Where There's Smoke

Treading Water

Roman's POV

            I had asked Gianni about someone I could go see and he set it up for me. I knocked on the office door. I heard a woman say it's open. I walked in and she was in front of a desk. I saw it was an older black woman and she smiled at me. She motioned for me to sit and motioned for me to sit. "I'm Kyah, your brother told me a little bit about you." She crossed her legs.

   "What did he tell you?" Gianni is super critical about me.

   "You are his kid brother, you are 29 years old, you have a 5 and a half month old daughter, you have been with the same woman for 7 months in May, and you just found out you have a 14 year old daughter that you just got full custody of. I think I'm caught up on what he told me. He gave me in general stuff. I want you to tell me about yourself." She smiled.

   "What do you want to know?" I asked.

   "Tell me about your kids. We can start there. Everyone loves talking about their kids. You have two daughters correct?" She leaned back.

   "Yes I do. My oldest daughter is Adrian and she is 14. She is amazing. She really chill and quiet for the most part. We've got along very well. I met her back in December when her mother told me about her and since then a lot has happened ending up with me getting full custody of her." I said.

   "It's the middle of March so you've known her for about 3 months. That's not that long all things considered. How did you end up with full custody?" She asked.

   "She was being abused in the home where she lived with her mother at the time and her mother was addicted to cocaine where she became unfit to care for her." I shrugged.

   "Okay, you your baby?"

   "Evangaline, well we call her Eva. She's a sweet baby. When she was born I never knew you could love someone so much so fast. I love both of my daughters so much. Adrian has loved her sister from the first time she met her. When I have them both at once I'll go to see what they're doing and Adrian will have Eva in her room reading to her, play, talking, and it just so heartwarming to see."

   "I can see by the way you talk about them you love them. You had the baby with you wife though correct?" She asked.

   "Yes after trying for over a year we got pregnant and then halfway through her pregnancy we had a scare and she was on bed rest for the remainder of her pregnancy." I explained.

   "What kind of scare?" She seemed concerned.

   "She scaring spotting a bit and the doctor said it was because of stress." I spun my ring around.

   "I have a feeling there's more." She said.

   "After she gave birth a day or two after she started hemorrhaging. The doctor's said the lost her once on the table, but she came back. She was out for 4 days. They said it was because her body was exhausted. Those were the most stressful two days of my life. I didn't know if she would wake up." I recalled seeing her laying flat in the hospital bed.

   "There's one more thing you brother told me. You have an eidetic memory." She looked at me.

   "Yeah, my mother, late brother, and I all have it. We're suspecting Adrian does too, but with so much going on I haven't had time to take her to get checked out." I sighed.

   "What's your earliest memory that you recall in great detail?" I could see she was trying to figure me out. "I want to know want to know how old you are."

   "I was 3 and the earliest memory is my Aunt brutal murder. It was a home invasion and I was in the closest while they killed her and she bleed out two feet away. You know what I sat in for two hours. A pool of her until my dad came in and found me screaming and crying in the closest. I remember her yellow and white dress soaked in blood." I looked her in her eyes. "You know what I remember seeing before I wheeled my wife to the ICU? Her sweats, sheets, and hospital bed all soaked in her blood. After they took her out my brother told me not to go in there he'll take everything out, but I went in there anyway. There was a trail of blood from the bathroom to her bed. The smell of blood in a large quantity is something that I know all too well."