After the funeral, Lewis had shown up at the apartment just as he had told Jahlil he would when he dropped him off after their last visit. Jahlil answered the door, saw that it was Lewis. Ashamed of his home, Jahlil tried to hurry out before letting Lewis see the place.
“Hold it, is that the man your father told me about?” Jahlil’s mother said. “Invite him in. I want to meet him.”
Reluctantly, Jahlil did as he was told.
Lewis walked into the ragged apartment but didn’t seem like he thought he was above the place. He smiled at Jahlil’s mother, shook her hand, and introduced himself.
“So you work over there with Jahlil’s father?” Sonya said.
“Yeah, we only met a little while ago, but he’s a nice guy. I like him. Turns out we lived around the same neighborhood.”
“Oh, okay,” Sonya said, not seeming impressed with the bit of information Lewis offered. “You’re gonna take good care of my boy, right?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Lewis said. “Just taking him to my place to have dinner with my family and bringing him right back.”
Once there, Jahlil met Lewis’s daughter Layla, his girlfriend Eva, and her daughter Tammi. They sat down in the living room of Lewis’s four-bedroom, three-bathroom home. The space was as big, it seemed, as Jahlil’s apartment and filled with stylish furniture that looked as though it had just come from a furniture store. The house was in a quiet neighborhood, with cut grass and no graffiti on the sides of buildings, and the family had dinner just like people did on TV. Until that moment, Jahlil didn’t really believe there were black folks who actually lived that way.
Afterward, Lewis and Jahlil went downstairs to watch a little TV on the big flat-screen, before Lewis took Jahlil home. They talked about Jahlil’s grades for a while, then the conversation landed on Jahlil’s girlfriend.
“My father never married my mother. I think that’s wrong,” Jahlil said. “I don’t wanna do that to Shaun.”
“You must really love her,” Lewis said.
“I do. But it costs money to be married, to live in a house like this, and I ain’t got it.”
Lewis chuckled. “You’re only sixteen. You don’t need much money.”
“I do.”
“Why?”
Jahlil stood. “I think it’s probably time for you to take me home.”
Lewis grabbed Jahlil’s arm. “Hold it. Is everything okay?”
Jahlil looked Lewis in the eyes. He knew he shouldn’t tell him, but the man seemed to know what Jahlil was going through, seemed as though he had gone through the same things when he was Jahlil’s age. Now he had everything that Jahlil wanted. Maybe by hearing his story, Lewis could help him find a way to get those things too.
“Shaun’s gonna have our baby.”
Lewis didn’t say a word, didn’t look like he was disappointed in Jahlil. “When?”
“Two weeks, something like that.”
“Your father told me about you getting beat up at school. Did it have anything to do with Shaun and your baby?”
“Trying to make money,” Jahlil said, not looking at Lewis but staring off into the distance. “Sold a little weed on the wrong corner. Thought I could get away with it but didn’t.”
“That’s not the right way to make money, Jahlil. I think you know that.”
“Tell me another way. Tell me how I can take care of my girl and my baby, move us away from my mom’s crappy-ass apartment, and live a halfway decent life. Tell me!” Jahlil said. “ ’Cause if you can’t, I’m gonna have to go out there and do it again.”
“Okay,” Lewis said, trying to calm Jahlil down. “You know where I work. I see and hear about all sorts of programs that pay to help folks who want to get married and get places so they can raise their kids the right way. There’s all sorts of assistance, so you won’t have to go back out there.”
“I don’t know about any assistance.”
“I do. Tell you what. Me and Eva, we’re gonna look into it for you, okay? We’re going to find a program that’s going to take care of you, your girl, and your baby. We’re gonna work this out.”
“You serious?” Jahlil said, wanting to feel hope but feeling more skepticism than anything else.
“I promise.”
“You won’t be mad if I don’t believe you till it happens,” Jahlil said. “It’s just … I can’t be looking forward to stuff like that, and it not happen.”
Lewis smiled. “Trust me. I understand. But we gonna make this happen.”
“If you say so. And don’t tell my father about this. Since he don’t care about his own kid, I don’t want him knowing about mine.”