by Denora Boone
After chopping it up for a few more minutes and getting some info from his father that he needed to take to the office, Qyree headed towards his initial destination. Just like before, he stopped to talk, only this time it was to his mother. She was alone in her bedroom, kneeling down at the foot of her bed with her head down. Once he heard her say ‘Amen’, he knew that she was praying.
“What’s going on, gorgeous?”
“Hey handsome,” she smiled.
Qyree’s mother, Zaria was a beautiful woman inside and out. She was a short little something with her flawless dark skin, short hair that she kept naturally curly; her lips were full and her eyes were the prettiest shade of brown Qyree had ever seen in his life. But her eyes showed nothing but sadness any time she looked at him and he knew exactly why.
“What you doing in the house instead of out shopping or hanging with Auntie Zina?”
Walking over to him, she embraced him before maneuvering her way back to the bench that sat at the foot of her bed.
“I just needed some time to talk to the Lord, baby,” she said looking out of the window.
“Everything alright?” Qyree asked having an idea of what was wrong.
Looking up at him, Zaria gave a weak smile. If there was one woman in this world that he would give his all to, it was his mother. Whenever he saw her like this, he wanted to do whatever he could to make it better, but he knew this wasn’t a problem he could fix.
“I’m just tired baby, that’s all. Almost 30 years and nothing has changed,” she said.
Taking a seat beside her, he placed his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close to him. He loved his father and was just like him, but this was his mother. The first and only woman that he had ever loved and would give his life for. He could never understand why his father felt the need to constantly have affair after affair. It wasn’t like she was just a jump-off like the women he ran through but the one who had carried his children and the one he made a vow to God with.
“Why do you stay then, Ma?” he wanted to know.
For years he wondered why his mother stayed with his father when he was blatantly disrespecting her with other women. Qyree remembered like it was yesterday, the first time his father had gotten caught with his pants down. Literally.
***
Twenty Years Ago
Zaria had just left in the car that was supposed to take her to the airport. She had a scheduled flight out to Los Angeles to attend an event with Jaxon. It was last minute because her boss had been tripping about letting her off in time, and she was unsure if she was going to be able to make it.
That was one of the things that Qyree’s parents were constantly arguing about. Jaxon wanted her to stay home and let him spoil her, while Zaria loved her job as a Registered Nurse. She felt like that was her calling to be able to help people and she loved every minute of it. Zaria had gotten so many accolades for her excellent and dedicated service as a nurse and she knew that was all God’s doing.
Qyree sat in the living room hard at work playing ‘Super Smash Bros’ on his brand new Nintendo 64. He was so hype because he had been the first one out of his friends to get it even before it hit stores. His mother had been gone for almost an hour and he was just getting into his game good when he heard the front door open and close. A few seconds later he saw his father come in carrying one of his overnight bags and his driver was bringing in the rest.
“Hey son. What you doing?” Jaxon asked as he walked over to his son.
“Super Smash Bros and it’s so cool!”
“I’m glad you like it. Where’s Toni?” he asked referring to their live-in nanny. She had been hired not too long ago against Zaria’s wishes. So far things were good having her there. She made sure that any and everything that was needed to be done got done in a timely manner, and she loved Qyree like he was her own.
“She’s in her room,” Qyree said, never taking his eyes off of the television.
Jaxon got up and unbeknownst to Qyree headed straight for her room and shut the door behind him. Qyree paused the game because he heard what sounded like bumping into a wall. Making his way to the hall he did his best to pinpoint where it was coming from.
He and his parents’ bedrooms were upstairs, and there was a spare bed downstairs right off of the living room. The knocking wasn’t faint but it was still loud enough to know that it wasn’t coming from the upstairs. Just as he got to Toni’s door, he heard his father grunt at the same time the front door was opening again.
Running down the hallway, he ran right into his mother. Looking up into her face, he saw that she had been crying and a feeling that something wasn’t right came over him. It was at that moment that he knew there was about to be a problem.
“Baby, is Daddy home?” Zaria asked kneeling in front of him.
Nodding his head, he told her yes and waited. Zaria was taking slow deep breaths and wiping tear after tear for a few minutes, before she hugged him tight and held on as if her life depended on it.
“Qy, I need you to go to your room and close your door, okay? Don’t come out until I tell you to,” she instructed.
Without another word, Qyree went in his room like he was asked to do, only to open it slightly after a few seconds. At the angle his room sat at the top of the stairs he could look right down and see Toni’s room. He watched as his mother stood there crying silently, as her shoulders shook and she repeatedly opened and closed her hands into tight fists.
Before Qyree could even blink again, his mother had burst into the room and Toni screamed. He couldn’t make out what was being said but what he did know was that his father was quiet. He knew Jaxon was in there because he heard him, so why wasn’t he talking and trying to calm his mother down?
“This is what we do now, Jaxon? You sleeping with the help!” Zaria yelled as she went after Toni again.
“Get her off of me Jaxon!” Toni screamed as he just stood there with a satisfied smirk on his face.
“You better fight back is all I can tell you.”
It wasn’t until Qyree burst into the room that Jaxon took control of the situation.
“Get off my mommy!” Qyree said as he tried his best to pull his mother off of his babysitter. Why was Miss Toni naked, he wondered, and why was his father putting his clothes back on in a hurry?
Pulling the two of them apart, Qyree could now see that he probably should have been helping Miss Toni because her face was all bruised and scratched up and his mother didn’t have a hair out of place. He watched as Toni scrambled to get her body covered, while his mother walked over and slapped the life out of his father.
“Again, Jax?”
Looking at Zaria, Jaxon walked over to where Toni was now sitting fully dressed.
“You did this?” he asked her.
“I sure did. I’m tired of playing these games with you and waiting on you to leave her so we can be together,” Toni boldly stated.
“Baby girl, let me tell you something. I will never be replaced and especially not by you. If it wasn’t for us hiring you, you wouldn’t have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of,” Zaria spoke up.
“Oh really? Tell her, Jaxon. Tell her how you are tired of her putting her job and church before her family. Tell her how you told me that now since I’m pregnant you have a reason to leave for good this time.
“Pregnant?” Zaria whispered.
It was at that moment that Qyree saw his father’s ears produce smoke because he was so mad. He didn’t understand what all of this meant but he knew what pregnant was. His father was indeed having a baby by someone that wasn’t his mother.
SLAP!
The force of the slap that landed across Jaxon’s face from Zaria’s hand had probably rearranged the nerves in his whole head. That’s just how much power it had behind it.
“Not only have you broken our vows but you got your mistress pregnant too?”
There was no sadness in her voice or face for that matter like it was a few minut
es ago. It was now unadulterated anger and it had taken over.
“You have two minutes to get your stuff and get out of my house,” Zaria told Toni but kept her eyes fixed on her husband.
“I’m not going anywhere unless Jaxon tells me to,” Toni said defiantly.
Turning around slowly like the girl in the movie ‘The Exorcist’, Zaria gave Toni the look of death before she spoke in a voice that Qyree had never in his life heard before. His mother was always so sweet and loving and now she was in here fussing and fighting. And it was all at the hands of his father.
“You can walk out or you can get bodied and carried out. The choice is yours.”
Before Toni could respond Jaxon stepped in.
“You heard my wife. Better hurry up too because you’re down to a minute and ten seconds,” he said folding his arms and leaning up against the dresser.
“Really Jaxon? You gonna treat me like this? After all of the nights you lay beside me and confess your love for me and our unborn child. Filling my head with the hopes of us being a real family. Telling me how she puts God and her job before you,” Toni revealed.
“Oh, so this is what you told her Jaxon? When will you come up with something different to tell your harem?”
The look on Toni’s face was complete shock at the revelation of not being Jaxon’s only woman. But Jaxon was even more shocked than she was, to know that Zaria knew about the others.
Laughing, Zaria continued. “Yes, Jaxon darling, I know about Megan and Kimberly. They made sure I knew too by constantly calling or coming to my job. I guess they thought by doing that I would leave you and let them step in and take my place. Let’s be clear,” Zaria said looking over at Toni, “I’m the one with the last name, the house, the child, and the bank accounts. Jaxon will never leave me because it was me that helped him start this record company with the money from the job and prayer from the God that I love so much. You are nothing but something to do and he will never respect you.”
“You mean like he respects you by sleeping with other women? You’re no better than I am because you share him with me. Obviously, everything that you mentioned having still doesn’t make him want to be faithful,” Toni retorted.
As true as that statement was, Zaria wasn’t about to give her the satisfaction of knowing it.
“Your time’s up and you need to leave,” was all she said. There was nothing left to say because in that moment it didn’t matter. Once again, Jaxon had broken yet another promise that he would never do this again, but he had.
Grabbing Qyree’s hand, Zaria walked to the stairs and began to head in the direction of his room, as he looked over his shoulder at Toni screaming and kicking to avoid being thrown out on her behind.
“I’m sorry you had to see that, baby. Just know that everything will work out and God will fix this, okay?” Zaria explained once they were in his room.
Once again nodding his little head, Qyree was confused. How could the God they sat up in church on Sundays and Wednesdays and whenever else they wanted to call a meeting, be the same one to allow this to happen to his family?
Before his mother could say anything else, his father was walking in and grabbed her arm, pulling her up. He motioned for her to go into the room they shared with one another and she obliged. Qyree looked up at his father as he smiled and winked at him, like the last fifteen minutes had never happened. It was at that moment that he realized this would be his norm.
***
He would never forget that night as he listened to his parents argue and fight about other women and he had a hard time going to sleep. It felt like he had just drifted off when his mother came in his room waking him up for school the next day. The smile she held on her face no longer reached her eyes, and those were the same sad eyes he looked into at that very moment.
“The reasons I stay, you may not ever understand, Qy,” Zaria answered his question, bringing him back to the moment.
He loved his mother and knew his father did too, but Qyree sometimes didn’t feel sorry for her as much as he used to. His father was a dog and he knew this because Jaxon had taught him everything he knew; including the fact that if a woman let you play her and never left then there was no reason to stop doing what it was that he wanted.
At first that sounded crazy to him, but over the years as the countless women came and went and his mother stayed, he started believing his father was right. If a woman lets you treat her any kind of way and at the end of the day won’t leave, she has no one to blame but herself. A man could only do what a woman allowed him to.
Qyree kissed his mother on the cheek and headed back to his original mission of showering so that he could handle his business.
“Don’t end up ruining some girl’s life, baby, when you find that one,” Zaria said before he got out of her room completely.
“You have nothing to worry about,” he said walking off, and that was the truth.
His mother didn’t have anything to worry about because he would never settle down. That just wasn’t something that he wanted, and he had his father to thank for that. Jaxon taught him how easy it was to get what he wanted from women and not have to have any strings attached.
The only reason Jaxon married Zaria was because she was there before he had anything, and she was the one who put him in position to build his dream. It wasn’t until he started getting a name for himself that the women started coming from every direction, and he wanted it no other way. Either Zaria kick rocks or deal with it. And from the looks of things, the latter had been her final answer.
-4-
Qyree loved his mother but he had to push her to the back of his mind at the moment. Valdosta State University was the school that they decided to hold this year’s talent search, held top priority for him. He had heard that some of the hottest undiscovered talent that came out of Valdosta, Georgia and attended that school. If Hype Lyfe could sign at least three of the top artists he had been scoping, this would guarantee his position as the head A&R, something that he had been looking forward to for as long as he could remember. His ear for music was exactly why he was the best for this position, and if he could pull this off then he knew his father would make that happen.
Pulling up to the campus after being on the road for a few hours, he couldn’t help the excitement he felt looking at all of the unsuspecting females that walked around. All he could think about was the paradise they held and how he knew he would bag a few before it was all said and done. Besides money and his family, the female body was something he yearned for but he couldn’t think about that right now. It was time to get the ball rolling with this event. He had to make sure this show was approved first before he could think about how many he would add to his roster.
Almost an hour and a half later, the meeting was complete and Qyree was heading to his car with one of the biggest smiles on his face that he had ever possessed. As soon as the dean agreed that he could move forward with everything, it was hard for him to sit through the rest of the meeting. They made sure to discuss all of the specifics along with the do’s and don’ts. Since they were on campus, they had to make sure that no underage drinking would go on along with having the proper security for the night. None of that was an issue for him because prior to the meeting, they had secured the local police department to be their security. With them there, all of the other possible mishaps should be to a minimum.
“Ssssss,” Qyree hissed as he spotted two women walking ahead of him. He couldn’t see their faces but that didn’t matter. Whatever their faces lacked he was sure their bodies made up for it. Shoot, when the lights were out, it was all the same anyway. Now that his business was done for the day, he could focus on getting him a few new play things. If his luck was good, he would have not just one but both.
He admired them for a minute before catching up to them. They were both on the thick side, which was his favorite, and the way their behinds sat up in their clothes was definitely a plus. Looking at them, he thought that may
be one was someone of importance by the cream business suit she had on, while the other could have just been a regular student. Clad in some jeans and Air Max, she even made the simple outfit stand out.
“Excuse me ladies, can I speak with you for a minute?” he asked, jogging up behind them.
Turning around, he was shocked to see someone from his past, and it was a pleasant surprise. Obviously, she was pleased as well by the smile she wore on her face.
“Omg, Qyree, how are you?” she said closing in the space between the two as she embraced him.
“I’m good. Man, it’s been a long time, for real,” he told her. “What you doing here?”
“Long isn’t the word. This is home for me and I just moved back not too long ago. Oh, I’m so rude. Von, this is Qyree Reeves; we attended USC together,” she introduced the two.
“Nice to meet you,” Von said. She wasn’t rude but Qyree could tell that she wasn’t in the mood.
“So what are you doing here?” Chey asked.
“I was just getting the final details for this talent event our company is holding here in two weeks. Trying to put a few people on, ya know?”
“That’s right. I forgot about your family’s record label. How’s that going?”
“It’s doing real good. Pops is changing the game right now and hopefully, this will elevate us more,” he said as they began walking towards the parking lot. Von walked ahead of them so that she wouldn’t be in their business. Something about him rubbed her the wrong way but she didn’t know what it was. Maybe the way his eyes roamed over her body when Chey was introducing them. Or maybe she was just tired from dealing with everything for one day.
“That’s awesome. God is so worthy. How is your mother?” she asked. While in school, Chey ended up meeting his mother during one of the times his parents came to visit. She would never forget Mrs. Reeves because she was just a beautiful spirit.
“My mother is doing good. She’s retired now, so of course she’s waiting on me to get married and have her a house full of grandbabies. But look, I will catch up with you later; work calls,” Qyree told her after looking at the screen on his vibrating phone. Looking down to see Natalia’s picture message let him know that he needed to hurry up ‘cause she was ready.
