The Deal, the Dance, and the Devil (24 page)

Gently, we touched all of our secret places, all of the parts that till now no one else had ever seen, touched, or explored.

But after the next forty-eight hours, we’d never be able to say that again.

As the water drenched us, I sobbed inside, and Adam held me as if he could hear my cries. I was the first to step away, leaving Adam alone to make his final preparations.

Inside our bedroom, I wrapped myself in my robe. In the long minutes that lingered, every regret made its way through my mind. But I kept telling myself two things—that it was too late, that it would be all right.

It was five minutes to nine when Adam stepped out of the bathroom in black wool pants and a white shirt. Casual, yet professional. Dressy enough to go out to dinner, relaxed enough to have fun.

It was Adam. It was perfection.

The tears inside battled to come forward, but I held them behind my eyes.

Adam leaned over to kiss me, but before his lips could touch mine, a light beamed from the street through our window,
casting a long shadow across our bed. Then the gentle purr of a car’s engine made us take our eyes from each other and turn toward the sound.

Shay-Shaunté had come.

Though I’d been fighting hard, I lost the battle. A single tear crept out and crawled down the path from my eye to my chin. With his lips, Adam wiped that tear away, then he took my hand and helped me stand.

“Come with me,” he whispered.

I didn’t want to, but I walked with him, as if this was an ordinary day, as if we were parting for ordinary reasons. My mind screamed not to let him go. But though my conscience spoke, my mouth didn’t. How could I say anything, anyway? Because of me and my grand plan, we already had half the money; we couldn’t turn back now.

Adam hoisted his garment bag onto his shoulder. When he looked into my eyes, for a moment I thought he was going to ask again if I could handle this because if I couldn’t, he wouldn’t leave.

Then I would beg him to stay.

But he only said, “I’ll call you.”

And I only nodded.

He walked to the door, opened it, and turned back. He was a shadow in the dark, with only Shay-Shaunté’s car lights illuminating a beam behind him.

“I love you, Shine.”

“I love you more,” I squeaked.

He let a long moment go by before he said, “And I will forever love you best.”

Then my husband closed the door to the home that we now completely owned. My husband left to spend forty-eight hours with another woman.

Chapter 39

I
HAD TO BE OUT OF
my everlasting mind.

I was a grown woman, but I couldn’t figure out how to move. Couldn’t figure out how to lift myself from the place where I’d fallen the moment Adam had closed the door, leaving me all alone.

How long ago was that? It was hard to judge minutes when seconds consumed me. Every second that ticked by was filled with images of Shay-Shaunté. Sometimes Adam was with her—that surprised me. I was sure my thoughts would be totally on my husband, but it was Shay-Shaunté who had captured my mind.

Inside my head, she mocked me, laughed at me, and finally bid me farewell as she took my husband away. The pictorial torture played like a movie reel, from beginning to end. Then stopped and started over. Again and again—the mocking, laughing, farewell!

I pressed the heels of my hands against my temples and
tried to knead away those images. But Shay-Shaunté’s presence was stronger than my fight.

Maybe if I took myself away from the last place I saw Adam, I’d be able to get away from this agony. But there was no life in my arms, no strength in my legs.

So I rocked forward, pushed myself onto my hands and knees, and crawled. Until I was too tired to go any farther.

I was only about fifty feet away from where I started, but at least I was in the living room. In front of the fireplace. In front of the mantel. The streetlamp outside cast a blue hue onto the wall, and from where I rested, I could see our wedding picture. But only half of the photo was visible; I was there, Adam was blacked out.

I rocked back, sat and pondered that image—me without Adam.

This time I didn’t have to hide them—my tears flowed. As I cried, time passed. Passing time meant that I was getting closer to when Adam would come home.

I needed to know when that would be, so I crawled to the sofa and pushed myself up enough to see the mantel clock.

I shrieked! It was only nine twenty. Nine twenty! Only twenty minutes since Shay-Shaunté had taken my husband away.

Oh, God!

If this was the pain of the first twenty minutes, I would never survive forty-eight hours. By the time Sunday night arrived, I would have already succumbed to insanity.

A joyful sound floated through the windows, startling me. It was faint laughter from the house next door. Our neighbors, the Donaldsons, were having a party to celebrate the arrival of 2011. Last week, they’d invited us and we’d politely declined. Now I wished that I’d accepted the invitation just so I would’ve
had someplace to go. Just so I wouldn’t have been so alone. Just so I wouldn’t have felt so empty.

I wondered if the Donaldsons would mind if I just showed up. We’d been neighbors for years; surely they had enough food and holiday liquid cheer—they wouldn’t turn me away.

Except that it might look crazy when I arrived at their home on my hands and knees, dressed in my bathrobe. And I wouldn’t want to explain where my husband was.

Where
was
my husband?

Why hadn’t he called? I knew it had only been twenty minutes, but surely he would have reached out to me by now. To let me know where he and Shay-Shaunté were going.

I hadn’t thought this part of our deal through. I should have demanded to know where Shay-Shaunté was taking my husband. Were they going to her home, or was she taking him somewhere else? Were they even going to be in the D.C.-Maryland-Virginia area? Or had she taken my husband outside of the country?

Oh, God!

Those questions gave me strength, though. The strength I needed to get answers. I pushed myself up, but then I had to wait for the dizziness to pass before I took slow steps toward the telephone.
Breathe in, breathe out,
I reminded myself as I pressed the numbers for Adam’s cell. His phone rang. Once. Twice. Then, before it went to the third ring, it hit his voice mail.

I stared at the phone for a moment. Two rings? That meant that he had pushed Ignore. He’d done something we’d told our children never to do. But here, right now, Adam was ignoring me!

I dialed again, pressing each number harder this time, as if that was a way for him to feel my … what? Anger? Desperation? Despair?

This time the call went straight to his voice mail. In the seconds it’d taken me to dial again, he—or someone—had turned off his cell.

I dropped the phone back into the receiver and glanced at the clock—nine twenty-five.

Just five more minutes had passed.

It was a fact—I was never going to make it. I wasn’t even going to survive the hours between now and 2011.

Maybe bed was the best option. Unconsciousness would stop all thoughts and get me closer to tomorrow.

But when I got to our bedroom, I couldn’t even cross the threshold. In front of me were all the signs of the man I loved—leftover shrimp, and grilled cheese sandwiches, and a pitcher half filled with red Kool-Aid. My eyes wandered to the fireplace—where we’d made love before he’d left to go make love again.

I slammed the bedroom door shut, then staggered into the family room. Behind the bar, I grabbed a bottle of Riesling that Adam said went with everything from appetizers to desserts; I wondered if it went well with agony and despair.

Turning to the staircase, I used the banister to pull myself up. I was already groggy and I hadn’t had a single drink. I was groggy from grief.

Now I had this decision to make and I took my time, staring at the bedroom doors. Finally, I chose door number one.

Inside Alexa’s bedroom, I stepped through the pink netting that fell over her canopy bed, then pulled back the duvet before I slipped onto the sheets. I hadn’t thought about bringing a glass upstairs with me, so I just sipped wine from the bottle, as daintily as I could. I sipped until my skin became warm. I sipped until my toes were tingly.

Finally, I sighed, not happily, but with relief. Here, inside
the bedroom of my oldest, I was close to all of my children. Here, I could imagine that Adam was with Shay-Shaunté only because he loved me and Alexa and Alana and Ethan.

Here, inside this pink haven, is where I finally escaped from the empty feelings that threatened to kill me. I fell asleep.

Chapter 40

T
HE RINGING.
T
HE RINGING.
T
HE RINGING.

I couldn’t stop the ringing. No matter how many times I turned over. No matter how many times I tried to dive back into that place of deep slumber, the ringing just kept on.

My mind crawled through the tunnel that led toward consciousness, and my first thoughts were of my husband.

Adam!

The ringing.

My hand grasped air as I reached toward the telephone. But it wasn’t there. I forced my eyes to flutter open; focus. But I wasn’t in my bedroom.

Where was I?

I saw pink. All around. Alexa’s room.

Why was I in here?

Then, the ringing. The ringing. The ringing.

The telephone.

Adam!

I shot up from the bed, though my mind moved faster than my body. The air was like water and I waded through, pushing against the current. In the hallway, I called out Adam’s name.

“Please, don’t hang up,” I begged, as if he could hear me.

By the time I stumbled down the steps, the phone had stopped. I grabbed the receiver to call Adam back, but there was already someone on the line.

“Adam!” I shouted.

“Mom!”

“Ethan?”

“Mom!” my son cried.

“Ethan!”

“I’ve been calling you over and over. You were supposed to come get me.”

“Where are you?”

“At Grandma’s. You left me here. Please come and get me,” he cried again.

Clear memories of last night rushed back to me. Adam. Shay-Shaunté. And how I promised to pick up my son first thing this morning.

Squinting, I focused on the clock in the living room.

Get out! Was it already past noon?

“Mom, you promised to get me this morning.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I’m coming now.”

“Hurry up,” he pleaded.

I hung up because I couldn’t bear to hear his voice anymore. I didn’t want to hear another cry, didn’t want to think about how I’d let him down. I was desperate to call Adam, but Ethan needed me now.

Feeling more hungover than groggy, I staggered toward my bedroom. At least I wasn’t on my knees; that felt like progress to me.

But then I hit my bedroom door. The shrimp, the grilled cheese, the memories—were all still there.

I couldn’t go in. But then Ethan’s cries rumbled through my ears like thunder, and I pressed forward, mother-love propelling me. I had to get my son, and I couldn’t do that wearing my bathrobe.

I jumped into the first pieces of clothing that I could find—gray sweatpants and a red-and-white ESPN Memorial T-shirt. I topped it off with a green sweatshirt; I didn’t even bother with my coat. Inside of five minutes, I was in my car.

As I pulled out of the driveway, I dialed Adam’s cell. No ring—straight to voice mail. I trembled. Last night I felt empty; now, I felt scared.

The ride to my mother’s gave me too much space to think. I counted—it’d been fifteen hours since Adam had left with Shay-Shaunté. A lot of time for a lot to happen.

Screech!
I put a brake on those thoughts.
Don’t go there,
I told myself. I couldn’t wonder about what had happened over the last hours. I wouldn’t make it if I did. My focus needed to be forward. So, I counted ahead. Thirty-three hours were left.

Thirty-three hours?

That was more than double the time that had passed. If so much could’ve happened in fifteen hours, how much more could happen in thirty-three? How many times could Adam and Shay-Shaunté make love in that amount of time?

As fast as it came, I crushed that thought. Whatever Adam was doing with Shay-Shaunté, it wasn’t love. It wasn’t anything close to what we shared.

My fingers ached; I had a death grip on the steering wheel. I breathed deeply to relax and waited until I was at a red light to close my eyes and breathe even deeper.

If I was going to make it, I had to take my thoughts away
from Adam and Shay-Shaunté—even if it was just for a few moments.

As I passed the Nationals’ stadium, I began to think of Ethan. I sped up as I crossed the Capitol Bridge, and two minutes later, I eased my car in front of my mother’s.

The wind whipped across the Anacostia River, assaulting these streets that sat on the water’s edge, and dropping the temperature from cold to arctic. Folding my hands across my chest, I rushed to the door and tested the knob. Just like I knew it would, the door opened.

I was ready to scream, to tell my mother that as long as one of my children was in her house, she needed to keep her doors locked. Then I stepped into chaos and saw my son.

“Mom!” Ethan sprang from the couch, almost knocking me over. His spindly arms wrapped around me like he never planned to let me go.

Around us, it was bedlam. My nephews ran over toys and jumped over furniture and screamed at no one and nothing. The television blasted, and through it all, Apollo and my mother did what they always did—just sat back and watched.

“Hey, sweetheart, what’s wrong?” I had to tug at Ethan’s arms to get him to release me. That’s when I saw it. My son had a black eye. A black eye! “What happened?” I screamed.

“Ain’t nothin’ happen to that boy,” my mother said from where she rested in her lounger.

“How can you say that?” I dragged Ethan over to her. Maybe she hadn’t seen what had happened in her house. “Look at his eye!”

Marilyn sucked her teeth. “Please. He just got a little scratch, that’s all.”