DEVIN
Wasn’t expecting the storm to come so fast. The plan was to get dinner beforehand, but all that has changed. So I take the moment to have a little daddy-daughter time and catch up on all the stuff she's been doing at school. She begins to tell me about all her school drama and latest scoop she's got going on in her first-grade class. Laughs and lots of it fill the air from the both of us.“
And I was like nuh-uh lil’ girl. I will slap those braids outcho head. You betta get outta my face.” Her little busybody jumps up and down on her bed, trying to say each word through jolted breaths. She giggles which makes me laugh. She's always had quite the personality too. Some days I see a lot of me, and other days I see a lot of Mia. I know that feisty attitude is from the both of us, that's for sure, but that sense of humor, she's definitely got it from me, honest.
“And I told her that she was ugly because she called me ugly first. Daddy I know I'm not ugly. She don't know what she talking bout,” she says so serious.
“You're absolutely right, you ain't ugly.”
“She just jealous because I got gold stars all throughout the week and she only got two.”
My baby smart.
“And Ms. Faith lets me help her pass out papers and treats. That's what we get to do when we've got a row of gold stars.”
She starts jumping higher and harder making the springs of the bed hit the box spring beneath. The chopping sound it makes could grind your gears a little bit, but it doesn't bother me none. She ain't hurting nobody. But Mia, on the other hand, swings the bathroom door wide open and stops to look at me first and then Logan.
“Would you stop with all that damn noise? Why are you in here jumping on the bed? Does this look like a trampoline to you?”
She reaches over and pulls her down hard and fast. Logan pathetically falls to the mattress. Her sweet and innocent smile leaves her face and Mia keeps a long, icy stare on her. If looks could kill, my daughter would be dead sure enough. Logan looks away from her, her face pointing towards the floor now.
“I was just having fun.”
“Well, life ain't fun. Act like you got some sense and stop jumping on the bed you little monkey. And you better stop going to school with that smart-ass mouth of yours. You gonna catch the wrong one, one day and they gonna beat your little ass.”
I get up from the edge of my bed and step toward them. She stands upright and gets into my face. She ain't bout that life coming from the glistening hills of Bowie. Not a solid thug bone in her.
“What the hell is your problem?”
“You mind your business. I'm talking to my child.” Her finger points at me and then she looks at Logan again.
“Oh, so now she's your child?”
“Don't play with me. You let her do whatever she wants around here like life is some fun little game. It ain't fun, and you need to tell her that. She needs to get real.”
Logan's happiness deflates by the second. I don't want her seeing us like this. I try my best to be as respectful as I can with her mother, but when she pops off with no warning, it takes everything in me to keep my own self from flying off.
“Come over here, Lo,” I say. She crawls off the edge of the bed and takes a seat onto mine.
“That's all you do is spoil her ass.”
“Don't worry about what I do with her.”
Mia rolls her eyes and sucks her teeth at me and then walks away to the other side of her bed to sit. For once I'd love to be irate just like she is to the both of us. If I didn't care about what Logan would think about me, I'd do it. I'd do it right now, but I can't because she's watching, and the only example she has is me. So instead, I let it go for the time being. Her pretty brown eyes nearly drown in tears. I know what she's feeling.
“Don't worry about her. We're going to be leaving out of here as soon as the storm dies down okay?”
She nods and sniffles. I take her up under my arm while Mia looks our way rolling her eyes again. Please, storm will you hurry up? I don't know how much longer I can be stuck up in this room with her before I go off.
We wait silently as the storm rolls through with the loud thunder and cracks of lightning. Logan jumps at each one and asks why it's so loud. I tell her that it’s just God up there playing bowling with the angels and each crack of lightning is just him getting a lucky strike. My logic makes her smile about it, but Mia doesn’t seem to like it. She pushes away from the headboard and says, “And there you go always making up some shit about God. Look lil’ girl, ain't no God up there playing no bowling or doing nothing that's making the lightning and thunder happen. It's called the weather. That's what it's supposed to do. Get used to it.”
She then gets up to retrieve her purse from the dresser, searching wildly through it.
“Are you for real right now?”
“I need a smoke.”
I'm at a loss for words. Logan remains silent.
“It's not hot in here to y'all?”
“The heat is on but it ain’t that hot.”
“Well turn that thing off. I’m sweating.”
“Stay off them drugs and maybe you wouldn’t.”
“Forget you, Devin. You ain't no saint yourself.”
“Never said I was.”
“Is that what mommy was doing earlier?” Logan asks. I don't want to answer her because I don't think a six-year-old should know anything about drugs, but all of that went out the window once Mia took it upon herself to do the shit in front of her. My child ain't stupid. Did she not think she would catch on?
“Cause’ she was putting this white stuff on the spoon and put fire under it.” She demonstrates to me while Mia chuckles about it.
“And then took this needle and put it in her arm like this.”
“And what did I tell you it was?” Mia says.
“Medicine.”
“Exactly. So don't be tryna make me look like I'm doing bad stuff. I was just taking my medicine.”
“Your medicine? Is that what you call it now?”
“Medicine, drugs, they all the same thing, ain't they? Logan, you gonna be just like me and your daddy. You gonna be taking your medicine soon enough because, with a father like him, he's going to drive you to it. Watch what I tell you.”
I've heard enough. It's probably best I get out of here, rain and all, because she's so close to getting hit in the face. She's real close. I have never hit a woman and never desired to, but at this point, she deserves every slap I feel like giving her.
I rise from the bed and head over to her. She shrinks back onto the headboard and looks me in the eye like she knows she's said too much.
“For all I care, you can mess yourself up on all the drugs you want, but don't you ever do that shit in front of her again. And don't you ever come out your retarded mouth with some bull like that. That is our child.”
She laughs in my face. “Go head, Devin. You need to chill with all this bucking you doing.”
“This ain't no game, Mia. I don't know what happened to you, but this ain't the woman I know. This ain't the girl I fell in love with.”
“Yeah, well that girl been gone. All thanks to you, buddy,” she says and turns her head away from me. I've never been this person—angry, hostile and tired and worn out. And to add insult to injury, she goes and says something like this to her own flesh and blood. All I care about right now is to protect my daughter. That's it. Love or not, her time is really limited now.
“Let's go, Logan. We need to go eat.”
“But it's not finished raining,” she says. I pull my hoodie over my head and help her into hers. “We'll be alright. Go get your shoes.”
She does as told, all the while, Mia continues to sit, scraping under her nails and says, “I was just telling her the truth.”
“For real, I don't feel like talking to you.”
“For real, I don't feel like talking to you. Boy, you weak. You weak as hell,” she mimics. “You ain't shit. Look at you. You can't even provide for us. You can't keep a decent roof over our heads. You got us living in a dirty, moldy ass motel for crying out loud. Bet you wish I had gotten that abortion like I had planned, don't you?”
My leg jackhammers into the floor madly as she continues to spit venom into my wounds.
“And to think I actually loved you and had a child with you,” I tell her. She scoffs. “Believe me, we could've avoided all of that.”
Having Logan with her is one choice I should've made different. Of all bad choices, this is the one I wish I could redo on different terms. It pains me that we're at this place in our lives where a constant tug of war between hate and love is the premise of our relationship.
This addiction is a sobering truth that our lives lay in ruin and there’s no way to make it better. Like I said, me trying to repay the universe by doing good so that my sins will be washed away hasn't helped not one bit. I'm afraid that all it's going to do is keep driving us farther and farther into a place where we may never get ourselves back. I'm working against a ticking time bomb getting ready to explode. I just hope in the midst of the explosion, it doesn't kill me too.