“Mrs. Johnson, I have your pictures here,” I heard behind me, but my eyes were glued on that screen. I felt my mind shut off. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t see.
I left the candles on the ground and ran out of the store.
“Do you want the pictures?” I heard the woman call after me.
When I got outside, it was raining. Coming down in buckets. It was late afternoon, but the sky was black. The sun was gone. As I ran to the car, water came up onto my legs.
My face was wet. I wasn’t crying though. I was erased. Void. Empty. Emotion couldn’t ride me. I just couldn’t believe it.
I drove home with the windows down. I let the rain come in and wet everything. It was all I could do to stop from driving right off the road. I had to feel something. To let the fury grow inside of me until I saw Reginald. I’d wield it and twist it into his gut like a samurai sword.
By the time I got to the gate leading into our neighborhood, the prime rib and fingerling potatoes were swimming in a pool in the paper bags in the seat beside me. My bra was showing through my shirt. My hair was soaked. I still wasn’t crying.
Reginald’s new truck was pulled into his old spot in the driveway. He’d moved it up far enough so I could pull in behind him, but fury drove me right onto the lawn. I smashed into the flowers and bushes and stopped the car right at the front steps.
Reginald opened the door smiling, but when he saw the mess, he rushed out.
“Babe, what happened?” he asked, meeting me as I jumped out of the car. “You slid? Was it the rain?”
I looked at my husband. At his mess. At my life in that two thousand-square-foot box behind him. I was shaking. But I wasn’t cold.
“Babe?” Reginald said again. “What happen—”
“I know! I know! I know! You fucking bastard!” I rammed into Reginald’s gut, pushing him to the grass.
“What the hell?”
“Don’t talk. Don’t you dare fucking talk to me.” I was on top of him swinging.
“Dawn, what’s wrong with you?” He tried to grab my arms.
“The baby. I know. I know about the baby.”
“How? Who told—” He pushed me off him and I landed beside him in the grass.
“Does it matter? Does it really matter how I know?” I started getting up.
“Let me explain,” Reginald said, getting up on his knees in front of me. “I can explain. I didn’t mean to do it. She said she was on the pill—”
I slapped him hard.
“What didn’t I do? What?” I asked.
“You did—”
“What?” I hollered. “You tell me. You make sense of this right now. You tell me what I did to deserve such a shitty life. Oh, God! Oh, my God!” I cried and looked up at the sky through the rain. Vacant of anything to keep me up, I fell into Reginald and he wrapped his arms around me.
“Babe, I can fix it. I can fix it,” he said and I swear I almost believed him. Needing to hear anything, I almost believed that this, a child, could be fixed. That’s what Reginald did. It was who he was. “That’s why I’m here,” he went on, “to tell you that I’m going to make everything OK. Make everything like it was.”
I started hearing voices. Words splitting my ears. Screaming. Ms. Juanita Jordan’s voice saying, “Nothing can ever be like it was.” My ringleader holding my hand and whispering in my ear, “No matter what he says, and no matter what you want to believe, it can never be like it was. There’s either today and tomorrow or no day and never. The past, dear Ms. Aniston, is prologue.” My mother telling me to have hope. Praying over me as I slept on the floor.
I pushed away from Reginald.
“What?” he asked still on his knees.
“We can never go back to the way things were,” I said defiantly. “I almost forgot that, but now I know.” I started walking back to the car.
“But she said I don’t even have to be there for the baby. That I can sign my rights away if I want to.”
“And you considered it, didn’t you? Signing away your unborn child just like you signed away your whole family,” I said without turning around. Reginald tried to grab me, but he fell down in the muck. “You can keep this house. I want a divorce.”
I opened the car door and was about to get inside when I heard a familiar ring. It was Reginald’s cell phone.
I had the key in my hand, but I stopped myself from getting into the car. The way that ring sounded—there was just something about it. And somehow I knew instantly, in the way that any woman who’s ever given birth does, that something was wrong.
“It’s your mother. She’s called five times. Now it’s a text. She said she’s been trying to reach you, too. She’s at the hospital, at Grady. Something happened with one of the twins.”
We ran to my car and got on the road without so much as a comment. I had to get to my child. I didn’t care who was in the car. I kept calling my mother, but her phone was off and Reginald said it was probably because she was in the hospital.
“I never should’ve left him alone,” I said.
“He’s fine. I’m sure your mother’s handling it,” Reginald said.
“If something happens to him, I’ll never forgive myself.”
I kicked off my shoes and ran up the pavement toward the emergency room doors at the hospital in my bare feet. I stopped right out front and left Reginald to park the car. In my mind, I could hear my baby crying. His cries from his crib when he was a baby. I was always there. Would sit there with him, rock him to sleep, and let him know I’d never leave him alone and he was safe.
I had to know that he really was safe now. That his world, unlike mine, hadn’t come crashing in.
Reginald caught up with me and we followed a zigzag of little rooms and hallways, closets, and staircases to find my mother. The front desk didn’t have a patient registered named Reginald Johnson Jr., but we knew he was there.
I saw my mother’s purple jacket hanging out of one of the rooms and Reginald and I rushed to the door.
“R. J.? Where’s R. J.?” I asked immediately as I walked into the room.
But inside there was a doctor standing beside the bed, helping Cheyenne up. They were laughing. R. J. was actually standing beside my mother, eating a chocolate-covered pretzel.
“Me?” R. J. asked, making his way to me. “I’m fine. Cheyenne fell down.” He pointed to Cheyenne.
“Cheyenne? Is it you? What happened?” I went and stood in front of the doctor. “Are you OK?” The doctor and my mother explained everything to Reginald as I pressed and patted Cheyenne’s arms and legs.
“We came as soon as we could.” Reginald reached over and patted Cheyenne’s head.
“Your daughter is fine,” the doctor reassured Reginald. “She just sprained her pinky.” He pointed at a little silver sling holding Cheyenne’s pinky just as I made my way to it.
“A sprain?” I held the little swollen fingers.
“What happened?” Reginald asked.
“I climbed a tree,” Cheyenne said matter-of-factly.
“I told her to stay out of that tree in the backyard,” my mother said.
“A tree? What were you doing climbing a tree?” I asked.
“We were playing in Grandma’s backyard and R. J. said he wanted to see me fly.”
“Fly? But you know you can’t fly? You know that’s not for real,” I said.
“She knows now,” my mother said. “Cried the whole time on the way over here. They had to give us a room, she was so loud.”
“I wanted to climb the tree in the backyard like a boy,” Cheyenne admitted.
“But you can’t just do whatever you want, baby,” Reginald said. “You know right from wrong and you know you shouldn’t be climbing trees. You can hurt yourself. You could’ve really hurt yourself and your brother.”
I listened as the doctor explained how the sprain would affect Cheyenne: the swelling would go down in about a week, but until then there was no reason to limit her activities. Maybe no
tree climbing.
“Ice cream is the best remedy,” he joked. “My prescription is an immediate trip to the nearest ice cream parlor.”
“Ice cream? Really?” R. J. said excitedly. “I want to sprain my finger, too. Can I?”
“No! No! No!” we all said.
As we attempted to retrace our steps to exit the hospital, Reginald and I naturally took sides around the twins and held their hands. My mother, who’d been silent and trying to avoid talking to Reginald walked a few steps ahead. Cheyenne held her pinky to her chest and walked closest to her father.
“We going home, Daddy?” R. J. asked.
“Yes, son,” Reginald answered.
“Yes,” Cheyenne cheered. “We’re a family again.”
Reginald looked at me.
“Mama, did you drive?” I asked.
My mother turned around.
“No, I couldn’t,” she said. “That child was hollering like somebody was killing her. I had to call an ambulance.”
“Reginald and I are in my car,” I said. “I guess we can all fit in.”
“It’s OK; we’re all going home,” R. J. said and then I realized that he was talking about Augusta.
I looked at Cheyenne holding Reginald’s hand.
“No, I think we’re going to have to drop Daddy off,” I said.
“Drop him off?” Cheyenne looked at me and dropped Reginald’s hand. “But I thought you said we were going home together. That we were going back to Augusta with Daddy. Isn’t that why you went there?” She stopped walking.
I looked at my mother.
“I didn’t say anything,” she said.
“I know what I said, pumpkin, but”—I tried to reach for Cheyenne, but she stepped back—“Daddy and Mommy aren’t getting back together. Not right now. Reginald, could you explain this to her?”
“But you said that if we were all happy, we could go. We could go home!”
“I know, but—” I tried, looking at Reginald.
“Baby, what your mother’s trying to say is—” Reginald started.
“You’re liars!” Cheyenne hollered so loud it seemed as if everything in the hospital stopped. “You’re both liars.” She pushed away from us and ran back down the hallway toward her room.
“Chey!” Reginald called, turning to follow her.
“Where did she go?” my mother asked.
“I’ll get her,” I said. “You all wait here.”
There was a nurse in front of the room where Cheyenne had been earlier.
“She’s in the corner,” the woman said, as I rushed around to the door.
“Thank you.” I went inside and saw Cheyenne scrunched up in the corner, her legs pushed into her chest just enough to cover her arm. Her eyes were red with tears and she stared straight ahead.
I walked over and sat beside her on the cold tile.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry this didn’t work. And I don’t think you’ll ever know or understand how sorry Mama is. But I am. There’s nothing more that I wanted for you guys than for our family to work. But . . . what Mommy wants and what Mommy knows is right are two different things right now.”
Cheyenne wiped one of her tears but said nothing.
“But you know what will never change?” I pulled at Cheyenne’s face and made her turn and face me. “That I love you. And no matter what else happens, that’s never going to change. And your father loves you, too. Even if he doesn’t live with us. He’ll always be in your life. He’ll never leave you.”
“Then why can’t he live with us?” she mumbled behind tears.
“You’re a little too young to understand that. But what happened between me and your dad had been going on for a while,” I said. “It’s no one’s fault. It’s just how it is.”
“Doesn’t he love us anymore?”
“Of course he does. Our relationship has nothing to do with you. I bet your daddy loves you more than any other woman in the world.”
“You think so?”
“I know so.”
Three hours and a few scoops of ice cream later, it was as if Cheyenne had never had an accident at the foot of the tree. This was really the best prescription ever. The twins were upstairs getting ready for bed and I was sitting in the living room watching television with my mother.
She hadn’t asked what happened with Reginald yet and I really didn’t want her to.
The incident with Cheyenne brought me right to where I needed to be. What happened in Augusta was going to stay there as far as I was concerned. There was no reason to fight it or talk about it. It was over. And now I could move on, knowing I tried to make it OK.
It wasn’t my job to hate Sasha or Reginald or seek vengeance. They were bringing a new life into the world and they had plenty to handle. I was thinking about what all I had to handle.
I heard feet pattering against the wooden floor upstairs, wrestling, a wince, and then a holler. Someone screamed, “No”; someone shouted, “No” back.
I just sat there and listened to the noise. I reached into a little red bowl sitting between my mother and me on the couch and retrieved a salty boiled peanut.
“You aren’t going to say nothing to them?” she asked.
I looked up at the ceiling. There was a clump and then silence.
“They’ll be OK,” I said. “Kids need to be rough.” I laughed and reached for another peanut.
My mother reached for one, too.
She popped it into her mouth and looked at me.
“You think you’re staying here for a little while?” she asked.
“I hope so,” I said. “Why?”
“Oh, it’s nothing, I just thought that maybe this weekend I could start cleaning out my garden. Pull some weeds. I can’t do it myself. It’s hard to get on my knees. And I figured maybe with my grands here, I could have some new knees.”
“Say no more, Mama,” I said, reaching into the bowl with her. “We’ll stay.”
“That’s good, baby.”
“And, Mama, thanks for being honest with me,” I said. “When it really mattered, your advice helped pull me through.”
Ignoring the red bowl between us and the remote control that was sitting on my lap, I reached over and embraced my mother wholly.
15
I had been standing in front of A. J.’s door for thirty minutes—well, the total waiting time was actually forty minutes if you count the time I spent sitting in the car looking at the door—before I finally got the courage to ring his bell. I raised my hand and was about to push the little lighted button, but then my nerve left me and I decided to go with the first plan I’d come up with in the car.
I looked in my purse and found a pen. I didn’t have my writing pad, so I took out an empty envelope and started writing a note.
A. J., I wrote and then scribbled over it. It looked too friendly. Like I was a neighbor. Hey A. J., I wrote and then scribbled over it. It looked like I was trying to be friendly.
I ripped the sheet in half and tried to put the part I wrote on in my pocket.
“What am I trying to say?” I said. “Hello A. J.! How are you? I was in the neighborhood and I wanted to stop by to apologize for standing you up,” I said, imagining that saying the note first and then writing it would make it sound better.
A neighborhood security vehicle rolled past slowly.
“It’s eleven o’clock at night; I’m gonna get arrested out here,” I scolded myself, thinking that I probably had no business coming over to his home so late at night in the first place. What was I thinking? What if he had company? A woman? Of course he had company! Of course there would be a woman there.
I balled up the torn piece of envelope and put it into my pocket. I turned to go back to my car, but light caught my footsteps in the darkness as the door behind me opened. I didn’t turn back around though. I was too embarrassed and thought that maybe if I stood still enough, whoever was holding the door open behind me wouldn’t be able to see me and just go back
into the house. I closed my eyes tightly and wished I was invisible.
“Dawn?”
I peeked through one eye.
“Is that you?”
“Yes,” I answered, clenching my teeth.
“Are you leaving? Did you ring the bell?”
I turned around like I was facing a firing squad, but what I saw was much more attractive. A.J. was standing square in the doorway wearing only a pair of thin beige night pants. Sleep was streaked all over his face. He rubbed his eyes like a little boy.
“Oh, you were asleep? I was just stopping by, but then I figured you were busy,” I said, hoping he wouldn’t think I was a complete stalker—which would prove to be true if he had video surveillance. I looked up for cameras over the doorway.
“Yeah, I was asleep, but my neighbor called. Said someone was sitting in a car in front of my house,” he said, yawning.
“Oh, no! I’m sorry.”
“It’s cool. They look out for me. We’ve had some funny situations.”
“I won’t do that again. I just . . . I wasn’t sure if you were having company.”
He straightened up and looked at me with a grin.
“It’s fine.” He backed up into the house. “We can talk about it inside—”
“No,” I said.
“No?”
“Look, you told me to come here, to come see you when I was ready.”
“Yes, and . . .” A. J. moved back a little more, using his hand to direct me into the house.
“No, that’s not why I’m here,” I said. “I’m here to apologize for standing you up and to tell you that I’m not ready. And I don’t know when and if I ever will be. I know that sounds a little crazy with everything that’s happened. But I’m a long way from starting anything. I have a lot on my plate. And you; for a minute, you were a bright and promising thing for me. You reminded me that I’m beautiful. That I’m worth chasing. And I’ll forever be grateful to you for that. You’re an amazing example of a man. And when and if I’m ever ready for what you’re ready for, I pray that some amazing example of a woman wasn’t ready first.”
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