by Ivy Symone
It was a trick question. I didn’t say anything.
“You wanna take his place in that chair? I’ll let him go but one of y'all or both of y'all gotta die today.”
I started crying. “Please, Marcos! Don’t do this!”
He pushed me away from him and swung on Kendall again. I heard bone crushing. I covered my face.
“Look at this shit! You did this!” Marcos shouted.
I couldn’t look.
“Uncover your face and look at this shit!”
I stood there and watched as Marcos unleashed all of his anger on Kendall’s body. I’m sure Kendall’s soul left a few blows ago. I was mortified and tormented by the sight of bone and brain matter meshing together in a gruesome mangled mess of flesh. The man’s eyes had come out of their sockets. This was something I would never want to witness again in this lifetime or my next one.
________
To my surprise, Marcos didn’t beat me to oblivion after that incident. He simply left. He left our home. He packed up his things and left.
Fifteen year old Marcena was upset. Bleu and Azul didn’t really express how they felt but I could see it in their faces that they were glad he was leaving. At thirteen it was evident that Bleu and Azul were going to be different from their father. They respected him as their father, but they despised the way Marcos treated me. Stormi and Raiyne were a little upset that their father was leaving and six year old Remi just didn’t understand. But Yanna was happy that he had left.
Yanna was eleven and had a sassy mouth on her. With her arms folded over her little chest and looking like her father, she said, “I don’t know why you’re sad, Mama. When Daddy around he just make you sadder.”
“Be quiet, Yanna,” I told her quietly.
“Do you want Daddy back?” Marcena asked.
It was just us girls. The boys had actually spent the weekend with Marcos.
I shook my head. They didn’t understand my heartache. It had nothing to do with wanting Marcos. Although Kendall was foolish for doing what he did, he didn’t deserve to die. And I would have forgiven him. I understood why he did what he did. And in that moment I was missing him. My despair also came from allowing myself to be in this situation.
“Is Daddy living with Brittani now?” Raiyne asked.
I had no idea where Marcos was in those days. I think he spread himself around between women. But if he had to call another place home, I’m sure he was with Terra and Brittani.
“Daddy has his own house,” Marcena said. She got off my bed and kissed me on the cheek. “Well, I’m gonna get ready before Daddy gets here.”
“Get ready for what? And why before your daddy get here?” I asked.
“I called him already and when he bring Remi, Bleu and Zuli back, I asked him if he could drop me off over Auntie Chrissy’s.”
“You didn’t run that by me,” I stated.
“I figured you wouldn’t mind. Auntie Chrissy need me to babysit,” she said. She pranced out of my room with her butt length hair flowing in the wind behind her.
Stormi and Raiyne exited next but not before giving me kisses on the cheeks. Yanna stayed and cuddled up beside me.
I laughed, “You’re not sleeping in here.”
“But your bed so comfortable!” Yanna whined. She inched further under my comforter.
“Okay, you can lay in here beside me and watch television but as soon as you feel yourself drifting off, get up and go to your room.”
“Deal,” she mumbled.
I lay quietly beside her while she searched between channels. It wasn’t long before Marcos and the boys showed up. I wished he had just gotten Marcena and left. But he had to make himself be seen by me.
“Get out and go to your room,” Marcos told Yanna.
She groaned and looked over at me. She looked back at him and said. “But Mama said I could stay in here until I got sleepy.”
“I didn’t ask for any talk back,” Marcos said.
“But I wasn’t talking back,” Yanna said firmly.
I saw the glimmer of anger flash through Marcos’s eyes. He wanted to hurt Yanna and I wasn’t going to let that happen. Before he could even get his hands on her I covered her body with mine. “No, Marcos!”
Pushing me out of the way he grabbed Yanna up by her arm while barking, “I ain’t tryna hear that shit! You want your little ass beat.”
“Like you do Mama!” Yanna yelled.
Marcos’s grip grew tighter on her arm and literally dragged her out of the bed. I jumped up and crawled out of bed as fast as I could.
“Ow!” Yanna cried out. “You’re hurting me!”
“You let her go right now!” I demanded.
He did but he basically threw her away from him causing her to stumble and fall. She looked so hurt and I could see tears in her eyes.
“I’m sick of her little smart ass mouth!” Marcos yelled. He looked at me infuriated. I couldn’t figure out what I had done this time.
“She didn’t do anything,” I told him.
Yanna had gotten up and charged at Marcos. “I hate you! And I wish you were dead!”
I watched my child turn into the Tazmanian Devil from the Looney Tunes and unleash a series of windmill blows on Marcos.
Just as Bleu, Azul and Stormi walked into the room, Marcos had smacked Yanna and sent her flying once again across the floor. That created a domino effect. Before I knew it, the boys were coming to their sister’s defense. Yanna had snapped and was crying uncontrollably as Stormi tried consoling her.
We were all entangled in a fighting mess. I was trying to protect my kids while they were trying to beat their father’s ass. The thing was, even though it was more of them, they still didn’t amount to Marcos’s strength.
In order to get his kids to calm down and gain control of the situation, he grabbed me and started choking me.
“I’ma kill her right now!” he threatened.
By this time Raiyne had come into the room and was crying with Stormi. Although I couldn’t breathe and I could feel myself slipping into unconsciousness, I could still make out the terrified looks on all of my children’s faces.
Still squeezing my neck, Marcos spoke calmly to the kids, “I want y'all to get the fuck out and leave me alone with your mama. If you say one more goddamn word or come up on me like you bad, I will kill this bitch and you’ll never see her again.”
“But Daddy,” Stormi cried.
His grip around my neck tightened. My life was leaking from my body. I clawed at his hand desperately in need of air.
“Get the fuck out!” he yelled. Spittle flew everywhere and the veins in his neck popped out. Even his face had turned a shade of red. “You don’t fucking believe me!”
As the kids scurried out of the room, I felt his hand loosen. Before I could suck in as much air as I could, he smacked me so hard I flew into the side of the bed.
“This is why the fuck I’m gone!” he yelled at me. He came to stand over me, “Bitch, I’ma kill you one day!”
I still hadn’t figured out what I had done to warrant this ass whooping. I looked up in his eyes and I realized there was no need for me to have done anything. From the look of his eyes alone and the sweat on his face, it was obvious he was high off of powder.
“I swear that little smart mouth bitch is just like your stupid ass!”
I hated when he referred to his children as anything degrading. Did he not realize they were his kids too?
I dared not say anything as I sat there pressed up against the bed. I just wanted him to leave and go wherever he was at first.
He went to the bedroom’s main entrance and locked the door. I wasn’t sure if I should try running for cover or what but I was too frozen with fear.
He came back to me, standing over me. He snarled, “Get up.”
Cautiously, I slid up the bed until I was able to push up off the bed and stand up. When I saw his hand swing I put my hands up in protect mode. “I’m so sorry, Marcos. Please don’t h
it me anymore. You know how the kids are.”
“I know how they are and it’s your mothafuckin’ fault!” he yelled at me. “You got them thinking I’m some goddamn monster and shit. You and her started that shit with me. I had no intentions on coming in here to fuck your ass up. But since you wanna play…”
I screamed when his hand came towards me. I fell back on the bed and started sobbing heavily. “Please, Marcos.”
There was no sympathy for me in the way he struck me in the face.
“Please Marcos what?” he taunted menacingly. He went to strike me again.
Still crying, I stood up and grabbed him around his waist. “Please! Baby, please! I love you and I’m tired of fighting.”
He put his hands on my arm to remove me but I clasped my hands together in a lock around his back. I placed my head against his chest and cried. “Please stop. I can’t take this anymore.”
I don’t know what happened but he just stood there and let me cry on him for a minute. He finally snapped out of it and snatched my arms from around him. He didn’t say anything to me. He simply stormed out of the room.
Chapter 14
Lillian could see the apprehension on my face. I could tell by the sad way she looked at me. From her perspective, her patient was agonizing over her home life. And I was.
“Nephia, how is this making you feel?”
“I don’t know. I want him there for the kids but not for me. If it was only me I had to think about I wouldn’t want him around period.”
“But do you really think having him around for the kids is what’s best?” Lillian asked.
I shrugged. The kids need their father or so that was what I had to convince myself.
“What would you like to happen with you and Marcos?”
“I don’t know,” I mumbled somberly.
“Do you see how he drains the energy right out of you? He’s not even around as much and he’s affecting you.”
“I know. I just…I just…don’t know what to do.”
Truth was, I was terrified. It wasn’t so much as Marcos himself. I hated him and had no respect for him at this point. But I did live in fear of what he was capable of doing. It was like not being afraid of Michael Myers however, it didn’t stop him from slashing you with that big knife he carried around. And that’s where I felt like things had gotten between me and Marcos.
I didn’t want to go into my deepest thoughts with my therapist. Lillian would want to explore my fear. I hated when she did that. It exposed the things that I didn’t want to face.
“How are things with your mother?” Lillian asked changing the subject.
“They’re okay. You know my sister married that boy this past Friday,” I said.
“The twenty year old?”
“Yep.”
“Now how old is your sister again?”
“She will be twenty-nine,” I answered. I shrugged carelessly, “I mean if she says she’s happy then I’m happy for her. I don’t wanna come off as the jealous one.”
“I highly doubt that Jovelyn would accuse you of being jealous.”
“She seems a lot happier than I am right now,” I said with despair. Why would I be jealous of my sister’s marriage? Although I felt Antoine was too young for Jovelyn, she did seem happy about her decision. I mean who was I to pass judgment on anybody’s relationship?
I sighed, “But I am bitter and angry like a jealous person would be. I resent Marcos so much. But I hate myself more for being with him this long. It’s 2015 and I’ve been with him since 1996. That’s a lot of years of getting my ass whooped.”
“So, what are you prepared to do?” she asked. I had no answer to give. She leaned forward in her seat and said, “You know, you’re the only one that can put an end to all of this.”
Tears came to my eyes. “I don’t want to hurt the kids.”
“They’ll be understanding. The boys don’t really like him much anyway. Your twin daughters don’t know how to feel about him. Your one daughter can’t stand him. The oldest daughter is the only one who has any sympathy for him.”
“I wish he would just get help and be what he needs to be for me and the kids.”
“Obviously that isn’t something he wants. He would have cleaned up his act years ago.”
I already knew that. There was no hope for Marcos. It seemed he had gotten worse. He was in the house with us again but he wasn’t really in the house. I barely saw him twice out of a week. He ripped and ran in the streets. He would leave the states to spend a lot of time with his father too. God knows what he was doing during those times. When he did come around, it was to make me miserable. He had gotten better with the kids and stopped being physical with me in front of them. But it was the little things that he tormented me with. It was like instead of breaking me down with physical abuse, he attacked me with words. He threatened to take my lifestyle away. He held taking custody of the kids over my head. He would remind me that without him I would be nothing. And he would let me know that he shouldn’t have ever married me, and he felt stuck with me. And since he was stuck with me, I was the one that would suffer for it.
My spirits dropped so low, I knew I had to seek therapy. I was on antidepressants and they didn’t seem like they worked. Most days I plastered a smile on my face and pretended I was okay, but inside I wanted to die.
Lillian looked at me with empathy. “This is not good for you, Nephia. And I’m concerned for you. I really am.”
I was pitiful. I despised myself for being so weak. Maybe I deserved to be treated this way. I began to cry. I cried and I cried until my body shook. Lillian didn’t know what to say to console me. I became hysterical. I literally had a breakdown in her office.
Because of her concern, she called mobile crisis. She didn’t trust me with my self. Once I got to the hospital, I let them do whatever they wanted to do. I didn’t put up much of a fight. And the more I thought of my kids and how weak I was, the more I wept.
_______
Two weeks later I was discharged from the psychiatric hospital. I was a lot better coming out than I was going in, but I had a long journey of recovery ahead of me.
I was happy to see my best friends Corvell and Nikki when I walked off the elevator and into the lobby of the psychiatric hospital.
“Bring yo’ crazy ass on here!” Corvell laughed.
I chuckled placing my finger up to my lips to hush him. “Ssh. You can’t be saying that around here like that.”
“It’s a fucking mental hospital. They know they crazy,” Corvell argued. He reached for my overnight bag I had on my shoulder.
“You look good,” Nikki beamed.
“Thanks,” I said. I followed them out of the building to the parking lot.
Once inside Corvell’s car, I said, “Well, I guess it’s back to life.”
Nikki looked back at me. “I guess this was like a little vacation away from home.”
“A vacation?” I laughed. “Hardly. Some of those people in there are crazy as hell. And all it did was make me feel even more fucked up. Like, I’m in here with these crazy mothafuckas! And then this one boy and girl got caught fucking up in there.”
“What?” Nikki snickered.
“Then my roommate kept shoving pictures of her kids and grandkids in my face every chance she got and talking about how people thought she was faking being bipolar. There was a Russian chick in there that was on chill the whole time. She had crying spells out of the blue though. Then there was an older black lady that reminded me of Ada. She stabbed her husband with a pencil!”
On the drive to my house, I told them all kind of stories of my two week stay. I even told them about some of the things I had discovered about myself. I never realized I had been suffering with depression ever since I was a child. I’ve always felt the blues. Marcos was my trigger and a catalyst. I had to get rid of him if I wanted to live a more fulfilling life.
Of course my closest family and friends wouldn’t be them if they didn’t have a
small welcome home get together waiting for my arrival. My kids bombarded me with hugs and kisses.
“We miss you so much!” Stormi and Raiyne both said in their dramatic manner.
“I miss y'all too,” I smiled.
“How you feeling?” Ada asked with her warm smile. To be in her sixties, this woman still looked the same way she did when I first met her almost twenty years ago.
“I’m better,” I told her.
“Mama, we made the cake for you,” Remi beamed.
“Well, not all by ourselves,” Yanna corrected. “Lola, Granny, and Ms. Ada helped us.”
I looked over at Lailani and Beverly and smiled. These two women were me at one point. They survived. The question posed; would I?
I was enjoying my home welcoming until Marcos showed up with Quan and Gogo. They helped themselves to the food that was prepared for this get together. It amazed me how Marcos could show up to crash my little party but was nowhere to be found when I was discharged from the hospital.
I was sitting at the kitchen counter on one of the barstools looking at them with disgust.
“Why the fuck you looking like that?” Marcos asked with a snarl. “You looking like we stank or something.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Is you drunk?” Ada asked Marcos jokingly. “You high or something. Get on out of my kitchen with all that.”
I know she was trying to calm him before anything exploded. That was why I remained quiet. I did ask Gogo, “Where’s Bridgette and how is she?”
Before Gogo could answer, Marcos walked upon me and mushed my head. “Who the fuck told you to get your ass confined to a mothafuckin’ crazy house? Are you stupid? Or is that your way of fucking with me?”
I swatted at his hand that kept jabbing at my head for emphasis. “Leave me alone, Marcos. This ain’t the time, okay?”
“When is the time?”
I agreed with Ada. Marcos showed up here high. I could see it in his eyes and the beads of sweat around his hairline were telltale signs.
“You’re a dumb ass bitch, you know that?”
“And you’re high,” I mumbled.