by E. N. Joy
“The extended-stay hotel,” Nicholas said. “And the Captain Souls charge to the credit card bill. A ton of food was charged. What? He convinced you to take him, Tyrone, and the rest of his posse out to what they consider fine dining?” Nicholas huffed, referring to the fictitious Tyrone that the talented Erykah Badu sang about. “Well, I guess you better call Tyrone, ’cause he can fool with you both. I’m done.”
Lorain was still in shock at the pictures, and now Nicholas was adding salt to the wound with his words. She put her left hand over her mouth as tears filled her eyes.
Nicholas began walking toward her. He had always hated to see her cry, but today he wasn’t fazed. He reached out and grabbed her hand. “Your wedding ring . . .” He looked at Lorain’s vacant ring finger. “Guess you must have left it on the nightstand in his hotel room.” He flung her hand away.
“Now like I said,” he told Lorain, “you will be leaving, and you will be leaving the girls here. I will not have my daughters around this.” He looked at Lorain with such disappointment and hurt in his eyes. “I wanted you so badly to be the person I thought you were. I even made the mistake of thinking that even if you weren’t, eventually, God would change you. But I knew from the moment I had that conversation with Korica all those years ago that I was living a lie. That our entire marriage was a lie. That’s why it pains me whenever the subject of our marriage even comes up.” Nicholas turned his back. He couldn’t even stand to look at Lorain anymore.
“Korica? What does she have to do with any of this?” Lorain asked.
“That’s just what I was going to ask.”
Both Lorain and Nicholas ignored Eleanor yet again, and then Nicholas relayed the conversation he’d had with Korica right after he and Lorain married.
“So, how’s married life treating you thus far?” Korica had asked Nicholas.
“Better than I could have ever dreamed,” Nicholas had answered.
“Yeah, Unique told me how you and Lorain ran off and got married on a whim.”
“Well, not exactly on a whim,” Nicholas had said, correcting her. “We’d already had plans to marry next spring. It’s that we decided, ‘Why wait?’” He’d shrugged. “So we did it.”
“And let me guess. I bet it was all Lorain’s idea not to delay the wedding.” Korica was using that all too familiar knowing tone.
“Well, you know, she presented the idea, and eventually, I agreed.”
“Well, that was definitely a good move on her part. That’s definitely something the courts would take into consideration,” Korica said.
“Courts? What are you talking about?” Nicholas’s curiosity was piqued, and that was right where Korica wanted it.
She opened her mouth to speak but then paused on purpose. “No, I better not say anything.”
“No, please, say it,” Nicholas said, pressing her.
“Well, Lorain and I were talking, and she was a little worried about perhaps Unique wanting to take the twins back from her, you know, to fill the void left by the loss of the boys,” Korica informed him. “I told her she shouldn’t worry, but she got all worked up about the fact that she was not really in any better of a situation than Unique. I mean, her being single too and all.”
Nicholas’s brown complexion was now a shade of red.
“I’m sorry. It’s obvious she hasn’t discussed this with you,” Korica said. “Please don’t tell her I shared this with you. As Unique’s mothers, she and I need to get along, and I don’t want to throw a monkey wrench in that by speaking about something I perhaps shouldn’t have.”
“Oh, don’t worry. I won’t say anything,” Nicholas assured Korica.
There had been a million things running through Nicholas’s head at the time that conversation took place. He didn’t know how to feel about the information Korica had shared with him. He didn’t know if it mattered that Lorain might have convinced him to move their marriage up for her own selfish reasons, and he even wondered whether selfishness, not love, had motivated her to marry him in the first place. But life had been good for Nicholas, Lorain, and the girls. When Korica dropped that bombshell on him, he didn’t want any of that to change. But something told him at the time that if he brought it up to Lorain, so much would, in fact, change. So he decided not to. For the sake of the girls, he removed himself and his feelings from the equation and became selfless. But thanks to the seed Korica had planted in his spirit, there had always been a nagging feeling inside of him about the sincerity of his and Lorain’s nuptials. Lorain’s actions of late had given him all the answers he needed.
“I didn’t know what to think after hearing that,” Nicholas told Lorain now. “Over the years I’ve questioned whether you loved me, whether you loved me in the beginning or grew to love me. But now, after knowing there is someone else in your life, I can’t help but wonder if you ever loved me at all.”
“Nicholas,” Lorain said softly as tears flowed down her face.
“But you know what?” Nicholas continued. “Guess our marriage—what it was, wasn’t, or is—doesn’t matter anymore. Because it’s over. So I guess I’ll never know what your true intentions were.” He turned to walk away.
“Nicholas, please, no—”
“Girl, you better not stand here and beg like some dog,” Eleanor said. “When a man don’t wantcha, child, if you insist on clinging to him, anyway, he gon’ treat you like gum on the bottom of his shoe until ain’t absolutely no flavor left in ya whatsoever. Then he gon’ leave you, like your daddy did me.” Eleanor had become emotional. She loved her son-in-law, but if he didn’t want her daughter, the advice she’d pass on to her only child was not going to be for her to stay where she wasn’t wanted.
At this point Lorain was drained, and she realized that she wasn’t going to get anywhere with her husband, not right now. And that conversation Korica had had with him, which had been festering all these years, was the nail in the coffin of her dead marriage. Lorain looked at her mother, defeated.
“Come on, Mama. Let’s go,” Lorain said as she picked up one of the suitcases.
Eleanor looked at her child like she had two heads. “What do you mean, let’s? You the one getting put out, not me. I ain’t got nothing to do with this trifling mess. Y’all can do what y’all want to do. Stay married, get married twice, get divorced. My name is Bennet, and I ain’t in it. And if anybody think about putting me out, you gon’ have to go downtown and evict me. Ain’t nobody got time for that. . . .” Eleanor shook her head and mumbled to herself the entire time as she walked away and headed back to her place.
The couple just stood there.
“I can’t believe you’re doing this to me,” Lorain said.
“Baby, you did this to yourself,” Nicholas said.
“My girls.”
“They’ll be fine, and you know it. Besides, enough people have been used already. You don’t need to try to use them as well.”
“How dare you say that?” Lorain snapped, offended.
“Do you blame me? Lorain, look at how far you went to make sure you got to be the one to raise Heaven and Victoria. You rushed into a marriage with me. You practically blackballed your firstborn, or did you not think I noticed?” Nicholas replied. “Just because I don’t speak about a whole lot doesn’t mean I’m clueless. Enough is enough. I’ve watched you—”
“Stop it. I know.” Lorain buried her head in her hands. “You don’t have to tell me what I’ve done. I’ve done wrong. I’ve done you wrong, and, baby, I’m sorry, but if you’d let me explain everything, it will all make sense.” Lorain walked over and threw her arms around Nicholas. “You know I love you. You know my marrying you wasn’t a lie. I loved you then, and I love you even more now.”
Nicholas felt for his wife as she bared her soul and cried on his chest. He wanted nothing more than to put his arms around her and let her know that everything was going to be all right. But he wasn’t sure if it was. She wasn’t some toy that he’d picked up at the store and that had
broken. She was broken when she came to him. Fixing her wasn’t a job for him, Leon, or any handyman. This was a job for God. And there was one thing that as a doctor, Nicholas had vowed never to have—a God complex. People could not fix people—not their spirit, anyway.
“We’ll discuss what we’ll tell the girls later, but for now, good-bye.” Nicholas walked away.
As drained as Lorain was, she couldn’t give up without putting up more of a fight. “Baby, Eugene is—”
Nicholas stopped abruptly and turned in his tracks. He threw his hand up and shouted, “Stop it!” He was fed up and furious with his wife. He couldn’t bear to hear her speak one more word.
Lorain tensed up. Never had Nicholas raised his voice that much and spoken with such authority. She was afraid, not of her husband and not that he would get violent. She was afraid that if she tried to explain the situation, Nicholas was so worked up, he wouldn’t hear a word she was saying . . . or believe her. So with great reluctance, Lorain watched as Nicholas disappeared up the steps. She could hear their bedroom door close, as she’d heard in Nicholas’s voice the sound of his heart closing her out.
Chapter 26
Eleanor was still fussing when she made it back over to her place. She went straight to her kitchen, opened her cupboard, and grabbed a bottle of Stella Rosa wine. She looked up while gripping the bottle. “See this, God?” She shook the bottle slightly. “They got me over here drinking, and not in the memory of your son’s name.”
Eleanor pulled out her kitchen drawer and grabbed the corkscrew. After opening the wine, she went into the cabinet and grabbed a long-stemmed wineglass with gold trim around the rim. She filled the glass with wine. She lifted the glass to her lips. As she was about to take a sip, her front doorbell rang. She sighed, placed the glass on the counter, and then went to answer the door.
The doorbell rang again as Eleanor was on her way. “I’m coming. I’m coming,” she said. When she made it to the door, she looked out the peephole. She then sighed. “I knew I should have taken me a drink first.”
Eleanor opened the door and found Lorain standing there, surrounded by her suitcases, which she’d struggled to carry.
“Dang, he wouldn’t even let you wait there for the taxi to come pick you up and take you where you need to be?” Eleanor shook her head. “You must done really did it now.” She stepped aside. “Come on in and wait for the taxi, ’cause I know if the man won’t let you stay in his house, he sure as heck ain’t gon’ let you drive his car off into the sunset to be with another man.”
“There is no other man,” Lorain told her mother. She didn’t move from her spot in the doorway.
“According to those pictures on the cell phone, there is,” Eleanor retorted, begging to differ. “Now, I didn’t get a good look, but it sho’ nuff looked like a man to me . . . and without a shirt on.” Eleanor began to squirm. “Then again, I might not be the best judge of that, seeing I ain’t been that close to a shirtless man since forever. And the one in the pic looked like he had some muscles. Ooh, child, I don’t blame ya for letting him get it.”
“Nobody gets it but my husband. Like I said, there’s so much more to this story than you could ever believe.”
“It ain’t me who needs to believe it.”
“I know.” Lorain slumped her shoulders. “If only he’d let me explain.”
“Give him time. That’s all I can say. Now, get on in here,” Eleanor said, wrapping her arms around herself, signifying that she had a chill. “It’s spring, not summer. And you know the weather here. Monday you got on shorts, Tuesday a rain jacket, and Wednesday your snow boots. Heck, I almost turned my heat on today.”
Lorain started carrying her suitcases inside.
“Hold up!” Eleanor put her hand up. “Ain’t no need for you to bring all that stuff in here. You can leave the luggage on the porch until the taxi comes. How long did they say they were going to be, anyway? I’m ready to get my Olivia Pope on and drink me a fishbowl full of wine and relax. ”
“Mom, really? Your daughter’s life is in shambles, and all you can think about is sending me off in a taxi so you can drink some wine?” Lorain brushed by her mother as she entered her home. “There is no taxi. I don’t have anywhere to go. I figured I could stay here until . . .” Lorain didn’t know until when. All she knew was that her husband had put her out, and she had nowhere to go. She’d distanced herself so much from her grown daughter that she wasn’t even comfortable in the same room with her for five minutes, let alone living with her. Besides, all of this would blow over once Nicholas calmed down and listened to reason. No, he wouldn’t be happy about everything Lorain had gotten herself caught up in due to her own selfish actions, but he’d know that she loved him and was no cheat.
“Oh, heck to the naw. I don’t do roommates.” Eleanor shook her head adamantly. “Besides, Nick said you had to get out of his house.” Eleanor looked around. “Well, the last time I checked, this was his house too. So humph, humph. You can’t stay here. And besides, what am I gon’ do with you when I got company?”
“Company?”
“You heard me. You think your mama ain’t gon’ ever get a man?” Eleanor put her hands on her hips and began twisting and turning, striking poses. “I been playing hard to get with that Mr. Lawson for years now. I’ve been thinking about finally giving in.”
“Mr. Lawson?” Lorain said, recalling the favor he’d asked of her in the dry cleaners. But now wasn’t the time to try to play matchmaker. Her own relationship was on the brink.
“Yeah. I know he ain’t the finest man on the planet, but he’s a nice guy, and he ain’t half bad looking when he puts his teeth in. Besides, he owns his own business,” Eleanor said. “Plus, I lost a hundred and fifty pounds with that bariatric surgery all them years ago, and I’ve managed to keep it off. Why let a hot body like this go to waste?” She made her best attempt to twerk.
“Mama, I can’t right now.... I just can’t.” Lorain shook her head and put her hand up. “Are you going to let me stay here or not?”
“Sorry, but like I said, I don’t do company.” Eleanor was adamant. “You can stay here until your taxi comes.”
Lorain couldn’t believe her own mother was doing her this way. First, her husband, and now her own mother. She didn’t know how much more of this she could take. “Mama, you wouldn’t do your daughter like that, would you?” Her eyes moistened and her bottom lip trembled as she fought off the tears.
Eleanor pulled the door closed and glared at Lorain. “Absolutely not. I wanted you to see what it felt like for your own mama not to want to be bothered with you, is all.” Eleanor cut her eyes so hard at her daughter that Lorain felt split in two. “You know where the second bedroom is,” Eleanor said, walking toward the kitchen, mumbling. “Child think she V. C. Andrews on some Flowers in the Attic ish.” Eleanor disappeared back into the kitchen to get her drink on.
Carrying two of her suitcases, Lorain headed to the second bedroom. She had to make two trips in order to get all of her luggage. She then started the task of going through her suitcases in order to find some pajamas. The first suitcase she looked into was full of outerwear. Next, she opened the medium-size trunk. She moved a couple items around, and then her eyes locked on the memory box the girls had made her in preschool. It was where she kept her most precious keepsakes. It was just like Nicholas to know what was important to her. But on the same note, that didn’t sit too well with Lorain. Did the fact that he’d sent her packing with all her memories mean that this was the end of any memories the two of them could ever possibly make together?
That thought caused a lone tear to fall from Lorain’s eye. She quickly brushed it away, opened the box, and went through it. There were pictures of her, Nicholas, and the girls from their trip to Vegas to get married. It pained Lorain to think that Nicholas thought she’d married him only for her own selfish reasons and not for love. Korica had planted a seed in her husband’s ear the same way she’d planted a seed in Lorain’
s to make her want to run off and marry Nicholas on a humbug in the first place. She would have married him eventually, though.
She remembered what Korica had said to her at the time. “Yeah, I know about that so-called doctor you’ve been dating. Got him running in and out of your house. What kind of example are you setting for Victoria and Heaven? Me, I don’t have no man. My focus is my kids, even now that they’re grown. So do you see now? That’s the difference between you and me, boo. I’m a real chick who takes care of hers. While a ho like you spreads and dumps her baby for any ole body to take care of.”
If Korica had been able to give the courts that kind of impression of Lorain, without a doubt, she wouldn’t have been allowed to adopt the twins. What judge in his or her right mind would give a woman who had thrown one of her babies in the trash two new ones to take care of? But she’d been unstable back then, a young single mother. She wondered, though, if the courts still would have found her to be just as unstable when she was seeking custody of the twins. Lorain hadn’t wanted to risk it, so she’d convinced Nicholas to elope in Vegas quick, fast, and in a hurry. She could admit that rushing the wedding was all about her being selfish, but the marriage itself was based on nothing but genuine love. Korica’s manipulative words had carried so much power. It wasn’t going to be easy to convince Nicholas of the truth.
Lorain wiped away a tear and continued looking through the box. There were special birthday cards, one that had touched her so much that she wanted to keep them and reread the words. There were little trinkets the girls had made in school for her for Mother’s Day. She sifted through the box a little more and came across a drawing that completely took her breath away.
Lorain gasped and covered her mouth with her hand as her eyes filled with tears. The work of art shook in her trembling hand as she looked at the drawing her middle grandson had created before his passing. It was a picture he’d drawn of her and Unique. The two women were standing hand in hand and holding a Bible, and each was wearing a cross necklace. That was how he’d envisioned his mother and grandmother. Lorain’s heart stung as she thought of the injustice she was doing to her grandson’s memory. How disappointed he must be up there in heaven, looking down at her, she thought. Lorain quickly and roughly wiped her tears away, shoved the items back in the box, and put the lid on it. She grabbed her purse and dashed out of the room.
