By the time Mercy and Marjae arrived at Grandma Viv's house, Marjae was dead asleep with the sour apple lollipop in her mouth. Mercy parked the car in Viv's long driveway and took her daughter out of her booster seat.
Mercy walked up to the front door wearing a pair of Nike shorts and black Roshe sneakers, with a black over sized mesh shirt and a red sports bra under it. She knocked on the door and waited for someone to answer the door.
Maurice answered the door and smiled at the sight. He has not seen Marjae since her first birthday party. Maurice and Mercy both greeted each other, and Mercy allowed him to hold Marjae.
She woke up as soon as he took her out of her mother's arms. Maurice started talking to Marjae, and as they talked Maurice led Mercy up to where Grandma Viv was.
"We're just going to be across the hall, you and her have some things to discuss" Maurice informed Mercy. Mercy wondered why this seemed a little too serious. Maurice went to one of the guest bedrooms and turned on the TV for Marjae to watch.
Mercy walked into the bedroom and was confused at the sight. Grandma Viv was on the bed, feeding apple sauce to a seemingly be one year old.
"Hey Grandma" Mercy greeted, as she walked over and gave the woman a hug and a kiss on the cheek. Vivian prayed a mental prayer that this would turn out the way she planned it.
"Grandma, who's baby is this?" Mercy said as she turned her attention towards the milk chocolate skinned baby. He was wearing a diaper with a plan white onesie. His curly hair was left alone because it wasn't enough hair to do anything with yet. The baby looked up Mercy and smiled with apple sauce all on the sides of his mouth, causing Mercy to smile. The baby was so harmless and adorable.
"Allow me to just finish feeding him, and I can give him to Maurice" It took about five more minutes for Vivian to finish feeding the baby. She called Maurice into the room and he took the baby into the room where he previously was with Marjae.
"That baby is why I called you over here. Allow me to explain and then you can ask any remaining questions after." Mercy agreed and began to lightly chew on the inside of her lip. "After Mya and you all stopped being friends, Mya went over to the wrong group. This group of friends she was hanging with, did cocaine, which is how she is not with us today. I found out she was on that stuff and I tried to make her stop. She would not go into rehab even though I pushed it every chance she got.
Back when we all visited your family in Long Island, she met that boy Kevin. A year or two ago, he visited her. He got her pregnant. She came to me when she took multiple pregnancy tests and they all came back positive. I took her to my gynecologist and in fact she was pregnant. When I found out she was pregnant, I put her into rehab. She tried to tell him that the baby was his, but he continued to deny his child.
I did not want her to either lose the baby because she was on that stuff, or cause the baby to have any life threatening problems because of her addiction. It was hard, I visited her every month and she was begging me to let her out. We cried every time I visited her. It was hard seeing my grand daughter in there struggling. The first few weeks she refused to eat. But eventually we got her to eat, but she would only eat if I fed her. That lasted for a few weeks then she began to eat on her own.
The pregnancy was good and he came out with no problems. His name is Zion Ash Lewis. Sadly, a month or so after she had the baby she went right back on that stuff. One day, I left her home with the baby while Maurice went out on a date, and when I came home she was dead. The informed me that if I had gotten there earlier, there is a possible chance that she could have been saved, but arriving four hours after... There was no possibility. And now the baby is left in my care. And that is where you come in.
I'm getting too old for all of this. I'm pushing 65, I can't raise another child. I basically raised Mya while her mother went off with her husband. I need to live my life. None of her other family members want to take the baby because they believe that the baby is a crack baby."
Mercy was in shock. Vivian just asked her to take in a baby. A baby that's not even hers.
"Huh?" Mercy wanted to know if she heard her right. "You want me to take the child in?"
"Yes"
"I mean um... Are you sure no one else can do it?" Vivian nodded.
"No one else wants to do it. You're the last person left. You were her best friend, please Mercy. And you're honestly the only person I can trust. Everyone else will do it for the money they'll receive. Can you at least think about it?"
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Darnell
Next Day
"I think you should do it" Darnell told Mercy. After hearing what Vivian said to Mercy, he thinks that she is getting too old to be raising another child.
"You think so?" Mercy asked him, contemplating on her decision. "I told her I would give her my answer tonight. But I really don't want to go through the whole process of adopting him. I went through everything and realized that I'm stable enough to take on another child. Everything is in the green right now, nothing is telling me no." Darnell sat there and wondered what the problem was.
"Then what's the problem?" He asked chuckling as he drank his beer. He and Mercy had just put their children to sleep as they stayed up and talked. Trell and Marjae both go to the same daycare and they both alternate weeks of taking them to daycare.
"There is no problem" Mercy stated as she took a sip of her night time lemon detox water. "You know what, I'm going to do it. I just have to start another savings account, which means stopping by the bank and seeing that handsome accountant I love to stare at" Mercy exclaimed as she thought of the chocolate man that she sees every time she visits her bank.
"About that, what's going on with you and King?" Darnell asked out of curiosity. He knows that they've been talking but he does not know if they plan on moving forward with their relationship any time soon.
"Well we've both been working so we really haven't gotten any time to discuss our relationship. I told him we can talk sometime this week since this isn't my week to drop the kids off. He said he'll stop by either tomorrow or Tuesday. Enough about me. How are you doing? You nervous for your session tomorrow?"
Darnell's mind went back to Mya. Images of her began to flow through his mind. Memories that both of them shared began to flow through his mind. "I miss her, that's what I do know. I wish that her and I could've worked things out, but at that time she became a different person. She just didn't care. And I already had too much on my plate to chase after her. I honestly feel as though all of this is my fault"
As he was deep in thought, he felt a hard smack on his head. He looked up and saw Mercy with a screw face on. "What was that for?" He said as he held the spot that she hit, that was now throbbing with pain.
"That was for you being stupid! This is no one's fault. Do not blame yourself, no one is to blame in this situation, do you understand me?" Darnell hated when the mother in Mercy came out, because she would literally turn into a true black mother. A semi-violent black mother. Poor Marjae.
"But I'm just wondering though, like if I didn't cheat and if I didn't have Trell do you things would be different?" Mercy thought for a moment.
"Yeah, of course things would be different. You wouldn't have Trell. But I still think that she would've cheated on you with Kevin and three other people in Long Island. Her behavior was more towards me than you. You had nothing to do with it, at all. You could say it was my fault, but why put all that stress on one person. It's no one's fault. No one is responsible for her death. The therapist is going to tell you the same thing tomorrow, minus the hitting."
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Same Day
"I'll do it" Mercy said to Grandma Viv as they both stood in the kitchen eating strawberries. "Before anything happens though, I have to get a bigger place"
"And I have the perfect place for you to go" Grandma Viv said with a smirk on her face.
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Short, I know!
I don't want to spoil all of the good stuff in the beginning.
Do you think it's a good idea for Mercy to take Zion in? Yes or No?
Comment and Vote!
P.S. I'll be updating every Wednesday and I might post two chapters in one day if I get a lot of votes and comments on the previous update... Hint Hint lmao