Around the Way Girls 9 by Ms. Michel Moore

In my old age, my brightest moments were spending it with them when my pretty young brown thang was busy. Getting to the end of the stairwell, expecting to at least hear the little pitter-patter of Josh and Jill’s feet, instead I was greeted by a cold, hard slap to the face.
    â€œWell hello, James Theodore Schultz III.” Shawntay Jenkins stood on the other side of my door clutching a King James Bible. I thought I was seeing a ghost.
    â€œWhat in the hell is she doing at our house?” Beth went to smack me again but her arms were caught in mid-swing. “Have you been slumming again, James?”
    â€œBeth, calm down. I don’t know! Let me get to the bottom of this.” Marching toward the door, I thought for sure I was getting ready to catch my first case. “Shawntay, I’ve told you never to come here. There’s no reason for you to be on my doorstep, especially since Shannon is over eighteen. I have never owed you shit but definitely not now.”
    â€œTell her ass to get on from here, James, or I’ll call the police on her for trespassing!” Yelling like a madwoman with the phone in her hand, I knew Beth was serious but the phone call wouldn’t harm me in no way. I’d paid my debt to Shawntay and Shannon, every cent of child support ordered.
    â€œTell your wife if she calls the police I’ll be giving them a reason to come,” Shawntay threatened. “I may be a woman of God now but I came to raise hell about my daughter, something I should’ve done over twenty years ago!” Taking a brief moment to take Shawntay in, no longer was she dressed like the cheapest streetwalker Detroit employed. Her once droopy red eyes, alcoholic breath, and horrid weed smell had been replaced by bright, angry eyes, a God-speaking tongue, and the will not to back down. I guess you can teach a dog new tricks.
    â€œYour time has come and gone, Shawntay. The only leverage you had with me was Shannon and she’s grown now. Any responsibility I had to that girl died the day she turned eighteen. I’m going to ask you one final time: please leave and never bring your ass back around here.”
    â€œNaNa, PawPaw!” Josh and Jill were running up the walkway with Marie close behind.
    â€œWow, PawPaw, really? You ain’t even play father to one of your kids but now you’re playing granddad to two others!”
    â€œWhat? He don’t owe you or that Oreo kid of yours nothing more!” Beth screamed at Shawntay. “Yes, police, can you please send a squad car to 21766 Hummingbird Lane? There’s a trespasser on the property refusing to leave.” By now Marie had a twin in each arm running into the living room to keep them from the unknown drama unfolding.
    â€œI don’t even know what I expected by coming here,” Shawntay mumbled under her breath. “Look, Shannon is tough as nails out in these streets but she’s gonna need someone to turn to once everything in her life comes tumbling down. And even though your racist, ugly, low self-esteem having–ass wife is against it, you’re Shannon’s father so it’s your duty to be that for the rest of her natural life. She told me how you stuck up for her as a little girl when Sally was picking on her, so I figured that somewhere in that ice-cold heart of yours had to be some love for our baby.”
    I knew Beth was steaming hearing that I’d even been around Shannon. But when she was a little girl I was intrigued by the definite features of mine she had. I could tell she was a lot like me from her timid personality, wandering eyes, and how shaken she would be from my mother’s voice. I was the same when I was a child; that’s why I made it my duty to protect her from what ruined me at her age. But our father-daughter relationship went no further. “I don’t think none of that will be happening, Shannon. You two have been dead to me. I am with my wife on