“Jersee, what are you doing here?” Leah and James asked at the same time.“Hah, I think I should be asking you two that,” Jersee spat.“It’s not what you think,” James replied.“So, my mother is not really pregnant and it’s not your baby?” she wanted to know.Neither James nor Leah had anything to say so they all stood there in an uncomfortable silence. Finally, Leah spoke up. “I’ve been meaning to tell you, but I didn’t know how.”“How about just saying, ‘Jerse, I’m pregnant and James is the father?’ You know something simple like that,” Jersee was sarcastic with her mother. She was mad because she had been calling her mother for months and her mother was avoiding her. She knew something was up, but she couldn’t put her finger on it, and though everyone could see the sparks flying between James and Leah when they reunited to take care of Jersee after she got shot, nobody would have suspected that the result of those sparks was Leah’s pregnancy. “I was embarrassed,” Leah began to explain, much to the chagrin of James who balked at being considered an embarrassment.“Now wait a minute Leah…” James began.“Let me finish,” Leah interrupted. “I was embarrassed to be pregnant at my age. I’m 42 years old and with all the history between me and James, I didn’t know how to handle the scrutiny, so I ran back to New Jersey. I know I should have told you baby and I was planning to.”“When?” Jersee exploded. “After you had it? Or when it was graduating from high school?”“He is not an it,” Leah corrected.“That’s right,” James chimed in, “James Timothy DePriest, Jr. I’m finally getting my junior.”“You had a junior,” Jersee reminded him, “but you changed his name.”“That tramp had no business naming that baby after me,” James told her.“That tramp was your son’s mother and that boy is your son, and my half-brother. She had every right,” Jersee said.“What in the world are you two talking about?” Leah asked.James was fuming as Jersee told the story of Candy’s murder and how she had a son who she had named after James and whose name James had changed to Julian.“Why didn’t you tell me about him?” Leah wanted to know.“I didn’t know Candy was pregnant when I let her go. I didn’t find out about him until after he was born. Then Candy died, so I changed his name,” James defended himself.“You still could have told me James, that not… Oh, now that was a contraction and my water just broke,” Leah clutched her stomach and grimaced in pain. The next contraction forced her to sit on the couch. “Maybe you should call an ambulance. I don’t feel so good.”James tried to get Leah up to put her in his car while Jersee called 9-11. “Hang in there Ma, they are on the way. Dad, don’t move her, she looks… Ma! Ma!” Jersee called to her mother who was barely coherent. “What is your doctor’s name?” Leah pointed to her cell phone and Jersee scrolled through it until she saw a Dr. Madison. “Dr. Madison, is that your OB/GYN?” Jersee asked her mother. When Leah nodded in the affirmative, Jersee dialed the number and explained her mother’s condition. She was advised to call an ambulance and was told that the doctor would meet them at the hospital.James and Jersee arrived at the hospital ten minutes behind the ambulance because James had been stopped for speeding. Once the police officer saw who he was and he explained where they were going, he was given an escort. Leah was already in delivery and an hour and a half later, Dr. Madison came out along with another doctor. He immediately recognized Jersee as Leah’s daughter and came over to speak to the duo. “I’m Dr. Madison and this is Dr. Lazarus, your mother’s oncologist.” “Oncologist? Isn’t that a cancer doctor? What does my mother need a cancer doctor for?” Jersee asked excitedly.“First let me say that your mother delivered a healthy baby boy. We had to do a c-section, but he is doing well,” Dr. Madison explained.“Okay, but what about my mother?” “Did she ever tell you about the tumor?” Dr. Madison asked.“What tumor? She never said anything about a tumor.” Jersee was getting scared.“Your mother had a cancerous tumor on her liver. We advised her not to carry the baby to term and let us operate, but she insisted. Dr. Lazarus was standing by to remove it as soon as she delivered, but…”“But what?” Jersee interrupted. James, in the meantime, had sat down and was wringing his hands. This was one problem he could not solve by throwing his money around.“It looks like removing the tumor won’t make much sense. I’m sorry, but the cancer has metastasisized and there is not much we can do at this point, except make her comfortable. Having this baby pretty much wiped her out. I’m going back in to check on her and you can visit her once we transfer her to ICU, but only for a few minutes.” Dr. Lazurus left to go look in on patient. “Daddy, did you know about this?” Jersee asked James who had his head in his hands crying softly. “Did you know my mother was pregnant? Did you know she could die if she had your baby?”“Jersee, believe me, I had no clue. I just found out she was pregnant myself. She wouldn’t take my calls and didn’t want me to visit either. Trust me, if I had known about this, I would have talked her out of this. I guess that’s why she didn’t tell us.”Thirty minutes later they were allowed to see Leah, who was very weak, but still able to speak softly. She told them as best she could that she was sorry, but she couldn’t kill the baby. “Name him James” was the last thing she said before she drifted off to sleep due to the pain killers. They talked to her softly, but she never responded. They were ordered to leave after twenty minutes so they went to the nursery to see the baby. Jasmine immediately fell in love with her little brother. His complexion was light, but the area around his fingers indicated that he would get darker. He looked just like their mother with a head full of curly hair. The nurse brought her a bottle so that he could be fed, but James refusd to hold him. Instead he left to take care of the baby’s birth certificate and to see about getting Leah a private room. Before he signed the birth certificate he was offered a parternity test, but though James, Jr. didn’t look nearly as much like him as Julian, he felt it was not necessary. “You sure?” the aide asked again. “I’m positive!” James responded, annoyed. Once she had burped James, Jr. and he had fallen asleep, Jersee handed him back to the nurse and went outside to use her cell phone. Before she could make a call her phone rang. It was Gary calling her for the fifth time. Gary Styles, was Jersee’s ex-boyfriend and a star fowarad with the Washington Wizards. He and Jersee met while she was the host of the BET show Teen Talk, but he broke up with her after she had gotten shot saving LaShida from Langston Tillery, the madman who had kidnapped her and taken her to Kent Island. Once it looked like Jersee was not going to be able to walk again, Gary got scared and bailed. Jersee developed a crush on her physical therapist Keith, who pushed her to heal not only physically, but spirtitually and emotionally as well. Jersee started walking again and agreed to work with Keith on a youth center named after his grandmother because she wanted to do something meaningful with her life, but was she was not interested in going back to Teen Talk, which her half-sister Jasmine was doing a good job of hosting. Helping Keith get the center off the ground helped Jersee feel good about herself and once Keith revealed that he was gay, he introduced Jersee to his twin Kenyon. Jersee and Kenyon fell in love and it looked like they would be following LaShida and Jason down the aisle, but once Gary came back around trying to win Jersee back, Kenyon demanded that she stop speaking to him. Jersee promised she would, but continued to be friends with Gary behind Kenyon’s back and once he found out, he broke up with her. Feeling lonely and abandoned by her mother, Jersee slept with Gary. She tried to go back to just being friends, but he would not leave her alone.“Well,” Gary asked, “how did it go? Did you finally talk to your mother.”Hearing Gary’s voice, Jersee started to cry.“What’s the matter babe?” Gary asked. “You are scaring me. Say something.” But, Jersee only wailed louder. Finally she calmed down and explained to Gary what was going on. “I’m on my way and Imma go get LaShida. I know you want your girl there.” Jersee thanked Gary and hung up to call LaShida but LaShida called her first. “Jerse, what’s wrong?” LaShida asked able to hear the tears in Jersee’s voice. “Did you see your mom? What happened?”“Oh Shida, my mom was pregnant and…”“Pregnant? By who,” LaShida wanted to know. “Not by your dad?” she askes shocked and scandalized because she rememberd the sparks that were flying between the too. “Ooooh. Wait a minute, you said she WAS pregnant. Did…”“She had the baby. A boy. They named him after daddy, but Shida, she’s sick. Real sick. They told her not to have this baby because she had a cancerous tumor. She’s so weak now and she can hardly talk. They said the cancer spread and they can’t do anything for her right now. Shida, my mother is dying. “Shida started to cry with Jersee. “I’m coming up there. Let me tell Jason so he can get the kids to my mom and I’m coming up there. What hospital are y’all at?” Jersee explained to her best friend that Gary was on the way up and that he had planned to have her ride with him. “He’s called three times while I was talking to you. There he is again. Let me take this and make arrangements with him and Jason. I’ll call you when we get in the car. I love you girl. Be strong and I’ll be there as soon as I can.” After agreeing to meet Gary at the airport to take a chartered flight to New Jersey, LaShida hung up the phone and went to find Jason. She also called her mother so that she could help Jason with the kids. She haphazzardly packed a bag and flew out the door. When she got to the airport, Gary was there along with her sister-in-law Jasmine who had been alerted by Jason. Once the plane took off LaShida spoke to Gary.“I’m sorry for slapping you that day. No, I’m not sorry,” she corrected. “You deserved that and more for the way you treated my girl.” Jersee put her hand up like she was going to slap Gary again and he flinched. LaShida and Jasmine laughed.“How can y’all sit there and laugh when my girl is in trouble? This ain’t no laughing matter,” Gary admonished them.“Hole up nigga, I know you not talking,” Jasmine said angrily. “Your ass the one who bailed on her when she couldn’t walk, and we was there for her. So if your big scary ass jumps when LaShida raises her hand at you, I’m sorry, but we gonna laugh. Fuck you.”Gary just glared at them and they continued to ride in silence. The truth was that he couldn’t be mad at Jasmine for her words or LaShida for slapping him that day. He had done Jersee wrong and he had been doing everything he could to make it up to her—flowers, gifts, phone calls and emails, but so far none of it worked. He can’t say, though, that he was upset when their friendship caused her boyfriend Kenyon to take a hike. He figured Kenyon was probably gay like his brother anyway.When the trio got to the hospital Leah was asleep in a private room. James was holding her hand and Jersee was asleep in a chair. James got up to hug his daughter and daughter-in-law. He merely glared at Gary. “How is she?” LaShida asked. James asked them to come out in the hallway where he explained her condition. “And the baby,” LaShida wanted to know. “He’s great. Strong and healthy. Just perfect. I’m going to make sure he’s well taken care of,” James assured them.“It’s kind of freaky having a brother younger than my daughter,” Jasmine remarked. “Daddy, why didn’t you tell us?”James explained to them as he had to LaShida that Leah didn’t tell anyone she was pregnant because the she didn’t want anyone to talk her out of having the baby. Now she was paying for that decision with her life.Just then, Jersee came out of the room in a trance. “She’s gone,” she told them quietly. “She told me she loved me and asked me to help daddy take care of the baby.” Jersee was strangely quiet as if she was in shock. Gary reached out to grab her just as she passed out.Kelly was in her dressing room thinking back on the past two years. So much had happened since she left her singing group Pink November. Their producer Billy Beats wanted Lili to step out front as the lead singer and wanted to put Kelly in the back because of her weight. Kelly was a size 16 back then and most would consider her thick instead of fat. Still, Lili and Billy were sleeping together so he used the excuse that it was the record labels. Not feeling that set-up, Kelly left the group and told them not to use her songs. Kelly came back home and started singing with Back2Basics, her brother and cousin’s go-go band and sang some hooks on some songs her brother Sam was producing. One of the songs was a remix for a hot rapper named Sam Slick and that brought Kelly a lot of attention and more studio work, so she finally left her government job.Billy used her songs anyway and Pink November scored a number 1 hit with the song Kelly wrote called “I Thought you Knew.” Billy figured that if he gave her credit Kelly wouldn’t mind since she’d be getting paid, but she sued and after settling out of court, the group members (two new girls had joined) wound up broke and broken up. Amber, who left the group when Kelly did, was still in a relationship with Eric and about to graduate from the University of Pennsylvania. Kelly still ran into Lili at industry events, but they never spoke to one another. The last she heard Lili had reunited with her long lost sister Troy, a singer who had just been nominated for a Grammy. As for Ivory, she was back in the DC area and Kelly ran into her often on the club scene. She was polite to Ivory, but didn’t have much more to say after “Hi.” Ivory tried hard to rebuild their friendship, but Kelly wasn’t interested.After two years of singing hooks on some of the hottest tracks and going back and forth to Atlanta and New York, Kelly had finished her album and gotten signed to a major label. The album had recently dropped following a hit single and now she was on the road doing a promotional tour. It had been rough on her kids, but they were proud of their mommy, and she had made enough money to take them with her when they were out of school. The other times, Sam and Sammi watched them. Unfortunately her mother had gone back on drugs and was no help, but Sammi had been a godsend. Kelly didn’t even want to think about her mother at the time, so she focused on her performance. She was at a club in Philly, about to perform and her heart was racing. She wasn’t nervous about performing in front of a crowd—she got over that fear singing with Back2Basics three nights a week in DC—she was nervous because she’d heard KD was coming to the show. Kelly had met KD Littleton, a basketball player with the Philadelphia 76ers through her cousin Jersee who was dating KD’s best friend Gary Styles. They had fallen for each other instantly and Kelly credited KD with pushing her to follow her dream of singing. Her family members had tried to get her to sing in their band for years, but it was KD introducing her to his friends in the industry that gave her the opportunity. For that, she was eternally grateful. KD also made her feel sexy and good about her size and with his help; she worked out and got in shape. Everyone, including her and KD, thought they’d wind up married. But, Kelly had cheated on KD one night when she was in the studio with another hot producer DJ Dynomite. It was the off-season, but KD was constantly out of town visiting his son and Kelly got lonely. Kelly felt guilty and against the advice of all her cousins, she confessed. KD put her through the wringer and called her all kinds of names, but he forgave her and they stayed together.Just when Kelly thought KD was finally learning to trust her again, she got the shock of her life. KD’s son’s mother Kirstie had another baby and KD was the father! Come to find out the daughter, Sunshine, that she had before their son Kevin was also his. Plus, KD said she was really light, but she was actually white. When Kelly and Kirstie met face-to-face, Kelly learned that KD had never stopped sleeping with Kirstie and the only reason she had kept quiet was because he was taking care of all of her kids. Once she let it out, KD stopped giving her any money so she took him to court. In an even more twisted case, Kevin was not his, but he found out that Sunshine and the new baby were. Kelly couldn’t take all the drama and broke up with KD even though he tried to compare it to her one slip-up with Dynomite. There were times when Kelly really missed KD, but just when she was thinking about seeing him again, it seemed Kirstie would call to let her know that KD had just left her. Of course KD denied it all, but Kelly wasn’t going to let him near her heart again. DJ Dynomite tried to get with Kelly again, but she had enough of Dynomite—both the producer and her kids’ father Terrence, who was nicknamed Dynomite. When she thought of Terrence, Kelly couldn’t help think of his son with a woman named Deitra. The little boy’s name was Stringer Bell Terrence Wilkins. His mother called him Stringer Bell, but Kelly just called him Stringer and the kids called him “String.” Deitra had been harassing Kelly and vandalized her truck. When the police caught her they found guns and drugs and Deitra was sent to prison. Stringer was living with his grandmother, but when she died six months later, he was sent to foster care. Both Deitra and Terrence begged Kelly to get him and after a few visits with her family, Kelly’s kids Beyonce and Brandon became attached to their little brother, so he came to live with them. Kelly always had a big heart and couldn’t hold Stringer’s parent’s shenanigans against him. Her family thought she was crazy at first—everyone except Sam—but they quickly grew to accept the little boy as family.When Terrence first got locked up, he used to call and try to run Kelly’s life from prison and for a while, she allowed him to do it. But, fed up with him, and fed up with Deitra, Kelly finally was able to break the bond he had on her. Hooking up with KD also helped. Terrence claimed to have found God in jail and at first Kelly thought it was a ploy, but eventually she started to believe him. Terrence was the one who persuaded her to talk to her father and as a result, they were building a relationship and he was active in her kids’ lives. Unfortunately, it was also Terrence who hipped her—through word he got inside—on what her mother was up to. Kelly’s mother Janice had come home from rehab and was on the straight and narrow for a while and working to build a relationship with her children. Kelly was skeptical, the twins, Terrell and Jarrell were scared to trust her, and it was only Sam who had any faith in her.“Mama,” Kelly said to herself. Everything else in her life was going well. She had plenty of money in the bank from songs she had written, she was in the best shape of her life, her kids were healthy and happy, she had a relationship with her father and she and Sam were as close as ever. Plus, she gained a new friend in Sam’s girlfriend Samiyah. The only blemish was her mother and how her drug use affected the twins—or really, how it didn’t affect them. They had been living with their grandmother for most of their 12 years because their mother was always off on a binge or in rehab. They never thought of her as their mother really and once they moved in with Sam, they thought of Sammi as a surrogate. Janice’s accident barely touched their lives and it saddened Kelly that they didn’t seem to care about their mother, even though she could understand why. Kelly remembered it all like it was yesterday…“Mama, telephone,” Brandon called to her. “Bring me the cordless,” Kelly shouted. She was in the basement of her townhouse doing laundry. It was Terrence on the phone. He and Kelly had come to a truce and she was no longer hostile when he called. It also helped that he was able to call her using his own account and it didn’t cost her anything—except for the money she occasionally sent him. “What’s up Terrence,” she greeted him. “God Bless you,” Terrence greeted. Though Kelly was happy that Terrence found God and changed his attitude, she still could not get used to hearing his religious rants, so she sighed. “Please, you must listen. Your mother is in trouble. I warned you before.”“Okay, so you told me she was back on the stuff, but hell anybody could tell that when she stopped showing up for work and stuff started missing again. It don’t take a crystal ball to figure that out. We’ve been through this bullshit too many times before. It’s really gotten old. Next subject.”“Please listen to me Kelly, your mother is in danger. She owes money to some people and they will kill her if you don’t pay them.”“It ain’t my fault if they gave her a hit before she could steal something. That’s the price you pay when you deal with crackheads. The last time Sam and I bailed her out, it turned out to be a plot they cooked up to get money from us. Her kidnappers were crackheads too and they smoked so much that two of them od’ed. Mama barely made it out of that mess alive. I’m not falling for that shit again. Call Sam. Look Terrence, I’m gonna go cuz I got to finish this laundry and get to the studio. Here’s Stringer and you can talk to Beyonce next, but I gotta go.” Kelly handed the phone to the kids and went off to do her work.Luckily Terrence called Sam’s house and spoke to Sammi who got in touch with Sam. By the time Sam got to his mother, she was badly beaten and almost dead. She stayed in a coma for three weeks and when she came out, she was paralyzed from the waist down from an injury to her spinal cord She had to relearn how to talk and do basic things like feed herself all over again. After some time in a rehab hospice, Janice (in a wheelchair) went to live with her brother Jackson and his wife Lydia. Jackson was against having her come at first, but he knew that if he didn’t take her in, it would fall on her kids or his 82-year old mother. Lydia felt it was her Christian duty and was hell-bent on turning Janice’s life around. Angry and bitter and felling sorry for herself, Janice was hard to deal with at first and were it not for Lydia, Jackson would have put her in a home.During this time, Kelly got closer to her father and surprisingly, he was the one who helped her forgive her mother. Though she forgave her, Kelly still wasn’t close to her mother. Right now, she needed to keep her distance to focus on her music, so her only contact was through emails and an occasional phone call.“Yo Kelly, you’re on in 5 minutes. Let’s get into place,” her manager Tywon informed her upon barging into the dressing room. The band was all in place—Kelly had brought Back2Basics to play behind her—and the dancers were ready to follow. When Kelly hit the stage and shouted “How you doing Philly?” KD was the first person she saw in the audience.Samiyah dropped the twins off at school and went back to the house with her package. She called Kayla to let her know she’d be late to work, made sure Sam was gone to the studio and took the pregnancy test into the bathroom. Just as she suspected, she was pregnant. She didn’t know what to do because she no longer talked to her cousin Keira and her only friends were Sam’s family members. She had become close to all of Sam’s cousins and his sister Kelly, but she still didn’t want them to think that she had trapped him. Things were going so well between her and Sam—they even talked marriage. But, he made it clear that with what he’s been through with his mother and how it affected his little brothers, that he didn’t want any kids of his own.“Damn, what am I gonna do,” Sammi asked herself. She didn’t have too much time to think, because she did promise Kayla that she wouldn’t be too late. They had a new client coming in and business was booming. After Sammi’s cousin Keira threw her out and she hooked up with Sam, his Aunt Kayla offered her a job working in her newly formed Event Planning company. LaShida’s half-sister Sylvie was working for her, but she fired Sylvie after Sylvie tried to stop LaShida and Jason’s wedding. Jersee had also come on board and the company got so busy they had to turn away business in the beginning. Now they had their own office in Silver Spring and 10 employees. Sammi had gone back to school at Sam’s urging and was one semester away from getting her degree. She didn’t want to mess up the good thing that she had. There was only one thing she could do: have an abortion.“What’s wrong with you,” Kayla asked Sammi when she walked into the office of DPR Events. “You sick? If so, you make sure you stay over there.”“Nah, I’m good. Just tired. I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night,” Sammi answered.“Alright. Did you take all the antibiotics that your doctor gave you last time you were sick? You know you got to take it all even if you feel better and you were back at work in three days. No offense, but we got too many events for you to be making everybody else sick.”“I took it all. I’m just tired, but I’ll be fine,” Sammi assured her before going into her office. Once she turned on her computer and checked her email messages, Sammi went online to find a clinic near her office. She found one a few minutes away and made an appointment for that afternoon so that she could go on her lunch hour.The staff at the clinic confirmed what Sammi already knew—she was pregnant. They suspected that she was about five weeks pregnant. It was five weeks ago that Sammi had strep throat and was prescribed antibiotics. She finished them all even though she felt better, but she and Sam ignored the doctor’s orders to use another form of birth control because the pill could be rendered useless by the antibiotics. She was counseled on her options and left there still uncertain about what to do. It was times like this when she missed her mother most.Jersee climbed out of bed and started to get dressed. “Where you going?” Gary asked. “I thought you were spending the night.”“I can’t. I have a lot of work to do for a project I’m working on and I have to take this conference call at 10.”“Who does a conference call at 10? This is crazy Jersee. You act like you don’t really want to be with me. You just using me for my body?” he half-joked.“Nah, it’s not like that. The call is with some folks on the west coast. It’s an entertainment thing so they don’t have set hours. I was gonna do my work at your house, but I left my lap top at home. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.” Jersee kissed him on the cheek and grabbed her purse. “I’ll let myself out. Call me tomorrow.” Jersee left the bedroom and walked down the stairs and out the door to her car.“What the hell just happened here?” Gary asked himself. He felt that Jersee had just played him like a trick. Gary knew he was wrong for abandoning Jersee when she was paralyzed, but he really did love her and wanted the best for her. He deeply regretted his decision, but he can’t say that he would stick by her if something like that happened again. He just hoped they could get back on track and he would never have to find out.“LL, what’s cracking baby,” Jersee answered her phone to find out it was her best friend LaShida on the other line. “Nothing much. Just packing up my stuff and about to leave the shop. You going to the club tonight?”“Nah, I’ll catch the band next week. I got a little work to do on this project.”“You and that damn project. When you gonna tell us what it is?”“I told you that as soon as everything is set in stone, you will be the first to know. I don’t want to jinx myself though.”“Blah blah blah. Well you know Kelly is gonna be performing tonight.”“Shit! I thought that was next week. Ain’t she in Philly?”“She was in Philly last night, and she’s gonna be at Nocturnal tonight. Oooh guess who was standing in front of the stage in Philly?”“That bamma KD?”“You guessed it. She said he came back to her room and they talked all night, but they didn’t do anything. I’m not sure I believe her though.”“Well I just left Gary’s house, so I ain’t even gonna judge her on that one. I just want her to be happy and if she can forgive KD, then so can I.”“No comment on Gary. You know how I feel about that, but you grown, so what can I say? How are your little brothers doing? You getting them this weekend?” LaShida asked changing the subject.“I’m getting James, but I don’t know about Julian. I hate to say it, but I hate having both of them. James is as sweet as he can be, but Julian is always trying to fight him. It’s total chaos when the two of them are around.”“He’s good whenever he’s over here. Y’all just spoil James and treat Julian like a stepchild so he’s just trying to get attention. You know that’s not right.”“I know, but I feel closer to him than I do to Julian. I guess because he came from my mother and in the letter she left me, she asked me to take care of him. But, whenever I get him…”“He’s two years old Jerse. You have to give him a chance. Oooh, guess what? I think Sammi’s pregnant.”“Why you say that?”“She came in Saturday morning to get her hair done and she had to run to the bathroom. Someone thought they heard her throwing up.”“Ask Sam. No ask her because she might not have told Sam yet. I guess if she is pregnant, it ain’t our place to tell him. You think she’s a gold digger?”“Nah, I think she really loves Sam. She takes care of the twins like they are her own and she’s been good for Sam with everything he went through with Aunt Janice.”“Yeah, I guess you’re right. So, hang up and call her. Call me back and tell me what she said.” Jersee hung up only after LaShida agreed to call Sammi and then give her the results at the club later that night. Jersee called her producer friends on the west coast while she mentally went through her closet to see what she should wear to the club.LaShida called Sam’s home number. “Hey Old Man, is Sammi home?” she asked when Sam answered the phone. “Yeah, hold on,” Sam told her as he handed the phone to Sammi.“Hey Shida, what’s up?” Sammi asked nervously. She was hoping LaShida was calling to ask her if she was going to the club. Sammi got up and started walking toward the kitchen. Sam ignored her and continued watching television.“Can I ask you a personal question? Are you pregnant?” LaShida asked before Sammi could answer.Sammi was silent for a moment as she looked around to make sure Sam couldn’t hear her. “Can you keep a secret?” she asked.