Page 40 of Rah
I swore to myself that I’d move heaven and earth, risk it all if I had to, to protect them and give them the life they deserved.
Even if it killed me.
SOLAE
Christmas day was a nightmare. I’d been in bed since the kids were taken. Last night, my parents came over and cried along with me.
Since I had been accused of abusing them, I couldn’t visit the kids until DCFS was able to arrange supervised visits. That was not going to happen until after Christmas. So, that morning, my mother and father took gifts to them and sat with them for as long as they could. My mother called me while she was there so I could speak to them. Hearing Elijah’s sadness and Essence’s anger made me feel like the worst mother in the world. For the rest of the day, I was damn near suicidal.
When my doorbell rang, it took everything in me to climb out of my rut and answer it.
I was surprised when I saw Kahlani through the peephole with a fifth of tequila. She’d told me about getting arrested, but soon after she told me, I got so caught up in Rah’s bullshit that I hadn’t had the chance to check on her.
I opened the door and hurried away from the cold that swept in.
“What are you doing here?” I looked at Kahlani curiously as she came into the house.
“Moses took Trent to his family’s Christmas dinner, so I came to see why you haven’t been answering the phone. I’ve been calling you all day.”
She was so busy making herself comfortable that she didn’t notice the distress in my eyes or how disheveled I looked. “I’m sorry. I have…a lot… going on.”
After taking off her coat, she took off her shoes and finally really looked at me. As she took in my swollen red eyes and wild hair, her eyes narrowed, and her head tilted. “What’s wrong?”
I sighed, trying to gather myself so that I could even utter the words.
However, before I could muster up the strength to say anything, she noticed how quiet my house was for a Christmas morning. Her brows curled as she looked around. “Where are the kids? It’s so quiet in here.”
I broke down. As I had several times since they were taken, I went into hysteria. I fell to my knees and began to wail into my hands.
Soon, I could feel Kahlani hovering over me. “Oh my God, girl! What happened?”
“They took them,” was all that I could say.
“The kids?! Who took them?!”
Kahlani got down on the floor with me. When I tried to get myself together, I looked into her eyes and saw tears. There was no controlling my own at that point.
When I told her about DCFS coming to my home and taking Elijah and Essence because of the false charges by Rah,she didn’t even know what to say. “What?... Why?... Oh my God….”
“All because I put him out…And I burned up his clothes and money.”
Her eyes bulged in response to that. “Why did you put him out, Solae? What happened?”
I sat on my butt and began to wipe my tears. It was pointless. I would wipe them away and more would flow to replace them.
“I followed him the other day. He went to some chick’s house. He came right back out carrying a baby in a car seat. She was behind him. It was the bitch from the party.” I bit my bottom lip angrily as just the thought of it pissed me off all over again. “I know that’s his baby. I couldn’t believe that he put up such a front about not being able to support more kids when he’s all over the city making them! I came home and lost it. I started packing his shit. I came across a bunch of money. It wasso muchmoney. That motherfucker told me that I couldn’t have my baby because we couldn’t afford another mouth to feed. Yet, he got bitches popping out babies all over the city and is hiding money from me.”
Kahlani stared at me with a blank, yet stunned, look on her face. “Did you ask him if the baby was his?”
“He denied it. He denied everything. But I’m not crazy, Kahlani. I know it. He’s probably sitting over there with her right now opening gifts and shit.”
Just the thought tore me up. My heart was aching like it never had before. I felt like a man the size of a linebacker was inside of my chest punching my heart over and over again.
This hurt…literally.
“Why would he do that?”
It had been a hypothetical question, but I answered heranyway. “Because he’s a selfish motherfucker. That’s why. After all I’ve done for him, he hates me that much that he would take my kids from me!”
