9780063056534

Andreanna’s old baby monitor and give his forehead a kiss like Ma gave
me.
I throw myself across the living room couch. I think the hardest part of
all of this is not knowing when it’s gon’ end. Either Iesha gon’ come get our
son or he’ll chill the hell out. School start the week after next, and the
thought of going there while dealing with him don’t seem possible.
I grab the cordless phone. I kinda wanna call Lisa since we didn’t talk
all weekend, but that might mean telling her what’s going on. Instead, I dial
King’s beeper. I need to holla at him ’bout this drug situation, plus I wanna
make sure we cool. He gotta know the baby mine by now.
I page him. Knowing King, it’ll take a while before he get back to me. I
stretch out on the couch and pull Ma’s throw blanket over me. Right as I
start to fall asleep, the phone ring.
I can’t catch a damn break. I snatch it off the coffee table. “Hello?”
“Hello!” an automated voice says. “You have a collect call from—”
“Adonis,” his voice cut in.
I sit up. Pops never call in the morning. Only in the evenings when Ma
home. Something gotta be wrong. I press 1 to accept the call. “Pops?”
“Hey, Mav Man!” Somehow his voice always light when he talk to me,
like he on a business trip and not in prison. “What mess your momma cook
today?”
I crack up. Pops swear he a better cook than Ma. He is, honestly. His
biscuits so legendary, I dream of them mugs. “NNothing this morning. You
a’ight? What you doing calling this early?”
“I’m fine. Got some calling time and decided to take advantage of it. Is
Faye there?”
“NNah, she just left for work,” I say.
“Damn, I should’ve known. How she doing? She not working too much,
is she?”
“She all right. You know she off on weekends now. Moe convinced her
to take them off.”
“Moe.” The way Pops say her name kinda throw me off. They never
met. Ma and Moe ain’t become friends till a year or two after he went away.
“Guess I’m glad somebody convinced her to take time off,” he says.
“Anyway, how you doing? What was you up to this weekend?”
Last time we talked I was waiting on the DNNA test results. I told Pops
the baby wasn’t mine, and he took my word like he always do. NNow I gotta