by La Jill Hunt
“Man, my wife already told you everything was fine. Can we have some privacy, please?” Garry demanded.
“It’s fine, sir,” Sylvia told him. “I’m just looking for my ticket so I can get out of here.” Her fingers finally touched the small, smooth item she was looking for, and she pulled it out and showed the guard.
“Yes, ma’am,” the guard said after a few seconds and then left.
“Asshole,” Garry said when he was a little farther from them. Then he turned to his wife and said, “Baby, please let me explain.”
“There is no way you can explain this, Garry,” Sylvia said to him in disbelief. “There can’t be any reasonable explanation. Furthermore, I don’t care to even stand here and listen.”
Garry’s cell phone began ringing, and he removed it from the leather case he wore on his belt. “It’s the hospital.”
“Oh, so your cell does work. I’m sorry. I wasn’t aware of that, because I’ve been calling it since this morning, and you haven’t answered the damn phone. But I see why. Go ahead and answer it! Better yet, get your ass back upstairs and take care of your family, you bastard!”
Three C, she suddenly remembered. That is where my damn car is. She didn’t give Garry a second glance as she fled away.
Sylvia
When she finally arrived home, Sylvia sat on the side of the bed for what seemed like hours. She didn’t know what to do, where to go, or how to even begin processing what was happening. She reached into her purse and pulled out her cell phone and stared at it.
Who’s the first person you’re supposed to call when you find out your husband has been cheating on you? She had been wondering that ever since she pulled out of the hospital parking lot, and she still didn’t have an answer.
Her thoughts turned to her mother. It nearly scared her, because she had been gone so long. Normally, when she thought of her, it was when she came across something that reminded her of the loving woman who had dedicated her entire life to taking care of her family. Sylvia aspired to be like her. She had been so strong, even in death, making sure Sylvia knew exactly how everything had already been arranged, from the funeral and her last will and testament to the financial accounts she had set up for Sylvia and her sister, Janelle. Her mother had been gone almost as long as she and Garry had been married. Sylvia wished she was still living; then again, this was so incredibly unbelievable that maybe even her mother wouldn’t have an answer for her.
What advice do you give your daughter who has just found out her husband was cheating? Her mother probably would be just as shocked and confused, especially because Garry was so much like her father: strong, loving, and kind. Both men were damn near perfect, or so she had thought. Now, she wondered if her father had had any indiscretions of his own that she’d never known about. Janelle and Sylvia often said that their parents weren’t just happily married, but blissfully married. Sylvia couldn’t recall them even arguing one time. They were made for one another, just the same way Sylvia thought she and Garry were.
Now it seemed as if she didn’t know the man that she was married to. The man she married couldn’t possibly have been involved in an inappropriate conversation with another woman, let alone a child. There had to be some mistake. She had to have heard the conversation all wrong. But as she thought about the scene she had witnessed hours ago at the hospital, she knew that the word “daughter” had come out of the doctor’s mouth, and Garry didn’t object nor correct him.
Sylvia looked down at the phone again as it lay on the edge of the bed. There was no one she could call. No one to talk to. She was confused, dazed, alone, and most of all, she was heartbroken. She slowly stood up, closed the blinds, and closed the door of her bedroom. As she climbed into bed, she threw the phone across the room and heard it bounce against the wall. Pulling the covers over her head, Sylvia drifted into a deep sleep and prayed that she would wake up from what had to be a nightmare.
Tap, tap, tap.
“Mom, are you a’ight?”
Sylvia’s eyes fluttered open at the sound of knocking on her bedroom door. “I’m fine, sweetie. What time is it?”
Peyton walked into the room dressed in a pair of leggings, an oversized T-shirt, and a pair of Ugg boots. “Almost ten. You’ve been ’sleep a long time.”
“Wow. I didn’t realize it was that late.” Sylvia sat up. Her head was in a fog, and she thought that maybe the events from earlier that day had been a dream.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Peyton asked, then picked something up off the floor. “See, I told you, you sleep wild. You kicked the phone off the bed so hard that the battery popped out.”
Seeing the phone made Sylvia remember throwing it and why. Tears began to form, and she hurried out of bed and ran into the bathroom, not wanting her daughter to see that she was upset. Peyton . . . her daughter . . . their daughter . . . their family. It was all too much. Sylvia sat on the commode and knew she had to talk to someone. She closed her eyes and began to pray.
God, please help me deal with this. I don’t know what to do or who to turn to but you. Help me.
The house phone rang, and Peyton announced that it was Lynne, Sylvia’s best friend, demanding to speak to her. “I told her you were in the bathroom, Ma, but you know how Aunt Lynne is,” Peyton said, passing the phone through the bathroom door.
“Hey,” Sylvia said. Her voice cracked, so she cleared her throat.
“Hey? Is that all you can say? Heffa, where the hell have you been? I’ve been calling your ass all day, and you stood me up! I don’t have time to be going through all this. It ain’t my damn wedding, vow renewal, whatever the hell it is we’re planning! Now see, you’re gonna mess around ’til the last minute and stuff not gonna be right, and watch you try to blame that on me. I finally got an appointment with the wedding planner my coworker used. You said you were gonna call me back, and I ain’t heard from you!”
“I’m sorry,” Sylvia told her. With all the chaos that had transpired, Sylvia had completely forgotten that they had a meeting with the florist. “Something came up.”
“Sylvia Janese Blackwell, we have been talking about planning this twentieth anniversary shindig for over a year. Now it’s time to get to planning, and you’re acting weird. What could have possibly come up?”
Their anniversary. Twenty years. They had been planning it for over a year. Out of all their friends and family members, Sylvia and Garry were one of the few couples that had made it. Everyone else was divorced, remarried, or just straight-up single. They were survivors, and everyone wanted to be a part of the celebration. Now, Sylvia wasn’t even sure who the hell the person was that she married. Here this man had another woman and a daughter that she had no clue about. Her heart became heavy, and there was no fighting the tears this time. Sylvia bawled into the phone.
“Sylvia, what’s wrong? Oh my God, please don’t tell me you’re turning into one of those Bridezillas and having an emotional breakdown. We are too old for that, and I can’t take it.”
“No. Garry . . . he—I went to the . . . Mercy Hospital. . . .” Sylvia tried to talk, but she was crying too hard.
“What? Garry’s in the hospital? What happened? Is he all right?”
“No, he’s fine. He . . . there was an accident.”
“Garry was in an accident?”
“No.”
“Sylvia, stop crying. I don’t know what you’re saying. You know what? I’m on my way. Unlock the door and have some damn wine waiting for me when I get there.”
* * *
Sylvia was grateful that Peyton had made herself dinner and was shut up in her room by the time Lynne arrived twenty minutes later. Her best friend had barely made it through the door when Sylvia began crying again.
“Sylvia, girl, please calm down and tell me what happened. Wait, let me get some wine first. Hell, you look like you need some yourself.”
They grabbed a bottle of wine and two glasses and headed out into the enclosed sunroom. Sylvia looked out the
window and into the clear water of the custom-designed in-ground pool as Lynne poured her a glass.
“Okay, talk.”
Sylvia’s eyes never left the water as she told Lynne everything without taking a breath. When she finished, she gulped the entire glass down in one swallow and said, “I don’t know what to do.”
“Whew, chile! Well, first of all, we needed liquor for this conversation, not pinot grigio, that’s for damn sure. But that’s neither here nor there. What you need to do is talk to your husband and find out who the hell this woman is and why the hell do they have a daughter. How old is this daughter?”
“I don’t know.” Sylvia shrugged. “And I don’t care. I don’t want to talk to him. He has a damn daughter by some other chick. What the hell do we need to talk about? My divorce settlement? How much alimony I’m gonna get?”
“If that’s what you want, then yep. And he needs to explain all of this,” Lynne told her.
“I don’t want him to explain,” Sylvia told her.
“Yes, you do. I get it—right now you’re pissed, and rightfully so. I would say you are handling this quite well, because a sister like me woulda went slam off in that damn hospital right then and there on the spot. But you didn’t. So, not only do you deserve an explanation, but you deserve an opportunity to go off on his ass. Hell, he ain’t my husband, and I wanna go off on him. And you know I will be doing just that, by the way.”
Sylvia realized that Lynne was right. She did deserve an explanation, even if she didn’t want one. She deserved to know who this woman and her child were and where they came from. She deserved to know why he was listed as her next of kin. She deserved to know why he had lied when she asked him if he knew who she was after the hospital called in the middle of the night. Most of all, she deserved to know what other secrets he had been keeping from her.
* * *
Later the following morning, after Peyton had been dropped off at school and her routine morning errands had been completed. Sylvia sat at the desk of her home office, staring at her computer screen when she heard the front door open and the emotionless voice of their alarm system confirm that someone had entered. She heard the sound of keys being thrown into the bowl lying on the table in the foyer. Any other time, the familiar sounds of her husband coming home would excite her, but Sylvia didn’t move. She just stared at the screen. Even when she felt his presence as he entered the room, she still didn’t turn around.
“Sylvia.”
Sylvia didn’t respond. She could feel him coming closer.
“Sylvia.”
“What!” she said with so much anger in her voice that she damn near scared herself.
Garry paused for a few seconds and finally said, “I need to know if you’re ready to talk.”
Again, Sylvia didn’t say a word. She just slowly turned her chair around and stared at her husband. She could see the fatigue and exhaustion in his face. He was dressed in a Nike sweat suit and sneakers. He hadn’t shaved, and the stubble was covering his chin and jawline. Sylvia almost felt sorry for him and almost reached out for him, but she glanced at the hospital visitor sticker on his shirt and was quickly reminded of why he was so tired.
“I love you. You know that I love you and Peyton more than life itself, and there is nothing I wouldn’t do for you. I don’t want you to doubt that for one second. I also know that the facts don’t excuse the mistake that I’ve made.”
“Mistake? Is that what you call this?” Sylvia snapped.
“Maybe mistake is the wrong choice of words. But essentially, that’s what it is. It was a simple error in judgment that resulted in—”
“Garry, have you lost your damn mind? How the hell are you gonna stand there and try to rationalize this shit for me? Who are you trying to convince? It must be you, because that shit is not working for me. An error in judgment my ass!”
Garrett stared at her, not knowing what to say.
“Who the hell is she?”
“She’s . . . she . . . her . . . we—” Her husband, who was never at loss for words, was unable to put two words never at loss for words, was unable to put two words together and form a complete sentence.
“Let me see if I can make it easier for you since that question seems to be too difficult for you to answer. Hmmm, let’s start with something really simple. Tell me her name.”
“You already know her name.”
“Don’t tell me what the hell I know! I asked you to tell me her name!”
Garry hesitated and finally said, “Her name is Miranda. Miranda Meechan.”
“Miranda Meechan,” Sylvia repeated. “And what’s her daughter—I’m sorry, what’s you and Miranda’s daughter’s name? Is it just the one daughter, or do you all have more children that I don’t know about?”
“There’s just one. Jordan.”
Jordan. It was the name that she and Garrett had discussed and said they would choose for their next child, girl or boy, had there been another. But there hadn’t been any more children—well, not for her.
“And how old is Jordan?” Sylvia asked, inhaling in an effort to prepare herself for his answer. She imagined a toddler, lying helplessly in a hospital bed while her mother fought for life and her father, who happened to be Sylvia’s husband, stood there looking worn and desolate.
“Syl.” Garrett reached for her, but she pulled away.
“Answer me!”
“She’s fifteen.” His voice was barely above a whisper.
“Did you say fifteen?”
“Yes.” Garrett nodded.
The tears she had been fighting fell from her eyes. Fifteen. They had been married for nineteen years, and at least fifteen—no, sixteen of them—had been a lie. All of it was a lie. Garry and this woman Miranda—
Miranda! As if in a flash, Sylvia suddenly remembered that past New Year’s Eve. They were hosting a get together at their home, and it had just turned midnight. After their traditional kiss, they were all sharing their well wishes when Sylvia saw her husband answer his phone.
“Happy New Year, Randy!”
She hadn’t thought much of it, because it was one of many times she had overheard him talking to someone by that name. For years, he had spoken to or of Randy. It had never dawned on her that it was a woman. As she realized that this same Randy was her husband’s mistress, Sylvia’s world seemed to crumble even more.
Lies, all lies.
“Get out, Garry!” she screamed. “I want you out right now! Get your shit and get the fuck out of my house.”
Sylvia heard Garrett’s phone ringing as she ran out of her office and into their bedroom. She paced back and forth, rubbing her temples. This couldn’t be happening. It had to be some horrific nightmare, and she would soon wake up. Had there been signs all along and she was too dumb not to notice? Had she been one of those stupid women so caught up in her own little world that she didn’t realize her husband had been having an affair damn near as long as they had been married? All of this was too much to bear; too much for her to deal with.
“Sylvia, please.”
“Didn’t I tell you to get the hell out?” She glared at Garrett with hatred in her eyes.
“I’m leaving,” he said.
“Good. And take all of your shit with you.”
“I’m not getting out. Not yet. Not ’til we figure all this out,” he told her. There was something strange in his voice.
“No, you said you were leaving, and I want you gone,” she told him. “Go be with your baby mama and your other daughter! Go be with Randy! Isn’t that who she really is, Garry? All this time, all these years, that’s who you’ve been talking about, your side piece! Miranda my ass—”
“Sylvia, she’s dead, okay? She’s gone! Yes, Miranda is Randy, but now she’s dead. That was the hospital. She died about twenty minutes ago.”
And like that, just when Sylvia thought the nightmare couldn’t get any worse, it did.
Janelle
“You’ve reached the voicemail
box of—”
Janelle ended the call before the message continued. She had been trying to reach Sylvia for the past two days. It seemed as if her sister was flaking on their afternoon plans, which included manicures, pedicures, shopping at the mall, and dinner.
“She didn’t answer?” Nivea, Janelle’s friend, asked. They had been waiting in the lobby of the crowded nail boutique for the past fifteen minutes, and Janelle knew they were in jeopardy of missing their appointment.
“Nope,” Janelle said.
“Maybe she’s on her way,” Natalie, Nivea’s sister, said.
She sent Sylvia a text, telling her that they were at the salon, then said, “But I ain’t waiting. I’m ready.” She nodded to the nail technician, and they followed the small Asian lady into the servicing area. Within minutes, their feet were soaking in steaming water, and their backs were being massaged by the luxurious leather chairs. Janelle leaned her head back and relaxed.
It had been a long week, and she needed this. Her boss at the law firm, where she worked as an executive assistant, had been even more of an asshole than usual due to a few of the junior partners deciding to leave without two weeks’ notice. Janelle had been his assistant for the last six years and had never seen him this stressed. Normally, she indulged in a leisurely schedule of coming in a little after eight each morning and leaving before five each afternoon, even with her occasional hour and a half lunch break. Now, she was expected to be at work on time and leave a little later each evening, and he even seem irritated when she took an entire hour for lunch. If it weren’t for her hefty salary and generous benefits package, she would have found out where the other attorneys had gone and asked if they needed a well-dressed, efficient, competent, experienced employee such as herself to help them out. But Janelle knew her loyalty remained with Mr. Trout. He was a nice guy, and she hoped things would get back to normal soon.
“So, did you and Mr. Wonderful go out last night?” Natalie asked.
“Shut up, girl. We are cool. And stop calling him Mr. Wonderful,” Janelle said, cutting her eyes at her friend.