Page 42 of Regancy & Savior
“But nothing. It’s settled. I’m a man, and I fall short at plenty of shit, but I come through on much more shit than I fall short on. Just trust me on this.”
For the first time since I got in the car, I opened my eyes, and I looked at him. “I trust you.”
“Good. Now c’mon so we can get lil’ mama and board.”
The car came to a stop, and I looked out, spotting my mama and one of her nosy friends sitting on the porch.
“Don’t tell me you’re about to start this dramatic shit.”
I laughed as I opened the car door. “No. I’m not.” I walked up the pathway to my mother’s porch, where she sat with a smirk planted on her face. I had accidentally told her what Savior did the day I met Vee for lunch.
“So we meet again, Savior.” My mama smiled.
I smirked. “Well, hello to you too, Mama.” I kissed her cheek and then went to get my child. Thank God her bad ass dog was with my neighbor because I thought I’d be pulling an all-nighter at the tavern today, and my mama said he couldn’t staythe night. She banned him last week after he chewed up all her plants.
“Kale, get your stuff. We’re going home.” I walked in, and my baby was planted on the floor watching some cartoon with her tablet in her lap.
“We are? I’m hungry. Grandma made tomato soup, and it was nasty. I threw it away when she wasn’t watching.” She started gathering her stuff and putting it in her backpack.
“You better not let her hear you say that.” I cracked up laughing. After a few minutes, she had all of her stuff, and we were headed out.
“Savee!” she squealed, running and hugging him like she’d known the man forever when she hadn’t. She’d even given him a nickname and everything.
“Savior said you guys are going on a boat and that it’s a normal thing.” My mama batted her eyes at me as I watched Savior and Kale. They were close, and she had bonded with him.
I glanced over at my mother with a smile. “Things getting serious since he threatened that old Bible–selling boy, huh?”
I cracked up laughing because ever since Amil said that shit and told my mama, now she referred to him as a Bible salesman. “Something like that.”
“Good, because you’re too much like me, and you need somebody to love all of you, even the parts you don’t love yourself, and she needs a father figure.” My mother had learned from her ways, but she was still old school. She believed all women needed a man to be whole. I disagreed. It was a difference between needing a man and wanting one. Need was too strong of a word, but who was I kidding at that point? I was becoming too dependent upon Savior’s presence. And with our new situation, I knew for a fact that I’d be way too dependent on him, and I didn’t know if I was ready for that.
I sat on the deck, balled up, watching the sun set with a million thoughts looming through my mind. Of course, Savior said the right things earlier, but that didn’t stop the flashbacks of the last time I was pregnant and what I went through mentally with that pregnancy. I was in complete and utter turmoil, and I was depressed. I had to continue to level with and remind myself that, that time was different.
I heard his footsteps before I felt him scoot in behind me. “My mama used to tell me that I thought too much and carried too much shit on my brain. I never knew what she meant until now, standing here, watching you carry the world all alone as if you have to.”
“Your mother is a smart woman. Where is she?” I asked, trying to think about anything other than what was currently on my brain.
He chortled. “Right now, I don’t exactly know but somewhere in London.”
“What do you mean somewhere?” I was confused.
“My mother is a citizen of the world. She has never stayed in one space longer than one month besides when she stopped to try to raise my sister and me. She didn’t succeed, because, as she said, she didn’t have what it took. She was better at being a political journalist. So, she dropped me and Ariel off with my grandmother. Shit was good with grams until mama went to jail for one of her pieces in one of those third-world countries, and the money stopped rolling in, as well as the letters.”
I rested my head on his chest. “How often do you see your mother?”
“Twice a year—Christmas and whenever she drops by.” He laughed. “She didn’t grow up in America. She was born and raised in a small city on the west bank of the Nile in Egypt. She always says in Sohag the customs and people are different and less American.”
“So your grandfather on your dad’s side raised you?” I was probably prying into his life, but he was so interesting, and I felt like I needed to know everything about him
“Yes.” He nodded.
“And your father?” I asked.
“Never met him, or at least I feel like I haven’t. He died two days after my sister was born. He walked out in front of a train during a mental break caused by PTSD from the war. I was too young to know the man.”
I looked up and just looked at him in awe. Savior had the ability to be two beings at once and never flaw in one because he was him, in tune with the duality of himself. He was the hardest man I knew, but he also wore his vulnerability, never afraid to show it like others. Some men were embarrassed by it and even tried to hide it, but not him. He was him.
He pressed his lips against my temple, and for the rest of the night, I got lost in being in that very space with him.
