Page 1 of His Strings Make Her Legs Sing
Today was a day that only joy and love should have been felt, but that was not the current situation for Citrell. He hated his first name, Arzeniq, because any time he said it people talked about him being named after a poison, so he went by his middle name. He wished regardless of the name he chose to go by that he could say that fury wasn’t a part of the feelings that engulfed him.
“Citrell, baby, I don’t understand what the problem is. She’s here now, so we need to be a family.” Iesha’s voice was soft. She sat in the hospital bed in the recovery room the day after she delivered their daughter, Callira Symphoni Wick.
She wanted nothing more than to be connected to him for life. It didn’t matter the methods that she took to meet the goal. A few well-placed holes in a condom, a perc, and a drunken night helped her initiate the first part of her plan. Now she had to push the plan the rest of the way.
Citrell’s head snapped in her direction. He sat on the couch along the wall of the room with his day-old daughter on his chest. He really just wanted to spend time with his daughter and ignore this woman. When she came to him to inform him that she was pregnant, he didn’t believe her. Yeah, they fucked, but he knew he wore protection. He would never forget to wrap up no matter how high he was. He made her take a test in front of him.
When the test came back positive, there was only one logical thing to do. He went with her to her first doctor’s appointment and inquired about a prenatal paternity test. Iesha was livid as well as hurt.
The doctor wanted to be surprised, but she couldn’t because she’d been Iesha’s doctor for years. She’d seen some shit with this patient that made her want to tell every man to get a paternity test. This wasn’t her first time in Dr. Gilgo’s office with a man about a pregnancy. She was impressed that Citrell wanted the test before the child was born. Most of the men just didn’t want anything to do with her, which resulted in a few abortions.
They had to wait some time before the test could be performed, but when it was time, it was done. The results came back the way Iesha expected . . . It was Citrell’s child. He was supportive as much as he could be during her pregnancy without being near her. There was no rubbing the feet or anythinglike that. He never missed an appointment, and if she wanted something, he had it delivered to her. That was not what she wanted, and she made sure to tell him often.
“Iesha, shut up talking to me. You over there talking about we need to be a family, but you didn’t call me when your stupid ass went into labor.” The mix of frustration and anger laced his tone. “Your ass called me today to tell me to come sign the fucking birth certificate. The fuck? You want to be a family, but you do some scandalous shit like that.”
Iesha crossed her arms over herself before she rolled her eyes. “Excuse me for thinking that you could be busy. Shit, I thought you might be prancing around the city with that bitch you’ve been with lately.”
“How fucking old are you? In case you forgot, you’re thirty-one to my twenty-seven. Grow the fuck up,” he said with irritation seeping from every word. “It didn’t matter who the fuck I was with, that shit had and will never have anything to do with your tramp ass.”
He hated that he had no respect for the woman who had given him the first love of his life. It didn’t take rocket science to know that she did some faulty shit with the condom that he foolishly allowed her to supply. All of his words hurt her deeply because all she wanted was a nigga to be with her. The love was optional. Hell, faithfulness was optional too. Her man could do what he wanted, and she would do the same. The only difference was that she would give him hell.
“Citrell, do you think I want to be a single mother? What woman wants to be a single mother?” Iesha’s pitch went up to an octave that only dogs should have been able to hear, or at least that was what Citrell wished. “It makes more sense for us to work toward being a family. Don’t you want Callira to be in a two-parent household?”
Callira shifted in her father’s arms. Citrell rubbed his daughter’s back and kissed the top of her head. He took the time to calm himself down before he responded to his bogus ass baby’s mother. He felt like his baby could feel his angst. His mother always told him that babies were born empathic. Some grew out of it; some did not.
He took a calming breath before his gaze settled on Iesha. “Yes, I want more than anything for my daughter to be raised in a two-parent household. You know what else I want? I want the person that I raise her with in that household to be someone that I like and love. Neither of those things apply to you. I don’t regret my daughter, but I regret the fact that I slipped and allowed you to do your slippery shit to get me caught up. My only job in this situation between us is to make sure that my daughter is taken care of.”
That was not the answer Iesha wanted although she anticipated it. When she met her baby’s father, she knew that he was an upstanding dude. He wasn’t a street nigga, but he was with the shits if it was required. What was most important was that the streets respected him.
Columbia, South Carolina was a big city within a small city. It was also a melting pot because of the colleges in the area. Between Columbia College, Benedict College, Allen University, and the University of South Carolina, there were people from every part of the world there.
A lot of niggas in Columbia knew that Iesha was on good bullshit, so they stayed away. She was a problematic side chick that no one really wanted to deal with. Because of her reputation, no man would dare claim her as his, but they would fuck her. That was a risk if they were in a relationship because she was not the cooperative side bitch. She was the type to secretly record the activities and send it to the man’s woman the second he left. One would have thought that she would havelearned her lesson when she was brutally attacked by one of her male suitors because of it a few years ago. Stupid was something that was rarely a characteristic that could be altered.
“Well, I didn’t sign up to be a single mother. I guess I’ll have to put her up for adoption.” She turned her nose up at him. If he didn’t want to be with her, then he couldn’t have Callira.
He glared at her. There was no way that she could be serious. “Is that what you want to do?” When she said yep, he gave her a sinister grin. “Bet.”
He pulled out his phone. There was one thing that Citrell always was, and that was prepared for the shits. Iesha had him fucked up.
Citrell: Mama, please have the attorney come now. She’s said she wants to put her up for adoption.
Mama: We are on the way.
He wasn’t going to argue with her about stupid shit. Show and tell was more his speed. There was nothing else for him to say until his lawyer got there. His lawyer was placed on retainer the day that he got the results back that showed he was the father of Iesha’s baby. He knew that she would be on bullshit.
His silence worried Iesha, but not too much. She thought she had pulled her trump card, her big joker. She didn’t have time to be a single mother.
A few hours later, Citrell’s mother, Rella, and his attorney, Bridget Ducks, walked in. Iesha knew Citrell’s mother, but not the other woman. Rella made it clear to Iesha that she did not like her and would never like her. She also made it clear to her son how disappointed she was in his penis activities when it came to his irresponsibility.
“Who are you?” Iesha’s finger pointed at Attorney Ducks.
Attorney Ducks opted not to answer her. Instead, she walked over to the remote with the nurse call button on it and pressed it. “Let me see the little angel.”
Iesha’s back sat up off the bed. “Don’t go near my baby, bitch. I don’t know you.”
Deductive reasoning should have told Iesha that the woman was here on an official capacity based on her business casual attire and the messenger bag across her body. Attorney Ducks glanced at Iesha, rolled her eyes, then continued her trek to take a look at Callira. Citrell still held her in his arms, where she’d been since he came into the room. Rella took the time to clean her hands before she all but snatched her granddaughter out of her son’s arms.
Moments later, the nurse came in. Confusion rested on her face with the new additions to the room. “Can I help you, Iesha?”
