The Middle Child

Chapter 23

Beyoncé

“You think I procrastinate baby, but I think I’m taking my time, you think you need to leave, but I think I disagree, but if you believe you’ll do best without me, then I’ll let it go, girl, it’s over, but before we say goodbye, let’s give it a try” -Musiq Soulchild

I watched my child as she walked away, though her head was held high, it didn’t hide how broken she had become from the argument she just had with her father. I was a whirlwind of emotions right now: I was sad and heartbroken for Sasha, confused, yet angry at Michelle, and I was beyond livid at Shawn. As I stood there and listened to what they said to each other, I couldn’t believe my ears at the things Shawn was saying to her. How could he not know her, how could he so easily take Brooklyn’s side, how could he treat Sasha like that, and worst of all, how dare he try to sign his parental rights over to Michelle?

Why didn’t she tell me? How could she keep something like that from me, and for so long? How could he?

I turned to look at my husband, or at least who I thought was my husband. Right now, all I could see was a complete stranger, yet what I’ve seen from him tonight was oddly familiar. Maybe because I saw the same thing in our oldest child last night. How could I have missed this side of them for so long? Did they do a good job of hiding it, or was I just not paying close enough attention to see it? Either way, I couldn’t help but to still partially blame myself, because I was still very much a factor to the problem, but the difference with me was, I saw that I was the problem and I was doing everything and more to rectify it and be a part of the solution. But I see now that Brooklyn and Shawn were more content on being the problem by playing the victim, while at the same time blaming the actual victim in all this, which is Sasha.

I took a deep breath to try to calm down, but it wasn’t helping much, because I was seething with anger, “Bey, you have to believe me, I promise I didn’t mean what I said,” Shawn came over to me trying to backtrack and save face but his words fell on deaf ears.

“You tried to sign over your parental rights to MY daughter?” I asked lowly through clenched teeth. I was literally seeing red right now I was so upset.

Shawn furrowed his eyebrows, “She’s my daughter too Bey.”

“BULLSHIT!” I yelled, “She’s MY daughter. She stopped being your daughter when you tried to give up your rights to her! She stopped being your daughter when you, once again, took someone else’s side over hers. She stopped being your daughter when you said that shit to her face, and broke her heart YET AGAIN! What the fuck is wrong with you Shawn? Why must you continue to try, over and over again, to break her?! WHAT DID SHE DO TO YOU? Explain it to me Shawn, because I’m like Sasha now, I’m confused as hell,” I said as angry tears fell from my eyes, but they were only making me angrier because they were clouding my vision and I wanted to see the bullshit come out this man’s mouth clearly.

He sighed deeply as he held his hands in his hands, “I know I was beyond wrong for what I said, but Bey, you knew we weren’t ready for another child when Sasha was born. I was away on tour and things were rough between us, plus we already had two small kids already, and after she was born and she came home I had to leave again so we never had that bond, and then when I came back it seemed like you didn’t have much of one with her either, but she had one with Chelle, and I knew that it was hard for you so you worked so hard to develop that bond and you did, but then you ended up getting pregnant again it was high risk and Chelle was there once again. She was always there, so I figured at the time, maybe that was the best thing to do, she had a connection with her but not with us, and we had two other kids and one on the way, I thought it would have been the best for everyone and everyone would be happy.”