Building Trust Through Our Issues

Chapter Twenty Five (Part III)

Aaliyah, Demarcus, Austin, and Whitney's Prom. 👆🏽☝🏽️ Unedited and super long. Sorry! 😩 Please excuse mistakes.

Armoni POV:

Leilani and I were out shopping for decorations for my Daddy's birthday party that was coming up. Since his birthday was on a Sunday this year, we planned a big family breakfast at my parents house before going to church together and then later that night we were having a surprise dinner for him at one of his favorite restaurants. We already had the whole restaurant rented out and reserved for only us.

All of the family was flying out and since Aaliyah's prom was the day before, we would all get together to celebrate the whole weekend as a family. We had a full weekend. Friday I was going to the Beyoncé concert, Saturday was prom, and Sunday was daddy's birthday. I needed to get plenty of sleep this week because I needed my strength.

"What about these, Manny?" I asked him as I flipped the screen so that he could see the plates that I was talking about. We needed them for the family breakfast we were having.

"Yeah those are fine." He replied. I smacked my lips at him because he wasn't even looking at the damn screen, let alone looking at the plates I was trying to show him. Although he couldn't be with us physically, I wanted to include him as much as possible. Plus I missed him and I wanted to see his face and hear his voice but his ass wasn't even paying attention to me.

"You aren't even looking Emanuel." I snapped.

"Yes I am baby girl." He replied, as he looked at me briefly before going back to whatever he was doing. He was in prison! What could he possibly be doing that was occupying him so much that he didn't want to talk to his sister.

"Bye Emanuel." I huffed.

"Mookie, I'm listening!" He said smacking his lips as he finally gave me all of his attention. I poked my bottom lip out and he smirked. "You got all of my attention baby girl. What's up?"

"Which plates?" I asked as I showed him the three different patterns of plates that Leilani and I picked out.

"I like the ones with the gold trim." He replied.

"He would pick the most expensive ones." Lani said smacking her lips as he shook her head. She picked up six packages of the plates and placed them into the cart.

"You already know." He smirked, making us both laugh as I shook my head. "Did you get the money I sent?" He asked.

"Yes Emanuel." We both replied. Emanuel sent us five thousand dollars to help us pay for our Daddy's party, on top of the ten thousand that he already sent as his contribution to the cars. Little does he know, that money is going right on his commissary books.

Emanuel was the sole breadwinner of his whole entire household and although I was more than positive that he had money saved up. Him and Tasha needed that money a heck of a lot more than we did. They had seven children, one in college, one graduating high school and going to college, and then another one about to be born. Kids are expensive as hell and with no steady income coming in from Emanuel, they need money.

We already knew that Tasha wouldn't accept the money, so instead of arguing with her about it, we just decided to save the money to put on Emanuel's books. We just have to make sure that we beat Tasha to putting money in his account every month. That money should last him until he's released.