Becoming Mrs. Right

by Sherri L. Lewis

  Gary wouldn’t be talking like that if he knew the truth about who she was. Shauntae thought of every lie she had told. What would he think if he knew about Brianna and what she had done to her? If he knew that her mama didn’t have no heart attack and that she went to California running from the police.

  “Shauntae?”

  “Huh?” She pulled herself out of her thoughts.

  “You know that, right? That I love you and that nothing could make me stop loving you?”

  Why couldn’t he stop talking? Shauntae was starting to get that sick feeling in her stomach. Why was this happening to her? She had hardly ever felt bad about the low stuff she did in the past.

  “Shauntae?”

  “But what if I did something bad? I mean, really, really bad?”

  Gary laughed. “I’m sure there’s nothing that you could do that’s bad enough to make me not love you.”

  “But what if I did? What would you do?”

  Gary propped himself up on his elbow and looked down at Shauntae with worried eyes. “Honey, why are you asking me that?”

  Shauntae wished the lights were off so Gary couldn’t see her face. She could feel her bottom lip shaking like it used to when she got in trouble with her mama when she was a little girl. “I . . .” Her stomach turned like she was gonna throw up.

  What if she told him everything? Then she wouldn’t have to worry about Darla waking up and doing a background check. She wouldn’t have to worry about running into Devon and Cassandra at church. She wouldn’t have to worry about rotting in jail because if Gary knew about everything and forgave her like he said, he would come bail her out.

  “Shauntae, what is it?” Gary sat up and put his hand on her belly, like he was trying to make that stomach pain go away.

  “I need to tell you something.” She couldn’t make her voice stop shaking. She tried to swallow, but her mouth felt like it was full of a peanut butter sandwich without jelly and no milk to wash it down.

  “Okay . . .” Gary sat there patiently.

  Before Shauntae knew what was happening, tears were flowing down her cheeks.

  “What’s wrong? What is it?”

  Shauntae couldn’t stop herself from crying. “It’s so many things I need to tell you.” Shauntae could almost hear Sherice, Candy, and her mama screaming in her ear, telling her not to be so stupid, to shut up and keep lying.

  But something in her couldn’t. Maybe it was the way Gary looked at her and told her she was beautiful and that he loved her. Maybe it was the way she was starting to feel when she told him she loved him back, not like she was running game, but like she really meant it. Maybe it was wanting to have this baby and be a real family like Gary was always talking about. Wanting the new baby to be able to know Brianna.

  “Baby, please talk to me. Whatever it is, it’ll be all right.”

  Shauntae sat up, ready to tell it all. If Gary wanted to keep his promise of loving her no matter what, then they’d get married and live happily ever after without a bunch of lies keeping her scared all the time. If he didn’t, then she’d give him his baby and go back to California.

  She scooted to the edge of the bed. “Okay, I don’t know where to start. And let me finish before you say anything.”

  “Shauntae . . .” Gary’s voice croaked out. She turned around to see what his problem was. Maybe he didn’t want to hear the truth after all. She looked at his face and then followed his panic-filled eyes down to the sheets.

  From where Shauntae had been lying to where she was sitting, there was a trail of blood.

  Seventeen

  It was the first time in her life that Shauntae had ever prayed. The whole way to the hospital all she could say was, “God, please don’t let my baby die. God, please save my baby,” over and over again.

  Gary drove fast but safe and in less than twenty minutes they pulled up at the emergency room at Northside Hospital. Gary was calm and able to answer all the questions the doctors and nurses were asking. Everything was a blur to Shauntae.

  All she could think of was that if she lost this baby, her life was over. She wouldn’t have nowhere to go and no way to bring money in. She was tired of hustling sponsors. Without a baby, her mother would only let her stay so long. She needed this baby.

  When they got her back into the exam room, she calmed down. She wasn’t feeling any pain and there hadn’t been any more blood after that smear on the sheets. She looked at the pad she had put on while getting dressed to go to the hospital. It was clean.

  Shauntae shivered on the exam table. The gown she had on was thin and she was cold. Gary stood and put his jacket around her arms. “You okay?”

  Shauntae nodded.

  “I’m sure the baby is fine, honey. The bleeding stopped, right?”

  Shauntae nodded numbly.

  He put his arms around her. “The baby is gonna be fine, okay? God wouldn’t let another bad thing happen to us right now.”

  He kept patting her and rubbing her arm. Shauntae thought he was comforting himself more than he was comforting her.

  Finally, a medium-brown woman with a tiny, curly Afro came into the room with a clipboard. She was real pretty in the face and had a nice smile. She looked up from the clipboard at Shauntae. “Ms. Randall, I’m Dr. Murray. How are you?” She shook Shauntae’s hand firmly and then looked over at Gary. “And you are?”

  Gary stood up and shook her hand. “Gary Jackson, her fiancé and the father of the baby.”

  “Good to meet you both.” She looked down at the clipboard again and then back at Shauntae. “So you started having some bleeding this evening? Any pain or cramping with it?”

  Shauntae shook her head.

  “How much blood was it? Pouring, heavy like a period, or a little?”

  “A little on the sheets. Not much at all. And there hasn’t been any since then.”

  The doctor nodded and jotted on her clipboard. She looked back up. “No other issues so far in the pregnancy? The nurse’s note says you haven’t had any prenatal care and you’re not sure of your due date?” The doctor had a worried frown on her face.

  Gary spoke for her. “She just moved back to Atlanta from California. Her mother had a heart attack and so she was focused on her care rather than her own. We plan to find her a doctor as soon as possible.”

  The doctor nodded and looked down at her clipboard again. “This is your first pregnancy?”

  Gary spoke up for her again. “Yes.”

  Shauntae looked at the doctor. She was scared that maybe if she didn’t have all her information, she might not know how to take care of her right. If she was having a miscarriage because of all the abortions and diseases she’d had in the past, the doctor needed to know that.

  “No, I’ve been pregnant before.” She turned to Gary as she explained, “I had a miscarriage about eight years ago.” Shauntae wanted to tell the doctor about her abortions and Brianna, but she couldn’t in front of Gary. She had been ready to tell him everything at the house, but the ER wasn’t the time or place for making confessions.

  The doctor jotted a note on her clipboard and then asked, “Any other pregnancies? It’s really important that I have a good grasp on your obstetrical history.”

  Shauntae sat there for a few moments.

  Gary nudged her. “It’s okay, baby. Tell the doctor whatever you need to tell her.” He took her hand in his.

  “I was pregnant a few other times . . .” she turned toward Gary “. . . before I got saved.” Shauntae hung her head. “I’ve had a few abortions.”

  Gary’s mouth became a thin line. Shauntae was sure he was through with her.

  The doctor looked at Gary and then at Shauntae. “Ms. Randall, why don’t I go ahead and examine you and then we can get the rest of the history later. We should check on your baby.”

  Dr. Murray reached into a large pocket at the bottom of her white coat and pulled out an instrument that Shauntae recognized from her pregnancy with Brianna. “Lie back for me and let�
��s see if we can hear the baby’s heartbeat.” She picked up a bottle and held it over Shauntae’s stomach. “This may be cold.”

  Shauntae flinched as the doctor spread cold jelly on her lower stomach. As Dr. Murray placed the probe on her belly, she prayed, God, please let my baby be alive.

  Within seconds, her prayer was answered. A loud, rhythmic, squishy-sounding boom, boom, boom came through the machine. The doctor smiled. “There’s your baby.”

  Shauntae couldn’t tell whose sigh of relief was louder, hers or Gary’s. He squeezed her hand and kissed her on the forehead. Tears trickled down her cheeks. “He’s okay. My baby’s okay.”

  “He?” the doctor asked. “You’ve had an ultrasound?”

  Gary looked at Shauntae with a surprised smile on his face. “We’re having a boy?”

  Shauntae shook her head while she wiped her tears. “I don’t know. I haven’t had an ultrasound but I feel like . . . I think it’s a boy.”

  “Okay, honey.” Gary kissed her cheek again.

  Dr. Murray wiped off the heart monitor probe and placed it on the counter by the sink. “Okay, now that we’ve confirmed the baby’s alive, I’ll need to do a few more things. Mr. Jackson, perhaps you’d like to step out while I perform the vaginal exam? It won’t take too long. There’s a quieter waiting room at the end of the hall.”

  Gary stood and gave Shauntae’s hand a squeeze before he walked out of the room.

  After he was far enough away that he couldn’t hear, the doctor sat on the small stool near the exam bed. “So exactly how many pregnancies and how many abortions?”

  Shauntae bit her lip and counted in her head. “I’ve been pregnant seven times altogether.” She rubbed her belly. “This one is the seventh. I’ve had four abortions, one miscarriage, and . . .” It sounded so bad when she said it out loud. She had never actually counted it up before.

  “And . . .” The doctor nodded for her to go on.

  “One child. A daughter. Six, seven years ago. She’s not with me anymore.”

  The doctor put a hand on top of Shauntae’s hand. “She died?”

  “No.” Shauntae shook her head quickly. “She lives with her father. I’m . . . I’m not a part of her life anymore.”

  The doctor took her hand off Shauntae’s hand to jot more notes on her clipboard. “I’m guessing Mr. Jackson didn’t know about any of those pregnancies?”

  Shauntae shook her head and looked down at her hands.

  The doctor let out a deep sigh, like she was used to Shauntae’s kind of case. “I’m a doctor, not a therapist or a relationship counselor, but maybe, don’t you think, you should have a talk with him? Relationships work best when both people are completely honest with one another.”

  Shauntae nodded. There was nothing she could say to explain herself to this woman. Not that she would understand. By the way she looked, Dr. Murray had never had a hard day in her life. She probably never had a stepfather who messed with her, or a mother who beat her and cussed her out for no reason, and she’d probably never been broke enough that she had to depend on a man for money.

  Shauntae wanted to be mad at the doctor but she couldn’t. The doctor hadn’t done nothing but treat her nice since she got there. She didn’t say nothing to judge her and she wasn’t looking down her nose at her. She was nice enough to send Gary out of the room so she could ask the rest of her questions without Shauntae getting embarrassed. Shauntae couldn’t be mad at nobody but herself.

  Dr. Murray put a hand on her arm. “Let’s go ahead and do your exam, okay?”

  Shauntae followed the doctor’s instructions and slid down to the end of the table and let her legs fall open. She had hated that cold metal thing the few times she’d been examined during her pregnancy with Brianna and couldn’t understand why any woman would want to get a pap smear once a year.

  When she was finished, the doctor helped Shauntae to scoot back on the table. “Your cervix is closed and I don’t see any bleeding at all. Tell me, when was the last time you had intercourse?”

  Shauntae’s hung her head. “Before we came in. Right before the bleeding started.”

  Dr. Murray nodded. “That’s what I thought. Everything looks okay and your uterus feels about eighteen to twenty weeks’ size. We’ll be able to confirm that your baby is fine with some blood work and with an ultrasound. We’ll also be able to see exactly how far along you are. You ready to see your baby?”

  Shauntae nodded.

  The doctor smiled and patted her arm. “Okay, we’ll get the ultrasound tech in as soon as we can. And I’ll send Mr. Jackson back in. I’m sure he’ll want to be here for that.” She smiled that real nice smile again and Shauntae could tell she was one of those people with a really nice heart. Before Dr. Murray walked out the door, she turned and said, “Ms. Randall?”

  “Yes?”

  “You said all these pregnancies and abortions happened before you got saved?”

  Shauntae nodded.

  “Then remember, they’re under the blood. God has forgiven you and you have nothing to be ashamed about. You’ve given your life to Him and He loves you. Nothing can change that.” She patted Shauntae’s arm one more time and then disappeared from the room.

  Shauntae’s mouth fell open. She looked around the room, unable to believe what the doctor had said. Did God have secret agents all over the place that He kept sending her, trying to make her believe that He loved her?

  Gary came back in the room. “The doctor said it looks like everything with the baby is okay?”

  “Yeah, she thinks the bleeding was because we had sex.”

  Gary closed his eyes. “This is my fault. I should have—”

  “Baby, please don’t. It’s both our faults.”

  Gary took both her hands in his. He stood there without saying anything. Shauntae wondered if, since Gary was a Christian, he felt the same way about her past that the doctor did.

  Gary squeezed her hands. “So is that what you were going to tell me about tonight? The other pregnancies and the abortions and the miscarriage?”

  Shauntae nodded, afraid to say anything out loud.

  Gary let go of one of her hands and leaned his tall body next to her against the exam table. “I guess there’s a lot we don’t know about each other’s pasts and who we were before we got saved.”

  Shauntae’s breath caught. Maybe he did agree with the doctor.

  “I would be lying if I said it didn’t bother me.”

  Her heart sank.

  “I mean, you know how I feel about kids and family. It’s hard to think about . . . all those children . . .” Gary closed his eyes and shook his head.

  Shauntae’s heart sank even further.

  “But, like you said, it was before you got saved. Jesus forgives you and . . .” Gary turned to face Shauntae and grabbed both her hands again. “Jesus forgives you and so do I.”

  Shauntae leaned forward and buried her head in Gary’s chest. She couldn’t believe her ears. Could this man be this good? Could Jesus be that good?

  He pulled her close to him and rubbed his hand up and down her back. “I told you, Shauntae, I love you and there’s nothing you can do to change that. You have to believe me.”

  Shauntae wrapped her arms around Gary’s waist and held on tight.

  “You believe me?”

  Shauntae nodded into Gary’s chest. He put one hand on her head and the other on her back.

  She wanted to tell him the rest. It was one thing to have had pregnancies and abortions before she so-called got saved. But would he still love her if he knew she actually had a living child? A living child she had almost killed by being a bad mother? Would he still love her then?

  Tell him, Shauntae. Get it all out there so you can stop being scared of getting caught all the time.

  Gary ran his fingers through her thick hair. “I don’t want you to ever feel like there’s anything you can’t tell me. Okay? You have to trust that I love you no matter what.”

  Shauntae n
odded into his chest again. This is your chance, girl. Tell him!

  “We have to be completely honest with each other for this relationship to work. No more secrets, okay?” He pulled back from her and looked at her face. “Okay?”

  “Okay,” Shauntae said. She took a deep breath and got herself ready to tell him about Brianna. But then she thought about all the other things she would have to tell him.

  Not only did she have a living child, but she had left that child with the ambulance people not even a year ago. She couldn’t go anywhere near that child because of a restraining order and an arrest warrant—an arrest warrant for leaving the child in the house alone while she was out dating him. That she was out dating him because she wanted to get her bills paid. That she didn’t leave suddenly because her mother had a heart attack, but because she was running from the police.

  What they said about stuff happening before she was saved and being under the blood? She wasn’t even saved now. All the reasons he thought he loved her were big, fat lies.

  So even though he said he loved her and nothing she ever did or could do could make him stop loving her, the woman he loved was Shauntae, the good Christian girl who loved marriage and family. He loved Angela Bassett and Clair Huxtable and all the female stars in Tyler Perry’s movies who had taught her to be the woman he wanted her to be. Not the real her.

  He smoothed his hands along her face. “That’s all? Is there anything else you need to tell me?”

  Shauntae smiled up at him sweetly. “No, baby. That’s everything. Except that I love you.”

  Gary smiled and kissed her on the nose. “I love you too, baby.”

  Eighteen

  Even though everything was fine with the baby, the doctor told Shauntae she needed to rest over the next couple of days. She also said no more sex, but Shauntae already knew Gary wasn’t gon’ touch her again. He wasn’t gonna risk anything happening to the baby.

  Shauntae figured that hearing the baby’s heartbeat and then seeing the baby on the quick ultrasound had done something to Gary. He was all sweet and paying attention to her. Over the next couple of days, he brought stuff from the office to work at home. He brought her breakfast in her room. Every day, he either cooked dinner or brought her carryout.