Page 4 of All The Smoke
“Kaori, when are you going to get tired of all of this?” my grandmother asked as we pulled away from the police station.
She had just come to bail me out for what seemed like the millionth time because I had tracked Jamal’s car to another bitch’s house, went over there, fucked the car, him, and the bitch up. She got away while I was beating his ass and called the police so I ended up in jail…again.
“I know, Granny, I’m done this time.”
She scoffed. “You said the same thinglast monthwhen I picked you up, girl.”
“I know but…”
“I don’t want to hear it, Kaori Randall. I’m tired of it and I’m tired of spending money to get you out of there for this nonsense.”
“I’ll give you the money back, Granny.”
“Oh, it’s not me that you have to give the money back to.” She chuckled sarcastically. “You know I’ve been done spending mymoney on you and this foolishness you have yourself involved in.”
“Granny—”
She cut me off. “Just shut the hell up.” She was livid because my grandmother never cursed. “It is high time for you to grow up, Kaori. You’re twenty-five, smart, beautiful, so talented, I mean, I could go on and on, but it doesn’t matter. Because of a man you have watered yourself down to some kind of lowlife hussy who cares about nothing but proving what? That you have the man they want? Jamal has been up to these same shenanigans and antics since you were both nineteen!” I could see the disappointment all in her eyes. “You’re not tired of coming home to a house, where you payallof the bills, full of niggas smoking and eating up all of the food you bought? To a grown man sitting in front of a TV on a video game that you also bought? And he has the nerve to cheat on you and have you out here fighting and going to jail?!”
I had been doing a great job holding back my tears until now. I cried because I didn’t understand how Jamal could do me this way after all I had done for him and also because she was right. He had been making a straight up fool out of me since the beginning and I allowed it. But what hurt the most was… he had a fucking baby. I miscarried one and aborted two of our babies because he “wasn’t ready” but he had a whole newborn I learned about when I got there.
That was really why I acted up. I had been wanting a baby, despite not being married, because I thought that would help our relationship and make him grow up. He promised me when we got pregnant this time I could keep it. I saw why he was adamant about us having one now though. He wanted a way to keep me around forever.
“Go on in there,” she said, jarring me from my thoughts. “Your mother should be waiting for you.”
My head dropped briefly hearing that. I knew what my grandmother said was only the tip of the iceberg. Isis Randall played no games. My mother wasn’t your typical woman. She didn’t do the nine to five thing nor was she the housewife type. She was the kind of woman that got her hands dirtier than any man I knew, ran circles around every hustler too. She didn’t do her business here though. She moved to Atlanta when I was one, leaving me in Crescent Falls with her mother because she said it was safer and better for me while she built a life there. I was mad at her when I was younger because I always wanted to be with her, but as I got older I cared less. When I was finally able to move there with her at fourteen, I declined. My life was good and I didn’t want to move to a new city and start over. It was cool to visit, just not to live.
After thanking my grandmother one last time, I exited her car slowly. I made my way past my car—that my mother had obviously picked up because it’d gotten impounded when I popped up on Jamal—and headed up to my place. If my mother was here then Jamal certainly wasn’t and that was best for us both. She couldn’t stand him and missed no chances to tell him.
The smell of food hit me as soon as I entered my townhouse so I followed the scent to my kitchen. There was no need in avoiding it.
“Hey, Mama,” I said when I entered. She plated eggs, then added two blueberry muffins before handing it to me and pointing.
“Sit down.”
Releasing a heavy sigh, I headed toward the table with my plate in hand and her in tow. I sat first, followed by her, then she pushed papers in my direction. My brows furrowed as I looked from her to the paperwork.
“What is this?”
“Your new lease agreement.”
I frowned. “What? You own this condo. I don’t have a lease.”
“Right,Iown it, not you, so you’re about to start paying me.”
“Paying you? Ma, I don’t work. The money I have literally comes from you.”
She smiled. “Which leads me to my next order of business, you need to get a job, because as of midnight, your account has two thousand dollars in it.”
“Two thousand dollars?!” I exclaimed, quickly pulling my phone out and going to my banking app. “That’s impossible, I had over twenty…” My words trailed when I saw that not only was my checking account down to two thousand dollars, in fact, but there was nothing in my savings. Since I was a little girl, my mother gave me money, at least a thousand dollars, and I put half of it up every time. “Mama…”
“I’m so disappointed in you, Kaori.” She shook her head. “You’ve literally always had the world at your fingertips, the opportunity to do whatever you want and this is what you chose.” She placed another sheet of paper in front of me that had all of my charges printed on it. “All for a man. You literally got all the way to your last year in dental school before just dropping out to chase that boy around town.”
I couldn’t stop the tears from streaming down my face as my eyes scanned the paper. I knew I had the charges, like my grandmother said we had been doing this since we were kids, but actually seeing them and hearing the disappointment in my mother’s voice made it worse. I got my bachelor’s degree and was a year away from graduating dental school and becoming a dentist, but I dropped out because Jamal wanted me to.
“Mama, please…”
“Please what?” She angled her head to the side. “Because I know you aren’t begging me to continue to take care ofyourman.”
