34
I’d left my phone in my car all night at Angie’s and found several missed calls from my mother and Lorenzo. I shook my head. I couldn’t talk to either of them, and besides, it was still really early. I left Angie’s around 5:00 AM so I could go to Walmart and buy something to wear to work.
I finally called Mama around ten that morning and listened to her apologize profusely for invading my personal space.
“You haven’t been here in months, and you’re engaged. I just didn’t think you’d be back.”
I choked back my breakfast, which threatened to make a reappearance at that moment. “No, it’s your house. Guess I should’ve called before coming over. I just never…uh, are you and Daddy back together?”
“No. Just dating, working toward it.”
“Oh.”
“Hey, did Nicky tell you she got engaged over the weekend, too?”
“Really? No, I haven’t talked to her. I tried to call her to tell her about my engagement but got her voicemail. That’s great for her, I guess.”
“You guess?”
“Well, I don’t know Travis—wait, it is Travis she’s engaged to, right?”
“Who else would it be?”
“This is Nicky we’re talking about.”
Mama chuckled. “That’s true. So anyway, I’m thinking of throwing you girls a double engagement party, since I hardly ever see you two anymore and I haven’t met either of your fiancés.”
“Mama, I’ve been inviting you to stuff, dinner at Lorenzo’s, his book party. You keep saying no.”
“I know. Just been having so much fun with your father. It’s like we’re kids again.”
My stomach dropped. “Great for you guys. I gotta go, Mama.”
“Okay, sweetie. I’ll get back to you about the party.”
“Okay.”
I sat there and managed to get my stomach to settle down a little and decided to call Lorenzo before my ass didn’t have a fiancé to celebrate. Just as I was picking up my phone, the office phone beeped. “Renee, you have a call on line three,” Janice said.
I set my phone down and felt my heart jump a little as I hoped it was Lorenzo. “Did they give a name?”
“Yes. Betty Higgs.”
A couple of hours later, I was sitting in Mama Higgs’ kitchen eating what she described as a special sandwich she usually only made for her Zo—ham, bacon, an over easy egg, and cheese on Texas toast with a little Thousand Island dressing. It was good, but I could almost feel my arteries clogging as I ate it.
We ate in silence, but I knew she didn’t invite me to lunch just for the pleasure of my presence, so I took a sip of water, and said, “Mmm, this sandwich is delicious. Thanks for inviting me to lunch.”
“Oh, you’re welcome, honey.”
“Um…Did you want to talk to me about something, Mama Higgs?”
She nodded. “Be right back.”
In the time she was gone, I finished my sandwich and water and just sat there glancing around her spotless kitchen. She finally returned with a small photo album in hand and reclaimed her seat.
“I talked to Zo this morning. Called him to see how the proposal went. I knew he’d planned to do it at the party before Veda came up in there and acted a fool. I mean, she showed her whole ass.”
I smiled a little. “Yes, ma’am. She did.”
“He told me what you told him, about being infertile?”
I nodded, fought back the tears that formed every time I thought about that.
“And he told you, or tried to tell you about his children?”
I looked at her for a moment. “Yes, ma’am.”
She opened the photo album to a picture of two smiling little chocolate boys. “Darwin and Jovani. The two oldest. Stair steps. I think they were four and five in this picture. They’re twenty-two and twenty-three now. Their mother is a girl named Latisha. She was Zo’s girlfriend at the time.” She flipped the page to a little brown boy sitting on a teenage girl’s lap. “This is Luke. He was two in this picture. He’s about twenty now.” Moving her finger to the next page, she pointed out a lighter-skinned little girl. “Kerry. She’s actually in the middle of the boys. She’s twenty-one.”
She slid the book over to me. “Four kids. Three different mothers. He didn’t have a relationship with Luke’s or Kerry’s mom from what he tells me. They just sort of happened. He was fifteen when his first child was born, eighteen when he finally had sense enough to stop spreading his seed all over Chicago.”
I stared down at the pictures, then looked up at her. “He’s sure they’re all his?” I had my suspicions about the girl. She didn’t resemble Lorenzo at all.
She shook her head. “No, but he supported them all financially anyway. Look, honey, what you’ve got to understand is the Zo you know and love didn’t exist back then. He was young and foolish, just about worried me to death running the streets, selling drugs, sleeping with all those girls, some his age and others were grown-ass women. And I’m pretty sure he got into some deeper illegal mess that I don’t even want to think about.
“He didn’t help raise those kids, didn’t even have the desire to until he finally stopped selling drugs and decided to move back here. It was like leaving that mess behind helped open his eyes to what’s important in this life. That was eight years ago, and everything you see now? The suits he wears, the business man he is? That’s his way of shaking off his past. He tried to get to know those kids, but they weren’t having it. Jovani and Darwin still won’t give him the time of day unless they want money from him, and he just keeps giving it to them out of guilt. Luke is locked up right now, but he still won’t have anything to do with Zo. Kerry’s the only one who’ll even talk to him on the phone. But that’s only when he can catch her. He pays for her to go to grad school, I think it is. But none of them will really let him be a father now.
“But…”
“But nothing. He showed you Darwin’s Facebook page, right?”
I nodded.
“Do you know he had to make a fake account for that boy to accept his friend request? Those children are angry at him, because he was never there and I can’t blame them, but our Zo is not that man anymore. He wants to do better. He would if he could. Look, I didn’t tell you about these kids before, because I felt it wasn’t up to me to do it. But I’ve got to intervene now, because my boy needs you. He loves you.”
I closed my eyes and sighed. “I know. I’m going home to him tonight.”
“Good.”