Page 44 of If I Gave You My Heart
"Joy, shut yo' ass up. You're a liar!" I snapped.
"Aye, bruh, don't talk to Joy like that." Javier stood from his seat on the porch to defend the woman who had raised us.
"Jay, you shut the fuck up too! She ain't ever lie to you."
Joy put her head down as she muthafucking should have. Adira just stood on the sideline, calmly watching as things played out. I didn't get why she wasn't as angry as me. I chalked her emotionless glare up to her for still having availability in her heart for the woman who had birthed us. I didn't have that shit in me because growing up without a mother hit a little harder for me. If nobody else knew, Joy did. She knew more than anything how hard I had it coming up. She knew more than anybody how many times I had gotten into trouble, and I had cried for my mother. Before her giving us up, I was a mama's boy to the core.
Nyoka's small frame was pulling me with all her might. I finally stopped standing my ground when I saw Joy was crying. Although all of this was hurting my heart, it was breaking my shit to see her cry.
"Baby, I'm sorry," her voice cried out, but she didn't have shit to be sorry about. If anybody should be sorry, it should have been my mother.
After getting in the car, I watched as everyone became small in size as Nyoka drove away.
Joy
Adira was the easiest of all the kids I had raised, and Adonis was the roughest for sure. He was so much like his mother, so much like what I used to be. He was her twin physically, and their attitudes were mirrored in every way. I watched as the Jeep sped down the block, and pieces of my heart fell onto the floorboard of my soul with each second passing. I took a deep breath and controlled my emotions because I knew Baby would come around after he took the time to process everything. For the first time in a long time, I saw my daughter do something that I thought she was no longer capable of — cry.
"Girl, come inside. How else did you expect that to go?"
I had been telling Jolene for years that springing things on Baby wasn't the way to go about things. Now Adira was the kid that you could just spring things on. I knew she would take to the reunion more smoothly than Adonis. Adira had the natural instinct to forgive and forget, while Adonis, on the other hand, held grudges as the day was long. I watched as my daughter walked with her shoulder's hug.
"I done told you that this wouldn't smooth over well."
Jolene ignored me as she went into the house.
Adira and Javier had both followed us in.
"So Joy you have been lying to my brother his whole life?" Javier asked me once we all gathered in the living room.
"Not right now, child."
"So when? You ever lied to me?"
I let his question linger because I hadn't, and I started to let the guilt eat at me for lying to Baby and Adira.
"And you… Adira, how are you even cool with any of this?" The last thing that I wanted was for any more of my kids to turn on each other.
"Javier, just leave this alone for right now, got dammit. Let the dusk settle for a bit."
"This some bullshit," I heard him mumble before he walked out and let the door slam behind him.
I was able to breathe a little once he was out of the door.
"Sit ya ass up and hold your head up. You don't get the right to pout."
I was pissed with Jolene.
"Ma—"
"Ma, nothing! You could have handled whatever without showing ya damn face."
"Don't act like you don't understand this life."
Jolene's words lingered. I made eye contact with Adira, who was seated in a chair on the far right of the room. It was obvious she was just processing everything. Jolene was right. I knew exactly what that lifestyle was like because I often dropped her on my mama's steps because I had a contract to fulfill. I would be gone for months at a time, but I always made it back home because I had been missing my child.
After my mama passed, I started bringing her along with me. Jolene knew more than anybody that I understood her lifestyle. What I didn't respect was her popping up this time. Over the years, she would check in with me before popping in. Most years, the kids would be down for bed, and she would come and kiss their foreheads before disappearing into the night. So yes, I understood life, but that didn't mean I liked it.
Before I threw the towel in and sat my ass down to raise her children, I was one of the top assassins in the Midwest. When I sat on the bench, I gave Jolene the torch, and she replaced me. I had told her that if she were going to do this, then I would adopt them, and I wouldn't be called grandma because I didn't deserve that title for not being there for them during their early years. When I first got these kids, they didn't know me from a hole in a wall. All they knew was that I was the woman that had adopted them. When Adonis hit thirteen, I had gone and adopted another little boy because I realized I loved having and raising children. I took to it naturally, like the stone-cold killer part of me didn't even exist.
