When He Cheatin' and You Still Love Him 2 (10 page)

A few days…a few days is all he has before shit gets real!

Shanair

              “I don’t know why they schedule appointments if they come and get you when they feel like it,” I say rolling my eyes. “That shit doesn’t even make sense.”

“Yeah, that is kind of stupid.” Terry agrees.

“Then they have you drink all that damn water. I’m gone mess around and pee on myself.”

Terry laughs before saying, “Yo’ grown ass better not sit here and piss on yo’self.”

“Shut up.” I snicker. “You know what the hell I mean.

We are both sitting in the waiting room for my ultrasound appointment, both excited to find out the sex of our baby. It’s been almost a month since I’ve put him out, and this is the first time that I’ve seen him since that night. Of course, Terry has tried daily to come over and spend time with Kendrick and I. I just haven’t allowed him to because I know what it would lead to, and I’m not ready. So instead, I allowed him to meet me here. One, it’s a public place and two, he deserves to be here. Terry has been excited to find out whether it’s a baby boy or a girl since I first told him I was pregnant, and I would never take something like this from him. He may not be the best boyfriend in the world, but that has nothing to do with how good of a father he is.

“What are you looking at?” I ask when I catch him staring at me.

“You,” He replies with a smile. “You’re beautiful.”

“Don’t start that shit, Terry,” I warn in a stern tone. When the older woman beside me looks our way, I lower my voice. “You promised.” 

“I know, and I’m sorry, but you are.”

I don’t even bother to respond to him because he thinks he’s slick, but I’m not falling for it. I’ve been strong when it comes to his advances. Do I miss him, yes, but getting back into a relationship with Terry is not in my plans at this moment. Now, I’m not sure what the future may bring, but as of today, I’m cool on me and Terry being together. I’m more focused on working on me and taking care of my children. Terry has to work on himself, and I’m stepping back to allow him to do just that. If I were to be completely honest right now, I really think that we are better off apart. There is no tension or arguing about him cheating or telling lies. I don’t have to worry about where’s his been, and if he’s lying up with some random bitch in the middle of the night.

I ain’t gone lie. The first week had me restless. I cried, cried, and cried some more thinking about what he was doing and who he was doing it with. It took for me to realize that it didn’t matter how much I cried, Terry was going to do what he wanted to no matter what. I had to realize that it was me who was making myself miserable. Once I came to that conclusion things started to get better for me. Now I lay in my bed enjoying a peaceful sleep.

              “Ms. Bishop!” The young Caucasian technician calls out.

“That’s me,” I tell her as Terry and I walk over to her.

She leads us back into a room and directs me get on the examination table before taking a seat on the stool across from me. Terry assists me climbing the few steps and holds my arm as I lean all the way back.

“Today you are…” The technician pauses to read from the clipboard. “Twenty-five weeks pregnant.”

“Yep,” I confirm.

“Are you and dad excited to see what you’re having today?” She asks.

“Yes,” Terry and I say in unison.

“Alright, well let’s get to it. Hopefully, this little peanut will cooperate and give us a glimpse of what he or she is.”

She instructs me to unbutton my dress. Before I get a chance, Terry stands up, pushes my hand away and does it himself. I smirk at him being so thirsty to find out what the baby is. When he’s finished, the tech takes a white paper sheet and places it over the lower part of my body, tucking it into the top of my underwear. Next, she squirts a generous amount of warm gel on my stomach before removing a probe from the front of the ultrasound machine. Terry and I watch as she rubs the probe across my belly, stopping ever so often to snap a few pictures of the baby’s organs and brain. She does this for almost ten minutes before she stops.

“Are you guys ready to find out what it is?”

“Yes,” I say excitedly. Terry doesn’t reply, he only moves closer to the machine, so he can get a better view.

The tech slowly slides the probe to the left before turning towards us with a smile.

“Do you see what I see?” She asks.

“I don’t see anything,” Terry says confused.

“Oh my God, it’s a girl!” I shout, barely able to contain myself.

Terry looks at me, and then back at the screen. “It’s a girl?”

“It’s a girl.” The tech confirms.

“Hell yeah!” Terry yells. “I’m sorry, I’m just excited.” He apologizes.

“No need, I can understand. Is this your first child?” The tech inquires.

Both Terry and I look at one another before he replies, “Nah, this is my fifth child. I got three boys, and now two girls.” He boasts with a smile on his face.

“Well, congratulations. Let me get you some pictures to take home.” Once the black and white photo’s printed from the machine, she handed them to Terry and says, “Good luck with the birth of your baby. Here is a rag to clean that gunk off your stomach. You guys enjoy your day.”

“You too,” I tell her sliding the rag across my belly. When I’m done, Terry holds my arm while I sit up. “So, Brittany is having a boy, huh?”

“I don’t know. Why you ask that?”

“Because you said that you have five kids, and three of them are boys. You only have two boys.”

Terry laughs, “Nah, I got three. I was talking about Kendrick.”

“Oh,” I say assisting him with buttoning my dress back up.

From there Terry goes on to explain what had transpired between him and Brittany the day that she sent me the message. He still claimed that they didn’t have sex, but I know better. He talked about running into her ex at the grocery store and her father ordering him to stay out of her and the baby’s lives. When he’s finished, I just stare at him because I can’t believe all the drama that is going on between him and her. I’m also shocked to hear that he was actually allowing someone to tell him that he’s not allowed to be in his child’s life. Terry went on to explain the way that Brittany had acted, and although I can admit that the bitch is crazy, I don’t condone what is happening with the child. I told Terry how I felt about the situation, but at the end of the day it wasn’t my business to meddle in.

After that conversation, neither of us says anything else as we gather the pictures and my things so that we could leave. As we pass the front desk, the tech waves goodbye before disappearing into the back. Outside the clinic, Terry walks me to my car. As I climb inside, he asks me if I would like to go to lunch with him to talk, but I decline. As far as I’m concerned there is really nothing left for us to talk about. I can tell by the look on his face that he’s upset, but that’s not my problem. I told him before that we could meet at the clinic, but afterward I would leave alone. He knew what he was getting into before today even came, so I don’t know why he’s acting like he’s shocked by my response. With a look of disappointment on his face, he closed my door, and I drove off.

*****

I enter the building with pep in my step. I’m happy and hoping that my mother is herself today because I have exciting news that I want to share with her. I haven’t been here since I brought Kendrick a few weeks ago. That visit was such a good one that I hated when it had to end. I admit I was scared to death of her acting up, but everything went well. Kendrick really enjoyed himself. It had been a nice while since he had last seen his grandmother, and it’s all he’s talked about since then. I would have brought him with me today, but he had school, so I decided to come on this one solo. After signing in at the desk, I make my way to her room with a smile on my face.

“Hey baby,” my mother sings once I enter her room.

“Hey ma, what are you doing?” I ask walking over to the table where she’s sitting.

“Nothing, just putting this puzzle together. Where are you coming from looking all pretty?”

“The doctor’s office. I found out what I’m having.” I gush.

Her face lights up, and she smiles.

“Really? What is it?” She stops, before lifting her hand up. “Wait, don’t tell me. It’s a girl isn’t it?”

“How you figure that?” I tease.

“It is a girl ain’t it?” My mother tosses her head back and loudly claps her hands once. “It’s a girl, right?” I look away from her trying to keep from smiling. “Stop playing Shanair, what is it?”

“I’m having a baby…” I pause just to mess with her. “Girl!”

“I knew it!” My mom yells as she jumps up and hugs me. “My baby girl is having a baby girl.”

We celebrate for a little while longer before switching up our conversation to potential names and all the cute little baby clothes that they have for little girls now. Just talking about all the things that I can buy has me excited for my new arrival. I’ve always wanted a little girl. When I was pregnant with Kendrick all I used to talk about was having a little girl. My heart broke when I found out he was a boy. I remember being depressed for weeks after I found out. Then one day my mother snatched me up.

“Babies are a blessing.” She told me. “You walking around here with your face all frowned up. You are lucky that you are able to have one because there are women who would die to be in your shoes right now. Your only focus should be that he’s healthy.”

It was then that I realized that she was right. I accepted the fact that I was having a boy. Since then all I wanted was a little girl, and now I got my wish. Now that I have the best of both worlds, I think I may just get my tubes tied. Of course, I’ll think about it more thoroughly before I make my decision.

When it’s time for my mother’s stories to come on, we retreat to the corner of the room, where I braid her hair up like I usually do. Since I didn’t bring it up during the visit with Kendrick, I think now is the perfect time to ask her the questions I’ve been meaning to ask about my father.

Shanair

I’m crying so hard right now that I can barely catch my breath. A loud wail exits my mouth so pitiful and loud. If there was anyone else around, they would surely think that I was dying. If they only knew how I felt right now, they would know that I was, and it was a slow painful death. My body trembles and my chest rises up and down quickly as I choke on my emotions. Tears and snot run down my face, but I don’t even bother to wipe them away. There’s no need to because there are plenty more to follow. With my vision now so blurry that I can’t even see ahead of me, I maneuver my truck to the side of the road the best I can before killing the engine. Over and over again I pound my fist against the steering wheel. I stop when I notice passerby’s hitting their brakes because they’ve heard my horn beeping. I don’t want them to send help because they think that something is wrong with me even though it is.

My feelings are hurt. I’m lost, confused and every other sad emotion one could feel. 

The conversation that I had with my mother is replaying constantly in my mind like a broken CD player, and there is no eject button in sight. Because of this I’m forced to listen to this sad song over and over again. Something told me to leave well enough alone. Of course, I didn’t listen. I just had to ask. Now I know that truth. You don’t know how bad I wish I could just go back to the lie. All these years I’ve been fooled. I’ve been tricked into believing that the man…the man that I wanted to love me so badly was my father. Turns out he isn’t. My mother wasn’t just spaced out during that visit. No, she was trying to tell me the truth, but she didn’t know how. This was something that she’d held on to for so long. Joseph Bishop isn’t my father, Brian Washington was.

My mother fully explained everything to me.

You see, my mother, Joseph, and Brian all grew up together. They were all best friends, with Joseph and Brian being a little closer because they were boys. They spent a lot of time together until Brian’s parents moved away. He would come over Joseph’s house to visit occasionally, but not as much as before he moved. My mother said that she always knew that Brian had a crush on her and she kind of liked him too. So when Joseph asked her out freshman year, she was shocked, but accepted his request to be his girlfriend. The two dated throughout their entire high school year with Joseph cheating on her every chance he got.

One day Joseph called my mother up and told her that he was leaving her. He had met a girl—which I found later found to be my sister Paris’s mother—and they were expecting their first child together. My mother said she was crushed. Hurt and confused, she went crying to her best friend Brian, who consoled her as he always did. That night with my mother being extremely vulnerable, and Brian already having suppressed feelings for her, one thing led to another, and they ended up sleeping together. Since they didn’t want to ruin their friendship, they decided to put it behind them, and vow to never let it happen again.

A few weeks later Joseph decided to come back. I guess once the honeymoon stage was over, he realized that being with the woman he’d left my mother for was not what he expected. Of course, my mother accepted him back with open arms. Soon after she found out that she was pregnant with me. Since Joseph had just come back, she already knew that there was no possibility that he could be the father. When she shared the information with Joseph, he was furious. He couldn’t believe that she had slept with his best friend, and told her to immediately abort me. Since that wasn’t something that my mom or her family believed in, she refused. Joseph took her denial as a slap in the face and accused her of only wanting to keep the baby because she wanted to have some sort of connection with Brian. That wasn’t going to fly with him, and he quickly gave my mother an ultimatum.

Joseph advised my mother that she had two choices. She could keep the baby, but she had to cut all ties with Brian and never let him know that he was my father. In return Joseph promised to marry my mother and take care of me as if it were his own. Or, she could keep her baby, and go be with Brian because he would leave her. Since she loved the ground that Joseph walked on and wanted to make it work, she agreed to the latter. Brian was heartbroken when my mother told him that she couldn’t see him again, and even though he didn’t understand why, he accepted her wished and didn’t contact her again. Soon after my mom got word that Brian had signed up for the Army and was immediately deployed.

It was eight years before my mother saw Brian again. We were in the grocery store shopping when he walked right up to her cart. She said as soon as he saw me, he knew I was his. I looked nothing like Joseph, who was light skinned with sandy brown hair and grey eyes. Brian and I, on the other hand, had the same bright and beautiful brown eyes, dark hair, and chocolate colored skin tone. Even though my mother tried her best to lie about who my father was, Brian wasn’t going for it. With tears in her eyes, my mother begged Brian not to say anything, and because he loved her so much, he dropped the issue, but not before slipping her his phone number and letting her know that he would still be there for her whenever she needed him. Of course, my mother tore the number up and discarded it before she got home.

After that day, it took them a few more years to reconnect. It was not long after my mother left Joseph when they ran into each other once again at the bank. This time my mother accepted the phone number, and they started to date. When Joseph found out they had somehow linked back up, he was fuming. He accused my mother of cheating on him all along, saying that Brian was the reason why she wanted to divorce him. Even though my mother denied it, he called her a liar and told her that he never wanted to see her again.

Just thinking about the fact that I’d wasted so many years trying to get Joseph to notice me makes me so angry. I’m angry at him for promising to love me when he never really did. I’m angry at my mother for being so damn weak. She knew the things that I went through trying to make him notice me. Especially when my Paris came along. All those nights I cried to her wondering why he didn’t love me the way that he loved her. At any time, she could have told me the truth, yet she didn’t. I’ve battled with low self-esteem and self-hate all my fucking life because of him. I despised my dark skin because I thought it was the reason why he didn’t take to me the way the way he did his ‘lighter-skinned’ daughter. My mother witnessed all of this, and not once did she stop and think that maybe I should know that he wasn’t actually my dad. Instead of trying to be loyal and keep her promise to him, she should have been more concerned and focused on making me her top priority. Especially when she realized that Joseph’s claim to, ‘love me like his own’ wasn’t holding up.

He did a damn good job loving my sister though.
My sister…humph; yeah right!
She isn’t even my real sister! Why in the hell would they make me believe that she was? She is the child that was produced after Joseph left my mother. That is the part that really kills me. Joseph made my mother promise to cut contact with Brian, and never tell him about me, but it was okay for him to bring his fucking love child into our family? That shit doesn’t seem fair to me. He can have his mistake flaunted in my mother face daily, but she couldn’t dare have hers be exposed, because that would have showed the world that Joseph was a chump who stepped up to take care of another man’s baby. I guess if my mother hadn’t been so damn busy trying to satisfy Joseph’s need to show how big his balls were, this wouldn’t even be an issue right now. When I sit back and think about it, all this shit happened because of him in the first place. Had he not allowed his dick to lead him, my mother would have never ran to Brian, and she would have never gotten pregnant with me.

I’m a little angry at Brian too. Although he loved my mother and followed her rules, why was it so easy for him to walk away even after he found out about me? This is an answer that I will never get because he’s gone. I guess I also kind of feel bad for him at the same time. Once the dust had settled, and my mother allowed him to come around, he stepped up big time. That many loved and adored me so much, but in the beginning all I gave him was my ass to kiss. At the time, I was too busy trying to get Joseph to love me that I couldn’t see that I had more than enough coming from Brian. For four years, I lived with my
real
father and never even knew it. Even then someone…hell anyone could have revealed the truth, but once again no one did. That’s a question not even my mother was able to give me. All she did was cry and constantly tell me just how sorry she was. I’m sorry, I love my mother, but right now her apology doesn’t mean shit. 

Four years. Four years isn’t long, but at least it was some time for us to bond. My real father is dead, and I can’t sit down with him and express how much I love him. I wish I could say how sorry I was for the way I behaved in the beginning. All the times I ignored him. Every time I yelled, and told him that I already have a daddy, I didn’t need another one.

Frustrated I bang my hands against the steering wheel once again.

“What the fuck?!” I scream. “Why does my life have to constantly be a disappointment? Why can’t anything go right?” I continue to yell.

Forty-five minutes later, after picking Kendrick up from school, and buying him something to eat, I pull into my driveway. My heart is still heavy, but I haven’t cried since I left my makeshift parking spot not far from the nursing home. Kendrick has asked me numerous times if I’m okay because I’ve been so quiet, but how would I explain my issues to a six-year-old whose biggest worry is if he could stay up late on a school night. So instead of breaking down in front of my child, I just gave him a weak smile and told him that the baby had me feeling under the weather. My fib seemed to work because Kendrick told me to go to bed right away because he was going to make me some soup and rub my feet. It was then that a real smile spread across my face because even in my darkest hours, my baby knows how to make me feel better.

“Are you glad that school is over?” I ask as push the button on the garage door opener.

When the door doesn’t lift, I push it again, but nothing happens. After pushing it a few more times, I figure that the battery may be dead and just park in front of the garage.

“I am, but I’m also going to miss school.”

“I know you will baby, but summer will be over before you know it,” I tell him as we both climb out of the truck. 

“Are you going to go check the mail?”

Without answering, Kendrick takes off running toward the mailbox. With a stack of mail in his arms, he walks back up the driveway, and over to me. With the mail now in my hand, we walk to the front door and stick my key into the lock. Once the door is open, I make my way into the kitchen. My hand slides up and down the wall searching for the light switch. When I find it, I flick it up, but nothing happens.

“What the hell?”

“What’s wrong mommy?”

“Hold on baby,” I say over my shoulder.

Thinking it’s maybe a blown light bulb, I walk over to the cabinet to grab an extra one when I realize that the stove light isn’t on either. After flicking the light on and off in the half bath off the kitchen, I see that that light doesn’t work either. Placing my purse and the mail on the counter, I go back out the door, and over to the fuse box, where I check to see if there may be a fuse blown. I’m even more confused when I look at it because I don’t even know what to check for. Things like this have been Terry’s job for years, and now that he’s gone, it’s making me wish that I would have learned something myself.  

“Damn it!” I snap in frustration.

Aggravated, I slam the door to the fuse box before heading back inside, and toward the living room. As I continue about the house, I flick ever light switch along the way, just to see if any of them work. Once I make it to the living room, I re-open the front door and peek my head out. There are no down power lines or broken trees in sight. My eyes continue to scan the block trying to see if anything stands out to explain the power outage. With it being daylight, I can’t tell if the whole street is out, or just mine. When my next door neighbor steps out of his house, I get his attention.

“Mr. Griffin!”

“Good afternoon Shanair.”

“Good afternoon.” I return. “How long have the lights been out?”

He gives me a perplexed look before responding, “My lights aren’t out dear.”

“Really? Mine are.” I tell him flicking the switch on the wall beside me. Nothing happens. “They were out when I got home.”

“That’s strange. You should probably contact the electric company dear, and see what’s going on.”

“I will. Thanks, Mr. Griffin.”

“You’re more than welcome dear.” He replies with a smile. “I hope they are able to get your power restored. It’ll be dark in a few hours.”

“Me too,” I mutter watching him as he climbs into his car. 

Mr. Griffin has lived in the house next door since before my mom and I moved in. He and his wife Cheryl were the first ones to welcome us to the neighborhood when my mom and Brian got married. Cheryl was one of the sweetest women that I had ever met in my life. Before she died of a stroke a few years ago, she used to bring Kendrick and I fresh fruits and vegetables from her garden in their backyard. She would even bring us plates of food sometimes which when I didn’t feel like cooking was greatly appreciated. Her strawberries were always extra sweet, and her famous peach cobbler was to die for. Since her passing Mr. Griffin usually keeps to himself.