And Then There Was Me

by Sadeqa Johnson

  Bea had taken the closet down the hall because she had a quarter of what he owned. Her seasonal things were tucked away in the attic and all of her run-around clothes could be folded and put in a few drawers. The master closet was all Lonnie’s. It had a hutch in the center with hanging poles on each side. Bea snapped on her gloves and started working from the front right. She hummed as she went through all of his suit jackets and pant pockets. She sniffed each one of his shirts for a whiff of anything other than him. Ran her gloves over the handkerchiefs looking for residue of makeup or perfume. She sorted what had to be dropped off at the cleaners and what needed washing. As she moved methodically through his closet, her mind flashed back to when she’d discovered his alias Instagram account.

  He’d left his tablet open without closing the app. She wasn’t really looking for anything. Had merely picked it up to check the next day’s weather. That’s when she saw Lonnie kissing a hussy and squeezing her ass in three different shots. The woman @DiscoDiva had posted the pictures and tagged Lonnie @Fortune5Alive.

  How could Lonnie be that irresponsible? What if Chico had found the pictures? Bea tracked the woman down through Lonnie’s mobile phone records. She was good at that. In college, Lonnie had referred to her as Carmen Santiago, the fictional 90s cartoon detective who never left any stone unturned. Bea went so far as to report the woman to her boss at the bank where she worked, complaining that she spent upward of forty minutes at a time on the phone with her husband. The woman called Bea at their house after she was fired. Pissed off, screaming. As Bea picked up Lonnie’s dirty laundry, she felt ashamed of how low she’d sunk on the phone call. Getting caught up in the ping-pong of claiming a man.

  I was sucking on him last night.

  Yeah well, it was me you were tasting.

  Ugh, even now remembering the conversation made her stomach turn. And then there was his Miami vice, but she wouldn’t let herself spiral down that road. Being pregnant meant there was no Lexapro to catch her. She kept her focus on the job in front of her.

  After going through his clothes, she went to his home computer in the corner of their bedroom. Even though Lonnie didn’t like it when Bea went through his things, this password he knew better than to change.

  She scrolled through his e-mail accounts, scanning through both personal and work. Next she read through their banking statements, checked activity on their mutual funds, stocks, and credit cards. The tea was stone cold when she was finished but she sipped it anyway.

  Bea leaned back in the swivel chair feeling unsettled. Lonnie wasn’t a careless cheat (the Instagram situation being an exception). She wouldn’t find a condom foil in his front pocket, or a racy thong tucked into his trousers. An affair was something Lonnie could easily expense to his business account. He was more sophisticated with his affairs. But this knowledge didn’t prevent her from putting on her white gloves at the beginning of every month and double-checking. The search was therapeutic. It made her feel in control.

  The sun was hot on this side of the house. Before she knew it, it would be time to go to the science fair and she needed to knock off a few more chores before leaving. The easiest way for her to get the dry cleaning to the trunk of her car was in the laundry basket. When she picked up the basket, she saw a flash of glitter.

  Something caught in Lonnie’s shirtsleeve. Lonnie had a bad habit of unclasping the cuff link but not removing it from his shirt. Bea was always reminding that man to remove his links. She couldn’t even count how many they had lost to the dry cleaner. Expensive links that she had combed through antique stores to find. When she reached for it, she realized it wasn’t a cuff link at all. It was an earring. A gold square with diamond cuts. The sight of it forced her down on the bed, winded.

  She wrung her hands and then rubbed her belly in an attempt to calm down. How many times had she caught her husband cheating? She’d lost count. And each time it opened up old wounds and leaked fresh pain. The fact that she stayed with him made her feel stupid. She was foolish and she knew it. Bea slung the basket in her arms and started toward the stairs. Why am I still here? She wanted to shout at the walls. But as she traveled down the hall, the answer was in the family photos she passed. Alana’s first step, reaching for Daddy. Chico’s baseball photo with Lonnie as the head coach. Family cruises and trips to Disney. The wall documented their lives together. Picture perfect.

  She was at the bottom of the stairs peering at a snapshot she took. It was a selfie of the family at Liberty State Park before the Fourth of July fireworks. Everyone was squished together and Bea was toppling from the frame, caught between Chico’s teeth and the back of Alana’s head. She had affectionately named the photo, And Then There Was Me. That’s how she felt. Blurred. An afterthought. Invisible.

  Bea dumped the laundry basket by the back door and tucked the earring into the kitchen drawer beneath the aluminum foil. All of a sudden, it felt like a light bulb was shining in the corner of her mind and the chamber in charge of her self-control unlocked. It was what she referred to as the dark horse. That familiar, frenzied feeling that came over her, urging her to eat everything in sight. She considered making the twenty-minute drive to the closest McDonald’s (there wasn’t one in Evergreen) but realized she could not wait. Bea moved through the kitchen as a mental checklist of what was available started running through her head.

  Just the feeling of her hands on the handle of the refrigerator brought her body to life with excitement. It was like being at Magic Kingdom and seeing the Cinderella castle for the first time. Bea swung both doors open and took visual stock. In the middle bin there was about a half-pound of gourmet salami and a good bit of provolone cheese. She could squeeze that between two thick slices of French bread and slather on a ton of mayonnaise. The cold cuts and condiments filled her arms and she loved the weight of it against her chest. While she ate the sandwich, she would microwave that box of mozzarella sticks that was in the freezer. When she reached for the box and turned it over in her hand, it read four servings, but Bea would eat the whole ten ounces and all the dipping sauce. She closed the freezer and went back to the fridge. Was there any ham left over from last week’s dinner? She ducked her head toward the bottom shelf but then changed her mind about the ham because she remembered the fresh bag of chocolate-chip cookies that she had purchased from Trader Joe’s in the pantry. It was unopened. She would try to eat that bag slowly for dessert but she already knew that she would shove them into her mouth one after another, barely chewing them and definitely not tasting them. By then, she would be focused on going into the bathroom and throwing it all up.

  A party-sized bag of mesquite barbeque chips would go so well right now, but she had stopped buying chips months ago. She pulled the cookies from her pantry, reasoning that they would do.

  She gazed at her growing pile of food on the counter. She needed one more thing. She moved a few things around in her freezer. In the bottom drawer underneath the frozen mixed berries, she spied a Newman’s Own thin and crispy, uncured pepperoni pizza. Normally she would split the box with the kids when Lonnie wasn’t home. Today, she would enjoy the entire pie. The hot, dripping cheese coupled with the salty, chewy pepperoni would be the highlight of her meal. Bea could feel the saliva building in her mouth and the anticipation of her fix made her so heady she could barely breathe.

  Dancing, Bea preheated the oven. She liked to have everything ready and spread out like a big feast so that she could go from one thing to the next without having to stop. The cold cuts were on the counter and she unwrapped the casing on the salami. The smell was overpowering and pungent. In her mind, she was already sucking on the chewy, marbled fat but she needed to slice it up first.

  The best way Bea had found to cut the meat thin was with a sushi knife, and while she moved the other knives around in the drawer looking for hers, the telephone rang. She hesitated, but then reached for the cordless. It would have been more convenient to ignore it, but when she checked the caller ID, she knew there was no cho
ice but to answer it.

  “Hello.”

  “Oh my God, Bea, where have you been? I’ve been texting you all morning,” Mena asked, panicked.

  “I’m home. What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I just wanted to know how the baby was doing. And you. I’m just…”

  “She’s fine. I’m fine.” Bea looked at the pile of food on her counter. Her joy deflated and disgust for herself dropped down into its place. Mena was the intended mother of the baby Bea was carrying and she had almost blown it. Binging and purging while pregnant caused birth defects and Bea knew this firsthand. How could she even consider it? Mena talked but all Bea could hear was:

  You are despicable.

  A complete failure.

  Utter waste of space.

  Unworthy. Unlovable.

  Of course your husband cheats, look at you.

  “Are you there?”

  Bea pressed the phone to her ear to drown out the noise. “Yes, Mena, I’m still here.”

  “I was just saying that I’m so grateful, Bea. I wake up every morning giving thanks for you and this beautiful gift you are giving us.”

  “Oh, Mena. It’s my pleasure.”

  “It’s overwhelming at times, knowing I’m about to be a mother and it’s all because of you.”

  The kind words were distracting and Bea willed herself to believe her. Mena was Lonnie’s first cousin on his father’s side. A cancer diagnosis led to a hysterectomy in her twenties. Lucky for Mena, her doctor suggested that she freeze her eggs before starting chemo. When Bea heard Mena’s story being passed around the Thanksgiving table, she knew she wanted to help her bring a healthy child into the world. Listening to Mena talk helped Bea change her focus and remember why she was carrying the baby in the first place.

  Before they moved back to New Jersey, Bea worked as a NICU nurse at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C. Her experience in the NICU made her sensitive to how hard it was to bring a healthy baby into the world. It wasn’t called the miracle of life for nothing. Bea remembered the parents’ visible relief when their babies made it out of the danger zone. The light in the mother’s eyes when she held her infant to her breast for that first time and the father’s joy in packing up the baby and finally being able to carry their beloved home. It always made Bea feel like she was doing powerful work, being a part of their process, and she missed it.

  When she offered to carry the baby for Mena, Lonnie was against it. Arguing that if Bea was going to carry another baby it should be his. It was one of the few times that Bea wouldn’t back down and whenever she talked to Mena, she was glad that she hadn’t caved.

  The process didn’t turn out to be simple. They went through months of medical testing and mounds of paperwork. Bea pushed herself to eat right, exercise, and not slip up, but it still took three rounds of IVF before the baby took. From the moment Bea conceived, she had prided herself on doing right by Mena and she couldn’t believe that she’d almost stumbled.

  “I didn’t mean to worry you. I was upstairs organizing the closet.” She gave a half-truth. “We have the ringers turned off at night so that phone calls won’t wake the kids.”

  “I’ll have to steal that idea.”

  “It’s always worked for us.”

  Reassuring Mena on the health of the baby helped bring Bea back to her senses. With the phone cradled between her ear and neck, she put the meat, cheese, and mayonnaise back. The frozen pizza and mozzarella sticks fit in place inside the freezer. The cookies were returned to the pantry. She reached for a banana, poured herself a large glass of cold water, and took the call into the family room. Bea needed to put some distance between herself and the kitchen until the fire was completely smothered.

  “So how is my girl?”

  Bea pushed her shoulders into the cushions of the sofa. “Little miss has been quiet today. Probably because I’ve been moving nonstop. It’s not until I’m still that she starts partying.”

  “Glad she’s active. That’s always a good sign. Did you get the flowers I sent?”

  Bea felt like a heel. “Yes, thank you, Mena. That was so thoughtful of you to send Mother’s Day flowers. I should have thought to send you something too. Things have been crazy around here with the school year winding down.”

  “I understand.”

  “How’s the baby’s room?”

  “Clark finished over the weekend. It’s so bright and beautiful. I spend all of my time in there. You’ll have to come see it. I want to feel her kick in her room.”

  “Whatever you want. Perhaps after our appointment this week.”

  “I just really need to be close to the baby. It’s weird. I mean, you being in your third trimester … I mean us, you know, it’s just … I’m so grateful, Bea. You are a queen to carry this baby for us.” Mena started crying.

  Bea softened her voice the way she did when she talked to Alana. “I’m happy to help you. I truly am. You get some rest and I’ll see you on Friday.”

  Bea hung up the phone and then wrapped her arms around her elbows. She had been so close to losing it. It could not happen again. Self-loathing bubbled in her belly and she got up and paced the room. Her serenity journal was in her purse and she rummaged through it until she found it. On the front page she had taped sentences to restore her in moments like this.

  You are capable of living this new healthy life.

  Don’t torture yourself because you’ve made a mistake.

  Forgive yourself. Love yourself.

  You are enough.

  Bea read the words over and over again and even though she didn’t quite believe them, she knew that in order to get through the rest of the day she had to forgive herself. It was rule number one for recovery. She was human. She had almost slipped but she hadn’t. Catching herself before she fell was worth something.

  Native American flute music drifted through her open kitchen window. She made her way over to it and her eyes followed the melody to her neighbor’s backyard. Joney was on her back patio with her purple yoga mat. Her blond hair, streaked with gray, looked brilliant against the sun. Standing with her arms raised above her head, Joney stretched and then folded into herself. Watching her afternoon yoga was the most nourishing part of Bea’s day, and she tried to catch her as often as she could. Divine and graceful but with the heart of a warrior, she moved. Bea observed with vicarious peace, taking a little bit of Joney’s serenity for herself.

  THREE

  Never Enough

  Bea had been living inside of her lie for so long that it felt like the truth. Not even her husband knew about her destructive history with food. Being a registered nurse made it that much more shameful. How was it that she could help others but couldn’t help herself? For years it had felt like she was digging her way out of an underground tunnel with no devices. She needed a torch. Awilda was out of the question. Her mother wouldn’t understand. Dr. Flora Spellman became her guiding light.

  Dr. Spellman was the only doctor of color on the ob-gyn rotation, and Bea made it her business to attend to her whenever possible. She admired the doctor’s powerful energy. Straightaway she noticed that Dr. Spellman wasn’t afraid to stand up for what she believed and wouldn’t back down to her white male colleagues. Bea would offer to grab her lunch when she was too busy to leave her patients. Eventually, they became lunch pals and ate in the cafeteria together on occasion. Dr. Spellman took a liking to Bea and started to look after her too. One day they were having lunch, and Dr. Spellman removed her glasses and stared pointedly at Bea.

  “I’m going to ask you a question and you can either answer it or tell me to mind my business.”

  Bea looked up from the salad she had been playing with.

  “Are you bulimic?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’ve noticed an acidic smell on your breath. Your fingers have a discoloring and bite marks.”

  Bea reached for her bobby pins and repinned her bun.
/>   “You get jumpy when we have lunch and often head to the bathroom the moment that last morsel hits your mouth.”

  The tears were there without Bea calling for them. No one had ever taken notice of her so closely. She had been living with Lonnie and he had no clue. She nodded her head. There was something strangely cathartic about that small motion; it felt life changing. Bea felt the warmth of light.

  Dr. Spellman started counseling her in private. Even though eating disorders weren’t her specialty, she herself had suffered with bulimic-like tendencies in college. She taught Bea how to own her disorder and gave her the tools to turn on the light and pull herself out of the dungeon. When Dr. Spellman left D.C. for a job at Overlook Hospital in Summit, New Jersey, they kept in touch through e-mail. And then when Lonnie told Bea that they were moving, Bea knew someone was watching over her. When she decided to carry Mena’s baby, Dr. Spellman was one of the OB doctors in the rotation and key in helping her get through the pregnancy.

  After Bea had watched Joney for about an hour, the dark horse had settled down enough for Bea to go to her computer and write Dr. Spellman an e-mail, giving her all the details of the almost-binge. Writing to her had always been cleansing. Bea’s fingertips swept over the keyboard, connecting her thoughts, walking Dr. Spellman through her journey: where it started and how she caught herself. The e-mail served Bea better than an hour of talk therapy. She had tried that before but she’d just clam up. The therapist felt judgy. Writing to Dr. Spellman freed her in an anonymous way and when she hit send, she felt absolved of her sins. It was almost like going to confession at church, except instead of praying the rosary, Bea took a hot shower, scrubbing every inch of her body until she felt clean.