Side Chick Catching Main Chick Feelings 2

by B. M. Hardin

Well, unless you have to.

  But in his case he didn’t.

  He just wanted to.

  “He’s a man. He’s going to make mistakes Moe.”

  Of course I filled Daddy in on what had happened and I was surprised that he was speaking up on his behalf.

  “Considering what happened to you, if the little girl is his, that could be a good thing. Even for you. Cant’ you see the good in it all? You’ve always wanted kids, and in some way, now you would have one. She’s still young. You would be the only mother that she knows and remembers pretty soon. Maybe it isn’t all that bad,” Daddy spoke and then answered the call from the detective.

  I’d told them that I’d spotted Vicki in the airport and they were supposed to request footage.

  I tried to give as many details as possible and they were calling to say that they would have the tapes soon and would call once they had something.

  Lee Lee’s car was found a few houses down from Vicki’s house.

  The owners of the house said they woke up and the car was just parked in front of their house.

  When they returned from work later on that evening to find it still there, that’s when they called it in.

  I don’t know, but something definitely seemed fishy.

  Maybe Chardonnay had been right.

  Maybe Lee Lee was fine and maybe she didn’t want to be found.

  But then that brings the question as to why Vicki would have started running from me once she saw me?

  She was running as though she was running for her life so in my mind she acted guilty.

  She was guilty of something, but what?

  I was confused and too much was happening all at once.

  Things just weren’t making sense.

  Daddy and I chatted for a while longer and soon a knock interrupted our conversation.

  It was Drake.

  “Come home.”

  “Nope.”

  Immediately he started rambling.

  I didn’t listen to hardly a word he said until he held up the piece of paper.

  “She lied. She is my daughter. I don’t know how she did it or what strings she pulled but this test says that she is mine. Naomi’s daughter is mine. The first time we’d gone to take the test together because I told her of my concerns that I wasn’t the father. Apparently she didn’t want me to be either. She didn’t care if that meant that the prenup would be void or anything. She just wanted the baby to be Kane’s. But she isn’t. She’s mine. And this little girl is going to need a father…and a mother,” he said looking at me.

  I knew she had been his all along so I wasn’t all that shocked by the results, but I wasn’t happy about them either.

  Now what?

  Was I just supposed to raise her as my own?

  What about the other baby?

  “What about the other baby?”

  “Well, I personally went to visit Kane,” he said.

  Really?

  And he didn’t try to kill him?

  “And?”

  “And he’s out of it. He didn’t know who I was. He didn’t know who Naomi was. He didn’t even remember the kids. They only have him still at the hospital because Jinx is paying them big bucks to keep him, and to keep watching over him and testing him to see if he can get his memory back. But he’s a lost cause. Eventually she’s just going to have to take him home and deal with the new him. And Jinx absolutely refused to take the baby. She said that she wasn’t raising a bastard and that Kane not remembering the baby was the only good thing about him losing his memory. She wouldn’t even give me any information on his family, so I had to find them myself. They are going to take care of the baby. They were going to take her daughter too, but since she’s mine and not Kane’s, she’s our responsibility now.”

  I just looked at him.

  I wasn’t sure of what I wanted to say.

  The little girl wasn’t but a little over year, maybe almost two, I think, so she was still pretty young.

  My mind was trying to sort it all out but I was going to need some time.

  It still didn’t change the fact that he had been running around lying to me for no reason, and I still felt like there was something that he wasn’t telling.

  “Dray I just need space to think.”

  “You can think at home.”

  “No, I cant.”

  He looked at me for a while but I knew that he understood, even though he still wasn’t happy about it.

  “Well, when you’re ready, we will be there waiting for you,” he said and he turned to leave.

  I closed the door and turned around to find Daddy standing there.

  “Forgive him and go home Moet,” he said.

  “I know Daddy. Maybe tomorrow.”

  Of course he’d forgiving me recently so it was only right that I eventually got over what he’d done but he needed to work for it or at least feel like there would be real consequences if he ever lied to me again.

  We were past that in our relationship, at least that’s what we’d agreed on, but he didn’t keep his word.

  And I had to make sure that he knew that if he ever did it again he would regret it.

  I entered my old room for the first time to find that it still looked the exact same.

  Nothing had been moved around and nothing had been changed.

  It was clean so Daddy must have kept up cleaning it every now and then when he had nothing else to do.

  Before then, I was sure that Mama probably went and dusted it and changed the bedding here and there for no reason.

  I sat there and just looked around.

  Though I’d been to the house since Mama passed away, I hadn’t bothered to come to the room.

  It brought back so many memories.

  We’d shared so many moments there.

  So much laughter and love.

  And now Mama was gone and Lee Lee was missing.

  And now Naomi was dead and we were now going to be raising the daughter that turned out to be Drake’s after all.

  Life definitely had a way of throwing you a few curve balls.

  And a few sour ass lemons too but we all knew what to do when life throws you lemons…

  Make lemonade and drink the hell out of it!

  Translation, swallow your pride, deal with it, and get over it.

  And I knew that eventually that was exactly what I was going to have to do.

  I laid on the bed and before I knew it, I was dreaming.

  I dreamt about Mama, Lee Lee and my childhood.

  Everything was good.

  Everyone was happy.

  But unfortunately, I had to wake up.

  The next time I opened my eyes it was pitch black.

  I glanced at my phone to see that it was a little after two in the morning.

  I headed down the hall to the bathroom, but a sudden noise in the kitchen caught my attention.

  I thought it was my brother Rum so I headed that way but when I got in there no one was there.

  I looked around and noticed that there was a sound coming from the basement.

  Slowly, I reached for the door and opened it.

  The light was on so I stepped down the stairs.

  The basement had been updated years ago so it was still decent though it wasn’t as updated as the ones these days.

  It was a full basement with a sitting area, a small room and even a bathroom.

  Coming up, Chardonnay had been able to use it as a bedroom once she was of age and then after that, and considering that she was always sneaking people in, Mama never let anyone of us use it as a bedroom again.

  I looked around to see that it had been furnished differently over the last few years.

  It looked more like a man cave for Daddy.

  But looking around, there were a few things out of place.

  A few things that just didn’t fit.

  A few things that made my blood pressure go up.

  I continued to look around and then it hit me.


  “Lee Lee get your ass out here! Now!”

  I waited for a second but slowly she came out of one of the closets eating a sandwich.

  Well I’ll be damned!

  It was my sister, Lee Lee in the flesh!

  The bitch wasn’t missing at all!

  So, wait a minute, she had been down here in the basement?

  The whole time?

  “I should smack the crap out of you! Do you know how worried everyone has been?”

  She didn’t say anything, which pissed me off even more.

  “The whole time Lee Lee? The whole fucking time!”

  She took a bite her sandwich.

  Once she was close enough to me, I smacked the sandwich out of her hand.

  I was so furious!

  I really thought something might have happened to her.

  Daddy cleared his throat and I noticed that he’d made his way down to the basement too.

  I looked at him, but he didn’t seem angry.

  He didn’t even seem surprised.

  He smiled at both of us.

  “You knew too?”

  He nodded.

  What the hell is going on around here?

  “What the hell is going on? Why are you hiding out in the basement? Where have you been? I’m going to ask you again. Have you been here the whole time?”

  She nodded.

  She picked up the sandwich and her and Daddy took a seat on the couch.

  “Vicki tried to kill me. I mean she really tried to kill me.”

  I looked at her.

  I’d always known that Vicki had something to do with it.

  “That day, the last day I spoke to you and Vicki showed up at the house, she didn’t show up alone. I opened the door prepared to fight with her, again, but a man walked in behind her. After going back and forth with her, and after hearing her say that if she couldn’t have me no one could, she told the man to kill me and get rid of me. I thought that she was joking, but when he pulled out the gun, I knew that she wasn’t. The last thing she said to me was that she loved me and that it was my fault. She’d said that all I had to do was love her back but since I couldn’t, she was going to make sure that I never loved anyone else again. She walked out the door and that’s the last time I saw her.”

  I looked at her.

  Vicki was crazy!

  That bitch needed a straight-jacket; and the ass whoopin’ of a life time!

  Who the fuck did she think she was?

  How are you going to try to kill someone because they don’t want to be with you?

  She had truly lost her mind!

  But I had a question.

  If the man was supposed to kill Lee Lee, why wasn’t she dead?

  If he’d pulled out a gun, how was she still alive and hiding out in our parent’s basement?

  “So, wait a minute. She brought somebody to kill you, but yet you aren’t dead. How?”

  “Long story short, the man she had brought with her to kill me bitched out. He said that he’d owed someone a favor and to pay it back, he was supposed to take care of me for Vicki. He’d been given to Vicki by Naomi, which means that she must be a part of something more than a finance company or whatever it is. Anyway, of course he didn’t kill me. But we had to make it look like he had. He staged a scuffle and told me to leave everything behind. He carried me out in a sheet and put me in the trunk as though I was dead. We left and after driving for a while he pulled somewhere and asked me where he could take me. And I told him here. Oh, and did I mention that he was the man that I was talking to you about that day? The one that I’d said was “the one”? The “one” is a damn hired killer. And had been hired to kill me. Ain’t that some shit? He didn’t know it was me though until he got there, since he’d never been to my place.”

  My mouth was hanging wide open.

  One thing about a small town.

  You just never know who is connected to who, and you never know what is bound to surface.

  And Naomi was a part of it all?

  If she wasn’t dead already I would surely kill her!

  The bitch knew what she had done and she’d been a part of it all along.

  How dare she?

  And obviously he had to have owed Kane some kind of favor because I was sure that that’s where Naomi had gotten him from.

  I wondered if Kane was in on it too.

  She could have just told him what she needed and delivered it.

  Or he could have known all along.

  Knowing him he probably was, which made me want to head to the hospital and smother his non-remembering ass!

  Hell he wouldn’t be able to remember if he’d played a part or not anyway.

  And Vicki was really going to get it!

  She was willing to kill her instead of just letting her be?

  What the hell had Lee Lee done to her?

  “So, that wasn’t you who texted my phone?”

  “No. It must have been Vicki. She must have been going back and forth to my house for whatever reason. When Daddy told me about the police finding my car, I’m assuming she had been driving my car too. Just crazy. A straight up lunatic. For all she knows, I’m dead and she’s just riding around in my shit like everything is okay,” my sister said.

  The real question was, what now?

  Obviously the man wouldn’t testify about the hit.

  He was probably in some kind of debt.

  Naomi was dead.

  And Kane was out of his mind, literally, so maybe he would.

  I was sure that Jinx didn’t know anything of it since it involved Naomi.

  I wasn’t sure but we had to find a way to get Vicki locked up for a very long time.

  “So are you just going to hide down here forever?”

  “We haven’t figured it out yet. No one knows I’m here but you and Daddy. The whole situation scared the life out of me. I haven’t been able to sleep and here recently I just started to eat. I’ve been having nightmares and I’m always paranoid. She really wanted to kill me. She really wanted me dead. And if she finds out that I’m alive, who’s to say that she won’t find somebody else to do the job or she might do it herself. ”

  I could tell that she was scared.

  I could tell that she feared for her life.

  I knew that she felt like she’d made the biggest mistake in her life and that if she could take it back she would.

  I’d called her a fatal attraction before, but I didn’t know how accurate I really was.

  But there just had to be something that we could do.

  She couldn’t hide forever.

  And she shouldn’t have to.

  Drake had made it clear that we weren’t getting our hands dirty again, so trying to convince him to do something to her wasn’t going to work.

  And really, I didn’t want him to.

  So there had to be another way.

  There had to be away to take care of Vicki so that my sister could have her life back.

  And suddenly, I had an idea.

  *************************

  Chapter SEVEN

  “What’s with the change of heart?”

  Drake questioned my motives, but I didn’t have to tell him a damn thing.

  I was on a mission.

  I stared at Naomi’s daughter, Krissie.

  I was still a little awkward with it all but I’d managed to make her look as cute as a button.

  She wasn’t all that fond of me yet, but I was trying to be patient.

  She cried herself to sleep most nights, so I was sure that she missed her mother.

  But she seemed to be somewhat comfortable with Drake; which told me that she knew him a lot more than he tried to let on.

  But I didn’t mention it to him.

  Naomi was dead, so talking about her or anything pertaining her just seemed pointless.

  I was back at home and I was trying.

  Drake had tried with me, so I had to try with him.

  But
this whole thing just wasn’t easy.

  We were all dressed for Naomi’s funeral.

  I didn’t want to be there, but I knew that Vicki would be there.

  So that’s where I needed to be.

  I was sure that she didn’t expect me to show up nor did she probably think that Drake would even bother.

  But this was her sister.

  She just had to come to the funeral.

  And I was going to make it my business to have a few words with her too.

  Her sister was dead, but mine was living and she needed to be able to live her life in peace and without fear.

  Lee Lee was still hiding in the basement and I was sworn to secrecy about not telling anyone that I knew she was alive.

  I didn’t even tell Drake.

  I went to see her often.

  She talked and talked about the same thing.

  She desperately wanted her life back but she felt that she was going to have to move away to do it.

  Not if my little plan worked though.

  We arrived and sat in the back of the church.

  Everyone was crying.

  The church was full and I was sure that it was more friend, and colleagues there than family.

  And that was only because Drake had told me that her family wasn’t in town and the Naomi and Vicki had moved there together.

  Also, her mother was white; and there was only maybe five white folks pregnant, and I figured that surely her mother had more family than that.

  But it appeared that everyone in there loved her very much because they were showing it through their tears.

  I’ll admit, I did shed a tear when little Krissie saw her mama’s photo beside the casket and she yelled out “Mommy!” and ran towards it.

  The whole church darn near fell apart.

  Including Drake and myself.

  I saw that the old couple that was at the hospital holding the baby.

  And I also saw a couple of Kane’s family members that I remembered; including his mother.

  I wasn’t surprised to see them there since they had taken in her son, but with it being a good many of them in attendance, I was starting to think that maybe they knew Naomi a little more than just as Kane’s baby’s mother.

  Drake furthermore explained a little about Naomi’s parents and that he’d only seen them a few times.

  Neither of them were in attendance.

  Apparently they were both very sickly, and the mother had even gone blind.