Page 16 of Off the Charts
“She loves you. We both do. Just give her a lil’ more time. She wears her heart on her sleeve and she a lil’ dramatic just like somebody else I know,” I teased, pulling a smile from her.
“Okay,” she nodded. “I uh. I—They talking about seventeen years.”
My fingers slipped from hers. The last number I was told was in the low-end single digits so triple that amount had my head spinning. Suddenly all the,she’s better in here,bullshit went out the window. “How the fuck did that change?”
“I’m a repeat offender.”
“When I leave here, I will call Prince. He can get that shit knocked down fasho.”
Mama grabbed my hands again. “I don’t need saving, Vayce. He is good and shit, but he will get what? Maybe two years off? Dakota is out,” she called Prince by his birth name.
Prince is a friend turned family and ran one of the biggest law firms in the south. To date, I don’t know if the nigga had lost any cases. I had him on standby for Sticky’s case, but shit was at a standstill because she wouldn’t sign off on him being her lawyer.
“My answer is no, son. I don’t need Queenie and all them from The Valley in my damn business no way. I may as well do the whole time. Save your money. Please,” her tone changed as she leaned back in her chair. “I’ve taken enough of yours. I’ma do my time and not let the time do me. That’s what my lil’ young cellmate be saying. She only got six months though so the time might just do me.” She looked off to the side. “Damn, I need to think about that.”
The feeling of defeat settled in my bones. We spent the remainder of our visit allowing her to lead the conversation. The more she talked, the more I realized that there was nothing I could do to save her. The overhead alarm buzzed letting us know that our visit had come to an end. We stood and embraced one another. Placing a kiss against her forehead, I hugged her until the correctional officer forced us to separate. As I watched them chain her up, the realization hit that my mother would likely spend her final moments in a cold lonely cell. As sad as the shit was, your actions came with consequences and life would only give you so many slaps on the wrist before you were shown this shit wasn’t a game.
When I wasn’tat Sweet Pea Academy, I spent my time doing personal training at a black owned gym here calledSpin. Weekly, I saw between two to four clients focusing on weight loss, toning, and strength training. Here and there, the owner Kenny wanted me to lead classes, and I would because it was a good side hustle that didn’t come with much commitment. Tonight, I was planning to lift, but once I got here, I decided on cardio. A late-night run was exactly what I needed. Behind the gym was a mile-long track. Enabling exercise mode on my Apple Watch, I stretched and fell into a light jog, not bothering to turn my music on. I needed to be in tune with my thoughts.
LaBrina was my wife of four years. I was two years post college when we met in line at for a chicken on a stick at the Harvest Hills Fair. I remember hearing her country accent before seeing her face and when she turned around, I knew Ihad to have her whether it was for that night or a lifetime. After getting to know her, I figured it would be the latter.
LaBrina and I dated for eight months before becoming official. I fell hard for her and shit kept escalating from there. Before celebrating a year, we moved in together, I proposed, and shit was better than a fairytale. We were best friends, and it was my duty to make sure she didn’t go without shit. When people say that they automatically think financially, but I laid everything out for her physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. She didn’t have to lift a finger unless she chose to. I gave her love I didn’t know I was capable of giving being that I didn’t have much of it coming up.
Two years into our marriage, I opened my private practice. At the time, I was so career driven that I put us on the backburner, but when I saw that her needs were going unmet and I couldn’t find a healthy balance, I closed my clinic, and we worked on us until we were happier than before. LaBrina got pregnant and although we weren’t planning it, we were overjoyed. Nine months flew by with no issues. Brina did makeup full-time and even traveled for some clients. The problem came with her refusing to sit down, so she worked until she was thirty-nine weeks.
The morning before she was scheduled to be induced, I went to rub her stomach. We’d gained a routine with baby girl and there was never a time she didn’t move under my touch. That particular morning was different. I talked to her, read a book, and even poked around her belly with no movement. It was unusual so we rushed her to the hospital for her OB to confirm our nightmare, our firstborn had passed away.
LaBrina had undiagnosed preeclampsia which led to having a stillborn birth. For a while, I was angry with her and even blamed her mentally for the loss of our child. I couldn’t understand why she didn’t take heed to my countless warningstelling her to sit down and her stubbornness cost us. The shit was painful, but I had to remove my selfish thinking and realize that if it was in God’s plans, our daughter would’ve been here.
When our child died, so did a piece of each of us and a chunk of our marriage. I recommended counseling, took her on dates, booked her all types of spa days. I thought if I could get her back to herself then we’d eventually back tous. LaBrina didn’t want it, no matter how hard I fought. Every day, the bed got colder and the body on the other side became a person I didn’t marry. She never wanted to talk about our loss, so our grief was processed differently. LaBrina drank and unbeknownst to me, fucked her way through while I processed my emotions and worked it out in therapy.
It took a year for her to come around and when she did, I didn’t realize that it was because of guilt, I just knew it felt good to have my wife back. It felt like the old days again and when she got pregnant in our fourth year of marriage, I thought we would have the best redemption story. She carried another baby full term healthily.
I wanted to name her Venus, but LaBrina named her Nylah. The first time I saw the baby, there was love there, but I didn’t feel that deep love that every parent talks about when they see their child. Instead, my heart sent warning signals to my brain that I ignored.
The day Nylah turned two months, LaBrina and I had a bad spat. Knowing that she ran to her father’s house for the smallest shit, I went over there once I’d calmed down. When I stepped into the living room, everything became clear, even the doubts in the back of my head.
LaBrina, Nylah, and my first cousin Nash were all laid out on the couch like a big happy family. I wanted to kill everybody, the baby included because that was the first time I realized that she had his entire face. Everything hit me at once, the matchingnames, her cheating, lying, the embarrassment. Not only had she been fucking several men, but her main nigga was my family.
To this day, I don’t remember walking away or anything between until I was standing in the divorce lawyer’s office with her on the other side of the table. She took me for almost everything I had, but I didn’t give a fuck as long as I was free. For a while, I felt that life was unfair, but when it was time for what was written by God to come to pass, there wasn’t a thing we could do to stop it.
I had to heal and rediscover myself. For four years, I defined myself as a loving husband, and father only to find out that shit was a lie at the age of thirty. As soon as I got wind of‘having it figured out’, I was forced to start over. That alone made me push the world away because people could cause too much fucking hurt. Two women that were supposed to be safe havens betrayed me, so I put up a shield I refused to let down and I never wanted to.
Until now.
Another vivid image of Miss Lane surfaced in my brain.
Were these thoughts fueled by lust or the fact that she could be someone I could want a friendship with? Even that was scary because it required getting close to someone again. It was much easier to heal everyone else while still adding pieces to the puzzles of my own soul.
If the walls could speak, what the fuck would they say? That question replayed since leaving the jail. Was I was adding pieces that actually connected or burning unpromised time? It’s been almost five years since the divorce. Was I torturing myself or denying myself feelings with good reason?
I couldn’t tell. My legs slowed and I glanced down at my watch. Even after almost five miles of running, I still didn’t have a fucking clue. After stretching, I checked inside the gym before heading home. About a mile from my house, there wasan ambulance and police cars everywhere, looking like someone had run off the road. As I said a silent prayer for them, my mind thought back to my cousin Nash.
Somehow, his brakes went out as he was driving home one night which ended with him colliding head on with a tree. The nigga died on impact, and I imagined his scene looked identical to the one I’d just passed. To this day, his death was ruled as exactly what it was,an accident. Hearing someone repeat those words made me chuckle every time because Nash played a stupid game and won a stupid prize.
But what mutha’fuckas really didn’t know was that LaBrina still had breath in her lungs because Nylah needed the love of at least one parent.
Got You In Heat
