The Pride By Faydra D. Fields

Faydra D. Fields was born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas and raised in
Tulsa, Oklahoma.

She started my higher education at Kentucky State University in Frankfort,
KY, where she was a Whitney Young Honors Scholar and where she also became
a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. (Beta Zeta Chapter, 1989).
Faydra finished her time as an undergraduate at Howard University in
Washington, DC, with a degree in African-American Studies (Magna Cum,
1995).

While at Howard University, two of Faydra's most memorable internships
were with the Democratic National Committee and the Anti-Defamation
League.

Faydra's first job after college was with the National Captioning
Institute in Vienna, VA, where she was a "live display captioner," doing
closed captioning for the hearing impaired.

Faydra eventually moved back to Tulsa and taught 8th grade American
Studies for two years before joining the Army as an Information Systems
Operation Analyst.

After finishing her tour with the Army in 2006, Faydra became a computer
applications/web languages/social media trainer, web designer/developer,
blogger, columnist for Examiner.com and author. She is also an instructor
at Northern Virginia Community College – Annandale Campus.

To learn more about Faydra, please visit her site at http://faydra.com.


Synopsis: Four women have two things in common. They're all mothers, and
the father of their children is the same man.

Although Emmanuel does everything he can to provide for his own household,
and four others, it's not enough to keep the mothers of his children from
just scraping by.

Xavari convinces Denise, Angela and Romina that the four of them must pick
up the slack where Emmanuel is unable.

EXCERPT:

"Manny about had a natural fit when I told him what I wanted to name the kids," Romina confessed with a newly blossoming smile.
It was a tradition in Emmanuel's family that the women named their babies. He learned this one summer when he was visiting his grandparents. His maternal grandmother explained to him that during slavery, it was usually the slave owners who named all the slaves. This was especially insulting to the slave women who had been raped and given birth to their masters' offspring. When the first baby in their family had been born after the final Emancipation Proclamation that abolished slavery, they started the tradition of allowing the mother to name her children.
"They are really… different," Xavari said.
"He wasn't too pleased with the name Sonjie, either," Angela said as she remembered his initial reaction.
"Now that you mention it, he threw up his hands when I told him I wanted to name our son Xavier," Xavari added as her gaze drifted to the playpen. The other ladies looked, too.
"What's his twin's name?" Romina wanted to know. Xavari, Sonjie, Angela and Romina's children burst out in unbridled laughter. Denise and Romina were totally confounded and had no idea what was so funny.
"That's not his twin. That's my baby, Marcus," Angela said between chuckles.
"Oh. My. Goodness," Denise and Romina said at the same time, eyes wide with astonishment.
"I know, right? That was exactly my reaction and my words when I saw that little one," Xavari said.
"That man got so strong genes. All these kids look alike," Angela observed.
All four ladies looked around the room at the children. It was true. They all looked like they could have come from the same womb.
"When Daddy has us all together, people trip out when me and Naomi tell'em we got different mommas," Sonjie interjected. She immediately looked at her mother and waited to be scolded for jumping back into the conversation. To her relief, Angela didn't say anything harsh.
"Sonjie, y'all take the babies back there in my room with Kelvin and the twins. I'm watching my sister kids. She got twins," Angela explained to the other ladies.


Website: http://solamentepublishing.com

Social Media: Twitter (http://twitter.com/faydra_deon); Facebook
(http://www.facebook.com/faydradeon)