Sobbing, I whispered. “She’s not okay.”
“What’s wrong?”
“She-she…” Tired of sounding like a babbling fool, I took a deep breath and tried to get my words together. “She has to have a C-section.”
He seemed relieved. “Oh, babe, women have C-sections all the time. You know that. I’m sure it will be fine.”
“No, Russell,” I corrected him. “I’m not talking about that. She’s sick. She’s getting sicker.”
He finally realized what I was saying, fully understanding the meaning behind my words. His eyes squeezed together briefly before he opened them again and asked, “How do you know?”
“I can just…” I wiped my face, trying to get myself together for Joy and True. “I can just tell. I see it in her eyes. I know my child.”
“Come here.” He brought me back into his embrace, holding me tightly, allowing me to claw at his back as I fought with the stinging heartbreak. “You gotta be strong for her. You need to be in there with her. She can’t be in there alone.”
“I know,” I cried.
He took my chin into his hand and lifted my eyes to his. “I got you. You can be thinking too much into this.”
Russell was a man. With him, I rarely had to think of anything. He took care of me. I could trust him, but in this particular situation, he was wrong.
REMI
“You could have killed yourself, Remi!”
I tore my eyes away from my mother. I couldn’t take her judgmental stare. Who was she to judge me? She had been too stubborn to allow herself to love a man in years.
Yet, I still could not take those condescending eyes of hers. I pouted and recoiled under the hospital blanket.
“Unt uh!” my mother snapped, tearing the blanket back. “You’re going to listen to me, and you listen to me good.”
God. At the moment, the last thing I needed was to hear my mother’s mouth, but at least I was still alive to hear it.
I was in the emergency room at The University of Chicago Hospital. An ambulance had brought me there, and for that last twelve hours I had been under observation, tested, and scanned.
As I had sped toward that train, I had contemplated allowing it to run me over and end my misery. I was sick of feeling like I wasn’t good enough, as if I had eaten myself into being a woman that no man would ever want. I was so tired of comparing myself to every fat girl I saw that had a man beside her that loved her, rolls and all. For years, I had psyched myself out, making myself think that Banks loved me unconditionally because he still had sex with me with every pound that I had gained. No matter the little bitches that he had cheated on me with, he still was with me, fucking me, claiming to love all of this. Now, I had been truly humbled, brought down to my knees to stoop in my embarrassing truth. I couldn’t hide behind that facade anymore. He had finally chosen, and his choice hadn’t been me. I could no longer deny that for all these years, he had not, in fact, loved me how I deserved to be loved. I couldn’t front like he was the perfect man anymore. I could no longer stunt like we had been happy. My truth had been revealed for the world to see, and I just couldn’t take it anymore. At the time I had wanted it to be over.
However, I had chickened out, hitting the breaks. My car had spun out on the black ice covering the pavement. I went head-on into a tree, totaling my Benz. The impact had caused a few facial lacerations and broken a couple of ribs.
“You’re lucky to be alive,” my mother fussed.
I didn’t feel lucky. But I dared not encourage more of my mother’s chastising by saying that.
“It’s not that serious,” my mother insisted.
“Exactly,” Gigi added. I slightly rolled my eyes and just stared at the ceiling as she drove the judgmental knife into my back deeper. “You’re gonna let this nigga kill you while he ain’t even with you? Get your shit together, Remi.”
That was easy for her to say. I had given Banks most of my life. At this point, I was not lovesick. I was embarrassed and disappointed in myself. I felt like less of a woman for allowing someone who did not even know my man like I did to swoop in and save him from clearly a woman who he felt captive with… until he met her. She obviously gave him the strength to finally shit on me so bad that there was no turning back.
13
True
Keyes was born a healthy seven pounds even. I’d named him that because with a mother named True and a sister named Joy, he had to have a unique name. Keyes was the Hebrew version of Caius, which meant rejoice. And my baby boy had definitely given me something to rejoice about during such dark days.
He was now a week old and out of the hospital. Yet, my mother had been catering to him as I remained a patient at the hospital at the insistence of my oncologist, Dr. Sabi. He had run a series of tests to determine the status of my cancer while medicating me so that I was able to deal with the pain and other symptoms that were crippling me.
Yet, I didn’t need the tests to know what was going on. As he looked at me, I also could see it in his eyes, that there hadn’t been a real need for him to run the tests to know either.
However, he still wasted the time and money to run them, and now my team of doctors were standing around my bed with looks in their eyes that only meant one thing.
Dr. Sabi had the most distressed look in eyes, eyes that he couldn’t bring to look directly into mine. The oncology residents surrounding him had white skin that had flushed red. The one sistah resident was the only one who had the balls to look me in the eyes, but her stare held so much sympathy for me.
Finally, when the tension in the room became too obvious, Dr. Sabi cleared his throat and forced out, “I honestly don’t know how to tell you this, True.”
I took a deep breath, preparing myself to hear what I already knew in my heart. “Just tell me,” I insisted.
Dr. Sabi nodded and regained his professionalism. “The cancer is progressing … fast.”
I bit the inside of my jaw nervously. “Stage 4?” I asked, knowing his answer.
He nodded and sadly answered, “Yes.”
“How much time do I have?”
Again, Dr. Sabi’s professionalism went out of the window. He had been quite caring since becoming my oncologist nearly two years ago. He thought I was so courageous for battling this disease while going through a divorce and giving birth to Keyes. He had come to admire me.
“Dr. Sabi, it’s okay,” I insisted with a smile.
He cleared his throat and nodded again. He walked around the foot of the bed and took a seat. With a light hand on my leg, he told me, “Three months at the most.”
My eyes bucked a bit in shock. I had known I was getting sicker, but hearing that had hit me so hard that I was speechless. My eyes shut tight for a quick second as I nodded slowly. Yet, I swallowed hard in an attempt to maintain my composure.
With a loving pat on the knee, Dr. Sabi told me, “Its’ time for Hospice care.”
COOP
♫She calling my phone, all in her feelings
Wanna ask me where I'm at, ayy look bae you tripping
See I'm coming in lil late or I might not come in
Cause I'm tryna turn your Honda Accord, into a Benz
Aye I'm tryna get it lil baby, I'm tryna get it
Aye I'm tryna get it lil baby, I'm tryna get it
Aye I'm tryna get it lil baby, I'm tryna get it
Aye I'm tryna get it lil baby, aye I'm tryna get it♫
“’You know I like spending lil’ baby. So, I gotta get it lil’ baby. Never had shit. All you know is get it when you come up from the trenches, lil’ baby.’” I was cruising through the city as I rapped along to “Lil’ Baby” by Money Bagg Yo. I had just left the rec center that was coming along good. It looked dope on the inside. I would be ready to open the doors in a few weeks. I was too turnt up to finally see one of my few dreams coming to fruition. “’Sending texts, thinking I'm fucking off with other bitches. She crazy. Take the R out of free, you get fee. If I do fuck wi
th them, just know they gone pay me. I'm ‘bout to stretch a whole 9. I ain't lying. I'm bout to whip it like slavery’.”
I was doing eighty on the Bishop Ford on my way to pick up Vanessa. Her husband had left town, and she was feining for the D. Since she knew so much about real estate and connections, she had been a tremendous help as I renovated the rec center. She had hooked me up with many of the contractors and had even gotten me connections with a few schools in the neighborhood where I had gone to tell the male students about the center. They seemed excited, and so was I. The only dark cloud over this excitement was that True was missing. Unbeknownst to her, she had birthed this idea within me.
Just thinking about her left the usual ball in my stomach. It had been eight months. I wondered if she had given birth yet. I wanted nothing more than to wash away my feelings for her so that I could be there for my child, but no matter how hard I tried, I still had mad love for shorty.
However, that day, I was full of so much excitement that I really only wanted to share it with True. She was flooding every thought I had. I hated that she wasn’t there to witness what she had instilled in me.
As I exited the expressway, I reached for my phone in the center console and swiped through the screens until I reached my Facebook app. I searched for True’s name and clicked on her page. She still hadn’t posted in months, but her mother had tagged her in a picture of a baby boy. Approaching a red light, I stared at the baby boy who was surprisingly already chocolate. Yet, his ears were darker than the rest of him, so I smiled, realizing he would be dark like me. His eyes were closed, and he didn’t have any features yet, so I couldn’t tell who he looked like yet. But staring at him, I knew he would be the spitting image of me. He was mine, my son.
I closed the phone. I couldn’t stare at him any longer. Looking at my son gave me an even more unusual feeling than I had started feeling for True. It was unconditional love. Just looking at that picture, I felt love and connection to a person that I didn’t even know or hadn’t even held.
“Fuck,” I cursed as I gripped the steering wheel. Reluctantly, I picked up my phone again and unlocked it. It was still on her page. Luckily, her mother had tagged which hospital they were in. So, even though everything in me was telling me that this was something I should run far away from, I headed to the University of Chicago.
I was still feeling some reluctance as I went to knock on True’s hospital room door. I lifted my arm, knuckles ready to knock, but I stopped myself. I was a gangsta, the hardest of them all, but I didn’t have the heart to do this, to raise this baby without her, to have to tell my son how wonderful his mother was because all he would have of her were the memories that True’s mother and I would share with him.
However, Rakim’s words had been ringing in my ears since he’d said them to me. “Aye, man, this ain’t you, to have some kid out there that you aren’t taking care of. You always told me you would do better than your parents.”
I had always said that. I wanted to be better than my parents. This wasn’t the way I wanted to do it, but regardless, I was now a father. And I had already broken a promise to my son for the eight months his mother had carried him and then birthed him into the world.
Biting down on my bottom lip, I knocked on the door and then let myself in. I walked through the door slowly, not knowing what to expect or how True would respond. But as I walked past the bathroom and entered the room, I instantly regretted it. Her mother was sitting on her bed. They had been in an embrace that her mother was letting her out of now knowing that someone else was in the room. They both quickly wiped their eyes, still not looking in my direction, but I could see that they had been crying. I noticed Joy lying on the couch under the window fast asleep.
Finally, True looked up and nearly jumped out of her once-bright skin when she saw me. My heart broke as I looked at her. Most pregnant women gained weight, yet she had lost even more. She was so thin that she was nearly only skin and bones. Her color had left her beautiful face. But I knew I loved her when she still looked so beautiful to me.
“C-Coop,” she stuttered, lashes fluttering repeatedly.
I walked towards her slowly, as her mother watched me curiously. That’s when I noticed that small, brown baby in her mother’s arms. But instead of being wrapped in the usual hospital blanket and onesie, he had on a Ralph Lauren onesie, hat, and booties. My little man was very handsome as he slept.
There was fire in her mother’s eyes as she watched me. I had never met her before. I only knew who she was because I had been stalking True’s Facebook page. I figured True had told her how I had responded to the news about her pregnancy.
Regardless of how she was eyeing me, I smiled and extended my hand. “Hi, I’m Coop.”
She eyed my hand, glaring. I could see that tears were still in her eyes. She looked back at True, whose eyes were begging her mother to be nice.
Her mother looked back at me and shook my hand weakly. “Hi,” she spat curtly. “I’m Angel, True’s mother.”
I smiled, revealing my dimples, and she gushed despite her reluctance. True smiled as well as her mother cleared her throat, stood, and smoothed out of her sweater dress.
“I’ll give you all some privacy,” she announced as she put my son in True’s arms. She then stood and took her purse from the nearby chair. “True, I’m going to the cafeteria for some coffee. Do you want something to eat?”
“I’m not hungry, Ma.” In response, Angel gave True a stern look, so True sighed. “Fine. Bring me a cheeseburger.” True shook her head behind her mother’s back as she marched out of the room.
I slowly walked towards the chair near her bed and sat, staring at my son. “Can I hold him?” I asked, hopeful that True didn’t harbor so much resentment against me that she didn’t want me close to my son.
But in genuine True fashion, she smiled sincerely and said, “Sure.” Then she handed him to me.
He squirmed as I took him into my arms, but he didn’t wake up. “What’s his name?”
True smiled at the sight of me holding him. In my large arms, he seemed to disappear. “Keyes.”
My eyes darted at her. “What’s his real name?”
Her mouth dropped. “That is his real name!”
My head cocked as I glared at her. “Why you name my son that shit?”
“It’s nice! It means rejoice. It’s different,” she insisted.
I groaned, shaking my head. “You already signed the birth certificate?”
“Yes.” She chuckled. “He’s a week old.”
“Well, you need to change his name,” I fussed. Her mouth lay agape again as I continued to bark, “He needs a name he can get a job with. Some shit they don’t let people know that he’s Black as soon as they look at his résumé. Something like Jackson or Steve.”
“Your name is Coop,” she reminded me.
“No, because those white folks at the group home had sense enough, my name is Cooper, not no ghetto shit.”
Insulted, True clutched her chest. “Barack Obama was the president, and his name is ethnic.”
“And he graduated from Yale. You don’t know whether this little motherfucker is gonna graduate from high school, let alone college.”
True giggled. “I hate you.”
I reached over with a smile and pinched her side: “No, you don’t.”
As she laughed and swatted my hand away, I realized how much I had missed her. I knew I had missed her, but being there with her let me know exactly just how much I needed her. This felt real. She filled gaps in my life that I didn't even know needed filling. She made me feel like my head was in the clouds even though I knew damn well that my feet were on the ground. Looking at her and being in her presence was like the first warm, sunny day after a brutal Chicago winter.
I felt lost. This territory of feeling and loving was so unknown to me. Yet, I felt lost in the right direction.
“I’m sorry.” It was that simple. There was nothing more to say. “I’m so sorry.�
�
True’s shoulder sank as sympathy filled her eyes. “I’m sorry too. I should have told you the truth from the beginning. I just never expected for us to get so close so fast, and I never, ever considered getting pregnant.”
I smirked playfully. “Yeah, you were treating me like a fuck buddy.”
She giggled. “Yeah, that was my only intention.”
“It was mine too. I’m not going to lie.”
True laughed. “I know.”
“That’s why I pushed you away when you told me about Keyes and your cancer. I wasn’t strong enough to be in love with you and watch you die.”
Her eyes filled with admiration as we stared at one another. “In love with me?”
I felt like a bitch. I felt soft and weak, but it was my truth. And I had been letting my ego keep me away from my son and True for way too long.
“Yes,” I confessed.
That confession made her feel guilt that poured into her eyes, instead of the happiness I expected. “Well, I am…”
“Huh?” I asked curiously. “You’re what?”
Sitting back, she sighed long and deep. Swallowing hard, she looked up at the ceiling. “I am dying. Soon. It’s getting worse. I only have three months at the most. There’s nothing more that can be done for me.”
My eyes closed for a second as I fought to keep my composure. I didn’t want to be selfish and show her my reaction. I needed to be there for her. I would deal with my hurt on my own. Leaning forward, I reached for her tiny hand and kissed the back of it, fighting to swallow the huge lump in my throat.
“I’m getting released to Hospice care tomorrow,” she told me as she stared blankly in front of her. It was as if, even though she had been told that this would happen, she still couldn’t believe it. “You can walk away now, and I would totally understand. And in three months, after I’m gone, you can come back and take care of your son.”
When My Soul Met A Thug Page 14
