Daddy's Home (Firebacks Book 1)

by Linda Verji

  “What’s your next condition?” He chuckled as he asked the question, making it seem as if he thought even the first condition was ridiculous and had no intention of following through.

  “Tell your mother to keep away from our house.”

  “Are you kidding me right now?” Gone was the sarcastic laughter, instead his eyes lit in anger. “Are you seriously trying to tell me to cut off my own mother? Do you even know where we’ve been?”

  “Oh yes! We all know that sob story. Single mother, raised you from the ghetto. Ra…ra…ra…boring!” Zain rolled her eyes as she spoke. “You need to stop living in the past. If you want me to stay, I need a man who will protect and take care of me. Right now, that man isn’t you.”

  “I take care of you,” he insisted. He walked up to her and grasped her arm. “Zain, I’ve put money down for you. Do you think the lifestyle I give you grows on trees?”

  “Why does it always come down to money when I’m trying to talk to you about us?” Zain tugged her arm his hold but stayed put toe to toe with him. “Here’s some Zain 101 for you. You, Halake Ford, didn’t buy me. You can’t expect me to take all the crap you and your mother dish out because of a few dollars.”

  There was silence between them for a moment before Lucky started laughing. Zain didn’t see what was so funny.

  “You know what?”He stepped away from her, a small smile playing on his lips. “I got you. I know what you’re all about.”

  “What am I about?”

  “My mother isn’t really the problem,” he said,” you are.”

  “Excuse me!”

  “Naw, I got you babe. I got you.” Lucky’s upper lip curled derisively as he wagged his finger at her. “You on some bullshit power trip to prove that you’re some bad bitch. You don’t even realize that you’re destroying your family by letting your pride come before us.”

  “This isn’t about my pride! It is about you realizing that I come before your mother,” she said. It felt good to finally tell him what she thought of their situation. “When she disrespects me, I need you to defend me. When I say I don’t want Sonia in our house, I expect you to listen to me and not Nadifa.

  Halake, she won’t even let us adopt the kids we raised when she knows it’s the best thing for them. She chooses what school our kids go to and comes to my house to tell me what to cook for dinner…I’m tired of it.”

  Zain sighed heavily as the anger in her voice petered into a plea. “Baby, I’m not asking you to cut her off from your life. I know she’s your mother, but all I want is you to keep her out of our family business so that we can live. I want you to make her understand that she has no say in our lives and that I come first.”

  “See there’s that power trip again. Here’s your Halake 101 – you don’t come first,” he said. To clarify his point he added, “I’ve been my mother’s son for thirty-three years. You’ve been my wife for eleven. She was my mother before you were my woman and she’ll always have a say in my life.”

  It hurt to hear those words, but if anything they’d made the situation clear for Zain. She was never going to be happy as long as Nadifa had a say in their lives. She asked, “So that’s how it is?”

  “That’s how it is,” he returned.

  “Cool.” She nodded. He’d made his choice. He was never going to choose her over his mother. It was time to make hers.

  Halake reached for the handle of the silver door once more, but instead of leaving he paused and turned to her. “You’re acting like my mother is some sort of devil, you know? And like you’re some virgin caught up in our mess. You think I don’t know?”

  She was already tired of this conversation, but just to humor him, she asked, “Don’t know what?”

  “Why do you think my mother can’t stand you?”

  “Why don’t you tell me?”

  “When did you stop birth control?”

  “Why do you ask?” she asked. When he merely lifted an eyebrow, she repeated the mantra she’d been telling him for the last eleven years, “I told you I stopped when we got married.”

  “No,” he enunciated each word clearly, “you didn’t.”

  The look he gave her, told her he knew the truth. How?

  “How did you know?”

  Instead of answering, he said, “I know that you were on birth control up to three years ago. I didn’t ask because I thought we still had time.” He laughed bitterly, “Obviously I was wrong.”

  “How did you know?”

  “My mother got a doctor’s slip from your bag when you came to visit.”

  She clutched onto the only straw that she could find in the sea she was drowning in, “What was your mother doing in my bag?”

  “See?” Lucky pointed out with a chuckle, “Somehow you’ve even managed to switch out of your own shit so that it’s my mother’s fault.”

  She didn’t buy the birth-control excuse. Nadifa had hated her way before she and Lucky even got married. However, there was no point in arguing it out. She was done with both Nadifa and her son.

  “You know what? You’re right, it’s all my fault,” Zain said, “I’m the bitch that forced you to get another woman pregnant. I’m the one who made your mother hate me.”

  “That’s not what I mea—”

  “It’s cool Lucky,” she interrupted him. “You don’t need a woman like me in your life.”

  “Zain, can you just stop—”

  “You’re right we should just stop this right now. You go your way, I’ll go mine.” Here she was, willing to beat women up and fight other people for a man who couldn’t be bothered to fight for her. Never ever again!

  “Are you serious?” Lucky asked incredulously.

  “As a heart attack,” she said with a smile.

  “Fine then! Have it your way...” Lucky pulled the sliding doors open and said, “…but when you come crawling back home because you couldn’t handle being away from us, remember that you caused this – you ditched us.”

  “Bye.” Zain waved at him with a small smile. Her heart broke into pieces with each step he took away from her.

  Once he was gone, Rosemary came out to the balcony to stand beside Zain. She placed her arm around her daughter’s shoulder. “You ready to go home now?”

  Zain nodded.

  It was over! No more Lucky and Zain against the world.

  CHAPTER 13

  After a week of living in the same house as her mother, Zain was sure she was going to kill her or at least fatally maim her. In Rosemary’s mind, Zain was once again a rebellious sixteen-year-old and it was almost as if the last fifteen years hadn’t happened.

  “You live in my house so you follow my rules,” Rosemary insisted as they sat on the bed in their nightclothes.

  “This is not your house, it’s Chryssa’s!” Zain bent and shouted into the phone that lay between them on the covers, “Tell her to go back home, Daddy. Tell her.”

  William Davis’ deep voice came loud and clear over the loudspeaker as he obediently said, “Come back home, Rosemary.”

  “Not until she agrees to do as I say,” Rosemary insisted.

  “You can’t tell me what to do.”

  “Yes I can,” Rosemary said. “William tell her I’m her mother.”

  “She’s your mother, Zain,” William said obediently.

  “You’re coming home with me,” Rosemary said decisively. “Your father has already talked to Chief Winston to get your residency reinstated at HRTH.”

  “Daddy?” Zain asked as she mean-mugged her mother, “Who told you to talk to Chief Winston?”

  “Ask your mother.” Flipping sides was nothing new to William. He’d been negotiating agreements between his wife and daughter ever since they’d taken Zain in at thirteen fresh from the hood and still in her ‘black-girl smart-mouth’ phase.

  “Tell her I can’t go back to work right now, Daddy,” Zain insisted even though she was sure her father wanted her to return to medicine too; otherwise he wouldn’t have organized fo
r her residency to be reinstated at Hope Referral and Teaching Hospital where he was the head of the Cardiothoracic Unit. He just wasn’t as pushy as her mother about it.

  “Why?” Rosemary asked before William could answer.

  “It’s only been a week.”

  “Don’t we know it? It’s been seven days of mourning that no-good Ford boy,” Rosemary said as if it was completely unimaginable for someone to take seven whole days to recover from an eleven-year marriage. Rosemary yelled into the phone, “William!”

  “Listen to your mother, Zain,” William returned.

  “Ugh!” Zain rolled her eyes. “Daddy!”

  After the confrontation on Chryssa’s balcony, the last time Zain had seen Lucky was the previous Wednesday when she’d gone home to pick some of her clothes and so they could explain to the kids that she was going to be staying at Aunt Chryssa’s for a while. Lucky had had the nerve to allow his mother to sit in during the conversation and as heartbreaking as it’d been to soothe the twins’ tears and hold Maari who’d valiantly tried to be brave but failed at it, Nadifa’s presence only reinforced her decision to remain separated from Lucky.

  The day before, she’d talked to her husband over the phone (well it was more like had a curt question and answer session where she’d asked if the kids could sleep over at Chryssa’s during the weekend. He’d surprised her when he’d agreed without much of a fuss.

  “What’s going on here, hommies?” Chryssa asked cheerfully as she appeared at their door. She was wearing sleep shorts and a tank top diligently working her nails with a file.

  “Can I sleep in your room tonight?” Zain asked trying to convey her desperation with pleading eyes.

  “Nope!” Chryssa shook her head. “You know I don’t do that jacked up still sharing beds nonsense.”

  “You made me share a bed with my mom!” Zain complained.

  “I didn’t think she would stay that long.” Chryssa plopped down on the bed next to Zain and laid on her back.

  Zain turned to her mother. “Go home.”

  “William!” Rosemary protested.

  William’s voice was muffled as he ordered, “Be nice to your mother, Zain.”

  “Is that crunching I hear?” Rosemary said. She cocked her ear as if trying to catch an invisible sound in the background, “Are you eating fried, take-out chicken in my house?”

  “No.”

  Rosemary picked the phone up off the bed and held it to her mouth, “William Earl Davis!”

  “I think there’s someone at the door,” he said.

  “William Earl Davis,” Rosemary repeated.

  “Gotta go.” William’s words were followed by the sound of the phone’s dial tone. Rosemary’s head was tilted back and her mouth was slightly open as she looked at the phone. She couldn’t quite believe her husband would’ve – and had – hung up on her.

  “That’s why you need to go home,” Zain pointed out. “Your husband’s about to give himself a heart attack.”

  “He’s probably got chicken,” Rosemary agreed. She’d momentarily forgotten her quest to torture Zain into going back to Baltimore with her as she added, “Chips, cookies...”

  “Now you don’t need to worry so much.” Zain’s eyes took on a wicked glint as she added, “It’s probably just a little bucket of chicken.”

  “Bucket?” Rosemary croaked. Her eyes widened in horror as she stood up from the bed with the phone in her hand and headed out of the room. “I need to call him before he turns himself into Fats Domino.”

  Zain and Chryssa’s laughter followed her out the door.

  “I agree with your mother, you know?” Chryssa said once Rosemary was a safe distance away. “You need to go back to work. It’ll take your mind off… stuff.”

  “You think?”

  “Yeah! You can start making some money,” Chryssa’s eye lit as she gestured to the bowl of popcorn by the bed. “Those don’t come cheap, ya know?”

  “Woman, you are so stingy.” Zain pouted. She knew that Chryssa was only joking. Chryssa was one of the most generous women she knew. Zain smiled woefully as she said, “Besides, I don’t think I can just walk away from the kids and go back to Baltimore.”

  “You can’t find something here?”

  “I don’t know.” Zain stared at her nails contemplatively. “Maybe if I talk to Eli…”

  “Eli Stone?” Chryssa asked.

  “Yeah!” Zain nodded. “You know, I noticed the little thing between you and our esteemed Dr. Stone the other day. What’s up with the two of you?”

  “Oh! That? Nothing much,” Chryssa flippantly said. “I was his wife’s divorce attorney.”

  “His wife’s attorney?”

  “Yup!” Chryssa said. “Totally wiped him out.”

  “How did you pull that off?” Zain asked. “I thought Renée was the one who’d cheated on him.”

  “You know me,” Chryssa smiled. A devious twinkle lit her eyes. “I like a challenge.”

  * * *

  On Tuesday morning of the following week, Zain sat nervously outside of the Chief of Staff’s office at Chesley Memorial Hospital waiting for him. There hadn’t been as much attention as when she’d come in the last time, but it was most likely because everyone was busy with the shoot-out at Reshill High. According to his PA, the Chief was in a press conference fielding questions on the situation.

  The longer he stayed away, the more nervous she became. What if she had the day wrong? Couldn’t be! She’d quadruple checked with Eli when they’d talked the day before. What if Eli had the day wrong? No, there was a very little chance of that happening with Eli having an eidetic memory. What if the Chief was just pulling Eli’s leg and had no real intention of hiring her? What if Eli didn’t have as much clout with this Chief as he did before he went off to Africa? What if…

  By the time Dr. Gregory Marsden walked in at a quarter past noon, Zain’s hands were clammy and her right foot seemed to have a mind of its own. It tapped rhythmically on the floor in time to the PA’s annoyed glares.

  “Mrs. Ford!” Marsden greeted her with a quick too-tight handshake, a wide smile and laughing blue eyes. He was shorter than she’d expected - almost her height actually - and had a wide gut barely hidden by his white doctor’s coat. However, his jolly and welcoming disposition easily overshadowed his physical deficiencies. He led her into his office. “Please have a seat.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’m a huge fan of your husband.” As an afterthought he added, “And your father.”

  “Thank you,” she repeated because she really didn’t know what to say to that.

  “So tell me, Mrs…” He paused. “…can I call you Zain?”

  “Of course.”

  “So Zain,” Marsden continued as he shifted through a drawer in his desk. He came back up with a pair of glasses in his hands. Once he slipped them on jolly Santa was replaced by a keen expression as he observed her. “I’m told that you were our best resident in your time, with your eye on cardiothoracic surgery.”

  “Yes sir.”

  He sat back in his seat and pushed his glasses up to the bridge of his nose as he stared at her for a long time. It felt as if he was trying to figure her out and Zain was uncomfortable in his assessment – so uncomfortable that she had to remind herself not to squirm.

  Finally he said, “Three years is a long time to be gone.”

  “I’ve been keeping up sir,” Zain said. Honestly, she hadn’t. She’d tried to read up a bit the first year but the kids had taken up most of her attention. In her defense, it was hard to concentrate on hearts and scalpels with toddlers running around. Her license might not have expired, but it certainly felt like the knowledge in her head had.

  Marsden narrowed his eyes. “We’ll see.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Marsden’s ‘We’ll see’ turned out to be code for ‘We’re going to work you to the bone and make sure you regret ever walking back in’. Four weeks in and Zain was sure that one day she’d sit d
own in the middle of one of the hospital hallways and scream like a banshee.

  “You’re with me in an hour,” Eli said as he paid the cafeteria’s cashier and picked up two brown paper cups that brimmed with hot coffee.

  “I just got off rotation with Spencer,” Zain complained as she followed him to a table in the corner. Dr. Spencer was her attending but she was required to work with other doctors too. The brain wasn’t really her thing, but it was always fun to work with Eli – and much better than Pediatrics. God! She hated Peds! It only reminded her of how much she missed her kids.

  “The pain of being a probie,” Eli said setting the cups on the round plywood tabletop, “Probie.”

  “Stop calling me that!”

  “Anything you say, Mini.”

  “I’m too tired to do this with you right now,” Zain said. She sat heavily on one of the four blue metal seats that surrounded the table and took a deep whiff of her coffee. “Mm…this has to be the nectar of the gods.”

  She hoped the coffee would be enough to help her through the night shift. Just as she was about to take the first sip of the heavenly brew she heard her name over the intercom. “Dr. Ford. Dr. Zain Ford. Please report to the nurse’s station.”

  Leaving Eli in the cafeteria, she hurried to the nurse’s station. When she got there, one of the nurses handed her a phone. “Line two.”

  “Yes? Zain speaking.”

  “Hey,” Lucky’s deep drawl called over the phone. Her heart skipped a beat. They hadn’t spoken in almost a week and it reminded her of just how much she missed him. He asked, “You’re still picking the kids up on Saturday, right?”

  “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that,” Zain hedged as she played with the phone’s cord. “I was wondering if I could pick them up tomorrow instead…”

  “Why? Is it because you’re working?” he interrupted. Lucky didn’t even give her time to respond before he went into a rant so loud that the nurse standing on the other side of the counter could hear him. “You’re putting your damn job over your kids? This is the bullshit I don’t like. Why are you even working? Are you trying to tell me something?”