He looked confused but nodded.
Dewi motioned for Nami to start. Under the table, Beck reached over and laid a comforting hand on her thigh.
“Baby boy, this is hard for us to say, so I’m just going to say it. We know you’ve been talking to Jarome. And I need to know why, and I need you to stop doing it.”
She expected him to blow up but he stared at her.
Malyah jumped in. “How could you even
think
about having contact with him? He’s nothing but trouble. He’s not our father. He’s a sperm donor and nothing more. He was never there for us. Poor Momma died with her life wasted waiting for him to straighten up.”
Lu’ana had her turn. “I’m so disappointed in you, Da’von. You’ve worked so hard to do well in school. I thought that spell you went through in high school got that nonsense out of your system.”
“He’s not a man,” Reggie added. “Real men don’t do stuff like go to jail and leave their families struggling. He had kids to take care of and he couldn’t get his act together. As a father now, I can’t imagine ever putting Bebe through something like that.”
“Da’von,” Dewi said, “Can you tell them why?”
He looked nervous, embarrassed. He shrugged. “He found me on Facebook. Said he was sorry and just wanted to talk to me.”
“Then why didn’t he talk to us?” Nami asked.
“Because he said y’all didn’t want to talk to him.”
Something clicked in Nami’s mind. “Has he been giving you money? Is he the one you went out with Saturday night?”
“Yeah, just to talk, and dinner, okay? Nothing wrong with that.”
“What else he been filling your head with?” Lu’ana asked. “I know he’s got something up his sleeve.”
“He said I should get a job, okay? Said he could get me a job. Said I should be working and not wasting my time in school. That I could be making a lot of money right now.”
Dewi got up from her chair and walked around to stand behind Da’von, her hands resting on his shoulders. “What kind of job?”
“I don’t know. He wouldn’t tell me. I told him I had to at least finish this semester of school first.”
“Do you think it’s something illegal?”
He hesitated. “He told me it wasn’t.”
“Do you believe him?”
Another pause. “No,” he quietly admitted.
“Then why,” Nami practically screamed, “would you even
think
about it?”
“Because I missed having a dad, okay? I love you, sis, but you’re not a father.”
Silence settled over the room for a moment. Dewi finally took over again. “Da’von, you need to tell Jarome that you are done with him. That he is
not
to call you, or text you, or contact you ever again. And you need to end contact with him. Understand?”
“He’s my father.”
“He ain’t no father of yours!” Malyah yelled. “He gave up that right when he quit being there a long time ago.”
Beck stepped in. “Da’von, unfortunately your father has an extensive criminal record. Does he even have a job now?”
“Well, no, but he’s looking.”
“How do you think he got the money he gave you?” Beck asked. “How did he afford to take you out to eat?”
Da’von didn’t answer.
“Answer him,” Nami demanded.
Dewi looked down at Da’von, her hands still on his shoulders. “Tell them the truth, Da’von. That’s why we’re here. They love you and they’re worried about you. There’s no reason for you to be upset with them.”
He took a deep breath. “I don’t know. He’s probably still in the gang. I told him when he first contacted me that I didn’t want anything to do with a gang, and he told me that wasn’t why he contacted me. He just wanted to get to know me. He said that he was sorry for what happened.”
“Do you believe him?” Dewi asked.
He shrugged.
“I know you want to believe him,” Beck said, “but people like him, they don’t magically change. If he’d changed, he would have approached your sisters and apologized to them first.”
Dewi squeezed his shoulders. “Da’von,” she said again, her tone sounding slightly deeper this time. “Take out your phone.”
Nami and her sisters watched as he did.
“Put it on speaker mode and call him.” Behind Da’von, she held up a hand at the sisters to indicate for them to be quiet.
When the man answered, he sounded bright. “Hey, son. Why ain’t you been answering my texts tonight?”
Da’von licked his lips. “I don’t want you to call me or text me again,” he said. “I don’t want any contact with you.”
Under the table, Nami had laced fingers with Beck. He squeezed her hand when she started to say something.
Like day and night, their father’s voice changed. “What’d you just say to me, boy?”
“I said,” he repeated, his voice sounding stronger, “that I’m done with you. No more calls, no more texts.”
Now a threatening tone entered Jarome’s voice. “Your bitch oldest sister have something to say about that?”
“Don’t you call Nami that. Don’t you call any of them that. They were there for me. When you first contacted me, I thought you really had changed. But you haven’t changed, have you?”
“You put that bitch on. You let me talk to her. I’ll handle this. You can move in with me and—”
“No, Dad. I ain’t moving in with you. I don’t want to be around you. Stop texting me, and stop calling me.” Tears coursed down his face as he hung up.
Immediately, the phone rang again.
“Block his number in your contacts,” Dewi gently said.
Da’von did.
“If he contacts you again from a different number,” Dewi said, “you will immediately block those numbers, too. Understand?”
“I will.”
“How badly has he been talking about your sisters?” Dewi asked.
“I told him early on to not talk about Nami like that. It’s like he blamed her or something. I told him she raised me, that I’d never be in college if it wasn’t for her. None of us would have made it to college. But he hates her and I don’t know why.”
Nami didn’t know if Dewi had hypnotized her brother or what, but she wasn’t about to interfere with whatever was happening. On her other side, Malyah laced fingers with Nami and squeezed.
“Why does he hate Nami?” Dewi asked.
“Because she’s successful. Because she didn’t need him.”
“Did your father ever take responsibility for his actions?” Dewi asked.
After hesitating, Da’von quietly answered. “No.”
Dewi tipped her head toward Beck.
“Da’von,” he said, “people who are in trouble will say a lot of stuff to try to get their way. You have a solid track record with your education. Where does your father live?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t take me there. He took me to some woman’s apartment over in Seminole Heights a couple of times, said she was a friend of his. But he’s not living there.”
“Don’t you think that’s suspicious?”
“Yeah. I just wanted to be wrong. I wanted him to be different.”
Dewi pointed to Reggie.
“Da’von, I love you like a little brother. I know I’m not your father, but anytime you need me, I’ll be there for you. You have to know that.”
“I just wanted a dad. I’ve never had one.”
Dewi pointed to Lu’ana. “I’m so upset with you right now, I can’t hardly see straight,” she said. “You’ve been lying to us. You put Bebe at risk. Don’t you understand the kind of people he knows? Thugs. The kind of people Nami tried to keep us safe from when we were growing up in the projects.”
“Not everyone was bad.”
“No, not everyone was bad. But don’t you remember those little gang-bangers in high school? How they picked on you when you got good grades? Remember that? You know why they picked on you? Because you were better than them and they knew it. They were trying to drag you down to their level.”
Malyah jumped in without waiting for Dewi’s cue. “Hey, you weren’t the only one who got picked on. I faced little bitches in high school who called me names too, okay? Because I didn’t want to have a guy before I got my education. Because I
wanted
to go to college. I was never so glad to move out of that last place to where we are now. It’s nice not having to worry if I’m going to get raped trying to get from the damn car to my front door at night. Half the girls I was friends with in high school, they have one or more kids now. Only about four of them actually made it to college, too.”
Malyah pounded her fist on the table, making dishes and everyone else jump. “Dammit, Da’von, Nami worked her ass off to give us a chance for a good life. Don’t you
dare
disrespect her by throwing it away!” She grabbed her napkin and dabbed at the tears in her eyes.
Nami took a deep breath and focused on Da’von. “I love you, baby boy. I love you more than myself. If I didn’t love you, all three of you, I never would have kept fighting. I would have let the state take you all away from me and I would have stayed in college. But I couldn’t live with myself if I did that. I promised Momma I would take care of you. I’ll be damned if I’ll let you make me break that promise. Now you have to promise us, all of us, that you will have no more contact with that man. At all.”
When her brother started crying, she knew they’d gotten through to him. He never cried. “I’m sorry, Nami. I just wanted a dad.”
“Now, what’s all this?” Badger quietly asked from the doorway. He walked in. “The wee one fell right to sleep,” he said to Lu’ana and Reggie. “Like an angel.” He walked over to Da’von. Dewi stepped aside as Badger rested his hands on the boy’s shoulders. “I know ye don’t know me very well, son. And I can’t say I know much about yer past, but if ye ever need a man’s opinion, I always have an ear for ye.”
“And me,” Martin added, finally speaking up.
“Me, too,” Ken said.
Beck nodded. “And me.”
“A man is only as good as his oath,” Badger continued. “What kind of man do ye want to be? Do ye want to be upright, faithful, good of heart, well respected, like your brother-in-law and the others, here? Or would ye rather be the kind of man whose own children have to turn their backs on him, because his word isn’t worth the dirt on their shoes?”
“Promise us, Da’von,” Nami said. “Promise us you’re done with him. No more. And if he contacts you again, you tell us and let us handle it.”
“I promise,” he said. “I’m sorry, Nami. He told me he changed. I wanted him to be changed so I could show you all you were wrong about him.”
Nami and her sisters got up and rounded the table. Badger and Dewi stepped out of the way as Da’von stood and they all hugged.
“I know, baby boy,” Nami said. “I been where you are now. I wanted him to change so damn bad. For Momma’s sake, if nothing else. But he never did. You just have to accept it’s nothing to do with you, and all about him. He ain’t right in the heart, to leave his family the way he did. He would say he’d changed, and get Momma’s hopes up, and go right out and do something else and get arrested again. All he ever did was hurt this family. He ain’t never supported it, never supported us. Him wanting you to quit school? Why would he do that? Huh?”
“I don’t know. He never said. Just said I needed to be working.”
Dewi, watching on from outside their family group hug, spoke up. “Just like those kids in school,” Dewi said. “He wasn’t happy you are already a better man than he is. He wanted to bring you down to feel better about himself. You listen to your sisters. They love you.”
Nami looked over at her and reached out a hand. Dewi offered her a smile as she placed her hand in Nami’s. Nami squeezed it, and leaned in to whisper, “Thank you,” in her ear.
* * * *
Before they finally left for the evening, Dewi pulled the sisters aside. “Keep checking Da’von’s phone,” Dewi said. “Don’t block the number from your whole account yet. Make sure he’s keeping his promise. I think if you go a couple of weeks with nothing, then it’s safe to say the talk worked.”
“And if we don’t?”
Dewi shrugged. “Then we talk to him again. Or we go talk to Jarome.”
When her sisters headed toward the foyer to say good night to everyone, Nami hung back. “What did you do?” Nami whispered. “Was that hypnosis or something?”
Dewi shrugged, a playful smile curving her lips. “I’m persuasive. What can I say?”
Nami knew there was more to it than that, but she wouldn’t question it. If it worked, it didn’t
matter
why.
Especially if it meant her brother wouldn’t follow in their father’s steps.
On the way home, Da’von spoke up from the backseat. “I’m sorry, sis. I never meant to do something so you wouldn’t be able to trust me.”
“I know, baby boy. I know.”
“Just keep your promise,” Malyah said. “Don’t let that man into your life. He’ll ruin it without an apology or a look back.”
When they arrived at their apartment, Nami sent her brother and sister inside first.