A Staten Island Love Letter 5 Read online

  I reached across the table and touched her hand. “I’ll always be there for you girls. It doesn’t matter if me and your uncle are together or not.”

  “I know that now,” she took a break. “I’m pregnant again,” she revealed.

  I dropped my head because I knew this would happen. Reese was a good man and he cared and took care of both she and Zamari, even with Zamari not being his, but I knew that she would end up pregnant again.

  “Jus, please don’t look like that,” she whined.

  “I’m disappointed, Kiss. You’re supposed to be in college and doing something, what are you going to do with two babies?”

  “I was thinking about getting an abortion without telling Reese. He would be pissed because he wants to have a baby of his own.”

  “Reese can take care of it, but it’s more than that. What about you and your life? You can’t just float around on your uncle and Reese’s money. You need something for you. A degree and a career.”

  I could tell that she wasn’t trying to hear anything I was saying. In her eyes, she had landed another big fish and wanted to have this baby because of Reese. Reese’s status in the streets had grown and he was now one of Staten’s main go to men. More money was coming in and his status was rising in the streets. Still, that didn’t mean that Kiss needed to go and get pregnant by him. Zamari was not even a year yet and she was already pregnant with baby number two.

  “I wasn’t trying to get pregnant, but I’m not going to get an abortion if my man wants the baby. I know and I’ve been thinking about going to take some college classes to pass time.”

  “Pass time? What do you mean pass time? You need to take college classes to get a degree. Kiss, no man wants a woman that isn’t about nothing. Trust me, I’ve had the career and everything and now look at me.”

  “What do you mean look at you? You have a center about to open up and you’re an incredible teacher, Justice. Stop being so hard on yourself, you’re goals.”

  I laughed. “Girl, I’m not goals. Having a baby by Priest is not goals. Although, some chicks in the hood might beg to differ.”

  “I’m saying you’re goals because you got a man that couldn’t care less if a female fucked with him or not, in the house going crazy. Ro loves the shit out of you. I’m not defending his recent actions, but I know that he really does love you.”

  “Yeah, I believed that once upon a time ago,” I rolled my eyes. “Did you tell him about the baby?”

  “No. I have to tell Reese first. We’ve been talking about buying a house together.” Kiss was delusional about her happily ever after with Reese.

  “A house?”

  “Yeah, his house is nice, but too small for me, Zamari and the new baby. Plus, he wants to rent that out. He was talking about a bigger house out in Tottenville.”

  “Did he say he wanted you to move in?”

  “No, but I’m about to have his baby so I know he’ll move me in there.”

  “Kiss, how about you get your own apartment? It’s nothing like getting your own for you and Zamari. Move from your uncle’s house to your own shit, not another man.”

  Even though she looked me right in the eye and was listening to everything that I said, she was going to do what she wanted to do. In her mind, moving into a bigger home with Reese with her son and their baby was goals to her. Yeah, she’d be the talk of the hood for a while because a lot of people wanted to land Reese, but then what? What happened when he was gone for the day or days working in the trap and she had two kids to take care of? Reese already felt like she didn’t need a nanny or shouldn’t have been partying and leaving me to watch the baby. So, with her under his roof, he wasn’t about to put up with partying and pawning the kids off on anybody.

  “Justice, I don’t want to be judged. I’m trying to do what is best for me and Zamari. Moving in with Reese is what is best and what I want to do.”

  “Okay, I support you. If you need anything you let me know… okay?”

  “I will,” she smiled at me. “Now, how is my beautiful baby cousin?”

  “She’s good. I’m heading there now to go and see her. I’m hoping she’ll be able to come home soon.”

  “Me too. She’s gonna be so spoiled. I already have stuff in my room that I had bought for her.”

  “She has enough stuff over at the house, you need to stop buying her stuff. I have to go and get some stuff for her room at my new place.”

  “New place? You move quick.”

  “Yeah. I’m tired of bouncing from house to house. I like having my own space and with a baby, I need my own place.”

  “I hear you. I’m glad that you’re in a good place, seriously. I was worried about you.”

  I giggled. “I should be worried about you, not the other way around. How’s the girls?”

  “Love is messing around with some twenty-year-old in Stapleton. Priest doesn’t know and I confronted her on it, and she refuses to stop messing with him.”

  “Twenty-year-old? She’s sixteen years old, Kiss. Have you told Priest?”

  “No, I’m handling it before getting him involved. She’s not having sex, thank God.”

  “How do you know? You lied about being pregnant for a full pregnancy… I need to go and talk with Love.”

  “Don’t tell her I told you anything. I found out who the nigga is and I’m gonna go and talk to him and let him know. I’m sure Love didn’t tell him how old she really is.”

  “You girls are going to be the death of me? What about Kiki?”

  “She’s good. Having little friend issues, they picking on her and shit. You know regular middle school stuff.”

  “Don’t take that too lightly. Make sure you check on your sister and see if she’s alright,” I told her.

  Bullying wasn’t like it was when I was growing up. We would call each other names and then that was it. Now, bullying happened at school and because of social media, it followed them home. It wasn’t something to take lightly and I was going to make sure I checked on Kiki. I also needed to talk with Priest so he could make sure he was checking in with her as well. With all we had going on, it was easy for the girls to get lost in the shuffle of our chaos.

  We sat and ordered some pastries and continued to catch up on each other’s lives. Kiss was a good kid; she was just misguided and didn’t have a woman to teach her the way to be a woman. Her uncle tried his best, but he wasn’t a woman and it was hard to try and raise a girl into a woman being a man. I wouldn’t say that he didn’t do a good job, because he did. He did the best he could with what he had and that counted for something. At the end of the day, Kiss was spoiled, bratty and wanted things to be done on her terms. She wanted little to no advice and as a man, you didn’t know how to deal with that. Kiss wanted to meet to tell me what she was gonna do, not seek advice. Although I always inserted my own advice, she ultimately did what she wanted in the end. I finished up with Kiss and promised to invite the girls over for movie night at Staten’s house this weekend. I missed them so much and this weekend would be like old times. Staten didn’t lie when he said he was barely home. I had been using his car like it was mine and he didn’t mind. He had others that he drove so I could use this one. I jumped into the car, started it and headed to see my angel at the hospital.

  3

  Freedom

  I rocked in the glider in Samoor’s nursery as I watched him sleep peacefully in his crib. Since he got home, I couldn’t sleep a full night. Nights like this, I would warm me up some milk in my favorite mug and sit in his nursery while watching him. To me, he was the most fragile out of all our children and the one I would forever worry about. His heart couldn’t take too much so I wanted to take all his stress away. I rocked as I looked at his perfect heart shaped lips, bushy eyebrows like Samaj and Ghost, and a dimple in one of his cheeks like his smallest sister. He was so perfect to me. Perfection almost always came in the storm of imperfection. Right now, our home was in an uproar of chaos and I was doing my best to float through
it and be there for everyone. Ghost’s treatments were making him weaker by the day. He could no longer hide it from the kids anymore, but he refused to tell them. His fear was that it would scare them, and he didn’t want them to have to worry.

  “Couldn’t sleep again?” I looked toward the door and Samaj was standing at the door. He had a glass of water in his hands.

  “Nope,” I smiled. “Don’t grow up, you’ll have this thing called worry,” I made a light joke. He walked into the room and sat on the floor in front of me.

  “Is Pops alright?” Out of both of the twins, Samaj was very self-aware. I could never hide anything from him. Even when I thought he wasn’t watching; he was and would always prove that I wasn’t as sly as I thought I was.

  “He’s fine, baby,” I lied.

  “Ma, you told us that lying is bad.”

  “I’m not lying.”

  “You’re a terrible liar just like Somali. You both can’t lie to save your life,” he called me out.

  “Baby, I think daddy should be the one to tell you.”

  “Tell him what?” Ghost’s voice sounded in the room. You could tell from his frame that he was losing weight. He barely had an appetite and when he did eat something, he would throw it up soon after.

  “Are you alright?” Samaj directed his question to his father.

  “Yeah, I’m good… don’t worry about me.” Ghost tried to end the subject, but his headstrong son wasn’t having it. “Why you looking at me like that?” Ghost asked Samaj.

  “Because the both of you are lying to me. I’m eleven now, you can tell me stuff,” he tried to convince us.

  Ghost walked into the nursery and pulled me up from the glider and sat down. He pulled me onto his lap as we looked at our son. “Tell him, Ma,” heave me permission to tell Samaj.

  “Daddy has cancer,” my voice cracked. I had said it in my head so many times, but it was something about saying it out loud that made it real for me.

  “Are you going to die?”

  “Maj, you think I’m a punk?”

  “No, you’re the strongest man I know,” he smiled at his father.

  “So, just know that I’m beating cancer’s ass, ight?”

  “Okay.”

  “Give me and your mother a hug and go back to bed,” he told him and he got up to hug the both of us.

  “Pops?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Make sure you beat cancer. It would suck to lose you after just getting you,” he said and the tears fell down my face.

  “I got you,” he nodded at him.

  When Samaj left the room, Ghost hugged me tightly as I sobbed hard. “I can’t lose you again, Gyson.”

  “You’re not, babe. Stop all this crying. I’m doing what needs to be done and I got this,” he tried to convince me.

  I was so scared and worried all the time. I couldn’t do this life without him. Me and the kids needed him. “I love you so much.”

  “And I love you too. I need you to do something for me.”

  “Anything,” I turned and looked into his face.

  “We need to go to the lawyer’s office and sign guardianship papers. If something was to ever happen to me, I want to know that Rain stays with you and you’ll raise her right.”

  “Don’t talk like that.”

  “Ma, I have to. It’s not even about the cancer. Anything could happen and I want to make sure my daughter is straight.”

  “What about your mother or Mirror?”

  “I love my sister and mother, but I want my daughter to be raised with her siblings. She lost her sister and mother, god forbid she loses me too, I need to know that she’ll have her siblings to turn to.”

  He wiped the tears that continued to fall from my eyes and looked me in the eyes. “I’ll sign the papers.”

  “Thank you,” he kissed me on the lips. “Let’s go to bed before we wake the baby. You got me?”

  “Always.”

  “That’s all I need to go to war with cancer,” he winked at me and held my hand as we left the baby’s room.

  When we laid in the bed holding each other in our home that we shared with our children, I couldn’t help but to think of doing this alone. None of this shit mattered if Gyson wasn’t here to share it with me. I worried all the time about him and how his condition could change. The chemo had already started to mess with him. He was losing weight because he never wanted to eat, and he became nauseous at the drop of a dime. His gums were always hurting and some days it just hurt to move. The chemo did worse than the damn cancer if you asked me. Still, he refused for anybody to help him. He wanted to help himself and didn’t want to be looked at as weak. So even when it pained him to walk, he still played with Rain and put her on his back, although it hurt. When he was too tired to keep his eyes opened, he still watched Somali rehearse her dance routine in front of him. Samaj loved to play basketball, so Gyson made sure he was out there to play one on one with him every night before bed.

  I smiled on the inside, but on the outside, I worried he was overextending himself. He loved his kids and would always be there for them. He would rather us be happy than worry about his health. It was one of the things that I loved about him, but also one of the things that always made me worry about him too. I laid in his arms and a single tear fell from my eyes.

  The entire night, I didn’t sleep at all. All I did was toss and turn and think about our life. Ghost left me in bed to sleep while handling the kids before he went to chemo. I tried to come with him, but he told me get some rest and then go and see my sister. Since everything that happened with Ghost and with Samoor having his heart condition, we hired a nanny that came to the house and helped with the children. We even brought her to the hospital to learn more about Samoor if something was to ever happen when she was caring for him.

  “Free, you need to pump some more breast milk for Samoor,” Ms. Winnie, the nanny popped her head into our bedroom.

  I loved Ms. Winnie because she did her job, allowed me to vent when I was having a bad day and she loved our children. The kids loved her too. When we were looking for one, I wanted someone older who was reliable and that I could trust. Work had taken a back seat when it came to everything. My assistant took the lead over my company and I was happy that I could depend on her to do what was needed. My mind had been on Gyson and our son. I didn’t have time to put it into my company, and I honestly wasn’t in the mood to put my all into designing someone’s dream home. I was worried about trying to keep my man alive and making sure my baby made it to see his sixteenth birthday. Then, I had to worry about our other kids and making sure they didn’t feel neglected through all of this. Everything was too much, and I felt like I was spiraling down a hill.

  “I’ll pump some before I head to see Gyson’s mother,” I told her and rolled back over. Life seemed so unfair and pulling myself out of bed proved to be harder and harder each day.

  “Aht, aht,” Ms. Winnie said and walked further into my bedroom. She walked over to the window and opened them up. “You don’t need to let this pull you into a dark space. You’re going through something right now, but guess what? It can’t rain forever, baby. The sun will come out and it will make those cloudy and rainy days all worth it.”

  “It’s hard to see the bigger picture when shit keeps happening to me. I’m trying to remain together for everyone, and I feel like I’m coming apart. The kids, Gyson, work and everything else.”

  “And your mother? She called from her cruise and asked if you were alright. I told her that you would call her back… have you called her?”

  I sat up in the bed and shook my head. “My mom isn’t good with things like this,” I sighed, hoping that it made Ms. Winnie lay off with the questions.

  “No one is good with these things. None of that matters when we’re all going through things.”

  Soon as things started to get bad, I informed my mother of everything going on. I cried and told her how I felt, and she comforted me as my mother, yet she didn’t
cancel her plans to come home and help me out with her grandchildren. I didn’t expect her to do it, but at the same time as my mother, I expected that she would want to be there for me.

  “Yeah, well my mom is the worst and I don’t have the time to be worried about her and everything else that I’m currently dealing with.”

  “I’ll trust you on this one. Pump some milk and get your day started. We won’t let the devil win,” she smiled and then left out of the room.

  “Sure seem like he’s winning,” I sighed and got up from the bed to start my day.

  It took me three hours to pump milk, shower and get dressed. I found myself zoning out during the whole process. It was like I was there and at the same time I wasn’t. When it was time to go, I kissed my baby boy and headed toward Mama Rae’s house. It had been a while since we sat down and spoke, and she told me that she wanted me to come over today to see her. I didn’t have time to sit, drink tea and chat. My life just didn’t allow me to do those simple luxuries anymore. However, because it was Mama Rae, I made time to do what she had asked. She had been to the house to help out and took Gyson to chemo when Staten or Priest couldn’t. Her small gestures were large when it came to the chaos that I currently lived in on a daily basis.

  I killed the engine and got out of the car. Dressed down in jeans, white T-shirt and pair of Valentino sneakers, I strolled to the front door that was always opened. When I opened the door, I could smell the faint smell of blueberry muffins and coffee. Whenever you came through Mama Rae’s door, you could always be certain that she was cooking and your nostrils would be met with some kind of tasty aroma that would cause your mouth to water. I hadn’t had any appetite lately and my stomach rumbled at the smell of her muffins baking in the oven.