Forever Soul Ties

by Vanessa Davis Griggs

  Zeke flipped, rotated, and turned the digital camera around in his hands several times. “I don’t know how to use this thing,” Zeke said, showing his exasperation.

  “Just point it our way and look at the back,” I said. “You’ll see us on the screen and all you need to do when you get the shot you want is press the button at the top.”

  “What button?” He examined the camera. “This one here?” He pointed the camera at us. “I don’t know how to do this.” He held the camera up and looked at it again.

  “Zeke, just point the camera at us and shoot. It’s not that hard.”

  “It might not be hard for you and the young folks, but I told you I don’t know how to do this.” He pointed the camera the correct way this time.

  “Would you like for me to take it for you?” Darlene asked Zeke.

  “Yes, why don’t you do it?” Zeke happily handed the camera to Darlene.

  “Daddy!” Zynique said. “You didn’t even try.”

  “I’m doing good to even be here,” Zeke said. “But you’re my baby girl, and you know there’s nothing that would have made me miss being here, nothing in the world.”

  I couldn’t help but want to add (but I didn’t): Nothing after you missed being there when she was born, among other things.

  “Daddy, you’re the best!” Zynique said as she put her arms around my waist and waited as Darlene captured the shot. “Come on, Daddy. Come take a picture with me and Mom.”

  Zeke sauntered over with a righteous swag, grinning like all get out. Zynique stood between her father and me. Darlene snapped three pictures, then showed the digitized photos to Zynique.

  “Oh, Daddy, you look so good! Mom, you look like you’re mad.”

  “Well, I’m not. I’m happy. I’m happy because you, my sweet little baby girl, graduated.”

  Zynique grinned as she hugged me. “I’m going to a party after I leave here.”

  “But I have something planned for you at the house. I bought a graduation cake and everything. I have all these refreshments. I invited folks from church, a few family members, and friends that couldn’t be here because of the limited number of guests you were allowed to attend for this—”

  “Baby, let the girl go to the party with her friends,” Zeke said to me. “Why on earth would you think she’d want to hang out with a bunch of old folks when she can hang out with folks her own age?”

  “See, Mom. Daddy understands. He always understands.”

  “Zynique, you’re welcome to invite your friends to our house,” I said as I continued to plead my case. “I have plenty. I can even order in pizzas, if you want.”

  “But she doesn’t want to come to our house for a party,” Zeke said. “She just told you that she wants to have fun with her own friends at their party. So let the girl have her day. It is her day you know.”

  “Of course,” I said, now smiling at Zynique even though it took all I could to muster it. “Sure. Whatever I bought will certainly keep. I’ll just put it up and maybe we can celebrate as a family tomorrow. I’ll just call everybody now and postpone it.”

  “Thank you, Mommy!” Zynique said. “Thanks, Daddy!” She kissed her father, then me. “I’m going now. But thanks for everything you two have done to help get me to this place. I’m finished with school! It’s finally over!”

  “I’ll see you later, baby,” I said to Zynique. “Don’t forget your curfew.”

  “Mom! I’m an adult now. I should be able to stay out as late as I want, especially on a night like this. We were planning on eating breakfast together at IHOP in the morning.”

  “You’re still living in our house, and I expect you home by your normal curfew,” I said, still trying to smile so I wouldn’t appear to be the party popper (not pooper, popper) of the bunch.

  “Honey, let the child have an extra hour or two,” Zeke said. “They’re celebrating a milestone here. She’s worked hard to get to this place.”

  I turned squarely to him so I could look him in the eye when I spoke and he would know I didn’t need him opposing me on this, not at this juncture. “Zeke, Zynique needs to be home at her normal curfew.”

  Zeke wriggled his nose, nodded, then turned to Zynique. “Well, baby girl. Your mother says you need to be home at your regular curfew time.”

  “Yeah,” Zynique said. “And Mother always has the final word.” Zynique flashed a smile, then turned and left with Darlene.

  Chapter 17

  For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another.

  —Titus 3:3

  “See, Zeke. That’s exactly what I’m talking about,” I said as he drove us home from the graduation ceremony. “You do stuff like that all the time.”

  “Do what?”

  “Undermine me. You’ve done this with our children since day one.”

  “You be tripping,” Zeke said, glancing between me and the winding dark road.

  “I’m not tripping. And I wish you’d quit saying that as your comeback every time I say something that you don’t like.”

  “But you do be tripping. So what exactly are we arguing about tonight?”

  “I’m not arguing. I’m just stating a fact. It’s always been like that. I tell the girls one thing, and you come along, being Mister Good Guy, saying the complete opposite, saying what you know they want to hear, just so you can make me look bad.”

  “Okay, I think you’re being a bit paranoid here. I don’t do things just to make you look bad. I can’t help it if our daughters feel and have always felt a stronger bond with me than with you.”

  I let out an audible huff as I frowned, although in the darkness, I’m sure he couldn’t see the frown. “What?” I said.

  “That’s really what you’re upset about. You’re put out that our children feel closer to me than you. It hurts that they relate to me better than they relate to you.”

  I started laughing. “Oh, that’s funny! That is fun-ny.”

  “Laugh all you want, but that’s really what has your girdle in a wad.”

  “No,” I said, “it’s not. And for your information, I don’t wear a girdle. What’s bugging me is how you’ve never really and truly been there for your daughters, not one of them. If you really want to dance with the truth, you’ve actually been MIA most of their lives.”

  “Okay, now see how crazy you sound. You know I’ve been at our house since day one, and I’ve never left you, not once. Not even when I should have, with your little confrontational self.”

  “You don’t live there, Zeke. It’s merely a place where you stop on your way to . . .” I turned and looked at him but it was too dark for me to see his face. “Where exactly is it that you go practically every night?”

  “Out,” he said.

  “Yes, that’s what you tell me. But where precisely is out? Give me an address, a location.”

  An approaching car cast a beam of light through our windshield, allowing me to see Zeke’s face. “Here and there,” he said, glancing over at me.

  “See, that’s what I mean. I don’t know if ‘here and there’ means with this woman or that.” I stared at him, hoping that despite the darkness, he would be able to feel my eyes boring a hole through him.

  He laughed. “Okay, so I see you’re going over to the other side again. That’s all you do—look for something to fuss about. And that’s exactly why I go somewhere other than my own house almost every night so I can get away: so I won’t have to listen to you and ridiculous mess like this.”

  “Oh, you’re full of it! You just use that as an excuse to keep doing what you do. What is it? You don’t think I know that you have a girlfriend on the side?”

  “All righty then. So now I have a girlfriend on the side?”

  I could tell he had once again glanced over at me by the way his words seemed to slap me on the left side of my face. “Zeke, I’m not a fool. And I’m not stupid by any means,
even if on occasion I sometimes play one at home. I may not have ever called you on it, but you can’t tell me that you’ve never cheated on me.”

  Zeke pulled into our driveway and pressed the button to raise the garage door. “You just have to find a way, don’t you, baby? I don’t care what you have to do; you always have to find a way. You’re never satisfied until you push one of my buttons.”

  “I’m not your baby. So stop calling me baby!”

  Zeke pulled the car into the garage and turned off the engine. “Okay, fine,” he said calmly. “You don’t want to be called baby, I won’t call you baby.” He opened his car door and stepped out.

  I opened my car door and jumped out. “Don’t you walk away from me while I’m talking.” He kept walking. I hurried to catch him. “Do you think I don’t know that you leave here so you can be with some other woman? Just because I never said anything to you about it, doesn’t mean I didn’t know.”

  Zeke turned around and stared at me, then chortled. “Why in heaven’s name would I ever leave someone like you to be with another woman?” There was a certain sarcasm that came with his question that wasn’t truly a question. “Huh?”

  I began to nod profusely. “That’s what you always do. I bring up something serious, and you treat it like it’s a joke. Well, Zeke, while our daughters may think you’re a really ‘swell’ person, I know better. Of course they think you’re wonderful. You never disciplined them. You never dealt with the hard stuff. All you had to do was come home for a little while and be Mister Joy.”

  He let out a short laugh. “Mister Joy?”

  “Yeah. You know: you’d come in and play with them. Make them laugh, then you’re out of here. Everything bad to be dealt with was left on me to handle. They don’t have any bad memories with you, Zeke, mostly because you weren’t around long enough to give them any.”

  “Because I never spanked them, is that what this is all about? Oh, I know: you’re still disturbed because to this very day, Zion won’t let go of that time she got in trouble with you and I turned out to be the reasonable one between the two of us.”

  “Zion loved you! All Zion wanted was your love and attention. But you didn’t even have time to give her that. So of course, she acted out. She was crying out for your attention. But you were too busy to see that. So when she had to be reined back in, whose shoulders was it left on? Mine! And that wasn’t fair. I told you what that child needed, but you were too busy trying to get to some other woman’s place to care!”

  “Okay, so now you’re saying it’s my fault that Zion is doing missionary work? Is that what you’re saying? It’s my fault Zanetta joined the military so she could get as far away from us as possible? Is that what you’re saying, my dear wife?”

  “No, Zeke! I’m saying that Zion wanted to know she mattered to you and you never gave her that. Zanetta got a little bit of attention from you, but that was because she was your first child. Although, if we want to be real about all of this: even that attention only lasted a good hot second.”

  “And Zynique?” Zeke said. “What damage have I done to Zynique?”

  I sighed. “Zeke, you’re not hearing me. You haven’t been here for any of us, Zynique included. I’m tired, Zeke. I’m tired.”

  “You’re probably tired because of that stupid business you started. I don’t know where your head was when you decided to quit your job and do something asinine like open a flower shop. Now you’re stressed out because things aren’t going all rosy the way you thought they would, so you want to take it out on me.” He started toward the stairs that lead to our bedroom.

  “No, Zeke,” I said, following behind him. “That’s an entirely different argument.”

  He stopped halfway up the staircase and turned back toward me. “So help me out here: which argument are we having right now? Are we arguing about our daughters? Are we arguing about my parenting? Are we arguing about me and my supposed affairs? Or are we arguing about your misjudgments that you somehow would like to pin on me?” He turned back around and continued until he reached our bedroom and went to the closet. Locating the maroon shirt I’d expressly bought him to wear (that he didn’t) to Zynique’s graduation, Zeke slipped it off the wooden hanger and quickly brushed past me as he stepped out of the closet.

  I watched him as he hastily took off the dark blue shirt he wore, yanked tags off the new shirt, and put the maroon shirt on. “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m changing my shirt,” he said.

  “For what?” I glanced at the clock on my nightstand. “It’s almost nine o’clock.”

  He nimbly buttoned the last two buttons, then checked himself in the dresser mirror. “Because I want to wear it.”

  “You want to wear that eighty-dollar shirt I bought to bed? It’s not a pajama top.”

  “Don’t be silly. Of course I’m not wearing it to bed. I’m wearing it out.”

  “You’re wearing it out?” My voice escalated. “We just came from being out,” I said.

  He put on some cologne. “Well, if you think I’m going to stay here and listen to you accuse me of being a lousy father, husband, and man . . . a man you claim is cheating . . . has cheated on you—I can’t even keep up at this point. But if you think I’m going to stay here and be subjected to this, then you have another think coming.”

  “You’re not slick,” I said. “I know exactly what you’re doing.”

  “And what is that, dear wife?” He primped his mouth. “What am I doing?”

  “You’re trying to manufacture a reason so you can leave tonight and make it out to be my fault.”

  Zeke laughed. “You’re good, I tell you.” He cocked his hand like a gun and pointed his index finger directly at my face. “You are good!”

  “So what is it? Did you tell her you would be over there after graduation and now you’re running late? Is that it? Can’t she be without you for one night?” I began to primp my mouth as I nodded. “Is that why you were all for Zynique going with her friends? You didn’t want her throwing a monkey wrench into your plans tonight?”

  Zeke leaned over to kiss me. I jerked back.

  “You’re tripping,” he said. “So you know what? I am going to leave while you calm down.”

  I stomped my foot. “No, you’re not going to leave! You’re going to stay right here, and you and I are going to talk. We’re going to figure out what’s going on with us, and we’re going to come up with a plan to fix it. Because, Zeke, I’m tired. I am tired. And I’m not happy. I’ve put up with this for over twenty years now. And I’m telling you that I’m tired of it.”

  He nodded. “Okay. So you want to talk?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I want us to work on this sham of a marriage we have. I want things to be the way they’re supposed to be with a happily married couple.”

  He belted out a quick short laugh. “I’ve told you about reading romance books and watching those romantic shows. Baby, they’re not real. Those folks are all made up. The life they’re portraying on the pages and on screen, not real.”

  “I don’t read romance novels. I’m too busy to read much of anything these days unless it’s related to business. I’m talking about having a marriage like married couples are supposed to.”

  “Oh,” he said. “You’re talking about that like your pastor? Your pastor who’s fooling around on his wife, even as we speak. The one that everybody and his brother knows that it’s going on. But just because the man can ‘preach’ no one wants to acknowledge it’s going on. And every Sunday and Wednesday, y’all flock down to the ‘church house’ to hear him tell you how to live a life that he’s not even trying to live. You and your little friends do more work at church and for that man than it seems you ever do for your own house and husbands.”

  “First of all, you can’t believe everything you hear,” I said about our pastor and his alleged affair, although I knew it was true. Our pastor has hit on me so many times, I had threatened to lay
holy hands on him if he didn’t stop.

  “Oh, I’m pretty sure what’s being said about your pastor is true.” The way Zeke said it made me think he had some type of verifiable knowledge. “And his wife,” Zeke continued, “might be a little thick, but homegirl—or should I say it the way she insists on everybody saying it?—‘First Lady’ doesn’t let that stop her from getting around, if you know what I mean. So I’m sure you can’t mean married like them. Let’s see now: there’s your friend Kelly and her husband—major cracks in their marriage. I’m talking major, major cracks.”

  I didn’t need him telling me anything about Kelly. I knew what kind of a marriage she was in. As I’ve often said: as bad as Zeke was, he was nothing compared to Kelly’s husband.

  Zeke tried to sneak a glance at his watch without me seeing him. “So why do you keep looking at your watch?” I asked. “Am I keeping you from somewhere? Am I making you late? Do you need to call her and explain that you’re dealing with something important tonight with your wife? Maybe you should call whomever and let them know you’re not going to make it tonight.”

  “You know what? I’m not going to stand here for this. You said you wanted to talk, I was here. But all you want to do is belittle me and talk about what I do wrong. Well, what about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “You think living with you is a piece of cake?” He chuckled, I’m sure for effect. “Do you think being married to you is a walk in the park?”

  “Zeke, I know I have my flaws. I never said I was perfect. And I’m not asking you to be perfect. I’m just asking you to meet me halfway. That’s all. If there’s something that I do that you want to talk about, then let’s talk about it. Now is as good a time as any to put everything on the table. Either you want me and you want our marriage to work or you don’t. I’m trying to do all I know how. But this can’t be one-sided. It’s not fair when it is.”

  “Look.” He held up both hands. “You’re right. You are so right. I’m confessing right here, right now. I’ve not been the best father. Yes, I should have been home a little more. I’ve not been the best husband although I really am better than 90 percent of husbands out there. No matter where I might go, at least I come home to you. And I didn’t leave you with three children to have to raise all alone.”