It took months for me to get over that and push it out of my mind, and I’d done so in such an effective manner that I hadn’t even told the man I loved, the man whose ring I was wearing, that I could never give him children.
“…what do you think, baby?”
I had no idea what he was talking about, so with tears crowding my eyes, I said the only thing I could think to say. “Zo, I can’t have children. I’m-I’m unable to have children.”
The smile he was wearing before I spoke slowly faded. “Doc, what—”
“I have a hormonal imbalance. I was a late bloomer, so to speak. Didn’t start my period until I was fifteen. They’re regular, but shorter than they should be. I’m-I’m sorry, Zo. I try so hard not to think about it because it’s painful for me, that I never mentioned it to you, but you deserve to know, so I’m telling you now. If you want your ring back, I’ll understand. I-I’m so sorry.”
“Doc, it’s okay,” he said softly, but when I looked up at him, there was clear disappointment on his face.
I shook my head and let my tears fall. “No, it’s not okay. I should’ve told you long before now. You’re disappointed. I can see it on your face.” I slid the ring off my finger and laid it on the table. “Here.”
I kept my eyes lowered as I wiped the tears from my face, but heard him scoot his chair back and walk around the table. Kneeling beside me, he rested a hand on my thigh. “Doc, look at me.”
I shook my head.
“Baby, look at me. Please.”
I looked at him through watery eyes.
“Put the ring back on.”
I shook my head again.
“Doc, I love you. I’ma always love you. What you just told me didn’t change that. Nothing can change the way I feel about you. I’m glad you told me, but it doesn’t matter. Put the ring back on.”
“Are you sure it doesn’t matter?”
“I’m positive, baby.”
I picked up the ring and slipped it back on my finger. “Good, because I think I love this ring more than I love you.”
“Give me that damn ring back,” he said, with a huge grin on his face.
I rested my hand on his cheek. “Never.”
32
I woke up with a slight headache the next morning, something that happened from time to time if I cried hard or was tired. Well, I had cried hard the night before and Lorenzo didn’t let me get much sleep that night, not that I was complaining. But as I stepped out of the shower, I thought to myself that I really hoped it wasn’t my blood pressure again since my doctor had taken me off my medicine.
Thankfully, by the time I made it downstairs to have breakfast with Lorenzo, the headache had dissipated.
“Good morning,” I greeted Lorenzo, who sat at the table with his eyes glued to his laptop. “Working at breakfast? That’s new.”
He looked up at me and smiled, then stood and pulled a chair out. “Hey, baby. Come sit next to me. I wanna show you something.”
“All right,” I said, as I sat down and tilted my head so he could kiss my cheek.
After he’d set a plate of food before me, he angled his computer so that I could see the screen. There was a Facebook page pulled up. “Who’s that?” I asked, taking a bite of turkey bacon.
“My son.”
I stopped chewing. “Your what?”
“My son. My oldest. Darwin.”
I shifted my eyes from the smiling face on the profile picture to Lorenzo. There was definitely a resemblance… “You have a son, Zo?”
He nodded. “I actually have three sons…and a daughter.”
My stomach started to feel sour, and that headache suddenly reappeared. “What? Zo, you have four kids?”
He nodded again. He had this hopeful look on his face as if somehow this news was supposed to please me. “Yeah,” he said. “So you see, it doesn’t matter that you can’t have children, baby. I really don’t want you to worry about it.”
I frowned. “Zo, you have four children that you never told me about?”
“I—”
I stood from my chair. “I have known you for ten months, been your woman for eight months, and it never once crossed your mind to tell me you have four whole kids?!”
He stood, too, his eyes wide with surprise. “Look, it’s not what you think. Darwin is twenty-three—”
“What the hell difference does it make how old he is?! What are you? Some kind of deadbeat? You have never mentioned these kids. You have no pictures of them anywhere. I would give anything to have a child and you act like yours don’t even exist!”
“No—”
“Oh, my God! What kind of fool am I to fall for a man like you?!”
“Wait a minute, now. You need to calm down, Renee. It’s not like you didn’t keep anything from me! Did it slip your mind all these months that your ass couldn’t even have kids?!”
I opened my mouth to reply, but couldn’t. I just stood there and stared at him, because he’d just hit way below the belt.
“Shit,” he mumbled. “Baby, I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry. Look, will you just calm down and let me explain?”
My head throbbed as tears began to fall. “No, Zo. I don’t wanna hear a damn thing you have to say. Screw you. Screw your weak-ass apology. You can kiss my ass and go to hell.”
I snatched my purse from the table and dug my keys out.
“Where are you going? You need to hear me out on this. Please.”
“To work.”
“Wait,” he said softly. “Let me call Rell.”
“I’m driving myself.”
As I headed for the front door, I heard him say, “Can we please talk about this later? I can explain if you’ll let me.”
I didn’t answer him, just left, slamming the front door behind me.
*****
Work was hectic, which made it easy not to think about Zo’s revelation and to ignore his calls and texts and voicemails. The one text I did accidentally read consisted of him telling me he loved me and that he really could explain. Explain what? Explain how? Sure, I should’ve told him about my infertility sooner, but he managed to let four entire kids slip his mind, and that was just something he could never adequately explain.
After work, I stayed in my office, afraid if I went outside he would be out on the parking lot waiting for me. I sat at my desk until pretty late into the night before finally leaving and making my way to my mother’s house, because there was no way I was sleeping under the same roof as Lorenzo.
I parked in the driveway and stared at the house, my heart aching and breaking at the same time. I loved Lorenzo Higgs with everything in me, and a voice in the back of my head kept whispering that maybe I’d overreacted. I’d actually sat my ass up in my own home and babysat for Robert’s side chick. I’d eventually left, but I’d given him more respect and more grace over the decade of our hellish marriage than I did Lorenzo, who’d been so much better to me. I needed to go home to him, but I also needed time. A couple of days to sort through what he’d told me and separate my own feelings of inadequacy from my feelings of shock and well, anger at the fact that he’d kept this from me at all. I loved this man, gave him my heart at a time when I should’ve been keeping it under lock and key. I trusted him, and he kept this from me.
So you didn’t keep anything from him?
Shit, I was being a hypocrite, a huge hypocrite. I would go back and hear him out after work tomorrow. I really did owe him that much courtesy.
I slid out of my car, and a minute or so later, was padding up the stairs with no thought of even attempting to eat dinner. My life and my job had both exhausted me. I closed my eyes as I approached the door to my bedroom, my head so jumbled with thoughts that I actually passed the open door and found myself down the hall at my mother’s door. Shaking my head, I turned around, and once in my doorway, saw a sight that made me shriek and run all the way from the second floor out to my car, leaving the front door wide open.
33
&
nbsp; I knew they were home, but they were probably either having sex or filming a video or both, and I was interrupting them by beating on their door. But I didn’t care. After what I’d just seen, all I cared about was getting inside their place and burying my head in their toilet.
“Damn…who is it?! Shit!” Ryan yelled through the door.
“Renee!”
The door swung open almost instantly to reveal my sister’s husband in basketball shorts and no shirt. “My bad. You were beating on the door like a grown man. Come in. Let me get Angie.”
As I followed him inside, he yelled, “Hey, baby! It’s your sister!”
“Nicky?!” Angie shouted in response.
“No! Renee!” Ryan answered her.
“Okay! Be right out!”
Ryan lowered his voice, turning to me. “Hey, let me go put on a shirt real quick. Have a seat. Want something to drink?”
I shook my head as I clutched my stomach. “No…can I use the bathroom?”
He nodded. “Yeah. You know where it is.”
I followed him down the hall, dashing into the bathroom and falling to the floor in front of the toilet. A few seconds later, Angie had rushed through the door I’d left open and was by my side.
“Renee, are you okay?!”
I shook my head as I gripped the toilet bowl and heaved so hard my head began to pound.
“What is it?! Why’re you sick?!”
“Mama…” I managed to say, as I coughed into the toilet.
“Mama? What’s wrong with Mama?! Ryan! Something’s wrong with my mother!”
Now Ryan was in the bathroom. “What’s wrong with your mother, baby? We need to go over there?!”
“I don’t know!” Angie wailed.
Positive that my stomach was empty, I collapsed onto my butt on the floor and shook my head. “No…she’s-there’s nothing wrong with her. Can I get a wet towel?”
Angie nodded. “Yeah. Baby, can you get her some water? Renee, can you stand? Let’s go in the living room.”
My hand trembled as I attempted to take a sip of the water. Angie was sitting next to me as Ryan sat across from us in an accent chair. They wore twin worried expressions as they waited for me to speak.
I glanced up at Ryan, and said, “Uh…I know this is your house, too, Ryan…but can you—”
He hopped up, stepped over to Angie and kissed her cheek, then said, “No problem. I’ll be back in the bedroom if y’all need me.”
Angie smiled up at him and nodded. “Okay. Thanks, baby.”
I took another sip of water and sighed. “I’m sorry if I interrupted something, but I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go.”
“Where is Lorenzo?”
I shrugged. “At home, I guess.”
Angie stared at me for a moment. “Didn’t you just call me yesterday telling me you were engaged? What the hell happened?”
I filled her in on what had transpired between us, and she stared at me again.
“What?” I asked.
“Nay, why didn’t you at least hear him out?”
“I don’t know. It just…why didn’t he tell me before now?”
“Why didn’t you tell him about your fertility issues?”
“I don’t know that, either.”
“And what does any of this have to do with our mother?”
“I’m getting to that.”
She blew out a breath and nodded. “Okay…”
“Look, I’m going back home to Lorenzo. Just not tonight. I need time to clear my mind first.”
“You gonna at least call him? Something?”
I shook my head. “I can’t right now. My mind is all tangled up, and honestly, I know it has more to do with my feelings about not being able to conceive than him not telling me about his kids.”
“I guess. But I still think you should at least call the man. You live with him, Nay, and he loves you.”
“Not right now. Anyway, so I went home to Mama’s for the night and-and—” I grabbed my stomach which had begun to bubble as the scene popped into my memory. “Ohhhh!”
“You okay?!”
“No, because Mama was in my room, in my bed. Naked, on her knees…with a feather hanging out of her butt and another one sticking out of her hair.”
Angie’s eyes looked like they were about to pop out of her head. “Huh-what?”
“And-and she wasn’t alone. Daddy was with her.”
“What?!”
“And-and-and he had on a cowboy hat, some cowboy boots, a leather vest, and some leather chaps. No pants or underwear…oh! I’m about to throw up againnnnn.”
“Shit! Me, too!”
I jumped up and ran back to the bathroom, dry-heaving for a minute or so with Angie sitting on the side of her tub watching me with this bewildered look on her face.
As I caught my breath, I continued with, “And he had this lasso in his hand, swinging it over his head. It was the freakiest, most horrible thing I’ve ever seen in my life!”
“Why did Mama have a feather hanging out of her ass?” Angie asked.
“Hell, I don’t know! Maybe she was supposed to be a turkey or a chicken or a peacock or a cockatoo or a damn pigeon! You think I took the time to ask questions? I got the hell up out of there!!”
“And why your room?”
“I. Don’t. Know. Wait, what if they’ve just been screwing all over the house for years?” My stomach bubbled. “Oh…”
“Girl, wait until Nicky hears this shit. Like, what the actual fuck?”
“You’re gonna have to tell her. I don’t even want to think about it again.”
“And Mama and Daddy…does this mean they’re back together?”
“I don’t know,” I groaned. “Can I stay here tonight?”
She slowly nodded. “Yeah, sure. Uh, shit. I need a damn drink behind this. Let me see if Ryan will run to the liquor store. You want some wine or something?”
“Yes, anything. Wine, Molly, Percocet, crack. I gotta get these images out my head. Daddy was all shiny and sweaty and I saw his-his—” I stuck my head in the toilet again.
“Ryan!” Angie shouted. “Can you run to the liquor store?!”
34
I’d left my phone in my car all night at Angie’s and found several missed calls from my mother and Lorenzo. I shook my head. I couldn’t talk to either of them, and besides, it was still really early. I left Angie’s around 5:00 AM so I could go to Walmart and buy something to wear to work.
I finally called Mama around ten that morning and listened to her apologize profusely for invading my personal space.
“You haven’t been here in months, and you’re engaged. I just didn’t think you’d be back.”
I choked back my breakfast, which threatened to make a reappearance at that moment. “No, it’s your house. Guess I should’ve called before coming over. I just never…uh, are you and Daddy back together?”
“No. Just dating, working toward it.”
“Oh.”
“Hey, did Nicky tell you she got engaged over the weekend, too?”
“Really? No, I haven’t talked to her. I tried to call her to tell her about my engagement but got her voicemail. That’s great for her, I guess.”
“You guess?”
“Well, I don’t know Travis—wait, it is Travis she’s engaged to, right?”
“Who else would it be?”
“This is Nicky we’re talking about.”
Mama chuckled. “That’s true. So anyway, I’m thinking of throwing you girls a double engagement party, since I hardly ever see you two anymore and I haven’t met either of your fiancés.”
“Mama, I’ve been inviting you to stuff, dinner at Lorenzo’s, his book party. You keep saying no.”
“I know. Just been having so much fun with your father. It’s like we’re kids again.”
My stomach dropped. “Great for you guys. I gotta go, Mama.”
“Okay, sweetie. I’ll get back to you about the party.”
&nbs
p; “Okay.”
I sat there and managed to get my stomach to settle down a little and decided to call Lorenzo before my ass didn’t have a fiancé to celebrate. Just as I was picking up my phone, the office phone beeped. “Renee, you have a call on line three,” Janice said.
I set my phone down and felt my heart jump a little as I hoped it was Lorenzo. “Did they give a name?”
“Yes. Betty Higgs.”
A couple of hours later, I was sitting in Mama Higgs’ kitchen eating what she described as a special sandwich she usually only made for her Zo—ham, bacon, an over easy egg, and cheese on Texas toast with a little Thousand Island dressing. It was good, but I could almost feel my arteries clogging as I ate it.
We ate in silence, but I knew she didn’t invite me to lunch just for the pleasure of my presence, so I took a sip of water, and said, “Mmm, this sandwich is delicious. Thanks for inviting me to lunch.”
“Oh, you’re welcome, honey.”
“Um…Did you want to talk to me about something, Mama Higgs?”
She nodded. “Be right back.”
In the time she was gone, I finished my sandwich and water and just sat there glancing around her spotless kitchen. She finally returned with a small photo album in hand and reclaimed her seat.
“I talked to Zo this morning. Called him to see how the proposal went. I knew he’d planned to do it at the party before Veda came up in there and acted a fool. I mean, she showed her whole ass.”
I smiled a little. “Yes, ma’am. She did.”
“He told me what you told him, about being infertile?”
I nodded, fought back the tears that formed every time I thought about that.
“And he told you, or tried to tell you about his children?”
I looked at her for a moment. “Yes, ma’am.”
She opened the photo album to a picture of two smiling little chocolate boys. “Darwin and Jovani. The two oldest. Stair steps. I think they were four and five in this picture. They’re twenty-two and twenty-three now. Their mother is a girl named Latisha. She was Zo’s girlfriend at the time.” She flipped the page to a little brown boy sitting on a teenage girl’s lap. “This is Luke. He was two in this picture. He’s about twenty now.” Moving her finger to the next page, she pointed out a lighter-skinned little girl. “Kerry. She’s actually in the middle of the boys. She’s twenty-one.”
Believe in Me (Strickland Sisters Book 2) Page 16
