As if I didn’t know. I brought that one on myself. When he looked me dead in the eyes, I saw rage flare.
“I’m probably not even the father,” he said in a mean tone, reminding me of the Dillon I wanted to get away from months back.
I was so mad at that moment that steam was coming out of my ears. If my hands had a mind of their own, they would have placed themselves around his throat and squeezed until he apologized for being a jerk. Was that thought unrealistic or was I the one that was the jerk. Didn’t he have a legitimate question because I had been an unfaithful wife.
Dillon and I had never talked about the particulars of my infidelity. He didn’t know that a condom wasn’t involved. Yet, his statement revealed he knew that Bryce being the father was a possibility. He yanked the comforter off the bed, got a pillow, and didn’t even say good night. Thinking harder on all this, I realized I had no right to be mad. Everything he was thinking was justified.
The next day, I felt worse, but sucked it up to go to the game. Carolina won the game beating Georgia 40–3. I hoped, as we flew back on the plane with the team, my husband would be in a good mood. First of all, they were underdogs, and to practically kill Georgia was huge for my husband’s career as a defensive coach. The Gamecocks had been winning all season and mainly because the defense was awesome. Dillon was coaching his tail off.
When we flew in silence, I got nervous. Though other wives and players were cordial, I knew they all thought I was a slut. What would folks say if I were with child? Nervously scratching my hair at that thought of isolation and embarrassment, the flakes underneath my fingernails made me sick again. I headed straight to the bathroom in the back of the plane and threw up.
When we got home hours later, the first place I went was to the toilet. Dillon’s footsteps grew louder and louder. I didn’t even have to rise up from the toilet, I knew he was towering over me.
“You are pregnant, Shari. You always get sick at first. Oh my, gosh, what have you done to us? Why did you even let me make love to you that night, you knew you had just come back from getting busy with some pretty boy? I was trying to let all this blow over, just get past it. I was trying to own up to what I’d done to you to get you to fall in the first place. But now you’re pregnant. You know when you’re ovulating. Why didn’t you tell me that night?”
He flung a fake plant across the bathroom. I could see where he was going with his tacky accusation. But he was concluding the wrong thing.
“You didn’t tell me because you wanted to make sure we had sex to cover yourself. You never even knew I’d find out you were with someone else. I never thought you’d do this to me.”
Grabbing the toilet tissue off the cold holder, I wiped my mouth from left to right, flushed the toilet, stood, and looked straight at my husband.
“I did not set out to trap you or try to cover up anything. I was never intending on being intimate with you. Think back. You came on to me. You know how I dream. I didn’t even think the first few moments were real, we had such discord. Did I seduce you? No. Did I come on to you first? No. If I’m pregnant, and you know I might not even be, I pray it’s yours.”
“So you didn’t even use protection. Do I need to get an AIDS test?”
Though he had another good point, I walked around him and sank to our tub. This was hard. I was losing it. The more I tried to make sense of all that was happening the more consequences began to show themselves, reeking havoc on my life.
He turned to me and said, “Come on, let’s prove you are.”
Washing my hands with soft soap, drying them quickly on a white T-shirt, I leaned over the sink.
“I’m goin’ and getting a pregnancy test,” he said.
“Drug stores are closed,” I said in a frustrated voice, wishing he’d let me handle this with a doctor’s visit.
Not phased he said, “That’s fine, I’ll drive a few extra miles to Wal-Mart. They are open twenty-four hours. We need to solve this tonight. You need to get out a calendar. Calculate out the timing and show me the probability of something. What’s the likelihood that I’m the Dad. Forget what you say you want, what are the facts.”
He should have been gone only an hour or so, but my husband was gone for three. I tried to figure out the whole timetable thing, but all the dates were so cloudy in my mind. Being on tour I hadn’t tracked my period, my cycle was so irregular I was everywhere. I was on such personal highs and lows that I didn’t remember any of that stuff. I didn’t even realize that I hadn’t had my cycle.
Ever since Starr was born, that time of the month for me had been irregular. Dillon was right, some months I did know when my egg released from my ovary because it was sheer pain. But I didn’t remember feeling it this time.
What I did know was that in my heart, my husband wanted me so that our moment together was much more passion filled and perfect than my time with Bryce. Hopefully, that counted for something. Thinking of Bryce as my child’s dad was a farce.
On edge, I called Dillon’s cell phone a few times. Only his answering machine picked up. He was dodging me. That fact alone burned my core, but what could I do about it. I knew he was somewhere driving, furious that I had put him in this situation.
Issues always seemed to plague Dillon and me. We could never be truly happy for long. There was always something job related, sex related, task related, or just stuff always between us and now it was baby related.
When he finally came through the door, I was so happy he hadn’t had an accident. Before, I’d held off going to the bathroom because I knew I’d be required to give a sample for the test. However, I was about to explode. So I quickly grabbed the box, tore open the wrapper, and peed so hard on the stick that I didn’t care what color it was. I felt relieved that the test was finally done.
We both sat in the bathroom not saying a word to each other. The five minutes we had to wait seemed like the whole three hours that he was gone. When I looked at the stick there were two lines and on this particular test that meant yes, yes, yes, I was pregnant. I showed it to him not even thinking that he didn’t know what the two lines meant.
After he shrugged his shoulders, I uttered the words, “I’m pregnant.”
He smiled quickly. Then that sweet look faded. His squinted eyes and mean frown scared me.
He said, “You said, I’m pregnant. I really wished you had said we.”
“Baby, I didn’t mean anything by that,” I said to him as I kneeled down on the floor, unable to figure out how I felt about it anyway.
This would be my third child. Maybe this was the boy I always wanted and that just might be my luck for doing the wrong thing. Would it be my son with Bryce? After all he did have two of them already. I was really messed up because I had to come face-to-face with the reality that if it wasn’t Dillon’s, it was a no brainer for what I wanted to do. For sure I’d keep the child, but could Dillon live with me.
Seeing my strong guy’s weary eyes made me know he was wrestling with some of those same tough thoughts. Neither of us shared what was going on in our minds. I stood to my feet and started running my hot shower water. I saw my husband leave out of our bedroom door. I wanted to flee behind him and say it was going to be okay. But I couldn’t tell him that with such certainty.
Being that my hair was dirty, I just put my head under the hot steamy water and let my mind go to a better place. One where my husband was in the shower with me, rubbing my back telling me how excited he was of the thought of being a dad for the third time. Letting me know how special I was to him. When I opened my eyes and saw Dillon standing with me in the water, he didn’t have to say anything, just him coming back into our space, sharing that with me, let me know he was going to be with me. We held each other. He was loving me and it felt right. I felt God watching over us, telling us the ride might be bumpy, based on our past sins, but He’d be there to help us through the consequences.
“I love you, Dillon. I’m sorry.”
He kissed my brow. We weren�
�t free from drama. However, even with our problems, we held each other until the steamy water turned warm.
It seemed so surreal as I printed out the last page of the first draft of my manuscript that had taken forever to complete. When all of the pages were out of the printer, I smelled the bundle and kissed the top sheet. Then I prayed over the whole stack. It was such a blessing to get to this point.
Life had been so upside down that most times things had gone wrong. But the symbolic part of the completed first draft showed me that I was getting things in my life together. Finally, I was walking where He wanted me to walk. I was finally going where He wanted me to go. I was finally feeling good, even though physically, after going to the doctor and being confirmed that I was nine-weeks pregnant, I felt sick all the time. Nothing stayed down and nothing tasted right. I had an appetite for nothing. I was truly tired of the saltine crackers and ginger ale, but I could only hope that I would continue to keep them down because I certainly didn’t want to go to the hospital and receive fluids.
With Dillon constantly either at the football facility or on the road, it was easy to complete my manuscript. My husband had agreed that this was his child by faith. I accepted that there wouldn’t be any more discussion about it. We were trying to find the right time to tell our family, and when my grandfather requested his children and grands to come to Thanksgiving dinner, Dillon and I agreed that that would be a good time to share our news.
Stuff was coming together, things were working out, but even if my baby was a girl, I truly didn’t care anymore; that longing for a son itch had been scratched away. All I truly needed was to have this baby be Dillon’s biologically. Whatever sex God had for us was cool with me. The Lord knew best.
Dillon and I didn’t talk about how we were going to tell the girls. So when Stori walked in and saw my head in the toilet, I quickly stood, not wanting to explain. However, turning around I didn’t realize that my bulge was growing. It was very noticeable to her. She made no bones about asking what was going on.
“Mommy,” Stori said inquisitively, as she came up and touched my stomach. “Is there another Stori in there?”
I knelt down beside her and giving her a big hug, I confessed, “Yes, mommy is having a baby.”
I didn’t know how my little three and a half year old was going to take this. She and her sister were inseparable, but on that same note they often times got on each others nerves. So I held her and prayed she’d be excited about this. My heart was overjoyed when I gave it to God, because there He let me hear sweet words from my oldest baby.
“Wow, Mommy,” she screamed, and left my arms as she screamed out looking for her little sister. “Starrie, a baby’s coming.”
Squeals came from them both. They came running full speed. Starr was so cute, not only did she have her walk down, but she was flying. This was good.
The next day I was flipping through the channels when I saw Bryce doing an interview on BET. I’d gotten him out of my system or so I thought, because I was frozen when my brown eyes spotted him. He was talking about his latest transition from Christian to R&B. The brotha’ was looking good. He’d recently been in more tabloids discussing his nasty divorce. The ballads that he had on his albums talked about true love.
The interviewer asked, “Are you acting these emotions, or do you know something about it?”
“What are you asking me?” he said seriously to the female commentator.
“Well, I’ve got to ask . . . that lady that wrote that book . . . are you and she an item?”
Thank goodness she didn’t know my name. I moved to the front of my bed, picked up one of the towels that had been before me, desperately needing to be folded, and threw it at the tube.
No part of me wondered why I cared so much about his reaction to that question. I didn’t want him back, even though the brotha’ was fly, he was a dog. I didn’t want him to tell any falsehoods about where we stood. I had a marriage and a family to protect. This wasn’t just some cheesy tabloid that could twist the facts. This was Bryce talking. Whatever he said would be consumed by black America. He had to get it right.
He said, “A brotha’ never kisses and tells. Of course she and I were aversely affected by a lot of things. I can say the pictures were made to look one way and totally distorted the truth. The paparazzi seem to have it out for me. I hated that the lady you mentioned was dragged through such a scandal.”
Right away the interviewer said, “Those sleazy magazines are always misrepresenting me too.”
“Alright then,” Bryce said, “she and I are just friends. She helped me through a difficult part of my life and I only wish her the best now.”
I exhaled. He didn’t do me right a few months back, but he didn’t do me wrong then. Wow!
“And your ex-wife, Pamela?”
“You said it all. She’s my ex. And the pictures surfing the Web with her and my brother aren’t fake.”
“Oooh,” she said as she covered her mouth, “that’s why I like this album. It’s really true to a lot of folks’ lives. Marriage isn’t easy, love isn’t easy, and somewhere in all that, if you let yourself go just a little bit, you will feel something good.”
“Exactly,” he said. “Hopefully my music will help you and yours get to that good place. Check out the album, it’s in stores.”
I thought I had put to bed the whole issue of this baby being Bryce’s, but seeing him on TV protecting me and being honest about what’s going on in his family made me want to reach out to him. So without thinking and without praying, I just called.
“Hello,” I heard him say as I immediately wanted to hang up. “Shari?”
“Yeah, it’s me, I hear tons of noise in the background. I can catch you another time,” I said, hating I called on impulse.
“No, I’m not busy. What are you up to?”
“I just saw you on BET. I’m sure you’re swamped with folks in the green room and stuff.”
“No, I taped that last week. I’ve got some folks at the crib, but I just watched it too. You saw what I said about you, huh? The writing good? How have you been? You still married?”
With his questions bombarding me, I didn’t know what to answer first. I skipped all his questions. Some were so personal I needed to keep our conversation at a distance. It needed to be cordial, not intimate.
I said, “I just wanted to let you know that I appreciate what you said on the air.”
“That benefited both of us. Just sorry things got so out of hand. That tabloid has been banned from publishing our picture.”
He asked me a few questions as I heard the voices in the background fade. I guess he walked away to another room. It didn’t matter what he was saying, I shut him up with my next words.
“I’m pregnant,” I said. Immediately I wanted to take back my words. Shucks, I didn’t even know who the father was. Why did I say that?
Bryce abruptly yelled back, “It can’t be my baby. I didn’t get excited until I was on my way out the door, you know what I’m saying. I came out.”
“It would have only taken a drop to get me pregnant, Bryce,” I said, before slamming down the phone when I happened to look up at my bedroom door and saw my husband glaring at me with disappointment.
I couldn’t even finish the call. I was so into the chat that I didn’t even hear Dillon get in from work. Based on the steam I could see shooting from my husband’s ears, I knew I was in trouble. I knew he knew who I was talking to and what I was talking about.
He yelled, “I want a paternity test done, Shari.”
Those horrific words sent chills up my spine. This was a nightmare. Regrettably, the moment I was living was not even close to a blissful dream.
Chapter 14
Constellation
With anger in my gut, heavier than Santa Claus’s stomach, I got to my feet and went to my husband. “A paternity test? What in the heck are you talking about? You told me it didn’t matter whose child this was, that you were ready to love and a
ccept this baby as yours.”
Quickly, putting his hand on his face and walking around me, I knew I needed to give him a little space. The brotha’ was trying to calm down. He huffed for a few seconds.
Then Dillon said, “That was before you decided to tell the other man you were pregnant. I can’t believe you were on the phone with that Negro who gave me doubts in the first place. Why would you be talking to him and how often have you done it? Does he have our number? Shari, I thought we had built something again. I thought we had trust. What in the world would you have to say to him? Why are you telling him about the baby? I’m not being a fool no more. I want a test.”
I couldn’t cry. I was too annoyed to cry. I couldn’t hit him, as mad as he was, I knew he was capable of hitting me back. And then we’d have even crazier drama. Tapping my foot and placing my hands firmly on my hips, I tried to calm myself down. Like in the airplane, you have to put your mask on yourself before you can help someone else. Since I had a baby in my stomach, I didn’t need to get myself all worked up. I was already weak from not being able to eat. I had to get this under control, but it wasn’t working. I was tapping my foot faster and faster.
Dillon wasn’t even looking my way. He was staring out the window. I don’t know what he was getting from all those stars up in the sky. They didn’t even really look beautiful or spell out any meaning. They were just haphazardly up in the sky.
Then he turned and faced me. His eyes held a distant cold stare. It made me grab my chest with one hand and prop up my back with the other to pay attention.
“I thought I was okay with not knowing for sure,” he said to me, “but now I want a test. How soon can you get one?”
I walked over to him and turned his face toward mine and began pleading my case. “Listen, Dillon, you don’t understand. Please.”
“You’re right, I don’t understand why my wife told me she was through with any communication with the dude she had an affair with. But then, stupid me giving too much trust, comes home to catch her on the phone rapping with the guy. How can you explain it?”
Wearing My Halo Tilted Page 20