Now I said before.
I mind my business.
I keep my eyes forward, my head down, and my feet moving.
But sometimes the universe just positions you exactly where it wants you.
Right place. Right time. Wrong conversation to be overhearing.
And all you can do is stand there and be all ears.
What I Heard
It was a young lady talking.
Couldn’t have been more than twenty, twenty-two.
The kind of age where you probably have seen enough.
She was talking to somebody — I don’t know who, don’t need to know who — and I caught just enough to stop me dead in my tracks.
She said, “She has two kids.
Her first child’s father is Bruce.
And Bruce went and had a second child with another woman.
Then that woman turned around and slept with Bruce’s cousin.
And they had a baby boy together.”
I blinked.
I replayed that in my head like that first song you hear on the radio in the morning.
Bruce. Second child’s mother.
Bruce had a second child with another woman.
That woman then slept with Bruce’s cousin.
And now there’s a baby boy in the mix.
I stood very still. Because sometimes you have to be completely physically still to process something that is moving that fast.
Let’s Break This Down Slowly
Because if you skim past this you will absolutely miss the key point of what happened here.
This woman had her first child with Bruce.
That’s the foundation.
Now Bruce, being Bruce, went and had a second child with a different woman.
Okay.
That happens.
People have children in different situations.
We are adults. We move on.
Except.
That second woman — the one Bruce had his other child with — went and got involved with Bruce’s cousin.
His cousin.
And out of that entanglement came a baby boy.
So now let’s add this up real slow and deliberate.
Bruce’s first child and Bruce’s second child are already siblings through their father.
But Bruce’s second child’s mother just had a baby with Bruce’s cousin — which makes that baby the cousin of Bruce’s children through blood.
Which means Bruce’s second child is looking at this new baby boy like?
Are you my brother or my cousin?
And the honest answer is?
Yes no doubt it.
The Whole Circle Got the Memo
Here’s what takes this from complicated to nobody is keeping this quiet.
The cousins know.
The kids know.
The whole family has been informed whether they asked to be or not.
Family gatherings, group chats, cookouts — everybody has done the math and arrived at the same uncomfortable answer.
And they are not sitting with it peacefully.
They are cussing her out.
The second woman — Bruce’s baby mama who went and laid down with his cousin is catching it from every direction.
The cousins are in her face.
The kids have opinions. Nobody is whispering.
Because how do you bring a baby into a situation where the child is his brother’s cousin and his cousin’s brother and expect people to just smile and pass the potato salad?
They did not smile.
They named the situation instead.
They call him cousin brother.
Cousin Brother
Not as a joke somebody made once and it stuck.
As a title.
The most accurate thing they could call him given what the family tree had done to itself
Cousin brother.
And apparently the calls are regular.
He picks up his and dials somebody number and they and the see who it is and answer like?
“What’s up, cousin brother.”
Matter of fact. Like that’s exactly what his mama should’ve put on the birth certificate.
The young lady telling this story shook her head at that part.
I shook mine right along with her.
Because there is no seating chart for cousin brother at Thanksgiving.
There is no family reunion name tag that covers this.
Wow.
Wow. That is a lot.
That is genuinely, pull-up-a-chair-because-you’re-going-have to sit down for this.
Bruce had a baby with a woman.
That woman went and had a baby with Bruce’s cousin.
And now the whole family answers the phone saying —
What’s up, cousin brother.
Damn.