by Carl Weber
I pulled into her driveway, then took the longest walk of my life to her front door. I rang the bell, and before I even had my hand away from the buzzer, she snatched the door open, stepped outside, and slapped me so hard I stumbled backward.
“What was that all about?” I held my stinging cheek. Goddamn could she hit hard. Now I knew why Leon hit her ass back. She was throwing blows like a man.
“You son of a bitch! I hate you. I hate your fucking ass.”
“What are you talking about, Loraine? What did I do?” I hoped it wasn’t what I thought it was.
“You know what I’m talking about.”
She threw some pictures in my face, and they fluttered to the ground. It was déjà vu. Just like that night with Ron, I was getting my ass beat over some pictures Peter took.
I bent down to pick up the photos to see what she was yelling about, but there was no need, as Loraine blurted out, “I talked to Tina and she told me everything.”
“Shhhh-it.” I didn’t know what else to say. What could I say, with a picture of me handing Tina money staring me in the face? That son of a bitch Peter had done it again.
“I thought you were my friend. How could you do this, Jerome?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry! Is that all you can say? Aren’t you going to deny it? Tell me it’s not true. Beg me to call this woman up so you can confront her and prove your innocence? Why don’t you just fucking lie?” Loraine had tears in her eyes—first time I’d ever seen her cry—but the sadness in her eyes did not belie her anger.
“Loraine—” Before I could say another word, she was screaming again.
“You fucking asshole! It was all you, wasn’t it? The panties, the thong, that woman coming to my door—it was all you trying to ruin my marriage.” Her eyes flashed with an icy fire through her tears.
“I wasn’t trying to ruin your marriage, Loraine. I was trying to save you.”
She was silent for a long while, with her arms crossed over her chest, giving me the coldest glare. I stood waiting for her to talk, praying she would understand that I had her best interests at heart when I did those things. I didn’t want to lose my best friend.
Finally, she spoke up. “I don’t know if Leon will ever forgive me—all because of your lies. I had the nerve to be confiding in you. Gay man, straight man, it doesn’t matter. As long as you have a dick, you’re all conniving liars.”
“But, Loraine—”
She interrupted me. “Just tell me why. Why did you do this to me, and you’re supposed to be my best friend in the world? Why would you do that?”
“I did it because I love you, girl. You know I’d never do anything to hurt you. “
“Well, you did hurt me. In fact, you broke my heart. What kind of monster are you?”
“Look, I did it to help you. He’s not good for you.”
“Who the fuck are you to say my husband is not good for me? Have I ever tried to tell you how to conduct your life with all your tawdry affairs?”
“No, but—”
“I could be sitting in jail right now behind what you did. I almost shot Leon, and I damn near scalded him to death. And now I’ve filed for divorce from a man who didn’t even do the shit I accused him of.” She shook her head and gave me a disgusted look. “You really set me up good.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cause trouble.”
“Trouble. Hah! This ain’t trouble. This is goddamn hell you caused in here now. I dropped out of my sorority race because of this crap. And what about Michael? What am I supposed to tell Michael?”
“Don’t worry about Michael. I’ll talk to him. I’ll explain everything. He’s a good guy. He’ll understand.”
“He’ll understand!” she repeated. “I don’t want him to understand. I want him to be able to be with me. Goddammit, Jerome, I’m in love with Micheal!”
“Loraine, I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, and I’ll do whatever it takes to make things between us better,” I pleaded. “Just understand, I had your best interests at heart.” I tried to take Loraine’s hands into my own, but she knocked my hands away.
“You know what, Jerome? I’m done! You haven’t just ruined my life or even Leon’s—you’ve ruined Michael’s too. I don’t know what you were thinking, but I’m done!”
I didn’t like the way that sounded. Nobody other than Leon had ever survived Loraine’s “I’m done,” and even he had been kicked out eventually. I felt like a criminal awaiting his sentence from the jury. “So, where do we go from here?”
She went into her pocket and pulled out a check. “Severance, one year’s salary. I don’t want you back in my office. I’ll have Hannah send over your personal belongings.”
“Raine, no, please. We don’t have to do this. I can fix this. Just give me a chance.” I gave her an imploring gaze, but this new Loraine was not my friend. She had already cut me off in her mind, and now she was doing it physically.
“Are you kidding? I can’t stand the sight of you right now.”
“But I love you.”
“You know Leon meant the world to me. If you really loved me and cared about my best interests, you would have never done something this low-down and underhanded. I thought I knew you, but now I don’t think I ever really did. I knew you would stab your own grandmother to get somebody’s husband, but to try to break up your best friend’s marriage?” Loraine heaved a deep sigh. “Well, it is just too incomprehensible. As long as I live, I’ll never understand it. Now get the hell out of my house!”
Egypt
50
I walked out of the shower to find Rashad fully dressed, gazing out the bedroom window that overlooked the backyard. I’m sure he was trying to remain patient, but the baby’s car seat on the floor next to him gave away his eagerness to get down to the hospital and retrieve our son. Rashad had been a ball of nervous energy ever since we’d come home from the hospital last night. He was so wound up he’d barely slept most of the night. I know this because he’d woken me up three times to have sex. I obliged the first two times, hoping it would help him to sleep, but I had to draw the line the third time, because I was just too beat from my own lack of sleep. I’d slept only two hours the night Isis went into labor, and after Little Rashad was born, we were at the hospital almost eighteen hours.
“Good morning, handsome,” I said.
“Morning, baby,” he replied, but he never turned from the window.
“How long you been up?”
“I don’t know. A couple hours. I was out back, mapping out the playground I’m gonna have built for the baby.”
I walked up behind him and wrapped my arms around his waist, pressing my naked flesh against him. “I’m gonna put a swing set right over there, a sandbox there, and build him a clubhouse over there.” He pointed out each of the spots, making me smile.
“Why don’t you make me some coffee while I get dressed, so we can bring him home before we do all that? What do you think?”
“Sounds like a plan.” He turned toward me and we kissed. Life was as perfect as it could be, just knowing I had this great man who loved me, and we had this sweet little boy sitting at the hospital waiting for us.
“I’ll meet you downstairs, Mom.”
“Okay, Dad.”
Rashad walked out of the room, and I hurried to get dressed. Before I went downstairs, I went to the nursery and checked it one more time. Everything was in place. I had Little Rashad’s diaper bag all packed, and I’d picked out a blue knit outfit for him to come home in. I had two receiving blankets and a fluffy soft yellow bunting blanket.
My parents and Rashad were waiting for me in the foyer. Rashad was holding my favorite travel mug in one hand and the car seat in the other.
“Guess everyone is ready to go, huh?”
“Early bird gets the worm,” my father said.
“I don’t know how early we’re going to be. It’s already eight-thirty,” Rashad said.
“I’m sorry,” I said s
arcastically. “I wanted to get up earlier, but I didn’t get much sleep. Someone kept waking me up in the middle of the night.” I took my coffee from Rashad.
“I think I had that same problem,” my mother said, rolling her eyes at my father as we headed toward the door. “Besides, we’re still on schedule. You said you wanted to have the baby home by eleven. We’ve got plenty of time.”
The plan was to take two cars. We were doing this because not only did we have to pick up the baby, but Isis was being discharged as well. So, while Rashad and I retrieved the baby, my mother and father were going to get Isis and check into a hotel for two days. If it were up to me, I’d have her behind on a plane to L.A. tonight, but they wanted to give her a few days to rest after the delivery. Just to make sure she had no excuses to come back to my house, I’d already packed all her stuff, and UPS was coming to pick up the boxes tomorrow.
When we arrived at the hospital, Rashad and I went straight to the nurses’ station on the nursery floor.
“Good morning. My name is Egypt Robinson, and this is my husband, Rashad. We’re here to pick up our baby.” I smiled and lifted the car seat to show her.
“Well, congratulations. I can check that car seat off my list.” She looked down at her computer screen. “Baby’s name?”
“Rashad Robinson Junior.”
She typed the name into the computer and clicked her mouse a few times. “Has Daddy signed the birth certificate?”
“No, not yet,” Rashad replied.
“Okay, maybe that’s why I don’t see anything under Robinson. What’s the mother’s last name?”
“Connors. The birth mother’s name is Isis Connors.” Rashad handed me the folder with all of our paperwork, which I passed to the nurse. “Here’s the consent form relinquishing the mother’s rights to the child and our custody agreement.”
The nurse took the paperwork without even looking up from her computer screen. “Isis Connors. Here she is.” I watched her expression change as she read something on the screen. “Can you wait here a minute? I’ll be right with you.”
She got up, looking alarmed, and rushed through the door behind her, returning shortly with two nurses and a woman in a lab coat who was probably a doctor. None of them said a word, but they all huddled around the computer screen while the doctor looked over the file.
Finally, the nurse who we originally spoke to pointed at the screen and said, “Look. It’s right here.” The doctor looked at the screen, then grimaced like she suddenly had a very bad headache.
I said in a panic, “What’s the matter? Is our baby all right? Why didn’t someone call us if something’s wrong with him?”
“Mrs. Robinson, the baby is fine.” The doctor paused. She looked very uncomfortable, like she wished she didn’t have to deliver the news. “He’s just not here.”
“Excuse me?”
“He’s not here.”
“We heard what the fuck you said!” Rashad shouted. “What I wanna know is where the fuck is my son?”
“Sir, there is no need to use that kind of language.”
“Rashad, calm down for a second, honey. He’s probably on another floor or in a different part of the hospital.” Even as I said the words, I felt myself trembling because deep down, I knew it could be true that he was gone.
“No, he was discharged to his mother and father about an hour ago.”
“What the fuck you mean, he was discharged to his father? I’m his goddamn father! And this is his mother! Look at the damn paperwork.”
“I’m sorry, but none of this paperwork was attached to his chart.”
Rashad turned to look at me, and I could see it on his face. If the baby was gone, he was going to blame it all on me. And I have to admit I did feel guilty. I can’t believe that after controlling everything so carefully for nine months, I’d let my guard down. I was so ecstatic about spending time in the nursery with the baby that I practically forgot about my sister. Plus, she’d been fairly quiet; no complaints or anything after my mother gave her the check for the final installment of her thirty grand. For some reason, I’d let myself believe that now that she had delivered the baby and he was in my arms, we were home free.
The doctor continued covering her ass. “And even if it was in the chart, these papers were only rescinding the mother’s parental rights. The biological father still had the right to take his child.”
“I’m the damn biological father!”
“Not according to the mother.”
“What?” That’s when Rashad went totally off on the doctor and the hospital staff. He was cursing and screaming so loud that patients and their families were coming out of their rooms to see what all the commotion was about.
“Sir, if you don’t calm down, I’m going to have to call security,” the doctor said.
“I don’t give a shit if you call President Obama! I’m gonna sue every one of your incompetent asses if you don’t find my son.”
I couldn’t take it anymore. I broke down crying. Rashad put his arms around me, but I was inconsolable.
My mother and father came rushing toward us.
“Isis is gone,” my mother yelled.
“So is Little Rashad.” I could barely get the words out of my mouth.
My mother closed her eyes and shook her head. “I should have known something was wrong with her when she called me a bitch.”
“She called you a bitch?” My mother was no joke. She was bigger than both Isis and me, and didn’t put up with anyone being disrespectful. Even Isis’s rude ass knew better than to call her anything but Momma.
“She sure did, and I slapped the taste outta her mouth. She’s probably got postpartum depression.”
My father cut his eyes at my mother. They were definitely going to have words later about her slapping Isis. They had a very weird bond, those two.
“So what exactly happened? Did she just walk on outta here with the baby?” my father asked.
“No, they discharged her, along with my son!” Rashad shouted.
“This is crazy,” my mother muttered, turning to the nurses and doctor. “Which one of you brain scientists discharged my daughter?”
It took a few seconds, but one of the nurses finally raised her hand. “I did, but I didn’t do anything wrong. All her paperwork was in order. So was the man’s who signed the birth certificate. It was her baby, and like the doctor said, there wasn’t anything in her charts that said she wasn’t to leave with the baby.” The nurse sounded scared.
“I think she’s with Tony,” I told my mother.
“It figures. Whenever she gets herself into any kind of trouble, he’s usually lurking in the shadows somewhere. I just don’t understand what she sees in him.”
“Yes, Anthony Owen is down here as the father,” one of the nurses added.
“I hate that son of a bitch,” Rashad snapped.
“Get in line,” my mother added.
When I regained my composure, I said, “What are we waiting for? Let’s call the police. Maybe they can put out an Amber alert or something.”
“No police!” My father’s deep voice echoed down the hall. “We’re going to handle this as a family. The nurse by her room said she’d only been gone about an hour. Has anyone tried to call her cell phone?”
Rashad and I both said no in unison.
“Well, let’s see if she picks up.” My father pulled out his cell phone and walked about ten feet from us. All I heard him say was, “Princess, where are you?” Then he walked farther down the corridor so I couldn’t hear him.
The doctor asked us to move away from the nurses’ station, so my mother and I sat in the waiting room while Daddy spoke to Isis. Rashad stood in the doorway the whole time, watching my father as he paced back and forth on the phone.
Twenty minutes later, my father walked past Rashad, who was on his phone talking to our lawyer. Daddy sat down in the waiting room. Momma and I were sitting on the edges of our seats, waiting for him to speak. Rashad was listen
ing but was still on the phone.
“Okay.” He sighed. “Well, she and the baby are safe, and they are definitely with Tony.”
“Did she tell you where they are?” I asked.
“No, but she mentioned going to Vegas to get married.”
“Oh, Jesus.” My mother threw her hands in the air, then sat back in her chair with a disgusted look on her face. “Isn’t he already married? Why do I feel like we’ve been down this road?”
“Momma, please.” I put my hand up for her to calm down so I could listen to my father. “What about my son? Are they going to bring Little Rashad back, Daddy?”
My father turned to me and shook his head. “No, sweetie. They don’t have any plans on doing that until after they’re legally married and have seen a lawyer.”
I started to cry again. “Then I’m calling the police.”
“That’s your prerogative, sweetie, but I wish you wouldn’t do that.”
I stared at my father like he was on drugs. What had gotten into him? “Daddy, that’s our child she’s got running around who knows where. He needs to be with his parents.”
“Your sister seems to think the baby’s not Rashad’s, which would technically make them the parents.”
“Not possible, Daddy! I was on her like white on rice during the entire month she got pregnant. She couldn’t pee without me knowing what shade of yellow it was.”
“That’s what she said, but she also wanted me to remind you of a certain girls’ night out around that time. Something about you asking her to do you a favor and babysit your friend Hannah’s baby because her sitter had the flu.”
I remembered that night. Isis was at Hannah’s house the whole time, watching her kid. It wasn’t like she had time to sneak off with Tony. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“To make a long story short, it seems Tony came over for a visit. Isis says there was a very good possibility Little Rashad was conceived that night.”
