Cheyenne finally croaked out breathlessly.
Her father kissed the top of her head and squeezed her hard with his huge, muscular arms. He had gotten bigger than Cheyenne ever remembered him being. He’d also grown a full beard. Cheyenne could feel the beard hairs on her head.
“Yes, baby girl, it’s your daddy. I’m home. I’m finally home,” her father said.
Cheyenne could tell he was crying too.
“I’ve missed you so much. You’re so beautiful. I’m so proud of you,” her father spoke into her ear.
Cheyenne inhaled her father’s scent and silently thanked God he was back.
When he finally let her go, he wiped away his tears and hers. He held Cheyenne out in front of him and took a good look at her.
“Wow! What a lucky man I am to have such a beautiful baby girl,” her father huffed like his breath had been taken away.
Cheyenne smiled. Her father still had some of the qualities she remembered.
“Where’s my little man at?” her father asked Cheyenne, scanning around for Lil Kev.
The crowd opened up so her father could go embrace his son. Lil Kev had been standing with his little crew, talking like nothing special had happened. He acted like his father being home hadn’t fazed him one bit. Lil Kev’s face went stony when he saw his father moving toward him.
Cheyenne’s heartbeat sped up again.
“What’s up, Junior?” her father said proudly, stretching his arms out to embrace his son, her brother.
Lil Kev side-stepped, and his eyes went into slits, his lips pursed. He looked his father up and down like he was a stranger in the street.
“Yo, nigga. My name is Kev. I ain’t none of your Junior,” Lil Kev spat, scowling and poking his chest out toward his father.
The entire room watched the exchange, including a shocked Cheyenne. Her mother stepped over.
“Kevin! Don’t you dare be disrespectful! No matter what has happened, he is still your father,” her mother interjected angrily.
Cheyenne could see the hurt on her father’s face, yet he still smiled. He’d never taken his eyes off Lil Kev.
“Nah, it’s all right, Desi. I understand. I got penance to pay to my li’l man. I got years to make up. I’m willing to put in the work,” her father said, a fake smile painting his face.
“Nah, nigga. You don’t owe me shit. The streets is my daddy now. I don’t need no just-free nigga trying to tell me how this is done,” Lil Kev growled, brushing past his father and mother.
His crew of cronies gave his father dirty looks as they followed Lil Kev out.
Cheyenne was heady and hot with embarrassment for her father. She knew her father wasn’t used to that kind of rejection, especially publicly. When her father left Coney Island, he had been a man who commanded respect from everyone, family or not.
“Kevin! You come back here. Kevin!” her mother screamed at her brother’s back. Tears were running from her mother’s eyes.
Cheyenne imagined that her mother must’ve felt the same shame and embarrassment that Cheyenne felt on behalf of her father. Cheyenne wasn’t even a man and she felt emasculated at that moment for her father. She reasoned that it must’ve been something for her father to take the high road in front of all of those people.
“Let him go. Things will get better with time. I’m no stranger to challenges,” her father said as he shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans. “This celebration is about my baby girl anyway, right? So, let’s party. There’s a lot of things to be happy about today!” he cheered. The crowd agreed, and the party started back up.
Cheyenne watched her father closely after his fake pep talk. She could see her father’s jaw going square. His homecoming wasn’t going to be as happy as he thought.
* * *
“Chey? You all right? What happened?” Her father rushed to her side now, snapping Cheyenne out of her memory. “Your foot, it’s bleeding,” he said, frantically moving around to grab a towel.
Cheyenne didn’t realize when the glass dropped, the shattering shards had pricked the skin on the top of her foot. “I’m... I’m fine,” she stammered, putting herself back in the present, which meant realizing again that her mother was gone. Forever.
“Come sit down,” her father said, grabbing her elbow and escorting her over to a chair. “I heard the crash and didn’t know what was going on.”
“I don’t know what happened, Daddy,” Cheyenne said, her voice quivering. “Who on earth would do this to her? There is no one I can think of. Can you?” Cheyenne asked, the tears coming back again.
Her father sat her in the chair and then plopped into his own chair. He sighed loudly and put his head in his left hand. He paused awkwardly, and without looking up at Cheyenne, he said, “I don’t have an answer, baby girl. I’m lost too. I don’t know who would hurt her.”
Cheyenne looked at him through her tears, but he never looked at her.
* * *
The first night her father was home, Cheyenne thought their apartment seemed much smaller than it had in years. Her father’s presence took up more space than any of them was used to. With the exception of Lil Kev, they all sat around talking the night after the surprise party. Cheyenne had stared at her father and thought to herself that he’d aged a lot in twelve years. His newly grown beard was sprinkled with gray, and he was starting to lose the hair in the middle of his head. Although he was still strikingly handsome, a few lines had begun to branch out from the sides of his eyes. His teeth were not the bright white Cheyenne remembered them always being when she was a kid. He’d gained a lot of weight, but it was all solid muscle. Everything about him seemed foreign to Cheyenne. His voice was louder, and his body was bigger than when he’d left.
The only thing that didn’t seem to change was his expectations. Her father thought things with all of them were the same as they had been in 1996 when he’d been taken from the family. Cheyenne could tell right away he was going to have a hard time learning that he was no longer the center of everyone’s world.
Her father’s was the first voice she heard when she awoke the day after he came home. It felt strange since she wasn’t used to hearing a man’s voice in their house in years. Cheyenne listened that morning and could tell that her father wasn’t alone. She was correct. When she padded into the kitchen in her robe and slippers, she saw that her father and Kelsi were up together. They were so engrossed in their laughter and conversation they hadn’t even heard Cheyenne approach.
As she walked closer, she could see the side of Kelsi’s face. Kelsi seemed to glow like a teenager meeting her first love as she spoke to Big K. Cheyenne raised her eyebrows at the sight of them.
“Y’all up early,” Cheyenne said, her voice still filled with remnants of sleep.
Kelsi’s face was turned away from where Cheyenne stood, but when she heard Cheyenne’s voice, she jumped like Cheyenne was a ghost she wasn’t expecting to see. Cheyenne had thought Kelsi’s reaction strange, but she put it out of her mind. Her father smiled, but he seemed a bit jumpy and jittery too.
“Hey. Baby girl,” her father sang, quickly pushing away from the table. He went over to Cheyenne and kissed her on the cheek. “I hope we didn’t wake you up. Kelsi was just telling me all of the Peaches stories I’ve missed. Boy, I tell you. Gone for twelve years and some things ain’t change one bit. That Peaches is something else. Always has been,” her father rambled, but something was funny about his voice. Nervousness, mixed with trepidation, was the best Cheyenne could describe it.
At the time, any suspicions Cheyenne held left her mind as fast as they had come. Why would she suspect her best