Page 11 of Love & Vendettas

Shoving my hands into the pockets of my sleep shorts, I stick my head inside the car.

“Daddy, what’s up, man?”

“I don’t know, son. I never bring shit into the house. I have no idea how it got there. I swear.”

Jutting my chin at him and then widening my eyes, I’m nonverbally asking him if it was his stash. He blinks once to confirm that it is.

I lean a bit closer and whisper, “Where was it?”

He glances sideways and up. I lean out of the car in the direction that he’s looking at and see Essence’s house. She’s standing on the porch with her arms folded. Her eyebrow lifts, and she’s wearing a smirk.

My father was a fucking fool for that bitch.

“Word? With her?”

He nods.

“Son, I’ll be gone for a while. There ain’t no way around it. I’ll do what I can to beat this thing, but the reality is, it ain’t happening. Hold things down and keep your mama strong.”

“I’ll come visit, Daddy.”

“I don’t want that for you, son.”

“It ain’t about what you want no more, now is it?” I ask, hardening my gaze and my voice as I take a step back from the car.

I head inside the house to check on my mother.

I pull Damascus off her lap and sit him on Savannah’s lap. I pull my mother into my arms and rock with her. I kiss the top of her head as she cries and wraps her arms around me so tightly.

What am I going to do with this?

My mama’s a good, loving woman. She doesn’t deserve this bullshit. I ask her, “Mama, did anyone come over here today?”

“Not that I can recall. Not any of his boys. What? You think that somebody placed it here and set him up?”

I nod.

She shakes her head. “Your daddy didn’t have any visitors today. The only person who came to visit was Essence.”

“What did she want?”

“That was earlier this afternoon when your dad was still at work and you were at school. She came to give me a break with Damascus so that I could run to the laundromat since the washer is acting up.”

“That was today?”

“Uh-huh.”

“For how long?”

Shrugging, my mama sniffles and answers. “About a couple of hours, at least. No, it was more like three because I remember I drove to the school to pick the little ones up after I was finished at the laundromat.”

My mama wouldn’t have thought it odd that Essence came by. She’s done that from time to time, pretending to be neighborly with my mom. She’ll come asking to borrow a cup of sugar or saying that she made too much of something or other and thought she would share with us since there were so many of us. Or she’d say she was going to the store and ask if my mama needed her to pick up anything.

She even pretended to be her friend. Mama and Essence were the only two ladies on our block who were the same age or even in the same age group. Whenever Julius beat up Essence, she ran to our house, and Mama would fix her up, but she’d only come if Daddy weren’t home. Those visits to my mama started before Essence started fucking my daddy.

All the while, she was getting closer and closer to my daddy, sneaking him in and out of her bed, all so she could see what was going on in our home and use that as leverage.

That bitch set my daddy up, and she’s going to pay.

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