justice, I’m sick of hearing about this. You should be on my side. Especially since he’s having a damn baby with Marisol.” She didn’t look shocked or hurt by what I had just revealed to her.
“You didn’t think I knew?” she smirked and put Zamari back into his car seat. “I’m a grown woman and I know how to open my mouth and speak. Your uncle was honest, unlike your baby’s father. You’ve been fucking that man and he’s been fucking my trans cousin. Get yourself checked out and no, I’m not excusing your mentality because of your age. You’re smart enough for everything else, but this situation just won’t get through your thick skull. It’s because you don’t want it to.” She put money on the table to pay for the garlic knots and then got up to leave.
I sucked my teeth, finished my garlic knots, and then went to pick up my French fries and chicken wings with hot sauce and ketchup squeezed all over them. It was something about New York City’s Chinese restaurants. The one thing I learned was that the best food came from the hood.
“I knew that looked like you,” I heard a familiar voice as I dug into my purse to pay the Chinese lady through the bullet proof partition. When I turned around, I smiled when I noticed it was Reese.
Reese was a little older than me, but I knew him like everyone else did; from the hood. Whenever I went over my friend’s house, I was right in Stapleton chilling with some other girls from the public high schools on Staten Island. We had spoken a few times. He always kept an eye on me because of who my uncles were.
“Hey! What’s up?”
“Shit, bout to head home to sleep until tonight. I was heading to grab me some food from the corner store,” he replied as we hugged. Reese was so fine, and he was always dressed to death. His light brown complexion, big nose, juicy lips, and bedroom eyes always drew me in. His hair was a short afro that he allowed to get nappy. He put me in the mindset of the rapper Lil baby. They always said everyone had a twin, and this was definitely his twin.
“Oh, word? I was grabbing some food before heading to the ferry.”
I had to head
to the ferry so I could catch the bus from the terminal to a hotel over on South avenue. Staten Island didn’t have many hotels and the ones we did have were all on the other side of the island. Even though me and Justice got into it, I appreciated her for giving me money. She had given me enough for a few days and that was more than enough time to figure out what I was going to do after I had to check out.
“Word? Let me grab my food from the corner store and I’ll drive you to where you going,” he offered.
“I’m good with taking the bus. I have to go to the other side of the island.”
“Lucky for you, I stay in snug harbor,” he laughed. “You good,” he told me as we walked out the Chinese restaurant.
“Reese, I’m good... I promise.”
“Why the fuck you taking the bus anyway? Let me hit Priest,” he pulled his phone and I stopped him.
“We’re not on good terms right now. I’m going to stay at the Hilton on South avenue. You can drop me off, just don’t call my uncle.”
“Yeah, I heard. I still can’t believe that nigga Zoe is a booty wrangler,” he shook his head. “Myla cool and all, but I don’t swing that way.” He shook his head.
“Well damn, I did just lose my child’s father.”
