I lathered up my sponge twice, thankful that I wasn’t rushed by the baby swing’s timer. Zoe liked the college-age young lady in the “Barnyard” 2-hour daycare, which was a relief to me because my baby girl could be really picky with strangers. Seth, on the other hand, would have stayed with just about anyone when he was her age. He was so ready to get around, he’d made up his own awkward way of scooting around on his bottom before he figured out how to crawl. Never a dull moment since then. And Zoe was bound to take off any day. She was rocking and moving backwards already.
Wait a minute. Are my kids and my family all I think about now?
I tried to remember the last time I had thought about something that didn’t involve laundry, food, or someone in either the Brown or Smith household.
No luck. My days and nights were filled with…serving.
I needed recess already. Stelson probably needed one, too. We hadn’t had any “us” time since before Zoe was born.
That’s it. We need a mini-vacation. A quick flight, a nice hotel with a view, good food, easy conversation and great sex.
Seth would be happy to bounce between my father and Jonathan for a few days. And according to Peaches, her mother would be more than happy to keep Zoe, so long as we didn’t mind her spoiling Zoe rotten.
After getting dressed and signing my sweetness out of the Barnyard, I checked my calendar to make sure there was no note about weekend business for Stelson. Next, I called to review the balance of Stelson’s frequent flyer miles. We had enough to book roundtrip flights, but I needed to check with him about hotel points.
I was so excited about our soon-to-be plans I went ahead and made arrangements with the sitters. Peaches’ mother squealed, “Ooh yaaas! I can’t wait to get that butterball over here!”
Of course, Daddy had to say something negative. “Make sure you watch the weather forecast. Might rain.”
“A little rain never hurt anybody,” I chirped.
“Yeah, you right. But a lot of rain will. Watched the news the other day and they said a whole house fell into a sinkhole…”
I barely listened as my father recapped the top ten horror stories he’d probably been watching for the past twenty-four hours on news TV. “Is there any good news on television?” I finally asked.
“Naw. Ain’t nothin’ good happening,” he fussed. “People just crazy these days. They’ll blow your head off over an iPhone and sit up in the courtroom with no remorse at all!”
“All right. I’ll catch up with you later, Daddy.”
On second thought, I called Jonathan to see if he would serve as the main sitter. Maybe Seth and his girlfriend’s son could have a playdate. I was fairly certain that Daddy knew how to entertain Seth for a few hours twice a week, but once Daddy ran out of energy on a full weekend with Seth, I had no doubt my father would park his grandson in front of CNN for hours on end so he could get a good dose of reality.
Jonathan agreed to step in, which put me at ease and reignited my giddiness. I couldn’t wait until Stelson got home to finalize the plans. Dropping by his office unannounced wasn’t my usual M.O., but the last time I’d done it, he’d been more than grateful.
“Hi, Helen. Is Stelson in?”
“Yes, LaShondra. He’s with clients now, but they should be finishing up soon. You and Zoe want to take a seat?”
“Sure. We’ll wait.”
Helen, of course, reached out toward my baby, but Zoe snuggled in tight, clutching my clothes. “She has to warm up to you,” I said.
“Awww. She’s so adorable. You two thought about entering her in pageants? She’d win hands-down.”
“You know, I’ve never considered it.” Not to mention I had my reservations about pageants anyway. All that makeup and fake eyelashes on little girls didn’t seem like something I’d want to subject Zoe to unless she somehow found out about them on her own and asked to compete.
“My niece puts her kids in them. They’ve won a ton of scholarship money already, and they’re not near as cute as Zoe, if you ask me,” she laughed at herself.
“I’m sure they’re beautiful,” I took up for Helen’s peeps.
Stelson’s office door opened and three people dressed in professional attire—two men and one woman—shook his hand as they exited. “We look forward to working with you, Mr. Brown. We’ll be in touch,” the older gentleman said.
“Same here,” my husband agreed with a smile.
He’s in a great mood.
I stood. Stelson held the door open and I followed him into the office. I tiptoed to kiss his lips.
He gave Zoe a kiss, too.
“Babe, I was thinking. Let’s get away this weekend. I’m overwhelmed. You’re overworked. We need some time together.”
The strained expression covered his face again. He returned to his computer. “No. I don’t think so.”
My heart dropped. “Why not?”
“Because I don’t want to.”
“And why not?”
He released the computer mouse. “I mean, you barged in here with all these plans…we didn’t have a discussion. We haven’t figured this into the budget. We have to plan differently now with one income.”
He never would have been able to throw the money situation in my face if I’d had a job. I sank into one of the guest chairs and bounced Zoe on my knee. “You’ve got enough frequent flyer miles. And maybe enough points—”
“I said no. I’m not going.”
“So if it’s not money, then what is it?”
He exhaled at me as though I was some nutcase asking him for five dollars. “I’m not up to going. I don’t feel like going. I’ve had a few headaches lately, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“How could I forget?” slipped from my mouth.
He shook his head and attended to the computer screen again. “Is that all you wanted?”
“No. I want you. I need you. The real you.”
My husband leaned back in his chair and ran his fingers through his hair, catching the bulk at the nape of his neck. “I can’t, okay? I’m not trying to push you out, I don’t mean to upset you. But I can’t be there for you right now. It’s taking every ounce of energy, every prayer in me to come to the office and work through these headaches. Capiche?”
“You don’t have to be so mean to me,” I scolded. “I just watched you put on a happy face for your clients. You can act civilized when you want to. Why are you giving me the worst of you?”
He took a deep breath. “I don’t know.”
“Well, you need to figure it out. Soon. I don’t deserve to be your emotional and verbal punching bag.” I grabbed my purse from the back of the chair and hoisted Zoe to my hip. “Are we going on a vacation this weekend or not?”
“Not.”
“Fine. I’ll cancel everything. We’ll continue in our own private hell.”
“Stop being so dramatic. This is not hell. At least not for you.”
I seethed, “You don’t know what’s happening inside my head.”
“I couldn’t have said it better myself,” he barked back.
Helen said good-bye to me as I breezed past her with Zoe flopping up and down beside me. I threw a quick “bye” over my shoulder and dashed to my car. I locked Zoe into her seat then sank into the driver’s seat in just enough time to avoid a public meltdown.
My intimate weekend plans had come crashing down, not only on my head, but on my heart. How could he be so abrupt? So brash and sullen?
The more I thought about what had just happened in Stelson’s office on top of my upside-down-world, my heart broke.
Zoe must have recognized my despair. She started crying. We would just have to be two crying Browns that day because I was in no position to comfort her. I wished I could take her somewhere and drop her off for a few hours while I licked my wounds.
Alas, the task of caring for her continued. She downed a bottle of baby food. I wiped her face, changed her diaper, laid her on her tummy in the playpen for a nap. Meanwhile, I
crossed as much off my to-do list as possible with cooking and cleaning. In an hour she’d wake up. In two hours, we’d pick up Seth and my main job would be to keep them both busy until Stelson got home with his sorry attitude.
This was my life now.
Chapter 20
“Mmmmm….mmmmm.”
The low moan woke me from my sleep. “Stelson?”
“What?”
I raised up to find my husband clutching his head. Even in the darkness, I could see that he was in unbelievable pain. “Your head again?”
“Feels like someone wearing track cleats is stomping on my head,” he groaned.
“Let’s go.”
“Go where?”
“E-R. Now. This has been going on too long. It’s ridiculous.”
“Stop yelling.”
“I’m not yelling. I’m telling you we’re leaving. I’ll get the kids together. You change clothes or put on a robe. I don’t care.”
Leaving the house at five-thirty in the morning threw our routine off, which made Zoe extra fussy.
Seth was immune to his sister’s crying. He was knocked out in his car seat.
Normally, Stelson would have ignored her, too. Not that morning. “Make her stop. Please.”
I fumbled with the CD changer, settling on the kids’ favorite Dora song. “If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands!”
“Uh, no. That’s too loud. Turn it off,” Stelson ordered even as Zoe began to quiet down.
“Well, you can’t have it both ways. Either Zoe cries or Dora sings,” I explained the choices.
“I should have driven myself,” he muttered under his breath.
Father, Stelson is your son. Please help me. And please help him with this headache.
We left the E-R with a clinical diagnosis of migraine headache, which baffled me completely. From what little I knew about migraines, they were triggered by stress. But what could be stressing my husband out? I knew he had a great deal of pressure as co-founding partner, but Brown-Cooper Engineering was a well-established, fairly elite engineering firm. By God’s grace most of their business came from repeat customers and referrals with deep pockets who weren’t struggling. People called my husband’s company when they were looking to expand and had enough money to afford the best.
Was it the kids? Seth was a handful. Zoe still woke up in the middle of the night sometimes, but I was the one who handled her after-hours issues.
Was it me? No. Couldn’t be. Well…maybe. Maybe it was the fact that I’d quit my job and now everything rested on Stelson’s shoulders. Really, that was the only thing that had changed in the previous weeks. Perhaps on the surface, Stelson wanted to be the man. But subconsciously, he was panicked about bearing the load for a family of four. Anyone would be, right?
Once I got Stelson home and took Seth to school, I ran back to the pharmacy to fill the migraine relief prescription. Zoe played with the toys dangling over her carrier while I ran my theory past Peaches on the phone.
“No. That’s not it. Stelson’s used to paying bills. He had his own house before you two got married,” she shot me down. “It’s gotta be something else. Is he getting along with Mr. Cooper?”
“Yeah. As far as I know.”
“How’s his family in Louisiana?”
“They’re good. I talked to his mom after Seth’s lost-in-the-forest incident. Everybody’s fine,” I discounted that possibility.
“Maybe it’s not stress-related,” she said. I could hear computer keys tapping away in the background. “I’m at my natural remedy website. Let me see. Hmmm. Maybe it’s some kind of hormonal imbalance,” she suggested.
“Men don’t have hormonal issues.”
“Yes, they do!” she argued. “They probably have more hormonal problems than doctors actually diagnose. Okay. So here’s a personal question—just trying to get to the bottom of this. How are things in the bedroom?”
“Fine,” I said.
“Fine like okay or fine like it could go down at a moment’s notice?” she probed.
“Wait a minute,” I stopped her. “What could go down—it or us?”
Peaches huffed. “I’m gonna have to break this down for you. Let me read from the screen.” She cleared her throat. “Is he able to achieve an erection and does it last throughout the duration of sexual activity?”
“Yes,” I answered, feeling like we were sixteen years old reading a magazine we had no business owning.
“How’s his attitude? Mood swings?”
“No, not until the headaches started.”
“Aaaa-hah,” she contemplated. “Has he eaten any seafood lately?”
“No,” I ruled out, exhausted with this wild goose chase. “You know what, I haven’t even prayed about it.”
Peaches fussed, “Well, what are you calling me for if you haven’t even talked to Daddy?”
“I haven’t had a minute alone all morning, all right?”
“Mmm hmmm. You get in the closet, I’ll do some searching online. Amen?”
“Amen, girl.”
My prayer time did nothing more than confuse me. I was reading a book on God’s goodness by Bishop Desmond Tutu and his daughter, Mpho, during my prayer time. They described horrific torture and injustices people had suffered in South Africa and worldwide. And yet, somehow, God’s goodness prevails.
I agreed. But I didn’t see what any of that had to do with Stelson’s headaches.
For days, I journaled my questions: Is it really migraines? Are the kids and I stressing him out? Is he worrying too much? Should I go back to work after Thanksgiving? Christmas?
I was growing tired of asking questions without receiving answers. I would have given anything to call my Momma. Even if all she told me was to keep praying, it would have been better than feeling like I was in limbo without somebody backing me up in prayer. Usually, I could count on Stelson to cover me. But since he was the problem, it was just me and God. And God wasn’t talkin’.
Stelson kept getting up and going to work every day. He showered, took medicine, and dove into bed when he got home.
I bathed the kids and took care of business as usual. Kept telling myself to carry on like he wasn’t even home, like he was working late. And I probably could have waited out this episode of migraines were it not for the fact that I had to serve him dinner in our dark, silent bedroom.
Witnessing the anguish on his face sent me into lecture mode. “Honey, just last month you made me go to the doctor over a stubbed toe that turned out to be a broken toe, remember?”
“We already went to the doctor. It’s a migraine.”
“I don’t think so, Stelson.”
He griped, “Since when did you earn a medical degree?”
“Since when did you get so disrespectful?”
“Please. If you’d…stop saying things that don’t make sense. Arguing makes my head throb harder.”
“I don’t have to say anything at all to you,” I sassed. “I could bring your little plate in here and set it on the bed and leave.”
“Maybe you should,” he agreed.
“Fine. I will,” I said, standing.
He squeezed his eyes shut. Pinched the top of his nose with two fingers. “I…it’s…I’m getting pretty close to a ten on the pain scale.”
“I’ve been past ten. In labor. But I didn’t go left on you,” I stated. “Stelson, I’ve never seen this side of you.”
“Neither have I. I’ve never been this miserable for this long in my whole life. Just leave me alone before I say something else stupid.”
Well, at least he recognized he was being stupid.
Didn’t make much difference to my feelings, though. I staved off the tears long enough to get the kids down for the night.
I cleaned up the kitchen with warm tears streaking down my face. Deep down inside, I knew Stelson didn’t mean to be so rude, but he did hurl those mean words at me. And somebody wise once said: You can’t unspeak words.
In the ten y
ears I had known him and the nine we’d been married, I had seen him angry or grouchy after a hard day’s work. He wasn’t perfect. Everyone’s entitled to a bad day here and there. And, of course, we had argued. But he had never insulted me or my intelligence. Never told me to basically get out of his face.
I didn’t have the heart to lie in bed that night. I fumbled around in our room by the light of the hallway, looking for pajamas. Once I found them, I changed clothes in the guest bathroom and came back to the living room to watch television on the couch.
I threw a blanket over my legs and settled into several episodes of The Golden Girls, laughing at the re-runs as though I hadn’t seen them all before.
Blanche, Rose, Dorothy, and Sophia. Friends for life. I wondered if Peaches and I would both outlive our husbands and move in together. Be roommates again, like we were in college. I would probably be Dorothy. Peaches would be Blanche without the sleeping around. Peaches was a flirtin’ something before she got married, so I’d have to watch out for her.
We’d be single again. Kids grown. Grandkids grown, too. We’d take a cruise once a year, visit warm places for the winter. Yeah. That would be fun.
During the third episode, when I should have been quite sleepy, I felt a nudge to head to the prayer closet. Momma used to say that when you’re all alone and you can’t sleep at night, God’s calling you to pray.
Only, I didn’t want to pray. My feelings were hurt and I didn’t want to go into the prayer closet and look at scriptures telling me not to take offense. I was offended already. Too late.
Plus, I was dirt tired. Can we talk tomorrow, Lord?
My phone buzzed from about ten feet behind me. Darn near made me jump out of my skin. If God had started texting people, that was gonna be all she wrote for me.
I shuffled to the kitchen island and read the message. From Stelson. Where are you?
I responded: Living room.
Coming back?
Maybe.
Sorry.
Against my feelings, against my will, I joined him in bed.
No Weapon Formed (Boaz Brown) Page 14