His Woman, His Wife, His Widow

by Janice Jones

  “All right then, Mrs. Taylor. Perhaps we will meet again in another lifetime.” And with that he hung up.

  So much was going on inside my head. I was sorry about the pain I caused Cody. I was scared and angry with myself over the pregnancy and the impending termination. I was baffled over the lie Shaun told me about Cody and his reasons behind it. Filled with the heavy weight of confusion and stress, I did what I always did when things got too hard for me to figure them out alone. I called Shyanne.

  It was now after midnight, and I knew Shyanne would be sleeping since it was a week night. But what were best friends for if not to wake them in the middle of the night with your crises? She answered on the first ring, knowing it was me.

  “What do you want, heifer?”

  “I’m pregnant again, Shy.” There! That is what she gets for answering the phone with an attitude. I showed her.

  “You better be playing, Lindsay.”

  Uh! Oh! I guess I took teaching her a lesson too far because now she was mad. She used my first name, and the only time she did that was when she was upset with me. Well, it was out there now. Since it was the truth, there was no need to retract it and try to say it any better. I just went with it and explained everything that transpired that evening. By the time I finished Shyanne was no longer angry with me, just disappointed, and it broke my heart.

  “Nay, I cannot believe you keep doing these disastrous things to yourself. Being your best friend is what I imagined having a rebellious teenage child would be like. Every time I turn around it’s something new and more damaging with you. Girl, you are wearing a sister thin, but as usual, I’ve got your back. Let’s start with trying to figure out why Shaun would come at you like he did.”

  “Do you think he knows about me and Cody?”

  “Well, that would be the first thing I would think, but how would he know for sure unless he was having you followed?”

  “That is the same thing I thought. It doesn’t seem plausible though, Shy. Shaun is so arrogant. He believes that I’m so totally devoted to him that I would never cheat on him. The only other explanation would be that someone he knows saw us together and it got back to him, but that, too, would be farfetched. Cody and I never hung out in the hood.”

  “All right, Nay. Let’s just assume Shaun doesn’t know for sure. What probably happened is Shaun said something about you to Cody, and he responded strangely or something without realizing it. That might have caused Shaun to get a little suspicious. You always said Shaun had ESP when it comes to you. He may just be a little insecure, so he tested you. Since you and Cody both told the same story, you passed the test with flying colors, and now Shaun is cool again.”

  That made perfect sense to me for two reasons: one, because it was logical, and two, because at this point I was willing to believe anything that gave support to the fact that Shaun didn’t know about me and Cody.

  “Okay. That takes care of my mental dilemma. Let’s handle the emotional issue. What do I do about these feelings I still have for Cody?” I asked Shyanne.

  “Nay, only you can answer that question. If it were up to me, I would say divorce the man behind bars and marry the man that passed the bar, but it’s not my life or my marriage. You have to decide who you love more and who you want to be with. But I will say this. Unless you plan on having a real relationship with Cody, you should let him go. No more being with him just to make the time you spend waiting for your husband more bearable. Cody deserves better than that.”

  As stupid as it sounded and as dumb as I felt for feeling this way, I still loved Shaun more. I wanted to make my marriage work when he came home. We had too much history, good and bad, for me to let him go. Shaun was deeply imbedded in my soul. Cody only occupied a small space in my heart.

  “I know you don’t want to hear this, but I have to stick and stay with my husband, Shy. I guess that makes problem number three, the physical problem, solve itself. I have to have an abortion.”

  “Nay-Nay, it is not about what I want to hear. It’s only about how you truly feel. Besides, I already knew who you were going to choose, so don’t think your response surprised me. Just tell me when we are going to the clinic.”

  “Well, I need to go first thing in the morning to take an official pregnancy test, then I will make an appointment for the procedure.”

  “Okay. I’m going back to sleep now. Call me in the morning, and I’ll go to the clinic with you. Do not call me anymore tonight, understand? I don’t want to hear your voice again before 10:00 A.M. Goodnight!”

  After Shyanne hung up, I mulled over our conversation. I kept going back to the part where she said I made her feel like my mother, and I was a teenager she always had to rescue and clean up after. Once again, she truly hurt my feelings. Once again, I had to agree that she was absolutely correct. When was I going to grow up?

  One week later, I went through with one of the most juvenile decisions I have made since becoming an adult. I lay upon the sterile white table at the clinic to have the result of my irresponsibility and infidelity extracted from my body.

  Before being brought to the procedure room, I sat in the waiting area with Shyanne and a bunch of young ladies, not one of them looking to be a day over twenty-one. I sat hearing some of them talk about how this was not their first visit here. They gave each other advice on the best way to get through the physically painful process.

  After it was all over, I sat in the recovery room with Shyanne as she held my hand. Few words were spoken between us. Never once did she ask if it hurt. If she had, I would have told her that I couldn’t remember. The only thing I could think about during the quick process was why nobody in the waiting area gave any advice on how to deal with the emotional scar that started to fester in my heart.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  August 2006

  “Lindsay, come here a minute, will you, baby?” Shaun yelled from the bottom of the steps. I came to the top of the stairs and gave Shaun an angry glare. He knew how much his yelling through the house irritated me.

  “Shaun, will you please use the intercom system? Lil’ Shaun has been beside himself today and has gotten on my last nerve. If you wake his bad behind up, you will have him with you the rest of the day.”

  “I apologize. I just wanted to let you know I’m on my way out. I’ll be back in a few hours.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Don’t ask questions you don’t want answers to, Lindsay. I’ll see you in a little while.” He turned and walked out the door.

  I flopped down on the top step and put my head in my hands, exasperated. Shaun had been out of prison for twenty-one months now. He spent the first six months in a halfway house. The entire time he has been out of jail, he has been back at his old occupation, selling drugs.

  Since the day after Shaun was released into the custody of the halfway house, he has been back in business. He had some phony papers waiting for him when he got out, indicating he had a job. The papers gave the employer’s name, address, and the hours he was to work. He used that time, of course, to do his real and true business. Shaun remained shrewd in handling his street business. He never once missed curfew, and whenever his parole officer checked up on him, everything always checked out.

  I begged and pleaded with Shaun to just quit the business cold turkey, but he wasn’t trying to hear any of that. He insisted he needed to make more money in order to legitimize successfully. To this day, I have no idea what additional business ventures he plans to pursue once he thinks he has enough money saved.

  The time since Shaun has been out has been just as stressful as right before his incarceration. During his initial time at the halfway house, I would drive one hundred miles, fifty miles each way, to see him at various locations, but we spent very little time together. He never wanted me around his business. After the first month, I would make sure I was only there during the last hour before he was due back to the halfway house. We would have dinner together. It was awful for me seeing
him on such a restrictive basis, but I never missed a day.

  In the six months he was there, I can count on one hand the number of times we made love. Shaun was curt and distant with me. Still I made the trip every day, figuring it was just the stress of not being able to come to our home that made him so moody.

  Things only improved slightly once he was released from the halfway house. The first few weeks were great. Shaun became reacquainted with his daughter, and he got to know his son. The children adored their daddy. Sha’Ron even began staying with us every weekend. Keva and Kevaun were still missing in action.

  Shaun decided he wanted to make numerous updates and improvements to our home. For some reason he wanted a completely new look. He did a complete renovation of the whole house, including new furniture for the living room, dining room, and bedroom. I had very little say in his choices, but I let him have his way with minimum fuss. He installed a security monitoring system and we were able to view the entire property inside and out from his office, which was an addition he added to the house.

  It took approximately ninety days before everything was completed to his satisfaction. Right after it was all finished, he started spending less and less time at home. I couldn’t understand why he went to the trouble of doing the renovations, then not stay home to enjoy them.

  Shaun and I fought constantly about his continued street hustling. I reminded him during every argument about the promise he made to quit when he got out of jail. He always countered my arguments with the fact that he also promised to provide for his children and me.

  It was after one of these fights that I realized I had just as much cause to be angry with myself for not keeping the promises I made to myself. I never went back to school, and I never attempted to look for a job. I chose the easy road, deciding to spend my time being an adulteress and partying. Now here I am, still hopelessly in love with a drug dealer and stuck in an unhappy marriage. Sometimes I wondered if my current state of discontent was God’s punishment for my affair.

  My telephone started ringing just as my butt fell asleep from sitting on the hard stair. I stumbled up to answer it just before the voice mail picked up. It was Shyanne.

  “Hey, Shy.”

  “Hey yourself, girlfriend. What’s going on over in the Taylor household?”

  “Nothing new. Same grief, just a different day.”

  “Maybe you need to get out of the house for a while. How about you and your best friend go on a shopping spree and spend some of that money your husband is so fond of making. We will go out and pick out a nice birthday outfit for you. Can you get your mother or Kevin to watch the kids for a while?”

  “I’ll call Kevin. I’m sure he would love to come over and sit with them. I’ll meet you at your house after he gets here.”

  “It’s a date.”

  I had been so upset with Shaun and his activities that I nearly forgot my thirtieth birthday was two weeks away. With the stress of these last four and a half years of my marriage, it felt more like I was turning fifty. I wondered if Shaun realized I had a big birthday coming. At least my best friend remembered. I could always depend on Shyanne when no one else was dependable. She was my own personal God-sent angel.

  Kevin readily agreed to come over and play with his niece and nephew. I was very lucky to have him in my life. Kevin was a grown twenty-seven-year-old man, and I still called him my little brother. He was such a great person. Since his brief jailhouse experience with Shaun a few years ago, Kevin had been a model citizen. He left the store right after he completed his degree and has been working as an executive with a major corporation, steadily moving up the corporate ladder.

  Shyanne and I drove out to Somerset Mall in Troy. Somerset housed all the high fashion and department stores. Like Shyanne said, I planned on spending a great deal of the money that my drug-dealing husband was so fond of making.

  I purchased a couple of great outfits for both Shyanne and myself and a ton of things for the kids, mine and Sha’Ron, but my heart wasn’t in it. Shyanne could tell. She suggested we take a break and get something to eat, so we stopped in a small café. As soon as the hostess seated us, Shyanne started her interrogation.

  “Not that I don’t already know, but tell me what has you so down in the dumps this evening.”

  “Of course you already know, so why bother asking.”

  Shyanne covered her face with both hands in an expression of frustration and exasperation, letting out a deep pinned up breath. “Nay, why do you stay with this man when all he does is make you miserable? Please don’t give me that crap about you loving him or it’s for your children. You deserve better for both you and your kids. What the Bible says in I Corinthians 6:4–8 is the kind of love you deserve. Those are the only scriptures I know by heart.”

  “You know what, Shy? I don’t even know if I still love Shaun.”

  The look on Shyanne’s face was priceless. Her mouth fell open, her eyes bulged from her head, and her hands flew to the sides of her face. She resembled the little boy from the movie Home Alone when he realized his family left him behind. It was almost comical, and if I were not so mad, I would have laughed.

  Shyanne recovered from her little attack and said, “Again, I ask, Nay, why do you stay with him?”

  “I don’t know if I know why. He’s hardly ever home, and when he is, we’re constantly arguing, but for the life of me, I cannot bring myself to walk away. I guess I keep hoping one day he will walk through the door and say, ‘Lindsay it’s over. I finally did it. I am finally satisfied that I have enough money, and I quit selling drugs,’ and I’ll magically fall back in love with him. I just don’t know, Shyanne.” I covered my face with my hands and shook my head.

  When the waitress appeared to take our order, I was too distraught to speak, so Shyanne ordered for both of us. After the waitress left, Shyanne pried my hands from my face. Her face held so much compassion for me that I silently started to cry. The tears ran unchecked down my face. Shyanne held my hands and just let me cry. We acted as if we were the only two patrons in the restaurant. By the time the waitress reappeared with our food, I had gotten myself somewhat under control, and I wiped my face with a paper napkin.

  “Well, it’s obvious that you still love him, Nay, otherwise you would be out of there in a heartbeat. But I must say it is encouraging to not hear you say he is the center of your universe. That shows excellent progress to me. Just keep praying. And who knows, maybe that’s what Shaun’s planning to give you as a birthday present. He could very well waltz into your home on your birthday and announce that he is now a legitimate man, free and clear from all sales of illegal and illicit narcotics.”

  I knew Shyanne didn’t actually believe a word of what she said, but I held out hope that perhaps my best friend was prophetic. Maybe that’s exactly what Shaun was giving me for my birthday.

  I neglected to voice my next thoughts because I knew Shyanne was tired of hearing it. But as God was my witness, if that was not my birthday present, my thirtieth would be the last birthday I would spend married to Shaun Robert Taylor.

  I could not believe Shaun’s cell phone was vibrating at 4:30 in the morning. When I looked at his nightstand, his cell phone was there, but it wasn’t vibrating. The vibration was coming from the bottom of the bed where his pants lay. I was unaware that he even had a second phone. With the way he was sleeping through the noise one would have thought he was unaware as well.

  I eased from the bed so I wouldn’t wake him and went to answer the phone. By the time I got to it, the caller had hung up. I hated the thoughts running through my head, but who else other than a female would be inconsiderate enough to ring a married man this time of morning?

  I retrieved the phone from his pants pocket, and I checked the number to make sure it was not a number I recognized like his mother’s or his sister’s. It was neither so, I took the phone downstairs to the kitchen to return the call.

  I dialed the number with nervous anticipation, knowing that I was
going to be none too happy no matter who answered the phone. Of course I was not wrong. The frantic person on the other line answered expecting the caller to be Shaun.

  “Shaun, what took you so long to call me back? I have been ringing your phone for more than forty-five minutes.”

  “Who is this?” I asked

  “Who is this?” the woman replied.

  “This is Shaun’s wife. Why are you so urgently calling my husband?”

  “His wife! What’s going on? Tawanda never said anything about Shaun being married. I’m going to kick that heifer’s tail when I get back in that hospital room. She knows I’m a Christian woman and I don’t want to be involved in no drama like this.”

  Tawanda! Now it was my turn to be shocked and wonder what was going on. Why were she and Tawanda at the hospital and who was I talking to now? I guessed I needed to ask her that.

  “Again I ask, who am I speaking with?”

  “My name is Alberta. I’m Tawanda’s mother. As far as I know Tawanda and Shaun have been going together for more than two years. Never once did my daughter tell me Shaun was married.”

  Two years! I guess their strictly business relationship turned into something more when he got out of prison. Perhaps this was his way of rewarding her for all of her hard work. I was heartbroken but not surprised. Now was not the time to get into all of that.

  “Ma’am, why is Tawanda in the hospital?”

  “It’s not Tawanda. It’s their four-week-old daughter, Shauna. The baby started seizing, and we rushed her over here to Sinai-Grace ...”

  Ms. Alberta continued speaking, but I heard little else after she said ‘their daughter.’ I stood in my kitchen on shaky legs while my heart burst into a million pieces. Shaun had cheated on me again. Again he fathered another child while we were together. Then my mind switched gears. I started thinking about how I cheated on him and had gotten pregnant by Cody. Did I actually have the right to be angry with Shaun?