Don't Ask My Neighbor (4 page)

She looked at me as if I were planning on using her response to analyze her. So far, I had hung on to her every word. I was sitting across from her believing everything she sold me, and it wasn’t a hard sell.

“Twenty-seven in a few months,” she added, interrupting my thoughts.

“Really! And how do you plan on celebrating?”

“I didn’t plan on celebrating at all. I’m not big on celebrating birthdays at all,” she responded with a slight pause, and gazed down at the intricate pattern in the tabletop. “But now that I’ve met you…”

As she spoke, she looked up and smiled that enticing smile again.             

When our coffee cups were emptied, after our second order, plans had been made to celebrate her birthday over dinner at Le Pieux Poisson, and take a getaway to a lakeside cabin in the hills of North Carolina.

When I woke that morning and decided to follow my grandmother’s unsolicited advice, I had no idea my decision to test this theory would position me in the presence of Samantha Wells. I felt an unbelievable chemistry sitting across from this woman. Nothing could go wrong, right? I met a woman who, at first glance, put God first. He was one man I didn’t mind competing with. How could loving her go wrong? I wasn’t prepared for the devil this woman eventually became. After all, according to my grandmother, didn’t God send Samantha my way? I wasn’t supposed to look back on September 26, 2004 and declare that the worst day of my life; I didn’t have to. Samantha Wells made sure that date would pale in comparison.              

Six

_______

Can I Stay With You

Kennalyn 

I MADE DINNER LISTENING TO MY favorite Karyn White song “
Can I Stay With You
” from her 1994 “Make Him Do Right” album. So many good things happened during that year. That year I graduated valedictorian from Paul VI Catholic High School. That was also the year I celebrated my eighteenth birthday. I was grown; at least according to what I heard my friends’ mothers tell them. But according to my mother, I wasn’t grown until I was out of her house, paying my own bills, and putting food on my own table. Needless to say, that thought scared me.              

Un
like my other “grown-ass friends”—that’s what my mother called them—I wasn’t in any rush to become any man’s wife, or even anybody’s mother, and as far as I was concerned, there weren’t any men in my school. I was comfortable being daddy’s little girl, and
had learned from the drama my high school friends went through with their older boyfriends, though older at that time meant dating boys that were in their junior or senior years. Those relationships usually turned sour as graduation neared, and often ended after their now college men set eyes on the first college coed they saw while unpacking their parents’ over-packed hatchbacks. As I saw it, those girls settled; something I wasn’t going to do. My desire to be grown came with my own self-imposed limits. I had accomplished one of those in-order-to-be-grown requirements. Being out of my parents’ house landed me on the campus of the University of Texas. Nineteen ninety-four was also the year I met him.

He was Gage Delahunt, the man I gave my heart to. He was exactly six feet tal
l—not the height I envisioned my husband to be, but I wasn’t hung up on minor details. He always looked at you with his lips
slightly apart. His eyebrows were neat and thick. At nineteen years old, he already had a full beard and mustache. His gray eyes were warm and very alluring. His hair stacked on his head and looked like it couldn’t be moved by a Texas tornado. I fell in love with his wide smile, and the way his shoulder hunched up and over when he laughed extremely hard. Did I mention he was white? Never in a million years—or in this case, eighteen—would I have thought the first man to catch my eye would be a hue other than one of the many shades of black, not that I’d thought to ever purposely control who I fell in love with. So far, Gage was turning out to be nothing like my father—at least in his appearance. He was an army brat from Killeen, Texas, living with his father in Fort Hood to keep out of trouble in Chicago. According to Gage, he never went looking for trouble; trouble just always had a way of finding him.

Gage and I dated my four years at Texas; he was all the man I needed. I graduated a year after he did, carrying a gift from him that I couldn’t return. Six months after that, on December 12, 1998, Cody Ashton was born. Two and a half years after Cody, Alexis Blaire was born.  She came on a stormy June day, after 6 hours of labor. Unlike the mistake that was Cody, Alexis was planned, not that I would ever let my first-born know he was a mistake. As far as I was concerned, this mistake was my favorite. I was on my way to a forever of happiness until Samantha Wells happened to my husband.

I thought signing my name on my marriage certificate, next to Mr. Gage Delahunt’s, would be the last time I’d be signing my maiden name to anything. I thought I had abandoned Kennalyn Covell forever, but there I was, five days after giving Gage back his freedom and his last name, reclaiming what I had given away willingly. Marriage I had always planned for, but I never bargained for a divorce. I always wanted a husband. Most importantly, I wanted my husband to be just like my father, no more, no less. I wanted a man that made me feel the way my daddy made my mother feel. I wanted a man who didn’t love the one he was with only because he couldn’t be with the one he loved. I wanted Gage since the day I met him.

After making dinner, I sat on the couch enjoying what was left of my evening. Although my day started at its usual 5:45 a.m., it wasn’t ending at 10 p.m. with a fast food meal substituting the home cooking I loved to feed my babies. I wasn’t running around being a superwoman. For the moment, I had hung up my soccer mom and hockey mom hats. Even my mommy hat was hung on a coat rack close by, that is until they would come running through the doors, and I wouldn’t have a break from them until it was time for bed, which included a bedtime story, kisses on Alexis’ cheek and Cody’s forehead, saying my usual “I love you”, and closing the doo
r—not all the way—and then hoping Alexis actually sleeps through the night. 

In anticipation of their famished return from their activities, I began setting the dining room table, a beautiful handcrafted antique brown with white straight-back chairs. It was a family heirloom bequeathed to me from my great-grandmother. Alexis’ plate was set on the table in front of the chair next to mine. Cody would be eating in his usual position, at the head of the table, where his father used to sit. Gage
hadn’t sat there in seven years. Cody had taken the conversation he’d had with his father literally.

Gage had sat on the bed next to Cody with his right arm around him. I stood in the doorway with my arms folded across my chest, my head tilted back, trying to fight tears. I hadn’t prepared Cody for the conversation I told him to expect with his father. The man he once had face to face conversations with about basketball, or sat on the couch all day Sunday and Monday nights watching football was now visited every other weekend, or showed up at soccer games just in time to see Cody score a goal. I never thought I’d ev
er raise children as a single mother, but there my ex-husband was, carefully executing prepared goodbyes.

“You’re the man of the house now,” Gage said.

That was a hell of a responsibility to bestow upon your seven-year-old son. Gage wasn’t dying, and he wasn’t being sent to war. He was divorcing his family. That wasn’t an honorable deed in my book. Cody had done a great job with this lofty expectation. He honored his mother and his sister, which was more than I could say for that man he still called daddy.

I stood in the kitchen, leaning over the counter,
after pouring a glass of Merlot, nothing special, just something I kept in the fridge for quiet nights like this. For lack of a better word, I was enjoying the calm before the inevitable storm that was my two beauties returning home.

When the doorbell rang, I walked to the door, finishing my glass of wine, placing the empty glass on the table that sat in the center of the foyer.

“Hi, Mommy,” Alexis yelled when I opened the door.

She rushed past, heading up the stairs toward her room on the second floor.

“Alexis,” I yelled back. “Dinner will be on the table in ten minutes.”

I turned back around to face Gage, who was still standing outside.

“We already ate, Mom,” Cody said, hugging me around my waist.

I wrapped my arms around him, cradling his head in my right arm. At 14, he was already almost taller than me. He was growing to look more and more like his father, but since he was my son, I didn’t hold that against him.

“Okay, honey. You can start getting yourself together for bed. And make sure your sister isn’t up there playing around. I’ll be up in a few to check homework.”

“Niya already helped us, Mom,” Cody said as he removed himself from my cuddle and began his walk upstairs.

I didn’t respond to Cody’s disclosure. I stared at Gage. He stood looking up at Cody as if he had shared information he was warned not to mention.

“It was just dinner, Kenna,” Gage admitted.

“Dinner that lasted long enough for her to help my children with their homework?”

“Kenna, they’re our children,” he said, standing with his hands in his pockets. “She’s not doing anything to hurt them.”

“I don’t care if she were teaching them how to appropriately bow or curtsey to the Queen. I’ve told you I don’t want them around her. She’s not family. She shouldn’t be helping them with shit. First it was Samantha who helped herself to their father, now you have this Niya woman wanting to play mother, too. You’re doing everything I don’t want my son or my daughter learning from you.”

“You’re being ridiculous.”

“Is that what I’m being, Gage, ridiculous? I’m sorry. I thought I was being a mother. Set an example for your son,” I said turning from him. “I don’t want you sharing your instability with him.”

This is the most I’ve said to Gage since the divorce was final. During the divorce, we communicated through our lawyers. After that, I had no interest in discussing anything with him. My kids were old enough to ask him for what they wanted. I didn’t even ask him for money to support Cody and Alexis, but he kept their tuitions paid, and their allowance showed up in my account like clockwork. He didn’t know it at the tim
e—though I’m sure it didn’t take him too long to figure it out—but if he had not given my children exactly what I thought they deserved, I would have taken his ass to the cleaners.

“You don’t need to concern yourself with w
hat I teach my son. I’m the man.”

I laughed.

“And when did that happen? Perhaps you found it between Samantha’s legs. Or maybe this new chick who’s been licking the wounds Samantha left you with is still helping you with that?”

I made my way to the kitchen and began clearing the table. I hated Gage less, but I still hated him. Of all the good times we had, the night he came home after spending our anniversary with his bitch was a permanent imprint on my mind. Gage had given me a hurt I didn’t deserve. I tried to forgive him, but so far, forgiving him was turning out to be one long-ass process. My m
other was right about one thing: the only thing different between Gage and all the men education was supposed to make me avoid was his damn color. I don’t know what she saw that hinted at his impending adultery, but the one time I chose to defy my mother’s warning had me at a Calvary Church exchanging vows with a man who had no intentions of keeping his. Though, I must admit, he convincingly repeated each promise. Isn’t that what he was supposed to do, stare into my eyes, and lie? Well, he did just that.

“I don’t have to stand here and listen to this,” Gage said, turning toward the door. 

“Especially since I didn’t invite you in my house, you’re right. You don’t.”

I paused to look at him.

I knew I was getting under his skin. Talking about Samantha usually did that to him. I could have warned him about the woman I had known since I was nine years old. I could have told him love was just a game to her, but I didn’t think I needed to warn my husband about the woman I considered my best friend. He entered at his own risk, and every burn and hurt he got as a result of his greed, he damn well deserved.

“I mean, the least you could have done was make a life with the woman
who helped you break up your home. I guess your infidelity was for naught.”

“You know what I don’t understand?”

Gage stopped in the middle of the doorway. He placed his hands in his pockets and turned around. He stared at me intently before he spoke.

“Why haven’t you gotten over it? I find it hard to believe that, after all these years, you still have this disdain for Samantha. I might be barking up wrong tree, but…”

“Isn’t that what most dogs do?” I interrupted.

He continued with disregard.

“Did it hurt you more that I cheated with Samantha, or that I cheated period? I can see it. It killed you that she had something you thought belonged only to you.”

“That I thought belonged only to me?” I repeated in question. “Are you kidding me?! Marrying you meant you belonged only to me, just like I belonged only to you. If there were some confusion about that, or if you needed some clarification, you had ample time to ask.”

“So I didn’t resist her temptation. But I realized she wasn’t anything like you and I…”

“And you came expecting me to take you back, pick up right where we left off. After she was done adding your name to her growing list of dumb-ass men who fell for her tricks and games, we were supposed to just pick up with our lives just where you left it?”

“Right. You had your opportunity to give me a second chance. But I’ve moved on, and so should you.”

“It’s so easy for you, isn’t it?” I said, finally walking into the living room. “You may get to break your vows, lie, cheat, or even act like you’re sorry for any of the things you’ve put me through. But, what you don’t get to do is tell me when I should move on. That is not your decision to make.”

“Fine, but do me a favor, Kenna, and stay the hell out of my business, just like I’ve made it a point to stay out of yours. I will not be answering any more of your questions. Who I share my bed with is no longer your concern. Just like you, everything I do is classified.”

“My feelings and my job are two different things,” I said, walking toward the door. “You know what, it’s time for you to go. Keep your whores away from my children and I won’t have to question you about them.”

Sometimes I wished Gage would drop the kids off at the gate and just watch them walk, just so I wouldn’t have to see him. I slammed the door behind him. When I turned to walk toward the kitchen, Cody stood at the balcony, leaning on the rails, staring down at me. I wasn’t sure how long he had been listening, and I felt the need to apologize for the words my son may or may not have heard.