Page 18 of To Hades & Back
I snatched the check. “No, the fuck you will not pay for this check.” I slapped the check back in front of Dedra. “Pay for the fuckin’ check.”
“Ma, just pay the check,” Dorian said with a scoff.
Dedra glared at him with a death stare. After what felt like forever, she reached into her purse that hung from her chair and pulled out a one-hundred-dollar bill. The waitress must have been spying on our table because as soon as that money hit that check, she was right there to grab it. Hades put the money down on our check, grabbed Dedra’s check with ours, then handed it to the waitress. When he told the waitress to keep the change from both checks, she ran off with that money fast. Dedra didn’t like that.
I reached my hands across the table toward Dorian. He allowed me to take them. “Dorian, I am so happy to find out that you’re my son. I am so sorry that all of this happened, and I couldn’t be in your life. I hope that we can get to know each other. I do have something in my room that I wanted to give you. We aren’t leaving until the day after tomorrow, so let me know when you want to come get it.”
Tears escaped my eyes as I held his hands, and Hades rubbed my back. There were pieces of me that I saw in him. Although subtle, they were there. He had my skin complexion and eyes, but his father, Tyris’s, everything else including height. From our phone and video conversation over the weeks, he seemed like a good kid.
“Um, I can come up now and get it,” he told me. “Ma, I’ll be home later. I have to work tonight.” He glanced at her for a second before his attention went back to me.
Dedra shrugged her shoulders nonchalantly. “That’s fine, Dorian. I’ll be at Derrick’s.” She stood from her seat, grabbed her purse from the back of her seat, then walked off.
“Derrick is her dude. When she’s not home, she’s with him.” Dorian answered the silent question that I asked.
Hades stood. “Let’s get to the room. What time do you have to get to work?”
“I don’t have to be there until six. I need to leave by four thirty to catch the bus and be there on time,” he responded.Yeah, I don’t like that.
I shook my head. “We’ll take you to work. Let’s get upstairs.”
Dorian’s facewas contorted as he looked down at the page. Hades was in a fit of laughter in his seat across from us. I tried to hold in my laughter, but it was impossible at this point.
Dorian’s head slowly turned in my direction. “You really planned to name me Sea Gram Copeland? Hades, man, please don’t put her in charge of naming my future brothers and sisters.”
That caused me to erupt into laughter. “Dorian, I was fifteen years old! I wanted your name to align to mine. Sea Gram and Jin’jer Elle, get it?”
We were in our suite living room. When I was pregnant, I kept a journal and created a scrapbook of my entire pregnancy. I had ultrasound pictures, pictures with friends, myself, things I wanted to get my son, plans I had for us, and a lot more. I never threw it away. Although I never openly talked about my son prior to him approaching me, I never wanted to forget about him. He’d gotten to the page that revealed what I planned to name him.
“Trust me, you don’t have to worry about that shit. Clearly, her family is obsessed with carbonated drinks,” Hades joked. He had jokes.
My brow arched. “Um, Hades, let’s not act like your name is not weird to. Let’s not go there.”
“I can understand being named after a Greek god, but this,” Dorian said. “Nah, this was not okay.” He was quiet for a beat, then he chortled.
“Whatever, boy. Let’s move past that,” I said with a pout. I reached over and flipped the page. My smile slowly fell on the next page.
It was the page that I created after he died. All the journal entries that I’d made during my pregnancy were in spiraled notebooks with the exception of my last, which I wrote on this page. We all sat there silently as he read over the entry.
The Day the World Ended
How do you continue when your heart dies? I went in to have a beautiful baby boy but left with nothing. Why would God be that cruel? Nothing about my life makes sense. My parents didn’t give me the opportunity for closure, if that’s even possible, and peace. They didn’t even fucking care. I’ll never have the day that he called me Mama, seeing his first walk,throw his first ball, just love him. Nothing will ever make me forget.
I love you Sea Gram Copeland
Dorian smacked away the tear before it fell on the paper. He tittered then looked at me. “You were dead ass serious about that Sea Gram name. I guess I should be grateful that Gin isn’t anywhere in there.”
I pushed his shoulder. Hades tried to stifle his laugh when I glared at him but failed as usual. “Y’all are going to get off my ass about the name.” After our laughter subsided, I cleared my throat. “Who named you Dorian?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. I guess the first foster home or something.” He shifted his body to face me. “I was wondering if I could still meet your parents.” When my face scrunched, he held a hand up. “I know, but I want to know why. You told me, but I want to hear it from them.”
My head turned to look at Hades. With my eyes, I asked if he thought it was a good idea. He smiled then nodded. “I guess we could do that tomorrow.”
For the rest of the time that we spent together before we dropped him off at work, we talked about different things. He asked Hades a lot of questions. He thought it was cool that both of us rode motorcycles and was in a bike club. Well, I wasn’t officially, but yeah.
At thirty, I still didn’t know much about life. What I did know was tomorrow would be a doozy. Dorian was off tomorrow, so he planned to come over before breakfast and spend the day with us.
LET’S MEET THE GRANDPARENTS…
