Page 24 of Rah

He stared at me for another beat, then sighed like he was already tired of my lies. “Fine. If that’s how you want to play this...” He grabbed my arm, yanking me to my feet. “You’re under arrest for possession of a controlled substance.”

I couldn’t look at Moses. If I did, I knew I’d break. Still, out the corner of my eye, I caught the tears pooling in his eyes as the officer uncuffed him.

SOLAE

Rah swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood. He looked down at me with a lazy, satisfied smile. His dick was still hard and dripping with cum. Most of it, I had swallowed.

Since I was still healing from the termination, my mouth had been putting in a lot of work.

“What you gettin’ into today?” Rah asked as he put his boxers on.

I smiled because this was the first morning in forever that I didn’t have anything to do. I didn’t have a job to drag myself to. The kids had gotten on the school bus about an hour ago, so the house was unusually quiet. It had been years since I had hours to look forward to that would be uninterrupted with kids and responsibilities.

“I don’t even know,” I admitted with a little giggle as I stretched beneath the covers. “I can’t remember the last time I had a day to myself.”

Rah just grinned as he searched his drawers for something to put on.

“I’ll most likely run some errands I’ve been putting off until I had free time.”

“Sounds good.”

“What are you up to today?”

As I waited for him to answer, I watched him with narrowed eyes. But his back was to me as he continued to rummage through the drawers.

“You know I’m going to be in the streets getting this bread, baby. And me and Moses have a studio session after his meeting with his probation officer.”

I gnawed on my bottom lip, trying to bite my tongue.

All weekend, in the back of my mind, I kept seeing that woman, the light-skinned one at the bar with Rah during Moses’ birthday party. She had made and kept eye contact with me while she and Rah were standing there, and something about the way she looked at me hadn’t set well with me since.

All weekend, her face kept creeping back into my thoughts. I tried to keep tabs on her through the crowd, to see how she and Rah interacted, but the party was packed. So, it was impossible. She was on the other side of the club, and Rah always had someone in his face that entire night, both men and women. Still, something about her lingered in my mind like a song I couldn’t get out of my head.

I told myself it was nothing. I kept trying to assure myself that she was just another groupie. But it gnawed at me in a way I couldn’t explain.

Yet, I told myself to shake off my nagging insecurities and enjoy this rare, responsibility-free day. But my women’s intuition was singing to me…loudly.

AALIYAH

I was struggling to get out of the house. With a car seat weighed down with Junior, who had seemingly gained five pounds since he’d been home, a baby bag, and my purse, I struggled to get out of the back door without slipping on the ice-covered pavement– all while fighting whipping arctic December winds, mind you.

The sight before me relaxed me for many reasons. I was glad to see Fabe because I desperately needed the two extra hands. Yet, he looked so good in a hoodie, fitted cap, jeans, and Timberlands that I hesitated and took in the view for a second, despite the wind causing my eyes to water. He was picture perfection of a bad boy image.

“Thank you,” I told him as he jogged towards me and took the baby seat from me.

As we walked towards the garage, he asked, “Where you on your way to?”

“To see my mama.”

Then there was the awkward silence that always surfaced when the topic of my mother came up in conversation.

My mother suffered from Huntington’s disease, which is a form of dementia. The symptoms began in her thirties. The mood swings, depression, and anger eventually became so bad that she was ordered to live in a home. I was sixteen at the time. When she was caught stealing from a convenience store, she was so out of it that she never told the authorities that she had a child at home. I was at home alone for days, wondering where she had wandered off to. My Aunt Sheree then called saying that my mother had contacted her from jail.

Since my mother didn’t know who my father was, I was then forced to raise myself. I stayed in our apartment alone on the South Side for years, until Rah and I rented our home in Beverly. I visited my mother often. However, since having Junior, I hadn’t been able to.

When my mother was herself, she was a breath of fresh air. She was a beautiful woman, now in her fifties, and was always very smart and schooled me on men. Yet, her bipolar mood swings and severe depression was a motherfucker.

I knew that part of the depression resulted from being locked away from her family. Without around the clock care, however, she was a danger to herself and others. It was my wish to one day be able to afford homecare for her so that she could get out of that place and be with her family.