Page 102 of Standing In The Sun
“Then what the hell are you doing out here with us?” French leaned forward, elbows on his thighs. “You don’t leave a woman you love unless you trying to lose her.”
“I ain’t leave her,she left me.” Lunar clarified. “She called me but I just need to get my mind right.”
“Yeah, well…love don’t wait around forever for people to cool off.”
The thought of Ahvi moving on hit him hard. Lunar swallowed. “I keep asking myself why love don’t seem to be in the cards for me or some,” he finally admitted. “Like why he give me a girl so damn bullheaded that she don’t accept shit that can change her life? I ain’t built to sit around and watch someone I love struggle. I got the means to make shit happen, so I made shit happen.” He gripped his forehead staring out into the tree line.
French’s home was big and beautiful. The yard was laid out perfectly and Lunar remembered how much time he spent over there kicking it with Aku and Noodle whenever Noodle wasn’t working as a child star. That seemed so long ago, now. Everyone was growing up and finding their way. His little brother wasn’t a virgin anymore and was almost a daddy. Damn, how time flew by for everyone.
French let out a slow breath. “That sound like some Big Lunar shit.”
Lunar froze.
Javen leaned back against the chair, the moonlight catching the one silver streak in his beard. “You know, your Pops was the first man I ever saw dream out loud.”
Lunar turned towards Javen, his eyes desperate to hear all the stories about his daddy.
French swallowed his own emotions before nodding. “For real - we was all broke as hell…Hood dreams. Hustling and just doing anything to get a couple dollars. Your daddy? That man used to say stuff like,‘We gon’ own the damn moon one day. Our name gon’ mean something.’I used to just listen because he ain’t never told me nothing that didn’t come true.”
“Facts,” Javen added, laughing. “We all did.”
“But then…” French got quiet, his brown eyes filling with tears of pain and love. “He left us too fuckin’ soon. I’d give anything just to see his face again…Shit, I’d give my life in exchange for his, just so you could feel that weird aura around him,” French wiped his face. “That man pulled me out of the darkness time and time again. He?—”
Javen stood, wrapping his arms around his best friend that was more of a brother to him. “It’s okay, French.” Javen was willing himself not to break down.
“It ain’t though,” French sniffled. “Little Lunar, you ain’t gotta be like him…you don’t have to search the universe for him because he in you, nigga.” He yanked his nephew into his arms. “You been walking around like you missed out on something when my nigga gave us the best fuckin’ parts of him…he gave us you.”
Lunar blinked quick, eyes glassy, trying his hardest not to cry. He was sick of crying and acting out because he wanted his daddy. He was special, that was for sure. Being fatherless was a curse on black kids but he lost one and gained one. Lunar had been too selfish to see his blessings. His life had been good, the road to success painted in gold with the moon and sun shining on him because Big Lunar told God,theybelonged to his boy.
And not only did he get Mav, but he always had French and Javen… Qamar too when he grew up. Lunar had been looking at the glass half empty inside instead of being blessed that it was almost full. But it was okay because it’s okay if your heart needs more time to accept what your mind already knows. He knew there was a blessing always swarming around him.
“You looking for answers to shit you already got the answers too,” Javen said. “You been chasing a ghost, trying to figure out if you enough…if you enough to hold the legacy without dropping it but Little Lunar, youarethe legacy.
French added, voice gritty, “I hate you never got to meet him…hate he never got to see you but he ain’t leave you empty, boy. He left you,you.Wholesome and whole—talented beyond this world.”
Lunar didn’t speak. He couldn’t. The lump in his throat was a damn brick. He pushed his sweaty palms against his sweatpants.
Lunar’s hands covered his face as his shoulders started to shake.
“He left the world his only son,” French said gently, his hand on Lunar’s back now. “And that son out here thinking he gotta change his heart for this cruel world...hell nah. You pour into people without thought. Yea, you a little wild but who wouldn’t be with the world in their hands?”
Lunar choked out a breath, tears falling fast and free. “How I miss a man I never knew?”
“Easy and you ain’t wrong for it.”
“Then I can feel him buried so deep in me—I know he gave me Ahvi and Kamari but she so damn stubborn when all I want to do is love her.” He allowed his words to pour out like water.
“We know,” Javen said. “And she knows, but you ain’t gotta prove love, man. You just show up for it, even when you feel small. Even when you scared…especially when she’s scared.”
French added, “And understand everybody ain’t grow up raised in love like you, Little Lunar. She has the right to run from softness, cause the world only taught her how to be hard. That woman love you in your language. She speaks it fluent. But if you have to beg her to let you love her how all black women should be loved, if it’s worth it, get on your knees and beg like Keith Sweat.”
They laughed through their tears and broken hearts.
Lunar wiped his face with both hands. “I miss him,” he whispered. “I want to dance with my daddy at my wedding... That’s how much I miss him but then I remember I still got a solid Pops that’ll dance with me until his back hurts.”
“And uncles…we’ll slow dance with you if that’s what you want.” French smiled. “I don’t know what God put in our pot when he cooked all of us but I know for sure, we are the truth. We created a brilliant legacy on the back of a man that will forever be seventeen. When I die, bury me in the flyest seventeen-year-old shit cause I got so much catching up to do with my nigga when I get to them gates.” He stared up at the moon. “We own the moon.”
Lunar stared out at the stars, chest rising slow. “The sun too,” he smiled thinking about Ahvi and her bright smile and that pretty brown skin that always looked freshly kissed by the sun.
