by Tina Martin
“Can I help you?”
“Hi. You’re Sean Beauvais’ wife, right?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“I’m Shanelle McPhearson.”
I couldn’t believe it when she told me who she was. And why would Sean’s ex-wife be so interested in talking to me? She looked eager, like we were old friends from college or something and she was happy to see me. She was a nice looking woman with a caramel complexion and brown eyes. Her cinnamon-colored hair was long and lustrous. She smelled like some expensive perfume, and just by looking at her, you could tell she was high maintenance. She probably had just gotten pampered, too. She spoke with an English accent.
“Oh, hi. I’m Monica.” I didn’t shake her hand or anything like that, but I was courteous. However, I still didn’t know what she wanted with me.
“I saw your wedding announcement in the paper. Congratulations! I know Sean is happy he finally found you after all that searching.”
“Ah…what do you mean? I’m not following you.”
“You are Roman’s birth mother, right?
“No, I’m not.”
“Hmm…that’s interesting.” She popped her freshly glossed lips as she looked me up and down.
“Why is that interesting?”
“Well, since Sean put so much time and energy into finding Roman’s birth mother when we were married, I thought for sure the next woman he married would be her. I didn’t know he would put another woman through the same torture he put me through.”
“Torture?”
“Yeah, torture. He looked for Roman’s real mother nonstop, and all I could do was watch my husband obsess over another woman.”
“Well, Sean loves me, and as far as I know, he hasn’t been looking for anyone.”
“That’s good. I’m happy for you.”
Reaching for the door again, I was preparing myself to leave her standing there. Shanelle seemed to have some hostility towards Sean even after they have been divorced for so long.
“But you look like Roman’s mother,” she said. “When Sean and I were married, he used to keep a picture of a woman in the bottom drawer of his nightstand. I found it under a lot of papers. Anyway, you kinda look like the woman in the photo. Maybe I’m wrong, but I had always assumed the woman in the photo was Roman’s birth mother.”
I didn’t respond to her. There was nothing for me to say really.
Then she dismissed herself by saying, “Well, I’m not going to hold you up any longer. It was nice meeting you.”
She walked away and got into a black Hummer with a white man.
The woman gave me too much to think about while I was supposed to be enjoying my day of pampering. She actually thought I was Roman’s birth mother, and what if Sean was obsessed with finding Roman’s real mother? Was he still looking for now? Crap. Now I had to force myself to sneak around behind my husband’s back to see if any of Shanelle’s story was true.
When I got home, I could hear Sean and his brothers in the family room.
“Hey, baby,” Sean yelled from out of the room when he heard me come through the front door, but he didn’t come into the living room where I was.
“Hey, Sean. I have to run upstairs for a minute. I’ll be right back down, baby.”
I ran up the stairs quickly to start my investigation. I threw my jacket on the bed and kicked off my shoes. Then I rolled across the bed to the side he normally sleeps on. As my feet touched the floor, I opened the bottom drawer of his nightstand. There were a lot of papers in there like Shanelle had told me. At that point, my heart began to race. I flipped through more papers, looking for the photo of this mysterious woman that Sean was so obsessed over. I kept digging and digging until finally, I found it. It was at the very bottom of the drawer turned face down. I picked it up and looked at it. My heart dropped when I saw it. It was a picture of me – a picture that Cornelius had taken of me when I was four months pregnant with Eric. Immediately, my body stiffened up. My hands were shaking so nervously, I didn’t know if I could make them stop.
“Hey, baby. What you doin’?”
Sean nearly scared me to death. I was bent over eyeing the photo while sitting on the bed with the bottom drawer of the nightstand still open. Sean couldn’t see me since I was on the opposite side of the bed.
“Ahh…I’m just rubbing my toes.” Yeah, right. I was busy trying to contain my nerves so Sean wouldn’t think something was wrong. I slowly pushed the drawer shut with my left foot and pretended to be rubbing my big toe on my right foot. Sean walked over and squatted down in front of me, taking my right foot into his hand.
“So what seems to be the problem? Didn’t they do a good job at Azana?”
“Yeah, baby, they did. I just hit my foot up against the bed post.”
Sean rubbed my toes, then he stood up and put all of his weight on top of me. “I missed you today.”
“You did?” I asked, lying face up on the bed and staring into his face.
“Unh huh.”
“I was only gone for a few hours.”
“I still missed you.”
He kissed me around my neck. He knew that drove me wild. My neck was extremely sensitive to his kisses. However, every time his lips touched my neck, all I could think about was that picture and Shanelle’s story. What if she was telling the truth? So far, her story checked out.
“Sean, stop it. We can’t…your brothers are here.”
Sean kept on kissing me. “I want you. You don’t want me?”
“Of course, I do, but not while they’re here.” I really didn’t want him. The only thing I wanted was to find out how he came into possession of a picture of me from years ago.
“I’ll tell them to leave, then.”
He got up in a hurry and ran downstairs. The next thing I know, Derrick and Warren were gone. Sean put Roman in his room and then came back in our bedroom and broke me off.
While we were making love, I didn’t think about the picture or Shanelle or nothing. All I could do was focus on Sean. He was very thorough when he made love to me. He was attentive to my needs. Anything I wanted, he was willing to give me, just as long as I was satisfied.
When we were done, though, I couldn’t help but think about the picture. A picture of me from years ago was in his nightstand drawer – the same picture Shanelle said Sean used to carry around looking for Roman’s birth mother. It just didn’t make any sense to me. So, I thought it would be a good idea to find out what the deal was. There was no need for me to stress myself out over this.
“Sean, how long have you known me?”
He smiled. “Huh? What you talking about, baby?”
“How long have you known me?”
“Ah…since last June. You know that.”
“Yeah, but I don’t know how you came to be in possession of a picture of me from like five years ago.”
“What picture?”
“The picture in your nightstand…the one where I have my hand on my stomach. I was pregnant.”
“Oh…that one. Okay, you got me. I lifted it from your apartment.”
“You did?”
“Yeah. I’m busted. You got me.”
I could breathe a sigh of relief. That would explain it. However, if he took that picture out of my apartment, then what picture was Shanelle referring to? I was beginning to think she was making the whole thing up.
“Sean, can I ask you something?”
“Sure you can, baby. Shoot.”
“Did you ever find Roman’s birth mother?”
Sean took a moment, like he needed to think about my question before he answered it. “Nah.”
“Then why did you stop looking?” Sean was slow responding to my question, if he was going to respond at all. “Sean, did you hear me?”
“Yeah, I heard you.”
“So why did you stop looking?”
“I don’t know. I don’t want to think about that right now. I just want to enjoy you.”
I smiled. Sean wa
s a master of changing subjects, especially when he was the one in the hot seat. He put his arm around me and I melted into his chest. Shanelle sure threw some doubts my way. I don’t know what to think. What I do know is that I trust Sean. He would never lie to me. Never. I trusted him with every fiber of my being.
SEAN INVITED THE family over for dinner out of the blue. We hadn’t planned on having them over. It was a spur of the moment decision made solely by Sean that I agreed to at the last minute. Sean had the dinner catered since there wasn’t enough prep time to actually put something together. It was just an immediate family dinner that included me, Sean, Victoria, Nikki, Roman and Sean’s brothers and nephews. I didn’t know what the urgency was to get the family all together in such a hurry. Maybe it had something to do with last night.
Last night, after we’d made love, I must have immediately fallen asleep. Then later that night, I was awakened by sniffling and crying. I peeped from under the covers with my eyes cracked just enough to see Sean wasn’t in bed. He was in the bathroom crying. And this wasn’t a normal cry. This was a very distressing cry, more like weeping. After a few minutes of it, he stopped. Then he turned on the faucet maybe to wash his face.
I put my head back down in a hurry. I didn’t want him to know I was awake. I’m sure he thought I was sleep, and I wanted to keep it that way. I heard him leaving the bathroom and I listened acutely to hear his footsteps as he crept closer to the bed. He rested in his usual position, right behind me. He kissed the back of my neck three times and then whispered, “I love you, Moni.”
My first thought was, does he know I’m awake? He couldn’t have. I wasn’t moving a muscle. Second, why was Sean crying hysterically in the bathroom? What if something was wrong with him? What if there was another woman? What if he didn’t want to be married to me any longer? So many questions were burning in my head while I pretended to be sleep. There was no way he was going to find out that I was awake and had heard him crying. Hopefully, he would come to me at the right time and tell me what was bothering him. It’s not like I could bring up the subject. Then he would know I wasn’t sleep. Either way, I was screwed. But I would rather know than not know.
Chapter 33 - The Confession
Dinner was awkward. Sean was quieter than normal. He was not the bubbly, full of life, confident man that I married earlier this year. It wasn’t the norm for him to be silent over dinner. Sean always had something to say. He was the entertainer, the life of the party. I wasn’t sure who this man was.
Sean had ordered lasagna, garlic bread, and a huge Caesar salad from an Italian restaurant called Buca di Beppo on North Van Buren Street. The food was so good and everyone was busy getting their grub on – everyone except for Sean that is. His food remained untouched. He was definitely troubled about something. In the midst of silverware clinging against fine china plates, Sean stood up.
“I have something I need to say,” he said without even looking at me.
“What’s the matter, son?” Victoria asked.
“I just need to say this.” When he turned his attention towards me, so did everyone else. “Monica, I love you from the depths of my heart.” He paused after the statement, collecting his thoughts. “You’ve been looking for your son, Eric, and it hurts me every time I see you disappointed and sad because you don’t have him in your life.”
Has he found Eric? I was becoming more anxious by the minute, sitting on the edge of my chair like I was watching the good part of my favorite movie. I wanted Sean to spit out whatever it was he was trying to say in a hurry.
“I wanted to help you look for Eric. I really did. But I couldn’t because I would be looking in vain.”
I butted in. He hit a nerve with that comment. “What do you mean you would be looking in vain? Finding Eric is important to me. You know that.”
“Monica, I know that. I know you want to find Eric. What I’m trying to tell you is that you can stop looking. Eric is sitting right there.” Sean pointed to Roman.
Boy was I heated. I bet my temperature went from 98.3 to 101.0 in a matter of seconds. Now wasn’t the time to teach me a lesson about the value of family. I knew Roman was my son by marriage and I loved him as such. There was no need for Sean to keep emphasizing that to me. He had used that same analogy before when I spoke about finding Eric. I certainly didn’t need to hear it again.
“Sean, what is this about?” I asked.
“I love you,” he said, completely evading my question. “I’m tired of lying to you…I’m tired of lying to my family, and I don’t want to keep this secret from my family any longer. I can’t. I can’t go on living this lie, lying to the people that I love.”
Those were words I never wanted to hear. Of course, my mind gravitated to the worst – that he’d done some unforgivable act that would leave me heartbroken and lonely. Anxious to know what it was, I just let him talk.
“Monica, last summer was not the first time we met. The first time I met you, you were walking down Hampton Avenue with your hair thrown back in a ponytail and a black book bag hanging from your shoulder. I was riding down the road and you waved at me.”
I had absolutely no idea what Sean was talking about. The last time I can remember walking down the street with a book bag was when I was in high school. I sat there for a moment, racking my brain trying to figure out if I had met him before.
“You were eighteen, a senior in high school. I don’t recall exactly how it happened, but we started dating.” Sean began crying, but still forced himself to talk through the tearful confession. “I told you that my name was Cornelius Hill and that I was in college, but really, I was in my late twenties when I met you. We formed a beautiful relationship.”
“What do you mean you changed your name to Cornelius? You’re not Cornelius.”
Sean didn’t respond. He just took a picture out of his wallet and placed it on the table in front of me. It was a photo of me and Cornelius hugged up in one of those mall photo booths. I remembered that day. In that booth was the first time Cornelius told me that he loved me. If I recall correctly, I was so happy I cried. Then we were rushed out by another lovey dovey couple waiting to take snapshots.
“How did you get that?”
“We took this picture together, Monica.”
I took the picture into my hand. “That’s not possible.” I pointed to Cornelius in the photo. “That is not you.”
“That is me. I cut my hair short into a fade, wore eye contacts so that my eyes were brown, and I even went so far as to hire a make-up artist to darken my skin.”
“I don’t believe you,” I told Sean, as I wiped my wet face. But really, I had no choice but to believe him. He wouldn’t choose to stand up in front of us all and make up a story like that. “How could you…how could you do this to me?”
“I was at a point in my life where I was tired of women coming on to me because of the way I looked and dressed and because of how much money I made,” he explained. “I wanted true love and I couldn’t find that by being myself. Sean was superficial to every woman. In their eyes, Sean was just a good-looking empty shell with money. But Cornelius was able to find love in you, something I thought I could never find as I am.”
Sean wiped his eyes, then started up again while I sat there before him in a state of catatonia. “But I was wrong because I found you again, as I am, and you love me. And I love you. Even as Cornelius, I loved you. But when you told me that you were giving my baby away, it broke my heart. I had no choice but to leave.” Sean cried harder and was shaking nervously. “I wanted my son and you knew that. You wanted him, too, but you listened to your parents and gave him away. He was my son, my only son, and you gave him away! So, I did what I had to do to get him back. I married Shanelle. I didn’t love her. The only reason I married her was so it would look good on paper. Some adoption agencies tend to frown at potential single dads. I didn’t want to risk not getting him back. So, I got married, adopted him, and named him Roman. Monica, Roman is our son. We made him
together. You don’t have to search for Eric anymore because Roman is Eric.”
“So you adopted your real son?” Warren asked him. By the look on his face, he was just as shocked as I was. So was everyone else in the room.
“Yeah, I adopted my real son. I’m telling everyone the truth once and for all,” he said with a broken voice. Then he turned to me again. “I have no reason to make something like this up. Roman is our child. We made him, you gave him up for adoption, and I adopted him.”
“Sean, why didn’t you tell me this? Why did you keep this from me?” Victoria finally got over the initial shock to actually say something.
“I didn’t want to burden you with my problems.”
To offer more proof to confirm his story, he looked at me and said, “And that picture you found in the nightstand…I didn’t take it from your apartment. I took that picture of you with your camera when you were four months pregnant with Roman.”
I couldn’t stop myself from crying, so I left the table. I’m sure Victoria and the rest of Sean’s family had plenty of questions to ask him. And while they questioned him, I ran upstairs to grab some clothes. It was still hard for me to dissolve what I had heard. The man I had been loving was actually the same man that I was in love with six years ago. The whole situation was playing with my head. I thought I would flip out any minute if I didn’t get out of there as soon as possible. Then Sean came barging in like he already knew I was about to leave.
“What are you doing?” he asked in a firm voice.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” I was throwing clothes in the bag as fast as I could.
“Monica, put the clothes down and talk to me.”
Of course, I didn’t listen. I was on a roll. There was no stopping me from getting out of the house. Sean snatched the clothes out of my hand.
