Page 49 of Royce
“Hey Ma, how you feeling gorgeous?” It didn’t matter if it was the kids she birthed or her grandkids, we all referred to her as Ma.
“My sweet baby boy. Royce I was wondering when you were coming by here. Your sister Rhema just left,” she said barely above a whisper. It was hard for her to talk so she rarely did but when she was in a good mood, you got a full conversation.
“Did she? I’m sorry I missed her,” I lied. I changed out the dead flowers in her vase for the ones in tow.
My aunt Rhema was her youngest and passed when I was like five or six years old. I was glad she remembered her though. My uncle Ryan and Pops were the only ones of her batch left. Him and Pops got along but they weren’t close. Pops still made sure he lived good though. He was the oldest after all.
“Are you staying for a while? I missed you.” She looked so frail, and her skin was just as pale as it wanted to be. Life was slipping from her, and she had no clue.
“Yes ma’am. I got the rest of the day for you, and you know it’s all love, Ma. I’m gon’ forever miss you. You hungry? Youwant anything to drink?” I asked fighting back the tears that tried to surface.
“No baby. I’m alright. You see my girl up there?” she lifted her arm as best she could and pointed to Betty.
“I do. She doing good. When the last time you spoke to her?”
“The other day. I called her and she said she was stopping through here soon. You know we hang out all night when she do.”
“Y’all don’t be drinking do y’all?”
“Yeah. We like to drink that gin and catch us a few. We have a good time,” she bragged. Her smile was still present. It hadn’t dropped yet.
“Catch a few what, Ma? You was a Jezebel?” I asked in disbelief. I wasn’t expecting her to tell me how she got down back in the day.
“Oh, hush up boy. I don’t give them none of my cookies. I should. Yo’ father cheating anyway.”
Well damn. I would’ve never guessed Papa G was out doing my granny like that. My granny always made it seem like they had an unbreakable bond. Now I was curious if Papa G had any kids outside of his marriage. My respect for him fa damn sho’ dropped though. I didn’t give a fuck if he was already six feet under. He played with my granny and I ain’t like that. He wasn’t ‘bout to be mentioned out nobody mouth no more. I was gon’ make sure of it.
“Don’t be a hoe just ‘cause he one, Ma. It’s double standards, but you’ll lose your morals.”
“Morals my ass. You ain’t nothing but a child, you don’t know nothing ‘bout no morals. Where’s that girl you been seeing? What’s her name?”
“Who Iris?”
“Is that her name? The one with the curly long hair? I like her. I hope she have that baby. I would love to meet him. It ain’t nothing like a son, Royce.”
I smiled as tears fell. She’d met me a thousand times over but seeing how excited she was just to meet me all over again had a nigga chest tightening. She was in her last days, and I couldn’t stop it. No one came to see her as much as I did, and I found that to be fucked up. Pops claimed he was too busy and gave her two days out the month then Uncle Ryan just didn’t stop by. My mama and granny had a love hate relationship that neither one wanted to speak on so my mama coming was every once in a while. Mercedees was much like her father so that left no one but me. All she had was me and I was cool with that. Shit, she was valued the most in my eyes anyway.
My last memory of her being lucid was right after Mercedees graduated from college. She was able to see her other grandchild walk, and I thanked God he kept her sane long enough. She checked out maybe a few weeks after and never checked back in.
“I know, Ma. She’s gon’ have him so you can meet him soon. I’ll make sure of it.” A call came through on my cell from my jeweler causing me to answer immediately. “Wassup Kellz?”
“I was wondering something. Since I designed the rings, am I invited to the wedding?” she asked.
Chuckling, I said, “Yeah man. Are they ready?”
“They are and they are stunning, Royce. Your wife’s a lucky woman. Are you coming today?”
“Uh, yeah. I’ll slide through in like an hour. I’m handling something right now.”
“That’s fine, just call me when you’re on the way.” She disconnected the call and as soon as I was getting ready to pocket my cell, another call came through. This one was from Yonnis. “Yo!”
“Aye, you really ‘bout to do this?” he inquired.
“Do what? Solidify my family? Hell yeah.”
“This is illegal, Royce.”
“Fa real? How much time you think I’ll get for it? I’m guessing like a year or two. I can’t do more than that. I got kids and shit to think about now.”
