Second Thoughts (25 page)

I grabbed my purse from the chair next to the door and walked out, leaving DaMarcus alone in the room with his thoughts.

That felt good. One less secret I had to carry around. I no longer had to hide my son’s father from him. Although the last thing I wanted to do was hurt my sister, the look on DaMarcus’ face made my heart smile. There was one more thing I needed to do. Telling the truth felt good, even if it meant hurting a few people. I searched my bag for my cell phone. Once I found it, I browsed through my contacts looking for the number to my friend Patrick McKay.

Chapter
29

Vanessa

My Gift from Love

I stood on the sidewalk, tapping my feet angrily
against the pavement, waiting for the valet
to return
with my car. I tried to stop the tears, but my thoughts of what had just transpired kept them coming. I avoided eye contact with everyone, including the valet. When I got in the car, I closed the door and breathed. My hands were shaking, and everything in front of me was such a blur. When I geared the car to drive, my cell phone rang. I removed the phone from my purse and checked the screen before answering. When I realized it was Isis’s office number, I attempted to answer the phone with composure.

“Hey, girl. I haven’t heard back from you about dinner. Are we still on? Are we still going to Reserves, and do I have time to go home and change? I’ve been in this suit all day.”

I was waiting for her to breathe.

“I’m sorry, Isis. I can’t. Although I could use a stiff drink right now, I really can’t.”

And another tear rolled from my eyes.

“You could use something stiff, all right, but I’m quite sure it’s not a drink you’re talking about,” she joked, but I definitely wasn’t in any mood to joke.

When I didn’t laugh she added, “Oh, hell. Did you find out about Dillon and Taylor? ‘Cause there’s definitely something going on. She wouldn’t tell me, but there’s definitely something.”

“Oh, Isis, I don’t even know where to begin. Yes, I do,” I quickly corrected.

I told Isis about the text messages Dillon had sent to T.D. that morning. Then I told her about calling the number and hearing the voice on the other end that definitely sounded like Taylor.  I told her I’d sent a text message to the number in Dillon’s phone inviting T.D. to the hotel just as DaMarcus had asked me to do while Dillon was in the bathroom, believing I was sending that message to Taylor.

“So who the hell was T.D.?” Isis asked, hurrying me to get to the point.

For a psychiatrist she was impatient as hell.

“Don’t tell me Dillon took a trip to Brokeback Mountain. I’m sorry, girl. I know there was something about him, I just couldn’t tell you.”

“Bitch, no. My husband isn’t gay. T.D. is Torrie Davenport, the woman he’s been seeing for the last two years,” I disclosed.  “His fiancé.”

“Fuck me.”

That was Isis’s usual response whenever she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. 

“And this bitch had the nerve to wave her ring in my face,” I added.

“What did you do? Please tell me that ring is floating in the Schuylkill River with her finger still attached to it.”

“I wanted to do so much to her, but after hearing my nephew, the little boy who was my heart, was Dillon’s son, I was cut too deep to even react like the insane woman that lives inside me.”

I heard a thud, and the phone went silent. I pressed the call button to redial Isis’s number.

“Girl, I’m sorry,” she answered. “What you just said knocked the phone from my hand.”

Telling Isis about the unbelievable day I had stopped the tears momentarily. Then she added, “So did she tell you about the baby she had for Patrick?”

“What are you talking about? Patrick who?”

“I don’t know. She never gave a last name?”

“Taylor doesn’t have another baby,” I said, confident I was right. “And the only Patrick I know was a best friend she met in grade school, and the last I heard he was gay.” I paused. “Holy shit!”

“What?” Isis screamed into the phone.

I told Isis that when Taylor was about fifteen or sixteen she was sent away for a few months. My mother was pretty hush about where Taylor went. The explanation she gave depended on who you were. To those she considered her friends, the ones for whom she was putting on airs, Taylor was attending a year-round all-girls school, just for a semester…in California. It didn’t make sense then, and it really doesn’t make sense now. Me? I needed to stay out of grown folks business, and that’s exactly what I did.  When Taylor finally came back, she was a few sizes smaller than when she left, but her breasts had grown about two cup sizes.

“But she came back the same way she left: without a baby,” I said. 

“She gave a very simple explanation to that. Your mother gave the baby away. She never told Taylor where the baby was, and Patrick doesn’t know he has a child out there somewhere,” Isis said, telling the most interesting part of her session with Taylor. “Your mother died without telling her. As much as Taylor pretends, she hated your mother for that. And those tears she cried the day your mother died weren’t for her but that she died without spitting those words from her mouth.”

“If this isn’t the day from hell, I don’t know what it.”

“Now what?” Isis asked.

“It’s going to be a busy next couple of days,” I began. “I have divorce papers to file, and a husband, sister and nephew to put out of my damn house.”

I was so happy I had someone like Isis in my life. Even though she was the only other person I had told about the day’s mind-blowing events, I knew sooner or later I would be hearing from Telia. Isis can’t hold water, so I don’t tell her anything I don’t want to hear on the streets. “I’m calling to get all in yo damn business,” Telia would say after bombing me out for reaching out to Isis first, even though I’d known Isis longer.

I finished my drive home listening to Anita Baker’s “I Apologize”, though I wasn’t looking for or would not accept any apologies from Dillon or Taylor. I’d given him his chance to walk into my life and he took his opportunity to walk out. The words to her song brought the tears back. I cried silently all the way home. The conversations of the day played over and over in my mind. The look on Dillon’s face, the pride in Torrie’s eyes, the pain in my own voice took turns flashing before my eyes. I thought about the things I should have said but didn’t, and what I should have done but couldn’t. I tried to ignore the ache I felt in my heart.  This was the gift that love gave me.

Chapter
30

Colleen

Anytime You Need a Friend

“You got balls showing your face here,” I said. She
stood at the front door giving her back to me.  I folded my arms across my chest and leaned with my shoulder on one side of the door.

“Aren’t you going to invite me in?”  she asked, turning around.

“After you tell me what the HELL you’re doing here,” I said in a whisper, as if I were telling a secret.

I’d almost forgotten I had a mother. I hadn’t spoken to Georgia Rosemarie Brigham in about five years. Before then, we’d spoken sporadically, reaching out to her only when a little guilt kicked in. Fortunatel
y, the guilt didn’t last too long, and I wasn’t on the phone with her long before I was reminded why I resisted any urge to engage in a civil phone conversation with her.  I’d stopped counting after my last attempt to reach out to her. I’d called my mother and told her I’d purchased a ticket and was coming for a short visit. I was worried about her, and even though my message said exactly that, she never returned my call.  Still I boarded my flight to Houston that morning on the day before the first day of spring. I was worried and anxious.

“Mother,” I greeted when she opened the door.

I’d stood on the front porch and waited to be invited in. I never got that invitation. She slammed the door in my face without saying as much as a word. I was eager to see my mother and that was the welcome I got. At least she’d opened the door.

Now she was standing at my door, and the only thing I could think about was how she’d treated me. She gave me no explanation for her distance, and I doubt that was her reason for her unannounced visit. My mother and I ruled under the same sign, but entirely different months. I was born August sixteenth; my mother celebrated her eighteenth birthday a few weeks before I was born, in July. We were die-hard Leos. We were confident and loyal at our best, pretentious and melodramatic at our worst. Leos aren’t known to hold a grudge and could easily forgive, but both my mother and I have proven to be the antithesis of these facts. I wished my mother considered me a birthday present, but she had reserved that title for Lexi. Though the words never came from my mother’s mouth, I’d always felt like the bane of her existence. She did a good job to make me think otherwise. She didn’t go above or beyond what was required of her as my mother. What she did for Lexi was something entirely different that never stopped even when I was old enough to recognize the subtle differences in how she treated us.

“You don’t think you should have told me about this visit?” I asked.

“And spoil my surprise? You know I like surprises,” she said, smiling.

“And you know I don’t like anyone showing their faces at my door without letting me know first. You’ve heard of advance notice, right?”

“Guess things can’t always go your way, right?” she said, sidestepping me and inviting herself inside my house.

I closed the door and walked behind her.

“How was your flight?”

“Do you really care to know, or are you just asking to avoid an awkward silence between us?”

“Look, Mother. If you came here looking for a fight, you’re on your own.”

“Fight? I’m not looking for a fight.”

She walked to the living room and sat in the Vintage brown leather armchair in the far corner.

“You see, my visit has one purpose, dear.”

She spoke with her eyes towards the floor. She maintained a long pause before she continued.

“I simply came to take from you what you took from me.” 

“And what exactly did I take from you?”

She laughed.

“You know, your memory was never your best asset.”

She placed her bag on the right side of the chair, then sat back and crossed her right leg over her left.

“Sometimes when we think our secrets are buried way deep, they never really are.”

“Secrets?” I objected. “I don’t have any secrets.”

“No, you don’t. Well, not anymore.”

I stood in the large doorway between the living room and the foyer and stared at her. The last five years had been good to Georgia. She had quit smoking a few years after my father died. He used to tell her “those cancer sticks are gonna help you dig that early grave.” But my mother always had a comeback. In her raspy voice she would say, “I’ll quit smoking when you give that bottle a rest.” My father died in a drunk-driving accident. He was the drunk driver. I guess he died doing what he loved best. He made love more nights to his bottle of vodka than he did his own wife; that I remembered. He lived and breathed for his alcohol as if it was his third child, and he had proudly named it Smirnoff. He proudly embraced his penchant for alcohol.

My mother had lost a few pounds, too. She was once again slim
in the waist. I didn
’
t ask her what she was doing,
‘
cause I didn
’
t care. It was just an observation. She wore a red Roberto Cavalli shell-print silk-chiffon dress
⎯
probably from money Chance has been giving her
⎯
and red leather and cork wedge sandals. Ever
since I
’
ve known my mother, she
’
s always dressed half her age. Today she was dressed more like my sister than my mother. I guessed seventy was the new forty.

I walked with a quick pace and stood in front her.

“Look. I haven’t heard from you or spoken to you in what, five years?”

“Oh, you were counting,” she interrupted.

She still hadn’t looked at me.

“And you show up here unannounced and uninvited, talking in riddles. Now, you have five minutes to tell me why the hell are you here working my last damn nerve. Why the hell are you here, Georgia?” I repeated.

“Aren’t you going to get that?” she asked, dismissing me.

“What?” I snapped.

I hadn’t heard the doorbell over my loud rant.

“Are you expecting anyone?”

“This is your house. Are you?” my mother asked.

Frankly, I was getting a bit tired of all these damn surprises. In less than two weeks, two officers, a convict, and a woman who seems to have a chip on her shoulder have visited me, and now my damn doorbell was buzzing again. If I knew my mother as well as I thought I did, I would say she was up to something. I turned from the living room and headed towards the door. I pulled the door open without asking who it was.