I had also composed a list of mandatory questions that had to be answered. It was my own application. I didn’t give a fuck about them already being questioned by the agency. It was shit I needed to know.
One of the questions I had on my application was: Do both parents work, and if so, where? I needed to know that because I didn’t want anyone taking her in as a foster child because of the money.
Another question was, where was your last vacation? I needed to make sure my baby saw the world. I didn’t want her closed-minded or unaware of what was out there.
The most important question on my list was what their reason was for becoming a foster parent. I asked the question to see their facial expression. Fuck the words. I wanted to see who had it in their hearts.
My list was thirty questions long and, out of twenty-five couples from all over the United States, there were only four who answered all thirty to my liking.
The first couple was the Peters in Denver, Colorado. Both husband and wife were multiracial. Mrs. Peters was Asian and black, a junior high school history teacher, and Mr. Peters was black and white and worked construction for the state. I loved that they would teach my child diversity and the blindness of love. Love sees no color, race, or creed. I believe in that even if I personally didn’t believe in falling in love.
When Margie asked the couple about their last vacation, both of their faces lit up like Christmas trees, and they began fumbling through their wallets, pulling out pictures. Mrs. Peters beat her husband to the punch.
“Our last vacation was to Disneyworld in Florida. We took our nieces to be princesses for the day.” She held the picture up to the video camera, and there were two little girls, one dressed as Snow White, the other as Cinderella, with the castle behind them.
“We took the girls with us to Mt. Rushmore; they were bored clueless. This was our way of making up for it,” Mr. Peters added, still smiling ear to ear.
My major concern with them was where they lived. I was from California and Dre was from the South. We were both from warm areas. I didn’t want my child to be uncomfortable in Colorado’s cold weather.
The next couple was the Jeffersons in Tacoma, Washington. They were an African American couple who owned a family restaurant that had been passed down three generations. What made them one of my top four was their answer to my question about their reason for becoming a foster parent. It wasn’t Mr. Jefferson’s teary eyes that touched me. It was his answer.
“I’m the third generation of Jeffersons to keep the family’s restaurant alive. I’m almost forty-five years old, and the love of my life cannot carry my children. We have tried and tried, and I will not let my wife be hurt again by another miscarriage. I want to give her someone we can love as ours and be able to leave the family restaurant to. I don’t care if it’s a boy or girl. I want to leave it with my child. I do understand that you may decide to come back and take the child away from us, which would be heartbreaking and devastating, but I just want to see my wife in a motherly role. You will make my prayers and dreams come true.”
They seemed like down-to-earth people who had been through a lot of heartbreak when it came to a child, and that was my concern with them. What if I did want my daughter back? I couldn’t take another child away from them. They’ve already been hurt that way. I could be heartless at times and even cold-blooded, but to know I’ll intentionally cause pain to someone whose only role in my life is helping me with my child was too much for me to sign up for.
The other two couples I picked lived in the South: the Greens from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and the Hutchings from Savannah, Georgia. There wasn’t anything spectacular about either couple. They just seemed like good-hearted people who knew there was more to the world than the South. They traveled frequently to those places, but they wouldn’t call anywhere else home.
I had a hard decision to make and had less than a week to make it so whomever I chose could prepare for their new baby. I was leaving $5,000 at the hospital for the couple on a prepaid card that I would load with money every now and then. On my daughter’s tenth birthday, the card would become hers to use at her will.
I was nine-and-a-half months pregnant, two weeks away from my C-section, and still hadn’t picked a couple. I would rewatch all the videos and go over all the answers and background checks again that night, and then make my decision the next day.
I was waiting on the pizza man to deliver my pizzas when I opened the door. Standing on the other side of my door was a skinny little white boy with an Atlanta Braves fitted hat on who looked like a hip-hop video dancer. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had broken out into a dance routine from one of Usher’s videos.
“I got a certified letter for you.” He looked down at my stomach. “Damn, you’re due any day now, ain’t cha? Yeah, you about nine months.” Then he giggled like a geek.
I didn’t know if he was asking or telling me. I snatched the letter out of his hand. There wasn’t anything written on the envelope. “Who is this from?”
He moved over as the pizza man approached and headed back up the driveway. “Just read it. Bet you ordered everything on them pizzas too, ha-ha.”
I went up the walkway to see what kind of car he came in. By the time I wobbled up the walkway, he was nowhere in sight. He must have run to the car just in case I came looking. I asked the pizza man if he had seen what kind of car the guy was in.
“He was standing by the big tree out front when I got out of the car, ma’am. He told me to follow him, and he would show me where you were. He started walking this way before I could catch up.”
I paid the pizza man, thanked him for the little information he had given me, and walked back into the house. I had lost my appetite, or, should I say, put it on hold until after I read the letter. I threw the pizzas on the counter, and then made my way to the couch.
He wasn’t a UPS or USPS worker. No one knew where I lived but a select few, who were Sandy, Stephanie, and her sister, Tracey. Marcus had delivered weed there before, but not to my door.
I paid my bills on time, and I wasn’t in debt to anyone, and if there was someone out there I did owe, it wasn’t bad enough for them to send a goon to my door. I made myself comfortable on the couch, then damn near had a heart attack. It was a letter from Dre.
Ms. Savannah James,
You’re a hard woman to track down. Did you really think I wouldn’t keep up with you? I ran your license plate before I came by your house that Friday night. You rolled up on my boy at the gas station in a brand-new car, asked for some green like you knew him, pulled up with out-of-state plates, bought an ounce, then called me to deliver another one somewhere in Bellevue that same night. Hell, yeah, I had you checked out. I thought you would have known better. I told you I graduated with a master’s degree in criminal justice (sorry I left the “master’s” part off originally). I know my shit, and what I don’t know, I have detectives for friends to teach me. You’re probably thinking if I know so many people, why am I in jail? Let’s just say I was warned they was coming, but disappearing would have made shit worse for me and drawn attention to my friends. I had given up on you when I found out you changed your number to get rid of me. Yeah, the police told me you didn’t want to be bothered with me and that you turned in my last letter.
For some reason, I don’t think you’re going to turn this one in though. I couldn’t get yo’ ass off my mind for shit, so I sent my nigga by your spot in Atlanta. When he got there, you were dressed up all sexy and shit. I got jealous and told him to follow you. Yo’ ass went to a nigga’s house, and again, I was done with you.
You know what’s funny? I started feeling sick over you, so I thought I’d give it one more try ’cause I knew then I really was in love with you, but my boy said you don’t ever leave the house, your car is parked dirty as hell, and your mailbox is full. You know how to play gone good.
Let me tell you how I found out you were home or where you fucked-up your game of hide-and-go-seek. Every time my boy would fa
ll through, you was ordering pizza and shit. You can’t deliver food to a house where no one is home, can you? So he paid the delivery boy to deliver your chicken pizza with everything on it last month, and guess what he told me? Savannah is pregnant! I asked him if he was sure, and he said positive unless you swallowed a whole watermelon. My only question for you is, when are you having my baby? I know you think you’re smart and will probably lie and say it ain’t mines, and that’s cool. More power to you. I know I ain’t the kind of nigga you planned on having a baby by with your exquisite lifestyle and all. But you still should have let a nigga know.
So what do you and your rich friends do? Travel through the hood looking for some thug dick ’cause all them tight shirt, tie-wearing-ass niggas ain’t fucking you right? I can’t do shit while I’m in here but count these eighteen months down to my freedom. I guess we will have to talk later about it, huh?
—Dre
P.S. Chicken pizza with all the toppings is the only way I eat my pizza. I don’t eat pork. You see, Savannah, no matter how hard you’re trying to keep me out of my child’s life, it’s still a daddy’s baby.
I put the letter down and felt the water fall down my legs. I was in labor. I called Dr. Davis and told her to meet me at the hospital. It was time. I grabbed the bag I had packed, put Dre’s letter in it, and drove all the way to the hospital in the worst pain I had ever felt in my life. I turned on the radio to try to comfort myself, and Sade’s new song about being a soldier was playing. I toughened up and made the drive.
Dr. Davis and two men were waiting on me with a wheelchair when I pulled up at the emergency room. Once I sat in the chair, everything else went quickly. I was pushed in a room, put on a table, Dr. Davis stuck her hand between my thighs, her gloves came out red, she hit a button on my bed and said, “stat,” and the nurses ran in. I lay back and after two pushes, the baby was out and screaming.
She was eight pounds, two ounces, nineteen inches long, and she was the prettiest little girl I had ever laid eyes on. “She looks just like you,” Dr. Davis said while bringing her over to me.
I thought to myself, she has never seen Dre. She looked like her father and me combined. Her skin was lighter than the both of ours. I guess her color would come with time.
“Would you like to hold her, Savannah?”
Previously I had said I didn’t want to see or touch the baby once she was born, but I nodded my head yes.
The baby was crying when the doctor handed her to me. She soon stopped as if she knew who I was. I had read online that babies had a sense of knowing things and that it was good to talk to them while they were in your stomach so they could get familiar with your voice, and I did just that.
There was no one around me for three months. I had to find a way to hear my own voice, so I talked to her and read her a book of my choice. I tried reading her children’s stories, but they were too fictional. I wanted my daughter to know what was really on the other side of my stomach. We ended up reading The Coldest Winter Ever by Sister Souljah.
I know there is a lot of adult content in the book, but there were so many lessons she could learn to help her become a better woman. That’s why it was my first choice. I packed the book in my hospital bag and wrote her a message in it that I would give to her new parents to give to her once she was old enough.
As I said earlier, I didn’t have anyone positive in my life while growing up. I wish someone had handed me Sister Souljah’s book. I might have made better life choices.
The nurses pushed me into my room while they ran the normal tests on my daughter. “Get some rest, Ms. James. We will keep her in the nursery with us tonight.”
I didn’t need any rest. Hell, I had a lot to do in the next three days. “When you’re done with your tests, bring my daughter back, please. Thank you. And can you pull that curtain and close my door?”
As soon as I pulled out my laptop, there was a knock on the door. Dr. Davis and Margie had come to me with updates.
Margie spoke first. “We have requested her Social Security card to be sent here so we can give it to the parents. They will be coming shortly to do her birth certificate, which you said you did want to complete with your information. What is the child’s name?”
I named my daughter on the ride to the hospital. “Her name is Sade Chrisett, and she will have her father’s last name, Burns.” I waited for a response, and I knew Dr. Davis would have one.
“Did you decide to give her father custody? If not, which couple will it be? We need to notify them that the child has been born.”
I was hearing her talk, but I wasn’t listening. My mind was spinning around. Not only did I just have Dre’s baby, but also he knew I was having her. I needed my baby to go as far away from him as possible.
“No, she will not be going with her father, and if I didn’t like you, Doc, we would be having words. I have chosen the Jeffersons to raise my child.” I knew I would be breaking their hearts if I ever decided to take her from them, but hell, she was my child, and we could come to an agreement on something.
Margie walked out the door in a hurry. I guess I pissed her off. I was back to me now . . . Fuck her and what she thought was best. If the bitch walked a day in my shoes, she would have corns.
For the last two weeks, I’d been thinking of ways to better myself, looking back on my mistakes. I’d made plans to have my shit back tight. The move back to California was going to be a good thing after all. I could get revenge on everyone I needed to pay back, show off the new Savannah James, and make lots of money while doing it. But, first things first.
I needed to wrap up things in the South. I would be released from the hospital the next night, and Sade would be headed to Washington the day after. Once she was out of the South and untraceable, I would send her daddy a letter and make sure it was one he wouldn’t forget.
I called my uncle Johnny, who was now coaching at UCLA. “Hi, Uncle Stranger.”
He cleared his voice. “Is this my baby girl?” After all this time, he had no kids and still treated me like I was his.
“Who else would it be? Uncle, I need your help with something. Do you have a minute?” I told him about my promotion to partner and that I would be moving home. I asked if he could start looking for a house or condo by the beach since UCLA was right down the street.
“Baby, them places is high out there. Why don’t you move out here to Torrance or Carson by me? You could own a house for the amount you’re going to pay in rent living by the water.”
I knew he would want me near him, but living near him would not impress anybody. I wanted to break hearts. “Uncle, I am way above those areas. Yes, they are nice, don’t get me wrong. With my income, however, I want the best. I don’t want to spend my money on security.”
He took a deep breath. “Savannah, you ain’t got to impress nobody, baby. Everybody from the old neighborhood is still in the old neighborhood. You and Keisha’s little sister are the only two who made it out.”
He didn’t understand all the hell I went through. “I don’t give a damn what they are still doing. I already know I’m better than them. I just don’t like being around broke, goalless people. Uncle, you should understand. You made it out too.”
I had forgotten I cursed. “You better watch your mouth. What has gotten into you? I’ll find you a place in Malibu, Pacific Coast Highway, or Rodeo Drive if that’s what you want. You got 90210 money. You want me to look there too? What I’m trying to get you to understand is it doesn’t matter where you lay your head if your shit stank. Putting it in a fancy box just presents it better. I hope this move is going to be a good thing for you. Have you told your father yet?”
Always the voice of reason. That time I wasn’t hearing it. Trying to stand in my way would be like jumping in front of a train. I wasn’t going to stop until I ran your ass over. “I’m sorry for cursing, and, no, I haven’t talked to him yet. I’m going to call him next. And thank you, Uncle. Any of those places you named will be fine. I w
ould like to move in by next month, so move fast. How much do I owe you?”
There was silence, and then he said, “Money can’t buy love, baby. I will find you a place this week and e-mail you the details. I love you with your hardheaded ass. You got to learn everything the hard way, don’t you? Why do you think you didn’t get that scholarship to USC? ’Cause of your attitude. I’m getting off this phone. Good night.”
He hung up before I could say thank you back. My next call was to my daddy. “Hey, Daddy.” He must have been smoking a cigarette because I could hear the lighter flickering in the background.
“Hey, baby, what’s new?” He always asked me what was new like he was waiting on some exciting news. It felt good to be able to give him some.
“Daddy, I got promoted at work and will be moving back to California to run my own branch of my company.”
He was so excited. I asked him to set up a PO Box in his name the next day, but he needed to set it up at the twenty-four-hour post office in Hollywood. I told him it would be my business PO Box, and I would be the only one permitted in it. We talked for an hour about my new position and me. He was proud of me and made sure he told me every chance he got.
“Savannah, you have come a long ways, baby. I’m so proud of you. I wish your mother could see what a beautiful and successful woman you have become.”
I hated when he brought her up, so I rushed off the phone saying I had to make more phone calls and that I would call him to give him my new address as soon as Uncle Johnny found me a place.
Before I could call Stephanie to tell her I would be back the next week, the nurse brought Sade back in the room. I fed her, changed her, and then told her my game plan. I told her I loved her and would be supporting her throughout her life even if she never saw me again. I spoke to her like I was speaking to an adult. There was no goo-goo and ga-ga in my voice. I gave it to her straight.
“I never wanted to have a child, Sade, but then you came along. I have to be honest, if I would have had the opportunity to abort you, I would have, but it was too late. I love you and will always love you. You’re the only thing in this world that is mine. I can’t mother you and teach you to be a woman. I barely could teach myself to be one, and I’m still learning. I want you to feel the love of two parents, something I never had and don’t think I can give. If you grow up to hate me, I will understand. But, like the bitch that left me said, ‘some things you will never understand.’”
Kismet Page 9
