Family of Lies (18 page)

B
EING A BITCH WAS NOT EASY.
E
SPECIALLY ONE LIKE ME, WHO WAS
determined to be successful and productive in everything I did. The only time I was not plotting and planning was when I was asleep. I had cooked up a real doozy this time. My latest plan was to “encourage” Sarah to get pregnant as soon as possible.

I wasted no time putting that plan in motion.

After Kenneth had left for work the following Tuesday morning, I refused to leave my bedroom. I ate my meals in bed and then I ordered Delia to make the bed with me still in it. I had remained in bed most of the day thinking about the conversation I’d had with Cash and Collette the morning before. Just the thought of Sarah edging me to second place on Kenneth’s list was enough to make me cry, and that’s what I had been doing, crying like a baby practically the whole day.

When Cash and Collette arrived home from work around 6:00 p.m., Delia told them I was so upset about something that I couldn’t even get out of bed. They rushed to my room immediately and wanted to know why I was crying. I refused to tell them.

“Vera, why don’t you tell us what’s the matter so we can help you,” Collette suggested. She and Cash stood over me as I lay in bed, looking like they wanted to cry too. I had almost emptied a whole box of tissue.

“It’s awful! Just awful. But I don’t want to talk about it!” I wailed before I hawked into another tissue. “Please leave me alone!”

I was still crying that evening when Kenneth got home around 7:00 p.m. By then I had moved to the living room couch, but I was still in my nightgown.

“Baby, what’s the matter? Cash called me at the office and told me you were hysterical when he got home. I got here as soon as I could!” Kenneth hollered. He slid his suit coat off and draped it across the arm of the couch and loosened his tie. I had not looked in the mirror all day. But from the way my eyes were aching, I could imagine how bad I looked. “Your face and eyes are so bruised and red and swollen—did somebody mug you? You look like hell! Are you sick? Baby, what happened to you?”

“Delia said she didn’t leave the house today,” Cash said as he entered the living room and walked over and stood next to Kenneth.

Kenneth leaned down and placed his hands on my shoulders and gently shook me. “You tell me before I go crazy!” he demanded, shaking me a little harder. “Cash, pour her a shot of brandy!”

“Kenneth, please don’t hate me,” I sobbed, wrapping my arms around his neck. I pulled him down onto the couch next to me. As soon as Cash handed me the brandy, I stopped crying long enough to swallow the entire shot. I had to hold my breath to keep from belching.

“Baby, I could never hate you. Now tell me what’s wrong.” Kenneth squeezed me so hard it was a struggle for me to catch my breath.

“Kenneth, I . . . I don’t know how to tell you.” I sniffed, turning to Cash. “Cuz, do you mind letting me talk to my husband alone?” Cash gave me a blank look, but he left the room immediately.

“Tell me what?” Kenneth asked with a wild-eyed look. I didn’t like to upset a man with a bad heart, but this time I did what I had to do. “Whatever it is, you just need to tell me. I’m sure it’s something we can fix if we work on it together.”

“Dr. Lott called me up this morning. Right after you’d left for work.”

“Your gynecologist?”

“Uh-huh. I knew it had to be serious for him to be calling me at home so early in the morning.”

Kenneth’s jaw began to twitch. “How serious?”

“Baby, we may never have a child of our own! He had received the results of my last test yesterday and it was too late to call me then.”

“What tests?”

“Uh, the tests that confirm what I suspected—I can never give you a child.”

Kenneth gave me a curious look and then he scratched his chin. “Baby, you’re
fifty-nine
years old. I thought you went through menopause already.”

“I thought I had too. Come to find out, I’m in the last stages. I had a period last month, so it’s possible I could still get pregnant, or so I thought.” I blew my nose again and gave Kenneth the most desperate look I could manage. “I didn’t tell you because I wanted to surprise you.”

“Vera, I don’t know who you’ve been talking to, but you are not making much sense. If you get pregnant now at your age, you will be surprising me and everybody else in the world,” he said distantly. “Tell me more about these tests so I can try and figure out what gave you the notion that you could have a baby.”

“There is a new and controversial procedure that involves shots and a special tea that they’ve been using in Asia for a few years. A few doctors in America just started using it on an experimental basis. Dr. Lott has had some success with a couple of his patients who had not been able to have a child. One woman was fifty when she finally got pregnant.”

Kenneth was looking so curious by now I decided to jump ahead a few steps. The truth of the matter was, the suspense and predicting his final reaction were killing me. “I volunteered to let him test me to see if I’d be a good candidate.”

“Vera! You had no business agreeing to something like that without talking to me about it!”

“I know, I know. I was going to tell you if the tests were good. That’s just it—they were not good, so it’s something we can’t consider.”

“Is that all? Is that why you’re so upset?” Kenneth immediately looked relieved. He reached for a tissue, but the Kleenex box was empty, the second one I’d emptied since I’d come downstairs. He reached for his jacket and removed a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped a ribbon of sweat off his forehead. He handed the handkerchief to me and I honked into it.

“Hmmm.” Kenneth scratched his head. “I always thought a doctor had a patient come into his office to hear something this serious in person.” There was a worried look on his face, so I had to think fast.

“They usually do. That’s why he called me this morning, to tell me to come in. But I wouldn’t get off the phone until he told me the reason.” I sniffed and blew into the handkerchief again. “When he told me that even this new procedure wouldn’t work for me, I balled up on the bed and couldn’t get back up for hours.”

Cash eased back into the room. “Is everything all right?” he asked, looking from me to Kenneth.

“Everything is fine, Cash. You can let Collette know that Vera was just having a bad day. Something about her hormones running amok,” Kenneth said, waving him back out of the room. Kenneth turned back to me. “Vera, we’ve been married all these years and have been trying all this time with no luck. I had come to the conclusion a long time ago that we’d probably never have a child of our own. I finally accepted that and gave up hope.”

“I had thought the same thing myself. But I never accepted it and I never gave up hope. I desperately wanted a child and I prayed about it year after year.”

“Well, sometimes prayer is not enough, baby. And be realistic. It’s
way
too late for you to have a baby under normal circumstances.”

“I know. And . . . and that’s why I had taken further action before I even let Dr. Lott test me for this other procedure.”

Kenneth’s eyes got big. “What further action? I hope you didn’t consider doing anything else drastic without talking to me about it! I read about a woman who fooled her husband and everybody else into thinking she was pregnant. When it came time for her to deliver, she bought a baby from a woman she’d met through some black market adoption outfit on the Internet!”

“Oh, Kenneth. I would never do something as deceptive as that! This is way too important to me for me to trick you!”

“Tell me now, exactly what is this ‘further action’ you just mentioned?”

“Uh . . . I took some of the most potent fertility pills on the market for years behind your back.”

“What? You took fertility pills and still didn’t get pregnant?”

I looked up into Kenneth’s eyes and blinked.

“Every doctor I went to assured me that there was no reason I couldn’t father a child. And you told me the doctors you went to told you the same thing. But if you took fertility pills for years and still didn’t get pregnant, something is seriously wrong with one or both of us. And the thing is, the older we get, the more unlikely we’ll ever have a child, so we don’t have any time to lose. Miracles do happen. So we should move on this straightaway!”

“Huh? Move on what?”

“I recently heard about a doctor in Switzerland who has helped a lot of childless older couples have children. They do some kind of procedure very similar to in vitro. They’ll fertilize one of your eggs with my sperm and incubate it for a period of time in some kind of device they’ve used to clone animals. Then they put the egg in the woman’s womb. It’s a very delicate operation and risky. That’s why I never mentioned it to you before now. I don’t know if everything I heard is true or not, but if it is, one woman was almost your age when she got pregnant. I’m going to have my secretary make some travel arrangements for us. And since you’re still in the final stages of menopause, we just might still have a chance.”

“Baby, that won’t help. Dr. Lott told me that it didn’t matter what I did now. I can’t even try something like the in vitro procedure. You see, my womb has shifted. And now it’s . . . tilted permanently. Not even surgery can correct the problem.” I paused and looked in Kenneth’s eyes again. They were almost as wide as saucers. His mouth was hanging open.

“What the hell does that mean, Vera?” Poor Kenneth. He looked so confused I could have knocked him over with a feather.

“It’s a rare condition, but it’s common among women in my age group. Even if I got pregnant through in vitro or that similar procedure you just mentioned, I couldn’t carry a baby full term with a tilted womb. As a matter of fact, my womb is in such a precarious position, the baby would have a difficult time ingesting necessary nutrients. If I somehow managed to carry the baby to full term, he or she would probably be born with severe defects and die within a few months anyway. I could even die from the stress on my organs!” Even if my womb was not tilted, and it wasn’t as far as I knew, I still couldn’t have a baby no matter what age I was. I had had my tubes cut, burned, and tied. And so far, this particular procedure was irreversible. The
only
way I could claim a newborn baby as my own was to steal one.

“I see.” Kenneth stared at me so long and hard I got scared. It was obvious from the hopeless look on his face that he was severely disappointed. “Baby, I know how much this subject upsets you, so we don’t need to talk about it now that we know the problem. If you want to, maybe we can look into paying a surrogate mother to have our child. I think my sperm is still potent enough for that. I just read about a sixty-five-year-old woman who was a surrogate mother for her daughter. She gave birth to a healthy baby boy.”

“A surrogate mother? Um, honey, please don’t make me consider that. A woman who used to do my hair was a surrogate mother and she got such a bad infection she died a horrible death. I had nightmares about it for months and I promised myself I’d never ask another woman to do something like that for me.” I was making shit up as I went along, and it must have sounded real good because Kenneth continued to comfort me.

“Baby, let’s stop talking about this. It’s not the end of the world. We’ve been happy all these years and now that we have Sarah, somewhat late I’m sorry to say, we are still parents. And that’s good enough for me.” Kenneth’s voice cracked and the disappointed look was still on his face. “In my opinion, the happiest moment in a man’s life is when he hears he’s going to be a daddy for the first time.”

“But I—”

He held up his hand and cut me off. “I meant everything I just said. Now let me finish. The
second
happiest moment in a man’s life is when he hears he’s going to be a grandfather for the first time.”

It was time for me to deliver the coup de grâce. “With this new development now in my case, I hope and pray that Sarah and Bo make a baby while you and I are still young enough to enjoy it.” I sniffed. “I’m tempted to just come out and tell them to make us a baby!”

Kenneth laughed softly and squeezed my hand. “That sounds good enough to me. I just might suggest it to them myself.”

I
HATED BEING ALONE WITH
C
ASH,
C
OLLETTE, AND
V
ERA.
S
O RIGHT
after I’d eaten a light dinner in their company on a Monday about a month later, I excused myself and rushed up to my room. Bo and I had a large TV facing our bed and a mini-refrigerator, and I had plenty to read so I could hole up in our bedroom for long periods of time. Just being away from Vera and her crew was a reward that made me smile every time I thought about it. There was a huge smile on my face when Bo came into the room about an hour later.

“I’m glad to see somebody’s in a good mood,” he remarked, tossing his suit jacket onto the bed next to where I had propped myself up on four king-size pillows. He sat down next to me. Right after he removed his shoes, he gave me a quick kiss. “Boy was it a rough day. Two women, both wearing wig-hats that looked like a black sheep’s ass, entered the store right after we opened this morning. They browsed for about an hour. They were rude to the clerks who tried to help them—and even accused them of following them around because they were black! Can you believe that shit? We’re talking about a black-owned company where half of the staff is black and these two nitwits had the nerve to accuse us of racism.” Bo paused and shook his head. “You would think that by now, most criminals would know how hard it is to leave a store with stolen merchandise. Well, these two didn’t. They walked out the door and when the alarm went off, you should have seen the surprised looks on their faces!”

“Did you have them arrested?” I asked with a yawn and an indifferent expression on my face.

“I would have if we had been able to detain them. The lazy-ass security guard that was on duty was useless! He was outside around the corner smoking a joint. Today was not the first time that security guard was not on his job. I fired his ass on the spot. On top of everything else now, I have to hire another security guard as soon as possible. Those two women got away with some of the most expensive games and cameras in the store.”

“They got away?”

“Those two witches ran like linebackers and were twice as big. One’s wig fell off and the other lost one of her flip-flops.”

Bo was obviously angry, but I wanted to laugh. Just a month ago when I drove my girl Lynn Turner to Target so she could “return something,” she stole hundreds of dollars’ worth of merchandise without my knowledge while I waited in my car. Just as I was checking my makeup in my rearview mirror, I spotted her sprinting across the parking lot with two big security guards right behind her. Lynn weighed more than anybody I knew, but she was as light on her feet as a jackrabbit. She made it to the car and jumped in and I sped off, praying that those security guards didn’t write down my license plate number. I had never stolen anything before in my life, and I didn’t want to get in trouble because of what somebody else did. I severed my relationship with Lynn that day. Now I had even more time on my hands.

“I hope you have better luck with the next security guard.”

“I hope we do too. Baby, you look bored.” Bo leaned forward and gave me a firm hug. “Do you feel all right, baby doll? You look a little peaked too.”

“I’m all right, I guess. But since you brought it up, I am so bored I could scream!” I hollered. “I don’t know what to do with myself when you’re not around.” Shopping and going out to lunch had become old to me. Every day when I got out of bed, I had to decide what to do with myself. Some days the boredom was so intense I had to go outside and walk around to keep from losing my mind.

“Maybe you should get a hobby outside of the house or a job,” Bo suggested.

“I can’t think of anything interesting enough to me that I’d want to take it up as a hobby. And I’m still not ready to go to work.”

“Baby, there has to be
something
you want to do.”

I closed my eyes for a moment. When I opened them, I looked at Bo and grinned. “I can think of something.” I cleared my throat and looked at my husband like he was the most handsome man in the world. And at that moment, he was. “I think it’s time for us to have a baby. Daddy and Vera told me it would make them the happiest couple in the world. I always knew Daddy wanted a grandchild, but I was surprised when Vera told me she couldn’t wait to be a grandmother.”

“Huh?” From the look on Bo’s face, I got the impression that he liked the idea. He hugged me again, kissing up and down my neck. “Do you think you’re ready to become a mother? That’s a real big step, you know.”

“I’ve taken more than one big step these past few years. Moving here, getting married. Sometimes I have a hard time remembering who I really am and my real purpose in life.”

“And do you think having a baby will remedy that?”

“I think it will. I’d have something better to do with my time than looking for things to do every day. I’m a housewife, but since Delia does all the cooking and cleaning, I don’t even get to do any of the things that a regular housewife does,” I whined.

Bo gave me a weary look. “I think we should get our own place. That might help bring you out of the doldrums. We won’t hire a cook or a housekeeper, so you will have plenty to do.”

“Uh, we don’t have to move,” I said quickly. It would have been nice to have my own house so I wouldn’t have to deal with Collette’s meddling and Vera’s mysterious ways, but I wasn’t ready to leave my daddy’s house yet. I wanted to stay as close to him for as long as I could because I was worried about him. Besides that, I still needed to be able to keep tabs on Vera, Cash, and Collette, and that would be hard to do if I moved out. They hadn’t said anything too mean or stupid about me in a few days, but I knew it was just a matter of time before they had another “bash Sarah session” in the kitchen. “I love living in Daddy’s house. I feel comfortable and safe here.” I coughed to clear my throat and then I gave Bo a pleading look. “I’m so ready to have a baby.” I sighed. “I don’t like to bring up the subject of age, but I want you to be young enough to do things with our children that you won’t be able to do if we wait too much longer.”

“You’ve got a point there,” Bo agreed. “Lord knows I’m beginning to feel my age.”

“Then let’s do it!” I squealed, teasing him by fondling my breast and sliding my tongue across my lips. “Let’s do it now!”

“That’s fine with me.” He grinned as he rose up off the bed.

Bo unzipped his pants and flung them halfway across the room. Then he jumped on the bed and began to undress me. When he got down to my panties, he removed them with his teeth.

We spent the next hour making love. Bo was so tired afterward, he went into such a deep sleep so fast that I thought he had slipped into a coma.

After I’d made sure he was still alive, I got up and removed my birth control pills from the medicine cabinet and flushed them down the toilet.