“No. I’m about to pop up over there with lunch. How long do those round up meetings typically take?” I asked her.
“You know Sevyn. They can be quick, and only last like 30 minutes, but if Sevyn starts talking, girl, you know…”
She let that trail off, and I started laughing because I knew what she was trying to say.
“I’m going to say it’ll take about an hour. That gives me more than enough time to gas up my car, put the order in, and pick it up. I should be over there by the time he’s wrapping the meeting up,” I let her know.
“What’s tea? Are ya’ll getting back together?” she asked, and I already knew that question was coming, so I smiled.
“Girl, I’m trying. He said I gotta grovel. I’m groveling, T,” I shared, and she chuckled lowly on the other side of the phone.
“It’s you in your humbling era. Yaya, I love that for you,” she sarcastically said, trying to be funny.
“Girl, tell me about it. My pride, and my ego is out the door. I don’t care what I gotta do to get his ass to come home,” I revealed.
“Okay, well let me help you out a little bit then. He came in earlier this week, talking about wanting some pastries fromRosetta’s bakery. He’s been busy this week, so he couldn’t get them,” she let me know, and I smiled because she just helped me out.
“Thank you, mami. I owe you,” I responded.
“You don’t. Owing me is you, and Sevyn getting back together. Ya’ll love each other to pieces. Me, and everyone else would love to see it get worked out,” she said, and I found myself smiling at that.
We wrapped up our conversation, and I told her I’d be there in a little while.
I quickly went to the gas station because my gas light came on as I was pulling out of the parking garage. I quickly filled up, and I used the hand sanitizer that was in the cupholder of my car once I got back in. From there, I went ahead and headed toLa Birra Bar,which was a burger spot in Miami that I knew Sevyn loved. He enjoyed burgers. Burgers and wings were one of his favorite foods. I wanted the food to be nice and fresh, so I wasn’t going to put the order in until I got there. I had a lot of timeto spare, wanting to take up this whole hour, so I didn’t mind having to order there, and just sit in my car until it was ready.
Both Sevyn and I worked in downtown Miami, and a lot of the good food spots were out here. Once I picked up lunch, I was going to drive to the bakery, so that I could grab his pastries, and I would head to him.
I pulled up to the spot for his burger, and I ordered food for us both. They told me to give them about twenty minutes, so I went to my car, and I sat inside. Five minutes into me being in the car, my phone started ringing. It was my dad calling me. I had so much going on these days that him and I didn’t talk every day like we used to, but we would talk every few days. He knew about the shit that had gone down with Creed, and just like everyone else had gotten on him about it, my dad had done the same thing.
Seeing his name flash across the screen, it caused me to turn the radio down in the car, and I answered the call, putting it on speaker phone.
“Hola papi,” I answered, with a smile on my face. (Hi, daddy.)
“Hola, Soraya. Soy Kenia. ¿Cómo estás?” a soft, feminine voice came over on the other side of the phone. (Hi Soraya. This is Kenia. How are you?)
I rolled my eyes at the sound of her voice. I was just on my mama’s side when it came to this situation, and that’s why I couldn’t bring myself to ever like Kenia. She was my dad’s girlfriend. Well, she said that she was his girlfriend, but when my dad got around my sister, and I, he would downplay it and just say that she was his friend.
My mom found out about Kenia when me, and Shai were in the 5thgrade. One of my dad’s cousins from the D.R. called my mom, and she told her about it. My dad’s side of the family loved my mom, especially his female cousins. My dadhad been sneaking around with Kenia, but he still ended up getting caught by one of his cousins. When my mom found out, she immediately left his ass alone. I understood why she did it though. They had already been through so much. With him getting in trouble, getting deported, my mom’s career getting put on the line because she’d gotten in the mix of his lies, and her holding him down while he was locked up in the D.R. When he was released, their relationship was long distance, and we would only go visit him when we would have breaks from school. He wasn’t allowed to legally come back to the U.S., so the only way my parents would see each other is if she flew to him. She was down with doing it though, but when she found out about Kenia, my mom snapped and broke up with him. Till this day, Kenia will swear that she never knew that my dad and my mom were together. She knew about my dad having kids though.
According to Kenia, her and my dad had history. They both were born, and raised in the D.R., so that’s how they met. She said that when she found out he was locked up, that’s when she started writing him, so according to her timeline, she was messing with him at the same time that he was with my mom. The betrayal was the reason why my mom left and didn’t want anything else to do with him.
“¿Dónde está mi papá? ¿Qué le pasa?” I got right to the point, wanting to find out why she was calling me from his phone. (Where is my dad. What’s going on with him?)
When I asked that question, she sighed.
“Se va a enfadar mucho porque te llamé. La semana pasada discutió con unos hombres en el trabajo. Lo estaban esperando al día siguiente y lo atacaron. Tiene costillas rotas y muchos moretones. Apenas puede respirar, pero se niega a ir al medico,” she explained to me. (He is going to be so angry that I called you. He got into it with some men at work last week. They were waiting for him the next day, and they jumped him. Hehas broken ribs, and a lot of bruises. He can hardly breathe but refuses to go to a doctor.)
Instantly, whatever attitude, or pent-up aggression that I had with her, it went out of the window because I grew worried about my dad. I knew him. He was stubborn as hell. He’s where me, and my sister got a lot of our stubborn ways from. When it came to doctors, he didn’t believe in them. My dad had a lot of old school mentalities about him, and he believed that doctors, and nurses were in hospitals to kill people. He lost his mother when he was just a teenager. He tells my sister and I that she went in for a headache, and she died under their care. Till this day, he will tell you that the hospital killed his mother. I’m sure Kenia was over there, begging, and pleading for him to go to the doctor, but I doubt if it was working. You could hear the tiredness, and the stress all in her voice.
“¿Puedes darle el teléfono? Voy a intentar convencerlo” I responded. (Can you give him the phone? I’m going to try and convince him.)
That caused her to sigh again. I’m sure she’d snuck his phone to call me. Knowing my dad, he threatened her not to tell me, and my sister what was going on, and that’s why she was hesitant to pass the phone to him.
“Él me dijo que no le contara a usted ni a Shai lo que pasó. Se está duchando ahora mismo. Terminará pronto. Voy a dejar su teléfono en la cómoda. ¿Puedes llamarlo en unos quince minutos? Haz como que llamas, para ver cómo está. Hoy respira muy mal, así que seguro que podrás darte cuenta y, a partir de ahí, preguntarle qué le pasa,” she shared. (He told me not to tell you, and Shai what happened. He's taking a shower right now. He'll be done soon. I'm going to put his phone back on the dresser. Can you just call him back in like fifteen minutes? Just pretend you’re calling, trying to see how he's doing. Hisbreathing is really bad today, so I'm sure that you'll be able to pick up on it, and then from there, ask him what's going on.)
I wanted to be mean, and tell her ass no, and to just hand my dad the phone, but I wasn’t going to do that. She sounded really scared to the point that it had me questioning if he was over there beating her ass. I agreed though, telling her that I would call back in fifteen minutes, and from there, we hung up.
The fifteen minutes felt like fifteen hours. Time was dragging. I loved my dad to death, and I hated what Kenia just told me about him over the phone. Then, she said that he was jumped at work. Like, what the fuck did he have going on? On top of that, I just talked to him like two days ago, while I was on the way home from work. It was brief though. He played it so well in pretending that nothing was wrong with him. He was too busy in my business, wondering what me and the boys had going on, so I wasn’t able to really get in his like I wanted to.
