Broken: Book One of the M Series

by Ryanne Anthony

  Judge John David Plummer says something, you better act like you understand if you don’t. My mother, Rhetta, has such a soft, sweet mentality and is what we describe as a slow cooker. She’s usually mellow but when she does get a temper, it’s not exactly pretty. Everyone loves and fears her but the temper is so slow to brew, it’s mostly her cooking that is feared. I’m a lot like her, mentality-wise.

  “What happened, baby,” Elka whispered, calling me that silly name that usually makes me giggle. I thought it was so cute when I was younger. Elka started it after seeing Dirty Dancing. I’ve gotten used to Marcus calling Mariah that and now, it just feels odd for anyone to call me that.

  “He doesn’t… he… whew,” I gasped. “Joshua doesn’t want me anymore.”

  “I’ve seen the way he looks at you,” Elka snorted. “Just Tuesday night at dinner, he couldn’t keep his eyes off you. And this hair… when did you do this?”

  “Yesterday.” I sighed and sipped my drink. “He didn’t like it.”

  “Bullshit. I’m surprised you can walk today, especially after the last time you went red. You were down a week, at least.”

  “He didn’t touch me,” I whispered, a tear finally escaping. “He hasn’t.”

  “What do you mean he hasn’t touched you?”

  “Months,” I quietly informed. “Not since January.”

  “January? It’s damn near mid-April. You husband hasn’t touched you in three months?”

  “Almost. Not even a kiss.”

  “Hello and goodbye?”

  I shook my head, saying, “Barely the words.”

  She goes silent. I look at her and her beautiful face, a lot like mine, was frowning.

  “Something isn’t right here,” Elka insisted. “I’m missing something. That man can never keep his eyes off you for long and he’s been that way since you and he started. Yeah, I’m missing something, Mandy. You’re missing something.”

  “I’m not,” I sniffed, ready for another long drink. Elka took the glass from me and pressed tissues my hand. I wiped my eyes.

  “You are, baby, I just know it. You are Joshua’s world and nothing will ever change that. Ever. Something is missing in this and whatever it is won’t be found in the bottom of a bottle. Go home, wait for your husband and talk this out.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about. He doesn’t want me anymore.”

  “He does and you need to find out why he’s lagging. It could just be that he’s stressed and not able to get it up.”

  “That’s definitely not it,” I smirked. “He’s getting erections just fine. Better than ever.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I’ve seen them and it’s not just morning wood, even though he’s getting those, too.”

  Quiet again.

  “Still, I believe something is going on.”

  “We finally agree.”

  “Yeah, but I have a feeling we’re agreeing on different shit, Mandy. Different scenarios, I mean.”

  “I’m thinking it’s not something but someone.”

  “No way. Not Joshua, in any kind of way, shape or form. Joshua would not do something like that; he would never hurt you.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Don’t you remember how distraught and nervous he gets every time you’re in labor? The tension, the nervousness and the downright anxiety he expresses? That kind of man… I mean, this is the guy who wanted a gaggle of children but said he was done after three because he hated seeing you in pain… and hated not being able to be inside you for six long weeks after birth. No, that man needs and wants his wife more than anything. Something is preventing him from touching you and you need to find out what that is and resolve it. Talk to him.”

  “He won’t even look at me, Elka! How the hell do you propose we talk when he struggles to stay in a goddamn room with me?”

  Elka glared at me, waiting for me to calm. I am about to turn into my mother and lose my temper and that would be rough on both of us and I don’t want that. Finally, I get ahold of my emotions and sigh.

  “You know him better than anyone, Mandy. Concentrate on what you know about him and try like hell to work through it, fix it. I love you both and I want this to work out. Mariah singing at your wedding is enough to make me want this marriage to last to death, no matter who goes first.”

  “Mariah’s singing? Nothing about the love we once shared.”

  “Still share, Mandy,” Elka sighed. “Still.”

  “I don’t believe that anymore.”

  “It’s enough that I believe it and believe in you and my brother-in-law. I’m sure we all do. Go home, wait for him and talk this out.”

  I stayed with Elka for a few hours, her making sure I could drive soberly. Once I convinced her I was fine, I drove home and went straight to bed, wanting nothing to do with Joshua. When he came to bed, he turned away from me and soon I heard his breathing even out.

  * * *

  That kept up another couple of weeks and soon I was fed up. We passed the three-month mark and was rapidly going into the fourth.

  I was in the kitchen one Thursday morning, trying to find something to do while waiting to go out with my sisters… all of us women were meeting for wives’ day out and I was looking forward to it. We decided to car pool and that Mariah and Madison would pick me up to start our time out together with an early lunch.

  I was placing the boys’ breakfast dishes in the washer when Joshua entered the kitchen and quietly went to the door. It surprised me that he was there. It was already ten, on a Thursday, so I was expecting him to be at work. Sighing, I figured he was hiding in his office or something.

  “Joshua,” I called when he got the door opened.

  “Yeah?”

  “Is something wrong? It’s after ten.”

  “Had to come back. Left the iPad in my office.”

  “Oh.” I nod. Breathing heavily and refusing to look at him, I asked, “Are you ever going to tell me why you’re distancing from me?”

  He stayed quiet and I turned, scowling because he still wouldn’t look at me.

  “Joshua,” I call. “We’re in trouble here. Don’t you want to save us?”

  He remained quiet as he shook his head and my heart skipped.

  “You don’t want me anymore, do you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What don’t you know, Joshua? If you want me? If we’re over? You should decide soon because you’re driving me up a wall with the ignoring and the neglecting.”

  “I don’t mean to… I just… Mandy, I do love and want you but… I’m going through something that you will never understand.”

  I stepped closer to him but froze when he seemed to panic and took a step toward the door. We stood there for a few minutes, me staring at him and him pacing in front of the now closed door.

  Frustrated that he wouldn’t say anything, I turned back to the washer and threw the dishes inside then slammed the door shut. I jabbed at the buttons and fought tears as I started it. I beat the sink when I realized I forgot to load the soap then grunted as I opened the door.

  Once the soap was in, I slammed the door again and gripped the sink, trying to focus on getting my anger under control.

  “Calm down, sweetie,” Joshua whispered.

  “How the hell can I calm,” I shouted, turning to him. “The man I love doesn’t want me anymore and this life we built together is now over!”

  “I don’t want it over,” Joshua sighed. “I never want us over.”

  “Well, I don’t see how that can’t happen when you won’t tell what has you distancing! What is going on with you?”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  “You have to tell me! What is it about… what’s going so wrong in your life that you cannot tell your wife? What is going on between us that is making you not want to touch me? Kiss me? Fucking look at me? What is it, Joshua?”

  Joshua sighed hard and walked to the breakfast bar and grips it tightly, h
is knuckles whitening but still… still, he wouldn’t look up. I glared at him, watching his lips move. I try to make out what he’s saying and gasp when I realize he’s praying.

  His fingers drum the bar nervously. “I did something a while back that I never wanted you to know but now… I can’t not tell you, Mandy. I’ve been trying to figure out how to put the words together. If I lose you… If I ever lose you… I will break.”

  Mandy? He hasn’t called me Mandy since… Christ, I can’t even remember, even today.

  “Tell me something, then, Joshua,” I whispered, pleading. “I miss you. You haven’t touched or looked at me in three months. I’m begging you to let me decide what I can and can’t accept. Please. Tell me and let’s work this out.”

  “We won’t be able to work this out.”

  “Let’s just talk, Joshua. Tell me what has you wrapped up in this turmoil and let's try to work it out. Let’s figure this out together.”

  “Something happened,” Joshua mumbled, finally. “I never wanted to tell you about this but now… a new development has happened.”

  “What, Joshua? What do you have to tell me? You can tell me anything.”

  Joshua sighed and dropped into a chair. “I… had sex…”

  What the natural fuck is he telling me?

  My breath hitched and I couldn’t get it back. Pain seared throughout my entire body as I waited for him to finish what he had to say.

  “And now… she’s pregnant.”

  The room spins. I turn to the sink and grip it, willing myself to calm and think on what he’s telling me.

  “She’s married and doesn’t, I mean, isn’t sure if it’s mine or his.”

  I shake my head, just loving the way this is going.

  “When?”

  “Sorry?”

  “When did the fucking start with her,” I snarled.

  “January 10th.”

  “Hold it. You fucked me all night long two nights before that and that wasn’t enough for you? I wasn’t enough for you? I damn near gave myself lockjaw that night and two days later you fuck some other woman?”

  “Yes,” he replied.

  I glared at him, needing and wanting him to say more. Elaborate on this, attempt to reassure me that this won’t happen again… at the very least, tell me why he went to another woman to do what I promised to do with him for all the rest of our days… not just sit there and stare at the fat chef salt and pepper shakers that my mother got me when I redecorated this kitchen.

  “Look at me, Joshua,” I demanded.

  “I just… can’t.”

  “You fucked some woman and now you can’t even look at me. You won’t talk, touch, look or be with me and now you may have gotten some woman pregnant… does… did the condom break, Joshua?”

  “We didn’t… I mean… Well, we didn’t…”

  “You went inside another woman’s body… raw?”

  He said nothing, just dropped his head further and tightly closed his eyes.

  “Why? Why did you do this, Joshua?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Seething, I stepped back and shook my head. I wanted to bash his in but I have three young sons that need their mother with them and not sitting in a jail cell for murdering their lying, cheating bastard of a father.

  “I don’t know you anymore.”

  “I know,” Joshua whispered. “I don’t like this me, Mandy.”

  “Neither do I. And I don’t want to see you anymore.”

  “You want me to move out,” he asked, shivering as though the temperature suddenly dropped down to zero.

  “Now,” I snarled, wanting him as far away from me as possible. “You should have left the night you fucked that whore and saved me all these months of feeling unwanted and unattractive to the man I married.”

  I went quiet as he walked up the back stairs, praying he would be packed and gone before my sisters arrived. I didn’t want to explain this situation. I couldn’t tell them that while their husbands were so into them, loving, wanting, needing, cherishing and worshiping them, mine no longer wanted me. After twelve years together, almost eleven of those married, and three sons later my husband didn’t want me anymore.

  And to show it… to prove it… he went out and knocked up some random bitch before he found the balls to tell me he wanted out. What the hell did she have that I didn’t? What made him respond to her and totally and completely forget about the ring on his left hand and what it represented?

  Fuck, I should’ve asked him who she was but at that point, I didn’t want to know. As far as I was concerned, she didn’t do anything but fuck my husband. Did she know about me? Didn’t she see his ring? Did he even wear his wedding band? If she did see it, why did she ignore it? Why even try to get past the fact that he had a wife, possibly children who were happy to have him be a part of the family. Scratch that, the head of our family.

  I heard my husband come down the stairs again and I stoically stood in the middle of the kitchen, trying to keep it together. He held open the door as our butler took Joshua’s two large suitcases out the door. He still would not look at me.

  Joshua gripped the door handle and stared outside as he said, “I wish you knew or could feel how sorry I am for hurting you, Mandy. I’ll never forgive myself for any pain you felt while we were together, especially the pain I caused.”

  “You should have considered my pain before all your clothes were off, Joshua. Keep your fucking sorries. I no longer care how you feel about anything,” I say quietly, forcefully. “Maybe your new woman and your child will.”

  Joshua cringed then quietly walk out the door, closing it with a resounding click. I stared at that door forever, wanting to reach through it and yank him back into my life and make him see that I could be enough, was enough and can be enough again. I wanted to reinforce my claim on him but I can’t.

  He had sex with another woman, raw no less, and possibly fathered a child with her. I just… I cannot wrap my head around that nor the fact that he was not going to tell me about the affair until he found out about the child. My perfect was not perfect: he’s just a man. With faults. Faults I never thought I’d ever have to worry about with Joshua Andrew Cannon.

  He went inside another woman raw… my husband had sex with another woman, raw, and possibly made a baby with her. I took care of his home and children and never once complained because to this point, there was nothing to complain about.

  I still wondered why we had a nanny since I did everything for the kids. I love them and needed to be a mother and I swear the look on her face when I asked her to supervise their baths that night was absolutely priceless.

  And now, that world, my sheltered, mythical world was over. My husband was gone and I had to tell my boys that their daddy no longer lived with us. I’d have to make arrangements and schedules as to when he can see them. Lawyers… judges… clerks… witnesses… testimony… nothing but abject humiliation when I have to admit in an open court that my once loving husband betrayed me in the worse way a man could betray his wife.

  My husband.

  My husband…

  My husband…

  My ex-husband.

  That thought broke me. Joshua was no longer going to be my husband. We had to divorce and go our separate ways. He no longer wanted me, he wanted her. Her. The woman he got pregnant. The woman that was not me. The woman he was probably driving to so that he could tell her that he finally did it: he was rid of the woman he no longer wanted but was tied to through marriage. That was soon ending.

  I gripped my coffee mug and threw it across the room, inhaling as it shattered above the bowed windows. My heart ached as I picked up a highball and threw it into the sink. Pieces of it ricocheted and hit my collarbone, slicing it. I screamed at that stinging and started wailing. I fell to the floor as I let out all my anger and pain.

  * * *

  I don’t know how long I sat there but someone was attempting to soothe me, holding me and begging me to tell them
what was wrong. It was a woman, and I felt her love for me as she held me to her chest, tightly holding me there as she attempted to calm me.

  Another loving voice started begging me to calm down, that I was terrifying her with my sobs. I tried and tried and finally, I did it; I calmed enough to be helped off my kitchen floor. We moved into the family room and the three of us cuddled close on the couch.

  Madison pulled my head to her shoulder as Mariah rubbed my back. We sat there silently, with nothing but my muted sobs in the air now.

  “What’s wrong, honey,” Madison sighed. “Talk to us.”

  “Nothing, just… I broke a highball and it nicked me,” I sighed, pointing.

  “That’s nothing,” Mariah said after a moment. “I doubt it’ll even scar.”

  “So you’re not buying her bullshit, either, Cookie?”

  “No, Sugar, I’m not.”

  Finally, I sighed and asked for the phone. Madison passed me the cordless one on the table next to her and I stared at it, in my trembling hands, needing to call someone for a referral. I needed a divorce lawyer. Now.

  I thought I’d ask Daddy. Judge Plummer knew lots of lawyers and could recommend a shark to kick Joshua’s deceitful ass.

  “He cheated,” I whispered, staring at the blurry number pad. “He doesn’t find me attractive anymore and he slept with someone else. He doesn’t want me anymore.”

  They go silent and I cried onto Madison’s shoulder, appreciating her holding me so tight.

  “Are you sure,” Mariah asked.

  “He confessed it,” I sobbed. “And she’s pregnant.”

  “Christ,” Madison swore.

  “It’s Stephen all over again,” I wailed, wanting something to take away that pain.

  “I hate to think that way but damn,” Mariah sighed. “I never would have thought Joshua was capable… I mean… he loves you and since the day I met the two of you, I felt it. I felt your love for one another.”

  “It’s gone now,” I sighed. “I’ll never get it back. And he’s having a baby with her.”

  “Is he sure that slut’s child is his,” Madison snapped. “Is he even sure she’s knocked the fuck up?”