by B. M. Hardin
There were so many people, everywhere.
They were either walking, running, waiting and some were even snoozing.
Though it was impossible to entertain the thought entirely, I wondered why the people around me were traveling.
Was it business or pleasure?
Where were they going?
What were they going to do when they got there?
Of course it was just a thought, but I found it interesting to look at a person to try to guess their destination.
Laughing to myself as I thought of where a little old woman might be traveling to, I scanned the crowd for my next “victim”.
And that’s when I saw her.
Vicki.
It was like she’d seen me as soon as I’d seen her because she turned around in a hurry and almost started to run.
Leaving my things in the line, I scurried to try to chase her.
“Vicki! Vicki!”
I screamed after her but she kept going.
Bumping into a gentleman, I looked back up in Vicki’s direction, and just like that I’d lost her.
“Damn it!”
I screamed and people started to look at me funny.
That was her.
That was her!
What the hell was she doing in the airport and where the hell was my sister?
I heard them announce the last call to board my flight and after taking one more look, I turned around and hurried back to get on the plane.
Luckily no one had taking my bags.
Thank goodness or I really would have caught a case.
Finally taking my seat, I thought more about Vicki and Lee Lee and I wondered what was going on.
At least I knew that Vicki wasn’t dead.
But could I say the same thing about Lee Lee?
I couldn’t wait to get to Dray to tell him that I’d seen her.
There had to be something that we could do.
I wondered if maybe I could tell the police and have them check the airport footage and see where she went or where she was going.
There just had to be something that we could do.
With my mind all over the lace, I could rest and nap on the plan like I’d planned to.
As soon as we arrived in Vegas, I rushed outside to find a cab and headed to the hotel.
Though my mind was busy, it was hard not to enjoy the beauty of Vegas.
It was overwhelming with all of its lights and buildings and I wondered how anybody could actually live there.
How could they get any sleep?
Arriving at the hotel, I hurried inside and asked for Dray’s room.
“I’m sorry ma’am, but he called hours ago to cancel his reservations.”
What?
But he’d called me hours ago and told me that he was already there.
Maybe he decided on a different hotel.
I called his phone but he didn’t answer so I sent him a 911 text.
I waited for his response and after what seemed like forever, finally my phone chimed and caused me to jump.
I checked the text message but it wasn’t from Drake.
It was from Jinx.
Opening the multimedia message, I saw that it was a picture.
I zoomed in to see that it was a picture of Drake.
In the nursery of the hospital.
Holding a baby.
What?
He was back home and at the hospital?
While I was here in Vegas?
What the hell was going on here?
And who baby was he holding?
Who was he at the hospital with?
Naomi?
I stormed out of the hotel and flagged a cab.
“To the airport please.”
I was so mad that I started to cry.
He was at the hospital, holding another bitch’s baby, while I’d flown all the way across the world to surprise him.
And he’d lied about it?
He had been doing a lot of sneaking around lately and I wasn’t a fan of the bullshit.
Not at all.
And he was getting sloppy with it which meant that either he was starting not to give a damn about hiding it, or either he just didn’t care if I found out.
Either way, he was about to be in some big trouble and who knows, he might even find himself divorced.
I called him again, but still, he didn’t answer.
I threw my phone in my purse and I threw my ring and the wedding band out of the cab’s window.
For his sake he had better be gone from that hospital once I got there.
Or he and that baby might find themselves flying across the room.
As mad as I was, there was no stopping me.
I was going to show my ass and I didn’t care who didn’t like it and I didn’t care if someone ended up hurt or at least stabbed in the process.
From the looks of it, I was on my way back to prison and you know what,
I couldn’t have cared less!
************************
Chapter SIX
I didn’t ask for anyone’s name or nothing.
The receptionist tried to stop me but I kept walking.
I headed to the nursery first but Drake wasn’t there and I didn’t know exactly what the baby looked like or his name because he was wrapped in a blanket in the photo, but that was okay.
I didn’t care if I had to go in every room on the entire floor, I was going to find him.
I started randomly opening room doors, looking for him.
I wondered how Jinx had come across him and what she was doing on the maternity floor, but I would deal with that some other time.
I’d opened all of ten doors before I saw the receptionist and security heading in my direction but I turned down another hallway to continue my search.
Just as I was about to head into a room, the door swung open and I stepped aside.
They rolled out a bed with a sheet covering a body.
I looked at the nurses and then I heard his voice.
Drake.
I pushed past them and when he saw me it was as though his soul had left his body for a second.
I looked around the room at an older couple, Naomi’s daughter and the newborn baby.
It didn’t hit me until I noticed the older couple was whimpering.
“Let’s step outside,” Drake said.
Instead of making a fuss, as soon as he was close enough, I started to slap him over and over again, but he pushed me out the door.
The security guard was standing there, and Drake tried to explain to him but he still escorted me back out to the common area.
Drake followed.
As soon as the security guard was from in between us, I hit Drake again.
“Ay, don’t do that here. Take it outside.”
Drake literally pulled me to the elevator, and then out of the hospital doors once we were on the main floor.
Once we were outside, he placed a deadly grip on my wrists.
“Let me go Drake! You’re a liar!”
He frowned.
I could tell that he was embarrassed as people started to walk by and as I started to yell, but I didn’t care.
“Calm down Moe.”
“Calm down? You don’t tell me to calm down!”
“Look, she called just as I was pulling up at the airport and said that she was in labor and she couldn’t get anyone else. I told her to call that ambulance but just as the sentence came out, all I heard was screams. And then I heard her daughter crying so I did what I thought was the right thing to do. I turned around. I called and rescheduled my reservations, and my meeting and I got her to the hospital. Her parents don’t live here, and they aren’t well even if they did. Those are her god parents up there. They live out of town too, so they had to drive here in a hurry. And as you can see they are pretty old, so I stayed to help with her daughter.”
I shook my head.
“Do I look like I give a fuck about
what you’re talking about huh? Do I? Am I supposed to care?”
I hit him with my free hand, and after the second attempted he grabbed that one too.
“Where’s your ring Moe?”
“Fuck that ring! You’re a liar! You lied and told me that you were already in Vegas, but really you were up here at the hospital helping your ex-wife have a baby! I flew all the way to Vegas to surprise you only to find that you weren’t there!”
Drake looked at me as I tried to get free from his grip.
“What?”
“That’s right you heard me. I flew all the way there stupid ass to surprise you! I figured after you were done with business, we could have some fun. Since we had discussed a honeymoon, I figured what was more fun than Vegas? Imagine my surprise to find out that you never even went!”
Drake continued to stare at me.
“Let me go!”
“She died.”
I looked at him.
Who died?
“Naomi died a little while after giving birth to the baby. That’s who they were rolling out as you came. She actually died after birth but they revived her. But she never woke back up and just a while ago, they pronounced her dead again. And this time she’s gone.”
At first I thought that she deserved it, but then my heart started to overpower the angry thoughts in my head.
I had not too long about been almost beaten near death, so I tried to calm down.
“Is that baby yours Drake?”
“No Moet. But do you want me to be honest? I think the first one is. I think that little girl is mine. I think that Naomi faked the test results somehow. I think she wanted the baby to be Kane’s so badly that she paid someone or somehow made it look like she wasn’t mine. The more I look at her as she gets older, I can see myself in her. I don’t know what she did, but I think she is.”
I’d always believed that she was.
I stared at him.
This was crazy!
And Naomi was dead?
For some strange reason, I wondered how Kane was going to feel when he found out the news.
That’s if he could even comprehend it or if he even remembered who she was.
I was sure that he was still alive, or why else had Jinx been at the hospital?
Maybe she’d seen Drake and Naomi come in or something and followed them to the maternity floor.
I was at a loss of words.
“When you saw me that day, at Naomi’s, she’d asked me to do her a favor. She’d asked me to take her daughter to one of her friend’s house so that she could rest and because she was in pain. She’d said she had only called because her feet and legs were swollen and she was scared to drive. And with Kane not around, and Vicki losing her mind over Lee Lee and now missing, I guess she just called me. I hadn’t spoken to her for a while before that day, but she said she didn’t have anyone else to do it. I jumped at the opportunity because I decided to sneak and have my own DNA test done. After you lost the baby and after catching sight of her daughter that day when Naomi came into the jailhouse to bail out Vicki and I saw the little girl on her hip, it was like looking in a mirror. I could see myself in her. But I knew Naomi would never agree to another test, so when she asked me to help her out by dropping her off, I had to go get the blood test redone. That’s why I said it was business.”
I just looked at him.
I guess I could understand him wanting to know but I’d always said that she looked like him and that I thought that there had been some kind of mistake.
With Naomi knowing Kane, there’s no telling what she cooked up or what connections with money she might have to been about to fake a DNA test.
I was sure that in some way it was possible.
It was probably costly, but I was sure that there was someone crooked enough to do something like that for the right price.
And maybe she hadn’t had to pay at all.
It could have been a favor from a friend or something.
But seeing how he really pursued it let me know two things.
He really wanted to be a father and that me not being able to have him a baby is and would always be a problem.
“I had the results sent to my job but I haven’t read them yet. I actually wanted to wait until I talked to you about it first, which I planned to do on our little getaway. I figured a more relaxed state might help the conversation go smoother. I didn’t know how you would feel about it since you can’t have us a child. But now that she died, I need to know what the papers say because if she is my daughter then…”
He didn’t even bother finishing his sentence.
And I didn’t bother responding either.
I just didn’t know what to say.
I’d always said that she looked like Drake but once it was said that she wasn’t his, I’d tried to see Kane in her.
I was sure that the results were going to prove what my heart already knew but I didn’t know what to feel.
This was just too much.
And did he expect to bring her home?
And he expected me to help him raise her?
I couldn’t have my own child but now maybe I had to help him raise the child of the woman that he’d chosen to marry before me.
The child that he wasn’t even supposed to have because he wasn’t supposed to have been with her mother in the first place.
I wanted to hate him but I didn’t.
“As far as the other baby, I’m going to have to get in contact with Kane or Jinx, or his family or something. I’m sure that he is going to want his son. Well, unless as you said, if he even remembers. I’ll have to try to find out if he’s dead or alive. Naomi’s parents are ill, and well, her god parents are just too old to care for him. They may be able to a little now but in a few years he would need to be moved around again I’m sure, so it’s just better to try to get in touch with Jinx and Kane on this one.”
Yeah right.
If Jinx had anything to do with it, she wasn’t going to keep that baby.
If Kane was still alive and didn’t remember it, she definitely wasn’t going to remind him of it.
The baby was a product of his infidelity and with Naomi dead and the baby gone, and with his memory gone, all of her problems were solved.
Except that he still wouldn’t remember her.
I shook my head and sat down on a bench.
I just didn’t know what to feel.
I was overwhelmed.
I was a little sad, especially for those babies involved.
But I was also angry.
Where the hell did Drake get off lying to me about anything?
I don’t care what the situation was, he knew better than to lie to me!
“I know you’re mad but we can fix this. I swear to you, I will never lie to you again. I promise. I’m sorry Moe. It’s not like I was having an affair. I shouldn’t have kept this from you. I’m sorry.”
At the sound of his apology, I stood up and walked off.
I just needed to get as far away from him as possible before I lost my cool again.
“Moet.”
He called after me but I kept walking.
I thought all the sneaking around was done and over with but I guess I was wrong.
Once I made it to my car in the parking lot, as I pulled to the stop sign to head out, Drake finally turned his back and headed back in to the hospital.
No!
He was supposed to chase me!
I was his wife and he was supposed to come see about me. He wasn’t supposed to go back in and see about the matters pertaining to his now deceased ex-wife.
I guess in a way I did sound stupid and I was probably being a little childish but it was his fault for lying.
I turned out and I heard a horn wail behind me causing me to slam on brakes.
I looked in my rearview mirror to see that it was Jinx.
Had she been looking on the whole time?
Kane was surely still in the hospital.
Somehow she must have seen Drake and Naomi, waited to see the baby, and then took a picture of Drake to be funny.
I’m sure she didn’t send the picture because she thought she was doing something nice.
She was probably amused at the situation.
I should ask her.
But peering in her cold, damning eyes, I didn’t even want to ask her.
I sped off and she turned in the opposite direction.
Maybe I owed her a thank you or something but she was just being messy.
Either way, I was thankful to now be in the loop.
Even if her crazy ass had been the one to put me in there.
I drove home in complete silence.
I hadn’t been home or anything since I’d packed to try to surprise Drake.
My body was exhausted.
And my mind was just as worn out.
I pulled up and just as I was about to get out, my phone vibrated.
It was Daddy.
“They found Lee Lee’s car. But not her.”
My heart dropped.
For some reason I expected him to say much worse.
“The car is a mess, as though she was living in it or something. But no blood or anything so that’s good. The only hairs and prints found in it is hers and Vicki’s.”
Vicki.
I’d almost forgotten that I’d seen her.
I briefly filled Daddy in and told him that we needed to go to the police. He agreed and said that for some reason he got the feeling that Lee Lee was still alive.
I hoped he was right.
“Daddy, I’m going to come and stay with you for a few days okay?”
And with that, I backed out of my driveway and headed in his direction.
I didn’t want to be at the house when Drake came home anyway.
That’s if he even bothered to come home anyway.
~***~
“Where are you at?”
“Why?”
“Because you are my wife and you didn’t come home last night.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I left the hospital and came home to talk to you but you weren’t there.”
“Oh.”
“Oh? Really Moe?”
“I don’t have anything to say to you right now.”
And with that, I hung up in his face.
He didn’t call back but he texted and said that he loved me.
Whatever!
Love don’t lie.
