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“Just say you don’t want me to go home yet.”

“Yet? I don’t want you to go home ever.”

She smirked. “Well I’ll still have to go home sometime this weekend.”

“For what?!”

“To pack for our babymoon.”

My gift to her on the night of our baby shower was a trip to Hawaii. We were leaving Monday morning and staying until Friday. I felt like we could use one last get away before Alouri arrived in January because we wouldn’t be going anywhere for at least two to three months. Lourdes had dubbed the vacation as our “Babymoon.” I didn’t even know that was a real thing, but when I googled it I discovered that word described my intention behind planning the vacation.

“I can go get whatever you need like I’ve been doing all week or I can take you shopping.”

“I do not feel like waddling around no mall when I have stuff with tags on it at home.”

“You really hard up to go home…”

“Armias, I’m not going to go home and lock myself away from you. I’ll come back.”

“You promise?”

“I promised,” she giggled. “You can literally come with me when I go pack.”

We continued to talk about the vacation all the way to the East. Juri was going to accomplish a lot in the house while we were gone because a lot of our furniture was arriving during that time. She promised that the living room would be finished so that we could put up our Christmas tree. I personally never decorated for Christmas, but Lourdes didn’t play when it came to holidays. As soon as Halloween was over she took down her pink Halloween decor and put up her Christmas tree. And yes, she had pink Christmas decorations. She could do the same shit to my house if it was going to make her stay put and happy.

“There they go, baby,” Lourdes said. I was in the midst of calling Phoenix’s phone because he hadn’t responded to the text I sent a few minutes ago to tell him I was pulling up. I wanted them to be heading out the door and ready to leave the second I pulled up.

Rahesha’s older sister always did Thanksgiving for her family, but she opted out a long time ago and it was all because Auntie Rahmena asked her to contribute $100 like all the other siblings. They got into a fist fight because my mama called her a tacky bitch for demanding money as the hostess. They were arguing over the phone but Auntie Rahmena pulled up and beat her ass. My mama and her siblings were a mess and they were never really close despite all five of them being close in age. They operated as frenemies and my late Grandma Rema had set that system up. They all had different dads and she chose favorites based on that. My mom’s dad wasn’t super active, but he consistently sent money that helped with Grandma Rema’s entire household. Therefore, my mom was the favorite and placed on a pedestal. Till this day she swore her siblings were jealous of her because of the seeds Grandma Rema planted. When I was young I witnessed them talk bad about all of them. They talked shit about Uncle Royce for being gay. They dogged out Uncle Reese for sticking beside his brother and they gave him gay allegations, too. Nevermind the fact that the man had married his high school sweetheart and they had five kids. They picked apart Auntie Rahmena’s appearance and said her man would never be satisfied because she was too big. She’d been with the same man since she was 17 and they’d been married for 25 years and had four kids. Auntie Rasha and Auntie Ryan’s dad’s were decent because they were present, so my grandma never went too hard on them. However, they weren’t giving her as much money as my mom’s dad so she still played them against Rahesha by constantly comparing their lives to hers. Grandma Rema passed away from natural causes in 2009, so she witnessed my dad at the height of his drug dealing. She always praised the fact that my mom was “taken care of” and she would tell Rasha and Ryan that they needed to be more like her. They were her youngest daughters and they were in their 20’s at the time, so they were outside. They dated street niggas but they weren’t tied down with anyone and they hadn’t had kids yet. According to Grandma Rema they weren’t smart like my mom. In the present day they both had careers as registered nurses, they were married, and they had one kid each. It was safe to say that all my mom’s siblings had excelled in life and had nothing to be jealous of. Rahesha had been brainwashed by their mom to think everybody else was the problem because she had the better life and she still believed that shit.

I was only sixteen when we stopped going around my mom’s side for holidays. We would mostly spend holidays with my dad’s family and even though only me, Aspen, and Aneesah were Pierre’s, they never treated my other siblings any differently. I don’t think my younger siblings even knew that they weren’t blood related to anybody on that side because that was all they knew. As far as my mom’s side, we weren’t as close to them because of Rahesha. Her superior complex had strained her relationship with all her siblings and they didn’t want to be bothered with her. She’d say that she didn’t fuck with them, but when she stopped showing up for holidays none of them protested or begged her to participate. The only reason no one had gone no contact was because Rahesha continued to invite them to things to flex. If it had anything to do with us kids like a birthday party, a graduation party, or a prom send off then they showed up to support with cash and gifts. My baby shower was the most recent event where they all showed up and I got to see my cousins that I rarely saw. I still had love for them because they didn't take their beef with Rahesha out on us, and I truly believe they would have loved to be more involved but that meant having to take their sister in larger doses. If it weren’t for my siblings I wouldn’t deal with her at all, so I didn’t blame them for protecting their peace.

“About time, chile,” Milan fussed like an old lady as she got in the truck. She was the last one to walk out the house and she took her sweet time. Lourdes and I got a good laugh at her switching to the truck with her small Louis Vuitton purse in her hand.

“Lourdyyyy!” Like all my siblings she’d greeted Lourdes first and hugged her from behind.

“Hey diva,” Lourdes hugged her back as best as she could. “You look so pretty.”

“Thank you,” she gushed before sitting back.

I glanced back at her. “You only gon’ speak to Lourdy, lil girl?”

“Oh, hey Bubby,” she uttered as if she just realized I was there. She sat back up and wrapped her arms around me. “You’re late, though.”

“How I’m late when I never gave y’all a set time? Y’all wasn’t having fun or something?”

“No, and the food was nasty this year,” Phoenix reported.

“For real though!” Icelyn cosigned back from the third row.

“That’s because Ms. Glenda got all-timers and she not allowed in the kitchen no more. You know she usually do all the cooking,” Milan messily reported.

“What Ms. Glenda got, Milan?” I held back laughter.

“All-timers,” she repeated, butchering the word alzheimers again.

Me and Lourdes bursted into laughter. Pinky was supposedly my mom’s best friend. She’d been around forever because Grandma Rema and Pinky’s mom, Glenda, were best friends. But I didn’t consider Pinky or any of Rahesha’s friends to be real, thorough friends. They were all inconsistent, messy, sometimey, and users. Pinky hadn’t shown up to Rahesha’s last three baby showers, yet she chose to spend the holidays at her house in recent years. All of a sudden she didn’t care to do Thanksgiving with the Pierre’s. She claimed it was for no reason in particular other than wanting to switch it up, but I knew it was because Qaylo had started hosting at his house and his mom was always invited. Shakie was hated by my mom’s friend group and Rahesha cared too much about proving her loyalty to them. She also still held a grudge against Shakie for fucking with my dad back in the day. It was all a bunch of childish shit that 40 something year old women should have gotten past. It didn’t bother me though because my family was still my family. Her petty refusal to participate in Pierre gatherings at Qaylo’s house wasn’t going to stop me or my siblings from going over there. The only reason I stopped going around her people was because I was still young and felt like I had to follow behind my mama. It was really one band, one sound for us back then. Those days were long gone and Rahesha hated it.

“It’s Alzheimer's, Milan,” Phoenix corrected.