In the middle of a restaurant, I pulled her in my lap and snuggled my head into the crook of her neck, sniffing on her skin.
“Chill out. That shit was nothing, and you know it,” I said and kissed her on her cheek.
I leaned my head down and kissed her a couple of times on her stomach.
“Prosper, you hear your mama out here trying to start some shit?” I asked, speaking to my daughter.
“One day, Ima just shock the hell out of you, and whatever woman I see you talking to, Ima just start swinging, and I ain’t going to ask no questions,” my wife told me, and I laughed at her.
“Just make sure you know how to fight. I used to mess with gutta bitches. You the most proper of them all,” I said.
Normani shrugged and even tried to stand up from my lap because she didn’t find that shit funny.
“Chill out. I’m fuckin’ with you, ma. You ain’t gotta know how to fight because I ain’t going to have you involved in no shit like that anyway. Don’t be acting like I just be going around, being friendly with bitches. You know I’m antisocial,” I told her.
She waved me off, not wanting to give me my credit, but it was cool because she knew I was right. The rest of our dinner was spent just having family time. We’d long ago finished our food, so right now, we were just talking. Khari’s sixth birthday was coming up, and she was talking everybody’s ears off about the big, over the top Disney Princess themed birthday party that she wanted. She kept talking about wanting a big birthday party like her brother, but the shit she was asking about just sounded like some shit that would have me spending double what I spent on my son.
Khari’s birthday party would require both of my baby mamas and my wife to be in the same room, and I just hoped that shit ran smoothly. Well, I knew I wouldn’t have no shit out of Nesha and Normani because the two of them were cordial. It was Denim’s ass and Normani that I was worried about.
“For the charge of attempted murder, the jury has found the defendant... guilty. For the charge of attempted murder of an unborn child, the jury has found the defendant... guilty. For the charge of murder in the first degree, the jury has found the defendant... guilty. Lastly, for the second charge of murder in the first degree, the jury has found the defendant… guilty.”
I couldn’t get those words out of my fuckin’ head, man. Those words… those fuckin’ charges were haunting a nigga. The exact words that a nigga had feared ever since I sat down with my lawyer for the first time months ago, and he ran down to me the different charges that I was faced with. I was told by my lawyer that he was going to do everything in his power to fight for a nigga, and he literally didn’t do a motha fuckin’ thing to help me.
I mean, if you wanted to count the drug charges that had been dropped, then so be it, but it really didn’t matter, especially when everything else that I was charged with outweighed that shit anyway. Although I feared the worst when I went before the judge a few days ago, I already had an idea of how I wanted everything to play out.
Denim was up from her coma, and I just knew that every murder charge they were trying to pin on a nigga would get thrown out of the window. I knew that I would still get hit with an attempted murder charge on Denim and the unborn baby, but still, my lawyer promised that I wouldn’t get the max for that charge. I was so fuckin’ sure they wouldn’t pin the murder of Karl and his son on me that I did years ago, but there were fuckin’ witnesses in the fuckin’ court that I didn’t even fuckin’ know.
They testified against me in court, talking about they were outside that night when the murder happened. Those fuckin’ witnesses had been paid by Nate, and I knew it because they were saying shit that only Nate and I would know about. I couldn’t believe a nigga that I’ve known since I was a little ass boy had turned on me like that. I think the nigga turning on me and being responsible for me about to rot in a prison cell for the rest of my life hurt me more than the charges that I was found guilty of. That hurt me as well as the cries of my mama that had filled the entire courtroom, once she saw that her one and only child would never get out of prison.
Even right now, as she saw me for visitation, and I zoned out, I couldn’t help but look over at her and see all the sadness on her face. There were bags under her eyes, which showed me and everybody else that she wasn’t getting any sleep at home. Her eyes were bloodshot red because when she’d come into the visitation room a few moments ago, she had already been crying. This wasn’t my mama’s first time coming down to see me, but it was her first time coming to see me since the charges had been put on me, and everything had been finalized.
I sat across from the woman who carried me for a long, painful, nine months, and brought me into this world. It had to hurt her to her fuckin’ core that there wasn’t shit she could do about these fucked up circumstances.
“When’s the last time you saw Khari and Rylo?” I asked after about ten minutes of not saying anything to each other.
I knew that I needed to be the one to break the silence because she didn’t drive all the way down there, just for the two of us to sit in front of each other and not say shit. My mother used to be a solid built woman. When she wasn’t working, she spent a lot of her time in the gym, plus she loved going on her jogs in either the mornings or in the evenings. Right now, she was the smallest that I’d ever seen her. Small, and the head full of hair that she used to have was looking really thin these days. That was more than likely due to it shedding because she hadn’t been keeping up with it.
When I asked her the question about my daughters, all she did was shake her head, as tears fell down her face.
“I haven’t seen Khari, Reginald. I probably will never see that little girl or get to have a relationship with her because of the circumstances. I went five years without even knowing that little girl was my granddaughter. And now that I know she’s my grandchild, I can’t even build a relationship with her because of what you did to her mother. I haven’t even heard from Rylo in months. I’m assuming that when Denim was in a coma, her other grandmother had to have changed her phone number because the number I have for her has been out of service for months. Can I ask you something, Reggie?” she asked.
I sighed, already knowing that she was about to ask me some bullshit. I didn’t tell her that she could ask me something, but I also didn’t say that she couldn’t, so she just went ahead and asked me anyway.
“Knowing that you are getting ready to spend the rest of your days in here, I want to know if you regret what you did? Seeing your fate, do you now see that there were other ways you could have gone about this? I’ve always gotten on you about your temper, ever since you were a little boy. I used to tell you that one day, you were going to take it too far, and there wouldn’t be anything that I or anyone else would be able to do to save you. You could have done something so different. Why did you have to take a gun and pistol whip a pregnant woman to the point that you almost cost her and the baby their lives?
“Look at what you’ve done to yourself! Look at what you’ve done to me! To us! You were all I had. I’ve always told you that my biggest fear was losing you to murder or losing you like this. You’re not even thirty yet, and you are serving a life sentence. This breaks my heart to come down here and have to see you like this. Baby, I don’t know how long I will be able to do this because each visit, the pain gets deeper,” my mama spoke, and the whole time she was speaking, she cried.
As hard as a nigga was, as much as I wanted to be in tune with my manliness and not cry, I ended up shedding a few tears myself as I watched the woman I loved first sit across from me and break down like this. I got myself together and wiped my eyes, although they were shackled, so it made it a little hard.
“I ain’t regret it in the beginning because, honestly, mama, I didn’t think that shit was going to get this bad. When the cops eventually found me, I really thought they were going to hit me with a little petty domestic charge. I ain’t believe Denim when she told me that she was pregnant because that
bitch lies so fuckin’ much that I couldn’t believe shit that came out of her mouth that day. On top of that, I zoned out when I put my hands on her, so I really ain’t think the damage was that bad.
“Hell yeah, I regret it. I’m walking away from three fuckin’ kids, Ma. Three kids that I so easily failed with just one careless ass action. I wish I could go back in time and handle things a little bit differently, but I can’t, Ma. I don’t need you giving up on me. You the only person I got right now. Look at me, Ma. I’m going to die in this bitch. Don’t make me do this shit alone.
“Another thing I need you to do for me. Please, Ma… please, please try to reach out to Denim. I just want to be able to have pictures of my kids sent here in the mail. I won’t push my luck and tell you that you gotta bring them here because I know she’s not going to let that shit happen. She hates a nigga, and she has every right to. Just please try to have a relationship with my kids,” I told her.
I placed my hands on the table, held onto hers, and squeezed them, needing her to know how serious this shit was to me.
“I’ll try, Reggie, but I won’t make any promises. God, I’m so disappointed in you,” she said.
I nodded, knowing that I couldn’t say or do anything to change the way she felt about me. Our visitation was over in about five more minutes, and when my mama got up to leave, I let my eyes linger on her for as long as they possibly could because something told me that I wasn’t going to see her again for a while. This shit was too painful for her to continue doing, even if all I needed was for her to come down and see me at least once a month. If I couldn’t get her to see me at all, then I would try my best to accept that, but I just needed her to pick up the phone whenever a nigga called.
I stood up with the rest of the inmates, and as we walked back to our cell, I thought about my baby girl, Rylo, and how a nigga had failed her too. The eleven-year-old baby girl that I had with Denim when I was only eighteen. Man, I failed that little girl. I may not have been shit to a lot of other people, but for whatever reason, that little girl thought the world of me. Before all this shit went down with Denim and me, I had Rylo staying with me. I took her on some petty shit after Denim let that fuck nigga put his hands on me. In the time that Rylo was staying with me, she and I had formed a bond that was tighter than it had ever been.
Like I said, I had Rylo when I was a teenager, and I didn’t know what the fuck to do when it came to being a father, so I’ve made a lot of different fuck ups here and there. Right when I was getting it right with my daughter, I fucked it up. Then, there was the new baby that Denim was carrying, who I would never even get the chance to know. This situation was a prime example of how one simple fuck up can cost your life. The chains that bound me as I walked back to my prison cell, which I was in for about twenty-two hours a day, was now my reality, and there wasn’t shit I could do to change the circumstances.
“Girl, your ass is hugeeee! How the hell you supposed to tote that belly around for another two months? See, that’s why I make all my niggas strap up with me because I’m not about to be walking around all big and shit, and barely able to see my own damn cooch,” Sidnesha’s cousin, Roheem, said.
He had been talking shit since he came through the damn door. As annoyed as a bitch wanted to be with him running his mouth and giving his opinion where it wasn’t needed, I couldn’t do shit but double over in laughter at his stupid ass. It was the night before my daughter’s birthday and her big Cinderella party. The three of us were making candy bags and other little things that had us slaving for Khari to celebrate her big day. I had helped out as much as I could until my back started hurting, so now I was just lying on the couch, watching Nesha and Roheem as they worked.
“You can let them niggas go raw all they want to. We all know you ain’t pushing no baby out, Roheem. The shit ain’t even possible,” I said and switched positions because this baby was just moving all over the damn place, and it was hard to get comfortable.
I couldn’t believe I was bringing another damn daughter into this world. It was like God didn’t want to see me be great with a son, so he kept giving me all these damn girls. God, I wish the circumstances of this pregnancy would have been a little different, but it wasn’t, so I couldn’t do anything but deal with it. It felt like my damn mama and my two kids were my baby daddy because they were the ones waiting on me hand and foot, and they were the ones who went with me to all my doctors’ appointments. Because I didn’t have a partner to go through this experience with me, I think that was why I had been so snappy lately.
It wasn’t in my plans to wake up and be back on the old shit that I was on in the past, but I was going through some shit right now, and I really wasn’t happy. I was just trying to find my damn self. My motor skills had improved, and I was walking on my own now. I wasn’t relying on my crutches or the cane, but there were other things, like the permanent scar on the side of my face, or the braces that I would get in a few weeks because my teeth were kind of fucked up after being pistol whipped in the face with a gun. There were just all kinds of ugly scars on my body, and that was hard for me to accept.
The biggest injury of all was me waking up and finding my daughters clinging to other women. While I was in a coma, my oldest daughter, Rylo, had spent a lot of her time with my mother. Now that I was up, she still clung to her. I could be sitting right in the same room with Rylo and my mother, and if she needed something simple done, like putting her hair into a ponytail, she’d go to my mother instead of me. Shit like that hurt. Although I knew my kids weren’t doing it intentionally, it just made me feel like they thought I was incapable of doing certain things.
Don’t even get me started on Khari’s little ass. I really believed that if she could snap her fingers and have Normani be her biological mother, she would do it in a second. She put that bitch on a pedestal that I don’t think she’s ever had me on, and I’d been in her life for five damn years.
It was the night before my daughter’s birthday, and I wanted her to spend the night with us, so when she woke up in the morning, I could cook all her favorite breakfast foods. This little girl hard down cried this evening, wanting to go to her daddy’s house, and hurting my little feelings. Granted, my daughter still ended up staying with me, but she cried herself to sleep because she wanted to go to her daddy’s house. Khari was too young to understand, but a lot of the things she did these days hurt me.
That shit right there was the reason why I couldn’t stand this Normani bitch. Granted, I didn’t care for the hoe from the moment I met her, but now that it felt like she was turning my daughter against me, I really didn’t like her ass. She would be at the party tomorrow, and Billion had already lectured me about not being on my bullshit tomorrow, so I was going to try. I would simply not say anything to her. Not to say that I couldn’t be mature, but I didn’t see myself being that damn mature to the point that I would be friends with the bitch like Sidnesha was.
Sidnesha was cool with the bitch and had been invited to their baby shower that was coming up in a few months and everything.
“You can believe it’s impossible all you want to, miss thang. You lil’ bitches can’t do nothing that I can’t do,” Roheem said to me with all that damn sass.
I laughed, and then I waved him off. My attention went over to Nesha, who was texting away on her phone, not paying her cousin and me any attention as she smiled from ear to ear. There was a huge rock on her finger because she was now engaged to that fine ass barber, Chris. Nesha’s birthday was yesterday, and when she came in a couple hours ago, that huge rock on her finger was the first thing I saw.
She had the video on her phone of the proposal that Chris had done last night, and the whole time I was watching the video, I found myself cheesing for her and hoping to God that one day I would be blessed with a man who loved me like that. I was happy for Sidnesha because I knew her story. Once she and I actually formed a good relationship, she ended up telling me about some of her past with Billion and the many times
he had cheated. For her to have a man of her own now and be this happy, then yeah, I was happy for her because she deserved it. I laughed as I playfully nudged Roheem, so he could look at his cousin and see what I was looking at.
He burst out laughing too while shaking his head.
“Bitch, this is all the fuckin’ time. That skinny ass nigga is fuckin’ the shit out of her thick ass. This bitch is so sprung off him,” Roheem stated before standing up from the carpeted floor and stretching.
He had finished his last candy bag, and Sidnesha was finished as well, so this was pretty much it for the night. Both of my daughters were in the back room, getting their rest because I knew they were going to party hard tomorrow.
Sidnesha finally wrapped up her text message, and then she stood up as well.
“We’re going to put all this stuff in a box and put it in my car, that way, you won’t have to come out tomorrow, carrying anything heavy. Denim, please, for the sake of Khari tomorrow, just chill. I know you don’t too much care for Normani, but just put that shit to the side for the sake of you waking up from your coma in time to be here to celebrate your daughter’s sixth birthday. You know the circumstances could have been much different, so chill out tomorrow,” Sidnesha told me.
“Ima chill. I won’t even say anything to the skinny bitch,” I said, and Sidnesha shook her head while rolling her eyes.
Roheem laughed as he loaded up the party bags and started putting them in the box.
“I remember when I was in elementary school, and all the boys used to bully me because, even back then, my little ass was sweet. They used to call me all types of faggots, and I felt like they only tried me because I was little. I was a skinny little something back then, and because of that, motha fuckas preyed on me, thinking that I was soft. One day, I just got fed the fuck up, and I started beating everybody’s ass. That’s the same thing that’s going to happen with Normani. You’re going to slip up and call her a bitch one too many times, and her lil ass is going to go off. I got my money on her anyway, since you been fuckin’ with her,” Roheem said, and I waved him off.
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