Page 41 of Sunday

I shook my head and crossed my arms over my chest. “Boy, you wild.”

“It’s the man I was made to be.”

“Yeah, them days been over for me.”

Chaz turned around to face me head-on. “If this what you wanna do, I support you, man. You know I always got ya back. We good?”

He reached his hand out, and I slapped it and pulled him close. We did a one-armed, side hug, and I nodded. “We good, bruh.”

“I was thinking about Alexander.”

“Aspen Alexander? That doesn’t go well, CJ.” She had started calling me CJ sometimes, using my first and last initials as a nickname.

My eyes were heavy. Between that sun and the swimming we’d done, I was tired. And it wasn’t helping that she was rubbing my head as I rested it in her lap.

“Why not?”

“Two A’s. It doesn’t flow.”

“We’ll call him double Ace or Acey deucey.”

“No,” she whined. “You’re trying to take my baby straight to the streets.”

“Aht, aht. Careful, or you’ll sound like your daddy.”

“Sorry. Definitely not trying to be a snob like him, but I want to give our baby a chance before he gets here.”

“I know what you mean. Being a young black man is hard enough on its own without adding restrictions and pressure to it.”

“Can I tell you something?” she asked in a low voice as she stopped rubbing my head.

“Anything, baby.”

The hesitation and trembling in her voice had me sitting up and looking at her.

“I’m happy that we’re having a little boy, baby, but I’m also scared.”

“Why?”

She shook her head and wiped her eyes. That was the first time that I noticed the sparkle in her eyes. Her face scrunched up and turned red as the tears began to fall.

“Baby, talk to me. What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. I’m scared. I don’t want my baby to be profiled, mistreated, cast aside, ignored, abused, or killed because people of other races don’t understand him, or the police have a target on his back because he’s a black man.” She sobbed.

I sighed and wrapped her in my arms.

“Baby, that’s the reality that I live every day. Not knowing when I step out of this house what I’ll have to go through, who I’ll have to face, who’s got my back and who doesn’t, and worse yet, if I’ll even make it back home. But you know what I do?”

She shook her head and wiped her tears again. I pressed a kiss on the top of her honey-scented curls. “I step out on faith. I never leave this house without being prayed up. I pray for me, for my family and friends, for our unborn baby, and for you.”

“Me? You pray for me?” Sunday’s voice hitched as it rose a note.

“Don’t sound so surprised, baby. I’ve always prayed for you, even before we became involved. I know that it’s God’s will that we pray for each other because we all need each other. I never take that for granted. But yeah, I don’t step foot out of these doors without praying. And then I leave it in His hands because I know He knows what’s best in the end. All I can do is trust Him to do the rest. Other people’s actions and judgments are beyond my control. I refuse to live my life in fear or asking ‘what-if.’”

“My daddy never talked about how hard that was.”

“That’s because your daddy is the typa nigga who believes if he ignores his blackness, it’ll go away. I’ll bet he hasn’t taught your brothers that either.”

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