Careful of the Company You Keep. Angie Daniels

      “Why is that?” Mama asked, clearly confused by what was going on. “Don’t you want to get the man who did this to you?”

      A single tear ran down Portia’s face as she tried to appear innocent. “I’m scared of what he might do to me.”

      “Since when? You weren’t scared before,” I replied with a rude snort. I was already sick of playing this charade.

      Portia just pursed her lips together and looked away.

      “Be nice, Danny,” Mama warned under her breath.

      I don’t know what I was thinking when I asked her to come over, because no matter what I said, Mama was going to side with Portia. “I think the reason she doesn’t want to press charges is she’s lying and she knows that once we start the proceedings, the court is going to find out.”

      “I’m not lying!” Portia insisted but didn’t bother to look up from the table.

      “Oh really?” I said. “Hold that thought.” I quickly moved up the stairs and came back a few moments later with the journal in my hand. As soon as I stepped inside the kitchen, I tossed the book onto the table. “Now try again. Tell your grandmother why you don’t want to press charges.”

      Mama looked from Portia to me and back to Portia. “Baby, what’s she talking about?”

      Portia looked increasingly nervous. “I-I don’t know.”

      “She’s lying, Mama! Ron didn’t rape her. It’s right there in that book. She had a crush on a twenty-two-year-old man and he wasn’t thinking about her hot ass so she lied to break us up.”

      Mama couldn’t hide her disappointment. “Is that true?”

      “No.” She finally looked up at me.

      I could no longer hold back. I sprang from the chair, jumped across the table, and tried to grab my daughter by her neck, but Mama rose out of her seat in time to keep me back. “You better be glad you’re pregnant, because otherwise I would beat your mothafuckin’ ass!” I screamed.

      Portia jumped from her chair and was in the corner, shaking and crying like someone had died. Tears weren’t going to save her this time.

      “You need to pack yo shit and go home with your grandmother. You’re not welcome back in this house. As far as I’m concerned, you’re no longer my daughter.”

      Mama gave me a light shove, then shook her head at my rude behavior. “Sweetheart. That is not the way to react to a situation like this. We can work this out, I know we can.”

      “Mama, there is nothing to work out!”

      “Young lady, don’t you take that tone with me.” Mama gave me that look that told me I wasn’t too big for her to still whup my ass. I pursed my lips and moved over near the sink.

      She then started jumping in my shit about how I shouldn’t have been messing with a man twelve years younger than me in the first place and that I needed to try and be a better mother. God, I could feel a migraine coming on with a vengeance. All I wanted Mama to do was take Portia home with her so I could go and find Ron and make everything right in my life again.

      I heard a knock at the door. Before either of them could move, I raced out and flung the door open to find my ex-husband, Alvin Patterson, standing there. He immediately moved into the house.

      “What’s going on?” he asked, looking around frantically. “You called screaming and I couldn’t understand a word you were saying.”

      “I’m putting your lying ass daughter out of my house.” I folded my arms across my chest and glared at Alvin waiting to see what he had to say.

      “For what?”

      My mother moved into the living room. “Hello, Alvin.”

      His face brightened at the sight of her. He and Mama have always been close, even when I wished they weren’t.

      “Why don’t we all have a seat and talk about this like adults?” Mama suggested.

      “There is nothing else to talk about,” I replied with a defiant tilt of my chin.

      Mama nudged me in the hip. “Yes, there is, now sit!”

      I growled in protest but took a seat when it was the last thing in the world I wanted to do. Time was ticking. The only thing on my mind was going to find Ron and trying to work things out between us.

      Alvin took a seat on my couch and rested his elbows on his knees. “Okay, I want to know what’s going on. Where’s Portia?”

      “Probably still in the kitchen crying,” I replied with a snort.

      Puzzled, he looked from Mama back to me. “Why? What’s going on?”

      Mama intervened. “I sent her up to her room.”

      “Can someone please tell me what’s going on?” Alvin repeated.

      “She lied. All this time she’d been lying, claiming that she was pregnant by my man.”

      “What! Pregnant by your man?” He shot out the chair. “I thought she was pregnant by some little boy at school.”

      “She is, but she lied and said it was Ron!”

      Alvin shook his head with disbelief, then looked over at me like it was all my fault. I can’t help it if he’s having a hard time accepting that Portia is no longer his little girl. Maybe this will help bring him out of la-la land. “How do you know she’s lying?”

      I wanted so badly to hit him. What in the world did I ever see in him? “Because I read her journal.”

      “Read her journal?” He took a step toward me and gave a strangled laugh. “You’re putting her out because of something she wrote in a journal.” Alvin shook his head and looked as if he wanted to say something else and would have if my mother hadn’t been sitting there. “I’m going to go and talk to my daughter.” He took the stairs two at a time and I heard him knock on her door.

      “This has gotten out of hand,” Mama said, trying to sound calm, but I could tell she was not happy. Well, too damn bad.

      “No, the only thing out of hand is my daughter, and I don’t want to deal with it anymore.”

      “Danielle, you can’t keep turning your back on your daughter.”

      “Mama, I love Ron more than I’ve ever loved a man.”

      “And you’ll probably love a handful more. What’s wrong with Calvin? He seems like a wonderful man.”

      Just the mention of Calvin Cambridge caused me to sigh with despair. “He is a nice guy, but he’s just not Ron.” I hated that I was going to have to break Calvin’s heart. We’d only been dating a few weeks, but I was going to get Ron back. I felt a flutter at the pit of my stomach. I couldn’t wait to see him.

      Mama snorted rudely, then rolled her eyes. “Ron is history. And it’s probably for the best.”

      “The best for who? Definitely not me.” I rose and moved into the kitchen to start cleaning up. As soon as Alvin finished talking to his daughter, I was putting everybody out of my house and going to find Ron and make everything right.

      “Danielle, you need to go upstairs with Alvin and talk to your daughter.”

      I pursed my lips and tried my best to keep my temper. Mama hadn’t even been here an hour and already gotten on my last nerve. “Mama, I really would appreciate it if you would stay out of this. This is between me and Portia.”

      “Then why did you call me over here? Huh? That’s what I want to know.” She planted her hands at her hips and started tapping her foot.

      I groaned inwardly. “Because I know I would have killed her if you weren’t here.”

      She