by B. M. Hardin
“I did. I asked him where he was going and he said that he was going by your husband’s job one day. I didn’t think anything of it. I didn’t think that your husband was trying to pay him to kill someone! He’s got kids! Now my daughter has to grow up without a father!” Ombre yelled, and it almost made me cry. She was right. Nick had left behind five kids, and now their daddy is gone.
“I don’t know what the two of them were up to. I wish that I had. I would’ve stopped them. I swear I would have,” I lied. “But I’m glad that you are here. Is there anything that you need for my niece? Do you need money? With Nick gone, I’m sure you are going to need some help. He didn’t work, but he knew how to hustle. Let me get my checkbook,” I commented and headed for my purse.
Money can’t buy everything, but I knew that a big enough check and with the assurance that me and my bank account would always be there, would be enough to make sure that she kept her thoughts and her comments to herself.
She took the check with no questions asked and then she went on her way. I figured I’d given her enough to keep her busy until all of this was over.
I glanced at my ringing phone.
“You have a collect call from…”
I hung up before Dakota had a chance to say his name.
~***~
I used my spare key to enter Chevey’s apartment.
It was a mess!
Oh yeah. That’s right. She was supposed to be moving with her lawyer boyfriend, Kenny.
I couldn’t put the pain, or guilt that I felt about her death into words. I’d cried the entire weekend. Sometimes it would be over her and other times it would be because of Nick. I just couldn’t believe that they were gone.
I thought briefly of the time that Nick almost died when we were younger. We were four years apart and our mother had left us at home alone, all weekend.
I was trying to find us something to eat. I was only ten, but I knew how to cook like nobody’s business. Big Mama Banks had taught me before she’d died. She’d said that the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach. But she hadn’t told me was that no matter how good you could cook, good food ain’t ever had the power to make a man keep his dick in his pants.
Anyway, back then, Nick was in the living room playing on the floor, while I made something out of nothing and suddenly, I heard a loud noise. By the time came into the living room, Nick was on his back, kicking, trying to breathe. I remembered running over to him, grabbing him and turning him over. I hit his back so hard that my hand started to sting, but he was still choking. So, I hit him again, and then again, and then finally, the small lid that he’d had stuck in his throat, came up and he started to gasp for air.
He cried for a long time that day, and I held him close to my chest. I didn’t want him to know how scared I was, so I kept it all together, fed him and then got him ready for bed. But once he fell asleep that night, I sat across from him, in tears, thankful that I’d been able to save him. I vowed that I would always protect him. I would always take care of him. I should’ve never asked him to help me.
And Chevey. She’d almost died once before too.
I remembered the car accident. She’d told me that I was too sleepy to drive, but I insisted. And surely enough, two-seconds, too long, of silence as we drove, somehow, I closed my eyes. She screamed my name, but by then, it was too late. I’d swerved into the other lane and though the car tried to miss us, it hit us anyway…on Chevey’s side.
She was in the hospital for months, but she pulled through. And she didn’t blame me. She wasn’t mad at me, even though we both knew that it was my fault.
Just like now. Everything was my fault. It was my mess and my marriage that had killed them both.
Looking around at all of the boxes in the living room, I realized that I’d taken Chevey’s future away from her. Things were finally coming together for her, and because of me, she was gone.
I touched the few photos that she still had hanging on her wall. There was one of she and I still up and one of my family; with Dakota and the kids.
Dakota was still in jail and set to have a bail hearing that morning, and following Jerome’s instructions, I sent his mother instead. I hadn’t seen him, or answered any of his prepaid calls. I blamed him, even more than I blamed myself.
After staring at the photos for a little while longer, I sat on Chevey’s couch and smelled her throw-blanket. It smelled just like her. For some reason, I could hear her laugh. I could see her smile. I could hear her voice as I hugged the blanket tighter and tighter and softly, I started to sob.
“Oh Chevey, I’m so sorry,” I cried.
“For what?” I heard a voice.
I jumped at the sight of him.
It was Kenny. Chevey’s lawyer boyfriend. Well, her used to be boyfriend.
I tried to wipe my eyes.
“Why are you sorry?”
I cleared my throat. “Because this happened to her. Because she’s dead. According to the police, it was supposed to be Chanel. Not her.”
He stared at me. “But wasn’t it your brother? That killed her?”
“Yes,” I said regretfully.
“If it was supposed to be Chanel, why? Why would he want to kill her?”
“I---I don’t know. That’s something that you are going to have to ask my husband. Apparently, they were having an affair.”
“Hmm…” was all he said.
He stared at me for a long while. I wondered how long he’d been watching me and why he hadn’t said anything until now.
He looked at me as though he wanted to say something else, but he didn’t. Instead, he headed to the small table in the corner, picked up a bag and put whatever it was that he was holding inside of it. Then, he walked closer to me and reached me a key. “No disrespect; But your husband better hope that they put him away for this. It would be the best thing---for everyone,” he mumbled and with that he walked out of the front door, without bothering to say goodbye, or glancing back at me.
I exhaled loudly as a chill slithered down my spine. Call me crazy, but there was something about the way that he’d said it. Something about the way that he’d looked at me.
After sitting for a while, finally, I got up.
I walked around, from room to room, touching her things and replaying memories. They were all that I had left of her. I headed for her closet. I smiled at the sight of her favorite dress.
“You can have it when I’m dead,” I repeated what she used to say to me. I always tried to steal this dress from her and she’d always caught me. I smelled it and started to cry again. After covering the dress in snots and tears, I took it off the hanger and threw it over my arm. She would want me to have it.
I reached for the closet light switch, but I froze at the sight of a hanging red ribbon. Tugging at it, I saw that it belonged to the inside of a journal.
Chevey’s Journal.
I traced the letters of her name with my fingers and carried the book to her bed. It was thick and opening it up, I saw that the first entry was from two years ago. Funny, she never told me that she kept something like a diary. In twenty years, she never said a word about it. Not even once.
I read the first entry aloud.
May 14, 2015.
Today, was a horrible day. Hence, I started a new journal. It’s been a while since I completed the other one and then burned it. I guess it’s kind of pointless to write in them and then set them on fire, but some of the things that I write down, I never want anyone to know or see! LOL. Anyway, another relationship bites the dust. I might as well get me a silver bullet, vibrate this pussy half to death, and call it day! Why can’t I just find love and happiness? It seems like everyone has someone…except for me. Oops, a tear just dropped on the page. Maybe I should cry tonight, and write tomorrow. Until next time. Chevey.
I couldn’t help but smile and cry at the same time. Though her entry was somewhat sad, I was happy to have found this piece of her; and it was something that I could keep
forever.
I tucked the journal under my arm and walked towards her bedroom door. I looked behind me as I closed the door.
Goodbye, Chevey Marie.
~***~
“I didn’t do this, Yaya.”
I just looked at Dakota.
He looked as though he hadn’t eaten or slept the entire weekend that he’d spent in jail.
“Your brother called me a few times last week, out of the blue, but it was never about killing anyone. Twice it was computer related, and the other time it was to see if I wanted to go out and get a beer. He even came by the office, but I was on a conference call and didn’t get to speak to him. It never crossed my mind that he was up to something like this. But I swear to you, I didn’t ask him to kill anybody.”
“But you did have an affair?”
He looked at me regretfully.
“Yes. But…”
“And she’s pregnant with your baby?”
“We can’t be sure. But…”
“And you were in love with my best friend?”
“Yaya. It wasn’t…”
“It wasn’t what Dakota? Huh? It wasn’t what? What? Are you’re going to tell me that the text messages on her phone weren’t from you?”
“Yaya, baby…”
“Fuck you Dakota!” I yelled at him as I walked away.
He’d posted a $500,000 bail.
The charges were conspiracy to commit murder and a few other charges as well. Though he wasn’t the one to commit the murder, it was assumed that he’d hired my brother. And come to find out, Dakota had a safe full of money that I didn’t know about. They found it when they searched his office for evidence. Some of his checks from clients, he never deposited into the bank. He’d cashed them and put the money in a safe, therefore having a lot of cash on-hand that could have been possibly been used or going to be used to pay my brother, also made him look a little guilty.
That must’ve been how he’d gotten that house without me noticing missing money.
“Yaya, listen. I was going to tell you. On our trip, I was going to tell you everything. I was going to tell you about Chanel. And about what I thought I felt for Chevey. I was going to ask you for a fresh start. Chanel had already decided to keep the baby, so there was no point in hiding it. There was nothing that I could do about it, except wait and see if it was my child once it got here. I was going to tell you and see if we could get through it, but I didn’t try to kill her. And I damn sure didn’t try to kill Chevey.”
“Because you loved her, right?”
“No.”
“Don’t lie to me Dakota!”
“I don’t know what it was but whatever it was, it was wrong and I was trying to fix it. I was trying to fix us. Yaya, you have to believe me.”
“I don’t have to believe a damn thing!”
“I’m not going to make it through this without you. I’m not going to make it through this if you aren’t by my side.”
“You don’t need me. Hell, call Chanel. I’m sure that she won’t mind being by your side. She didn’t have a problem sitting on your dick,” I said to him.
Dakota looked at me as though he wanted to strangle me, but he knew better. Instead, he simply hung his head and walked away.
I had mixed emotions about it all.
I’d tried to stop it all from happening, but none of it would have happened in the first place had Dakota and Chanel been faithful to their vows. If he hadn’t stepped out on me, or gotten her pregnant, or fallen for Chevey, none of this would have ever happened!
I heard Dakota grab his keys and storm out the front door. I headed behind him. I stepped out on the porch, just as he drove away. Immediately, I spotted Chanel’s car parked across the street.
What the hell is she doing here?
She stared at me as I started walking towards her.
I could openly whoop her ass now! Pregnant and all. She rolled up her window, leaving only a crack, once I made it to her car.
“Get out of the car Chanel!” I yelled at her.
She just sat there and looked at me.
I started to bam on her window.
“You’re pathetic! You’re noting but a whore and you always have been! You had your own husband, but you just had to sleep with mine! You were bold enough to open your legs, be bold enough to get out of the car and take this ass whoopin’! It’s all out in the open now! Get out of the car and face me like a woman!” I yelled and yelled at her. Still, she said nothing. She just sat there and watched me act like a fool. And after letting me scream at her for another minute or so, finally, she started up her car, and drove away, in the same direction as Dakota.
~***~
“If you don’t get that stupid ass camera out of my face!” I growled at the reporter.
The media was having a field day with the story, and I could barely piss in peace without someone knocking on the door for an interview or begging for some kind of exclusive.
I was sitting outside, minding my own business, watching the boys play, when a reporter and his camera man just walked into our backyard, uninvited, trying to get a story.
“Do you think that your husband is guilty?”
“Do you want to find out first-hand? Get the hell out of my yard!” I figured that I probably shouldn’t have said that.
“Was he having an affair with the deceased? Was the shooter related to you?”
I started screaming at him, but he kept right on talking.
Frustrated, I started walking towards him as he continued to talk and then I saw the camera man turn towards the pool, just as I heard a splash.
Dakota swam fast. I looked at the swing set, little Daylen was no longer there. I saw Dakota bring him up from underneath the water. I ran towards them.
“Daylen!”
Dakota placed him on the side of the pool and immediately started checking to see if he could breathe.
“Daylen!” I had only taken my eye off of them for a minute to curse out the reporter. They knew better than to go into the pool without one of us, so I hadn’t thought much of it.
I exhaled once my son started to cough and cry at the same time. I tried to touch him, but Dakota snatched him away from me, picked him up, and carried him inside.
“Dakota! I turned around for just a second and…” He ignored me. He entered the house with our other son, D.J., on his heels.
“Folks, you just witnessed possible conspiracy murder suspect, Dakota Ramsey, save his son’s life,” I heard the report say. He was now right by the pool. I breathed hard, realizing that things could have been much worse had Dakota not been looking on. Our son could’ve drown.
The reporter continued to talk, and the camera man didn’t even try to warn him as he watched me walk up to the reporter, and push him into our pool from behind.
~***~
“That’s the third time this week,” I mumbled, spotting Chevey’s former lover, Kenny, out of the corner of my eye.
I acted as though I didn’t see him.
I got the feeling that he was following me. He just kept showing up in random places, at the same time, that I was there.
I took my change from the cashier and I headed out the store. I hurried to my car and I didn’t hesitate to pull off. With all of the media attention around our house, and after the accident of Daylen falling into the pool, Dakota’s mother agreed to keep our boys, so I headed towards her house.
I caught sight of the black car in my rearview mirror.
It followed closely, but I couldn’t see who was driving it. I knew that it wasn’t Kenny’s car because he’d driven his white Escalade to my son’s birthday party.
I made a left. So, did the car. I drove for a while and then made a right. The car made a right too. I started to feel nervous, but I took a chance and made another right. The car kept straight.
I exhaled. They weren’t following me.
Maybe I was just being paranoid.
I couldn’t really describe what I’d been f
eeling lately.
Jerome and I should have touched based by now, but he hadn’t found a way to contact me, so I didn’t know what was being said by the police about the case, other than what was on the news. I was on edge. I was frustrated.
I was worried. I was guilty. And I was having a hard time keeping it all together.
I turned into my mother-in-law’s driveway, but she wasn’t there. She’d probably taken the boys out to get food or something. Instead of leaving, I decided to wait. So, I turned off my car, got comfortable, and pulled out Chevey’s journal from my purse.
I’d been reading some of it, every day, every chance that I could. I’d wanted to know all of her secrets, even the ones that she hadn’t bothered to tell me. I’d found out all kinds of stuff about her that I didn’t know. Some of her thoughts and feelings surprised me. Some of the things that she’d done shocked me. And some of the things that she was secretly thinking or going through, made me sad. In a way, I felt like I’d been too busy to see how much she really needed me and our weekly lunches weren’t nearly enough.
I read her journal for a while, and my eyes widened once I finally saw his name. I knew that he would be in here somewhere.
December 31, 2015
Tonight was…well…this morning, whatever it is, was epic! The New Year’s Eve party at Yaya’s was everything. I had the time of my life. But then, something happened. Yaya sent me to the kitchen to get another bottle of wine. Dakota followed me in there. He was drunk, but as soon as we heard the countdown and the crowd cheering Happy New Year, he tried to kiss me. Like, literally kiss me! I couldn’t believe it! I moved just in time!”
December 31, 2015?
She’d known that my husband had a thing for her, for that long, and she didn’t say anything? Seriously?
I rolled my eyes, but I kept reading.
“He even tried to convince me that it was just a kiss. Just a kiss my ass! And besides, I’d much rather kiss his wife. I’ve always loved Yaya; and not just as a friend. But also in my secret, special way. She’s the only woman that I’ve ever felt this way about. She’s the only woman that I’ve ever been in love with. She just happens to be my best friend too. Either way, Dakota can kick rocks! Well, until next time.
