You Get What You Play For by Jeff Farley

Author:Jeff Farley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria Paperback

Chapter 13

Mariah had open-heart surgery on the morning of January 5, 1998. Six hours of pure hell. My family and I sat in the waiting room with Jamal and his parents for the entire time, mainly in tense silence, with an occasional prayer or the reading of an appropriate scripture by Aunt Ruby. The operation went well, but it was torture to watch Mariah with all the tubes and machines hooked up to her little body. The stress and uncertainty of the operation seemed to galvanize Jamal and I; he was really strong during everything, and was there for Mariah and I 24/7. I’m not sure if it was the vulnerability or helplessness I was feeling, but I started feeling like maybe we could make things work, especially for Mariah’s sake. The problem was Jamal wasn’t single, he and Niece were together.

“So, how are things with you and Niece?” I asked him out of the blue as we sat in Mariah’s room the day after the surgery.

“Good. She held a brother down through this whole shit. Niece is good people,” he replied.

That didn’t sound like a man who was madly in love with a woman. It was more like he was describing a good friend, or maybe that’s just what I wanted to hear.

“When people are there for you when you need them, you have to respect that,” he added.

This was a different Jamal than I had come to know over the last few years. He seemed humble and sincere. He was also working two jobs and back in night school taking classes toward his master’s degree.

“So what about you? I know dudes are knocking on your door all day every day,” he said.

“Yeah, well, they must be disguising themselves as mailmen and Jehovah’s Witnesses,” I answered.

“Oh yeah, I see your friend Jason is doing his thing with the Nets. He might mess around and win rookie of the year … I’m happy for that cat.”

“I wouldn’t know. I don’t watch basketball and I haven’t spoken to him in a while,” I said.

Jamal just nodded his head to acknowledge my response; he didn’t seem to be gloating or trying to rub anything in. I was really like, Who the fuck is this cool-ass dude and what did he do with my daughter’s father?

My mother sensed that I was allowing myself to develop feeling for Jason again from the way I started speaking about him, or defending him whenever anyone in my family said something negative about him.

“Charisse, I don’t know what’s going on between you and Jamal, if anything is happening, but all I’m going to say is, ‘First time shame on him, second time shame on you.’”

After we got Mariah home and situated, my mother watched her while Jamal and I went out shopping for all the things Mariah needed at that time. It was freezing that day, maybe 15 degrees, but the sun was shining bright as we drove down Eastern Parkway. The sense of relief we both felt was evident.

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