Sharing Space (The Complete Series) (15 page)

With tears in her eyes my mother told me she understood and squeezed me hard in a long hug. Unlike when I had arrived the day before, I didn’t break the hug short or comment on how hard she held me. She needed it and, at that moment, so did I.

Chapter Three

Family Secrets

Chloe

When I took Brianna home, not only did the shit hit the fan, I stepped all in it. I found out later that while Patrick was dealing with his family drama, one of my own was beginning to brew. That Sunday morning Brianna and I awoke early and made a big breakfast of banana pancakes, bacon, and eggs. I wouldn’t come right out and admit it if asked, but I made a little extra in the hopes that Patrick would come home and join us. 

I knew he hadn’t come home the night before; his arrival would have awakened me from my spot on the couch. It was with half curiosity and half jealousy that I wondered if he had spent the weekend with a woman. Not that it was any of my business; Patrick was a grown man and certainly didn’t owe me any explanation if he spent the night out, but I couldn’t help trying to imagine what kind of girl Patrick would choose to spend time with. About halfway through breakfast I decided that it wasn’t fair not to devote my full attention to Brianna, seeing as how she would be going home soon. I put all thoughts of where Patrick was, what he was doing, and whom he may be doing it to or with, out of my head.

After breakfast I took Brianna to FAO Schwartz.  Every visit I tried to give her a little something special she could take home to remind her of our time together.  This time I picked out an interactive model of the solar system. With one touch it would tell the child all kinds of facts about each planet, the moon, and the sun. Brianna loved it and couldn’t wait to get home to try it out. We carried the big box on the train to Harlem and she remarked more than once that she couldn’t wait to see the look on Crystal’s face when she showed it to her.

It did my heart good to see Brianna so excited over something I gave her.  I knew that I didn’t have to, but it gave me such joy to do things for her. Before the train could pull into the station Brianna was already asking when we would see each other again.  I told her that perhaps I’d come to her house and help her dress up for Halloween.  She loved the idea.

It was a bit of a struggle trying to carry both Brianna’s gift and my bag, and Brianna wasn’t much help as she had her overnight bag on her back. I didn’t think I would make it the two blocks from the train station to Crystal’s apartment building without dropping the box.  Just when it seemed that both Brianna and I were losing the battle with our heavy loads and trying to open the front door to their building, a tall thin black man came to our rescue and grabbed the door on his way out. I looked up to thank him, and when I did I realized that something about him struck me as familiar, but I couldn’t place it.  He looked as if he recognized me as well and his eyes quickly shot to Brianna, who was more concerned with whether or not I was going to drop her gift than thanking a Good Samaritan.

“Thanks a lot,” I said while holding the door with my foot.

“No problem,” he mumbled and disappeared up the block.

When Crystal opened the door she looked behind us before looking pleased to see us. “Hey, baby girl!  You’re home!”

“Hey Ma,” Brianna said as she grabbed her mother around the waist for a big hug.

Crystal gave me a look of surprise and pleasure at her daughter’s newfound affection.  I mouthed the words “we’ll talk” as we stepped inside. The apartment was toasty warm and I could smell cornbread baking in the oven. The aroma seeped from the small kitchen off the entryway and invited me deeper inside. We walked into the dimly lit living room while the sounds of John Legend floated through the air. Brianna wasted no time in showing Crystal her nails and her new gift, the latter of which she was instructed to take to her room before cleaning up for dinner. Crystal promised to help Brianna set it up after they ate.

“Are you staying for dinner?”

“No, I have to get up early tomorrow. I’m gonna hop my butt back on this train and go home.”

“I hear ya. So, how was she?  Did she talk to you?”

I took a seat on the couch and peered towards Brianna’s bedroom before responding. “Yes, it took some coaxing, but she finally opened up.”

Crystal sat across from me on the loveseat.  “Well, what’s going on?”

I took a deep breath.  “Brianna has gotten it into her head that you’re dating someone and keeping it a secret.” 

Crystal blinked twice, took a deep breath of her own, and leaned back, pressing her back against the chair.  “What makes her think that?”

I eyed Crystal skeptically and wondered if I should continue.  Although my relationship with my mother was a contradiction, I didn’t think mothers and daughters should have secrets from one another.  I felt bad, like I was about to divulge Brianna’s confidences. Then again, I reasoned that I was grown and Brianna wasn’t. It was best that she and her mother got everything out in the open. Never mind what my mother thought of
grown folks business
, Brianna was dealing with some heavy feelings and Crystal needed to reassure her.  She couldn’t do that if she didn’t have the full story.

“She says that you’re acting differently, that your voice changes when you’re on the phone during what she perceives are secret conversations, and she feels like you’ve recently had less and less time for her.”

At that last part, Crystal squeezed her eyes shut.  I knew the news hurt and I didn’t like being the one to say it. There was one last thing I didn’t want to say, but Crystal had always been a private person and I felt like admitting that I knew about the man being in the apartment was borderline dipping in her business. I did it anyway.

“She also says that once she woke up in the middle of the night to find you with some man.”

Alarmed, Crystal sprang forward.  “Did she see him?”

All acts of decorum and minding my business flew out of the window.  “Girl!  Who is he?”

“Chloe, I really don’t want to get into this. I didn’t mean for Brianna to get suspicious. I needed more time to tell her, or maybe no time at all since I hadn’t even made up my mind what I’m gonna do yet.”

“What are you talking about?  You’re not making any sense. Tell her what? Who is he?”

Crystal cast a guilty glance at the coffee table and I noticed two near-empty wine glasses. The John Legend song had faded into a track by Luther Vandross. I took in the low lighting of the room and my mind quickly did some basic booty-call calculations. I suddenly recalled the man I’d seen leaving the building not a few minutes before and I knew where I had seen him before. 

“That was Jermaine!”

Crystal looked at me wide-eyed.  “You saw him? I was hoping you’d missed each other when you didn’t mention it right away.”

“Oh, I saw him alright. I didn’t recognize him though. He looks older, different.  Crystal, where did he come from?  How did you find him?”

She looked over her shoulder and, from the sound of things, Brianna had ignored her mother’s instructions of setting up her gift after dinner and was busy learning all there was to know about Jupiter. For once Crystal looked as if she didn’t mind the disobedience. It made it easier for her to explain how it came to be that she was sipping wine with the man who had left her pregnant and alone all those many years ago.

“I didn’t find him.  He found me.”  Crystal sighed and sat forward with her hands folded between her open legs. With her head bent, she continued. “Remember I told you a few weeks ago that someone had been calling and hanging up?”

I just nodded.

“Well, after a few days the person called again and hung up as soon as I answered. This time though, I had a return number. It had happened one morning right before Brianna left for school. I waited until she was gone, then called the number back, prepared to curse out some sick pervert who got off on calling women and scaring them half to death.” She shook her head and closed her eyes at the memory of her first conversation in eight years with the father of her child.

“As soon as he said hello I knew it was him. Isn’t that funny? Over the years there would be times when I’d smell a certain scent or hear a song that reminded me of him, but never would I have guessed that I’d still know that voice from just one word. He said hello and I was just silent. I almost hung up on him. Seems like half an hour passed before I managed to ask if it was him and seems like another hour passed for him to admit it was.”

I wanted to ask what happened next, but a story like that you didn’t rush and you damn sure didn’t interrupt.

“I lit into his ass. Cursed him for the coward he was. Cursed him for all the times I struggled. Cursed him for all the times my child has asked me where her father was and how come he doesn’t want to be with her. I cursed him till my throat was sore and my hand hurt from gripping the phone so tight. I cursed him so bad I think I made up some new ones.  Then I cried.  Cried from all the anger.  Cried because I was tired.  He asked if he could come over, and for some reason I said yes. I told him he had to come right then and be gone before Brianna got home from school. It wasn’t until later that I realized I didn’t have to tell him where I lived. He just hung up, and forty-five minutes later he was knocking on my door.”

She looked up at me with a pained look on her face. “You say he looked different, that he looked older. To me he was the same old Jermaine. He was the same nineteen-year-old who left me with stars in my eyes and a baby in my belly.  I looked him square in the eye and asked him where he’d been for the past eight years, and you know what he said? Hiding. I told him he had that right ‘cause I’d looked for him for three years before finally giving up. He said that he wasn’t ready to be a father back then. He watched me get bigger and further along in my pregnancy and got scared. I told him that I was scared too, but didn’t have the luxury of just picking up and running away. He apologized up and down and left and right, telling me how much he had wanted to come back, to contact us, but the longer he stayed away the harder it was to reappear.

“He told me that he’d moved to New Jersey with a cousin and begged his mother and sisters not to tell me where he was. As you know, those trifling bitches had no problem doing just that. His mother never made any secret of the fact that she didn’t believe Brianna was Jermaine’s anyway.  Apparently she was keeping him informed of how we were and he pulled out pictures of my baby, pictures that his sister had taken of Brianna at the park or in front of the building. Pictures that I didn’t even know existed!  He had been spying on me for eight years and I had no idea. I asked him if he could do all that, why didn’t he just take his balls from his back pocket and come be a father to his daughter?”

“What did he say?” My throat was dry as I asked.

“What else?  He was scared.  He felt like he didn’t have much to offer us and didn’t want to come back half-assed.”

“So, what does he want now?”

“He says he wants to be a father to her.  He says he wants to get to know her.”

“Well, screw him.”  I stood up, angry. “He can’t be a man eight years ago and decides it’s just easier to up and run away.  Now that he thinks he’s ready, it’s supposed to be fine for him to just waltz up in here with his tail between his legs, ready to be Daddy?”

“Chloe.” Crystal glanced over her shoulder, checking for Brianna. “Lower your voice.”

I did as I was told, but I didn’t lose the anger in my voice.  “And you’ve been seeing him? What, are you two dating now?”

“No.  Not exactly.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.  “What do you mean by
not exactly
?  Either you’re seeing him or you’re not.”

Crystal stood up to face me.  “It’s not so easy to explain.  If you had asked me two months ago what I would do if Jermaine suddenly showed up on my doorstep begging for forgiveness, I would have told you I’d send his ass packing.”

“That’s what you need to do.”

“Who are you to tell me what I need to do?  You have no idea how hard it is to raise a child in New York City alone.”