Chapter Five
Jeremiah
I didn’t sleep at all that night. The hours counted down but I spent the time pacing the house, replaying the entire conversation with Lisa over and over trying to pinpoint the exact moment when things changed. Nothing had seemed odd or set off any red flags. She’d taken a longer than usual shower after she got home from work but even that wasn’t so uncommon as to make me suspicious. She spent her day dealing with moody preteens so I expected her to need to decompress every now and then. The scene in the kitchen had been fantastic and Lisa had responded to every touch. I knew from experience that if Lisa wasn’t feeling me at any particular moment, that she wouldn’t even let me kiss on her, let alone get in between her legs. She definitely wouldn’t have been relaxed enough to squirt.
No, something else was going on. I didn’t believe for one minute that she had cheated on me. Hell, she didn’t have the time. Between work, me, and Ja’mya, what free-time she had, she spent with her girls. Not to mention that Pine Bluff wasn’t too big for information to make its way around the city. I may not know everyone who lived here, but I knew enough and whoever I didn’t know, my parents and DB surely knew the rest. If she messed around on me with someone local, someone would’ve told me about it by now.
Unless it wasn’t someone local.
I sat on the couch, staring at the large, Texas-shaped analog clock that Lisa had commissioned in honor of her home state that was mounted on the wall above the fireplace mantel. The moment the short-hand hit the eight, I grabbed my keys and headed out to my truck. It took me all of ten minutes to pull up to the school and an additional two to get to her classroom. The school day didn’t begin until 8:45 a.m., and I knew she would be in her classroom preparing for her day. I found her sitting at her desk, hunched over her lesson plan and constantly blowing her nose into a box of tissues.
“Lisa.”
She looked up when I called her name, and her eyes widened like a deer caught in headlights as I stepped into the room and closed the door behind me.
She stood and quickly made her way around her desk, holding her hands up to stop me from coming too close. “Jeremiah, what are you doing here?”
I ran my tongue across the front of my teeth in an effort to calm myself down. Her eyes were swollen and red and from the look of the pile of used tissues on the corner of her desk, she felt just as shitty as I did. So, if she was hurting behind her decision to leave me, why did she do it?
“I told you I was coming for you.”
She blew out an exasperated breath and placed her closed fists on the hips that I had been intimately close to less than twelve hours ago. “Why would you bring your hard-headed self to my job? Didn’t you hear anything I told you last night? I don’t want you anymore, Jeremiah! What we had is over and you need to accept that! You coming up here is pathetic.”
I jerked back in surprise. The venom in her voice caught me off guard. Had I misread the situation?
“Lee—”
“No!” She cut me off with a slice of her hand through the air. “I feel terrible about hurting you, but right now you are making me regret trying to spare your feelings. You need to leave right now, Jeremiah. And don’t come back.” Her voice was even and controlled.
The hard set to her jaw and steely glare she aimed in my direction deflated the fight right out of me. What had I done to turn Lisa so cold toward me all of sudden?
“What happened to the love we had? Where did all of this come from?” I waved my hand at her.
She folded her arms across her chest and looked away from me. “I found something better. No offense to you, it just happens that way sometimes.”
“No offe—No offense to me? After saying some shit like that? You found something better than what we’d spent years building and you say ‘no offense’? How the fuck am I not supposed to be offended?!”
Her eyes flitted behind me to the door of her classroom then came back to me. “You need to keep your voice down. As a matter of fact, you need to just leave. I have to work and you will not scare my students or put all of my business in the street.” She started to brush past me but I grabbed her arm and pulled her against me, relishing in the feel of her familiar softness.
“I love you, Lisa. I’m in love with you. Can you honestly look me in the eyes and tell me you don’t feel the same?”
She stiffened but tilted her head back to face me. Her milk chocolate brown eyes met mine.
“I’m engaged.”
I released her, stumbling back as if being near her scorched me.
“You—what?” I couldn’t believe my ears.
She continued her stride to the door and gripped the handle. Back to me, shoulders straight and head facing forward, she said, “He asked me and I didn’t hesitate to say yes.”
I didn’t know if I was more enraged or devastated. After years of telling me no, she told another man yes. I wanted to find this man to both ask him for his secret and simultaneously snap his neck. Lisa wasn’t done ripping my heart. Her next words sealed my fate.
“You and I have been in limbo for some time now. He was my ticket to heaven.”
She opened the door and after a moment of staring at the woman who had just become a stranger to me, I walked through it and exited the school without looking back. Just like the night before, by asking questions, I gave Lisa the space to cut my heart out with a plastic spork. It didn’t matter whether I believed her or not, if she was telling me that she was done with me, there was nothing I could do. As I slid behind the wheel of my truck, I recalled the recent conversation I’d had with my mama.
What does Lisa do for you? What does she give you?
At the moment, Lisa was giving me a Costco-sized helping of heartache with a mountainous side of disbelief. I didn’t know what to do with this. Was this a permanent thing? Was Lisa truly done with me? Was our family torn apart irreparably?
Our family.
What about our family? Did Ja’mya know about this? Was Lisa planning on taking my baby girl away from me? Did Lisa have this mystery man around my daughter? So many questions were running through my mind, and I didn’t have the answer to any of them. I wouldn’t dare think about pulling Ja’mya out of school, but I definitely needed to talk to her. It was imperative that I get ahead of any toxic vitriol that Lisa might try to spew about me. Fuck, man! That had never been a concern before, had never even crossed my mind, but now, I didn’t know what to believe and had to protect myself and my relationship with my baby girl. I’d seen enough fellas—family and friends alike—complain about less than stellar co-parenting to know that it wasn’t a club I had ever wanted to join. Unfortunately, the choice was made for me without me even having a say about it. For now, there was nothing I could do about it and I still had work to do. I couldn’t let this sudden road bump with Lisa throw me off of my game.
I drove to the office in White Hall to gather some materials before heading to the Little Rock office, which is where I was supposed to be in the first place. Today was the first day of preparation on the home of my newest client. Donny was meeting me at the client’s house at ten o’clock so that we could conduct a walk through. I was going to allow him to give me his opinions so that I could gauge where he needed the most training. When I pulled up to the house, the clock on my dash had just flipped to ten, and Donny was already standing at the front door.
Damn. I hated arriving last. I hurried up the walkway and offered the agent my hand. He was a couple of feet shorter than my 6’2” but stockier, probably outweighing me by at least thirty pounds. His long, black hair was streaked with gray and gathered into five chunky cornrows.
“Hey, man. I hope you weren’t waiting too long.”
He shook his head, pumping my hand three times before letting go. “Not at all. I just walked up myself.”
“Excellent. Well, let’s get started.” I entered a five-digit code into the lock box hanging on the doorknob and retrieved the key to the house.
&nb
sp; After stepping inside and locking the door behind us, I trailed Donny throughout the 3,500 square foot home and took notes as he called out his suggestions for getting the house market-ready. To my pleasure, his observations were nearly perfect. I only had to mention a couple of things that were often considered minor and overlooked but actually made a significant difference when it came time to show the house. I was pleasantly surprised and made a point to compliment him on a job well done. It was just after twelve when I locked the house back up and got ready to make the drive back south. Donny surprised me by suggesting that we grab lunch and I started to decline but something in his eyes made me accept. As I sat across from him fifteen minutes later while he told me his story as we waited on our waiter to deliver our drinks, I realized what that something was.
Donny had loosened his tie and tossed it over his shoulder as the waiter placed his coffee and my ice water on the table and took our orders. I cringed as Donny took a long sip of the steaming beverage without adding cream or sugar to it.
“Being laid off was a blessing. I would have kept going ‘til I passed out.”
I raised my eyebrows. “You were that determined, huh.”
He shook his head. “No, I was that stubborn. My kids had to grow up without their father at home because I was too busy chasing money. Now that I have all of the free time I could want, they don’t want anything to do with me. One is in college down at Franklin in Houston and the other is twenty-two and lives up here in Little Rock.”
“That’s not too bad. They are still young.”
He downed the rest of his cup of coffee and wiped his mouth on a paper napkin. “They might be young, but I spent nineteen years driving trucks out of Texarkana and out on the oilfield in the Gulf Coast and I missed getting to know them. I missed their childhood, I missed seeing them grow up.” He chuckled and idly shred the napkin into tiny pieces. “I wasn’t at birthday parties, and I don’t remember them losing their teeth. We don’t have a relationship outside of me paying for everything, and it’s my fault.”
All it took was me imagining Ja’mya not wanting anything to do with me, and I felt Donny’s pain as if it were my own. I prayed that me and Lisa splitting up wouldn’t be the catalyst for that.
“You were working to provide for them. That has to count for something.”
“All it counted for was a big house they couldn’t wait to escape and debt-free college degrees.”
I sat back in my seat. “That sure as hell sounds like something to me! In fact, it sounds like quite a lot.”
He waved me off as our waiter returned carrying our plates of food. Donny waited until the waiter left and I was digging into my seafood omelet before continuing.
“Look, J. I didn’t tell you all of that so that you could try and make me feel better. I know the good that I did but I’m also man enough to admit that I could have done some other things a hell of a lot better.” He stared down at his pancake breakfast platter and grabbed the boat of hot maple syrup to pour over his plate. “The reason I told you anything at all was because I needed you to understand where I’m coming from. I didn’t get into this business to become a hotshot realtor with billboards all across the state. I’m here because I need something flexible that will allow me to travel back and forth to see my kids. I chose real estate because I worked too hard for too long to do something as mundane as become a greeter at the grocery store. I needed a challenge and that’s what being a realtor represents to me.” He sliced into his food and begin to eat.
I contemplated what Donny had just said and held my fist out. “I have no choice to respect that, man. Salute.”
He knocked my fist with his own, nodded, and focused on his food. When he’d mowed halfway through the mountain of food in front of him, he paused mid-chew and looked up at me. Sensing his stare, I raised my eyebrows as I swallowed the last bit of lobster and shrimp from my omelet.
“I just want to say that I admire you, J. Whenever I come down, I see you leaving work to pick your daughter up from school or take her to her basketball games, and I just want you to know that you’re doing the right thing. You’re putting that girl first, and I have no doubt that if she doesn’t appreciate it now, she will appreciate it when she gets older. I just wanted to let you know that.”
I wiped my mouth and drained my glass of water. “I really appreciate that, Donny. I love my job, but nothing comes before my babygirl.”
“That’s the right attitude to have. I wish I’d had that wisdom twenty years ago.”
“You have it now, there’s no time like the present.”
He nodded absently and returned his attention to his food. I tried to do the same but my mind was elsewhere. Part of putting Ja’mya first meant refusing to drag her into this bullshit between me and her mother. Of course, some of it was unavoidable because we all lived together, but Ja’mya didn’t need to know the specific or even vague details. I would do what I could to make that a reality.
Then I had a thought. What if that had been the problem? Had I been too dedicated to my daughter? Had I inadvertently neglected Lisa in favor of putting Ja’mya first? Did I fail to give Lisa enough attention, enough affection, enough love? She was the only one who could answer that for me.
Once we finished our meal, Donny and I argued about it, but I got him to agree to let me put lunch on the company credit card. It absolutely qualified as a business lunch, and there was no need for him to come out of pocket on it, even if he could easily afford to. His words, not mine. I climbed into my truck and called Lisa. It was her free-period since her class was in with their math teacher, and we would often talk on the phone during this time. Unsurprisingly, she didn’t answer for me this time. I left a voice message, asking her to call me, then immediately sent her a text message with the same request. My phone chimed before I made it to the highway. I waited until I reached a red light before pulling it from the center console and checking it. My lips pursed with annoyance when I saw that while Lisa had ignored my call, she had no problem texting me back quickly.
Lady Lee: Why do I need to call you? Just tell me what you want right now.
I pressed the button to call her again, but this time she not only ignored my call, she sent me straight to voicemail. It took everything in me not to thrown my damn phone out the window.
Me: You won’t even answer the phone, Lisa?
Lady Lee: I’m busy, just text it to me.
Just that fast, the rage I’d felt when I left her classroom this morning had returned, and any questions about my shortcomings went out of the window.
Me: I wanted to talk about Ja’mya.
Lady Lee: What about her? I saw her at lunch and she’s fine.
Me: She’s fine now but she won’t be if you tell her what’s going on between us.
Lady Lee: …
Lady Lee: What do you mean if? She needs to know what’s going on so she won’t be confused.
Me: We need to discuss what we will tell her. I don’t want her negatively impacted by too many details. Not everything is her business.
Lady Lee: …
Lady Lee: …
Lady Lee: You’re right. I won’t tell her everything. Just that you and I aren’t together anymore.
Lady Lee: Is that fine?
No, that wasn’t fine. None of this was fine. This whole situation was anything but fine.
Me: I guess it has to be.
No other message came through, so I tossed the phone into the passenger seat and gripped the steering wheel with both hands. I didn’t know how to navigate life with this new Lisa. Yeah, she was new, because everything she was doing, the words she was saying, were all uncommon and I resented that she could switch up on me so easily.
All of our time together and she had no problem turning her back on me as if all we did was fuck over the years and had never built a bond. This new Lisa didn’t resemble the woman I’d longed to make my wife at all.
♥♥♥♥
Ma was in Dallas for busine
ss, and Pops had gone up to Jonesboro with DB, which is where DB was born and had lived before his family moved to Pine Bluff when he was a youngin’. According to Pops, they’d be there all day, not returning until late in the evening. Hawk was coming into town for a one-day stop and since both of my parents were indisposed, I’d be picking him up. His plane didn’t land until after midnight and I didn’t want Ja’mya at home by herself that late at night. I would just bring her with me, but she had basketball practice after school then she had homework. It made sense for Lisa to bring her home since she would already be at the school but that didn’t sit well with me. I had an ugly feeling in the pit of my stomach that said Lisa would try to take my baby girl away from me.
Lisa still hadn’t told her what was going on, so I kept my mouth closed about it as well, but the feeling was there all the same. Maybe the feeling was irrational considering how long we had been together. Maybe Lisa would never do anything to try and destroy the bond I had with my child. Maybe. Then again. I couldn’t base my assumptions on the Lisa I knew because that woman would be logical and wouldn’t harm her daughter to spite anyone else. This Lisa who had suddenly decided that she wanted nothing to do with me, might not operate in the same fashion.
Damn, how could so much change in so little time? This was only day two and if I was being honest I could admit that I was still holding out hope that she would change her mind and come home. I knew she had to be uncomfortable sleeping in Trisha’s guest bedroom. The twin-sized day bed didn’t compare to the memory foam mattress that Lisa had insisted we buy five years ago. I know, because I’m the one who put the bed together when Trisha moved into the house she was in now.
Just the fact that Lisa was staying with her friend and hadn’t gotten an apartment or worse, moved in with her mystery man, gave me a little comfort. I didn’t know what her plans were but the lack of putting down roots eased a minute amount of my pain. It couldn’t do much more than that since I had slept alone and without the promise of Lisa’s return for the first night in almost two decades, but it was enough for me to grasp and hold on to.
To Build a Vow Page 8
