Love/Fate Read Free

all figured out. He wasn’t strung out on anything. In fact, Born had never used any drugs other than a little weed every now and then, a drink or two on occasion. He was on the right side of the game, as far as he was concerned. He was getting money, making moves. And he didn’t look at it like he was preying on anybody’s weakness. The money was out there. If he didn’t go out and get it, someone else would. He saw no reason to feel guilty, when the crackheads made a choice to get high. That was his problem with Jada,with his father. They had both made a decision to get high, and they couldn’t find the strength to stop getting high. Not even for his sake. Not even for the love he felt toward them.
    â€œHow long has she been using?” Ingrid asked. Born described Jada’s history with drug abuse briefly to his mother, sparing her the grittiest details, about her selling her body. Ingrid sat back when he was done, and stared at him. Born wondered if his mother thought he was a fool. He guessed that Ingrid thought he had been dumb to get involved with a former addict in the first place. But she didn’t think that at all. Ingrid was thinking about how she had also ignored the signs of Leo’s drug use, how she had tried to block it out. She listened to Born tell her how he had thought Jada was really through with drugs when he met her. Ingrid remembered feeling that Leo could also be strong enough to let go, only to be let down again and again when he went right back to crack.
    She thought back to when she had first realized that Leo was smoking. Finally, after several minutes of silence, she spoke. “Your father started using cocaine when you were little,” she said. “Maybe eight or nine years old. I heard the rumors, saw the signs and all that shit. But I didn’t want to know.” Ingrid paused. “I knew that Leo was gettin’ high. Him and his crew would come in here and get higher than the sky just about every night. I knew about that. I didn’t fuss about it, because I knew that was part of Leo’s package. He was maintaining. He had it under control. Leo was who he was, either love him or leave him. And I loved him.” She sighed, and looked at her son, who was sitting and soaking up her every word, her body language, and all. Listening to her, he wondered how she had been able to love her husband despite his addiction. He knew he wouldn’t be able to love Jada despite hers.
    She looked at him. “Leo was a good man. He had good intentions. He loved you, Marquis. He really did. When he was doing good, we had the best of everything. His habit was something he seemed to have control of in the beginning. But when he started struggling, I could feel it. I felt like he wasn’t telling me something. Something changed between us. Then the money started slowing up.” Ingrid puffed her cigarette. “I always worked. Leo was into so many different hustles that we had to accountfor some legitimate money—some legal sources of income. So I always had a job. Plus, I always knew it was important to have my own. Even Leo stressed that to me. He always encouraged me to work, to have my rainy day money ready. And I listened. I kept me a job.” Ingrid grinned, slightly. “I had to start hiding money, so that Leo wouldn’t know what I had. He didn’t steal from me. But if he knew there was money laying around, he would definitely want to smoke it up. And if I refused to give him the money, we would fight all night. So I hid it. I kept my own stash that he knew nothing about. Nobody knew about it. It wasn’t much—just a couple of hundred dollars. But it was something for a rainy day that he didn’t know about. That was always something I maintained.” Ingrid thought to herself that this was yet another lesson that Leo had taught her. Life with Leo was one big lesson; he taught her how to drive, how to navigate the