I Will. (Urban)

2

Jay

"Correy, man, I know you hungry but can you chill out? We almost there." I watched him from rearview mirror. He was back there throwing a fit, crying and everything. It only took us about 5 hours, but he started mean mugging after the first one.

"No! I'm getting out!" He started trying to open the door. "Jokes on you nigga I put them child locks on. Now sit still before I get your aunties to whoop you." I focused back on the road and started bobbing and weaving through other cars. Not gonna lie, I was ready to get out too.

"Mommy says they not my aunties." That was much like Sierra, to tell him who his family was and who his family wasn't. She was starting to be too controlling, and I thought back to our conversation last night.

I had no problem moving out to New Orleans to be with her while she was pregnant. I was there when she gave birth, holding her hand and everything. She was my girl back then and I made sure she was straight even after we ended things. So why all of a sudden was she trying to say that I never cared about her or Correy? I can't tell if someone is in her ear or she just flat out crazy.

"Well, they are. Not everything Mommy says is true."

I haven't really told my son about me or my family because I thought there wasn't much to say. He didn't have any grandparents, cousins, uncles. It was just Wrenden and Flora, but I was okay with that. Of course, he had Domonique too, but she wasn't exactly here.

We passed the "Welcome to Monroe" sign and he pressed his face to the window. I decided to drive us around my old house. "We making a stop."

"No, I'm hungry! That's not fair," he whined. "I gotchu', man. After this, we'll go eat."

"Pinky promise?" I stretched my arm back there and looped his pinky with mine. He smiled and stopped doing the most while I turned down the familiar streets. "Where are we going?"

"I'm tryna show you my old house." Within a few minutes, we were rolling up to 1349 Crestwood Rd. I sold it to a small family five years ago, but now it looked like there were some new tenants. I parked across the street and got him out so he could get a closer look.

"You use to live in a blue house?"

I scoffed, "Hell nah. It wasn't this color when I lived here with your great auntie."

"What was she like?"

"You don't wanna know lil bro." I laughed. Seems like she died a whole lifetime ago.

As we got closer to the house I saw two people sitting in rocking chairs and recognized them as the children of the new owners. In just a couple of years they had changed so much. I waved at them and so did Correy. We stood there, looking at the house and me answering a million questions from him.

He pointed to a spot near the door. "What's that?"

I followed his finger and saw what he was looking at. There was a patch of darkened wood that didn't match the color of the rest of the deck. I couldn't forget whose blood that was. I ain't even notice it until he said something, but the memories rushed back. How I let her get stabbed twice when I was supposed to be the one protecting her?

"A story for another day," I turned us around and we started heading back to my Tahoe.

"No, tell me!"

"Ain't you say you was hungry?" And he shut right up.

I pulled Correy out of the backseat and started grabbing our bags. He ran up to the door and started clicking the doorbell over and over and over. I just sighed and decided to let whoever answered the door handle him.