You could hear the happiness in his voice. Even though I’m sure he was still in a great amount of pain, the happiness of my sister and I being here overshadowed the pain he was in. It wasn’t often that Shai and I would come to the D.R. It wasn’t because we didn’t want to, but our lives were back home in Miami, and we had a lot going on. We kept in touch with ourdad though. I would call and reach out to him a few times out of the week, but him being able to physically see us hit different because when we walked in his house late last night, he almost broke his neck trying to get to us.
His girlfriend, Kenia had been here last night, but when we arrived, she left, saying that she would allow Shai and I to have our alone time with our dad. The relationship that the two of them had was weird as hell. I think my dad did love her, and cared about her, but it was my mom who he loved most and wanted to be with. His ass was always asking about her, and she’ll tell us how he finds any little reason to call her. I highly doubt that the two of them will ever be a thing again, even though I’m sure the love ran deep on both ends. It wouldn’t work because my mom wasn’t going to leave Miami to move here with him. On top of that, my mom was still holding onto hurt, knowing that she’d held him down when he did his time in prison, and Kenia had been in the picture all that time.
“Only for a minute. You need to sit down. The doctor told you that you need to take it easy. Why did you cook? Me, and Shai would have done it,” I said, once I made it over to him, and I wrapped my arms around him, and kissed him on his cheek.
He turned to look at me and kissed the top of my forehead. Those forehead kisses were the reason why I would do that with my sons. He’s been doing that with us since we were little girls.
“Tengo que alimentar a mis bebés,” he responded. (I have to feed my babies).
No matter how old Shai and I were, he let it be known that we were still and would always be his babies.
I was able to look down in the pans and see that he was makingyuca al mojo. The second my eyes saw the breakfast that he was preparing, I swear my stomach rumbled.
I walked away, and I went over to where the breakfast table was, so that I could sit, and watch him cook. The whole time thathe was cooking, he was still humming along to the music that was playing, and he was smiling. It almost made me feel bad in a sense, knowing that Shai and I were leaving him tomorrow. In a perfect world, my dad would be able to live in Miami, only a few minutes away from my house, and I could pop up on him anytime, just as I would do with my mom.
Shai came out of the bathroom a few minutes later, and just like I did when I came in the kitchen, she went over to our dad, and she hugged him, and he kissed her forehead. When she finished, she came over, sitting right next to me. I knew how annoyed my sister was with me, so I reached over, wrapping both arms around her, and I kissed her all over her face, making her laugh, and she playfully pushed me away.
“Papi, why your girlfriend left? She acts like she don’t like us,” Shai let out, as my dad took out three plates, and he picked up the pan, and started pouring the contents on each of the plates.
“Kania doesn’t live with me. Plus, she left because my girls are over, and she wanted me to spend quality time with you two,” he replied. Shai laughed and rolled her eyes.
“Papi, I love you to death, but I would have been left you alone. You haven’t married that woman yet. She’s been in the picture for years now, and now you saying that ya’ll don’t even live together for real. What are you waiting for? Why haven’t you married her yet?” Shai asked, all in his business. He laughed at her question, while picking up two plates, and he walked over to the breakfast table, putting the plates right in front of us.
“Me, and Kenia have an understanding,” was his response.
“What’s the understanding? That your still in love with mommy, and that’s why you won’t marry Kenia?” Shai asked, calling his ass out. He grabbed forks from the drawer, picked his plate up, and he came over with the items, and took a seat at the breakfast table with us.
“Tu madre todavía está enamorada de mí,” he shot, and that made me chuckle hard. (Your mother is still in love with me.)
“You are delusional papi if you believe that. Mommy be outside. Tell him, Ya. Her, and her home girls are leaving next weekend to go to Turks. I don’t think she’s still in love with you,” Shai was egging it on, being an instigator.
Our dad was just as messy though, and he could keep up with the petty stuff that she was throwing his way. It’s almost like he knew something about our mom that we didn’t know because as he sat there, eating his food, there was a cocky smile on his face, that showed that he wasn’t the least bit fazed by the things that Shai was telling him about our mom.
“If your mommy not in love with me still, how come after all these years she hasn’t move on?” he asked, still entertaining this crazy conversation with her. I wasn’t paying the two of them any mind because I was too busy scarfing down the food that was in front of me.
“I wouldn’t necessarily use that as an example because mommy don’t be talking to anybody. Her ass is so mean. I’m surprised you even pulled her. It’s times that me, and Yaya will be out with her, and dudes will walk up on her, and try to put down on her, but she won’t budge. She’s mean as hell to men,” Shai responded, and while eating, I nodded my head in agreement because it was the truth.
I loved my mama to death, but her ass was mean as hell. That was my girl though. Her mouth was slick, too. I think all of that just came from the career field that she used to be in. My mom worked in corrections for so long, so certain mentalities just stayed with her.
“And that’s how you should know that she’s still in love with me. She hasn’t given her heart to another man after me because I still have it. All that tough, mean shit that your mama does, she wasn’t on that with me. I had her in her soft, feminine era.She didn’t play that bullshit with me. I fucked up though. Took advantage of her loyalty, and her love for me, and she ended up leaving me. I just hate that after all these years, she still feels like I was fuckin with Kenia in that kind of way while I was locked up because that isn’t true. When I was locked up, yeah me, and Kenia used to write each other and shit, and she would come down to the prison to see me, but it was only on a friendly level. Once I was released, that’s when I fucked up and I started dealing with Kenia on an intimate level, and that’s when my messy cousins reached out to your mama and told her. I swear I feel like I lost my entire world when she left me,” he responded. That’s when I cleared my throat, so that I could say something.
“Papi, how you going to still have all these feelings for mommy, but you’re with Kenia? That’s messed up,” I voiced.
“What I’m doing with Kenia doesn’t come with any loyalty attached to it. Ya’ll going to think that I’m bullshitting when I say this, but me, and her are free to do whatever the hell we want. She moves how she moves, and I don’t feel any kind of way about it. We have our own understanding. She’s not trying to get married, and neither am I,” he let me know, and I shook my head.
“When she called me the other day to tell me about what happened with you at work, she was damn near in tears. I feel like she does love you, but she’s only accepting that ya’ll aren’t in a relationship because that’s what you put on the table,” I shared, hating that I slipped up along the way, and threw her under the bus because I told her that I wouldn’t tell him that she’d called me first to tell me what happened.
“I’m not saying that we don’t love each other. We do love each other. We just not together. So, she called you? Her slick ass deleted it out of my phone, so I couldn’t see that she’d reached out to you. I kept saying that that was too much of acoincidence that you called me the same day that I was feeling bad,” he let me know.
“You be putting your hands on her? She was hell bent on me not telling you that she reached out to me,” I said, and when I said that, he sucked his teeth.
“Hell no I don’t put my hands on her! I put that on you, and your sister. I have two girls, and I’ll kill somebody for putting their hands on either one of ya’ll, so I wouldn’t go around putting my hands on another woman. She probably was only so hell bent because when it happened, I was really fucked up, and she was threatening to tell ya’ll what was going on. I told her that if she told what happened, I was going to stop fuckin with her. I don’t put my hands on her. I swear to God I don’t,” he voiced, and I believed him.
We got through the rest of breakfast, and when we finished, Shai and I helped our dad clean the kitchen. During that, he was telling us that he was going to take us around today, so that we could see some of our family that we had here that was on his side. I already knew that that would take up pretty much most of the day, so I was going to throw on something comfortable.
Shai told me that she was going to take her shower first, and while she was doing that, I went back into the bedroom, so that I could make up the bed, and pull my clothes out that I was going to put on after my shower.
It didn’t take long to make the bed up, and I pulled out a set fromAlo,grabbed a bra, and some panties, and I sat the items on the bed. The breakfast that I just had, mixed with the fact that I’d woken up early had me a little tired, so I laid down at the foot of the bed. The second that I started dozing off, my phone started vibrating on the nightstand.
