by Linda Verji
CHAPTER 19
They sat around the kitchen island staring at them. Lucky stood while Polo, Maari, and Lily sat on bar stools. Iris sat on the island’s marble countertop.
“What do you guys think?” Lucky asked.
Polo was the first to speak. “Yo, why are you doing this sh—”
“Don’t swear in front of my kids,” Lucky interrupted before Polo could finish the sentence.
“Isn’t your wife supposed to be doing this?” Polo had apologized about the car incident and they were back to being cool, but Lucky had no doubt that he’d do something stupid again.
“She isn’t here.” Lucky hadn’t seen her in over a week. If their phone conversations had been cold before, he felt like he was walking around in Antarctica naked. She was still mad about the almost-fight at the hospital, but he wasn’t apologizing. Why should he?
Within the last week, he’d had time to think about the situation. He knew his wife, she was too pious to sleep with another man while she was still wore his ring – and she’d been wearing it – but she’d obviously flirted with Eli from how they’d smiled and kissed cheeks. As far as Lucky was concerned that was just as bad. She was the one who’d been out of pocket so she’d be the one to apologize.
Lucky turned back to his kids. “What do you think?”
It would be a lie to say he wasn’t nervous. This was the first time he was doing this.
Iris looked at him suspiciously before she exchanged a look with Lily. She bent forward, wrinkled her nose at them before she pulled her head back and looked at Maari. “You do it.”
“Mm uh. A nigga’s not tryna die today.” Maari sat back in his seat arms crossed over his chest and shook his head like he was too cool for school. The whole vibe probably would’ve worked if he weren’t wearing one of Lucky’s t-shirts over his jeans. He looked like he was wearing a cocktail dress and with his locks falling over his shoulders, Lucky couldn’t blame anyone for assuming he had three daughters.
“Tell ‘em lil nigga,” Polo cheered Maari despite the fact that he’d been calling him Sister Mary since he’d walked in.
Lucky turned to Lily. His baby girl wouldn’t let him down. She looked at them then without even saying a word, shook her head slowly in a firm No. Damn! He didn’t understand why they were acting like he was trying to feed them poison. They were just cupcakes. Sure, they were a sickly yellowish green and resembled triangles with strong ambitions of being pentagons, but they were still edible.
“Come on guys!” Lucky pleaded, “Please?”
Lucky was hard pressed to not laugh when Lily sighed heavily. She picked up one of the cupcakes from the black tray. Everyone watched, suspended in fascination, as she gingerly bit into one and tentatively began to chew.
“Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!” She spat the crumbs out of her mouth onto the island and started fanning her mouth with her hands as her tongue wagged out. “Daddy! You put salt in the cupcakes.”
Everyone else burst into laughter as Lucky tried to feed Lily water and explain to her that too much salt wouldn’t make her shorter. When she was coherent and the offending cupcakes were safely tucked away in the bin, Lucky said, “We’ll just buy something tomorrow before school.”
“From the store?” Iris drew her head back and narrowed her eyes at him as if to say he was crazy if he thought she’d take store-bought cookies to their school’s bake sale. The little girl had more of her mama in her than he’d thought.
“Why don’t you just ask Zain to make them?” Polo helpfully suggested.
“Yeah!”
“We should ask Mommy.”
“Ma makes really good ones.” The kids chimed in, quickly becoming enthusiastic about the idea.
“Your mama is busy with work,” Lucky hedged.
“No she ain’t!” Maari shook his head. “Her sift is over.”
Taking sift to mean shift, Lucky tried again, “She’s probably asleep right now.”
“She won’t mind.”
“Daddy!”
“Please?”
“Lucky, take the children to their mother,” Polo nudged helpfully.
He could already feel himself weakening. As much as he was angry with Zain, he still wanted to see her and she wouldn’t mind. He knew she wanted to see the kids more but with her shifts being at socially unfriendly hours and their living in separate houses, she could only swing weekends or week days.
“Go get your jackets.”
“Yes!” The kids rushed out of the kitchen in a flurry of excitement, leaving Polo and Lucky behind.
“You coming with us?” Lucky asked him.
“Nah! You know your wife don’t like me.” Polo said. Lucky didn’t argue because it was true. Zain already claimed that Polo gave her a bad vibe, but after the whole Sonia fiasco Polo was a permanent fixture on her naughty list, black book, and holodex. Polo paused for a moment before asking, “When are you going to handle the situation with that girl?”
“What girl?”
“Sandra? Suzie? You know…the pregnant one,” he clarified. “When are you gonna do the DNA test?”
“She’s due in about two weeks.” With his mother sulking, Lucky had been the one to take Sonia to her doctor’s appointment Monday. And boy had she milked it! She’d even told the doctor that he was her man. Lucky had let it slide because after the way he’d left her Thursday he was feeling like a dick already and didn’t want to compound his guilty feelings by calling her out. To Polo, Lucky said, “I’m planning to do them then.”
“Cool. Cool. You know what?” Polo pulled out a card from his wallet and handed it to Lucky. “Let me hook you up. I got this guy who does quick and clean DNA Tests. He’ll have your results in a couple of days and you can sort out that Spanish Red Cross.”
“Spanish Red Cross?” Lucky asked.
“Donating that pussy to every needy john,” Polo explained.
“Damn! You’re really going in on her!” Lucky exclaimed. He couldn’t understand why Polo would express such virulence against Sonia. She’d done nothing to him.
“She messed you up.” Polo shrugged as if that explained it all.
Once the kids were back downstairs in their jackets, Lucky bid Polo good-bye and drove over to Chryssa’s. Zain opened the door.
“Hey,” She was still in her scrub bottoms and a tank top with her hair pulled up in a bun and her eyes bleary with sleep but she looked as sexy as ever to Lucky. Damn, he’d missed his wife. Widening the door to let them in, she said, “What are you guys doing here?”
“Sorry for waking you up,” Lucky apologized when all he wanted was to pull her in his arms and kiss her. “The kids need cupcakes for their bake sale tomorrow.”
“Daddy can’t bake.”
“He can’t?” Zain asked as amusement lit her eyes.
“No!” Their three kids shook their heads. “They looked all squishy…” “And mushy…” “Mommy, they were so yucky.”
“Hey! Hey!” Lucky complained as he followed them to the kitchen. “I’m still here.”
They spent the next two hours in the kitchen. He and the kids were more of a nuisance than a help, but Zain didn’t seem to mind all their offers to help even though they spilled flour and poured too much oil.
He’d missed watching his family together, listening to Zain’s honeyed tones and smooth laughter as she took care of them – missed every damn thing about her, about them. He couldn’t help sneaking glances at her as they worked. Damn! He missed her body. Had her breasts gotten bigger while he was away or was he just imagining it? He wanted to touch, measure, suck.
At one point he got to touch her. Well…she touched him when her fingers wrapped over his around a white teacup. “Lucky, just half a cup of sugar. Are you trying to give those poor kids diabetes?”
“My bad.” Lucky covered her hand with his free one. When she realized the position they were in she snatched her hand away.
But the small touch was enough to make him crave more.
Onc
e the cupcakes were in the oven, Zain sent the kids to the living room. When Lucky made to follow them, she held him back, “Halake, can I talk to you for a minute?”
Shit! His government name followed by the ominous ‘Can I talk to you?’ was never a good thing. What had he done now? “Sure.”
“Gimme a second.” Zain walked out of the kitchen. When she came back she had an envelope in her hand.
“What’s this?”Lucky asked as she handed it to him.
Zain didn’t answer. She looked pointedly at the envelope he was holding instead. Lucky opened it. The first sheet of paper had the heading ‘Petition for Dissolution of Marriage’.
For about a second, Lucky was sure he was hallucinating because this couldn’t be happening. Despite everything they were going through, they weren’t at divorce point. In fact, they were never going to be at divorce point. The hell he was letting her walk out on him. Instantly he could feel his anger skip the simmer part and head straight for boiling. “Are you kidding me?”
“Stop yelling! The kids are out there.”
Oh! She was good. He had no doubts that she’d timed this so the kids would be around to keep him from going off. He lowered his voice anyway. “How the hell do you expect me to react when you shove divorce papers at me?”
“I expect you to make this transition as easy as you can for our family.” She didn’t raise her voice. Zain didn’t raise her voice? What the hell was happening here?
“Now you’re thinking about our family?” He waved the divorce papers at her. “With this shit?”
“Look Halake—”
“Lucky,” he corrected, “your man.”
“Look Halake,” Zain insisted. “We’ve given each other enough space. It’s been more than a month since I left and we’re still fighting and hurting each other. We’re in a worse place than when we started and I think it’s time we made our separation official.”
It all sounded so rational. Only it was wrong! There was nothing rational about the woman he’d loved since he was twenty walking out on him and their marriage. This was his heart she was playing with.
“No,” he said.
“What?”
“No.” He tore the sheet of paper into two. He started on the envelope and she tried to make a grab for it, but he lifted it above his head and tore it too.
“Halake.”
“No,” He dumped the torn documents into the bin. “We’re not doing this.”
“We are!” she stubbornly insisted.
“You’re staying married to me,” The anger in his tone was replaced by cool determination. “Now if you want to see a counselor or any of that corny shit, I can do that but you’re not walking.”
“Lucky I want a divorce,” she insisted. His phone started to ring just then.
“We all want something. It doesn’t mean we’ll get it.” He extracted his phone from his pocket and barked, “What?”
Sonia’s voice greeted him. “Lucky, my water just broke.”
CHAPTER 20
If she wasn’t half asleep, she probably would’ve checked the name flashing across the screen of her phone before picking it up. Had she seen it was him, she definitely wouldn’t have picked it up!
“Hello?” she said grouchily.
“Now you’re picking up my calls?” Lucky’s equally grouchy voice came over the line. The man had been busting her phone like the IRA during tax season ever since she’d told him she wanted a divorce.
“I already told you,” she said as she shifted into a more comfortable position on her back, “If you’re not calling about the kids you should talk to me through my lawyer.”
“I’m your husband,” he complained. “I want to talk to you, not through some fucking lawyer and especially not through Chryssa. You know she’s mean as hell.”
Zain pictured the kind of grief Chryssa was giving him and smiled.
“Oh, you find that funny now, do you?” Lucky knew her so well.
“What do you want, Mr. Ford?”
“You, Mrs. Ford.”
“You’re out of luck,” she snapped. “Don’t you have a baby to take care of? Go take care of him.”
Sonia had given birth to Ashenafi Ford two weeks ago, and because she’d given birth at Chesley, Zain received the down low on Sonia from colleagues in the maternity wing – whether she wanted it or not. A DNA test had proved that he was really Lucky’s son, but that had apparently been bad news for Nadifa. Rumor had it that after she’d visited Ash in the nursery, Nadifa had stormed out without seeing her ‘new daughter-in-law.’ Zain was curious about what was going on, but not curious enough to ask Lucky.
“Why am I out of luck?” Lucky asked.“You replacing me with Eli now?”
She cut the phone call.
Idiot. Sucking her teeth, she tucked the phone under her pillow where it immediately began to vibrate madly. She didn’t need this. She’d barely eaten anything all day because their baby was apparently sensitive to anything with the word ‘food’ in its description. To make matters worse she’d been awake almost half the night tending to victims of a school bus accident. She was hungry, tired and she missed Lucky. The idiot!
It didn’t help that she’d taken to sleeping in the bomber jacket he’d left at the hospital the day of the almost-fight. Every time she took a whiff of his scent and burrowed deeper into it all she wanted to do was cry.
“You two should get a room,” Eli said from the bed next to her.
“Don’t start with me,” Zain snapped. “I’m not in the mood.”
“So when are you going to tell him?”
“Tell him what?” Zain turned on her side and faced Eli.
“That you’re carrying his baby.”
“What?” She was only eight weeks along and wasn’t showing yet. No one else had commented so he either had super powers or— “How did you know?”
“You’ve been eating like a pig.”
“Don’t talk to me like that!” She pulled her pillow from beneath her head and threw it across the room at him.
With a laugh, Eli caught it deftly and tucked it under his head. His expression was serious as he said, “You should tell him. He’d want to know.”
“I’ll think about it.” She wasn’t planning to keep the child from Lucky. She just knew that it’d be harder to convince him to give her a divorce if she was pregnant. In fact, it’d be damn near impossible. If she could get the divorce train moving it’d be too late for him to stop it when he found out.
Zain drifted back to sleep.
They were back in Trauma not even two hours later. By the time they had every patient stabilized it was past noon. Zain couldn’t wait to get to the apartment and crawl into bed. She dragged herself to the locker room where she changed out of her scrubs and into her street clothes. It was only when she checked her phone that she realized that she had seventeen missed calls from Lucky.
She kissed her teeth. If he wasn’t careful she was going to take a restraining order against his rude, stalking ass. She was sorely tempted to delete the one text message he’d sent but curiosity got the better of her. She clicked on it.
Sweetheart: Iris in Pediatric wing of hospital – Critical
Heart pounding, she tried to call him but was sent straight to voicemail. Oh Lord! What had happened to her baby? She kept her phone to her ear, repeatedly dialing Lucky as she took the elevator down, crossed the quad and headed for the Pediatric wing.
* * *
He was a dick and everybody hated him.
Fine!
Lucky didn’t need another voice in his head to tell him it was messy to use his own child like that. Zain was probably bouncing off the walls courtesy of his text message, but what was he supposed to do? He was a desperate man whose wife was trying to divorce him and making it damn hard for him to see her.
As if he didn’t have enough problems to deal with; chief among them being Sonia. The moment she’d given birth she’d basically given up on Ashenafi. The excuses ranged from t
oo much crying to post-maternal stress. Considering that Sonia spent almost the whole day swimming or doing various exercises around the pool area, Lucky didn’t believe her.
But Ash was his son too. Lucky moved him into the main house and took over his care. Although Marilynn was doing what she could, someone had to watch the other kids too. Lucky needed help. He needed his wife home.
This was the only way he knew to get her back short of kidnapping her.
He hadn’t planned on pulling the sick kid card. The kids were running downstairs for breakfast when Iris – in all her skipping madness – tripped and blacked out for close to five minutes. In the midst of having his own panic attack, Lucky had rushed her to hospital.
As he waited for Iris to get checked up, the first person he’d thought to call was Zain. In emergency situations, he always counted on her to keep a calm head. He needed her to tell him everything would be okay, but she hadn’t pick up his numerous calls. In desperation he’d called his mom who’d put aside their issues to join him at the hospital.
After a cursory check up and all the usual tests, the doctor reassured him that Iris was just going to be fine They only needed to keep her in hospital for a few hours more to conduct a mandatory CT scan before they could leave. Lucky had every intention of sending Zain a text to tell her that everything was fine but his fingers had a mind of their own.
Yeah, he knew! He was a dick.
He was coming for the gift shop with a teddy bear Iris had managed to wheedle out of him when he heard her voice. He knew that voice without turning the corner.
“Which room is she?” There was more than a hint of panic in Zain’s voice and once he turned the corner, he clearly saw the tension in her body as she tapped repeatedly on the counter. “Iris. Iris Ford.”
She only wore a green t-shirt, blue jeans, and flats, but she couldn’t have looked better to him. And she was wearing his jacket over the whole ensemble. If that wasn’t a sign that he’d done the right thing, he didn’t know what was. Lucky mentally restrained his body to keep himself from rushing and picking her up.
“Give me just a minute to find her, Dr. Ford.” The nurse rapidly typed on her keyboard.