“Yeah whatever,” she mumbled, closing her eyes.
“I love you girl,” I let her know.
“I love you more baby,” she said and that quick, she was knocked out.
Chapter: 9: Tisha
Here I was, four months pregnant and I didn’t feel as if life for me could get any better. I was seeing less and less of Otis, because he and Ty were trying to open up another club in Atlanta, Georgia, so he was back and forth between home in Miami and there. It’s like I had no help around the house. When I would go into the shop for work, I would drop the baby off at Ka’lani’s dad’s house with Aaliyah.
Everything with his baby mama, Akira, had been pretty good for the most part as well. She always called at a respectable hour, and I didn’t see any signs of her trying to keep Tamia away from Otis or Harmony. Tamia was a sweet little girl, and I really liked her. I swear, that lil girl loved her some Harmony though. She would spend nights over at our house, but I wouldn’t let Harmony stay the night at Akira’s house because I wasn’t too comfortable with Akira, and I didn’t think that I wanted to jump into that too soon.
Really, for the most part, I had been good. I hadn’t been receiving any mysterious phone calls lately or anything. The only thing that I wished was that Otis was home a little more with me. Being four months pregnant and having to take care of a one year old, and sometimes a four year old could, become a little stressful and nerve wrecking. I don’t feel as if I couldn’t handle it; it would have just been nice to have a little bit more support.
I had just come home from picking up the baby and a long 8-hour day at the salon. I was literally on my feet all day, and I didn’t even get a chance to take my lunch break. All I had to eat all day was the bowl of cereal that I made that morning before I went in for work. I walked in the house, put Harmony in her playpen in the leaving room, and turned the TV to Dora for her. Next, I went to find something to cook in the kitchen. I decided on shrimp parmesan and some garlic bread. After taking the meat from out of the fridge, I walked over to the kitchen cabinet to take out a pot, and as I was reaching up to take a pot from out of the cabinet, I felt a sharp pain in my lower stomach. I didn’t really think nothing of it until I felt it again, and I swear this time it hurt worse than the first. It felt like I was having contractions. The pain was enough to have my ass doubled over in pain on the kitchen floor. It wasn’t until I looked down that I noticed something warm flowing down my legs. When I saw the dark color of blood dripping down my legs, I literally lost it.
“Oh my God, no!” I screamed, trying to stand up, but I was knocked back down by another sharp pain.
I knew I couldn’t call Otis to come get me because he was probably still on the plane on his way back from Atlanta. I reached in my back pocket and quickly called Ka’lani, telling her to get to my house immediately. I waited on the floor for her for at least fifteen minutes, crying and holding onto my stomach the entire time. A few seconds later, I heard the front door open.
“Oh my God Tisha, what happened?” Ka’lani asked me, squatting down next to me.
“I’m losing my baby!” I cried, and that’s when I looked at Ka’lani and I saw that she was crying too. I don’t know why, but I was hoping for her to say something positive, but the face that she wore only confirmed that I was indeed having a miscarriage. She went and got Harmony from out of her playpen and came back to where I was, and helped me from off of the floor. She held my hand and helped me outside to get in the back of her car, placing Harmony inside of Aaliyah’s car seat. As soon as Lani got in the driver’s seat, she footed it the whole way to the hospital, speeding like a bat out of hell. I knew already at the moment that my baby didn’t make it, so I wasn’t about to sit there and beg God to fix it, because the damage was already done. I swear, if it wasn’t one thing, it was another.
Otis
I was on my way home from being in Atlanta for a whole week straight. I missed the shit out of my girl and my daughters. I couldn’t wait to get back home to see them. I was in my Camaro doing 90 all the way home. I hoped like hell that Tisha ass was up when I got to the crib, because a nigga was in dying need of some pussy. Every night that I could, Tisha and I were having phone sex and Face timing each other, but a nigga wanted the real thing. I swear if she wasn’t pregnant, I would have made her ass catch a flight up there to be with me, but I didn’t need Tisha doing all that. As I was driving on the highway, I felt my phone vibrating in my pants. I looked and I saw that it was Ka’lani. I just knew some shit was up, because Lani never called me. Now that I think about it, the only time that she did call was to deliver some bad news, so I wondered what the fuck was going on and what Tisha’s ass had gotten her ass into this time.
“What’s good sis?” I answered the phone.
“Otis, you need to get to Memorial Hospital like right now,” she said into the phone, and I could tell that she was crying.
“What’s going on? Is Tisha and the baby okay? Where is Tisha?” I asked, firing off question after question.
“Just get here!” she said and hung up. See, I hated shit like that. I hated when the person didn’t want to tell me what the fuck was going on over the phone; they would rather wait until I got there to hit me with the news.
The whole drive to the hospital, I knew I should have been thinking positive thoughts, but I could only seem to think negative. I didn’t know if Tisha was alright, but I felt like something bad happened because I could hear it in Ka’lani’s voice that she had been crying.
Lord please let everything be alright with my wife and my baby, I said a silent prayer as I rushed inside the hospital.
“I need to go to my wife’s room, Latisha Monroe,” I said as soon as I got up front, not even giving the receptionist time to ask me any questions. I was trying to get to my girl and make sure that everything was okay.
She typed something in the computer and asked for my driver’s license. Once she handed me the badge to go up, I literally ran to the stairs. I didn’t have time to wait on no slow ass elevator. I took the stairs all the way to the third floor. When I got to the third floor, I spotted Lani, Kyla, and Tamika, who was holding a sleeping Harmony in her lap, waiting in the family room. All the girls’ eyes were red, so I knew something bad had happened. It’s like a nigga was scared to find out what was going on, but shit, I needed to know.
“What the fuck is going on y’all?” I asked them.
“Otis…she…sheee,” Ka’lani tried to get out, but she couldn’t because all of a sudden, she just burst out crying.
“She what? Lani, spit the shit out!” I barked.
“Otis, Tisha lost the baby, she miscarried,” Lani cried.
After she said that, it’s like my whole body just got stuck; my feet were planted to the ground and I couldn’t move for shit. When I was eventually able to move from out of my position, I got so fuckin mad that I turned around and punched a big ass hole in the wall. The nurses and the doctor had to come and try to calm me down, with the help of Tisha’s girls. I couldn’t believe that shit. We did everything we was supposed to do. I made sure Tisha was eating healthy, I massaged her feet at night, she always went to all her appointments; it’s like where the fuck did we go wrong this time?
A few minutes later, I was able to calm down because I had woken my baby up from out of her sleep, and I scared her with all of the yelling that I was doing. I took her from Tamika’s lap and bounced her up and down so that she could stop crying. Once she calmed down, I placed her back in Tamika’s lap and she was drifting back off to sleep. I just knew for a fact that Tisha was going to blame that shit on me. For the past few weeks, she’d been complaining about being stressed out having to go to work and watch over Harmony and Tamia all by herself as I tried to set everything up at my new club in Atlanta. I felt like I had just failed my girl big time. This shit wasn’t supposed to happen. Wasn’t nothing in this world more important than my girl and my seeds, and my selfish ass put work before home and it ended up causing me my u
nborn seed’s life.
Once everybody calmed down, I went ahead to go face the music. When I walked into the room, Tisha was laying on her side with her back facing the door, holding her stomach, and I could hear her crying. The sight before me brought a tear to my eye. I hated to see my girl be put in a situation like this. I walked over to Tisha and got down on my knees. This shit was killing me to see her like that.
“Otis…my...my...bbb...babbyy,” she tried to get out, but I stopped her.
“Baby, I know and I’m so sorry. This shit is all my fault, I should have listened when you told me you needed me,” I said, wiping the tears from off her face.
I knew my baby was hurt to the core, because she didn’t even respond to my ass; she just kept right on crying. There were a few times that I had to hold my head back to keep from crying myself. Deep down, a nigga was hurt right now, and my girl wasn’t making it any better with the constant cries. The tears that she was shedding right now were coming from the depth of her soul. I could literally feel the hurt and the pain that she was going through right now, just by the sound of her cries. The hospital bed wasn’t that big, but I was able to get in the bed with Tisha. I pulled her gently into me and she rested her head on my chest and continued crying. I stayed sitting there for 15 minutes straight, and my shirt was drenched in her tears.
There was a knock at the door, and I looked up and in walked Ka’lani, Tamika, and Kyla. They walked over to the bed where Tisha was, and she had cried herself to sleep right there on my side. They each kissed her on the cheek and Tamika let me know that she would be taking Harmony home with her. I told her okay and they all left. When they left, I stayed there looking up at the ceiling, just thinking, thinking about what I could possibly do at that moment to make my girl feel happy again. I knew that we weren’t going to be able to move on from this overnight, but I needed to come up with a plan so that Tisha wouldn’t go into a state of depression. Lord knows I didn’t need that right now. After a while, I got a little uncomfortable in the little ass bed and I tried to get up, but Tisha wouldn’t let me move.
“Baby, stay right here,” Tisha said through her sleep, not once opening her eyes.
“Hold on baby, let me just go use the restroom,” I told her, getting up from out of the bed.
After a few seconds, she finally let her arms go from around me, and I went inside the bathroom inside of her room to take a quick piss. After I washed my hands and splashed some cold water on my face, I walked back inside the room and Tisha was now sitting up in the bed. She had a funny look on her face, like she was thinking about something.
“What’s wrong with you baby? Why you staring at me like that?” I asked, taking my spot back on the bed.
“Do you still love me?” she asked with a single tear rolling down her face. I knew for a fact that had to be the medication talking, because Tisha’s ass had never questioned my love for her. If anything, this situation had only made me love her more. The fact that she just miscarried my baby wasn’t going to make me love her any less.
“Yes I love you baby, why would you ask me that?” I said to her.
“It’s just baby, I feel like this is my fault and this situation could have been avoided,” she said.
“Tisha, first off I don’t blame any of this shit on you. If anything, I blame this shit on myself. I should have put my focus on you instead of this damn club. So, baby yes I love you. I promise you I do. I know this is too soon, but as soon as you get healed up and feeling better, I want to take you on a vacation, just you and me. Anywhere you want to go,” I said, trying to bring a little bit of light into the situation.
“Okay baby,” Tisha said with a forced smile.
I don’t know what I was going to do, but I hated seeing her like this. This shit pained my heart to the core. It’s like there weren’t any words that I could put together to try and sell her something that would make her feel better. She was hurting right now, and I just didn’t know what else to say other than I’m sorry–God knows I am. I would forever, for the rest of my life, blame this shit on me, because deep down inside I feel like it was my fault.
Chapter 10: Tisha
It’s been a month since the death of my baby, and I swear it feels like the shit has just happened to me yesterday. As the days went by, I felt like I became more depressed. All I did was walk around the house looking like a zombie, and crying every five minutes. Only time I would come from out of the room was if I did decide to eat, which wasn’t often at all. Lani was kind enough to help keep the baby for me because lately, I just didn’t have the strength; plus, I didn’t want my baby to see me like this. This morning, I woke up to feel fur moving around next to me. I looked down and that’s when I noticed it was a puppy, a white Pomeranian with a hot pink bow around its neck.
“Aww he got me a puppy,” I squealed, picking up the dog, and I fell in love with his beautiful, round black eyes, looking up at me with adoration. He was so beautiful, and I decided to name him.
After a while, I started thinking about how it would have felt to bring my unborn child into this world. I know I shouldn’t have been comparing my child to a dog, but I couldn’t help but to think about it. All of a sudden, the sadness kicked back in and I carefully sat the dog on the floor and buried my head back under the covers, blowing out a frustrated sigh.
It had been two hours since I had fell back to sleep with my face buried in the pillows. I felt someone pull the sheets from around my body, and I knew it was Otis’ aggravating ass. I didn’t see how he expected me to just live my life and act like nothing happened.
“Tisha, didn’t I tell you to have your ass out the bed when I got back!” he said, screaming at me.
Otis had just gotten back from getting a haircut and before he left, he told me he wanted me out the bed. He should have known that wasn’t going to happen. I don’t even know when he had the time to slip the dog inside the bed with me either. I blew out a frustrated breath and took my ass to the bathroom to take a shower. When I was done, I went over to the sink, and brushed my teeth and washed my face. I took my hair out of the bun that I had it in and flat ironed it, and put it in a part down the middle. I hadn’t touched my hair in over two weeks. I went into my closet and threw on a short, black, Armani Exchange dress that stopped at the middle of my thigh and exposed my entire back. I went downstairs with Gucci in my arms, and went inside the den with Otis, while he played the game. I sat down on the couch opposite from him, with Gucci in my arms.
“That’s much better,” he said, pausing the game and sitting the controller down in his lap to look at me.
After he realized I wasn’t going to say anything, he continued to play.
“When the last time you ate? Because I’m trying to remember and I didn’t see you eat yesterday or the day before that,” he said, not taking his eyes off me.
“I ate yesterday,” I lied through clenched teeth. I honestly couldn’t remember the last time I ate anything. If I did get something to eat, it would be some of my ice cream that I kept hidden in the back of the freezer.
“Here, come eat the rest of this,” he said, pointing at his wings and fries that were sitting at the table in front of him.
“I don’t want that,” I told him.
“Tisha, you a grown ass woman. I’m not about to sit here and beg your ass to eat. Quit acting like a little ass girl and eat the fuckin food,” he said angrily.
I got up from the couch and stomped my ass to the kitchen. I didn’t see anything I wanted, so I took my keys and headed out to get me something to eat, bringing Gucci along with me, and sitting himin the passenger seat. I didn’t even tell Otis where I was going, I just left without saying anything. I ended up getting some take out from Red Lobster. Being as though Otis had just pissed me off by yelling at me like that, I decided to go to Lani’s house, mainly because I missed my daughter and I wanted to see her. When I pulled up, I noticed only Lani’s car was in the driveway. I parked and got out to ring the doorbell. I was car
rying my food in one hand with my purse and Gucci in my other hand. Lani came to the door with a big smile on her face.
“Oh my God Tisha, I missed you so much,” Lani said, giving me a big hug while taking the bag of food out of my hand.
“I missed you too sis,” I said, hugging her back.
I really did miss my girls. For the past month, I’d just been camping out in my room, missing out on everyone and everything. We walked inside the house, and I saw Aaliyah and Harmony playing in the playpen.
“Otis done brought your ass a damn puppy,” Lani said, taking Gucci from me.
“Yes, he surprised me with it this morning. I named him Gucci,” I said, and Ka’lani shook her head at me. While she played with the dog, I went into the kitchen so that I could go and wash my hands. After that, I went back into the den so that I could be with everybody else.
“Hi baby,” I said, walking over to my baby and picking her up. I placed kisses all over her, and she was kissing me too. Damn, my baby girl missed her mommy so much. I tried to put her back down in the playpen, but she wasn’t having that. She wanted to stay in my arms, so I sat down on the floor with her in my lap while I ate my food at the little table in the den.
“Ma-ma,” my baby said, pointing to the food while I was putting it in my mouth.
I looked down at her, and she looked so pretty with her two ponytails in her hair. I had to bite off little pieces to feed her greedy self. Between her and her daddy, I could never eat my food in peace. After I was finished eating, I laid on the couch with my baby on my stomach. Within five minutes, she was knocked out.
“How you been feeling, sis?” Lani asked me.
“Today I feel a lil better. This past month has been hell though. It felt like with each day, this shit just got worse. At first, Otis would stay in bed with me, and now for the past couple of weeks, he just walks around the house and won’t say shit to me. I feel like he getting tired of all this crying and shit, which is why I’m out the house now and trying to get better. He surprised me though this morning with this dog, because I just knew his ass was done with me,” I said, rubbing my daughter’s hair as she slept.
I Choose You 3 : The Matrimony Page 7
