Page 146 of Save Room for Us

“Aight.” I nodded. “Why not just leave her ass then, Pop?” I chuckled mirthlessly. “Y’all were clearly both miserable.”

“In hindsight,” he looked on at the fireplace, “I should’ve left her, but I felt indebted to her. I’m big on loyalty, you know that, and I raised you to be the same fucking way. She did some shit for me that I can’t say any other woman would have, excluding Lisara. I didn’t know women like Lisara existed at that time.” He smirked at the thought of his wife. “But yeah, you understand this better now, but when you rich, and you that nigga, for lack of a better word, it’s hard to trust a lot of women’s intentions with you. And I felt like Nori had proven herself to me by staying with me, and leaving her felt like some dog ass shit back then. Felt like some shit a nigga I didn’t rock with would do. Type to let a woman hold you down just to leave her when you back on.

“It’s easy to stick by a nigga when he spoiling you, fucking you good, treating you good, and got you laid up in a mansion, but harder to do when he ain’t that nice, he not fucking you, he weak, and basically a shell of his former self. Then she gave me you, something I didn’t think I would get to experience due to my sickness, and all of that just kept me pinned in place.”

I nodded, regarding him for a moment.

“I admire that type of loyalty, but I definitely couldn’t have done it. I’m all for working on shit, and I’m always down to chase my woman if she feel like running, but that’s not the same. I can’t put my all into a relationship and stick around just for the fuck of it. Not unless I fucked our shit up, and she got the right to treat me like shit. Then go ’head, baby. Every time I get on my knees to beg, wipe ya fucking feet off on a nigga, and I’ll keep begging until I can’t.”

He chuckled.

“Well, you always want ya kids to do better and be better, so trust me, a nigga is happy you ain’t gon’ move how I moved if faced with some shit like that.”

“You ever think maybe she did that shit, held you down, because she knew you’d feel indebted?”

His eyes squinted as if he were thinking before he shrugged.

“Shit, maybe she did. I never thought about it like that. I could’ve died though, so I don’t know.”

“Yeah, but she would win either way. If you lived, you would always feel like you owed her some shit, and if you died, everything you owned would be left to the baby she had for you, which would essentially be her shit.”

I watched my father as he pondered for a moment like it was some shit he’d never thought about, and clearly, it wasn’t.

“No wonder you so fucking suspicious of everybody, you smart, young nigga,” he said before we laughed. “Real shit though.”

“I appreciate you telling me this shit, though, just wish you had told me everything up front, but we good. Look at you different.”

“Different how?” He frowned.

“Not in a bad way, necessarily, old man. I just… all this time, I felt like you was so perfect in that aspect, but it’s good to know you got some flaws too. Make you not so hard to live up to.”

“Well, you don’ surpassed me. I got the son I wanted and way fucking more.”

“Rememberyousaid that shit.” I took a sip of my Hennessy. “’Cause you cheat on Ma and I’m gon’ have to put a bullet in you.”

“If hell froze over and I did do that dumb shit, I’d hand you the gun my-fucking-self.” He rose. “I gotta pee, young nigga.”

“Pick any bathroom. Stazi and the baby in my bedroom.” I pulled out my ringing phone.

“So when they fall asleep in yo’ bed, what you do?” he inquired.

“Take my ass to sleep on this fucking couch,” I replied, and he shook his head, non-verbally stating that a nigga had it bad. “And you just had a few sips, you already gotta pee?”

“Shut yo’ ass up,” my pops retorted, walking off and making me laugh as I answered the phone.

“’Sup, Low?” I frowned.

“Got word somebody seen that nigga Grady over by Mary Hills Rehabilitation Center,” he said.

“Rehabilitation center.” I frowned, thinking. “Fuck would he be around a rehabilitation center for? I know he got shot, but that nigga Grady ain’t going to no physical therapy for that shit. Nigga probably treated the wound himself.”

“My thoughts exactly. I been staking the place out, but nothing so far.”

I nodded. “Let me think and get back to you,” I said, peeping that my pops was returning.

“Aight.”

The fuck?

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