“Mya, you all right back there, sweetie?” I tilted the rearview mirror to see her fast asleep. The shiny bulb on her forehead glistened with a sheen of perspiration. What pain had she endured on the inside along with the obvious knot on the outside?
Jake would be furious.
Speak of the man himself. I answered the vibrating cell phone in a false happy tone. “Hey, baby. Everything went great. We’re on our way home,” I answered before he could ask.
Didn’t work. Jake had X-ray vision and superpowers of sniffing out dishonesty. “What happened?” he asked in a knowing tone.
“Fine. Everything’s fine. Mya’s slee—” The phone cut off. Cell phone reception was terrible in certain spots of the city, even worse near our home. We had yet to have the landline turned on. I waited at the light and tried to think of how I was going to tell Jake about Airic’s lofty plans. The phone didn’t ring, thank goodness. I needed time to think.
It wasn’t that Airic was the worst person in the world. Hell, I’d been engaged to the man for two long blurry years. His only fault was not loving me enough. Not feeling what I wanted him to feel. There was no crime or sin in that. When Airic and I met he had no relationship with his ex-wife or the two daughters they’d shared. I let the mystery go unsolved, thinking that was their problem. Airic’s aloof and emotional unavailability toward them had nothing to do with me. I was special, after all. Soon I learned I wasn’t so special. By the time I found out it was too late. I was pregnant with Mya.
Admittedly I’d fallen out of love with Airic long before the day he was exposed for cooking his company’s profit-and-loss statements so the stock price would soar. It was during my mother’s illness, a bout with cancer that woke me up to the pitiful mess I’d become. I wanted to be married so badly, I didn’t care to whom, even if he was incapable of loving me the way I needed to be loved. Shame on the desperate woman who believes any man is better than no man at all. Shame on me.
Last I’d heard, Airic was teaching at a small private university in Boston. Not a word, not a peep out of him until the calls started coming. I had kept the same cell number all these years, taking advantage of the new law that you could keep your phone number even if you changed carriers. In all that time, he never called, not once.
I didn’t buy the excuse of a changed heart. As far as I was concerned Airic’s heart was missing right along with his good common sense if he thought I would just hand Mya over without a fight. I tried to stop the ranting going on in my head like mini land mines, so much that I hadn’t paid attention to the beeping in my ear. The Bluetooth was signaling a call. I answered expecting to hear Jake; thankfully it was my mother. Relief replaced anxiety. “Mom.”
“Oh sweetie ….” She waited until I was through sniffing back tears. “It’s going to be okay.”
“No …. no it’s not. He’s serious, Mom.”
Pauletta had a knack for breaking things down to their simplest form. “You knew this day was coming. He’s her father.”
“No. He doesn’t deserve to be in Mya’s life, not now, not anymore. He had his chance.”
“Has nothing to do with deserving. That’s her father.”
“Well, he’s in for a fight, I swear.”
“What kind of fight?” Pauletta asked with an air of annoyance. “Unless he’s done something that would jeopardize the health and welfare of that child, he has every right to see her.”
“He abandoned her. Not to mention he was found guilty by the SEC, they even sentenced him to community service.”
Pauletta scoffed, “Could someone have told him about you being in the hospital?”
“What …. no. How would he know?” I’d spent seven days in the loony bin, or the mental rehabilitation ward to be politically correct. Mandated to seven days of psychiatric evaluation after having my stomach pumped to remove half a bottle of antidepressants. The small print written on my file said “attempted suicide” regardless of how many times I corrected them. It was an accident plain and simple but no one believed me.
Yet it all made perfect sense. Airic’s sudden reincarnation, all confident and filled with self-righteous determination, could only mean he knew about the brief mix-up.
Another call signaled in my ear. “Mom, I have to go. I think that’s Jake calling back.” I pushed the button, finally ready to face his questions.
This time it was a woman’s voice, soft and lazy. Wendy was smiling through the phone. “Girrrrl, I don’t know what you were thinking. How you liking that heat, huh? I heard it was ninety-one degrees down there and it’s humid. You could’ve just moved back here to the D.C. The mosquitoes are half the size and we have public transportation,” she laughed.
“Wendy, Airic is here.”
“Here, where?”
“Here, here. Atlanta. He’s married. Found God and wants to be a father to Mya.” I spoke fast knowing I was running a hotline. A new call could trump the current one at any second.
“Okay,” she said, missing the urgency.
I wiped away a droplet of sweat before it fell into my eye. “He has no right.”
“You’re her mother. He’s her—”
“Wendy, is that the best you can do? He walked out of her life the day she was born.”
“I know, girl. I was there. I witnessed the whole ugly scene, but you knew this day was coming.” Not her, too. Did everyone know this day was coming except for me? Of course I knew Mya would have to be told. I wasn’t planning on lying to Mya ever, but timing was everything, as they say, and this was not the time.
“I hate him,” I said before I could stop myself. I peeked in the rearview to make sure Mya was still asleep. Words like hate and stupid were stricken from my vocabulary for the very purpose of saving Mya from ever feeling either one.
“Oh, sweetie. You don’t mean that.”
“He’s the one who abandoned Mya. He walked away. Now he’s trying to step in like he hasn’t missed a beat, like he was up all night with her when her fever hit a hundred and two, as if he changed a single diaper or made a bottle at three in the morning.” I took a few seconds to get a grip. “Worst of all, Wendy, he knows. He knows I was hospitalized for trying to— He’s going to try and use it against me.”
“You lost your baby and anyone can understand that, Venus. He would understand that. I don’t think that’s why he’s there. Maybe he just wants to do the right thing, finally.”
“He’s married now.”
Wendy’s silence was all too telling.
“Ohmigod …. you knew.”
“Well, it was in the paper out here. You and Jake were going through so much with his case, I wasn’t about to add any more drama, you know.”
“So you knew he was married to Trevelle Doval and you never thought to tell me?”
“Honestly I figured they’d be married and divorced before the conversation came up. Maybe it was for the best. There’s power in the spoken word. So between you and me thinking out loud, wishing poor Airic to hell, he might’ve met his maker and it would’ve been all my fault.”
“I’ve never wished him any ill will …. until now.” Before I knew it I was home and pulling into the driveway. “Wendy, I’ll keep you posted. I have to go inside and talk to Jake.” I eased into the garage. I swallowed the lump in my throat and helped Mya out of the car. She was staggering from her nap.
“If you need me, call. I can be there lickety-split. Jamal is doing summer camp at Georgetown and Tia’s staying with Sidney till August.”
“Thanks. I might take you up on the offer. I love you, even if you didn’t tell me about Airic.”
“I know,” she whispered. “I got some making up to do.”
Jake was waiting at the entrance to the house. He wasted no time picking Mya up, kissing her gently on the bump. “What happened to her head?”
“She was spinning and fell, hit her head.”
“You all right, baby?” He faced me. “You weren’t watching her? What happened?”
&nbs
p; Mya wrapped her arms tight around his neck and nuzzled him.
“She was spinning, you know how she does, and got dizzy. I need a shower. I’m dripping with sweat.”
“Wait a minute. Aren’t you going to tell me what happened?”
“I will, later.” My eyes pleaded for understanding. I moved past him and took the winding stairs two at a time. I could still hear the echoes of daddy talk when I reached the bedroom. It was the one connection that hadn’t been broken. The one line not crossed. Though Jake and I had been at odds over the past year, the father-daughter tie remained intact. He always made Mya smile. He always made her feel safe. I closed the door behind me and turned the shower to a light mist. I wanted it to be cool, barely any heat. I undressed slowly, trying not to look at myself in the mirror. The smiley scar right below my pelvis line had healed perfectly, but I could still see it. Proof that it wasn’t a bad dream no matter how hard I tried to forget.
So sorry, the obstetrician and the nurses kept repeating. The baby didn’t survive after the emergency cesarean. A boy. Five pounds, two ounces. So sorry. The words played in my head like a tom-tom beat.
Who was to blame?
I took my prenatal vitamins. No alcohol. Never smoked. No coffee. Ate only fresh organic vegetables and skirted the table salt. I did everything right.
So sorry.
I wouldn’t survive losing another child. Not this way. Not to Airic and his new wife. I didn’t care what kind of celebrity she was or who had the better relationship with God. Mya was my child, plain and simple, and no one was going to take her from me.
I pushed my face upward to the shower and let the tears stream down my face.
5
Here Comes the Judge
Delma listened to the cases one after the other with her usual conflict, of both compassion and disdain for the craziness pouring through her courtroom doors every day. One plus one still equaled two no matter what year, what part of the country, what race or culture, and yet these people couldn’t add up the truth. There was no such thing as a good fight, especially when it involved children.
“So you’re saying ….,” Delma prepared herself to reiterate the broken language of the young woman with pink embroidery twined into her black hair and a shockingly low red halter top, “you asked the father of your three children if you could borrow his car to take them to their grandmother’s house. When he said no, you got a ride to the man’s house and took the car, so when he woke up the next day, he had no transportation to go to work?”
“Yes.” She answered as innocently as one could with all her cleavage spread out. “And then he called the cops on me. Then me and my babies was pulled over. The kids saw me get pulled out of the car like some criminal. Then he had the nerve to press charges. Now I gotta pay bail money, and he still haven’t paid me nothing for child support. He the one should’ve been thrown in jail, not me.”
“Mr. Crawford, when’s the last time you paid child support for your three children?”
The man put his head up as if to search his memory somewhere in the wood-paneled ceiling. “Maybe four or five months ago.”
“Mr. Crawford you think these children can live on air?”
“Well, I can’t pay if I can’t get to work. She stole my car.”
“She took the car one time.” Delma refrained from saying the rest of what was on her mind, She took the car one time, Negro, now go on and act stupider than you look so I can throw your butt in jail. “That’s no excuse for not having paid all those months before. When were you planning to pay?”
“Nevah evah.” The cleavage said out loud.
“Is your name Mr. Crawford?”
The young woman rolled her eyes.
“Mr. Crawford, when were you planning to pay?”
“I can pay now. I got the money, I just don’t know where to send it. She be all over the place. Can’t find her. One week she living with her mama, the next she staying with her cousin, a crazy crackhead threatening to shoot me every time I call.”
Delma took a moment to count to ten. It wasn’t working. “You can pay me, Mr. Crawford. From now on the money will be deposited to an account managed by the state of Georgia. Every month the check will be dispersed to Miss Bingham. Garnishment will begin in two weeks.” Delma surveyed the perplexed faces. “Garnishment,” she explained, “is when the money is taken directly from your check, Mr. Crawford. If you leave your place of employment, if you’re fired or laid off, you report this immediately to my clerk. Wave at the man, Hudson, so there’s no confusion.”
Hudson peered over his reading glasses and shifted the toothpick in his mouth. He lifted an uninterested hand and waved before Delma continued. “If you do not report changes of this kind, an immediate warrant will be issued for your arrest. Are we clear?”
“I have a question,” the cleavage interrupted with a hand up, “do I have to wait two more weeks ’cause my babies and me can’t wait that long.”
“Good question. Mr. Crawford, you are ordered to pay Miss Bingham five hundred dollars today. I do believe you said you had a nice fresh paycheck in your pocket.”
“I only got five hundred, what am I suppose to live on?”
“Same thing you expected your babies to live on …. air.” The gavel went down. “Have a nice day.”
Hudson snickered as Delma moved past him. “Glad I can entertain you,” she said, before kicking off her shoes and plopping onto the leather sofa in her chambers. “These people are going to drive me to the nut house. I should be on the superior level by now. Here I am stuck with all the crazies.”
Delma watched with grace and humble patience as her colleagues magically got recommendations one by one while she stayed put. She had more years of experience and the best record of them all. No taking days off to golf or fish. She was present and accounted for every single docket. Yet she was being stepped over and ignored.
“I may as well face it, I’m going to be stuck here till I give up and go home. I should’ve been out there golfing and rubbing elbows instead of doing my job like the good ole boys.”
“Over here,” Hudson ordered. “Come on.” He motioned her to the chair. Delma couldn’t refuse. The tightness in her back and shoulders felt like a vice grip. The pain only seemed to subside after one of Hudson’s tender massages. The man could work the kinks out like nobody’s business.
“What I tell you about stressing over these fools?” He slid his thumbs to the center of her neck and stair-stepped them down before sliding them up to start again. “You should be proud of your accomplishments. You have the least appeals on record. No absences. And ….” He paused for a minute as if this was the biggest one. “And you smell good.” Hudson grinned at his own joke.
Delma sucked her teeth and tsked, “Well thanks for telling me, I’ll change my perfume ’cause all I’m attracting is niggas and flies.” She slapped at his hands. “Unhand me.”
“I should be charging. I don’t put these hands on just anybody.” Hudson let go and not a moment too soon.
“Knock, knock.” The heavy voice of Judge Lewis sounded at the open door before he peeked inside. The weight of age creased heavily around his gray eyes.
“Hey there,” Delma said lightly, pulling herself out of her chair since Hudson wasn’t moving fast enough to get out of her way. “How was that fishing trip?” She always enjoyed seeing Judge Lewis, even though he was another example of the injustice. How he’d professionally surpassed her over the past twenty years could only be answered with one word. Woman. Forget about her two degrees in psychology and one in law. Forget about her ten-year stint in the district attorney’s office. He’d started out as a patrol officer who earned his degree at night from the local state college and hadn’t earned a full law degree until he was damn near forty years old, yet he was her superior. Made perfect sense.
“I caught a twenty-pound sea bass. Got the picture in my office. You should stop by and see it.”
“I will do that,” Delma said wi
th extreme ladylike manners. “But more importantly, when’s the fish fry?”
“I’ll be sure to have you over.” He winked before getting to the reason he’d stopped by. So many years ago she’d fantasized about him, back when he was fine for a white boy. Even with the pocket of healed burns on his left cheek, he had the mandatory chiseled chin, with a rugged seriousness about him. Hard on the outside but a soft heart on the inside. Now all she saw was a receding hairline and enough crow’s-feet to start a bird ranch. “You up for taking a few of Judge Benjamin’s cases?” he asked.
“Oh, sure. No problem.”
“Good. I knew I could depend on you.”
“See you around.” Delma waved him off before letting her hand slide back on her hip. She closed the door and faced Hudson. “Like I need more pitiful cases on my docket?”
“‘Oh, sure, no problem,’” Hudson mimicked, not really sounding all that different from his usual voice. “You should’ve said no.”
“Judge Lewis is on the committee of judicial assignments. He might be my only ticket out of here.”
“Right,” Hudson sarcastically agreed. “I can see how highly he thinks of you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“He was eyeballing your goodies.” He strutted toward the door, convinced he was bringing sexy back with his too-tight polyester pants.
“What goodies?” Delma caught herself laughing. “Out, you’re not doing nothing but messing with my mind. I don’t have time today, Hudson.”
Hudson went to the door but as he passed he made it a point to look only straight ahead. “You see, I respect you. Your goodies are off limits.”
“Out, Negro. Now.”
She fell into her chair and took a sneak down her flowered blouse where one button was opened lower than usual, by accident of course. What would Judge Lewis be doing looking down her blouse? The man was a saint. She rolled her eyes and took a moment to lay her head back against her high-boy leather chair, grateful for the day’s end.
Nappily Faithful Page 4