And I could tell the whole scene was breaking Jo’s heart, making her feel bad, and it wasn’t her fault. If it was anyone’s, it was mine. So I took Ella home in Jo’s truck with my security following us in mine. “You wanna tell me what your problem is?” I asked, cutting through the silence filling the vehicle.
“Nothing,” she mumbled.
“Oh, it’s something wrong with you to act like you did tonight. You don’t like Jo?”
I glanced at her in time to see her roll her eyes.
“Ella, let me tell you something, unless you having a seizure, don’t roll them eyes at me no more. You got a mouth. Tell me what’s wrong with you.”
“She’s a gold digger, Daddy. Everybody knows that except for you.” Her eyes were on the street ahead of us.
“Where you get that from? Tea Steepers, The Hip-Hop Scoop, Wendy Williams?”
“I got it from this car I’m sitting in that you posted all over your Instagram, telling everyone you bought it for her with her standing beside it. You haven’t even bought me a car!”
“You can’t drive, Ella.”
“I know, and anyway, she lives in that neighborhood in that house and got a baby by Bugz. Now she’s with you. Two rich rappers? That’s got ‘gold digger’ written all over it. She’s gonna hurt you, Daddy.”
I sighed. “She was with Bugz before he got famous. She basically took care of him, helped him start his career.”
She looked over at me. “That’s what she told you?”
“It’s the truth, common knowledge if you look at when they got married.”
Shifting her eyes back to the street, she asked, “Why’d you get her this car?”
“Because I wanted to. Because she deserves it.”
“How? With sex?”
“Hold up now!”
“That must be it since you’re yelling at me now.”
I blew out a breath. “Look, I’m trying to talk to you, hear you out and find out why you felt the need to embarrass me tonight, but let’s not forget that I’m the adult here, Ella. I don’t answer to you, and you don’t get to just talk to me any kinda way. I see how you talk to your mom on that show. Your relationship with her is one thing. I ain’t her by a long shot. You gonna respect me if nothing else.”
“Sorry,” she muttered.
“And I don’t care how you feel about Jo, you gon’ respect her, too. And you better not ever be mean to her little girl again. She’s innocent. You were wrong to treat her like that.”
“I know…just feels like you’re replacing me with her.”
I almost ran into the car in front of me. “What? Babygirl, you’re always gonna be my princess. I care about Nat, but no one can take your place in my heart.”
She glanced over at me with softened eyes. “Really, Daddy?”
“Yeah! Hey, I just want you to be comfortable with Jo…because she ain’t going nowhere if I can help it.”
“Are you living with her, Daddy?”
“Right now, yeah. But I’m looking for another place.”
“For you and her?”
“And Nat and you, when you wanna visit.”
“You gonna marry her?”
“Maybe.”
“Does Mom know?”
“It’s not her business to know, Ella.”
“You know, she still thinks you two will get back together. I mean, I’ve always known better, but she just…she’s gonna have a hard time with you marrying someone else.”
I sighed. “I never did or said anything to make her believe we’d get back together.”
“I know.”
“I can’t change the way she feels, and I can’t give up my happiness for her, either.”
“Yeah, I can tell you’re happy.”
“Then can you be happy for me, and be nice to Jo the next time you see her? She’s really nice, and believe me, she’s no gold digger. I’d know.”
“Okay, I’ll try.”
“Try?”
“Okaaaaay! I’ll be nicer to her.”
“Thanks, princess.”
*****
Music greeted me at the door when I made it back to Jo’s house. DeBarge’s All this Love blasted from the speakers of her stereo system as she and Nat danced around the living room. Closing the door, I stood there for a moment and watched, thought about how much I loved her and Nat, how different my life was now with them in it, how lonely I had been before without even realizing it.
If I was to tell the truth, I’d admit I was culpable in my marriage ending because I was always working, always in the studio or on the road, and I never even slowed down to properly raise Ella, but I should’ve. I could clearly see that now. I lost one family, but would do anything in my power not to lose this one and to try to be more present in Ella’s life.
When Jo looked up and saw me, she jumped and slapped her hand to her chest. “You scared me!” she yelled over the music.
I smiled when Nat realized I was there and ran to me. Picking her up, I closed my eyes for a second as she wrapped her little arms around my neck. Then I opened them, and asked Jo, “What you know about DeBarge, youngin’?”
Lowering the music, she said, “They were my mom’s favorite, along with Diana Ross and Dolly Parton.”
I walked over to the couch and plopped down. Nat slid out of my lap. “Be right back!” she said, and then grabbed one of her lions from the floor before returning to me.
“Wow, your mom had eclectic taste in music,” I observed.
Jo sat down next to me, placing her hand on the thigh Nat wasn’t occupying. “Is that a nice way of saying she was all over the place?”
“No. Just means she had a good ear and didn’t discriminate about her music. She liked what sounded good to her. It’s the same for me.”
“Yeah. Did I tell you I’m named after that Dolly Parton song, ‘Jolene?’ She just split it up, made my first name Jo and my middle name Lena instead of Lene.”
“For real?”
She nodded and shifted her eyes from my face to the floor in front of her. “She was…my mom was so pretty, beautiful. She was a little taller than me with smooth brown skin. No freckles, no gap in her teeth, no weird-colored hair. She was perfection. She believed in fairy tales, loved to laugh, thought women should have great affairs like Liz Taylor and marry ten times if that’s what it took to get it right. She only wore dresses and heels no matter where she went. Never left the house without a full face of makeup. She was fun when she was happy, the best mom in the world who couldn’t cook or clean and would let me have cake for breakfast and candy for dinner.
“But as fun as she was, it was like being raised by a kid. I didn’t have any boundaries, and if she had a boyfriend, she’d tell me about them, everything about them. She couldn’t hold a job, because if she didn’t feel like going, she just wouldn’t. And the depression? When that would hit her, I’d go from having a child for a parent to no parent at all.”
She stood from the sofa and walked over to the stereo, turning to face me. “There was this one time she told me I was finally going to meet my father. She’d called him, and he was coming to town from wherever he lived. See, I was the product of a summer fling between the two of them, and he’d disappeared before she was out of her first trimester, so that’s why I didn’t know him. I was in middle school when she told me about the upcoming visit, and I was so excited, almost as excited as she was. She told me about how my father was the great love of her life and that they were going to get back together. She was convinced of it, that we’d finally be a family. Shoot, she convinced me, too.
“Ev, I lied when I said I’ve never seen him. When I got home from school that day, my mom was in her bedroom with the door locked, so I went to my room to do my homework. When I came out to get a snack, I saw him walking out the front door. I said, ‘Daddy?’ and he stopped for a second before walking out the door without even saying a word to me or looking at me. So I saw the back of him. One time in my twenty-eight years, I sa
w the back of my father’s body. I have his hair. I guess…I guess he was ashamed to look at me, or ashamed of me? I don’t know. I haven’t figured that part out yet.”
“Jo, baby—”
“After that, she didn’t leave her bedroom for weeks, wouldn’t talk to me, didn’t go to work. We ran out of food first, but our neighbor was nice enough to start feeding me dinner every day when she caught me trying to steal food from the little neighborhood grocery store. Then our lights got cut off. Then my teacher called child services because I was going to school with dirty clothes on. Mama got committed, and I had to go to a group home because no one in her family would take me in. I mean, that wasn’t really a surprise since I’d never even met my mom’s family. It was always just us, because from what I was told, they washed their hands of her after she got pregnant with me. She embarrassed them by getting knocked up by the young preacher my preacher grandfather had taken under his wing. They blamed her, although she was only eighteen and he was in his thirties.
“Anyway, I guess they saw me as an extension of their embarrassment, so I had to stay in that group home for four months. It was where I met Bridgette, and I’m thankful for that, because she taught me how to survive. After my mom got out and they let her have me again, she wasn’t the same. She was never happy again. The medicine just seemed to numb her, but at least she could function, and we had money because she started getting what folks back home called a ‘crazy check.’ I was young, but I put two and two together pretty easily. She and my father were in that room doing what grown folks do, and when it was over, he must’ve told her the family fantasy she had would never be a reality. She wasn’t a whole person ever again after that, but she was a better mother in some ways. There was real food there, at least. But she tended to obsess over things, and she never stopped obsessing over what could’ve been with my father. She talked about it all the time until the day she died.”
“How’d she die? Was she sick?” I asked softly, trying not to wake up Nat, who’d fallen asleep in my lap.
“She took an overdose of her sleeping pills the night of my high school graduation. I was out partying with Bridgette, who was in the same graduating class as me, and when I made it home late that night, I found my mother and a note telling me that I was grown now and didn’t need her anymore, so she decided to kill herself. But I did need her. I really did. She was…she was all I had. All I’d ever had besides Bridgette. She was my world.”
I watched as the first tear fell, gently laid Nat on the sofa, and walked over to Jo, pulling her into my arms. “Baby, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay. I just…it was hard. It was a lot to deal with at eighteen. Our neighbor helped me plan her funeral. There really wasn’t any money, but the funeral home director felt sorry for me and put me on a payment plan. I had to get a job, but wasn’t even able to get her a headstone. She still doesn’t have one, because I just…can’t. Do you know I met my grandparents and aunt for the first time at her funeral? They were so cold, didn’t try to start a relationship with me or anything. They just showed up and left when it was over. I was in such a bad place back then…I probably would’ve lost my mind if I hadn’t eventually come out here and stayed with Bridgette.”
“Baby…”
She looked up at me with a wet face. “I said all that to say this: if you need to end this for Ella, I’ll understand. She doesn’t like me. I know she doesn’t, and I don’t expect you to choose me over her. Family is something I never really had, but I know it’s everything. That’s why I have taken so much crap off of Sid. I want Nat to at least have some kind of family. Look, if you have to let me go for Ella, I won’t hold it against you. I mean, what good am I to you anyway? There’ll always be people talking about me because of my past with Sid, and you obviously don’t want any kids by me and—”
I held her damp face in my hands and looked into her eyes. “Jo, what I tell you about talking down on yourself?”
“I-I’m sorry, but it’s the truth. What purpose am I serving you? It’s not like you need me.”
“Are you outta your damn mind? Of course I need you! You think I’ma let you go? Ella will be fine. She’ll grow to love you as much as I do. It’ll just take time. She’s only seen you twice.”
“But what if she doesn’t? What if she never likes me?”
“Then she’ll just have to respect you and my decision to be with you. I love you from the depths of my fucking soul, never felt anything like this before. You and Nat are as much a part of my heart as Ella; you just occupy different compartments. We’ll work through all of this. I talked to her, heard her out, and let her know disrespecting you and Nat won’t be tolerated.”
“Everett, you didn’t—”
“Yeah, I did. She was wrong for acting like that, and I’ve been wrong to let Esther handle raising her damn near alone. It’s a lot of shit I gotta fix. But the bottom line is I love my daughter and I love you. Neither one of you is going anywhere.”
“Everett, I—”
“And earlier, about the whole pregnancy thing? I was upset because I thought you were keeping it from me. Jo, I got a kid by a motherfucker I despise; you think I wouldn’t want one by a woman I love?”
“But you loved Esther, didn’t you?”
“Shit, I don’t even know anymore. I used to think I did, but I couldn’t have, because I didn’t feel for her what I feel for you. I was young and she was Esther Reese. A damn icon. Everybody wanted her and she wanted me. I mean, I cared about her, but this? Nothing compares to this. I’m not letting you go no matter what, okay?”
She leaned into me and nodded. “Okay.”
“And Jo?”
“Yeah?”
“Fuck your father and your mother’s family. You got Bridgette and the makeup chick and Nat and Ms. Sherry, and me. We’re your family, and I, for one, love the shit outta you.”
She squeezed her arms around me, and said, “I love you, too.”
24
“Trick or treat!” Everett and I yelled for the fiftieth time, while Nat backed us up with a “Rawr!”
She was dressed as Simba from The Lion King. I was Timon, and Everett was supposed to be Scar, but since he was wearing a white track suit and a random lion mask with a squiggle of a beard drawn on it with a permanent marker, no one could tell. He had insisted on going trick-or-treating with us, was more excited than Nat, and even though Tommy was trailing us around my neighborhood making us look out of place, we were having a good time and garnered only a few stares. This was my first year taking her trick-or-treating, and everyone in my neighborhood had been super nice and Nat had scored a boatload of candy.
“You settle on a dress for the NHHAs yet?” he asked, as he carried Nat to the next house. He was referring to the National Hip Hop Awards show we were supposed to be attending in a couple of weeks. While I searched for a dress for the show, I also had to get prepared to travel with him to Texas for Thanksgiving. Things were growing more and more hectic, but I was happy and enjoying this journey I was taking with Everett.
Our days were spent together either around my house or out and about. Occasionally, he’d leave for a meeting or something else business related, to go to work in the studio, or to spend one-on-one time with Ella. But for the most part, we were always together and I loved it.
“Not yet,” I finally answered him. “You decide what songs you’re gonna do at the awards show?”
“Since I’m getting the Lifetime Achievement honor, I’m thinking I should do a medley of my biggest hits, maybe throw something new in there. I don’t know. I’ll figure it out.”
“Trick or treat!” we both yelled on cue at the next house.
“Rawr!” Nat offered.
The lady dropped the candy into Nat’s bucket, and Nat yelled, “Thank you!”
As we moved on, Everett said, “Dang, they gave you a whole Butterfinger. You gonna share with me, Nat?”
She just grinned at him and nodded. I didn’t bother asking her for f
ear of being rejected since she was totally and completely Team Everett. I’d just steal some after she fell asleep.
By the time we made it home, Nat was knocked out, so I decided to skip her bath and just eased her costume off her before tucking her in. I took my own costume off, threw on a t-shirt, and headed back to the living room to find Everett sifting through Nat’s candy which he’d spread out on the coffee table next to his discarded lion mask.
“I’ma tell Nat you’re robbing her,” I said, as I sat down beside him.
“She ain’t gonna believe you. That’s my buddy. You just mad because you ain’t in the Nat and Everett club. Anyway, she said she was sharing with me, so stop hating.”
“She don’t know what the word share means. She just heard you ask a question and nodded. Hey, let me have those Milk Duds.”
He handed the tiny package to me. “Here. Me and Nat don’t want that nasty shit anyway.”
Ripping the package open, I rebutted, “Milk Duds are the bomb. You and Nat don’t know what y’all are missing.”
As he tore a mini Snickers open and popped it in his mouth, he said, “You crazy as hell.”
We sat in silence, shamelessly eating my baby’s candy until Everett said, “Jo, would you—can we—I want us to move in together.”
I stopped chewing. “What? I mean, don’t you basically live here already?”
“I do, but I mean, officially.”
“Um, you spend every night and most days here. You even sleep in my bed instead of in the guest room now. What’s not official about that?”
“What I mean is, our own house.”
“This is my house, and I’m saying it can be yours, too.”
“But it has memories of your old life with Bugz attached to it. I want something that was never his and isn’t just yours. Something that’ll be ours.”
“Oh…okay. Um…”
“I already bought a house.”
“You what? Where?”
“In Calabasas. It’s empty right now. I wanna show it to you once I get it furnished. Or do you wanna help with that?”
Let Me Love You (McClain Brothers Book 1) Page 16
