Torn (33 page)

Oops, I mean your house!"

"Why the fuck are you still yellin'? You act like my son ain't sittin' right there!"

"That lil' nigga is your problem, not mine! Didn't nobody tell you to bring that muthafucka over here anyway!"

"What?" Quan barked, ready to slap the taste outta her mouth.

"You heard me! You and that funny lookin'-ass baby can kiss my ass!"

Before Quan could respond, the phone distracted him by ringing.

"Hold up!" She stretched her arm out and pointed her finger. "Let me get this. Hello?" she answered calmly.

"May I speak to baby's father?" Sherry snapped, trying to get under Mo's skin.

"Call his cell phone."

"Don't you think I tried that? I can't. He won't answer."

"Sounds like a personal problem to me," Mo spat, not giving a fuck.

"Look ... he got my son and I need to make sure he's okay!"

"Oh he's fine ... I just got done breast feeding him a minute ago."

"What?!" Sherry shrieked.

"Give me the fuckin' phone!" Quan shouted, snatching the phone away from Mo. He had heard enough.

"Don't make this shit a habit," she warned.

"What?" he asked, getting on the phone.

Wanting to know everything that was said on his end, Mo stood directly in front of Quan as he spoke. But that didn't do too much, because the only thing she heard him say before the ending the call was, "Naw ... yeah ... my battery dead ...

whateva," and, "I'll let you know."

"See, this the bullshit I be talkin' about!" Mo resumed yelling.

"Man, just go 'head." Quan shook his head.

He was tired of arguing and the last thing he wanted to do was fuck Mo up, so he climbed into bed and lay down next to his son.

"What?!"

"Just go 'head Mo. Like, please, just go 'head." Mo stood in the doorway of the room with her mouth wide open. She was trying to figure out whether she should continue on or walk away like Quan asked her to. Tired, too, from the constant bickering, she left the room drained. In their bedroom, alone, Mo slowly began to undress when her cell phone beeped, letting her know she had a text message. Mo picked it up and scrolled through the message. It read: From Boss (1-314-555-0002) Date 2/10/2007 9:32 pm

It was really good seeing u 2day but you looked kinda stressed. I told u about that. Stay sweet, mama. Boss

Ignore Reply

Do I look stressed for real
, she thought, walking into their private bathroom. Mo switched the wall light on and gazed at herself in the mirror. She did look tense. Her doe-shaped eyes were squinted together as if she was in deep thought and her mouth seemed to be in a permanent frown. She didn't look her usual radiant self. Had she looked like this for years and simply hadn't noticed? Disgusted by her appearance, Mo flicked the light off and climbed into bed, defeated. Another day of this slow death sentence was sure to kill her. That was, of course, if she didn't kill someone first.

16

Enough Cryin'

The next day, Mo stood in the very same doorway as the
day before, filing her nails as she watched Lil' Quan scream
and cry.
Unlike the day prior, she wasn't gonna come running to his rescue. Consoling him was Quan's job, and besides, she didn't want to be nowhere near that baby. Looking at him was bad enough; to touch him again would kill her.

"Quan, yo' baby cryin'," she yelled over her shoulder, "and I think he shitted!"

"You couldn't change him, Mo?" he questioned, bypassing her with an attitude.

"That's your job, not mine."

"So this how it's gon' be. You just gon' act ignorant and shit. He a baby, Mo, damn!" Quan shouted as the house phone began to ring. "Just get the phone."

"Oh, I can answer the phone? You sure? 'Cause I don't want to overstep my boundaries in your house."

"Are you gon' get it?"

"Can I?"

"You know what? Fuck it, I'll answer the phone. Hello?"

"What you and Lil' Quan doing?" Sherry questioned sweet-ly.

"Nothing, I'm changing his diaper right now."

"Oh ... well I was just checkin' to make sure y'all was alright."

"Yeah, we good."

"Okay, call me if you need anything."

"A'ight." Quan hung up.

"So let me guess ... that was yo' mistress again."

"Don't start, Mo. I'm warning you. I'm not having that shit today."

"Oh, so it's okay for her to call here now?" She just wanted to make sure.

"Mo!"

"Alright, it's cool, lil' daddy. Do what you do, baby. 'Cause guess what, I don't give a fuck." She laughed.

Done with him and the whole entire conversation, Mo switched her way down the hall, up the stairs and into the movie room. She didn't feel like arguing either. Instead, she scooped her out a bag of popcorn from the popcorn machine and took a seat in her favorite chair. Mo was about to watch one of her all time favorite films, "
Breakfast at Tiffany's.
" She wasn't even a good hour into the film when Quan and his mini-me came into the room, interrupting her.

"Yo, I need you to do me a favor." He sat beside her.

"What kind of favor?"

"I know this is askin' a lot, but I need you to watch Lil' Quan for me."

"Excuse me?" She rolled her neck, flabbergasted.

"I gotta go handle some business. I called my ole bird but she must not be there 'cause ain't nobody answering the phone, and I can't think of nobody else to ask."

"Take him back home to his mama."

"I'm taking him home tomorrow, Mo. Look, will you please do this for me? I promise I won't ever ask you again." Mo sucked her teeth and inhaled deeply. Getting up, she threw her popcorn away in the trash can. Suddenly she had lost her appetite.
The nerve of this nigga
, she thought, sitting back down.

"Will you?"

"Whateva just make sure his stuff where it need to be."

"Thanks," Quan smiled, kissing her cheek.

"Yeah, whateva," she mumbled under her breath. Forty-five minutes later, with the volume on the screen turned up to the highest notch, Mo tried her best to drown out Lil' Quan's cries. He had been crying for the past twenty minutes and Mo hadn't bothered to get up. When she told Quan that she wasn't dealing with his baby, she meant it. But with each second that passed, the shrill sound of his son crying began to eat away at Mo's sanity. She couldn't take it anymore. At any moment she was sure to lose it.

On her feet, she stomped her way down the hall, marched into Lil' Quan's room and yelled, "SHUUUT UPPP!!!" This didn't help, though. The high pitched sound of her voice only made the baby cry even more. Afraid, Lil' Quan, with snot running down his nose, dropped to his knees and continued to scream.

"Look, I'm sorry. Come here." Mo picked him up and wiped his tears. "This is hard for me, a'ight. You just got to be quiet, okay? Your daddy will be home in a little while. Just please ... be quiet," she begged, bouncing him up and down.

After ten minutes of singing, bouncing and rocking, Lil' Quan still wouldn't stop crying. Fed up with trying, Mo placed him back into his play pen.

"Well fine, cry all you want! I ain't got to put up with this shit! You ain't my child! All yo' lil' ass do is cry!" Mo ranted, leaning down into the playpen. "Here, suck on this damn pacifier 'cause if you think I'm gon' sit up here and hold you, you got another thing coming! Yo' ass gon' sit here and cry today!" While Mo took out all of her frustrations on Lil' Quan, the telephone began to ring once again. At first she was gonna let it go to voicemail, but then she figured it might be Quan.

Pissed, she left the baby's room and picked up the phone on the second ring.

"HELLO?!"

"Let me speak to Quan," Sherry demanded.

"Bitch, that is not how you call somebody's house!"

"Who you callin' a bitch, hoe! Where Quan at? Put him on the phone!"

"Who you think you talkin' to? You know what? I am so not beat for this shit. Just come get this lil' bastard 'cause in a minute he gettin' ready to be outside!"

"Did you just call my baby a bastard?!"

"Sure did! And like I said, you got ten minutes to come get this lil' spoiled muthafucka! 'Cause his cryin' ass is getting on my fuckin' nerves!" Mo snapped, hanging up in Sherry's ear.

It didn't take much but in just that minute, Mo had totally lost it. Not knowing which way was left or right, she walked into her bedroom and entered Quan's walk-in closet. He always kept a stash of weed in one of his Timberland shoe boxes. Mo tossed the tops off of each until she found what she was searching for. There in one of the boxes was an ounce of fresh Purple Haze.

She grabbed the bag of weed and searched the house for a lighter and a blunt. It didn't take long for her to find the items. Seated on the floor, Mo rolled herself up a fat-ass blunt.

She didn't smoke too often, but at that moment she needed the herbal remedy to help calm her nerves. The first hit off the blunt took her mind to wondrous places. Immediately she felt calm. Even the sound of Lil' Quan crying didn't bother her so much.

Still smoking the blunt, she got up from the floor and headed back to the baby's room. Five minutes had already passed by. Sherry would be arriving soon. With the blunt in between her lips, Mo picked Lil' Quan up and placed him on her hip. He fit perfectly. Instantly he stopped crying.

"Oh, don't get too comfortable 'cause I'm gettin' ready to put yo' lil' ass right back down," she assured him as if he knew what was going on.

Downstairs in the foyer, Mo opened the closet door where they kept their coats and pulled out Lil' Quan's car seat. Once he was securely strapped in, she stood by the door, tapping her foot, patiently awaiting Sherry's arrival. Exactly eleven minutes later Sherry came speeding up the driveway like a mad woman. With a smirk on her face, Mo looked down at Lil' Quan's tear-stained face and said, "It was nice seeing you but you gots to go."

Mo knew deep down that the baby was innocent in all of this, but his innocence was of no mean to her. To her, everybody was guilty. Opening the front door, she pushed Quan's mini-me out onto the porch and slammed the door behind her. Mo felt better than she had in a long time. That was until she heard Sherry say, "I told you this bitch was crazy!" Wondering who she could be talkin' to, Mo spun around on her heels and peeked out the blinds. It was Quan. He was hopping out of his truck. Mo watched as Sherry placed Lil' Quan into the back seat of her car. Just the sight of the makeshift family all together turned her stomach.

Determined to end this never-ending threesome once and for all, Mo yanked the front door open and yelled, "Bitch, you ain't seen crazy!"

With her hand on her hip, Mo strutted out of the house with the confidence of a strong black woman, and got into Sherry's face. Finally the two women who had silently fought for years over the love of one man were face to face. Sherry was green with envy she was so jealous. A look of pure hatred and disdain was on her face as she eyed Mo up and down. The two women were complete opposites of each other. Mo was dressed causally cute in a wife beater, skinny leg jeans and flats. Her long hair was pulled up into a ponytail showcasing her hypnotic eyes and glossed lips. Six carat diamond stud earrings gleamed from her ears.

Sherry, on the other hand, opted for a more ghetto-fabu-lous look. That day she wore a pink Baby Phat shirt with the emblem on the front, pink velour Baby Phat jogging pants, and a pair of pink & white Baby Phat tennis shoes. Platinum blond two-strand twists filled her head while white eyeliner decorated her eyes.

"Mo, what the fuck? You put my son outside?" Quan asked, confused.

"You damn right I did! How many times do I have to tell you that I'm sick and tired of this shit for you to listen? I'm sick of you, that baby and this bitch! One of us got to go! It's either her or me!"

"Bitch, I ain't going nowhere!" Sherry interceded. "Me and Quan got ties together! We a family! I got the body! I got the baby and I got yo' man!"

"Bitch, you ain't got shit! I'm his wife!" Mo raised her left hand and showcased her seven carat VVS diamond ring.

"Which makes you ... his whore!"

"Bitch please, all that ring mean is that Quan paid too much money to fuck yo' Clydesdale-lookin' ass! It ain't my fault that yo' infected-ass pussy can't produce no baby! I don't see what you keep tryin' for! You knew damn well them babies wasn't gon' make it!"

Stunned by the venomous words Sherry spewed, Mo helplessly stood silent.

"That's what I thought! Stand there and look stupid! I see you ain't talkin' that big shit now! I can't stand high sidditty hoes like you! You's a lame bitch! I don't even know why Quan stayed wit yo' wack ass so long! You don't suck dick! All you do is whine and complain! That's why he can't stop running back to me!"

"Is that what you told her?" Mo's voice cracked in disbelief.