“Natalie, I’m sorry and I didn’t mean to call you like this, but chile, I don’t know what else to do.”
Natalie felt a ball forming in the pit of her stomach. Was it another write up at work for her rudeness to customers? Had her father left again?
“Well, what is it, momma? What’s wrong?” She heard Rosemary burst out into tears as the phone dropped to the floor. She immediately started to say a prayer that her father was okay. She was relieved when she heard his voice. “Hey baby girl.” Earl said trying to calm the explosive moment.
“Daddy, what’s wrong with momma?” She heard him sigh. “Well, it’s hard to say. She been crying since she came home a couple days ago. Sayin’ somethin’ about chickens comin’ home to roost. I don’t know what done got into her. She seemed fine when we went to Jake’s wake and repast, and then all of a sudden…”
Natalie hadn’t allowed herself to think revisit the name of her father’s friend and all of the abuse he inflicted on her when she was a little girl. Though she never confided in her mother, she sometimes suspected that Rosemary was aware of what he had done to her, but quietly chose to keep the two separated at family therings to keep her demons at bay and more importantly, to ensure the comfortable life a two income household afforded. She was sure her father never had a clue about what happened. Sadly, Natalie acknowledged that a part of her was happy that the man that was pure evil actually died. Her father’s booming voice returned her thoughts to her current reality.
“I been thinking bout taking her to one of these grief therapists they got set up at the church, but she declare she don’t want them in her business. Hell, we all get the blues sometimes, especially at times like this. Jake was my best damned buddy for over thirty five years. Did I ever tell you about the time that he took yall kids down to Myrtle Beach so me and Rose could have a real honeymoon? I tell you, they just don’t make folk like that anymore.”
“Thank God.” Natalie thought as she recalled the nights of repeated abuse.
“Daddy, maybe you should call Aunt Ethel and see if she can stop by and see about momma.”
“Tried that. Ethel refused to come here because of some argument she and Rose had at Bingo. Said Rose stole her winning card cause she always play the same card every week. I told you your aunt is a damned dingbat.”
“And where’s Tanya?” Natalie asked.
“Somewhere chasin’ that fool around probably. Ever since you and your brother left, she been actin like she don’t want to be around here. Kids be damned.”
Natalie heard her mother in the background asking her father to put her back on the phone. Despite his reluctance, she heard him relent and give her the phone.
“Natalie baby, I’m sorry for what that bastard did to you. I swear I’m glad he’s dead. And I wish I was dead to.” The tears started again. This time, Rosemary’s words could not be deciphered through her sobs and wails. Natalie could hear her father pleading for Rosemary to go with him to the therapist. He grabbed the phone and rescued Natalie’s hearing from her mother’s blood curdling screams into the receiver. “Baby, I’m sorry, but I’m gonna have to get off of this phone. I don’t know what’s going on with your mother, but we gotta get her some help. ‘Mary, don’t do that. Stop pulling out your hair!’ I think she done went and had herself a nervous break down. I’m gonna take her to PG County and see if I can get her seen immediately.”
Natalie felt her life spinning like she was in the midst of a huge centrifuge. She felt powerless to stop it. It was a familiar feeling. The woman that she battled for most of her life for affection was falling apart under the weight of her guilt, leaving her battered father to pick up the pieces.
“Alright daddy. I’m gonna see if Eric can come out there, since he’s the closest. I will get out there as soon as I can.” “Okay baby girl, I’ll call you once we get her checked in and talk to the doctor. I love you baby girl.”
“I love you too, daddy.” Natalie heard her mother’s screams grow louder as she ended the call.
She felt her head tightening and reached for her own medication to ward off the voices that commanded her to confront her mother. She had to call Eric. She had to reach out to Tanya. Despite their own issues with her, she needed them. Natalie had to be the one to make the call. She swallowed her apprehension along with her pills and grabbed the cell phone as she headed out of the door. She decided that she would need something stronger than Starbucks to get her through what promised to be a long night.
Chapter 49 Ilene
“I filed for divorce. My attorney will call you about making living arrangements and we can talk about splitting the assets later, not that money has ever been a problem for you.” Charles delivered his speech to Ilene while speaking into a phone receiver through a plate glass window.
Dressed in an orange county issued inmate jumpsuit, Ilene struggled to process what had transpired in the last 4 days of her life. Through parched lips and skinat was badly in need of moisturizing, Ilene’s smile illuminated a hopefulness that defied her reality.
From the moment that she began her speech at the hotel, her life began to unravel. Minutes after she tearfully recounted her misdeeds, she was approached by Fulton county police who informed her that the man she paid to assault Charles had turned himself in and agreed to testify against her in exchange for his own immunity. It was while she was being held at the correctional facility for her attempted murder charge that she found out that the district attorney would also pursue charges of identity theft, racqueteering (since Paul Cummings was an elected official), and forgery. Surprisingly, Regina Cummings was able to produce a tape of store surveillance that captured Ilene stealing several big ticket items worth over $10,000. Certainly, a grand theft charge would follow. But Ilene continued to smile. Charles’ annoyance grew.
“I hope that you aren’t going to try to contest the divorce, because that will only tie things up more.”
“Chuck, I can’t tell you how really sorry I am for everything. I never meant for things to turn out this way…”
“Oh that’s right. You’re sorry for trying to have me killed. Or was it forgery? Stop it, alright Ilene. I don’t care anymore. You’re not my problem. You screwed over so many people, you don’t even know where to start with the fucking halfhearted apologies.”
The security guard looked in as he heard Charles’ voice rise and then turned his attention back to the King magazine that he was engrossed in.
“Chuck, you think I don’t know I screwed up? I think about it every morning I wake up and look at those bars.”
“If you are looking for my sympathy, forget it. If I know you, you are already cooking up some way to con some fool into to paying the $650,000 bond to get you out of here.”
He was right. Her mind started racing for people who owed her favors the minute she was fingerprinted. So far, she had managed to locate a crooked lawyer friend that she helped out in a few domestic issues that resulted in a huge divorce settlement in favor of her friend. Indeed, a picture is worth a thousand words. Ilene’s XXX scene with the lawyer’s husband helped to ensure the end to a bitter divorce war, and her friend was indebted. If only she could get him to answer her calls now.
Ilene hated to admit that she was still apprehensive about her outlook and opportunity for freedom, as she needed someone on the outside to help her retrieve the bail money that she had locked securely in an offshore account. For now, she sat and waited for the opportunity to present itself.
“Chuck, the last thing that I would do is try to stop the divorce. Besides, after what I put you through, you deserve to be happy.”
Charles saw through her comment.
“You will never learn Ilene. Not ever.”
Ilene was not in the mood for another one of his self righteous speeches.
“Did you come all the way down here to tell me that you are filing for divorce, Chuck?”
Charles was taken aback by her forwardness. The prior confidence now eluded him as he
currently appeared nervous and uncomfortable.
“Actually, no. I came down here to tell you that I am selling the house and I am moving in with Regina as soon as the divorce is final. She and Paul split and we both thought this would be a good idea, considering…”
Ilene’s eyes bore a hole in Charles’ head.
“Considering what, Chuck?” Her words were slow and deliberate. Charles averted her eyes as he prepared to speak.
“Considering that we are going to be starting a family. Regina is pregnant.”
Tears flooded Ilene’s eyes as she spat curses and threats to Charles and the life of his unborn child.
“I hate you!! You’re fucking dead to me, you bastard!”
Ilene screamed and racked on the plate glass windows with so much force that it was loosened. The guards rushed in and ended the visit. ande was promptly escorted back to her cell.
Charles sat in the visitation booth unable to feel his legs. He felt that Ilene would feel the sense of betrayal that she regularly doled out was justice. But he couldn’t help but be pained by the anguish in Ilene’s eyes. He did love her at one time.
“A long time ago.” Charles said to himself as he walked out of the dingy visitation booth and to the plush Mercedes that once belonged to Ilene where the mother of his unborn child waited patiently.
Ilene returned to her cell unable to control her sobs. She was angrier that upset. She wondered where Charles had the balls to pull off such a brazen move. Certainly he was being pushed into by a vindictive Regina.
Ilene bit the bottom of her chapped lips as she recalled her visit from Regina the day after she was booked. It was then that she learned that Regina had orchestrated everything from the suspicious mailing of her bank statement for her account in Trinidad to Charles’ office address to the confrontation at Lord and Taylor and her proudest moment, the untimely disruption of Ilene’s bash. She even participated in some of the charitable projects that Charles partook in to garner a relationship of friendship and support. Now, she explained to an incensed Ilene, she would enjoy the life that Ilene robbed her of by publicly humiliating her husband.
Ilene now stared at the bars of her cell and what could be her home for the next eight years resolved to the fact that no one would come to her rescue.
While Marc made sure that she had at least two hundred dollars on her commissary account, he could not bring himself to face his disgraced mother. She had enjoyed a particular pride that he was like her in so many ways, now she wished that he had the compassion of his father.
She was alone. Her only company was the bars that mocked her freedom and the cries of women who wished for another existence. Ilene readied herself for the pain as she had done for years. She closed her eyes as she reclined on her uncomfortable bunk and pretended she was back at the Ritz. She told herself it was only a matter of time before she figured a way out of her situation. She just needed a little time. Thanks to her sworn enemy, time was the only thing she had left.
Chapter 50 Marc
“So you’re saying you don’t want to see me anymore?” Marc asked Natalie, perplexed by the news that she had just delivered to him. He struggled to process her words through her screams and crying.
She was able to convey the message that someone named Sherise had called and explained that not only was she pregnant by him, but she was also staying in their condo together. She was, of course, only calling to warn Natalie.
After his phone call from Reggie, Marc’s world had been turned upside down. He was now dealing with his mother’s incarceration. The thought of seeing Natalie was the only thing that kept him from loosing it.
Marc could hear her lips trembling as she spoke. He would continue to plead with her for the next thirty minutes.
“I never meant to keep this from you. It’s just that this situation is complicated, and I didn’t know how you would respond.”
Natalie tasted the irony of his secret. Through her sniffles, she spoke.
“How am I supposed to be okay with the fact that the man that I thought was perfect for me is a liar? You never mentioned any of this. And yet, here you are promising me the world...”
“And I meant every word of it. I just have to handle this situation first.”
Natalie gasped.
“A situation, Marc? Is that what you call your child, a fucking situation? I can’t believe that I was so wrong about you!”
Marc released a long sigh.
“Look, I swear to you, all of this will make sense if you just let me explain…”
“Explain what?! I know where babies come from. Open leg, insert dick. We did it all night, remember? Oh, let me just guess. That was a situation tooatalie punctuated her statement with a cynical laugh. Marc attempted to interject calmness.
“You know what, I understand your anger. But you are not being reasonable right now. Just like you sisters, always flying off the handle when a man...”
“Don’t you dare try to turn this shit around on me. You were the one acting like a fake assed Denzel on some ole sweepme-off-my-feet shit. You were the one caught in a huge lie. Women are the way we are because of little boys like you.”
Marc felt a pang of anger and insult.
“First of all, I am a man. So don’t ever make the mistake of calling me a boy again. Second, you’re acting as if you don’t have skeletons in your own closet. You think I didn’t notice all of those bruises on your arms?”
Natalie’s shock forced her into silence. Marc capitalized on the opportunity to regain control of the conversation and to address the assault on his character.
“The woman who called you is…, well, I’ll just say she isn’t exactly wife material. I made a mistake and now she is trying to make me pay for not wanting to be with her.”
The faint sound of Natalie sucking her teeth in protest did not go unnoticed by Marc as he continued.
“I am not the kind of guy that would neglect his responsibility. Natalie, you know that.”
“All I know is that you slept with her, made a baby, and now you are acting like she doesn’t exist. If you did it to her, then you could have done the same thing to me, and I don’t care how fine you are, or how much money you have, in my eyes, you’re another trifling assed niggah. Don’t ever call this number again, or I will pursue harassment charges. Goodbye.”
Natalie’s judgment and blatant cruelty stung Marc as he heard the phone click.
Tears rolled involuntarily from his eyes as he saw the end of what he and Natalie could have been. He looked contemptuously at the airline ticket that mocked their reunion and now folded to the anger that pulsated through his hands. Only his anger was not reserved for Natalie.
Marc carefully pushed open the door of the condo left ajar purposefully by an embittered woman. The newly installed locks lie disassembled on the floor to trivialize his attempt to keep Sherise out. True to form, she had destroyed the place that he once acquired for him and their unborn child. Only after learning the truth from Reggie did he confront her and demand that she leave him alone or face fraud charges. It was a threat she knew all too well.
Meticulously, Marc exposed her true identity and how she had made quick work of wealthy men by spiking their drinks with illegal drugs and faking a pregnancy. A morning after pill usually handled the messy ramifications of unprotected sex. The unassuming and ultimately fearful victims would plow her with gifts of jewelry and cars for her silence. She would dispose herself of them when she had recruited a new prospect and flee the area claiming to need time to recuperate from a well timed miscarriage. She and his mother had a lot in common.
Only now, she was becoming more desperate, as the forward from the San Antonio Spurs for whom she was truly pregnant and in love with, had a change of heart when he learned of her past. He threatened to turn her into the police if she ever pursued him for paternity or made contact with his wife. Foiled, she was stuck with a child and no plan. That is, until she happened upon Marc at an opening of a new restaura
nt called Taste in DC.
Rumor was that he was a silent owner. It wasn’t a rumor, she found after hours of social research in the who’s who crowds of affluence in DC’s former gold coast. After a couple weeks of stalking and a quickly expanding waist line, she enacted her master plan. Like a well oiled machine, her system was working flawlessly until now. Marc’s revelation sabotaged her bid for a life of excess and leisure and now hastened her motivation to leave DC.
As he surveyed the emptied condo, he marveled at how she did nt leave a trace of her presence. Like she never existed. Marc would once again contact the property manager to have the locks replaced. Sherise, now distant and certain never to resurface again, helped him to process the damage she had caused thus far in his life. Her anger compelled her to shatter the bay windows of the home. Marc stood peering at her symbolic indignance and bent down to pick up the pieces. The irony of the act cut him as deeply as the chards of newly and violently broken glass. The drops of blood that stained the hardwoods oddly made him think of Natalie.
Perhaps he could explain everything once she had time to calm down. The prospect of sending flowers appeared generic and humdrum. He needed to make a statement. Rather she accepted his apology or not was an afterthought. She needed to know, that despite her prior account of his character, he was indeed a good guy. It was then that he realized that he needed to convince himself more than anyone else.
Chapter 51 Natalie.
The short walk through the airport’s corridor afforded Natalie very little time to compose herself when the personal aircraft landed at the small airport for private jets and specialty aircrafts just outside of Maryland’s beltway.
Her call to Heath proved a viable alternative to the bar that she was traveling to where she intended to mix and lethal concoction of psychotropic drugs and alcohol to head off the pain in her heart and emerging voices in her head. A very worried Heath demanded that she park her car immediately or he would contact the local police to report an inebriated and incapacitated motorist. Within minutes, he arrived at her parked car and effortlessly wiped her tear stained face in his expensive Yves Saint Laurent shirt. After securing her car in a nearby parking garage, he took her to his palatial home.
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