Huey was paying close attention to hear what Huelene's mother was saying on the phone. He just picked up on a few words they were saying because she didn't have it on speaker phone. Huelene appeared to be engrossed in their conversation, as though she didn't want to interrupt and get down to business.
"I'm sorry to interrupt you mom, but Huey has a few questions for you," Huelene irrupted her mother on the phone.
She started talking again but she seemed upset. Huelene took the phone from her ear and put it on speaker phone.
"Here he is!" Huelene said giving me the phone.
I didn't dare hold it up to my ear because I didn't feel like making the mother upset.
"Hello!" she sternly spoke.
"Hi this is Huey, what do I refer to you as?" Huey asked to be polite.
"My name is Ebony, but you can call me Ms. Brown," she respectfully spoke.
"Okay, Ms. Brown, I was informed that you knew the reason why Jazmine Dubois had left me while she was pregnant and sick, and I would like to know why?" Huey professionally asked.
Huelene gave him a weird look because he was talking as if he was in a business meeting.
"I'm sorry Huey, but I can't tell you why she left," Ebony apologized.
"Why not, I know, you know, the reason why she left! She had to have informed you about her sickness and background on why she wanted to give Huelene up for adoption," Huey asked glaring at the phone as if Ebony was here.
"She did inform my wife and I about her sickness and her marital problems with you, but we were told not to mention this to you or Huelene if you were to ask," Ebony explained.
"Jazmine and I never had relationship problems before she left," Huey disagreed.
"Well, according to her, something went wrong while the two of you were together," Ebony disagreed.
This stroke a sharp pain in Huey's heart because he never thought him and Jazmine had relationship issues. It never seemed like nothing was wrong with them when they were living together in Washington. If something did happen he was most likely unaware of it. Then this started to have Huey question if this was the reason why Jazmine left him. Did she not love him anymore?
"Then what went wrong? You can't keep stuff like this away from me," Huey desperately question.
He just wanted to know! He wanted to know why the love his life left him. At first he thought she left him because she was sick and pregnant, but now he knows that something bad was going on while they both were together.
It hurt not to know what the reasons were. It already had broke him to find out that Jazmine was dead and gone, and she was never coming back. It hurt that he missed 30 years of not seeing Huelene grow into a beautiful young woman just like Jazmine. It hurt to see her pop up out of nowhere desperately looking for him. It hurt not to be there while Jazmine was pregnant and sick. It hurt to hear Ebony not wanting to tell him anything about Jazmine. It hurt to go on and try to cope with everything that was going on in his life when he was young.
It hurt, hurt, hurt!
He wanted to curl up and break down crying because life didn't go as planned for him.
He didn't want his parents to die, he didn't want to move to Maryland and adapt to his environment, he didn't want to get raped by his Grandad's girlfriend and have bad dreams about her, he didn't want to smoke, he didn't want to be careless about sex, he didn't want to be broke with Jazmine when they left to live in Washington, he didn't want society to still look down on black men and women after all they fought for, he didn't want Jazmine working as a nurse to help sick people, he didn't want her to be afraid to tell him that she was sick and pregnant, he didn't want her to die, he didn't want to move on from her and marry Adaline and have kids with her, he didn't want any of this!
Huey had always wanted Jazmine by his side. He wanted to do everything with her!
He wanted to live with her, go to the same college, travel, marry her, be the only person she was able to please, start a family, start a business together, grow old, and die together.
He missed out on almost everything. The only thing they got to do was live together and almost marry.
After she left, nothing didn't mean anything to him anymore.
"I'm sorry Huey, I can't tell you! It was one of her last wishes and I'm choosing to respect it," Ebony spoke.
"No offense, but fuck the wishes. It's a shame that you never told any of her family members this," Huey cursed through the phone.
"We were all worried sick about her back at home. Her parent's broke down crying, her friends and my family went posting pictures of her around the area to find her, and I was broken hearted," Huey fussed even more.
"Well, I'm sorry that you guys had to go through that," Ebony apologized.
"No the fuck you not sorry for having us all go through that! You knew about all of this and didn't have enough respect to tell all of us. We all had assumed the worst that happened to Jazmine. We didn't know if she was kidnapped, raped, murdered, etc." Huey spoke calling out Ebony.
"I don't know why you assume my wife and I are to blame for it. Jazmine was the one who decided to keep this from you guys," Ebony pointed out.
"Yeah, but how old were you when you were talking to Jazmine and when you adopted Huelene?" Huey asked.
"I was 31 at the time. Where are you getting at with this?" Ebony asked.
"Where I'm getting at is you were the adult in the situation. If you were adopting Huelene and you knew about Jazmine's situation then you should have immediately told her family members instead of keeping it a secret," Huey sternly spoke.
"Jazmine was 19 years old about to be 20 she was an adult too," Ebony argued.
"That's the legal age of being an adult but you know good and well our minds are still maturing at that age, and you were 31 years old with your life together and ready to start a family. If you were really a mother then you would have went from a mother's perspective and contacted Jazmine's family and told them everything," Huey argued.
"Well it wasn't my decision to keep that kind of information from you guys," Ebony spoke.
"Yes it was, you made your decision by keeping this from us just like you're doing right now. What if Huelene was sick and pregnant and she ran away without telling you? Then years later you come to find out she's dead. How would that make you feel?" Huey pressured Ebony with the questions as she started to tear up on the other line.
"Please let me know how you would feel?" Huey pressured even more.
You could hear Ebony trying to contain her tears on the other line of the phone and Huelene started to worry.
"It would hurt!" Ebony mumbled through the phone.
"Exactly, so you know how we all felt, and it would be highly mature of you to tell us what happened," Huey finished off.
"Look Huey, I didn't want to keep this secret in the first place, but it would hurt you more if I tell you why she left, so I'm sorry, but I cannot tell you, only for your safety along with the others," she finally answered before hanging up.
Huey and Huelene sat in silence as Huey tried his best not to get mad. He was already upset but he didn't want to express it. He didn't want to let out all the frustration he was feeling in front of Huelene.
The last thing he wanted to do was scare his daughter.
"Huey are you okay?" Huelene questioned, concerned.
"Honestly Huelene, I'm not okay, I'm very upset, and I shouldn't have asked," Huey spoke.
"What do you plan to do now?" Huelene asked out of curiosity.
"I plan to do what i should have done from the beginning; do a background check on Jazmine," he answered pulling his phone out.
"A background check?" Huelene questioned.
"Huelene you of all people should know that you can find out anything about anybody through a background check," Huey said typing up a couple of things on his phone.
"Yeah, but what do you plan to find out? There might not be much information about her, I checked to make sure," Huelene warned.
"Whoever gave you Jazmine's background information didn't give you everything. They left out a couple of things," Huey informed.
"Like?" Huelene asked, confused.
"The day she died, her disease, martial status, what position she worked, etc." Huey pointed out.
"Wait, how do you know all of that?" Huelene inquired.
"While you were sleeping I decided to take a look at Jazmine's background information and I had come to find out she was missing the most common stuff you would find on a background check," Huey explained
"Who gave that to you?" Huey asked as Huelene started to fiddle with her fingers.
"My mom!" she mumbled.
"I figured she took stuff off of there so even you wouldn't find out," Huey predicted.
"Yeah," Huelene said nervously rubbing her stomach.
"I'm gonna have a friend of mine that will definitely get everything you need to know about Jazmine, that includes the day she died and most importantly her sickness," Huey said as he put his phone away.
"It should be here by tomorrow night if he can get it here fast enough," Huey informed Huelene.
"Tomorrow night? Doesn't it take almost a week to collect all that information?" Huelene questioned in disbelief.
"Yeah for normal people, but my guy finds out all this information within 24 hours and sends it all to me," Huey boldly spoke.
"What kind of guy?" Huelene cocked her eyebrow out of suspiciousness.
"Just a guy that can get the job done," Huey assured.
Huelene didn't know what to say because she wanted to know exactly what the guy did. Was he a hit man, FBI, one of her dad's former coworkers, etc. There were so many that just popped in her head.
"So do you have any questions about Jazmine while we wait for Jazmine's background check?" Huey calmly asked as Huelene nodded.
Thank you for reading!