“Why do you let him treat you that way?” Keith asked as I sat across the table from him, sipping my coffee and nibbling on a prepackaged cheese Danish.
“What do you mean, let him? I can’t control other people’s behaviors,” I said, unable to make my eyes meet his. I pretended to be distracted by a magazine, but I could feel his stare beating down on me.
“That’s true. You can’t control his behavior, but you can stop accepting it.”
I was silent for a minute, thinking about his words, and realized I didn’t know how to stop. “And how do you propose I do that?” I asked semi-sarcastically, because I didn’t want to be transparent. It was easier to make him think my question was rhetorical. “What am I supposed to do? Just uproot my kids and leave, right?”
“I wouldn’t say it quite like that. . . .”
“Then how would you say it, since you know what to do?” Out of nowhere, I started getting defensive and angry. I was tired of people having so many answers and ideas about what I should be doing, but when it was time to feed and take care of my boys, nobody could be found. Nobody had a damn thing to say. Nobody had an extra bed for us to sleep in, extra money in their checking accounts, or extra time to babysit. All anyone ever had any extra of was unsolicited advice. Keith probably meant well, but meaning well and providing help were two vastly different things.
Keith looked at me for about ten seconds, then stood and walked out without saying another word. I wanted to call him back and apologize, but I wasn’t about to chase this man down. For what? He wasn’t my man, he didn’t know what he was talking about, and he couldn’t tell me how to run or fix my life. I finished my coffee alone that morning, wanting not to care about what just happened. At the same time, though, his walking out hurt my feelings. We didn’t talk for about two weeks after that, because I made sure not to go into the break room until it was about two minutes before I needed to be at my register. That way, I didn’t have time to talk or get advice that I didn’t want or need . . . or better said, that I just wasn’t ready to hear, because the truth hurt.
It was because of an employee appreciation day, when the store brought in breakfast for the morning shift crew, that we awkwardly started up some dialogue. Chatting with him made me realize how much I’d missed him in that two-week time period, and I almost melted when he said to me, “Hey, you! I miss our little morning chats. You act like you don’t have time for a brother anymore.”
“I just had to make some changes to my morning routine, and they make me get here a little bit later than before.”
“Yeah, I notice you rushing in at the last minute and getting right to work.”
I nodded.
“Well, you know where I am every morning if you ever go back to your old schedule.”
That very next day I was in the break room thirty minutes before my shift start time, just to be able to converse with my friend again. And in thinking about it, I wouldn’t want to ruin it with a relationship. I’d just keep him as my fantasy boyfriend.
With a huge sigh I opened the car door and stepped out onto the pavement, forcing myself to go inside.
“’Bout time you got back. You know I gotta go to work,” Equanto said, not looking up from the video game he was playing. The boys were in the room, playing, but came running out to greet me when they heard me come in.
“Hi, Mommy,” they said in triplicate, gave me a hug, then went back to whatever they’d been doing.
“Okay, I’ll take you.” Most times he would easily agree to me taking him and picking him up. It was only when he was up to no good that he’d fight me over the keys.
“Naw, just give me the keys. I’ll drive myself ’cause I’ma be gettin’ off real late.”
“E, don’t start this up today.”
“I’m taking the car,” he said more adamantly, as if it would change my mind.
“You can drive the car, but you’re taking me with you. Kids, come on. We’re about to go somewhere,” I called out to the boys.
“Stay your ass here, Celeste!” he growled, tossing the game controller to the side, leaping to his feet, and grabbing for my purse to get my keys.
“Y’all go get in the car,” I instructed my sons.
“Why you always gotta be so damn contrary!” E said, still trying to get my purse from my arm. He was pulling and jerking me around the room, but I held on with all the strength that I had. The boys were moving too slowly, so I yelled at them to hurry up just as my purse strap broke.
“You ain’t taking that car, Equanto!” I yelled, scrambling to get my purse back, but in an instant Equanto had dumped everything out of it and onto the floor. He grabbed the keys and pushed me aside, causing me to tumble over the arm of the couch, and headed out the door.
“Y’all gone back in the house,” I heard him say to the kids.
“Get in the car, y’all,” I screamed, rushing to regain my balance and get back on my feet.
By the time I got outside, the boys were climbing into the backseat and Equanto was plopping into the driver’s seat. This was one of the times when weighing a hundred pounds less would have really come in handy. I could have actually run to the car, instead of doing the slow Fat Albert trot I was forced to do. And even that had me seriously out of breath by the time I made it to the passenger’s side of the car and yanked the door open.
Even though my hand was on the car door handle and I was huffing and puffing for my life, standing between the open car door and the frame, Equanto shifted the car into gear and started backing up. Thank God he didn’t put his foot on the gas. Just him putting the car in gear and taking his foot off the brake was enough to make me lose my footing and topple over. I was trying to hold on for dear life, one hand clutching the door and the other grasping for whatever I could get it on. Both my knees hit the asphalt, and holes were scraped in my pants.
“You ran over Mommy!” Quincy screamed. “Daddy, stop it! You ran over Mommy.”
Equanto jammed his foot on the brakes, although the car hadn’t moved very much at all, but the sudden stop jerked me forward and my head slammed against the bottom of the car’s frame, and in an instant my head was pounding. Once the car was no longer in motion, Linwood jumped out and rushed to my side, trying to help me stand up, but his small frame could in no way offer me any help.
“You ain’t . . . takin’ . . . this damn car . . . Equanto,” I panted, still on my knees and trying to pull myself into the car at the same time.
“Look how stupid you actin’,” my husband yelled.
“Move back, Linwood,” I huffed. I settled one foot solidly on the ground, and just as I started to push up, something in my chest felt like it exploded and forced me backward. I started gasping desperately for air, but I couldn’t seem to get enough as an excruciating pain took over. I could hear my kids crying and screaming, and I saw Equanto’s angry scowl looking down at me, but with every passing second they seemed to get more distant and fuzzier, until they faded into black silence, and I couldn’t see or hear anything.
Chapter 30
Candis
I’d heard that there was always one girl in the bridal party that would show her behind, but I never thought it would be Celeste. I expected it to be one of my rowdy cousins, but not my girl Celeste. I had to run in the dressing room and cry for a few minutes to get myself together after what just happened. I knew that me marrying SeanMichael was unorthodox, to say the least, but I really thought my friends were supporting me.
Celeste didn’t know SeanMichael like I did. I talked to him every day. I heard the sincerity in his voice. I snooped around on his page and did my own level of investigation. And there were some things that I found out that I didn’t particularly like, but I thought they were tolerable and together we could have a happy life with each other.
SeanMichael was the nicest man I’d ever met. Well, not literally met, but the nicest man I’d ever come across. And forget whoever had whatever to say about it—I was going to marry him.
“You okay?” Dina asked, tapping on the door.
“I’m fine,” I answered weakly. “I’ll be out in a minute.”
“Open the door, Candis,” she ordered.
“No, that’s all right. I’m coming.”
“You don’t need to be by yourself. Open this door,” she said a bit more adamantly.
This time I did, although I didn’t have the strength to look up at her. She came in the large stall and pushed the sliding lock to secure it behind her, then wrapped her arms around me.
I cried silently in her arms, overcome with an unfamiliar wave of emotion, then pushed back a little, looking directly at her.
“Are you laughing and talking about me behind my back, Dina?”
“Girl, no! I’ve already told you, if this is what you feel like you want to do, then I have to trust and believe that you are being smart and mature enough to make a decision that will work out in your favor. Even if it doesn’t, you can always recover from it,” she said, looking into my eyes.
“I don’t want anybody in my wedding who is really not for me. I know that it sounds crazy, but I know that I’m doing the right thing. I prayed about it, I feel like God gave me an answer, and I have peace with it.”
“I know you do, honey, and I am here to help you with whatever you need. I only have one life to live, and that’s mine. I can’t live your life and my life too. Judging from my own mistakes, I haven’t figured out how to get things right yet, anyway, so how am I going to tell you what to do with yours?”
That was why I loved Dina. She knew how to stay in her lane. I did love Celeste. I just couldn’t believe her today.
“Now, you know Celeste will eventually come around,” she added.
“Don’t mention her name to me.” I jerked away from Dina and grabbed my purse off the bench. “Let’s go.”
“I’m just telling you because you need to be prepared to handle her when she comes to herself.”
“I don’t care when that is. If I see her again, it will be too soon.”
“You know she only said what she said because she cares about you.”
“So that means it’s okay for her to have smiled in my face all this time and then showed out like she did today.”
“If you think about it, Candis, Celeste didn’t say anything different today than she did on the day you first told us. You know she’s always felt apprehensive about SeanMichael, and honestly, we’d all be lying if we told you we didn’t think it strange and unusual. You know that. You knew that when you told us.”
Dina had a point. I did already know what people were thinking. That I was a fool. I guess I thought they’d had ample opportunity to voice their opinions and concerns and at this point they’d embraced the idea with me. Silly me. But at least now I knew what and who was dealing with.
“Let’s go get something to eat,” Dina suggested.
“No, let’s go get a drink,” I countered.
There was an Applebee’s right up the street, so we stopped there and slid into a booth. After a few sips of a margarita, I did begin to feel a little better, although inside I was still angry. If I kicked Candis out of the wedding, it would upset my bridal party numbers, but I’d rather make that adjustment than have her pretending to be with me and calling me a fool behind my back. Or in my face.
As soon as I got home and out of Dina’s presence, I called SeanMichael and told him what had happened. The more I talked, the louder and more animated I became, but SeanMichael didn’t interrupt me a single time.
When I finally finished by telling him, “So she’s out of the wedding,” he said, “Don’t worry about it, baby. If she is a true friend, she will come around, and if not, it’s better that you know where she’s coming from now rather than later. Just take a breath and release it. I don’t want anyone upsetting my baby. We both know practically the whole world is against us, but I love God and I love you, and with that combination, ain’t nothing gonna go wrong.”
A smile crept across my face, like it usually did when I talked to SeanMichael. He always knew the words to say to make things right in my world. Now, instead of being angry with Celeste, I felt more disappointed that she wouldn’t be included in the joy of my day. Celeste and I had been a part of each other’s lives for so long, it would just seem weird that she wouldn’t be around to help me celebrate the biggest day of my life. Oh well. Life goes on.
SeanMichael and I talked for another three hours, working through some wedding ideas and details. Since he was going to be flying out to Arizona, his selection of groomsmen was none, and I’d single-handedly picked out who would stand with him when he took me to be his lawfully wedded wife.
Chapter 31
Celeste
Feeling pain surge through my body, I tried to peel my eyes open, but they seemed to be held down with weights. So did the rest of my body. I could hear only a faint beeping noise, and then I felt someone rubbing on my right arm, which forced me to try a little harder to get my eyelids to part.
“Hey, sweetie,” a familiar voice cooed.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, focusing my vision on my mom.
“Cain’t no devil in hell keep me away from my baby when she needs me.”
“Where am I at, Ma?” I said with slurred speech.
“In the hospital, baby.” She ran her hand across my face. “You had a heart attack.”
I eased my eyes back closed and let her words register. I was only thirty-one, and that was way too young for a heart attack. “Where’s the boys, Ma?”
“Spending some time with Pop-Pop,” she answered, referencing my dad.
Thank God for my parents. They lived in San Diego, which was pretty much a straight shot down I-8, but about six hours away by car.
“When did you and Dad get here?”
“You mean, when did you get here to San Diego?”
“I’m in California?”
“Me and your dad had you transferred here. You don’t need to be out there with that monster you married.”
I didn’t comment, because my mom was right, and I was tired of defending Equanto, trying to find something good to say about him, when there wasn’t anything good to say.
“Linwood told me what happened, and you know I had to talk your daddy out of killing that man. You do know that, right?”
I answered with a slight nod.
“I’ma go find a doctor or somebody to come in here and see how you’re doing,” she said, kissing my forehead, then leaving the room.
A heart attack? I couldn’t believe it. All over trying to stop Equanto from what he probably ended up doing, anyway. What exactly it was, I’d probably never know. I had a lot to think about. I couldn’t live like this. It was time to stop living for the hope that one day E would love me like I wanted to be loved. He’d never loved me. Never. And I’d been too unwilling to admit it to myself. I knew it, but I didn’t want to accept it. I wanted to think that he found me to be enough. Good enough, pretty enough, intelligent enough . . . enough for him to love me. It just wasn’t there and wasn’t going to materialize out of thin air.
As I lay there, unable to even lift my head off the pillow, hot tears began to stream down the sides of my head and into my ears. How the hell did I get here? I questioned myself. Allowing my husband to steal from me, be an awful example in front of my three boys, destroy my self-esteem, and now put my life at risk. Granted, I was sure some of my having a heart attack was attributed to my weight, but me being constantly stressed out had to have something to do with it too.
“Thank you, Lord,” I whispered, grateful that my life had been spared and I wasn’t worse off than I was. I could barely move as it was, but at least I did wake up. That got me thinking how long I had been here. My mom said I was in San Diego, and since I didn’t have any recollection of how I got there, I had no idea what day it was.
“The nurse’ll be in here in a few minutes,” my mom shared, easing back into the room.
“What
day is it, Ma?”
“Sunday.”
Sunday? The last time I remembered being conscious, it was Friday! I’d been knocked out for almost three days?
“Have the boys been up here?”
“Not yet.”
I had mixed feelings about that. I didn’t know how bad I might have looked, at the same time, suppose I had died and my boys hadn’t seen me? Well, it didn’t matter now. I wasn’t dead, and I wanted to see my children.
“Can you ask Daddy to bring them up here?”
“Once the doctor clears you a little bit more, of course, baby.”
I wondered if Candis and Dina knew where I was. Then I remembered Candis and I had had a bit of a falling-out when I last saw her. “And where’s my cell phone?”
My mom rose from her seat and brought me my purse, then dug through it in front of me until she found my phone.
“Who are you trying to call?” she asked, checking. “It better not be Equanto Davis. I know that’s your husband and all that, but I forbid you to call that man.”
“Ma, please. Let me fight my own battles and have my own testimonies,” I begged in a whisper. I knew my parents wanted only the best for me and had been devastated when I told them I’d jumped up and gotten married. And with them knowing some of our marriage issues, it didn’t help in forming a positive impression of the man I’d married. “I just want to check my messages.”
My mom dialed into my voice mail, then pressed the phone to my face. Of course, Candis and Dina had both called, sounding panicked and concerned. My job had called, wondering why I’d not reported to work. I smiled when I heard Keith’s voice come through the receiver.
“Hey there. Are you all right? Haven’t seen you in a coupla days.”
Right after that I heard Equanto’s voice start. I turned my head away, signaling my mom to take the phone and end the call. I didn’t want to hear a single word Equanto had to say.
I was released from the hospital six days after I opened my eyes and realized where I was. I was still moving a little slow and decided to stay at my parents’ house for a while, until I fully recuperated and got myself together. My mom and dad were glad to have me, and I’d never seen my boys look so happy and free. The sudden move impacted their school year, but kids moved all the time, and it probably wasn’t that big of a deal, just a little bit of a hassle.
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