by B. M. Hardin
“But Mama, the secret phone…”
“Your brother forced me to get a cell phone. Especially since I’d told him that the phone jacks in the house stopped working due to an electricity problem, which was to keep him from calling the house of course. For some reason, the phone number listed had been right, but the address listing was our old house, the one that we’d sold. Thank God, just in case he ever tried to pop up.”
Mama had told so many lies, that I wondered if she ever got confused. I was confused just by hearing them.
“Okay, so why does Jasper have the number to a phone that neither Daddy nor I even knew that you had? What does Jasper have to do with anything?”
Mama looked at me nervously.
She took a minute, and then finally she opened up her mouth to speak.
“Jasper has everything to do with it.”
**********
~Don’t ask questions that you truly don’t want to know the answer to. Something’s are better left unsaid~
~Anonymous
Chapter Ten
Jasper had everything to do with it…to do with what?
This conversation was getting weirder and weirder by the moment.
“I killed Zara.”
What?
What was Mama talking about?
“Mama what are you talking about?
“I killed her, well, in a way. We killed her I guess was a better way of saying it. When she moved, I came to Jasper and asked him to find her for me. I figured with him being a cop and all, with enough pieces of information, I was sure he had the resources to locate pretty much anyone. I’d told him that it was important but that I couldn’t tell you about it. It was a personal matter. But surprisingly, he already knew where she was. I could immediately tell that he wasn’t too fond of her so I shared with him what I’d discovered about her and your father and he confided in me as well. He had his own issue with Zara and he hated her….enough to kill her. We both saw her as a major problem, and…”
Was she trying to tell me that she and my husband conspired to kill one of my closest friends?
Please tell me that this wasn’t really happening.
“Well, the idea came about, and Jasper found someone willing to do the job and just like that---it was done. I have felt so bad ever since which is why I have been extremely distant from you and your father. The only one that I could talk to about it was Jasper, which is why I’d given him the cell phone number. I blamed Zara for something that I wasn’t even for sure that she’d actually even done. I’d never mentioned it to you father or even went through with talking to Zara so I never knew the truth. And now I never would. I didn’t pull the trigger, but I’d planted the seed. Jasper and I both had. It wasn’t right, Lord knows it wasn’t, but something had taken over me. I was extremely jealous. I’d given your father my whole life, and there was no way in hell that some young, stupid girl was going to take him from me. No one was going to mess up thirty years of marriage. Maybe I was over reacting, but what if I wasn’t? It was like something evil had taken over my body and my mind and all I could seem to think about was possible betrayal and I allowed it to consume me. And it cost a young girl her life.”
Mama stared off into space, while for some reason I became concerned about my own safety.
If Mama and Jasper had the mind of killers, my children and I were not safe.
I just couldn’t believe what she’d told me.
I didn’t understand how or why she would take it as far as agreeing to have Zara killed.
“I don’t know the man that killed her and neither does Jasper. A friend of a friend set it all up. Jasper accidentally said his name once. Todd or something was the one that was supposed to have set the whole thing up. Apparently, there were a few people that Zara had left with a bad taste in their mouths. But I guess I didn’t think that it would really happen but when you called me with the news, I mentally shut down. At the sound of the news, I was no longer concerned, or jealous or even worried about her and her firm, young body taking my place. I was simply disgusted with myself and I have been secretly going through depression ever since.”
And for the first time in my entire life, I saw Mama cry. I had never seen her become emotional.
She had always been my own personal superwoman. Her strength had always been remarkable and to see her crying, I knew that it was serious.
I knew that she was serious about agreeing to such a horrible deed. I knew that she was serious about everything and that she was going through something that she’d never experienced.
But that didn’t make it right.
It didn’t make it okay to take someone’s life, whether she was sleeping with your husband or not.
And speaking of husband, oh Jasper and I were through!
There was no way in hell that I was going to stay with him after what Mama had just told me and obviously it was still more to the story.
Just what was Zara holding over Jasper’s head?
Had they known each other before we’d all been introduced that night?
Did she know something about him that I didn’t know?
Otherwise, why would he hate her so much?
And the fact that Mama mentioned Todd was even creepier.
Had he been so upset with Zara for dissing him that he had gone along with the idea of having her killed?
This was crazy! I was surrounded by lunatics!
I was looking at a bunch of murders this entire time, while they all walked around with smiles on their faces.
As Mama continued to wail, her cries troubled my soul. I could tell that she’d known that she should have handled the situation differently. I could tell that even though she hadn’t been the one to shoot Zara, she felt just as guilty and just as responsible as the man that had.
She was just as guilty and by no means was I excusing or dismissing her behavior or all of the lies that she had been hiding all of this time.
But at the end of the day, she was my Mama.
And no matter what, she always would be.
As Mama sobbed, I wrapped my arms around her. I didn’t exactly know how I felt but what was done was done. She and everyone involved would have to answer to the Lord above for themselves.
But first my husband was going to answer to me.
After Mama left, I headed to get the kids from daycare and I prepared dinner as if nothing was wrong. I knew that I couldn’t go to the police. I couldn’t allow my Mama to rot in jail for the rest of her life. No matter how ashamed I was of her and no matter how disappointed I was in her, I couldn’t let my Mama go to prison.
So I would have to keep my mouth shut.
Well, I would have to keep it shut when it came to the authorities, but Jasper was definitely going to hear a whole mouth full of things that I had to say.
I cooked and smiled at the kids as I rehearsed over and over again what I was going to say to him just before I told him to get all of his stuff and leave.
My skin crawled as I saw his police car pulled into the driveway. With the kids settled, snuggled in their high chairs, I headed toward the door to meet him.
I opened the door and to my surprise it was two other police officers.
At the sight of me they both removed their hats.
“Mrs. Armstrong, we’re sorry but we have some bad news.”
***
Jasper had been killed while simply pulling over a car to give them a speeding ticket. They had shot him five times in the face and in the chest.
The killer was still on the run, but from the video that they received from Jasper’s patrol car, the car was registered to a family member of Latino drug lord and murderer.
I cried at the news but to be honest I wasn’t exactly sure why. I didn’t really know what it was that I felt in the inside. For the most part, I just felt empty.
Empty and confused to be exact.
Of course I’d loved my husband but there was no doubt in my mind that I wasn’t going to te
ll him that I was leaving him that night, had Jasper come home, because really and truly I was.
But at least we could have had a conversation and hopefully he could have answered all of my unanswered questions.
The day after Jasper’s death, I tried talking to Todd, but he wouldn’t tell me anything. He made it clear that we had nothing to talk about.
I even tried to threaten him with going to the police but all he said was that Zara’s killer was already dead.
I assumed that he was referring to Jasper.
So, I was left with nothing.
I concluded that Jasper must have lied to Mama about who the real person behind the trigger had been.
Why had Jasper killed Zara?
What is it that she had on him, that was damaging enough to kill her?
And now, I would never know.
As for Mama, she was still acting strange but I could tell that with the death of Jasper it was as if everything that she’d been a part of had died with him.
She didn’t seem so weighed down or concerned, anymore.
I still didn’t really know what to think of her after finding out all of the lies.
I still loved her, she was my Mama and the only one that I would ever have. But her character was definitely up for question and I must say that I would never look at her the same.
And I made that clear to her.
She’d made me promise to keep my so-called brother a secret and made it clear that I was never to let him know who I was or break the news to my father.
I didn’t owe her anything, but out of pity, I decided to respect her wishes.
So, here we were three days after Jasper’s death and the day before the funeral and for the most part, I was just ready to get it over with.
Jasper was dead and there wasn’t anything I could do to bring him back, so all of my energy and concerns were now on my three kids.
I was now going to be a single mother of three and that was definitely going to be something that I would have to get used to.
Even though I would have left Jasper if he was still alive, at least he would have still been there to help me with the kids.
What was I going to do without him?
I guess I did have my parents, but it wouldn’t be the same, and finding a man to marry me with three kids…well, I just didn’t see that happening anytime soon. It had been hard enough finding one to marry me when I didn’t have any at all.
It was times such as these that I needed Simon and Zara to be alive and by my side. The both of them would have been there for me, helping me along the way.
But they both had been taken from me, involuntarily if I should say.
Speaking of Simon, I’d seen Simon’s widowed wife, Vivian, the day after Jasper’s death.
Surprisingly, she didn’t look as sick as she had while Simon was alive. To be honest, she looked quite healthy, as though she hadn’t been sick at all.
But I knew that was impossible since she had been the one to give the disease to Simon, but then again…I’d only ever heard his side.
Who’s to say it had really even happened that way? As far as I was concerned, everybody was a liar and no one could ever truly be trusted.
People would lie about anything.
No sooner than the thoughts had crossed my mind, I heard a knock on the front door.
And guess who it was…her.
Simon’s widow…Vivian.
“I just came by to see how you were doing. Simon would have wanted me to come by.”
How dare she even mention his name after what she’d done to him?
I looked at her from top to bottom.
“Why don’t you look sick?” I asked her bluntly.
“Because I’m not.”
Wait a minute…what?
“How is that possible? Didn’t you give Simon the AIDS virus?”
“No. The man next door gave Simon the AIDS virus.”
What was she talking about?
She was as crazy as she looked. I knew Simon and gay was one thing that he was not.
“You’re lying. He said you had an affair,” I said.
“We’d always had an open marriage. We were so busy having sex with other folks that we rarely had sex with each other. Which is why he got sick and I didn’t. We hadn’t had sex in only Gods knows how long when he’d found out that he had the virus. But to be honest, there could have been a number of people that he’d gotten it from, and since he didn’t know, at first, he could have been the one to give it to the neighbor. Hell, who knows. But I wouldn’t say that I was having an affair. Simon was the one who wanted our relationship to be that way. He’d told me from the beginning that he would never be able to commit fully to anyone other than you and since I wasn’t you, well, it was what it was. But I’ve always known that he was bi-sexual. You must have known that right?”
Heck no! I didn’t know!
Simon and Zara both had sides to them that I’d never seen. I guess it’s true what they say:
No matter how well you think you know a person, you will never know everything.
I couldn’t believe Simon had lied to me.
But then again…yes I could.
As I said, they were all a bunch of liars.
Vivian stayed for only a few seconds more and then she said her goodbyes.
I shut the door and headed to the living room to collect my thoughts.
This world was a crazy place, and the people that lived in it were even crazier.
I looked at a few things on the coffee table from the bank.
After Jasper passed away, I found out just how much money he had put away. It was a quite bit, but what I couldn’t understand was why he’d left half of it to me…and the other half of it to Shannon, the twins birth mother and his ex-wife.
I questioned our attorney but he’d said that even before the twins came into the picture, Shannon had been his beneficiary and that he hadn’t added me until after I had his son.
Imagine my surprise.
I was his current wife, but he was going to leave it all to her?
Which meant that one of them, if not both of them had been feeding me bull crap the whole time.
The attorney had already reached out to her telling her that she would need to be present for the reading of the will.
Though I hadn’t invited her to the funeral, I could only assume that she was going to find out where it was and come to pay her respects.
I often worried that she would attempt to take the kids from me since Jasper was gone and since she was their real mother, but at this point in time, I would hand them over to her without much of a fight.
That’s just how I felt about all things connected to or pertaining to Jasper.
I hated to feel that way, but as I said, I was emotionally confused and I just felt empty.
But who could blame me?
***
The day of the funeral finally came and I still hadn’t properly grieved over the loss of my husband.
I sat on the front pew, hoping to become emotional because no matter what I loved him, I really did. But he’d deceived me. I didn’t know the man that laid lifeless in the coal colored casket. He wasn’t the Jasper that I knew or that I’d fallen in love with.
The Jasper I loved was smart, charming, loving and would have never hurt a soul. That Jasper was my husband…this one was not.
I’d wondered the whole funeral if and when she was going to show up and finally I spotted her at the grave site. As Jasper started to enter the ground, I approached her.
“Hi,” she, Shannon said.
I didn’t speak back, I just looked at her.
I wasn’t exactly sure what to say but just as I had come up with something, she spoke first.
“Somebody finally got him huh?” she asked.
Her remark surprised and confused me all at the same time.
Most wives would have been angry at her statement, but I wasn’t. Not even a little bit.
/> “I’m sorry. That was rude of me to say. Are you okay? I wasn’t going to come, I just thought…”
Still yet I didn’t say anything to her.
I told myself over and over that this wasn’t the time or the place but my mouth moved faster than my brain could comprehend the statement that had spilled out of my mouth.
“He killed Zara.”
“I know.”
What?
What did she mean that she knew?
“You know what?”
“That Jasper killed Zara.”
“How did you know? Did he tell you?”
“He didn’t have to.”
“So you knew the whole time.”
“Yes.”
I looked at her suspiciously.
“Then why? Why did he kill her?”
“Why do you think?”
Her question was cold and fierce.
She waited for me to respond and when I didn’t, she continued to talk.
“He killed her because of me. He killed her because he didn’t want her to have me,” Shannon said.
I didn’t understand what she was saying but she soon clarified her statement.
“Jasper had issues…big ones. I’m sure that whatever he told you about himself and even about his family was all a bunch of lies. Matter of fact, whatever you think that you know about him, you don’t even know the half. Everything I’m sure that he said to you was a lie. Except maybe the fact that he did really love you. We were both orphans, which is a part that I didn’t tell you. I was an orphan because my parents left me voluntarily. Let’s just say that Jasper’s parents hadn’t had the choice. He’d killed them while they were sleeping when he was only ten years old. They’d said that he had gotten a hold of his daddy’s gun and was playing with it when it went off, twice, and accidentally shot both of his parents but Jasper confessed to me that it hadn’t been an accident.”
Her words sent chills down my spine.
I was scared to hear more but I felt that I needed to hear it.
“All we had was each other when we got out of the system but naturally we grew a part, but Jasper was always hopeful. No matter what I did, he always accepted me back just as I told you he had. But what I didn’t tell you was that he was obsessed with me. He was just always there. He was like a stalker. No matter where I would go, he would always find me. In his mind and in his words, he thought that even if we were with someone else, we would still always belong to each other. Hell, I’d just married him just because I knew that he wasn’t going to go anywhere, but then I decided that I couldn’t live like that, and then he met you,” Shannon said.