“Hi, Mommy,” her soft voice finally called out.
I heard a bunch of screaming on the other end, although I was sitting across from Maya. Whatever her mama was on the other end of the line saying, it was making Maya very emotional because she started to cry.
“Are… yy… you… ggg… gonna… gg… get me?” she stuttered through her cries.
The yelling could be heard again, and this time, Shae snatched the phone and put it on speaker.
“This is Jashae. Krystal, where the hell are you? Do you realize that Trip’s mama dropped Maya off at my job today? This is your daughter, not mine! Why the hell would you just leave her like that?” Jashae asked.
“Because I’m no good for her right now, Jashae! I left her with Trip’s mom because I was under the impression that she would have been a better grandmother to her than my mom because my mom is horrible with Maya. Look, ain’t nobody trying to hire me in Miami, so I wasn’t able to properly take care of my daughter the way that I wanted to. I’m in Atlanta to dance, and after I stack a little money, then I’ll send for my child-
“And where exactly do you have in mind for her to stay until you get it together?” Shae asked.
“I don’t fuckin’ know! I don’t care, so why do you? Drop her off to a church, I don’t know!” that stupid bitch said, sounding every bit of her dumb ass mama.
“Here’s what I think happened. You can jump in at any time you wish and correct me if I’m wrong. You were giving that pussy up to Trip in the visitation room, right?” she asked, and Krystal didn’t answer. “I’m going to take your silence as a yes. I wouldn’t do it, so I guess he had to get a dumb, gullible ass bitch to do it. In the midst of all that, I’m sure he was giving you a bunch of jailhouse lies, just so you could do whatever he needed you to do. I bet he told you he loved you and that he wanted to marry you. That’s what niggas in jail do! They fuckin’ lie!
“I also think that Trip didn’t know a fuckin’ thing about Maya for the past five years, and now that you probably told him about her, he probably told you that he didn’t want shit to do with you or her, right? So, because he didn’t want anything to do with this, now you decide to run your ass away from your responsibilities, which is fucked up because Maya didn’t ask to be here. Oh, and to answer your question, I care because the child that I lost was once five years old, and I would hate for someone to dump him off somewhere as if his life meant nothing. I’m going to figure out what I’m going to do with Maya, while you figure it out what you’re going to do in Atlanta, but when you do get it all figured out, have this same energy and don’t come looking for her,” Jashae said, and then she ended the phone call.
“We can box the food up to go. I don’t even care to eat in here anymore,” Jashae let me know.
I could tell that this shit was taking a huge toll on her. I nodded because I was in the same boat.
Two hours later
It was late, and because we still hadn’t come to a conclusion on what we were going to do with Maya, we decided to just bring her home with us for the night. After boxing up the food at the restaurant, we ended up going to Walmart just to get a few things that Maya would need for the night. Those duffle bags didn’t have shit inside them but a bunch of dirty ass clothes and some dolls. I didn’t know what God was trying to do, by dropping this on us, but as of right now, I was following His lead.
No matter what ill feelings that I had for Trip, I couldn’t just drop this little ass girl off anywhere. I wasn’t a nigga who moved like that because I believed in karma, and if I did some dirty shit like that, I believed that dirty shit would come from back to me. I had options on what I wanted to do, but I had yet to discuss those options with Shae. We would have to find this little girl a foster home or something. When it came down to it, though, I was going to let Shae take the lead on this, and I would follow whatever the fuck she wanted to do.
Thirty minutes ago, Shae was in one of the guest bathrooms giving Maya a bath and washing her matted hair. That little girl screamed and cried like she was getting her ass beat. After all of that, I needed to get high, and that’s exactly what I was doing. Her screams and her cries sounded like she was in there being murdered, and I couldn’t stand to hear that little girl crying like that, so I dipped.
I was on our bedroom balcony with a fat ass blunt. My feet were kicked up, and I was enjoying this Miami view. I’d already showered, so all I had on were a pair of Gucci sweat shorts, and I languished in the slight breeze that Miami had tonight. I left the balcony sliding glass door cracked a little bit, just so I could hear what was going on inside the house. When I didn’t hear the screaming and crying anymore, I assumed that Shae was done.
As I drifted back into my thoughts, my phone started to buzz on the glass table before me. I looked down at it and I saw that Tahira was calling me. I smiled because I assumed that it was my daughter more than likely calling me before she went to sleep. Pulling my feet down from the railing, where I had them kicked up, I retrieved the phone and answered it.
“Hey, beautiful,” I cooed into the
phone, under the impression that it was Taniya.
“It’s me! Not Niya.” Tahira’s voice pounded into the phone, and right off the bat, I could hear the hostility in her voice.
Listen, with the day that I just had, I couldn’t afford to deal with a bitch who was PMS’ing. Crazy thing is, I rarely beefed with Tahira. There was no reason for us to beef, especially given the fact that neither of us wanted the other. We both had moved on. If we ever went at it about something, it was always about Taniya.
“Fuck is your problem?” I asked, blowing smoke from my mouth.
“I don’t like being lied to, Miami, and you know that. You texted me earlier saying that you couldn’t make it because you had an emergency. Well, Simon went out to get pizza for me and Niya, and he told me that he saw you in there. What type of emergency did you have, Miami? You do realize that I missed work today so that I could fly down here and finally meet the woman who you’ve had around my daughter for the past few months. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m beginning to feel like every time we’re supposed to meet up, it’s always some type of excuse,” she fussed.
I let out a sarcastic laugh while pulling my chin hairs. I was shocked that this fuckin’ conversation was even happening. I had to be careful with my words because at the end of the day, this was the lady who brought my daughter into this world, so I had some consideration when it came to that. At the same time, I wasn’t about to let her lecture me when my own shorty didn’t even do that shit.
“Fuck is you clocking my moves for anyway? My girl don’t even clock where the fuck I’m at. Tell your nosey, square ass boyfriend to stay the fuck out my business too. If he’s going to run back to you with some shit, make sure the nigga gets the shit all the way right. Why would I lie about having an emergency? By me canceling, it put me in a situation where I wasn’t able to see my daughter, and you know that I wouldn’t willingly not go see my daughter. Like I said, some shit came up with my girl that I had to attend to, and I’m not about to apologize for that.
“As far as the woman that’s been around our daughter for the past few months, would you be talking about the same woman that’s been doing her hair every morning when I would have to drop her off to daycare? The same one who cooks dinner for her every night? What about the one that’s up with her at night reading her bedtime stories? Shorty, get the fuck on with that bullshit, alright? Jashae stepped up where you lacked. Now, you can correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe you were the one to ask me if Niya could move in with me full time while you took that job opportunity in Washington to go and chase after some dick,” I spat.
At the same time, the glass sliding door opened, and Shae walked out. She was in her pajamas and holding a bottle of water in her hands. She gave me a look, basically asking me with her eyes if I wanted her to go back inside, but I shook my head no. I was going to tell her word for word about the conversation that we just had, so there was no need for her to go inside.
“I will correct you because you are wrong. I took the opportunity for the job—”
“And to get some dick on the side. Because you didn’t want our daughter to get in the way of that, you gave her to me. Look, I’m busy. Is my daughter up? I want to tell her goodnight,” I voiced, basically letting her know that I was done with her and this dumb ass conversation.