What's Wrong, Daddy?

21:00

Naomi decided that she would spend the night in the hospital. Get Right had gone upstairs to see about Imani, whose conditions had yet to even incrementally improve - therefore, Katrina should not have been left alone. Naomi asked the nurse for a couple of blankets, one for Katrina and one for her: the AC was booming in this room. She had earlier helped Katrina to the bathroom - this was good, as movement, even minute movement, helped the body to heal, as long as the movement was not strenuous enough to harm the body.

Naomi was on TikTok lamenting the growing call for a strike of Black publishers whose dances and other original content was being shamelessly purloined by their more famous White counterparts. It was not the stealibg of the content that was hurtful and worrisome. It was mainly the fact that Black content creators were not being accorded the recognition due to them for their work. With such recognition came higher numbers of followers, perhaps bookings at various venues to perform and/or meet their fans, interviews and guest appearances on t.v. shows - all of which boosted the popularity of the said content creator. The more people watched your videos, the more you got paid, and pennies added up to hundreds of thousands, or millions, of dollars per month based on numbers of views.

Advertisers paid companies like TikTok and YouTube to run ads on the pages of their more popular content creators. The companies took their gargantuan share of the ad money and paid the content creator a ridiculously low amount. The potential for financial gain for the content creator was enormous, and Black content creators were highly upset, as society, specifically White society, was again finding ways to short shrift Black people, ostensibly with the assistance of Caucasian-centered companies. Naomi was not Black, but her father was half Puerto Rican, though her mother was as White as White could get. How her parents had gotten (and stayed) together, not too many people knew, but there they were.

Naomi's phone rang and she saw that it was her mother calling. "Hey, Mom, I was just th-"

"Nay Nay," her mother interrupted.

"Yes, Mom?"

"Your father, he... he's on oxygen." Naomi's next heartbeats slowed down and thrummed with a pang against her chest plate like hammers on an anvil.

Daddy? What's wrong, Daddy? "What happened, Mom?"

"They say it's Coronavirus that made his pneumonia worse."

"He had pneumonia?"

"The past couple of months have been rough, baby-"

"And you're just now telling me?" Her mom was so guilt-ridden. Brent Osario was Naomi's world; he could do no wrong and, to her, had never done wrong. A quiet man, Brent had quietly moved from Puerto Rico in the seventies and joined the American Navy, distinguished himself honorably in wartime and peacetime and had also retired honorably.

Brent had chosen the State of New Jersey to settle down in. It was earlier in his travels that he had met Myra on a stopover at Wisconsin and, even though she might not have been a supermodel, she had all the qualities of a good wife. She cooked decently, if a bit blandly, she cleaned like a demon, attacking dust motes and corners with fervor, she was punctual, kept appointments, did what she was told and most importantly, she kept her mouth shut.

Most of the time.

Their marriage was perfectly matched because life had taught Brent that chatter accomplished very little. It was action that counted. One could rarely read someone's intent, but actions were almost a one hundred percent surety of the type of person you were dealing with. Brent's first two children with Myra were sons, Naomi was the third, followed by another girl, the baby. Due to health concerns, Myra stopped having children. Settling in New Jersey exposed all of these children to variegated culturalism and cultural assimilation. Gentrification was failing and it was not that Brent did not want his children being exposed to different cultures, but he did not want the violence of cultural assimilation touching his kids.

He failed. Although his children looked White and doors opened easily for them in the land of the free and the home of the slave, still Brent's kids got mixed up with Blacks and other Hispanics, smoking weed, drinking liquor, etc. Did these kinds of thoughts he had about keeping his children away from race mixing make him a racist? Possibly, but how did it play out since he was part Hispanic? His children were his world. When the cultural assimilation began though, Brent was open-minded enough to just watch it happen and give advice or counsel when he saw his own kids getting out of hand, or when they needed him but were too proud to ask. Or even when they needed punishment. And out of all his children, Naomi was his favorite, the first girl who really softened his heart and caused him to smile more, to be a bit more genial and gregarious. Myra noticed it and, irrationally, became jealous of Naomi. Throughout her life up until her mid-teens, Naomi was resented by Myra for being the one to make Brent laugh or smile at any given moment. It was not completely irrational but it was unfortunate for Naomi.

Brent knew of his wife's prejudice towards Naomi. He would intervene on many occasions when Myra got out of hand, which vexed the latter even more. Brent would always send Naomi money secretly, her and her junior sister, Myriam. He had named Naomi after his Puerto Rican mother, despite Myra's protestations. Myra had emphatically stated that she was naming their next child after her.

Some months back, Brent had sent Naomi some money through Mobile Money. They had talked for a long time and now, remembering how he had looked during the video call, smiling through what was sure to have been painful coughs, though at the time Naomi didn't know, it seemed as if her dad had been saying his last goodbye to her. He had been so soft-spoken during the conversation, gentler than usual with her, she remembered.

Tears began flowing down her eyes and Naomi reached into the bag she had brought for some paper napkins. Her mother was also crying, for the failing health of her partner and friend of over three decades. But she wept also for how she had treated this particular daughter so unfairly.

"Nay, can you come this weekend?"

"Sure I'll come. Tomorrow or Sunday."

"Okay, just keep him, keep us in your prayers, okay?"

"I will, Mom, I promise. But he'll be fine, I just know it."

"Sure he will, dear," Myra said, affirming the lie, despite what she knew and had seen: drastic weight loss, gross loss of appetite, difficulty breathing, difficulty sleeping. Brent's time was fast approaching, Myra knew, so she had begun calling the kids and some other family members a few days ago.

Sebastian, the second born, was first to reach home, only because he lived a few blocks away and was the classic "Mama's Boy." Devin, the firstborn, was overseas and had promised to come in a few days. The baby, Myriam, was in Florida and would also be along this weekend. Naomi tried calling Branson but it went to voicemail which meant his phone was off, which in turn meant he was still on Roosevelt Island. She would just have to wait until he was available. Until then, she pulled her feet up onto the chair beside Kat and covered herself most of the way with the large blanket, concealing her red and weeping eyes.