Page 32 of Dom 5: The Finale
“Maybe the baby just dramatic.”
He leaned back in his chair and looked at me. “Probably got that from you.”
After brunch we went over to his parents’ house, and the second we walked through the front door, his mama acted like she hadn’t seen me in six months. “My baby!” she yelled, coming straight toward me from the kitchen.
Dom moved out the way because he already knew better. Candy D wrapped me up in a hug, kissed both my cheeks, then immediately dropped one hand down to my stomach. “Look at you,” she said, smiling all big while she rubbed my belly through my dress. “You getting bigger every time I see you.”
“Everybody keeps saying that like I don’t own mirrors,” I said. “I feel lig a pig.”
“Because you are getting big but it’s all belly,” she replied. “And you glowing too girl. Don’t know daughter-in-law of mine look like no damn pig.”
Dom shut the front door behind him and looked over at both of us. “Y’all gone stand in the doorway all day or what?”
Candy D looked over at him and frowned. “Don’t start, you barely bring her over here as it is.”
“She be working ma.” He kissed her on the cheek. “Where my ol’ boy?”
“She pregnant,” Candy D shot back while leading me toward the kitchen with one hand on my back. “She needs to be sitting down somewhere, eating, relaxing… your daddy is in there watching TV.”
“Thank you,” Dom mumbled behind us. “That’s what I keep telling her.”
I looked over my shoulder at him. “I hate y’all.”
Candy D laughed. “You gone hate us all the way through this pregnancy.”
The kitchen smelled like fried chicken, cornbread, and baked macaroni, along with the many air fresheners she always kept plugged into the wall. Dom’s daddy was in the living room with the television up too loud watching sports, and the second he saw us, he pointed at Dom without even saying hello first.
“You see what they saying about the Dolphins?”
Dom shook his head before walking toward the living room. “Dam pops, you can at least say hey first.”
“I know you there,” his daddy replied. “Come here and look at this.”
I laughed softly to myself because men really were all the same. By the time we left his parents’ house, his mama had packed us enough food to feed six people, gave me another baby blanket, and made Dom promise to bring me back next week. Then we went over to Tone and Shona’s house and my God, he was a beautiful baby.
Tone looked tired as hell too but between being a new father and still handling shit in the streets I could imagine why. “Boy, you look rough,” I told him when he opened the door.
Tone stepped aside so we could come in. “Yeah, aight. Wait till y’all baby get here sis.”
Dom looked around the house and dapped him up. “Where Shona at?”
“Upstairs changing him. He just threw up all over her shirt.”
“Damn,” I chuckled.
“Exactly.”
A few minutes later Shona came downstairs with the baby in her arms, and she looked beautiful too, just tired. She had on one of Tone’s oversized t-shirts on with her hair pulled up, with no makeup, but still pretty.
“You want to hold him?” she asked me once we all sat down.
“Awe, yes. Absolutely.” I cooed. I retrieved the hand sanitizer from my purse and put about three drops in my hands before rubbing them together.
The second she placed him in my arms, everything inside me softened. He was so little. His skin was soft, his little face was all scrunched up, and one of his tiny hands wrapped around my finger so tight it almost made me emotional. I looked up at Dom, and he was sitting back in the chair, but his eyes stayed on me and the baby the whole time. There was something in his face too like something soft.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothin.”
