Turning Tables: The Final Instalment

Chapter 6: Collect Calls

Jhene:

"You have an incoming call from California State Prison, Sacramento Inmate..." the automated recording cut off and his voice filled her ears as he stated out his full government name. "This call will cost 75 cent per minute. Press 5 if you wish to accept this call or 2 to decline". Immediately Asia pressed 5 familiar with the daily procedure, and waited for the operator to redirect her call. I sat there and watched as she excitedly kicked her socked feet waiting anxiously for her favourite persons voice to come on the line. Suddenly her face beamed with joy "Hi Daddy!" she giggled excitedly. In that moment, I got up and excused myself from the room. Another daily 15 minutes would be the length of time she got to speak with her father.

Every day at 5pm he would call to check on her, make sure she'd done her homework or her spellings for that day, sometimes he'd even helped her out and test her over the phone. I'd over hear her spelling out words or reading her school book to him, even miles away I guess he was still as hands on as a father could be behind bars. 4 years had gone by since he'd been away, and for the past year every first Saturday of the month, Mama Joy would take Asia up to Sacramento to visit him over the weekend. 

However, things weren't always this way in-fact it took a long time to even get to this point. 

I guess Mijo's premonition of me "disappearing" was right because after that day at his house, I cut off all contact with just about everyone associated with Chris, his family and all of his friends included. When I said I was done that day, I meant it with everything in me. I was done, and since then I hadn't seen or spoken to any of them, besides Kyra.

For the first few months that I broke contact with them, my phone was ringing off the hook. But slowly, with no response from me, they stopped calling all together. Mama Joy tried time and time again to reach out so that she could still have a relationship with Asia, but I ignored all of her attempts. At the time I felt betrayed by everyone so I didn't need any of them and neither did my child. Honestly, I was so cold in my approach; I know during that time I broke her heart taking her granddaughter away from her but back then I just didn't care, I couldn't see past my own hurt and because of it, I didn't exactly handle things in the "correct" way. 

During that time, my relationship with Marcus was growing and truth be told, if it wasn't for him, Chris probably wouldn't have seen or heard from Asia until he was released from prison. One day he was brutally honest with me and straight up told me he thought I was tripping not allowing Chris to be in her life and that I had to learn to separate the relationship between us two, and Asia's relationship with him as her dad. He might've been a shitty boyfriend, but it wasn't a bad father. 

I'll admit it, I needed that. It may have taken me a while, but eventually I let my ego go. 

It had been within the past 2 years that I'd finally allowed him to have full contact with Asia and only the last couple months of his sentence that I let her go and visit him. I still wasn't comfortable with the idea of my 5-year-old going in and out of the prison, I didn't want to normalize that for her and neither did he, so we came to that agreement. They were closer than ever; Asia adored her dad to her he was like the greatest thing walking on this planet.

As for Chris and I, we were not friends but we were not enemies either, we just didn't have much of a relationship anymore and I was okay with that. We didn't need to communicate with each other because everything was done through his mother, it was better that way. I didn't hate him or have any ill feelings towards him, whatever bullshit went on in the past I was healed from it. He was still Asia's father and my only job at this point was to make sure she had a relationship with him.

 "Mommy, Daddy's gone" Asia said as she came skipping happily into the kitchen and handed me back my cell phone. I smiled at her happiness and took my phone from her, placing it on the counter top.