If one more person told me one more thing about Danni, I would snap. It was enough that Fu already had an opinion about her, but now people were coming to my damn job about her. The latest story was that she was stripping at the Cat Trap. I really didn’t care about how she chose to live her life just as long as it didn’t affect my nieces and nephews.

I drove to her house and didn’t see her car or Mario’s car in the driveway, but I heard Tae Tae crying from a mile away. I opened the door to clothes all over the ground and a foul odor like someone had died. I raced upstairs to see what was wrong with the baby and he was laying on the bed while my niece I called Stink was sitting crying her tail off. I picked up the baby and rocked him while I sat down with my niece.

“Where is your mommy, Stink?” I asked, but she just kept crying.

“Stinky, where is your mommy?” I asked again.

“Brother, Brother!” she repeated in a high-pitched scream.

Something was wrong and I was starting to panic.

“Where is Trey, baby?” I asked, and she pointed towards the master bedroom. I put Tae Tae down and walked in the bathroom. I let out a gut-wrenching scream as I saw my nephew hanging from the shower rod. There was a sheet attached to the shower rod and it was wrapped around his neck.

“OH MY GOD! BABY YOU WILL BE OKAY!” I said, unwrapping the sheet from his neck. I felt for his pulse, but I couldn’t find it. There was no way was I going to let my nephew die. I pulled my phone out and called 9-1-1 and until an ambulance arrived, I gave him chest compressions while Stink and Tae Tae cried to the top of their lungs. Where the hell was Danni? Her kids were all alone and may have witnessed their brother trying to kill himself. Where the fuck was she?

The ambulance arrived ten minutes later, and I was still giving my nephew CPR. The paramedics took over while I went and got the kids. I took the kids away from the chaos and sat them downstairs when I saw a note on the kitchen table with the word Mommy written on the front. It read:

Mommy, this is Trey. I love you and my sissys so much, but I am sad. Fixing my sister and brother food, giving them baths and always cleaning up is a lot for me. The kids joke on me in school and call you names. They are really mean. I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but I don’t want to be hear nemore. Tell Mario I love him, tell nana I will miss her, tell Kayla she is my favorite auntie, and tell Uncle Game that he was the biggest most emportat nice person in the world to me. Bye mama, Trey

I couldn’t stop the tears from pouring like a faucet as I closed Trey’s last letter. This shit broke my heart that I didn’t know he was fighting this internal battle.

“Dammit!” I slammed my hand down on the table. I had to be the one to tell Game. I dropped the kids off at a neighbor’s and then drove straight to him. I didn’t know why I had to tell him first. Game and Trey had a really special relationship. You would’ve thought he was his son.

I walked into his house and I could hear laughter coming from the den. He and the girls were down there watching a funny movie all cuddled up. I hated to break them up, but I had to. He noticed my tear-stained face right away.

“What’s wrong Kay? Something wrong with Mama?” He jumped up and raced to me.

I shook my head, no, and the tears started to flow again.

“Yo, tell me what’s wrong. Who hurt you?!” he yelled.

“It’s Trey.”

“What about Trey, Kayla?” He was now shaking me, and I could see his eyes about to bulge out of his head.

“I went over to check on the kids and I found him hanging in the bathroom.” I tried to say the word hanging a little low because the kids were present. They didn’t need to har all of that.

“Hanging? What the fuck you mean hanging?!” he exploded.

I looked at the girls with sympathy, knowing that they would have to find out eventually, but from the look on their faces, they didn’t understand what we were saying. “He hung himself Game. Trey is dead,” I finally said.

“Man, my fucking nephew is not dead!” he said, pacing around the room.

I noticed Misty walking into the room, and then she said something to the girls briefly while ushering them out of the room. I noticed she had bags in her hands as well, as if she was about to leave. When she came back, she just watched the intensity of the conversation.

“Jahfar, he’s gone. I watched them take him away.” This was the only time I’d seen my brother break down. He dropped to his knees and cried. I went to console him, but he only pushed me away.

“Get off me man. Don’t touch me!” he yelled. I backed up and stood there.

“Jahfar, are you going to come to the hospital? I have to go and tell Mama. I called Danni the whole way over here, but she didn’t answer.” He didn’t even answer, he just balled up on the floor.

“You can go Kayla. I got him,” Misty said lowly. I nodded and left to go deliver the news to Mama.