The next morning, the sun peeked through the blinds and woke us both up. I sat up quickly and looked around.

I hadn't meant to stay the night.

Remmey, eyes closed, still groggy, reached for me and pulled me to him. He traced his fingers up and down my thigh and then slinked his hand around to my hip. He started to pull me even closer, but then opened his eyes.

"Jazz..."

He ran a hand over his face, just like before, and looked over toward the window at the sun. Then he looked back at me.

"What time is it?"

I shrugged.

"You been here all night?"

I nodded.

"Jazzy..." I dropped my eyes and looked away from him. "You gotta go."

I nodded and moved toward the edge of the bed to put my shoes on. I thought Remmey was going to say something like "don't come back here again," but he didn't.

He just got up and walked me to the door.

He still had all his clothes on.

Even his shoes.

I was surprised when he walked me all the way home.

I was even more surprised when he gave me a tight hug once we got there and asked me to come back by his house later that evening.

I looked up into his eyes and nodded.

I couldn't tell what he was thinking.

Remmey nodded, too, and then went over to stand with Rah and Chris by the gate.

I braced myself right before I opened the front door and stepped inside.

Rico was going to be pissed.

A deep sigh escaped my body and echoed all over the house when I realized that he wasn't home. I didn't even care where he was or when he would be back.

A few hours later, he still wasn't home.

I went back to Remmey's.

I was surprised to see Claire, Christian and the babies all there in the front room when Remmey let me in.

Christian looked up at me and I could tell he had something heavy on his mind. I hadn't seen him since the night that he spent at our house.

Claire didn't look at me and neither did the babies.

They all kept their eyes on Remmey as he made his way from the door back to where he was sitting. I sat down beside him. Claire and Christian were sitting across from us. Christian was holding Sammy, Claire was holding Charity. Everyone was too still, too quiet. I wondered what they had been talking about right before I walked through the door.

"Jazzy..." Remmey started to take my hand and then changed his mind.

He looked over at Christian instead.

They shared a silent conversation and Christian nodded.

"Claire..." Remmey's eyes traveled over to Claire, then to the girls and back to Claire. "Claire..." Whatever he was trying to say, he didn't want to say it.

Claire's eyes widened, like she already knew, and she started shaking her head no before he could even finish.

"You gone be alright, Claire..." Remmey said quietly and locked his eyes with hers. "You strong. Stronger than anybody else in this world."

When she sat up straighter and started nodding her head yes instead of shaking it no, I wondered how many other times Remmey had said that to her and what else he had been saying to her all this time.

I never really thought about it before, but Claire wasn't really the type to just let some man walk into her life and be her...father.

For the first time ever, I wondered how, exactly, Remmey had become that.

Remmey kept his eyes locked with Claire's for a few minutes longer, and when she stopped looking like she was panicking and her face and body final settled into a quiet calm, he gave her a soft "huh, bruh," and his gaze moved over to Christian.

"The game changin', bruh. These babies...can't be around me no mo'."

Christian nodded silently, face set in stone.

"All y'all. Jazzy..." Remmey looked at me and his voice trailed off. Then he looked back at Christian. "You the man, now. Remember what we talked about?"

Christian nodded again, the creases in his face settling even deeper.

"Don't let nobody touch what's yours."

"They get fucked up if they do," Christian answered quickly. He and Remmey both nodded to each other.

Remmey's eyes drifted silently over to me, and then back to Christian.

Christian nodded again, a quiet understanding passing between the two men.

Remmey looked down at Sammy, who had been sitting patiently in her daddy's arms, waiting for her turn to be included in the conversation. When Remmey finally gave her his undivided attention, she climbed down off Christian's lap and walked her little legs over to Remmey.

Then she tried to climb up into Remmey's lap. It was a lap that had been a place of comfort for her, long before her daddy had ever come back from Vietnam, when he met his baby girl for the first time.

Sammy was smart. And observant. An old soul. She could feel the tension in the air and wanted Remmey to explain to her what was going on.

The same way he always did.

Remmey put his hand up to stop her and she tried again.

When Remmey shifted and reached his arm out to block her a second time, Sammy paused, looked up at him, confused, and let out a frustrated whimper.

Remmey looked directly into her eyes and shook his head no.

Sammy didn't understand what was happening, I could tell. Remmey had been the one constant person in her life other than Claire since before she was born. Remmey used to speak to Claire's pregnant belly all day and all night when no one else was around to do it.

Sammy knew Remmey's voice just as well as she knew her own mother's.

Before she was even born.

Remmey's arms held baby Sammy before Claire's even did.

And now Remmey was pushing her away.

It was like his rejection was taking the words right out of her mouth. Sammy could talk. She was almost four years old.

There was nothing that Sammy couldn't say, and nothing that Sammy wouldn't say.

Except this.

Her words escaped her. She couldn't form the one question that she needed an answer to...why? No matter how hard her huge, rejected eyes told us that she was trying to say it, she just couldn't wrap her mind around what was happening enough to get it out.

Remmey had never pushed her away before.

No matter what was going on around us, he had always taken the time out to hold her.

And talk to her.

And explain to her what was happening.

He always made sure that baby Sammy knew and understood exactly what she was looking at.

A minute passed, then another, them staring at each other like equals. It reminded me of the days in Baton Rouge when Remmey used to sit on the sofa with his arm around the baby like she could sit up by herself. Like they were just two old friends catching up.

Sammy's tears fell before her wails started. Her teardrops were huge. Like a krokodi's. They were so big you could almost hear them ping onto the table like cartoon rain dripping into a pond.

She raised her little pudgy hands to cover her small, devastated face.

Her chubby cheeks stuck out on either side of them.

That's when the wails came.

Great big toddler screams, like a baby who was lost, wandering around a department store looking desperately for a familiar face, and not being able to find one.

Remmey watched her for a minute, expression unchanging. But I was sitting close enough to see his clear eyes turn red. Then he looked over at Christian until Christian finally stood up and took Sammy by the hand.

He picked his baby up and walked her out of the house.

Claire followed with Charity.

Remmey watched them leave, and then stared at the door a really long time before finally turning to me.

"Jazzy..." he took my hand in his. "Everybody can get to me through you." He looked so far into my eyes that I began to get nervous, like when we first met. "Everybody. You understand?"

I nodded.

By everybody, I knew he meant everybody.

Even Rico.

"Lola wasn't even mine, Jazzy. She wasn't even mine. Imagine...what they would have done to her...if she was..."

His voice drifted off and he seemed to get lost in his thoughts.

I read those thoughts.

Every one of them.

They were all right there in the back of his eyes.

He wanted me to know that this was why...he never wanted me.

Never.

It was the only reason why he...never...wanted me.

I understood.

I finally...understood.

Remmey just stared at me.

The longer he stared at me, the more I wanted him to hold me.

I felt rejected...and devastated. Like my whole heart was broken.

Just like baby Sammy's.

But I knew that me...looking at him like that...would only make things worse.

So, I dropped my eyes.

Remmey lifted my face back up to his and motioned from his eyes to mine.

"Jazzy...you strong, too. Don't ever forget that. You haven't had to use everything you got yet, but when the time comes...use it all. Don't ever forget...what you got in there."

He pointed to my heart, then gave me a tight hug and kissed my cheek. He stayed there, his arms around me, his face against mine, for a long while before letting go.

"You can stand on your own, Jazzy. I know you can." He kissed my cheek again and then walked me to the door.

Christian and Claire were still outside, waiting for me.