Mommy's Angel (12 page)

Elaine wrapped her arms around me. She comforted me, and that made me cry more. I wished that she was my mom. I needed my mother desperately at that moment—and Elaine was nice and all, but I would have given anything to have been in my mother’s arms rather than hers right then. But the phrase,
love the one you’re with
came to my mind, and I opened my arms up and hugged Elaine back.

Elaine told me I could stay with her. She even told me not to worry about it when I promised her I would find a way to help her pay the bills. She said her only concerns were me getting back in school and making the right decisions about my pregnancy. At Elaine’s house things were much different. I was eating three full-course meals a day. I was able to go right down in her basement and wash what little bit of clothes I had. She kept her house clean. She hardly had company. Matter of fact, the only person that ever came to the house since I’d been there was her kid’s babysitter, Veronica, and she only came at night while Elaine worked the strip. The most important thing that had changed, though, was me. I hadn’t smoked weed or taken Ecstasy since I got there. I felt good about that. Especially for the sake of the baby that was growing inside me. I wasn’t sure how far along I was, but Elaine had made me an appointment at a clinic to find out. It would be my first doctor’s visit. It was scheduled for ten o’clock. I was on my way out the door at a quarter after nine. The kids had off from school due to the Christmas holiday so Elaine couldn’t go with me to the doctor’s because she had to stay home with them. I didn’t mind though, because I had gotten in touch with my sister and my mom and they agreed to meet me there. I was so excited to see them after so long. Plus, my mom had been clean since she was in the shelter so she was in a different mind state when I talked to her and it made me feel good.

I got off the train and walked toward the clinic. In the distance I could see two people standing outside the building. One was a skinny woman smoking a cigarette and the other was a thick girl with a long ponytail.

“Naja!” I shouted as I got a little closer.

My little sister turned around and it looked like she had gained weight. She wasn’t my little sister no more. Her breasts were bigger than mine and she had thighs and hips like a woman.

“Angel!” Naja called out as she jogged toward me.

We hugged each other tight for a while.

“I missed you, Angel! Where you been?” Naja whined.

“I missed you, too,” I told her, walking the few feet to my mom.

“Heyyy,” my mom said, taking one last puff from her cigarette and flicking it in the air.

I gave my mom a hug and looked her over. She put on a few pounds herself, but standing beside Naja, she looked thin.

“How you been?” she asked, smiling.

“All right,” I told her, smiling back.

“So you done got pregnant?” she asked.

I grinned bashfully and nodded my head as I led my mom and Naja into the clinic.

“By Jamal?” Naja asked.

I nodded again.

“He asked about you, too,” she said.

“For real? When? Where you see him at?”

“Mommy and me went around to the house to check the mail and see how much work the workers did to it, and he was walking out his house.”

“What he say?”

“What, you don’t talk to him no more?” my mom jumped back in.

“I ain’t talk to him in a while. He mad at me.”

“You done broke that boy heart?” my mom quizzed.

“He just was like, Where ya sister,” Naja spoke over my mom. “I told him I ain’t know.”

“Why you tell ‘im that?”

“That was before I got ya number from Aunt Jackie.”

“Oh.” Naja made my day, telling me that Jamal had asked about me. I figured I would go see him when we left the clinic.

We got in the waiting room and it was packed.
Jerry
Springer
was playing on a small TV that was hanging from the ceiling in a corner. My mom sat down in one of only four empty chairs. Naja joined me at the sign-in window.

“You have an appointment?” the receptionist asked.

“Yes.”

She slid me a clipboard and a pen and said, “Sign in.”

I scribbled my name, date, and time of appointment on the line and sat down. A few minutes later the receptionist called me back up to the window and asked if this was my first time there. I told her yeah, and she handed me some papers to fill out. Meanwhile Naja bombarded me with questions.

“So, how you find out you was pregnant? You keepin’ it? Where was you staying at? You coming back home?”

She was probably just happy to see me. We chatted and put each other up on the latest. Then I was called to the back. The nurse said that one person was allowed to go back in the room with me. Naja thought it was going to be her, but my mom said she wanted to go back. I was surprised. My mom usually took the backseat when it came to me. She tended to be stand-offish. But that day she was playing her part. I was able to push any grudges I had held against her to the side.

Back in the room, a nurse took my blood pressure, weighed me, checked my heart rate, and recorded all this information in my file. Then she left my mom and me alone to wait for the doctor.

“So, are you nervous?” my mom asked.

“A little bit.”

“I can’t believe my baby is going to have a baby.”

“I know. I can’t believe it either.”

“Did you plan it?”

I looked at my mom like she was crazy, and she explained herself, “What? Some girls your age be wanting to get pregnant. They be going through that little phase where they feel like they want somebody to love them and all that crap.”

“Naw. Not me,” I told her.

“So, do Jamal know? Why he ain’t down here with you?”

“I told you I ain’t talk to him in a while. I didn’t even tell him yet.”

“Well, girl, what you waitin’ on?”

“I’ ma tell him today if he home. I wanted to see how far I was and make sure everything was all right first.”

“Oh, I heard you came by the shelter.” My mom changed the subject. “I wanted to tell them to let you in, but they only had room for me and two kids. If I would have told them you was with us they would have made us leave. I felt so bad, though, but I figured you had somewhere to stay.”

I thought that no matter what the explanation was, I would never forgive my mom for telling those people at the shelter that I wasn’t her child, but when she explained the situation, it made sense—and I actually felt like I could forgive her.

“It’s all right. I was mad when they told me, though. I thought you was just tellin’ them that ’cause you was mad at me,” I revealed.

“I wasn’t mad at you. And even if I was, I wouldn’t have done no shit like that. I know I did some fucked-up things while I was in my addiction, but you’re my daughter. I wouldn’t go that far.”

“So you’re clean now?” I asked my mom.

“Twenty-one days,” she replied proudly.

“That’s good,” I told her.

“It sounds funny saying this, but it was a good thing going in the shelter. They got Kenny in preschool, and being away from Marvin plus having a curfew and stuff, I stopped doing dope.”

“Yeah, Naja told me. She said they locked Marvin up.”

“Yeah. He had warrants out on him and when they took him to the hospital the night of the fire they ran his name. Sure enough, they locked him up right after he got treated,” my mom elaborated.

Although I was happy that Marvin had gotten arrested and was out of the picture, I didn’t care to discuss him. “How is Kenny doin’ in school?” I asked, switching the topic.

“He doin’ all right. It took him a couple days to get used to it, but he’s fine now. They give him homework and stuff. He be bringing me home pictures. He doin’ good.”

“All,” I sighed. “I miss Kenny. Can I go by the shelter with y’all to see him?”

“Yeah, but you know, we’re leaving the shelter. I gotta go past the house after this to see how far they got. They told me the house would be done by Christmas.”

“Yeah, Naja told me the insurance company is paying for it.”

“Yeah. I didn’t even know we had it. But I was looking through some paperwork on the house and it showed that when Curtis paid off the house he paid the insurance up for five years.”

“He’s still taking care of us, ain’t he,” I spoke of my brother.

“I know. That’s what I told Naja.”

“Well, I’m glad everything is going good.”

My mom was starting to say something, but there was a knock on the door.

“Hello,” the doctor said, entering the room. “I’m Dr. Wise.” She extended her hand to my mom first, then to me. We introduced ourselves to her.

“Your urinalysis made it clear that you are pregnant. Now, we just have to find out how far along you are,” she began.

Then she asked me when was my last period. I told her the same thing I had told Elaine. From there, she instructed me to lie on my back and she put her fingers in my private and pressed down on my stomach. Based on my response about my period and her brief examination, she determined I was six and a half weeks and she gave me a due date of August 2. She asked me what were my plans as far as the baby was concerned. I told her that I planned on keeping it. Then she tuned to my mom and asked, “Are you the proud grandparent?”

“Yes.”

“Well, make sure you stay on your daughter to follow up with checkups throughout her pregnancy and to take the prenatal vitamins I’m going to prescribe her,” the doctor told my mom. “Getting prenatal care is the best first step pregnant woman can take.”

My mom nodded in agreement. The doctor then told us that a nurse would be back in to give me some literature and the prescription as well as an appointment card to schedule my next visit. I got dressed, and after receiving the information from the nurse, my mom and I met Naja back in the waiting room.

“So what they say?” Naja asked all hype.

“I’m six and a half weeks.”

“Oh, my God, I can’t believe you having a baby. I hope it’s a girl. I be seeing some cute clothes for girls. You can name her after me. Little Naja,” my sister went on.

“Slow down,” I told her. “You sound a little too excited about this baby. Let me be the one to tell you, it’s nothing cute about me having a baby. I made a mistake.”

“Thank you,” my mom butted in.

“Whatever,” Naja said.

My mom, Naja, and me went to Wendy’s and ate lunch. Then we took the train to Brooklyn. We got to our block and it looked so festive. Christmas lights decorated the majority of the houses. There was even a car parked outside with
MERRY X-MAS
written in white shoe polish on the back window.

My mom’s house looked a lot better than before. The windows were all in, and it looked like the roof had been replaced. My mom and Naja went inside to inspect it.

“You not comin’ in?” my mom asked.

“I wanna see if Jamal home first,” I said. “I’ll look in there before I go.”

“Well, if we ain’t in here when you leave Jamal, meet us around Aunt Jackie house,” my mom told me.

“All right,” I said as I rang Jamal’s doorbell and hoped he was home. I was anxious to see him.

“What’s up?” Jamal asked, seemingly unenthused at my presence.

I didn’t make a big deal out of his nonchalant attitude. It was my fault he felt whatever way he felt about me, so it was on me to work hard to change it.

“Can we talk?” I asked him in my sweetest tone of voice.

He opened the door wider for me to go in his house. He sat down on his sofa in his living room. I guessed he was giving me a hint that he expected our talk to be short by having me in his living room. We never sat in there. We either went in his room or in the basement. But again, the whole thing was my fault, so I was in no position to bitch about anything.

“What’s up?” he repeated himself.

I sat down beside him and began, “First, I want to tell you I’m sorry.”

He rolled his eyes and looked away as if he wasn’t trying to hear anything I had to say.

“Jamal, believe me, I know that I hurt you. We had a good thing, and I fucked it up. I can’t tell you how sorry I am. All I can do is show you.”