What's His Is Mine (24 page)

T
here had to be a fire in the building. That was the only explanation for why someone would be knocking on my door in the morning. I put on my slippers and robe and ran to the door. I looked through the peephole and saw DeCarious. What the hell? I opened the door. “Yes?”

“Can I come in?”

“No, it is four in the morning. What are you doing, knocking on my door this time of the night? You can't just come around here. It's been two months—you don't know if I have company.” I stepped outside the door.

“Do you have company?” I detected a little bit of jealousy.

“No, I don't, but you can't just show up at my house whenever you feel like it.”

“I just came to tell you you were right, Cherise. I was wrong. I was so wrong. I love you. I handled us wrong. I should have come to you like a man and told you how I was feeling. You are my soul mate, my best friend, the only woman I should have married. I never met anyone like you. You handle your own business. You are just perfect. I used to tell you that all the time. You are so beautiful and smart. I love you. I need you, Cherise. I want to be with you.” I smelled alcohol and I was not impressed with DeCarious's drunken rant.

“DeCarious, are you drunk?” I asked, looking at him intently.

“No . . . well, all I had was two drinks. That's all. But that doesn't matter. Did you hear me, Cherise? I love you. I want you. I need you. I'm sorry about all of this. I want to make it up to you.” DeCarious then pulled me to him.

“Tell me you love me. Look at me, Cherise. Tell me you love me, too, Cherise.” I wanted to tell him that I loved him. I wanted to, but I just couldn't. I was too hurt and facing too many emotions at once. I knew he would be back and I loved him. I prayed for this. I hoped and wished for him to come back. I wanted him to come back unmarried and ready to commit to me, but I didn't like the way he left. He left me hurt, alone, confused, ashamed. He lied to me and left without thinking about how I would feel.

“DeCarious, I can't do this right now. Maybe we can get together and talk at another time.” I went back inside and closed the door. He knocked on the door and I told him to go away. Why was he doing this? Why now?

“Please open up this door, Cherise. I need you. I'm sorry,” he said, whimpering. I walked away from the door. I was not going to let him in. I couldn't believe what was going on. And then he began to knock hard on my door. Each knock made my heart hurt. First it was a pat that turned into a
boom boom boom
. I couldn't ignore the knocks.

I walked back to the door and screamed, “DeCarious, I need you to leave! I'm not opening the door for you.”

The knocking stopped and then I heard footsteps trailing down the hall and then the fire escape door open.

I sighed. As much as I wanted to pick up the telephone and call him and tell him to come back, I wouldn't and I couldn't. Instead I dialed Toni.

“What's wrong?”

“DeCarious just came to my house drunk.”

“Are you serious?”

“I wouldn't let him in.” As soon as I completed my sentence, I heard another call coming in. “That's him calling. What should I do?”

“Just hear what he has to say and tell me what he said in the morning.”

I answered the call. “Yes.”

“Please hear me out, Cherise.” I wanted to hang up, but I listened.

“I know you think I've been drinking, but I know what I'm talking about right now. Cherise, I am so in love with you. I know I messed up with you. But I will do whatever it takes to be with you. There hasn't been one day that went by that I haven't thought about you. Cherise, there is no other woman for me. I know I messed up. I know I fucked up. I love you.”

“You love me? If you loved me you wouldn't have married another woman. If you loved me you would have been there for me. You left me, DeCarious. You left me. You made that decision and now we have to live with what you did.”

“Can I come to you, Cherise? Please? I need you, Cherise.”

“No, you don't need me. Stop lying. Go wherever you've been all these months. You left me.
You left me
. I had to go all this time wondering what I did wrong.”

“I know you are hurting. I hurt you when you loved me. I wasn't used to someone loving me without wanting something in return. I don't want to be with her. I just thought she was pregnant.”

“DeCarious, it's too late. I don't want to ever hear from you in life. Your daughter's mom ruined you. You don't know what love is,” I said as I hung up the phone and began crying uncontrollably the rest of the night.

I had a hard time concentrating at work the next day. DeCarious had been calling nonstop. It wasn't flattering. Instead of having a forgiving heart I was angry. I was so very mad. Now that I was strong and I could look the other way, he wanted to come back.

I
f me, Asia, and DeCarious weren't going to be a family, then he wasn't going to see his daughter. And I was going to take all his money and destroy him. He was going to regret the day he ever met me. Angelique gave me this real good attorney's number. Her name was Holly Byrne.

I took the elevator up to the ninth floor. Ms. Byrne greeted me herself. She had a decent size office, but said she was short-staffed today. She invited me back to her junky office. It was a mess—boxes and stacks of paper in every direction.

“So, what's going on?” she said as she sat down and began to look in a small compact and layer her outer eye with black eyeliner. Something about her was very masculine and hard, and I couldn't believe she was applying makeup, but I began speaking anyway.

“Well, my husband is trying to get our marriage annulled as well as take custody of our daughter, and doesn't want to pay me any alimony or spousal support.”

“How long have you been married? Where did you get married?”

“Three months, and in Vegas.”

“Ugh,” she said as she stopped applying the eyeliner. “Okay, three months is not a lot of time. What does he do?” she said as she went back to tracing her outer lid.

“He is a player in the NFL.”

She stopped as if she became interested again and said, “Really. Well, maybe we can handle this. Do you know who is representing him?”

“His attorney is out of Atlanta. I think a Joseph Martin. Before we married they only gave me a little child support and I don't want it to happen again. He is hiding money. I know he has millions. He has a recording studio and property. But he is trying to put everything in his mother's and cousin's names so he won't have to give me anything.”

She stood up and said, “My retainer to handle this case will be at the very least twenty thousand dollars. But I assure you that when I finish with him, twenty thousand will not be anything. I will take his house and make sure you get half of everything. We will go to the media if necessary. Has he hit or shoved you before?”

“Well, no. He walks away. But he put me out of his car before.”

“He shoved you out of the car—perfect. That is domestic abuse. Trust me, he doesn't want that type of label. None of them do. I had a case like this before. I set up a press conference and before my client reached the microphone, his attorney wanted to make a deal.”

“But he is not a big star.”

“It doesn't matter. The NFL affiliation alone is enough to garner media attention and embarrass him.”

I was excited. She was saying everything I wanted to hear. She was like a vicious attack dog. It was like all I had to do was say
get 'em, sic 'em, girl,
and she would go and bite DeCarious right in the ass.

D
eCarious sent flowers to my job. He called, e-mailed, and texted me tens of times, saying how sorry he was. I didn't want to hear his sorry. I didn't know what would make him think he could just walk out of my life and then come back and everything would resume as normal. I was not having it. I refused to answer his calls and return any of his messages.

He couldn't get me on the phone or by text, so he decided to show up at my job. As I was walking out of the building, he grabbed my arm and said, “Can we please go somewhere and talk?”

“No, I just want you to leave me alone. I want you to stop sending me flowers and stop calling me.”

“Please, Cherise. Please, Cherise, will you talk to me?”

“I'm tired. It has been a long day.”

“Please, I just have a few things I need to talk to you about.” Seeing his face made me angry. I felt like taking my fists and pounding his chest and asking him why he'd hurt me.

“I am so sorry how everything played out, Cherise. I thought I was doing the right thing for my daughter, and with Adrienne being pregnant again, I just wanted to give it one last chance.”

“I don't care, DeCarious. I don't want you, and I don't date married men.”

“Cherise, I'm trying to get the marriage annulled, but she is not having it.”

“DeCarious, we can't have this conversation here. Let's talk in my car.” I figured if he said everything he needed to say, then he would finally leave me alone. He followed me to my car. Once we were in, he just began pouring everything out and I just sat and listened.

“She has a lawyer already and she said she is going to the press and will tell them that I hit her, and is making all this stuff up. I talked to my attorney and he said I don't have anything to worry about. She married me under the false pretense that she was pregnant. That is reason enough for annulment. Whatever it takes, I'm getting out of the marriage. I might have to give her temporary alimony, possibly a small lump sum, and definitely child support, but I don't have an issue with taking care of my daughter.”

“I just can't take you back into my life, just like that. I'm too hurt.”

“I understand and I want to do everything in my power to make it up to you. So what's next, Cherise?”

“I don't know. Day by day.”

“Can I come home with you? I don't want to go home. I'll just sleep on your sofa.”

I let DeCarious sleep on my sofa. I wanted to be around him. I didn't want him to leave. I handed him a blanket. We said good night and I went into my bedroom and closed the door. I wanted DeCarious to get in the bed with me. I wanted to join him on the sofa, but his presence alone gave me peace.

I
had decided to forget about the stupid blogs and the girls on them. Jabril loved me. Even though we weren't even sure what we were having yet, he got a tattoo with
JS II
in cursive letters on his bicep.

He said that once the baby was born he was going to put the baby's face and birth date underneath. On his forearm he got my name tattooed in big Greek-style letters and he begged me to get his name tattooed on my back.

“You are crazy, boy. Please, stop marking your body up.” I laughed.

“I only have eight tattoos. I know people who have like twenty. This dude when I was getting my last tattoo had a few tats on his face.”

“That's next for you.” I laughed. “You are going to be looking like Lil Wayne.”

“Never.”

“Hurry and get dressed, Kiya, so I can see JS2.”

“I'll be ready in a few.”

We were on our way to the doctor's office. Jabril couldn't go to all my doctor appointments with me, but he tried to go to most. I was getting my ultrasound done today to see what I was having. Last time we tried to see, the baby's hands were blocking the view and they couldn't make out if the baby was a boy or a girl.

 

 

The ultrasound tech came in the room. Happy and cheerful.

“Y'all ready to see what you're having?” she asked as she applied this cold brown gel to my stomach.

“I think she is having twins. Look how big her stomach is,” Jabril joked.

I tried to punch him playfully. I saw the image of the baby coming on the screen.

The woman laughed herself, and said, “This is a big baby.” She adjusted the band around my stomach and went over to the screen and then told me to turn to the side. I turned to my side and then she kept swiping the instrument back and forth across my stomach. Then she said, “I'll be right back.” Jabril and I kept laughing and playing until the woman came back in the room with my doctor.

“Doctor Fisher,” I said.

He said, “Hi, Zakiya.” His sternness let me know something was wrong. He looked at the screen and said, “I don't want to alarm you, but your baby is not moving and does not have a heartbeat right now.”

“Huh?” we both said together. We both looked over at the screen.

Then Dr. Fisher said, “I'm sorry, your baby is dead.” The words hit me like a bag of bricks.
Your baby is dead
. I started screaming at the thought of not meeting my baby in the next ninety days. I had a dead baby inside of me.

“You didn't do anything wrong. Sometimes things like this happen. We will not know anything until we check for congenital birth defects, such as heart malformations, in the baby.”

I don't remember anything after that. They offered me counseling and all sorts of things and the next day they induced my labor. I had to push the baby out, but I knew there was not going to be a crying baby. When I finally pushed out Baby Smith, the room was somber. No cameras, taking pictures, or celebration. Jabril was crying, I was crying, and so was Claudette. How could this happen? What did I do wrong? They asked me if I wanted to see him. I said no. I wanted to get up and just leave. I didn't want to name him or give him a service, but Jabril insisted that we bury our son. He made all the arrangements.

They wrapped our son up in a blue blanket. The funeral home came to pick up our child and we buried him a few days later.