Page 55 of Quiet as Kept
“Get the fuck outta here.” My head shook back and forth in disbelief while my eyes pierced him. “Not Priscilla. I thought she came from money.”
“She did. But that didn’t make her any less of a very well-known ‘bat rat.’ We called ’em ‘cleat chasers.’ She’d been hanging around the team for about a year when I took up with her. I wasn’t even all that attracted to her until she . . . you know, Son.”
I could imagine.
“She came up pregnant. She was popular, so at first it was anybody’s guess who the father could be. About five of us offered to pay for her to terminate. Of course, she refused. Her father was a heavy weight with the team. Worked in the front office. When he found out, the shit hit the fan. Turned out she was only seventeen. The night I partied with her was her birthday. She told us she was turning twenty-three. Nobody ever questioned it.”
“Damn!”
“Double damn. He threatened to have the father arrested. I was shitting bricks. As it turned out, I won the lottery. He expected me to marry her. There was no fucking way I was marrying the team groupie. I told him I would claim the baby, but I wouldn’t marry her. She was an embarrassment. I couldn’t face the team knowing that half of those negroes had slept with my wife. It was bad enough being the daddy of her child.
“Her daddy got me traded to Londynville. Put my back against the wall until I agreed to take her with me. I quietly moved her into my house. She stopped sleeping with people and started spending my money instead.” He sighed.
“Damn, this is a whole reality show.”
“A shit show. Being back in Londynville put me back in proximity to your mother. It wasn’t long before I ran into her, and the love was still there. We fell into our old routine—dating, being together, you know. Anyway, she found out about Priscilla and Ganniece. She tried to stop seeing me, but I wouldn’t stay away from her. I love Vivi. I’ve always loved her, and I always will.”
“What about all the abortions?” I questioned.
His face morphed into a grimace as he rubbed the back of his neck.
“Abortions? What abortions? There was just the one. The one our mothers forced her to have.”
I stared at him, trying to determine if he was telling me the truth or if I had it wrong all these years.
“What abortions, June? And who told you that there wereabortions?”
“Patricia,” I admitted.
“Well, check the fucking source,” he spat. “She hates Vivi. I don’t know why she feels the level of hatred toward her own daughter that she feels. Maybe Vivi is the product of rape or something. You can’t believe one word out of Patricia’s mouth regarding her daughter. What did she tell you?”
“That you kept getting Vivienne pregnant and buying her expensive gifts to get rid of the babies so that you could keep your relationship with Priscilla. She told me how Priscilla showed up at my great-grandmother’s house when she was pregnant with me. She told me there was a showdown, and the result of the showdown was that I was the first pregnancy that Vivienne didn’t interrupt.”
“This fucking lady.” He shook his head. “Vivienne’s only been pregnant twice by me. The first time, I already told you about.The second pregnancy resulted in you. When she found out she was pregnant, she was scared. She was traumatized the first time, and she really didn’t want anybody to know until she was too far along to be forced to terminate.
“But I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. As far as I was concerned, Vivi’s pregnancy was going to give me my freedom papers. I planned to finally leave Priscilla and marry Vivi. I told Priscilla everything. Now that I’m older and have more wisdom, I should’ve kept my stupid mouth shut. I should’ve moved in silence, but I was so excited to finally start my forever with my girl that I fucked up. I ran my mouth when I should’ve kept it closed.
“Vivienne never planned to terminate. She was committed to having you and us raising you together. But Priscilla’s father got involved. He started fucking with me, fucking with my standing on the team.” He took a deep breath. “To be honest, by that point, I didn’t care. I was tired of pretending that I saw Priscilla as anything but a burden that was forced on me. I was ready to walk. I was ready to marry Vivi and start living the life I always dreamed of.”
“You were gonna walk away from baseball?”
He nodded. “But your mother talked me out of it. Anyway, Patricia is a liar. Your mother always planned to have you. There were no plans for her to terminate your pregnancy. Priscilla did go to your great-grandmother’s house. Words were exchanged, hands were thrown, and your mother did name you Kept to spite Priscilla,” he held up his hands, “but only after I agreed that I liked the name. It was petty as hell, but I wanted Priscilla to understand once and for all that she wasn’t the woman that I wanted. The woman that I wanted was having my son. My only son.”
“This story is crazy as hell.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “It was the 90s. What can I say? There was no social media. No cell phones with cameras. No cancelling celebrities. You could do or say pretty much whatever you wanted, and who could prove it?” I shook my head. “Anyway, I couldn’t get Priscilla to leave. She faked a pregnancy and a miscarriage.”
“Damn.”
“Once Vivi had you, Priscilla harassed her nonstop. She sued her twice for mental anguish. Literally had Vivi served with papers. She made fake neglect claims with Child Protective Services. Vivi was investigated three times. The final straw was when Vivi was one day late picking you up from a visit with me.
“I was an asshole, June. It was my fault. I left you with Priscilla while I went out of town for a doubleheader. I should’ve gotten a travel nanny and taken you with me. But I had no idea that Vivi was gonna miss her flight and get back a day late to pick you up. Priscilla called CPS, and they came and got you. I had to leave the game. It took us three days to get everything straightened out. For three days, you were in the system, and neither of us knew where you were or who you were with.
“That was Vivi’s final straw. She was already dealing with a mild case of post-partum, and Priscilla’s antics were making everything worse. When we finally got you back, she told me that she couldn’t do it anymore. She told me that she spent her whole adult life trying to love me, and it wasn’t worth her sanity. She disappeared on me. Your great-grandmother stepped in and took over your care when I was out of town.”
“I feel like I spent a lot of time with Priscilla, but she was never cruel to me. She was just . . .” I thought about the word Xarielle used to describe her grandmother. “. . . disengaged.”
He eyed me seriously. “I told her that if she ever harmed a hair on your head, talked shit to you, or tried to make you feelless than, I would make her ass disappear. I meant that shit, and she knew it.”