Clemency. ✓

24

Shawn Carter,

I helped Dria get into the passenger seat after leaving her last appointment until she has the baby. Beyoncé and I finally got back from her birthday trip and now I'm just mainly focused on having her situated for her to give birth. Her last visit went well. Right now, we're pretty much waiting on him to make his own arrival.

I ran around the car and hopped in the front seat, then rode off.

"So how you feeling about all that?"

She sighed, "Nervous, excited, anxious, everything." She said.

"Yeah?"

"Mhmm." She nodded. "I guess I should ask you how you're feeling about this."

"I'm supposed to feel some type of way?" I asked. "I'm happy and excited, but I wanna make sure you good in every aspect before myself."

"I'm good." She nodded. "Ricky and I have been needing to get some last minute things that I should've already had, like the stroller and car seat and shit. So....I'm working on that."

"We'll get it." I told her.

"I wanna talk to you about me and him, though. Speaking of."

I ain't reply cause I felt like it was coming sooner or later. I looked at her, she was scratching her head nervously, then looked back at the road.

"What?" I mumbled.

"Um...so we've been talking and...I'm thinking about moving into his apartment." She said.

"For what?"

"So he can be close to the baby." She said.

"So y'all dating now?"

"No, he just offered me a room in his apartment so he could stay close. I want him to be around his son like he wants to." She said.

I ain't even know how to respond to that.

"I mean....we come from a generation where black fathers were never around. My son has a father than wants to be in his life. Just like you vowed with Shai, you promised you would be there for your child because your father wasn't there for you. That's how I feel about me doing this, especially giving birth to a son."

I shook my head.

"What?" She questioned.

"I just feel like that ain't a good idea. He wanna see his son, he can come to the house. If y'all ain't dating, why the fuck y'all need to be sharing a place for? Just for shit to go down and you have to leave. That's dumb. You got a place to stay. Get the fuck outta here with that bullshit, Driana."

Silence.

"I knew you would be upset, but that's why I wanted to talk to you about it."

"Well, no. You ain't moving in with him." I straight up told her. "Tell him if he wanna see his son, he can come to the house. Plain and simple."

"Shawn, I wasn't really asking you. It's my decision."

"Okay, so if you move out, what are your plans?" I asked.

"The reason I wanted to move was because it's in a better environment than the house. It's a gated community that is safe. The inside of it is nice too. I didn't wanna tell you this, but I don't wanna bring my son home to a raggedy ass house that we've been fighting to keep standing for years. We deal with every hood entity there is from worn out walls and steps to big ass roaches to fucking mold, Shawn. It's not sanitary nor is it safe for him.