by Edwina Fort
As soon as NuriYah opened the door to their duplex, I saw exactly what Brooklyn meant. The first thing you see upon entering their place was a beautiful lemon tree in a huge multi-colored flowerpot.
“Beautiful,” I whispered as I followed her through her living room into her kitchen. There were plants everywhere along the way. Brooklyn was right, it looked like a jungle in here. I was so taken by them that I didn’t see the huge man standing at the kitchen island drinking something thick and green out of a shaker cup till the last minute and he scared the hell out of me.
“Oh!” I squeaked when I turned around from looking at an exotic vine that grew down the length of the hall to find him standing there. He pretended like I scared him too and jumped before chuckling to himself like he was quite used to folks having that response when they first lay eyes on him.
I blinked, shamelessly staring at the man. What the world?! He looked like he’d been sculpted from granite rock. I mean, dang it! I thought Hitta was big, this man made my husband look fragile.
Butta popped his arm. “Behave. Sis, this is my husband, Lyon. Lyon, this is Brooklyn’s cousin, Angel.”
I put my hand over my mouth, embarrassed to have been caught staring at her husband like he was on exhibit at a museum or something, but goodness, the man didn’t look human!
“Wow! I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to—to…” Stare at your husband with my mouth hanging open because I’d never seen a man so fierce. That would be just rude.
NuriYah waved away my concern. “No worries, sis, I’m used to it.”
Lyon must have been too because he didn't seem to notice me standing here at all scrutinizing him. Instead, he seemed to be thinking hard about something.
“What’s wrong with you?” Butta asked him.
“I feel like I just heard the name Angel from somewhere.” He thought for another minute before shaking his head. “It’ll come back to me. Shalom, little sista, nice to meet you. Shalom B.”
Brooklyn grinned. “What’s going on, big bro?”
He shook his head. “Not a thing. Congratulations on the new warrior. How many does that make for y’all now, 10?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. "Hahaha…very funny.”
He chuckled winking at her. Then he held up a pitcher full of that guck he was drinking. “Can I offer you ladies a cup?” Both Butta and Brooklyn made the yuck face before shaking their heads, my tongue was tied, I’d still not gotten over the initial shock of meeting him. No wonder Brooklyn responded like she did when I told her I’d never seen him.
“Why are you always trying to share that crap with our guests?” NuriYah admonished her husband.
He leaned in and kissed her cheek. “Forgive me for trying to share a healthy and tasty beverage with my lovely wife and her friends. I’m out of here, I know where I’m not wanted.” With his pitcher and shaker cup still in hand, he exited the kitchen.
Something shifted in the corner, drawing my attention. A scream of horror froze in my throat when the biggest freaking lion I have ever seen gracefully came to its feet from where it had sat quietly resting in the corner watching us, and regally followed the man out of the kitchen.
Brooklyn collapsed in laughter against the island as she pointed to me. “And I love to see folks face the first time they meet King.”
“Brooklyn, dang it! Why didn’t you warn her about King?” Butta admonished as she hurried to me and helped me ease down into a chair.
“Oh my God! That was a- that was a…” My system had taken too many shocks within the last ten minutes. Shucks, I’d never came down from the rush of walking through the front door of this place.
Where the heck was I? Nothing here felt real, Butta’s husband, his pet freaking lion, and the plants that she was growing that were only supposed to be able to grow in the African jungle.
Needless to say, it took me a little while to get used to things. Luckily, Lyon and his pet had gone back to the gym and I didn’t have them imposing on my senses, so that made it a bit easier. Well…that and NuriYah’s greenhouse. It was truly a jewel in the heart of the ghetto. It reminded me of the Garfield Park Conservatory, one of my favorite places to go and visit.
When I told Butta that, she got super animated and told me how it was her favorite place and that she had in fact designed her greenhouse after it on a smaller scale. One thing led to another and before either of us knew it, we were involved in an in-depth conversation about an herb that she was growing that only grew in Tibet. I excitedly told her how I’d just come from Tibet and had brought back some seeds for the male plant of this exact herb.
She told me I had to bring her some of the seeds, promising to grow the herb for the Tea Shop if I would. Of course, I was all over that. I wanted to leave and go to the shop and grab the seeds right then but was forced to wait till the next day because Brooklyn had been away from baby Jahaziel for too long and was already missing him.
I came back to the Lyon’s Den on the bus the next day by myself with the seeds after I got Jessie to her school bus. Instead of NuriYah showing me around her greenhouse, she followed me as I took a pinch of this, a sprig of that, and a few other items to make her a cup of tea.
“You remind me so much of SaafiYah. When she gets back from the D.R., you guys have to hook up.”
“SaafiYah was Brooklyn’s doula, right?”
Butta nodded. “Yeah, the Most High has blessed her hands with the herbs as well, but where he’s blessed you with the gift to make teas, he blessed her with the gift to make medicines for healing the body.”
I sipped my tea, thinking about her words. “Do you think I have a gift from God?”
“Absolutely!” She held up her teacup. “I told you I had a toothache and you went in there and went shopping in my garden and whipped me up a cup of relief. That’s exactly what SaafiYah does. She says the plants light up for her.”
My hand flew to my mouth as I gasped. Oh my God! That’s exactly what happens for me. I never thought about it like that because it’s always happened. It’s like the ingredients I should use in whatever tea I’m making for whoever I’m making it for stands out. Everything else looks dull. Butta grinned at me nodding.
“See? A gift from on high.”
I returned her smile. “I guess you’re right. I never looked at it that way.”
That day, she and I ended up talking for hours, all the way till it was time for me to go pick up Jessie. Our conversation was so good that she borrowed the keys to her husband’s truck to take me to meet Jessie at her bus so that we could keep talking.
When we got back to Brooklyn’s, she came in and we ended up in the sewing room, continuing our conversation over another cup of tea while Brooklyn worked on her latest masterpiece. When I tell you that I and NuriYah had so much in common, I mean we really did.
Her mom was a drug addict like mine. Her stepfather figure was a predator that had tried to have an inappropriate relationship with her. Lyon had come into her life much like Hitta had come into mine. Only she’d been the one to try and steal from him, and it was my brother that stole from Hitta. And get this…She’d left her husband for three years after he had mistakenly killed her mom.
Isn’t that wild? Hitta didn’t kill my mom, but he knew she was dead and didn’t say anything to me. It still hurt just as badly. However, Butta went on to tell me about her son Dawid and how she knew that when he was just a baby, he was going to grow up and be a great warrior like his dad. As she talked about her loss, her pain became mine. I wanted to comfort her, but I'd never lost a child, so I didn't know where to begin.
She and Lyon also had two beautiful daughters who she had to continue to live for, but it was taking all the strength she had to do that. I’d met her youngest daughter, Ginayah, who was sixteen. She worked in the greenhouse with her mom and liked to talk herbs with us. I was actually quite impressed with her knowledge.
Butta’s older daughter, Anatiyah, who they all called Ty, had not come out of her room much the
whole time I was there. There was something wrong with her that the family wasn’t talking about and since they didn’t volunteer the information, I didn’t pry.
But then something happened. Two weeks later, I was doing a little shopping in Butta’s greenhouse for the Tea Shop when a loud commotion took place over my head.
“You need to get out of the bathroom! You act like you’re the only one that has to use it!” Ginayah yelled.
I couldn’t hear Ty’s response because it was muffled, but she yelled something back to her sister. Butta was on her knees not too far from me digging up a bulb or something when she paused to look up toward the ceiling.
“Here we go…” she muttered.
“If you had treated Monroe better while he was here, you wouldn’t have to mope around like you’ve lost your best friend. You should have been a better person instead of making everybody’s life miserable!” Gina yelled.
There was a loud bang as the bathroom door was thrown open and the sound of running feet across the floor and down the stairs.
“Ma, help me! She trying to kill me!” Gina yelled as she ran around one of NuriYah’s garden beds and flew past us and out the door. Right behind her, hot on her tail, was a younger version of Butta Baby. Her long brown braids flew behind her as she leaped over the same box her little sister ran around, displaying incredible athletic ability. Wow! She was simply beautiful. And yes, ready to kill her sister.
NuriYah jumped to her feet and hurried after them. “I’ll be right back, sis. Ty, don’t you hit that girl!” she yelled before she too disappeared out the door.
Chuckling, I shook my head as I continued to look around the greenhouse for some things that I’d like to try. Against the far wall was a tiny window that was low to the ground. Butta said Lyon put it there so that he could look up and see her from time to time while in the gym. I peeped out of it as I broke off a piece of lavender and popped it in my mouth, but my hand froze midway.
Standing there in the center of the ring facing Lyon was Hitta.
“Wha??” Afraid my eyes were playing tricks on me, I stepped over the grow bed so that I could get a better look and sure enough, my husband and another man stood there listening intently as Lyon explained something to them before hunching low, demonstrating the hold he was teaching them.
I put my hand on my belly as my son chose that exact moment to deliver a big kick. Tears came to my eyes; I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
“Okay, I’m sorry about that,” Butta said coming back into the greenhouse. “My eldest daughter is driving us all crazy—” Her words died off. “Sis, you okay?” she asked when she saw I was standing there with tears in my eyes.
I pointed out the little window. “That’s my husband.”
“What?! Really?” She stepped over the garden bed joining me. “Lil Willie’s your husband?” The name she called him caught me off guard at first. Never heard anybody refer to Hitta as Little anything, but then I remembered that Hitta said when he was younger, folks called him Willie.
“Wow! What are the odds? He’s been coming here training with Lyon for a little over two months now.”
My mouth dropped. “Are you kidding me?”
She shook her head with an astonished grin on her face. “No, I kid you not. Your husband has been here this whole time.”
I turned back to look at Hitta and my gaze thirstily drank him in. He stood in the center of the ring shirtless, looking so good. I’d missed him so much. I’d told Butta the other day that I believed he’d gone back to his ex, which was why I hadn’t heard from him. And here she was telling me that he’d been here this whole time.
“When you say whole time?”
“I mean, he’s been here damn near every day for the last two months, including the shabbats. Lyon is training two of them right now, Willie and his friend, Kaleb.” She pointed to the other man in the ring. “I feed them lunch every day.”
I put my hand on my chest as I watched Kaleb and Hitta face each other and begin to grapple. But Lyon angrily stopped them and yelled at them both before demonstrating the hold he wanted them to do again.
“Girl, I wish you would have told me your husband was Lil Willie. No wonder y’all having a hard time. He’s been chosen by the Most High…” She shook her head. “Sis, I could have helped you out a long time ago.”
I sat down in the little stool that was there before I fell down. My knees felt weak and it wasn’t just because I’d gained an extra thirty pounds either.
“Haven’t you wondered why I forgave Lyon for killing my mom?” she asked as she went back to work on those bulbs.
“Yeah, I did, but I didn’t want to be nosy…you know.”
She chuckled. “It wasn’t easy, I’ll tell you that. I needed a little help.”
“What kind of help?”
She sat back on her heels and looked over at me. “If I told you, you won’t believe me.”
I gave her the really look. “So, you remember how Brooklyn and I told you we were cousins?” She nodded. “Well, we’re like cousins five times removed or something like that. And get this… So is Noach, because he’s one of Greatie’s children too.”
“Wait, so Brooklyn and her ish are cousins?” I nodded. Now it was her giving me the really look.
So, I went on to explain how it was and after I was finished, she had a look of amazement on her face.
“Wow, so there really are others out there like the Preacher.” She laughed. “In that case, me and Lyon are cousins too; we both came from the Preacher’s bloodline.”
“You know the Preacher? Greatie told me Hitta was one of his children too!”
“Oh yeah…” Then she went on to tell me how she knew the Preacher and she helped me understand a little more about the mysterious man.
Needless to say, after sharing those odd stories, she felt more comfortable telling me about who helped her to be able to forgive Lyon for killing her mom.
“An angel came to visit me.”
Wow! I was not expecting her to say that, but okay, we’ve started this journey, might as well walk it out.
“He told me that my son was going to need his father. And then he explained to me what a warrior of Yah is.”
“What are they?”
She chuckled. “Rough, bossy, hard…” Her gaze came to mine and the smile left her face. “Destroyers of evil.”
This was almost exactly what Lannox had told me through the Preacher.
“What does that mean?”
“It mean they kill, sis. They’re not like regular people. They’re demon slayers, natural born killers. It comes easy to them.”
“How are you alright with that?”
“I’ve never seen Lyon kill anyone who didn’t deserve it.”
“But your mom?”
“The angel helped me to see that all things worked together for the good for those whose trust is in Yah. My mother had died years before that day. Her body was just a shell being inhabited by foul beings and her time had come. The angel also showed me what would have happened if by some chance she had not died that day. She would have corrupted my children and I would have a whole other set of problems. It’s like cause and effect. The Most High removes obstacles from our path before we know they’re a problem.”
“It’s an intricate web, but Yah knows every grain and every detail. Nobody dies unless it is His will and nobody lives unless it is His will. To love a man like your husband and mine is to understand that they are weapons in the hands of the Heavenly Father and have been chosen to clean the earth of some of its most vile evils. That is a hard job that nobody wants to do. But we’ve,” she gestured between me and her, “we’ve been chosen to be their comfort because even Yah’s weapons of war need comfort sometimes. And I’ve learned to cherish those moments.”
She smiled. “Do you know even till this day whenever my husband gets sick, he refuses to feed himself. He likes for me to sit on the bed and spoon feed him.”
My mouth drop
ped… “Noooooo!” No way that fierce mountain of a man liked to be spoon-fed.
She nodded chuckling. “Yes, girl. He is the deadliest man I know, but he can also be the biggest kid. He gets in these moods and he wants to play.” Her chuckling turned into laughter. “Sometimes he can be as immature as the children. And… I love that about him.”
As she continued to talk, I thought about the way Hitta gets with his headaches. It’s true, he did turn into a big baby. And yeah… I did love that about him. In fact, he never showed me the side of him that Stan saw. I didn’t even know it existed.
I missed seeing him and Jessie going at it at the PlayStation and him doing something like reaching over and covering her eyes with his big hand, making her lose. She would get so mad at him she would jump up and try to beat him to death and he’d just laugh while teasing her. Then there was the time he decided he was going to teach me how to box because he said I hit like a girl. We went down to the basement and he tried to do just that, but he was such a horny man, we didn’t make it far before he was pulling me into the laundry room, locking the door behind us.
Dang, I missed him so much… I know, I’m pathetic, right? Anyway, I asked NuriYah if she didn’t mind if I sat there and watched him for a little while.
“Girl naw, take all the time you need. Mi casa es su casa.”
“Can you do me a favor and not tell him I’m here? Can you tell Lyon not to mention anything as well?”
She nodded before a devious grin came on her face. “Soooo, you want to spy on him?” She might as well be rubbing her hands together while laughing sinisterly. I see Lyon was not the only immature parent around these parts.
God, I would have loved to have had them for parents. Chuckling, I nodded my head. “Yeah, I guess.”
“That sounds like a good idea to me. You can watch Lyon abuse those poor fellas.” She shook her head. “I don’t know how they put up with it. Anyway, just call me if you need something, I’ll be in the kitchen starting dinner.”
Now, before y’all get on me and tell me my pathetic level has grown to an all-time high, I just want to say. . . I don’t care.
