Chapter 13
Tammy got off the bus and walked the rest of the way to Chris’s mom’s house. With Sinniyyah in the stroller and Anthony walking up front, Tammy pulled out her phone to check her text messages. Darious had sent her a text, basically checking up on her to make sure she was all right. She smiled at the text then hit him back to let him know that she was good.
“Anthony, slow down!” she yelled out to him.
“But Grandma house right there.” He pointed, then began running toward the house once Tammy got closer.
By the time she got to Ms. Elaine’s house, Anthony was on the porch knocking on the door. It was a pop-up visit so Ms. Elaine didn’t even know they were coming. Hell, Tammy didn’t even know if she was home, but Ms. Elaine was there standing behind the door with her head in her hands.
“Grandma!” Anthony yelled out again as he continued to bang on the door.
Ms. Elaine couldn’t ignore Anthony any longer, even if she wanted to. She just wanted to avoid the drama that was about to unfold. She swung the door open with a big smile on her face, reached down, and gave Anthony a big hug along with a few grandmom kisses.
“Hi, Ms. Elaine,” Tammy greeted her, carrying the stroller up the steps. “What, were you asleep?” she asked, pulling Sinniyyah out of the stroller and grabbing the diaper bag.
“No, I wasn’t ’sleep. But I wish I was,” she answered, mumbling the last part to herself.
When Tammy got into the house she headed back toward the kitchen to make up a few bottles. When she got there, a young white female was sitting at the kitchen table standing a baby up on her lap. Tammy slowly walked by the girl and her baby, speaking to her before opening up the refrigerator.
Tammy couldn’t see it at first because of the angle the girl was sitting at when she entered the kitchen, but on the side of the white girl’s neck, big as day, was the name CHRIS. Not that she had to, but Tammy looked a little closer at the fancy cursive writing.
“Excuse me, but what’s ya name?” Tammy asked, closing the refrigerator door and walking over to the female.
“Oh, my name is Amy. I’m Chris’s baby mother,” she said, tilting her head to the side so that Tammy could see Chris’s name on her neck, not that she had to.
Tammy looked down at the little girl and there was no denying the fact that Chris fathered that child. Her hair was long, thick, and curly just like Sinniyyah’s, and she had his golden eye color along with his flat nose. The little girl and Sinniyyah looked almost like twins.
“Ms. Elaine!” Tammy yelled out.
She was so focused on Amy and the little girl, she didn’t even notice Ms. Elaine standing at the entrance of the kitchen. “Now that you two finally met, I think it’s best we sit down and talk,” Ms. Elaine suggested.
“Talk about what, Ms. Elaine?” Tammy shot back with an attitude. “You knew about this and didn’t tell me.”
“It wasn’t my place to tell you. It was Chris’s and he promised me that he would, so I left it alone,” Ms. Elaine explained. “I’m sorry you found out like this.”
“Do she know?” Tammy asked, cutting her eyes over at Amy. “Do she know that me and Chris are . . . Let me rephrase that. Do she know me and Chris was together?” Tammy asked.
Ms. Elaine just put her head down. Amy knew as much about Tammy as Tammy knew about her. In both of their eyes, they both were Chris’s girl. Tammy obviously had more time being with Chris than Amy did, and it was shown by the way Tammy took over the floor, and how Ms. Elaine was more sympathetic toward her. Amy, on the other hand, was so green to what was going on she didn’t seem to care at all.
“You know what, you can keep his ass,” Tammy told Amy, then stormed out of the kitchen.
Just as fast as she unpacked Sinniyyah’s things, she packed them back up. Ms. Elaine was trying to talk to her but Tammy wasn’t trying to hear shit right now. She left without saying another word, leaving Amy and Ms. Elaine sitting and looking stupidly at each other.
* * *
Ralphy sat at the kitchen table listening to Luther Vandross sing “A House Is Not a Home” on the radio. He had been drinking all evening, sitting there, waiting for Lisa to come walking through the door, but she never did, even hours after he knew she had gotten off of work. The only thing he could think was that she was with Dre, probably getting her back blown out. The more he thought about it, the more he drank and the more he drank.
Right while Ralphy was taking another swig from the bottle of Jack Daniels, Lisa came walking through the door. At this point, Ralphy was so drunk he couldn’t even talk, nor could he find the strength to reach in his back pocket and pull out the paperwork he had gotten from the bank. He was torn up.
“Baby, what’s going on?” Lisa asked, putting her bag down and walking into the kitchen. “What’s the matter?” she asked with a concerned look on her face as she pulled out a chair and sat next to him.
Everything he wanted to say was in his brain, but the words just wouldn’t come out. He sat there with a look on his face like he was taking a crap, looking her right in the eyes. He couldn’t talk, but his tears were working just fine ’cause the more he thought about it, the more he would cry.
“Baby, please talk to me,” Lisa pled, now wiping the tears falling from her eyes. She knew that she had hurt Ralphy and to see him sitting there drunk, and crying, was heartrending. She’d never seen him cry before, ever.
For a moment, it looked like Ralphy was going to say something, but he didn’t. All he managed to do was crack a smile through the stream of tears falling down his face. He also found enough strength to get up from the table, knocking the bottle of whiskey over in the process. He stumbled toward the steps in an attempt to go upstairs and when Lisa tried to help him, he turned around and raised his fist. He only wished that he had enough power to punch her square in the jaw, but he didn’t. He barely had enough strength to make it up the steps; but after two or three stumbles, a pause here, and a pause there, he finally make it to the bedroom. That journey took everything he had left in him, ’cause once he hit the bed it was lights out.
* * *
In the federal prison system, e-mailing is a feature everybody uses in order to communicate, aside from the phone calls and what many people now call snail mail, via the postal service. Any time Tammy needed Chris to call home she would e-mail him then get the phone call within an hour or so. She e-mailed Chris as soon as she left his mom’s house so by the time she had gotten home Chris was calling. Tammy heard her phone ring the moment she stepped through the door. She hurried up and dug into her bag and pulled out the phone, leaving Sinniyyah still sitting in her stroller.
“You have a prepaid call. You will not be charged for this call,” the automated system announced.
Tammy pushed 5 to accept the call, taking a seat on the couch with Sinniyyah in front of her.
“Wassup, babe,” Chris spoke, unaware of what was going on at home.
“I just left ya mom house like an hour ago and guess who was there? Ya white baby mom and ya daughter,” Tammy said as she unstrapped Sinniyyah.
It got real quiet on the phone. Chris was stuck. He didn’t know what to say. It was pointless for him to even try to lie because he knew Tammy wasn’t trying to hear any of it.
“So you don’t have anything to say?” Tammy asked, breaking the dead silence on the phone.
“I mean, what you want me to say?” Chris answered, feeling the agony of defeat around the corner.
“I was faithful to you this whole time and this is what I get in return. I stood by you when you didn’t have a damn dime in ya pocket. None of these bitches was around then. And you gon’ sit here and have a fuckin’ baby on me,” Tammy yelled.
“Yo, we can’t do this over the phone. We’ll talk about it on the visit. I’ll explain everything then,” Chris said.
He didn’t realize that it was a little too late to try to explain. Instead of being real and honest from the beginning, he lied and eventually got caught. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
“Chris, I know I said this before and you might even think that I’m lying, but it’s over. I don’t wanna be with you anymore. Please don’t call my phone. Please don’t write me letters, and please don’t expect any visits from me. I’ll drop the kids off at ya mom house so she can bring them up there from now on. Take care of yourself. Bye,” she said then hung up the phone.
She didn’t even give him a chance to respond, not that he had a response anyway. Right then and there Chris knew for sure that he had lost his girl: the very thing he never wanted to happen.