Page 64 of Sunday

“I feel ya,” I mumbled.

All I wanted was my woman in her arms. I wanted to rub her big belly, massage her feet, and talk to my boy in her womb.

Sunday

“You need to make up your mind what you are going to do, sweetheart.”

“She needs to stay here.”

My mother glared at my father. I had been staying with my brother Nils since I’d returned home. Thankfully, my boss let me take a week’s vacation. I planned to work remotely the following week. I needed time to figure out what I would do about Cedar and me. I loved and missed my man, but I honestly wasn’t sure how to tell him about the decisions of my past.

The other part that was hard to swallow was that he was comparing me to Taylor, but I knew if it weren’t for my actions, he wouldn’t be. I’d brought this situation on myself, and I knew the only way to resolve it was to be truthful with him. But I was scared.

My father had popped up at Nils’ place after I’d been there for three days, and he apologized for his behavior and words. I’d cried my heart out because I’d always been a daddy’s girl. I let him know how deeply he hurt me. He let me know that he only wanted the best for me. Today, I was having dinner with my parents. It was weird because I was used to hanging with Cedar and our friends on Friday nights.

“Fine. She needs to make peace with him for the sake of their unborn child, but my God, Sunday, why him? Couldn’t you have found someone more suitable?”

“Someone like who, Daddy? He reminds me of everything Mom says you used to be. Everything that Granma ever said that you were, he is.”

“We’re nothing alike.”

I could hear the anger and frustration in his voice, but underneath that, I heard pain. My mother reached out her hands and grabbed my father’s. “Honey, I think it’s time you told her your story.”

“What story?” I asked, looking back and forth between my parents.

“No, Astrid.”

“You have to, baby.”

My father dropped his head and sighed loudly. When he looked up again, his jaws were clenched, and he’d locked his fingers together. His elbows rested on his knees. The casual way that he was bent forward and the exhausted look on his face made him look older than his years. With a sigh, he began to speak in an exhausted and resigned tone.

“I was twenty and full of myself. It was a Saturday afternoon, and I’d been hanging out with my friends. I was trying to impress this girl with my new ride, showing her the ins and outs. A cop car pulled up, and the officers immediately demanded that my friends and I get on the ground and lock our hands behind our heads. They made the girl stand there while they humiliated us in every possible way they could think of.

“Called us dumb niggers who were good for nothing but running a football, a blight on our race. When one of them said he knew me, I looked up at him. Then he laughed and said, ‘No, that must’ve been your mother who sucked my dick last night. You look just like her down on your knees like that.’ I lost it,Sunday. I jumped up and attacked him. Lucky for me, I didn’t end up dead. But they both beat the shit out of me.

“They made my friends leave, and I knew that I was dead. The girl was sitting there the entire time crying. When they finished with me, they kicked me in the ribs and hauled my black ass off to jail. I sat in that cell for an entire day before I got my phone call and another week before I even went before a judge. You know what color those cops were?”

“White?”

He shook his head. “No. Black.”

Tears poured from my eyes as I wiped them. That gave new meaning to the phrase, “It be your own people.”

“It was the white judge who dismissed the disorderly conduct and the assault on a police officer charge. You know why?”

I shook my head again.

“A white man who owned the dry cleaners that we were across the street from saw the entire incident. He was good friends with my father, and lucky for me, he had an in with the judge because the judge didn’t want to let me go. But that businessman told the judge what really happened. Both officers were fired. And you know the young lady I’d been trying to impress? Well, I saw her two weeks after my release. She crossed the street to the other side and acted like she didn’t even see me. When I caught up with her, she pretended she didn’t remember who I was. All these were black people, Sunday. And the white businessman who saved my black ass was your mother’s uncle.”

“Uncle Leano? Granddaddy’s brother?”

My mother nodded, and my father spoke up.

“From that day on, I changed my stripes and never looked back. I learned that it was important to have an education, make the right connections, and stay in your lane. Trying to be anything else will leave you dead. Cedar is the epitome of that.His blackness, pride, and anger will get him and you killed, especially in today’s political climate.”

“Daddy, it seemed the only thing that you learned from all of that was to hate your own race. And staying in your lane means staying in the black lane, not looking down on your own kind. You’re worse than the white man because you’re prejudiced against your own kind. Whether you want to face it or not, you’re still a black man. Just because you married mom, your friends are white, and your kids are biracial doesn’t negate that fact. Not even the way you speak or where you live changes that.”

My father’s jaw clenched. “I know who I am! But that doesn’t mean I have to rub it in their faces.”

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