Should Have Known Better

by Grace Octavia

  “Don’t get excited. He was probably drunk,” she snarled.

  “Sasha, when did you become the devil?” I asked wryly. “I mean, I knew you in undergrad and you weren’t anything like this shell of a human you are now. What happened to you?”

  “Well, if you’re really concerned, I’ll tell you, life happened,” she said. “This kind of shit happened. And in order to make sure I came out on top, I had to get smarter than everyone else. Follow me? Great.”

  “So because of that, you’re angry at the world? Angry enough at me to come into my home and break up my family? Angry enough to have an affair with Landon?”

  “Landon was a joke. A crackpot.”

  “I’m sorry to tell you, but the way things turned out, it seems like you were the joke.”

  “A joke! Are you trying to be funny, Dawnie? Was that your attempt at comedy?” Sasha laughed wildly. “The last thing I remember was you lying in your bed alone and your husband carrying me down a hallway. Now, that was a joke. I laughed at that shit for days. You begging and shit. That was a joke. You should take that pathetic shit on the road.”

  “Poison any more of your friends lately?” I asked rather casually.

  “I don’t know. You should ask Reginald. He’s taken a liking to my expensive wine. Just like you did.”

  I felt like coming through the phone and cutting Sasha somewhere. Hurting her.

  “All this time, I was actually feeling sorry for you,” I said. “I know about your fibroids and wanting to get pregnant.”

  “Who told you about that?”

  “I know about Landon leaving you high and dry in a hotel. There really was no conference. You’d come to Augusta with garbage in your heart. And I even know about how guys used to treat you in college. How they’d run over you and pretend they loved you until things got serious and then they’d leave you. Didn’t they?”

  “They were fools,” she yelled.

  “All of them? You think all of them were fools? They can’t all be fools. Most of them are married. Almost all of them. They found someone else to settle down with. Just not you. That has to hurt you.”

  “Fuck you and fuck them,” she shouted and I heard tears in her voice. “Reginald doesn’t mean shit to me. You don’t mean shit to me. None of you mean shit to me! I’m Sasha Bellamy! Do you hear me? I saw your marriage breaking up the moment I walked into your house. You were easy. So fucking stupid. Just like all of those other wives. You couldn’t keep your husband if you tried. I did you a favor. Reginald wasn’t staying with you. He was bored. I’m the best thing that ever happened to him.”

  “But now you’re calling me to find out where he’s at,” I said softly.

  “Fuck you!” she yelled. “Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you! I don’t need you. I don’t need any of you.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “I’ll pay you back!”

  “I’ll have the last word. I promise you.”

  13

  I left my mother praying in the lobby of the building where Reginald and I were supposed to meet with our attorneys. We weren’t going before a judge. The mediation meant that we would try to sit and come to a compromise about the house before it got to a point where we needed a decision from a judge. I wasn’t contesting the divorce. Reginald didn’t have any money. I didn’t have any money. So the only thing we had to figure out was what would happen with the house. I’d lived there so long and we didn’t have a prenuptial agreement, so I had some rights. And after we made an agreement, the divorce would be finalized.

  It’s interesting how people in buildings and public places look when you have something so heavy hanging over you. You’ve put on your best business clothes and fixed your mind on your problem. But there they are, walking around in their everyday lives. Going on lunch breaks and laughing with friends at their desks. They might stop and compliment your shoes or ask for the time. Very casually. Very friendly. You smile. You use some robot inside of you to say the time, but you’re not connecting. It’s all a blur. The entire world.

  Mama and I had trouble finding parking, so I was a little late and I expected Reginald to be sitting in the waiting area of the meeting room, but our attorneys were sitting there alone.

  We waited for him a while. The attorneys chatted about some local bill that was going into effect.

  When Reginald was thirty minutes late, his attorney called him and then Sasha, but got no response.

  My attorney suggested that we go wait in the conference room. She joked that the chairs were more comfortable and there was actually a window.

  “Did he call you this morning?” his attorney asked me as we sat at the table. “Did he mention he’d be late?”

  “I haven’t spoken to him today,” I said.

  Our eyes all floated to the window. We were on the thirty-fifth floor and there was nothing but blue sky.

  “I’m sorry I’m late.” We turned to see Reginald standing in the doorway in a sweat suit. He came to the table and did an awkward dance with the extra chairs until his attorney motioned for him to come sit near him.

  My attorney started by restating the necessity of us meeting, adding what we hoped to gain in the discussion. His attorney did the same and then they began having this delicate conversation between the two of them. They flipped through papers and compared notes.

  My attorney submitted a breakdown of my salary and how much I contributed financially to the household each month. There was also a discussion of the money I gave to Reginald over the years when his business was sagging.

  I listened, but I watched Reginald. He was slumped over in his seat, looking distantly at the pages. He hadn’t shaved, probably in two days, and he looked nervous. Every few seconds, he looked up at me.

  “So, what is your client willing to offer in the compromise?” my attorney asked.

  “He’ll put the house in trust for the children. If anything ever happens to him, they’ll get it.”

  My attorney nodded and checked something on her notepad.

  “And in the meantime? Can my client have access to the home?”

  “Well, in this matter we’re hoping to—”

  “Excuse me,” Reginald interrupted. He looked at me. “Can I talk to you outside?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Dawn, just talk to me. That’s all I’m asking.”

  I looked at my attorney.

  “It’s your call,” she said. “It’s just a mediation. It can’t hurt.”

  “What do you want?” I asked, standing out in the hallway with Reginald.

  “I want you back.”

  “Don’t do that,” I said. “Don’t say that.”

  “I want you back and you couldn’t say you don’t love me, so you must want the same.”

  “Stop it!”

  “Do you love me?” he asked. “Do you still love me?”

  “Just stop it.”

  “Tell me you love me!”

  “Yes, I love you, but that doesn’t mean anything,” I said.

  “Yes, it does. It means we still have a chance.”

  “A chance for what?”

  He touched my chin.

  “To have our life back. To have our family back,” he said. “We can do that.”

  “But you’re with Sasha.”

  “That’s a mistake and you know it. You told me. See? You’re my better half. You’re my eyes. She doesn’t compare to you. It’s over between us. She knows that.”

  “But you left me.” I started crying. “You left us.”

  “It was the worst mistake of my life. But in all these years we’ve been married, it was the first. I never cheated on you. You know that. This was just a bad situation. We can’t lose our family because of it.”

  “I don’t know, Reginald,” I said as he wiped my tears. “I’m just getting over this. I can’t turn back. You hurt me too much.”

  “I want to make it better,” he said, pulling me into his arms. “I want to make it
up to you.”

  “But everything is different now.”

  “We can change it right back. Right now. We can call off these lawyers and get out of this freaking building. We can go home. To our house tonight. Me and you. We can have it all back,” he said and he was crying, too. “Don’t you want that?”

  “Yes. But I don’t know. Maybe it’s too late.”

  “We can change everything back. Let’s just do it. I promise I won’t let you down. If you give me a chance to hold you again, I promise I won’t let you down. I’m your husband.”

  I fell into Reginald’s arms and all of the pain and hurt I’d felt after all of those months away just funneled out of me. I cried “no” until my heart said “yes.” I had to try. I had to give my life one more try.

  “What happened up there?” my mother begged when I found her. I saw in her eyes what I saw the night before when I came in the house—a fear of what was going on. Of what she already knew, but I was blind to.

  “I’m going to Augusta later,” I said like a stone. I was walking quickly out of the building with her jogging to stay at my side.

  “Augusta? For what?”

  I stopped.

  “Mama, he’s sorry,” I said.

  “No.” She sounded broken somehow.

  “He still loves me. I love him.”

  “No, baby.”

  “We’re meeting at the house later to talk.”

  “No. You can’t go back there. Not after everything you’ve been through. You can’t go back.”

  “He’s my husband. He made a mistake and he said he’s sorry. I believe him. He may have made a bad decision, but he’s not a liar.”

  “And what about you? What about what you’ve started here? Your new life? You’re just going to walk away from that?” she asked.

  “What life? I live in a house with you. I can hardly pay any bills. I don’t have a career. I’m just floating. At least I had something there.”

  “Well, how are you going to get there? You can’t drive,” she said.

  “Mama, you can’t stop me. I’m doing this.”

  “But what if you get caught?”

  “I’m doing this.”

  My mother repeated herself again and again as we drove home. She threatened to call Kerry. To call the police. Said she wouldn’t watch the twins for me. Cried.

  I couldn’t be broken though. Being back in Reginald’s arms had already taken me halfway home and I wasn’t turning back. He was my love. Not the greatest. But mine. I was happy, and I wanted her to be happy with me. To trust me and support me.

  Once I’d packed a few things and was moving them out to my car, she came out of the house wiping her tears.

  “If you do this, you’ll see yourself back,” she said.

  “Mama, you’ve said that.”

  “I don’t want you to take the children. They can stay here with me for as long as they need. I don’t want your mistake to be their burden. Not like I did with you.”

  “This isn’t like that. I promise you. It’s going to be good.”

  14

  If someone saw me walking around downtown Augusta that day I was supposed to meet Reginald back at the house, they’d say I was skipping or prancing, maybe bouncing like a ball. I couldn’t contain my happiness. It was all over me. The farther I got from Atlanta, the closer I got to Augusta, I was returned to myself. I had to have my husband back. I knew it when he touched me. He was a part of my whole and I couldn’t live without him. When you have someone in your life for that long, the idea of moving forward without them, especially when they make it clear they don’t want to do that, is impossible. It took my breath away.

  I decided to make Reginald and me a big dinner. A romantic night, a meal to claim our new start. I’d bought and planned to cook everything he loved. I proudly put these gifts into my car and looked at them through the eyes I’d had for Reginald when I was 19. I wanted to make him happy. To see him happy. I just needed to get a few more things. One more stop.

  As I walked into Target, the sun in the sky had little feathery clouds around it. I know, because I looked. I stopped and looked at the sun and smiled before I walked inside.

  “Dinner . . . flowers . . . my baby’s favorite cut of steak,” I listed slowly to myself, passing a galley of red shopping carts as I walked into the superstore. “I’ve got everything we need. Even my old Luther CD.”

  I just needed to get his favorite almond-scented candles. I thought that would be a nice touch.

  I got the candles, put a few in a basket I was carrying, and went to get in line to pay. But when I got near the front, I looked over at the Customer Service station and remembered that I still hadn’t gotten the pictures from our spring camping trip to the mountains. Reginald had kept begging me to get them, but I was too busy. I headed toward the counter, thinking how cute it would be to have the pictures of us camping with the twins in DeSoto Falls spread out on the dining room table when he walked in the door.

  “Ma’am, you picking up?” one of the women in the red vests behind the counter asked.

  “Yes, I ordered prints a long time ago. I wonder if they’re still here.”

  “You have your stub?”

  “No. I’m sorry,” I said.

  She took my information and said the prints were done. It would take her a minute to go in the back and find them.

  “Can you wait?”

  “I’ll be right out here,” I said, putting my basket on the floor.

  “Only be a minute. I’m sure.”

  The woman disappeared into the back room.

  I stepped out of line and looked at the woman behind me.

  “Twins?” I said, looking at her bulging belly.

  “Twins,” the woman confirmed, smiling.

  “I have twins, too,” I said. “A girl and a boy.”

  “I’m having a girl and boy, too!”

  “Oh, Lord, get ready! The drama will be in full swing from day one,” I said. “The key is to keep good people around you.”

  “Why thanks,” the woman said. “I think we’re off to a good start.”

  “Wait,” I said, noticing that her stomach was so big, there was no way she wasn’t at least in her eighth month. “What are you doing outside? You don’t need to be in anyone’s Target! You should be on bed rest. Trust me, it’s the last real rest you’ll ever get.”

  She laughed.

  “I know. I know. I’m taking it easy,” she said. “We just had our baby shower last weekend and people kept showing up with gifts we hadn’t ordered.”

  “What a shame.”

  “Yeah. Target’s baby registry got our names confused with a couple in Atlanta. Can you imagine, a couple with the same first and last names living in the same state?”

  “That’s crazy!”

  “I’m here to try to get Target to come and pick up these gifts. It was their computer error.”

  “Yeah, you shouldn’t have to deal with that,” I said. I heard the woman who was helping me call for a representative to come to the back to help her.

  Someone else called for the next person in line and the woman I was talking to stepped up to explain her situation. I watched as she spoke and pointed at the baby registry machines behind the waiting area.

  The line grew longer, so I picked up my basket and went to stand by the machines until the woman who was helping me came back out front.

  I looked at the registry machines thinking what an awful predicament the new mother was in.

  “They really need to fix these machines. It’s a mess,” I said affectedly, as I tried to recall every instance of error I’d experienced with a Target registry machine. There were none. But then, out of nowhere, I remembered the conversation I’d had with Sharika at the library about that woman who killed herself. She found out while snooping at the Target baby registry her ex-husband was having a baby with someone else. “Why did she look up his name?” I remembered asking Sharika. I couldn’t remember if she answered or i
f the woman was real or from one of the books she’d read.

  I looked at my watch. A manager had come out to talk to the pregnant woman. They pointed to the machines.

  My voice played again: “Why did she look up his name?”

  No. That’s ridiculous, I thought to myself about what I was thinking. It was ridiculous. I couldn’t look up Reginald’s name. Then I remembered all of the information from Landon. What Sasha had said about wanting a baby so bad.

  No, I told myself. It was ludicrous. Ridiculous. But if it was so ridiculous, why wouldn’t I try it? I could try it. Just to prove myself correct. And just to prove that it was ridiculous. There was no way Reginald could’ve been having a baby with Sasha. He was still married to me! He’d wear protection when he slept with her. Right? Then I remembered that he hadn’t used any protection that night in our bedroom.

  I clicked the little mouse. I had to prove myself wrong.

  The first hit was Reginald and Sasha Johnson in Snellville, GA. And according to the shower date, their baby was probably sitting up by now.

  The second was Reginald Johnson and Sasha Tolliver in Athens, GA. Their baby shower was in a few hours.

  I decided to try Sasha’s last name.

  Sasha Bellamy was expecting a little boy in five months. She had no husband listed.

  I laughed at my detective strategy. This witch hunt was sad. There had to be at least four or five women in the city with the same name.

  I waved at one of the representatives and asked where the woman helping me had gone. He said she’d be right out.

  I turned back to the machine and decided I’d kill time by being nosy. I entered Sasha Bellamy’s registry to see what kinds of things she was ordering—bottles, nipple cream, a baby bag, bibs, the necessities. I smiled, remembering getting those things at my shower. I’d used maybe half of them.

  I kept reading and saw a note the mother had posted for her guests:

  Reginald and I are so happy to share with the world the coming birth of our son. We know it’s early for a shower, but we were hoping to say good-bye to all of our friends before we move to my hometown in North Carolina to start our lives. See you all in September.—Love, Sasha and Reginald