I Know You Can't Speak

Lawrence

"Jasmine calm down I can't understand you" I said through the phone. She was crying in my ear and I could barely make out what she was saying. When I heard Faith and hospital, I instantly stopped what I was doing at work. I told my boss that it was an emergency with my daughter and I had to leave. I drove 100mph to the hospital, wondering the whole way what could be wrong with her that had Jasmine so riled up.

"She better not had let anything happen to my daughter" I thought as I drove past the speed limit all the way there. When I arrived, Jasmine's sister and her neighbor were with her in the waiting area. They all looked as if they had been crying. Their eyes were puffy and they had tissue in their hand as if they had been wiping them all night.

"Jasmine what's going on? What's wrong with Faith?" I asked her nervously. Her sister and her neighbor sat down as she pulled me to the side.

"Lawrence, Faith.." she started as the tears poured down her face again and she broke down in my arms.

"Faith what?" I asked her nervously fearing what she was going to say next.

"Faith is gone" she told me through tears. I tried to make sense of Faith and gone in the same sentence.

"What do you mean gone? Gone where?" I asked confused as my heart started pounding faster and faster waiting for her to answer me.

"Gone. She died Lawrence. He killed my baby!" She blurted out as she fell apart in my arms again.
My head started spinning as I tried to come to terms with what she had just said to me. Jasmine began to explain to me the events that had taken place with Faith and Mike and I became enraged with each word that she spoke. Not being able to contain it anymore, I punched a hole in the wall as my anger escaped the best way it could at the time. Everyone in the waiting room looked in fear with wide eyes & just then, the doctor came and let me go in the back with Jasmine again to look at her body one last time.

"I'm not going back in there Lawrence I can't" Jasmine said through tears. I walked in the room alone and when the doctor pulled the sheet back and I saw Faith laying on the table, every good memory I ever had with her flashed back in my mind. Her birth, cutting the umbilical cord, holding her in my arms for the first time. Her baby fingers gripping my big hands. Her saying Dada. Her laugh. Her smile. Her first steps. I screamed so loud that I probably shook the entire hospital as reality faced me and the tears I had been trying to hold back traveled down my face. I stormed out of the room and out into the hall way. I looked Jasmine in the eyes as she saw a look that in mine that she had never saw before.

"Where is this nigga?" I said through my teeth as I breathed heavily in her face.

"Lawrence I don't-"

"Don't tell me you don't fucking know! You was with this nigga for a year so don't tell me.. you don't know... where the fuck he is Jasmine!" I snapped at her. She cried out in tears as she told me all of his where abouts that she knew of and I made my way out of the hospital looking for blood.

I went to every location Jasmine told me about ready to shoot on sight but Mike was nowhere to be found. I must have drove to every spot 10 times and each time, I got the same response. I went home and tried to gather my thoughts but I just couldn't wrap my mind around Faith being gone. I know I wasn't the best dad or the best person to Jasmine but I loved Faith with everything I had in me. I started to blame myself but then I blamed Jasmine because she should've known who she had my daughter around. Frustrated and not knowing what to do, I went to Jasmine's house. Her car was outside so I knocked on the door and she answered.

"Jasmine how could you let this happen yo?" I asked her as I brushed past her and walked in her house. It felt weird being there and not seeing Faith. I started crying again as I paced the floor and she came behind me.