Identity Crisis (BWWM) COMPLETE

Chapter Thirty-Two: Claudette, Charlotte, and Solomon

I can pay my own light bill baby
Pump my own gas in my own car
I can buy my own shoe collection
I've been blessed thus far
I can kill the spider above my bed
Although it's hard because I'm scared
I can even stain and polyurethane
But some things just don't change

I need you yeah
Sometimes so hard to say oh
I need you
Some things remain

I could buy my own groceries baby
Get my hair tight, my nails right
I can floss my own bling bling
Write the words to the songs I sing
I can even raise the child we'll make
Make sure he's loved and knows what God gave us
I can teach him how to walk and stand
But he needs you to help him be a man

We need you
So hard to say
We need you
Some things don't change

I could be congresswoman
Or a garbage woman or
Police officer, or a carpenter
I could be a doctor and a lawyer and a mother and a good girl
God what you've done to me
Kind of lover I could be
I could be a computer analyst, the Queen with the nappy hair, raising her fist
Or I could be much more and a myriad of this
Hot as the summer, sweet as the first kiss

And even though I can do all these things
I need you

And even though I can do all these things
We need you
We need you
We need you

And even though I can do all these things by my damn self
I need you
I do, I do, I do, I do

And even though I can do all these things
I need you
We need you
We do
We need you yeah
We need you

The Fact Is (I Need You) - Jill Scott

Claudette, Charlotte, and Solomon

Naomi was up before Joshua, which was usual because of her recent anxiety. It was the day Charlie would go home; she thought she was prepared, but she wasn't ready. She loved him, he loved her, and she couldn't wait for him to be apart of their family.

Naomi sat up in bed, writing away in her journal her doctor prescribed, her hand almost cramping at the speed. She wanted to feel better, but her anxiety was killing her, and she hadn't learned how to control it yet, but she was getting there.

She kept thinking he would change his mind, or maybe he wouldn't like living in DC as much as he thought when they added school and other things. Naomi just wanted a smooth transition, a happy JC, a healthy newborn, and a satisfied husband. That's it. She needed her boys to love her just as she loved them. She just wanted everyone happy; that's all she's ever wanted.

"Baby, are you okay?" Josh grunted as he no longer felt his wife in his arms. He thought maybe she had another nightmare, something he would try to fix, or maybe his mother could; Naomi trusted her. He sat up slowly in his old bed, his eyes partially open as he leaned back against the headboard.

"Y-yes. I couldn't sleep, so I'm writing," she clarified with a shrug.

"Can you tell me what about?"

Naomi paused, and looked down at her filled paper. She told him she would tell him everything, and she was working on it. This was different though, but she shared anyway.

"Charlie. I don't want him to change his mind or anything."

"Baby, he told us he wants this," Joshua comforted, holding her close as she set down her small pad. "We'll have to go through so much grilling by the courts, them asking us if this is a publicity stunt, and them asking him if he's been put up to this. They'll have a child psychologist and doctors and everything testing him, but you already know all this. The system is incredibly hard to fool when it comes to children. There's no way they'll ask him all those things and not figure out he doesn't want this."