“It wasn’t the type of thing that you tell your kids, especially your little girls.”
And that was another thing that bothered her. That RJ was treated differently. It felt like they thought that she couldn’t hold her own if need be. But she wouldn’t address that, not now anyway.
“At first, it made me feel like you and Mommy lied to me. That you two had lied to me my whole life.”
“You’re right … in a way. But we didn’t lie to you. There were things that your mother and I felt like we had to keep from you. It’s a very dangerous world that we live in, Barbara, your mother and I just wanted you to be safe and have as normal a childhood as you possibly could.”
Barbara laughed. “Normal for a gangster’s daughter.”
Bobby laughed with her. “I’m sorry that we felt like we had to lie to you, Barbara. But I don’t apologize for the things I’ve done to take care of you. I just wanted to protect my girls.”
“I have to admit that when she was telling me all that stuff, I didn’t want to believe it at first, and then I was mad about it. It was like … like …”
“Like your life had been based on a lie,” Bobby said.
“Yeah. That I was a gangster’s pampered little princess.”
“How do you feel now that you know?” Bobby asked and waited to hear what his daughter had to say.
“Honestly, daddy, I felt a little betrayed,” Barbara told her father.
“Betrayed? Why betrayed?”
“Maybe betrayed isn’t the right word, but I feel like it’s something that you should have told me.”
“I’m sorry, Barbara, and you’re right. I should have been the one to tell you the truth about our family, and not Tenikka.”
“You aren’t mad at her for telling me, are you?”
“No,” Bobby said and shook his head, but he was mad. Mad as hell. He thought that it wasn’t up to Tenikka to tell Barbara anything about The Family or its business. And even though she was safe at Jelly’s, Barbara had no business there. “I am not mad at her,” he lied.
“She just thought that I needed to know since … since I’m out there in the world,” Barbara said instead of telling her father that Tenikka had promised to show her the world that everybody had been hiding from her.
Barbara paused and thought back to the night when Jahquil tried to force himself on her and she took a cab to the Bronx Park Motel where RJ was running his game.
“I guess it’s something I should have known, seeing what RJ’s doing, and he said that you knew about it.”
She remembered asking her brother if Daddy and Mommy knew what he was doing, and RJ said, Pop and Uncle Mike know everything. She should have put it together then or at least asked questions. Barbara laid her head on Bobby’s shoulder and he put his arm around her and kissed her forehead.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
“Have you ever killed anybody?” Barbara asked, and her stomach tightened as she waited to hear his response.
“Yes,” was Bobby’s simple answer.
“How many?” Barbara wanted to know.
“Alot, and we’ll leave it at that. Just know that I love you and everything that I did, right or wrong was to protect you …” Bobby laughed. “Protect you from that world your sister was dying to show you.”
“What about Mommy?”
“What about her?”
“Has she ever killed anyone?”
It was a question that Bobby wasn’t expecting, and certainly didn’t want to answer.