To Build a Vow

by Chencia C. Higgins

  Her face crumbled in confusion. “They why did you leave us, Mommy? Why can’t you and Daddy just make up so you can come home?”

  I snorted. “Little girl, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

  Sitting up on the edge of the seat, Ja’mya’s eyes lit up. “I would, Mommy!”

  Trisha caught my eye from the other end of the couch. “You might as well tell her, Lee. It can’t hurt anything at this point.”

  I looked at each of them and contemplated the repercussions of spilling the beans to my child. When I thought about it, things couldn’t worse than they already were. With a shrug, I threw caution into the wind and launched into a brief, less-detailed retelling of the past two and a half months. By the time I finished, Ja’mya’s eyes were as wide as saucers. She launched herself at me and wrapped her arms around my neck.

  “Oh my god, Mommy! You saved Daddy!”

  My burst of laughter ended as soon as she pulled away from me and I saw the tears in her eyes.

  “Oh, baby. Don’t cry.”

  She wiped at her eyes and gave me a mournful look. “Daddy almost died.”

  I hugged her to me. “I know, baby, but he didn’t.”

  She nodded. “Because you broke his heart instead.”

  I was stunned silent. The sound of Trisha sucking in a breath through her teeth filled the room.

  “Damn.”

  My exhalation was stuttered. “You’re right; I did break his heart, and he is very sad because of it. But I don’t have to stay away anymore; I can come home and he can be happy again.”

  Instead of the excitement I expected, Ja’mya gave me nonchalance, shrugging her shoulders and picking at her thumbnail.

  “Well, he isn’t so sad anymore. Not since Ms. Candice kissed him.”

  “Say what now?” I sat up and looked Ja’mya square in the mouth to ensure I heard her correctly.

  She shrugged again as if she didn’t understand the gravity of her announcement. I didn’t believe it for a second. This child of mine was not your average twelve-year-old. I had no doubt she had been waiting to wield this information until it best suited her. “I don’t know, Mommy. One minute, she was cooking him something to eat, and the next, she was trying to climb him like the rope in P.E.” Her head fell to the side as she eyed me, more than likely waiting to see my reaction to her news.

  My mouth hung open as I tried to sort through the myriad of thoughts flitting across my mind. Candice had kissed and cooked for Jeremiah. My Jeremiah. She must have lost her dang mind, but just her luck, I was in the mood to help her find it. I stood up.

  “Don’t worry about all of that. When I come home, everything will go back to normal. Now, it’s late; you need to get in bed.”

  Ja’mya’s eyes widened in surprise, but she stood and did as I said, hugging first me then Trisha and heading back to the guest room where she would sleep on the pull-out trundle below the day bed. When she was out of sight, I grabbed my purse off of the coffee table and rummaged around until I found my keys. I was halfway to the door when Trisha slid in front of me and placed her hands on my shoulders.

  “Whoa, nelly. Just what do you think you’re about to do?”

  I lifted my keys into the air and jiggled them. “I’m just going to take a nightly stroll through the city and possibly go visit my ex-friend.”

  Trisha grabbed my arm and twisted it until the face of my watch was inches from my face. “You’re going to take a nightly stroll at eleven at night?”

  Snatching my arm out of her grasp, I narrowed my eyes. “Yes!”

  “That doesn’t make any damn sense, Lisa! Your daughter is here; you’re not gonna leave her so that you can go charge Candice up.”

  I could have breathed fire, I was so angry. “I need to, Mya will be alright. She’s going to sleep anyway.”

  “Bitch, you must have lost your damn mind if you think I’m about to babysit while you carry your pregnant ass across town to fight Candice!”

  “I’m not trying to fight her, I just want to have a cordial conversation with her.”

  Trisha quirked a brow at me, then pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and held it up to her face.

  “What are you doing, T?”

  “I’m checking my reflection because you’re talking to me like I have ‘stupid’ tattooed on my forehead.”

  I didn’t want to laugh, but I couldn’t help it. “C’mon, T. I didn’t break up with Jeremiah for real. I had every intention of going back to him when the coast was clear.”

  “I know that Lisa, but Candice didn’t. You made a point to keep that fact close to the chest, even though she was there with us when you got the news. You can’t expect her to read minds.”

  “No, but I can expect her not to go after my ex! That’s friend-code 101.”

  Trisha dipped her chin. “I’ll give you that, but I still don’t think you should go to her house tonight.”

  I sighed. “I’m not. I won’t.”

  “Oh thank god!” She fell into me, wrapping me in a relieved hug. “Sleep on it, and if anything, talk to J, first.”

  With a frown, I shook my head. “And say what? ‘I know we aren’t together, but think again before you start screwing my friends’.”

  “Orrrr, something closer to ‘My bad for breaking your heart, this is why now let’s get back together’. Or something like that, ya know.”

  “That sounds great, can I just record it and play it back for him?”

  “Sure, if you want him to fall in love with my beautiful voice, go for it.”

  I laughed. “Yeah, okay. You wouldn’t even know what to do with him.”

  She smirked and thumped me in the middle of my forehead. “Okay, Lisa. Keep playing with me and I’m gon’ have Jeremiah and Candice while your procrastinating ass sits here, twiddling your thumbs in righteous indignation.”

  My chest caved in as I sputtered in shocked laughter. She busted out laughing at my reaction and plucked my keys from my hand.

  “I’ll just take these, thank you very much.” With a firm grip on my shoulders, she turned me toward the hallway and gave me a gentle push. “Off to bed with you.”

  Instead of sleeping, I laid awake for hours, running the information over in my head. How was I supposed to look Candice in the face now that I knew what I knew? How could I laugh and joke with her over lunch when I knew that she’d stabbed me in the back.

  ♥♥♥♥

  I managed to hold my composure for the rest of the weekend. Saturday ended and Sunday came and went and I didn’t do anything rash. Monday arrived and I was on edge the entire morning. When the bell rang, signaling the lunch period, my heart was beating rapidly with anticipation.

  Candice greeted me as she always did, with a hug and a smile, before taking her seat on the other side of her desk.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “I’m not doing so well, actually. My boobs have been so freaking tender that it hurts to put a bra on.”

  Candice sat forward. “Oh my gosh, are you pregnant?!”

  I hesitated. I hadn’t started telling anyone about my pregnancy, even though I was nearing the end of my first trimester, because I wanted to tell Jeremiah first. A sinister thought entered my mind. If I told Candice that I was pregnant, maybe she would back off of Jeremiah so that she didn’t come between a man and his child.

  “Yes. I am.”

  “Oh, wow! Congratulations! Is Dad excited?”

  I shook my head. “No, well, I don’t know. I haven’t told him yet.”

  “Aww, okay. How far along are you?”

  “Almost ten weeks.”

  It was if I said I was having an alien’s baby. Candice jumped back in her seat and her expression conveyed pure judgment.

  “Wow. I—wow. Does Jeremiah know?”

  My eyes narrowed. “I just said I haven’t told him yet.”

  Her head tilted to the side. “Jeremiah is the father?”

  Her surprise confused me. “Uh, duh! Whose else
would it be?”

  Her brows lifted. “I automatically assumed it was the man you left Jeremiah for. My apologies; it was an honest mistake.”

  My jaw loosened. Oh. That explained her expression. She thought I had broken up with J because I was pregnant with another man’s baby. All of my secrets were catching up to me.

  “I—” I didn’t even know how to respond to that. All of these years that she had known me, and she thought I would do something like that? What must she truly think of me? Then again, all of these years and she had no problem gunning for a man that had my name written all over him.

  “Well, anyway, the baby is Jeremiah’s, and once I tell him, we’ll be getting back together. We’ll be a family again.” I watched her face for a reaction but her expression was blank, unaffected.

  “Is that what you want?”

  I scoffed. “Yes, it is.”

  “What about your new guy? I haven’t met him, but is he going to be happy about being left so suddenly?”

  I waved my hand. “Don’t worry about him. Aren’t you more concerned with Jeremiah and what this means for you?”

  Understanding lit her eyes and she dipped her head once. “What you and Jeremiah decide to do is no concern of mine, nor has it ever been.”

  I cocked my head to the side. “Are you sure about that?”

  “I’m as certain as is possible.”

  Her mild tone annoyed me. “Are you really going to sit here and act like you didn’t make a move on him?”

  Her linked hands came to rest on top of her desk. “I wouldn’t say that I ‘made a move on him’. It was more like I responded to the vibe that I felt from him.”

  I wanted to launch across her desk and choke her with her own hair. “The vibe? What about the vibe of our friendship? Does that not matter to you anymore?”

  “It’s because I cherish our friendship that I decided not to see where things could go with him.”

  My eyes ballooned. “If you truly ‘cherished our friendship’, you wouldn’t have put your lips on my man!”

  One of her cheeks lifted and I just knew she was laughing at me. “Lisa, you told me that you’d broken things off with Jeremiah nearly three months ago. He definitely wasn’t your man when I kissed him. Or when he kissed me back.”

  “Wow, if I had known that I was harboring a snake disguised as a friend, I would have been more careful of who I brought around my family.”

  She sighed. “Lisa, as your friend, I’m telling you that this was a poor plan. You should have spoken to him before, or even, instead of coming to me.”

  “How do you know I didn’t talk to him first?”

  A soft smile curved her lips as if I’d told a cute joke. Once again, I had that feeling of being patronized. “If you had spoken to him, you wouldn’t have come to me like this. You’re yelling at me, elevating your blood pressure, but you’re loud and wrong.”

  “What am I wrong about? You already admitted to kissing him!”

  “I can only reiterate that he’s not your man, by your choice.”

  “He will always be my man!”

  She chuckled. “Wow. When I said as much to him, I didn’t realize how it sounded, but now, hearing it come out of your mouth, I wish I’d followed my gut instead of choosing loyalty to a woman who wouldn’t appreciate it.” Candice folded her arms on her desk and leaned forward to hold my gaze. “You don’t deserve him, Lisa.”

  I gasped. I know she didn’t just say that to me…

  “You threw him away like last week’s garbage, then have the nerve to come to me like a petulant child when you think I’ve discovered a rare jewel in your discarded trash. You. Don’t. Deserve. Him. You don’t want him, but don’t want anyone else to want him either. You don’t even care about him as a person, outside of what he can do for you. Lisa, you’re ten weeks pregnant but haven’t even told him, and the only reason you told me was to use the information as a weapon! Even I know how much he wants another child, and yet, you’re keeping the information from him. And for what?! Because you’re selfish. You want to wait for the optimum time to drop your bomb so that you can garner the best results possible, failing to remember that the other party is human and has emotions. Jeremiah has been going through hell since you’ve left him and I didn’t have to ‘push up’ on him to know that. Your daughter is equally affected, and visits me frequently to tell me about how she and her father are coping with the aftermath of your abandonment.”

  Chuckling, she sat back. “It’s funny that you want to talk about my kissing Jeremiah with me instead of him. There is only one other way you could know about it, and it’s obvious that Ja’mya told you in hopes of making you jealous enough to talk to Jeremiah. Yet, you’re here instead of somewhere with him. I wonder how long ago she told you. Does she even know about the baby?”

  Her gaze was piercing and accusatory and I felt its weight as if a fifty pound barbell sat on my chest. Candice seemed unfazed by the glossiness in my eyes. I wanted to tell her how wrong she was, but I couldn’t. I knew she was wrong, but I couldn’t think of the words to defend my actions. The only excuse I had that made any sense at all, was the cause for me leaving him in the first place.

  “I didn’t throw him away like he was trash. My reading—” I choked on a sob. Candice was quiet as I got myself together enough to finish. She handed me a couple of tissues from the box on her desk and I blew my nose before continuing. “Mama Sari told me that I had to leave him.” I recounted my reading to her but instead of sympathy and understanding, Candice surprised me.

  “That just proves my point. You think that you had to give him up so that he could live for you.”

  “He was already with me! Why wouldn’t that be the case?”

  “Would you have broken things off with him if it meant you wouldn’t be together anymore? If he got to live, but with someone else?”

  I opened my mouth to answer but nothing came out. Would I have?

  “Wow.” Candice shook her head in disgust and I realized how my lack of response looked to her.

  “You didn’t give me a chance to answer! I was just trying to think!”

  “Lisa, you don’t think it’s crazy that you even had to think about it? Would you or would you not make sure he lived? Regardless if he stays with you afterward. Do you see his life as important if you aren’t in it?”

  “Of course I do!”

  Candice stared at me for a moment. “Do you remember my reading?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. Two opportunities for love would present themselves to you.”

  “Right. But, one would cause me to lose a relationship I cherish…”

  She trailed off, her eyes holding mine as she waited for me to realize what she was saying. My breath seized in my lungs the moment her meaning hit me. In a way, she had tried to tell me, but I wasn’t paying attention.

  I cherish our friendship.

  “You—”

  Her hair flew across her face as she shook her head. “I didn’t seek out Jeremiah. I would never do that to you because you’re my friend. And, although you refuse to hear me, that’s what I told him, as well.”

  “But the opportunity presented itself…because I broke up with him.”

  Her shoulders lifted in the first sign of uncertainty I’d seen of her in the past fifteen minutes. “I don’t know, but I decided it wasn’t worth it. Now I’m glad I made that decision since I see that you still love and want him.”

  “Of course I still love him, I only left him because I didn’t want him to die.”

  “Well, I didn’t know that, Lisa.”

  I frowned. “It was none of your business.”

  Her head jerked back at both my words and the brusque tone in which they were delivered. “Understood.”

  She didn’t say anything else and I looked down at my lunch bag, which I’d never unpacked or opened. A lot of words had been exchanged, but instead of clarifying my stance, I was more confused than ever. I always told Trisha that everything happened
for a reason, but now that phrase felt bitter on my tongue. I refused to believe that I had given Jeremiah up so that he could be with Candice. There was no way in hell that was going to happen. It was time for me to go. I stood up and left her office without another word. I couldn’t put off this conversation any longer, I needed to talk to Jeremiah as soon as possible.

  Chapter Twelve

  Jeremiah

  Ja’mya had been quiet from the moment I picked her up from school. She didn’t say a word the entire drive home and when we got to the house, she went right upstairs and changed out of her uniform before joining me in the kitchen. While I prepared dinner, she worked on her homework at the island. It was so quiet that I had to turn on some music to fill the space. As I chopped mushrooms and onions, I rapped along with Xeno, an up and coming artist out of Texas that Hawk had put me on to.

  I grabbed a container of vegetable broth out of the pantry and when I turned back to the stove, Ja’mya was in front of me, wrapping me in a tight hug. I squeezed her back and bent my head to get a look at her face.

  “You okay, baby girl?”

  She didn’t look up at me, but I felt her shake her head. “I’m at a very precarious stage in my life. If our home stays broken, it could damage me irreparably.”

  I huffed out a shocked laugh and reached over to slide the broth onto the counter before I grabbed her shoulders, peeling her away from me so that we could make eye contact. Her face was twisted into an adorable pout.

  “Baby Girl, no matter what goes on between me and your mom, you’re life will still be complete. Lisa and I will always make sure of that, okay?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “But why won’t you just get back together?”

  I sighed and sat at one of the bar stools, tugging her until she stood right in front of me. “Sometimes there are things in life that won’t go the way we want, and we have to accep—”

  “But Mommy loves you, and you still love her, so why can’t things just go back the way they were? Why can’t we be a family again?”