by Hannovah
CHAPTER FIVE
Summer break was finally here. Yesss!
I would go to sleep when I wanted, get up when I wanted, and I would probably attend a meeting or workshop or seminar, if dear Dean Byam encouraged me. During these few months, I would also catch up on my reading, dabble in sewing (one of my hobbies), try out new recipes, and redecorate the old house.
But the best part of having the summer off was spending time with Brandon and helping him with the apartments. Also, we had planned to take real vacations in Canada or California, mini vacations to places in Florida, and do little romantic things like walk on the beach – early mornings and late evenings.
The first Saturday of my vacation, Brandon put me to work cleaning and painting an apartment, and boy, was I tired when we were all done. But it was all good; I loved doing it. Returning home, we pulled up into our driveway in his old truck, and hesitatingly, we stepped out into the blazing Miami sunlight and began offloading his tools and remnants of supplies that we had just used.
The air outside was hot like an oven. Good Lord. My husband’s bald head began to gloss from sweat, and so did my face.
Yeah, it was about two p.m. but it was only May, for God’s sake. As a woman I helped as best as I could, though I was only making one trip for every two of Brandon’s. Thank goodness that our garage/storage room was very close. We were halfway through with our task, and I was one hammer and a paint brush away from calling it quits when we heard the belligerent rumbling of an approaching motorbike. I may be a female, but I know my vehicles.
Sure enough, it was Joshua Browning motoring around the corner on his treasured Honda bike, with his teeth gleaming under his shiny blue helmet. That bright smile was his trademark and I always looked forward to seeing it; he had such strong, white teeth! However I was always worried about his safety on that ungodly mode of transport. But he was grown. And he had sense. I thought I was right in at least one of those statements.
The metallic-blue machine shuddered to a stop close to the sidewalk and, dismounting, the rider said good afternoon and promptly relieved me of a sheet of drywall that was obviously bigger than me. In the men’s eyes, I must have appeared like a joke when I tried to muscle that piece of building material with my thin fingers that were only accustomed to handling chalk and duster in the classroom. But Brandon always appreciated my help.
Joshua was not afraid of work, and I was not afraid to give it to him either. I think the Bible said somewhere that ‘it was more blessed to give than to receive’, so after I hugged him, I backed away and let him take over. Walking wearily to the shade of the garage, I found a seat and began to fan myself with a piece of sandpaper. I felt I needed to remain around the guys to give them moral support.
“Joanne’s asking for a divorce, again,” Joshua said nonchalantly.
“Divorce?” Brandon took the word out of my mouth. “And what do you mean by again?”
“Well, this is the fourth time.”
“Hmm,” Brandon hummed and continued offloading.
When done, the men, happy to escape the unforgiving Miami heat made a bee-line for the cooler lanai in the backyard. I fixed a tray of snacks and joined them as they sat with drinks that they took from a mini refrigerator in a corner.
“So, what do you argue about?” Brandon asked.
“The same thing all the time.”
“Ah-hah,” Brandon prompted him while reaching for a chocolate-chip cookie.
“I want to finish my degree that I started over six years ago, so I decided to quit my full-time job at the auto parts store to work a part-time job at the college. I already have an AA in the Auto Mechanics and if I push, I could get my bachelors in Automotive Management sometime next year.”
“Good idea. Joanne doesn’t like that?”
Joshua shook his head. “Nope. She’s not having it at all. She’s not minding a man. She’d rather divorce, and she’s serious about that. Her step-father hardly worked while her mother had to work two jobs to make ends meet.”
“Well, she doesn’t want to end up like her mother,” I reasoned. “She is not willing to take that chance.”
“But our situation is different,” Joshua moaned. “I have worked . . . always. And I will work for the rest of my life. I’m just asking her for a l’il understanding and support for a few months.” He slapped the chair with his palm. “This ain’t fair. When we got married she didn’t work . . . I put her through school. And when the Marines moved us to Camp Le Jeune, she didn’t work for the first year. She was trying to get experience for her resumé, so she only did volunteer work . . . for no pay. I never complained or asked for divorce. She spent my money with no problem.”
Joshua took a quick sip of his soda. “Let me tell you something. That churchy-churchy, Bible-reading Joanne that you know was not always like that.”
I cocked my ears.
“When I met her, she was a ghetto girl – literally. She grew up cussing and fighting – serious fighting, you know. She would grease up herself before a fight. And she has a few scars to prove it. The biggest one is under her left breast where she got stabbed. She stayed in the hospital for a week with that one.”
Although my eyes opened widely, I couldn’t honestly say I was shocked at what I heard. The girl was aggressive.
“We met at college,” Joshua continued, “where she was studying for Paralegal, and I was just studying the cars. Anyway, for whatever reason, we were attracted to each other and started dating.”
Our adopted son took another sip. “Ray, as you know, I grew up in church. It was I who introduced Joanne to church and before I knew it, she became more Christian than me. Mommy and Daddy loved that. They encouraged me to stay with her, and we eventually got married. Don’t get me wrong, I loved her and still love her to this day.” Then Joshua stood up abruptly. “But you know what?” he said, looking like he had just solved a problem. “I will give her the divorce.”
My husband breathed long and deep. “Hmmm. I hope you know what you’re doing, man,” he said. “Divorce is serious. And loneliness. Ha! That is a hell of a thing, you know.”
I jumped in. “Why not get some counseling?”
“We tried that in Texas and nothing changed.” Joshua beat his chest. “You see me? I’m looking for a woman to work with me, not one who is always threatening me. You see the way that you and Edna work like a team? That’s what I’m trying to achieve. When she was in school and needed me to work and support her . . . she only had to ask me once.”
“Ah-hah,” Brandon said. “I believe you.”
“And, it’s not like we would be struggling, or that I would be making no contribution at all. I’m in the Reserves; I get a check every month. And in my major, we always have a project to do on somebody’s car . . . and people pay us for that.”
“Hold off still, man,” Brandon said. “Hold off. She might come around.”
“Nah. She ain’t coming around. I could tell you that.”
Shortly thereafter, Joshua bid us goodbye and blustered away on his bike. We watched him disappear around the corner and Brandon, playing with his scruffy salt-and-pepper beard, said, “There is something in the mortar beside the pestle.”
My husband and I spent the next few days tying up loose ends before taking a two-week trip to Toronto. While it was fun to visit with my parents and siblings, and enjoy my culture, there is really no place like home. And Miami had become my home. I was happy to be back.
We had left Maxwell to manage our tenants and Yvette in charge of our house, and so on the day of our return, while Brandon took our luggage inside, I sauntered next door to deliver souvenirs, collect our mail, and catch up on the community gossip.
I cut the visit short with my neighbor as soon as I saw an old white Toyota Camry pull up slowly into our driveway. As I was wondering what person or persons were so bold, the driver lumbered out. It was our Joshua.
“Yes Josh,” I greeted him. “Now that’s what I’m talking about. You’
ve decided on a safer mode of transport. I’m so relieved.”
“It’s not what you think,” he said, shaking his head slowly. He began to smile but it was half-hearted, and he looked like if the world was on his shoulders.
Something was wrong, and I sensed it had to do with his wife, Joanne. I had no words, so I simply hugged him and led him to the back where Brandon was just done testing our swimming pool’s water chemistry. Joshua shook my husband’s hand and, dropping himself carelessly into a chair in the lanai, he leaned his head back and closed his eyes.
Brandon swallowed and looked at me, and I knew what he was thinking: Joanne. We took a seat. This looked serious.
“We’re divorced,” our visitor announced casually, without opening his eyes.
I drew back in my chair, speechless. So quickly? Maybe my husband was right about Joshua not telling us all. Brandon remained calm, and the lanai grew quiet, as if we were observing a ceremonial moment of silence. It felt like forever. Then, the young man opened his eyes to see if we were okay.
“Didn’t mean to shock you,” he said, and closed his eyes again.
“That was rather quick,” I finally managed to say with my hands pressed on my chest.
“Yeah. A week ago. I didn’t contest it.” He clasped his hands behind his head. “She got the townhouse and everything.”
“Everything?”
“Ah-hah. Except for my bike, my computer, and my clothes.”
“And . . . the car outside. Whose?”
“Mine. I sold the bike to buy it.”
On one hand, I felt his pain with the divorce, but on the other hand, I was glad that he got rid of that Evel Knievel thing.
Joshua finally re-opened his eyes and sat forward, placing his elbows on his knees and cupping his face in his hands. I really didn’t want to see him cry because I would break down too. He did not, thank God.
“You know, I can’t see myself with anybody else but Jo,” he said, looking far away. “I’m trying to get back with her, but . . . she doesn’t want to talk to me. So I think that after this semester, I’m moving back to New York. There are too many bad memories down here for me.”
I wondered how Joanne was coping, but I did not ask because I knew she was a tough cookie. And woe be unto the next man who hooks up with her; he will soon find out that she is not always Kosher.
But I did verify my suspicions. “Has she gotten her green card yet?” I casually asked.
He was so innocent and unsuspecting when he replied “Yes.”
Bitch. It was only because of my love for Joshua that I had tolerated that girl.
At last, Brandon said something. “Where are you staying now, son?”
“Ft. Lauderdale. I’m rooming with a classmate.”
I sighed loudly. I felt for poor Joshua who was now living much farther away from his school. That commute would be hell with all the traffic.
“Don’t worry about me, Edna,” he responded to the concern that was written all over my face. “I’ll be okay.”
“But you could stay with us,” I offered.
“I know, but . . . I didn’t want to impose again.”
I left it at that.
My husband got up and, placing his hand on Joshua’s shoulder, he said, “You’ll make it. You’re not the first to experience this, and you won’t be the last. And we’re here for you.”
“I know”.
“And another thing, Joshua,” I said as I reached out to touch his hand, “a spouse can lift you up or bring you down, but an education will only lift you up. Finish your degree, okay?”
He nodded, appreciating our support.
We began to see more of our adopted son, but less and less of his brilliant smile. He was not handling the divorce well, and many a day I came home to find him lying on the couch in our office, and Brandon sitting on a nearby chair like a counselor, giving a listening ear.
But then I came home one afternoon from a workshop, and met Brandon and Joshua sitting in the lanai for a change. That seemed like an improvement to me, you know: him moving from lying on the psych couch to sitting up on a regular porch chair. I felt that Joshua had healed up a little. I took a seat with them and summoned up the courage to ask him a question that had been eating away at me for days.
“Joshua, what is the real, real reason that you and Joanne went your separate ways?”
He looked directly into my eyes. “Well, it was my fault. I take all the blame.” He shook his head and sighed, “I really wish we could get back together.”
I slipped off my heels, extended my tired feet and asked, “So what happened?”
“Life in the Marines.”
Brandon and I stared at him for clarification.
“Lemme explain.” He shifted his weight from one butt cheek to another. “I was a lost soul in college. Daddy had just gotten us to the Big Apple, and I wasn’t happy. I was missing home, trying to find my way, and not doing well in school. So, soon after the marriage, I decided to drop out of college and join the military, because it was ready income, and I could also learn a skill there. And the military has good benefits too.”
“So that’s how you got all that mechanic experience?”
“Umm-hmm.” Then Joshua’s appearance grew solemn. “However, while there I did have to fight . . . and kill people. Iraq was bad. Real bad. I was deployed there twice, for a total of fourteen months. And every day that I woke up, I expected it to be my last. I survived it in one piece unlike a lot of my buddies who either died in battle or committed suicide when they returned. You’re looking at a man with PTSD. I had mandatory visits to the shrink when I came back home, but I now handle things on my own. I just try to keep my mind occupied.” He inhaled deeply.
Joshua had never divulged these experiences in all of our talks about his time overseas.
He took a long blink and swallowed his saliva to compose himself. Then he went on. “After a while, I just decided to live in the moment and do what the hell I wanted to do because today just might be my last day. When I joined the Marines, I wasn’t smoking or drinking.”
“You drink?” I asked.
“Um-hmm,” he said with regret. “And I started partying hard too. Not to say that it was peer-pressure, but I had to bond with my men. It was the only family that I had while I was over there. I watched their backs and they watched mine. I was with them twenty-four-seven. So before you knew it – if they were smoking, I was smoking too; if they were drinking, I was drinking too. Same thing with the partying. After four years of living like that, it was not just a habit, it became a life-style. So when I got out of the military, Joanne had real problems with me and my vices.”
“It’s ironic that at first you were the religious one, but now she is,” I noted.
Joshua confessed, “Now that I look back, I was wrong. My routine when I came home from work or school about six in the evening, was to take a nap till Joanne was done with dinner, eat, and then about ten I would go out and hang with the boys. I would return home about two or three in the morning. She was right to complain.” He put a hand over his forehead. “I was a bad husband.”
“So that’s why she asked for a divorce?” I was testing to determine just how gullible he was.
He hung his head low. “Well, not really,” he said.
“Huh?”
“I cheated on her a few times.”
“Oh no.” I was not expecting that remark. “I thought you guys were okay with each other?”
“Not totally,” he said, folding his arms.
I felt he was becoming uncomfortable so I decided to let him off the hook. “Josh, you don’t have to –”
“She didn’t like sex,” he blurted out. “That’s why we went to counseling.”
Now, that surprised me. Pinning down my shock, I glanced over at Brandon who seemed unperturbed. I had imagined that a rough girl like Joanne would love to zoog-zoog. Plenty. Well, well . . . you really can’t judge a book by its cover.
“She ratio
ned out the sex,” Joshua complained. “Once a month.”
I felt like laughing and crying at the same time, but I did neither. And the more I thought about his situation, the more I concluded that Joanne was not attracted to him in any way, even sexually.
“But that’s no reason to cheat,” he continued. “And each time that Jo found out, she would forgive me. But not without keying my bike or car or doing something to get back at me.”
“But how did she know when you cheated on her?” I asked, thinking I might be able to use this information in my marriage. I was so focused on Joshua that I almost missed the momentary rise of one of Brandon’s eyebrows as he glanced in my direction. He knew instinctively why I had asked the question. We’ve been together so long that our brains were on the same frequency, like a pair of walkie-talkies.
“Well she didn’t know each and every time,” Joshua answered. “But whenever her intuition kicked in, she’d look through my phone or my email. And when she confronted me, I came clean. I wouldn’t lie to my wife. I was honest.”
“So she played detective?”
“Um-hmm. But this last time it was too much for her.”
“What do you mean?”
Joshua sat up erect. “Remember in February when I went to New York for a couple weeks?”
We nodded.
“While there I was invited to be in a wedding of one of my army buddies. I ended up hanging with a Boston girl who was the bridesmaid that I had to escort down the aisle. I had a rental car and she had no transport, so I was driving her around. We were spending lots of time together and . . . well . . . one thing led to another, and . . . it happened, you know. Then, a couple months after I came back here, she called to tell me she was pregnant. I thought it best to confess to Jo. That put a huge dent in our relationship. Although the girl lost the baby, Joanne couldn’t forgive me for that one.”