Finally Free (16 page)

I asked her to come over.

She didn't—just like a girl is supposed to do.

I laugh about it now and will tell my daughters to do the exact same thing Kijafa did. A man is supposed to approach the girl.

We did, however, exchange numbers. But I ended up losing it that week and had to get it again from one of her friends.

It was about 8:00 p.m. one evening, and I was in a Walmart shopping with my friends when I decided to give her a call. But I didn't expect to talk to Kijafa for as long as I did.

I dialed the number. A Chinese woman picked up the phone.

“You've reached such-and-such cuisine,” the Chinese voice said. “What would you like to order?”

“Who is this?” I asked, confused.

“Such-and-such cuisine,” she said again.

“Oh, well, I've got the wrong number. Sorry.”

“I'm just playing,” the woman laughed. “It's Kijafa.”

Right then and there, I learned a little about her personality. She was outgoing. She wasn't timid or shy like some women. She was charismatic and had a lot to talk about.

We talked for an hour and a half that night, and it felt like I had known her for years. I can't explain it. She really didn't know that I was a football player. Her friends told her who I was at the club, which probably made her even more hesitant to come talk to me because of the negative perception of some football players. But because she didn't know anything about football, she really had no idea that I was the quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons.

I remember her coming to a game one time. I would periodically look up at her in the stands, and she was usually looking down at her phone, playing a game. She didn't understand football. And she didn't know what I did. But she still respected my job and was okay with who I was.

She asked a lot of questions about the game once we started dating. I've kind of been her quarterback coach the last five years. Now she can tell you all about downs and yardages. She even tweets about the game while I'm playing. Teaching her about cover 2—well, that's a different story. I think she even likes being my nurse when I get hurt, because she treats me as if I'm about to leave this earth or something. She caters to me and spoils me. It's awesome.

When I hung up the phone that night, Quanis looked at me in shock. “Who was that you were on the phone with?!?” he asked.

“Kijafa. That was my first time talking to her,” I said.

“Boy, you were on the phone for an hour and a half.”

I have no idea what happened in that Walmart.

From that point on, I talked to Kijafa every day on the phone. I called her four to five times a day while she was working in a
shoe department, and she always picked up the phone and talked to me. More than anything, it was a friendship. I made her laugh. And she made me laugh.

As this continued, I remember Quanis looking at me one day. “You really like that girl,” he said.

“Yeah, I think I do,” I replied.

The first time Kijafa and I hung out face-to-face was at my house. We talked all night, and I took her on a four-wheeler ride at four in the morning. She loved it.

In 2009—after all we'd been through together—I proposed to her on her twenty-ninth birthday. I planned a surprise party and told her that we were going out to eat at the Ritz-Carlton. When we got there, I asked the lady up front about a party downstairs, and I told Kijafa one of my teammates was attending the party. We went downstairs to “see my teammate.” When we opened the doors, everyone yelled “Surprise!” Several friends and family members were there who she hadn't seen in a while. That was a surprise in itself.

Little did she know.

A slow song came on, and I asked her to dance with me. I was thinking about what I was going to say, and I started sweating. Not only was I going to ask her to marry me, but I was also doing it on national television for the
Michael Vick Project
by BET.

“Baby, wipe the sweat off my head,” I said.

She did.

“I'm so nervous,” I told her. “I'm so nervous.”

“Why?” she laughed.

Then I stopped dancing.

“You don't want to dance with me,” she said.

I was just standing there, looking stupid. Then I got down on one knee. After all I put her through—seven years of dating, eighteen months in prison, the times I should have listened to her and I didn't, the times I should have been more respectful and I wasn't—I felt like I owed it to her.

We married on June 30, 2012. There are certain people in your life you never want to part ways with. And she's the one I never want to part ways with—not just because of our two daughters, but because of the friendship we've developed over the years and our ability to love one another and respect one another.

We had been through a lot together. Our relationship continued to develop—from the first call at Walmart to the proposal. We grew closer along the way, and even closer when I went to prison.

When I went to prison, I already had all three of my children. It's what made things even more difficult.

My first child and only son, Mitez, was five years old when I left. He lives with his mother, Tameka Taylor, but he still visits me often.

I missed his birth—who knows what I was doing? But I'll forever remember arriving at the hospital, looking at Mitez, and noticing his cone-shaped head. For the first hour I was there, I was going back and forth with the nurse about the shape of his head. It's funny to look back at it now. The nurse told me that if I
kept rubbing it, his head would eventually round out, so that's all I did for the next couple of days.

Still, it was special holding him that first time. I just remember thinking,
This is my child. This is my son.
It was surreal.

From that point on, I knew I had more responsibility. I was a father.

I want to be an example for Mitez, and I want him to learn from my mistakes. I want him to take on something other than football. However, if he plays football, I'll support him, but I don't want him to play just because of me. Maybe he'll be a great artist, musician, lawyer, chief of police—I don't know—but I want him to grow up and change someone's life. I want him to have his own identity. There's only one me and only one him. His destiny is his destiny.

Looking back on raising Mitez in those early years, I think I'll remember the way we used to wrestle. He was relentless. The only way he'd go to sleep was if he wrestled his way to sleep. I was his punching bag.

Along with wrestling, he also likes to golf. He already plays with a set of Callaway clubs that I bought him, and he is pretty good. More importantly though, Mitez is on the A-B honor roll at school. He is a great student. He also challenges his mind; he loves to play chess and is adept at math.

It is different with Mitez than with the girls. He was around earlier in my career and has seen more. He figured out quickly that his dad is sort of well known—whether it's people asking for my autograph or wanting a photograph taken with me.

Once, I was afforded a teaching moment with Mitez because of the attention that often comes my way. We were at a mall, and a store owner shut down his business so we could shop without people bothering us. It gave us alone time, but it was obvious to Mitez that things were different. He saw all of that and said, “Dad, can we have a day where it's just me and you and no one else? No autographs, no pictures?”

I told him, “Son, I wish we could, but that's just not the way it's going to be. We need to be polite. If we didn't want to go out, we could have stayed around the house. So, if you're ever in this situation, I want you to do the same things Daddy does.”

Another memory I have of him isn't as pleasant as the wrestling, the golf, or our teaching moment at the mall.

When I went to prison, I didn't have to explain it to my two daughters. Jada was two years old, and London was only a month old. They were too young. Mitez, however, was five.

I'll never forget it. We were watching television together, and a clip of me playing football came up on the screen. Then it came across the news that “Michael Vick could be sentenced to several years in prison.” Mitez immediately burst out crying—uncontrollably.

“I don't want you to go to jail!” he screamed.

I was hurt. I was ashamed. And it was all my fault.

How disappointing is that for your son to be watching you on TV and they show a highlight of you in an NFL uniform—which he's accustomed to seeing—and in the next breath, they're talking
about you going to prison? That's folly. That's confusion. I didn't know what to tell him other than to be honest. I told him why I was going to jail. And all I could do was pray everything would turn out right.

Kijafa and I took the next step in our relationship when Jada, our first child and my first daughter, was born.

It was a new lifestyle for me. Instead of living with my friends in Smithfield, I moved in with Kijafa to help her raise Jada. Before that, she would come and stay with me. But living with her was when I got to know Kijafa on a different level. Having a newborn baby to care for made our bond even stronger. I had a family for the first time, and I liked it.

I've always wanted to have a girl, and I took a liking to my new lifestyle. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be or as bad as people said it would be. I enjoyed every moment of it. I was with my girlfriend—who I loved dearly and would eventually marry—and my daughter, who I needed to support and protect.

Because I was in the house, Jada became just like me. If she was a boy, there's no doubt in my mind that she would be the next Michael Vick on the football field. She has all the athleticism in the world. Strong willed. Fearless. At seven years old, she's sixty pounds of all muscle.

Whenever I got home and walked through the front door, Jada would follow me up the stairs and all around the house. She still does the exact same thing.

Kijafa said that when I went to prison, Jada, for the first six months, would ask, “When is my daddy coming home? Where's my daddy at?”

One day she came home from school, looked all around the house, searched all the rooms, and cried, “Mommy, I've lost my daddy. I can't find him.”

Again, all because of me. Your sin doesn't just hurt you: it hurts others.

But I'll forever cherish that phase of my life when I got to be in the house with Kijafa and care for a newborn baby. I didn't have that opportunity with Mitez because Tameka and I were no longer together. And I didn't know it at the time, but I wouldn't have that opportunity with London either, because of my prison sentence.

Being with my family was something I chose to do. Continuing to live with my friends may have sounded more appealing at the time because it's what I was used to. But I remember saying to myself,
It's starting here … right now … at the age of twenty-four. I'm doing the right thing. This is what a real man is supposed to do.

Life was exciting. We were living in a brand-new house, we had a new baby, and we had a new way of living.

Everything just felt right … for once.