His First Wife

by Grace Octavia

  “I already did it,” I said.

  “Well, break it off now and never, ever tell Kerry. Just stop it now,” Damien said, sipping his beer with a contemplative look in his eyes. “Once you start that shit in your marriage, there’s no way to get rid of it. You know? Sometimes I think the only reason I been doing it all this time is because I did it that first time. Once Marcy found out, she became so angry and shut off from me that I had to go somewhere else to find comfort. Shit, a brother needed a hug.”

  “Well, why didn’t you go to Marcy?”

  “She’d hug me, and then sometimes even kiss me, but the shit wasn’t the same. I could see in her eyes that she resented me for what happened. And that shit hurt because I knew I couldn’t fix it. And I couldn’t talk about it with her, so I went and talked to someone else. Then Marcy got so mad that she started cheating. Then I did it again to get back at her for that. And here we are now.”

  “Well, if you know it won’t ever be fixed, why not just leave?” I asked. I was surprised. Damien was my dog, but we never really spoke about his feelings about his wife and the only reason I knew Marcy had other men was because Kerry let little stuff slip every now and again.

  “Shit, I ain’t leaving that woman,” Damien chuckled. “That’s my wife. And I ain’t breaking up my family either. Have some other man raising my daughter? All up in my crib. Hell no.” He paused and took another sip of his beer. “Marcy and I was just made for each other. I can’t leave her.”

  “Can’t live with her; can’t live without her.”

  “Exactly,” he said. “And I know if I feel that way about Marcy, you’d be messed up if Kerry left you. You been drinking her tittie juice since I introduced you two at that Valentine’s dance.”

  “Kiss my ass.” I took a playful swing at him.

  “Brother been whiiiipppeed!” He laughed and took a swing back at me. “But really, man. I’m telling you this because I know what’s out here. Just leave that shit alone. I don’t even want to hear about this broad. Go home tonight and tell her to leave you alone.”

  “What if I can’t?”

  “No such thing. You’re a Morehouse man.”

  We gave each other dap and just like that, I was in my car and on my way home to end things with Coreen. Damien was a lot of things, but he wasn’t stupid. He was one of the smartest people I knew and I had to respect his opinion. And it didn’t help that the little voice inside me was saying the same thing. “Run like hell, brother,” the voice kept saying. And now Damien had put it on full blast. He was right. The whole thing was exciting and the sex felt good, but that feeling of emptiness I felt inside from lying to and cheating on my wife when she hadn’t done anything made me want to vomit.

  Kerry was sitting on the couch in the living room when I walked in. The lights were all off and when I switched a lamp on, she turned to me and I could see that her eyes were red. I knew she’d found out then. She’d been suspicious and asking me all kinds of crazy questions for weeks, and now she’d found out. Had Coreen called the house? Had she called? Was she waiting in the bathroom?

  “Kerry, I can explain,” I said, rushing over to her.

  “No, I want to go first,” she said.

  “But it’s nothing you did,” I said.

  “No, it’s what we both did.” She opened her arms and wrapped them around me tight. “We’re pregnant,” she whispered in my ear.

  “What?”

  “A baby,” she cried. “We’re pregnant.”

  “What!”

  She hugged me tighter and even in my disbelief I started crying too. We’d been talking about it, but Kerry and I hadn’t had sex in weeks. She’d been cranky, had some kind of flu and was feeling bloated, so I had to take up residence on the other side of the bed. We weren’t exactly working on a baby. But damn if the news didn’t sound and feel good. I was going to be a daddy. This was just what I needed.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “We don’t know yet, silly,” Kerry laughed and kissed me on the cheek and I swear it was the softest kiss she’d given me in months. It was so soft and real that we caught eyes and kissed each other hard on the lips.

  “I love you,” she said.

  “I love you too, Kerry.”

  After we called our mothers, we sat down in bed together and Kerry was moving full speed ahead as usual with her planning. I tuned out somewhere when she was talking about ordering a crib from some store in Los Angeles. Something about a valance and a celebrity stroller and I was sitting there nodding, but not really listening. While I was still excited about the baby, my mind had gone back to remembering what I was doing and where I was headed when I walked in the door. I was going to break it off with Coreen to save my marriage and now I had more reason. I needed to save my family.

  When Kerry got up to take her nightly shower, I went into the office to call Coreen. I picked up the phone, but every time I did, I realized that I had nothing to say that would sound right. Any way I said it, I would sound like a heartless jerk. One thing I knew was that women always claimed they wanted to hear the truth, but when it came out and it wasn’t in their favor, they hated it and usually flipped out. Now Coreen hadn’t shown me that side of her personality just yet, but some of the stories she told me about her husband and her past suggested that she was a bit more of a firecracker than Kerry. Coreen was a sweet girl, but she was also very emotional and had a temper. But I had to do what I had to do. Call me a punk; call me a buster, but sitting in that office alone with the sound of Kerry singing “Rock-a-Bye-Baby” in the shower in the background, I decided there was only one way out. I had to end the thing quick and clean. I decided to write her an e-mail. I knew it was wrong, but shit, she wasn’t my wife. I didn’t owe her anything. We both agreed that there’d be no strings attached. She said she was a big girl.

  Coreen wasn’t exactly okay with the news about the baby, but I figured she’d get over it. In fact, I forwarded most of her e-mails to Damien and he said they were all pretty normal for a breakup. He said not to respond and just let it go. I listened to him, but the messages kept going. Every day. Every night. There was either a phone message or e-mail from Coreen. And then they started getting sadder and sometimes just dark. She accused me of lying to her. Said we were meant to be together and that Kerry was no good for me. That she would wait for me and didn’t even care that I was married. It sounded so crazy. I mean, I liked her, but love was a big word I reserved for one person. And her feelings for me just sounded too deep. I didn’t know what they were based on. We’d had laughs and sex less than a handful of times. I hadn’t given her any romantic gifts or claimed I was doing anything with her other than what was happening. I did complain about Kerry from time to time, but I never said I was going to leave her. Sometimes I felt like maybe Coreen’s feelings for me, or what she’d claimed she’d had for me, were from somewhere else. That maybe she was struggling with losing her husband or the fact that her life wasn’t at the point where it needed to be. I actually e-mailed her that one time, breaking my rule of silence, but Coreen ignored it. She just kept saying I was lying and that I really wanted to be with her but I was scared to leave Kerry and wanted to be there for my son. Damien laughed and said he had so many girls claiming he was a liar when he said he didn’t want to be with them that it was pitiful. He said to stand my ground and not contact her.

  But then, one late night I got an e-mail from Coreen that scared the shit out of me. It was maybe two, three, or four nights before Tyrian was born and she sounded like she’d just given up hope on life. This both worried and frightened me. I didn’t want anything to happen to her, and I was afraid she was going to do something to herself. I didn’t even want to mention the word suicidal , but damn if the letters didn’t sound that way. Her anger had gone from me to the world. And she was talking about checking out altogether.

  I read the e-mail a few times. I didn’t want to respond. Kerry was acting very erratic with her hormones and I didn’t want to do any
thing to piss her off. But then I kept having these visions of Coreen hanging from a rope in her kitchen with some note about me leaving her on the table and I knew I couldn’t just sit back and do nothing. I didn’t know much about Coreen. I had no way of knowing how to handle her emotions, but I knew I couldn’t let something happen to her when I was a part of her pain.

  I called. But she didn’t answer. I called again. No answer. Then I decided to write. I figured she would at least respond to that. But nothing. The silence was killing me. And walking around the house all day, all I could think of was that body swinging in the kitchen. Her giving up and my being involved.

  It was after 7 PM on Thursday when I decided to roll over to Coreen’s house. I hadn’t heard anything from her and I had to make sure everything was okay. When I got there, her car was in the driveway, but the house was dark. It was late, and every other house on the block had a light on but hers. I tried her cell from the driveway, but there was no answer. Then I went to the door and peeked inside. I couldn’t see anything, but I knocked anyway. I stood there for five minutes knocking, then I decided that maybe I was overreacting. The girl could’ve been on vacation for all I knew. Maybe she’d moved on to another man. Good for her. I headed back to my car, ready to leave. But then I heard her voice.

  “Jamison,” she said. I turned to find her standing in the doorway naked. I ran over to Coreen to block her from the street and push her into the house.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, noticing that her eyes were red, her face was sunken in and her skin was ashy. She looked like she hadn’t eaten in days. “Get in the house. I’ve been calling you. I was worried.”

  “I’ve been here,” she said weakly. “I’ve just been thinking about things.”

  “Are you okay?” I sat her on the couch and headed into the bedroom to get a sheet or something to wrap around her. When I pulled it from the bed, a bottle of pills rolled from beneath the pillow. It fell to the floor and pills scattered everywhere. I walked over to see that they were sleeping pills.

  When I came back into the room, Coreen was crying and rocking herself on the couch.

  “I love you, Jamison, and I can’t let you go,” she cried.

  “Coreen,” I said, sitting down beside her. I didn’t know exactly what I was going to say next, but I knew I had to say something. Something to comfort her. “I told you how I feel. But I don’t want you to be like this. I want more for you.”

  “There’s no more for me,” she said. “I can’t seem to do anything right. Duane died and now you left me. I can’t get anything right. I’m just going to die. That’s it. Just stay here in this house and die.” Her crying turned to a sad grieving. She fell into my arms and I began to rock her back and forth.

  “There’s much more to life,” I said. “Your career. What about school? You seemed so excited about that.”

  “I’ll just fuck it up.”

  “You won’t know until you try.”

  She was quiet. I wiped her tears with a piece of the bed sheet. “Coreen, you’re a beautiful woman. You can have and be anything.”

  “But not you,” she said.

  “Not me.”

  We sat there on the couch talking like that until the last bit of sun in the sky set and the evening turned to night. Every time I seemed to lift her spirits, she’d turn another emotional corner and start crying again and ask why we couldn’t be together. I wanted so badly to look at the time. I knew Kerry had to be looking for me. But I was dealing with life and death. I didn’t want to risk one for the other. And I didn’t know what else to do. Every time I asked Coreen if there was someone I could call, she’d get mad and start crying again.

  I finally got her to agree to take a shower and get some clothes on. I thought this, along with some soup, would at least make her feel good enough to get back into bed. And then I could talk to her reasonably and get her to a hospital or something. But when she stood up, it was clear she wouldn’t make it in the shower alone. The girl was weak.

  I carried her into the bathroom and stood there in the shower with her, fully dressed, washing her body with my hands as she cried. It was one of the most sobering moments in my life. I realized at that moment that what I had done in my selfishness was ruin a piece of someone else’s life. I didn’t know if most of what Coreen was going through was about me, but I’d gotten her to that place somehow. Damien was right that the affair would ruin my marriage, but he’d forgotten to mention what it would do to the other woman.

  When I got Coreen into the bed, I took off my shirt and pants and went into the kitchen to make her some soup. I looked at my cell phone. It was already 12 AM.

  I carried the soup into the room and fed Coreen myself. She seemed to brighten in the face immediately as that heat hit her.

  “You’re a good man,” she said. I was sitting beside her on the bed in my boxers and a T-shirt.

  “Thank you,” I said, handing her the bowl. As she ate, I cleaned up the pills from the floor and stashed them in my jacket pocket, so I could take them with me when I left. I brought up the topic of counseling, saying I would find someone, and she finally sounded as if she was willing to give it a try. She admitted that she did actually miss Duane and that she’d never dealt with his death. She’d gone to all of the memorial services and accepted the calls and concerns from everyone, but in all that time, she felt like she just had to be strong. She had to put her best foot forward because with all the attention, she felt like all eyes were on her. When she was finally ready to talk to someone, she turned around and realized that there was no one there. Just her and the house she’d bought with the money from Duane’s death.

  “I know you’re going to leave,” she said. “But I just want you to hold me a little while before you go, until I fall asleep.”

  “Coreen—” I tried, but she cut me off.

  “I just need someone to hold me,” she said. “Just for right now. I promise it’s nothing.”

  It had to have been at least 2 AM by then, but her request was so simple. So easy. I could see that she could get better, and she’d already opened up and agreed to get help. I couldn’t turn her down. I climbed into the bed and rocked Coreen to sleep. It was peaceful and quiet. And I knew in my heart that while my part in her life was over, she was beginning something else. Soon, I drifted off to sleep as well, but I was awakened by a knock at the door. Kerry.

  PART THREE

  Death

  “For I [Paul] am now ready to be offered,

  and the time of my departure is at hand.”

  —Paul,

  2 Timothy 4:6

  E-MAIL TRANSMISSION

  TO: coreenissocute@yahoo.com

  FROM: dablackannanicole@yahoo.com

  DATE: 11/27/07

  TIME: 8:09 AM

  Coco! Where are you? I’ve been calling you all weekend and when I came in this morning I noticed that your stuff was cleared out of your desk. Lori said you resigned last week. Why didn’t you tell me you were leaving? I hope everything is OK. Just give me a call when you can and know that I’m here for you.

  Anna

  What Lies Can Do

  Cheating is bad. Cheating is really bad. But, in the beginning, I think what was worse about Jamison’s cheating wasn’t the actual act, it was the lying.

  Jamison, who championed himself for being a hardened man from southwest Atlanta, was mostly a creature of habit. He did things in a certain way and was no fan of change from his normal schedule. I fell in love with him for that. In college, Jamison microwaved Hamburger Helper, saying it was the best meal in town on Friday night and I only needed to try it. I protested, but Jamison ate this meal every Friday night. And even after we graduated he still craved the mushy treat. So, on cold Fridays when I knew we’d be sitting at home in front of the television, I learned to make Hamburger Helper and have it waiting for him when he got in from work. Now, one Friday night, just days before Jamison was supposed to be beefing up a proposal for a big contract that would
take our services to a string of law offices throughout Tennessee, I had a pot of Hamburger Helper (made with ground sirloin and extra cheese) waiting on the stove for Jamison.

  “Oh, I’m going out with Damien tonight,” he said when I offered to make him a plate. “I’ll be back later.”

  “Damien?”

  “Yeah, we’re going to have some beers,” he replied.

  “Well, then you need to put something in your stomach,” I said, getting up from the table to get the plate.

  “No.” He stopped me. “We’ll eat too. Just put the food in the refrigerator and I’ll get some when I get back.”

  He kissed me on the forehead and left the room.

  Now we’d been married for a long time, and not once had Jamison been caught in a lie or cheated on me, so I had no reason to worry or be suspicious. But in those years, I’d also “learned” my husband. He never turned down food. Not even if I’d made it. So, while suspicion was the farthest thing from my mind, when he nonchalantly rejected that plate, my ears immediately raised. Not only was it strange for Jamison, but I’d been to Pilates with Marcy earlier that afternoon and I knew that Milicent had her first fencing class on Saturday at 8 AM. Damien was so excited about the class because he’d fenced as a boy and he’d broken out all of his old gear on Thursday night, claiming he was going to “teach Mili the basics” on Friday night before the first practice. Now this could’ve changed, but the odds were small.