The Million Dollar Divorce

by RM Johnson

  “I would, but my hands are full already with a boy and girl.”

  Monica and Tim were taken back to Mrs. Wolcott’s office, a small space with a single square window on the left side of the room. Her desk was crowded with folders, files and papers, but in the center there was a space cleared for her to rest her folded hands as she spoke to Monica and Tim.

  “So,” Mrs. Wolcott said, smiling the grin that never seemed to leave her face. “What brings you in to us today?”

  Monica told the woman about the premature menopause, about never being able to have children, and how much both she and her husband wanted a family.

  “And where is Mr. Kenny today?”

  “Oh, he’s at work. He owns his own financial consulting company. It’s very successful.” Monica smiled.

  “I don’t doubt that,” Mrs. Wolcott said, taking a quick glance at the huge diamond wedding ring Monica was wearing. “And so he’s interested in adopting as well, he just couldn’t make it today?”

  Monica paused before answering. She felt Tim turn toward her, felt his eyes resting heavy on her. “Yes,” Monica said. “More, actually. A family is all he’s ever talked about,” Monica said, looking back at Tim as if to warn him not to say a word.

  Mrs. Wolcott quizzed Monica for another half hour, then seeming satisfied with what was told to her, she said, “All right, then. Let’s go on to the fun part?”

  She stood up from her desk, and told Monica and Tim to follow her. She walked them into a large white room with a number of long tables, chairs pushed under them. Computer monitors sat at the corners of each of these tables.

  There were bulletin boards hung on every wall of the room, notices of all kinds hung from them, along with black-and-white photos of children.

  “This room is where a lot of what we do happens,” Mrs. Wolcott said, walking over to a desk, pulling out chairs for Tim, Monica, and herself. “It’s normally a lot busier than this, but the day is winding down.” She scooted her chair up in front of a computer keyboard, and started tapping away as she spoke.

  “We facilitate the adoptions of children locally, across the country, and even internationally. We deal with children as old as twelve, all the way down to children who haven’t even been born yet.”

  “Wow,” Monica said with a sort of wonder.

  “I don’t want to wrongfully assume anything,” Mrs. Wolcott said, stopping her typing for just a moment to look at Monica, “but I imagine it’s a little African American child you’re looking for?”

  “You imagine correctly,” Monica said, smiling.

  “Good,” Mrs. Wolcott said, continuing to input information into the computer. “It’s so unfortunate, but there are many, many African American children who are in need of homes.” Mrs. Wolcott grabbed the computer’s mouse and slid it in front of Monica. “This is a database showing pictures of many of the children who are up for adoption. Click here to scroll up, click here for down. And if you want more info on any particular child, just double click on that child’s photo, okay?”

  “Okay,” Monica said, feeling more excitement running through her.

  “And Mr. Tim Kenny, would you like anything to drink? Pop, water?”

  “No, thank you,” Tim said. “I’m fine.”

  Monica waited till Mrs. Wolcott stepped out of the room, then turned to Tim, the mouse tightly in hand, a huge smile on her face. “Something tells me that everything is going to work out all right.”

  Tim nodded his head, displayed a slight smile. “I hope you’re right.”

  By the time Monica dropped Tim off at his house and was standing in front of her door, it was almost eight o’clock. She hadn’t expected to be gone that long, but she had gotten carried away with the search for children on the adoption agency’s database.

  Every child imaginable was there—so many that she couldn’t make up her mind as to which she had the most interest in, until she saw the photo of the little boy. He was not even a year old, and was the cutest little brown baby, with dimples, bright eyes, and curly hair.

  Monica sat and stared at that photo for a couple of minutes straight, finally pulling her eyes away to turn to Tim and say, “Doesn’t he look like Nate?”

  Tim didn’t respond at first, but then after scooting his chair a little closer, he said, “Okay, maybe after another thirty-nine years, and a zillion dollars, maybe he would look like my brother.”

  If Monica had any reservations about this child being the one, they were all resolved when she double clicked on the photo, and found out the boy was in Indiana, only four hours away. But what had even a more profound effect was that the child’s name was Nathaniel.

  “Just like my husband’s!” Monica said excitedly to Mrs. Wolcott after the woman came back in and offered to print out a copy of the child’s photo for her.

  “I guess you’ll have yourself a junior,” Mrs. Wolcott said, handing Monica the photo, an application form, and all the other literature she would need to get the process started.

  These papers were now tucked under Monica’s arm as she slid her key into the front door.

  She still didn’t know how she would bring all this to Nate, exactly what she would say to make him want to listen to her, because she was sure that he was still mad about the other night, when she practically tried to steal some sex from him.

  He would just have to get over that, Monica thought as she turned the knob and pushed the door open. Pissed or not, he would have to get over it.

  When she closed the door behind her and stepped just inside, Monica noticed that all the lights were dimmed, and a single candle was flickering on the center of the dining room table. Monica set her folder from the adoption agency down on the table next to the door, set her purse on top of that, and ventured toward the dining room to see just what was going on.

  Beside the candle sat a huge bouquet of two dozen roses in a beautiful crystal vase. What is this? Monica said to herself, a smile spreading across her lips.

  Monica lowered her face into the bouquet, smelling the rose’s fragrance.

  Leaning away from them, she noticed an envelope propped against the base of the vase, her name written across it.

  She pulled the card out, opened it, and read it.

  Sweetheart,

  I’m so sorry for last night. I’ve been behaving like a fool. You deserve so much better than this. I promise, I will make it all up to you.

  Love, your husband. Always and forever.

  It was those last words that jarred the tear lose. The words that truly confirmed he really didn’t want a divorce, but was just angry, upset; that he had said and done some things that he didn’t really mean, but now was sorry.

  Monica wiped the tear from her cheek, brought the card up to her lips, and softly kissed it.

  Just then, the lights brightened a bit in the room, and when Monica looked up, she saw Nate standing by the dimmer switch, looking like a child needing forgiveness.

  “Do you think you can ever forgive me for how foolishly I’ve behaved?”

  “It’s not you who should be asking for forgiveness. I’m the one that lied to you about our baby. I’m the one that made us wait those three years, even though you wanted us to get pregnant right away. If there’s anyone that needs forgiveness, it’s me,” Monica said.

  Her husband walked over to her, wrapped his arms around her. “You know I still love you, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do, baby,” Monica said. “How could I not know it?”

  “Because how I’ve been treating you.”

  “It’s in the past, sweetheart. That’s all in the past.”

  15

  The next day at work, Lewis was determined to make some money. He couldn’t believe that Selena was talking about going out on the street, selling herself, and not thinking anything of it. He knew she said that she could separate giving sex to some strange man from the times she would be making love to him, but Lewis couldn’t. Even the thought, the image of her spreadin
g her legs, opening her mouth for another man, made him nauseous.

  That was why he had to be busy today, do whatever he had to do in order to get paid.

  But regardless of how many times he asked men walking in that door if they wanted their hair cut, no matter how many times he marched up and down the sidewalk, politely asking people if they would step in and sit in his chair, he was most often rejected.

  It was noon, and Lewis had had only one client, when the other four barbers that were there today had a steady stream of people wanting cuts, along with men waiting.

  Beasly walked slowly over to Lewis’s chair.

  Lewis didn’t bother sitting up, just remained slumped, wearing his black barber smock, an unopened Vibe magazine in his lap.

  “How things today?” Beasly asked.

  “Just like they were yesterday, the day before that, and all the damn days before them.”

  “I see you put a nice cut on one head today.”

  “One head ain’t enough, Beasly,” Lewis said, sitting up, tossing the magazine from his lap toward a chair where more of them were sloppily stacked. “I got situations, man. Pressing shit that got to be taken care of, like, now. I’m thinking about quitting and finding something else to do.”

  “You ain’t no quitter, boy.”

  “I ain’t no fool, either,” Lewis said.

  “Then what you gonna do? Go out there and slang drugs, rob some store?”

  “I don’t know,” Lewis said, under his breath. “Maybe.”

  Beasly went into his pocket again, pulled out some more money, and held it out for Lewis.

  “Naw, Beasly. I don’t want no more of your money. You already gave me enough.”

  “Who said I was giving you money? I want you to go down to the sub shop, and buy me a supercombo with everything and extra hot peppers. Get you one too if you want. There’s enough.”

  Lewis looked up at Beasly as though the man had gone senile.

  “I appreciate the money you gave me yesterday, but that don’t make me your errand boy all of a sudden.”

  “Go and get the food, boy,” Beasly said, grabbing one of Lewis’s hands and slapping the money in his palm, closing his fingers over it. “It’ll take your mind off of all your worrying. And you might be surprised. Things might look a lot better when you get back.”

  “Beasly,” Lewis said, standing up from the chair. “I can’t afford to miss any clients that come because I’m out fetching you some sandwich.”

  “Not to be mean or anything, boy. But you had one client in four hours. How many you think you gonna miss in twenty-five minutes?”

  Fat old man, Lewis thought as he walked back from the sub shop, with the grease-stained paper bag hanging from his hand. What the hell did he know anyway?

  He wasn’t in the situation that Lewis was in. He didn’t have a nine-month-old daughter, born from a drug-addicted mother. A daughter that he thought about and feared for every day, and there were so many things to be afraid of.

  Lewis was sure that Selena loved Layla. The woman was the child’s mother. But Lewis also knew that Selena wouldn’t have had their baby if she had had any other option.

  He often worried that Selena would start using again, and Lewis feared that, having no money, she would do something like trade their baby for a hit. He knew it sounded ridiculous, but he knew the grip that shit had on people in his community, knew the craziness it had them walking around doing.

  And then where they lived was a concern. Folks shooting, kids playing in the park, on their doorsteps, getting taken out by stray bullets whizzing by. Selena’s place had been broken into twice since Lewis lived there. Thankfully, nobody was home both times, but what would’ve happened if they had been home? If those fools came in with a gun, started shooting or something?

  Naw, Lewis couldn’t allow anything like that to happen, and that’s why he had to get his baby away from there. That’s why he couldn’t listen to an old fool like Beasly, who was probably gonna retire in a year, when Lewis hadn’t even been working for a full one.

  Lewis pulled the door of the barbershop open, a bell ringing, announcing his entrance.

  The place was full, so full that a number of old men were sitting in the chairs in front of Lewis’s station, because there were no other chairs to sit in.

  Beasly was cutting some old guy’s head as usual.

  “I got your sub,” Lewis said with attitude, walking past Beasly’s chair.

  “Put it in the back.”

  Yessa, massa, Lewis said to himself.

  When he pushed back through the curtain hanging from the doorway, Beasly called him over.

  “Got my change, boy?”

  Lewis dug in his pocket, fished out Beasly’s change, and set it on his work station.

  “I don’t have to count that, do I?” Beasly said, eyeing the money.

  “Beasly, if I wanted your money, I wouldn’t have come back.”

  “Just jokin’, boy. Don’t be so damn mean.”

  But there was nothing else for Lewis to be. It was after 1 P.M., a good chunk of the day gone, and still his chair sat empty. He didn’t know why he even bothered. He looked back over his shoulder at all the men waiting, and thought of asking them one by one if they’d like a cut, but thought, What the hell, what’s the use? Instead, Lewis headed for the door.

  “Where you goin’, boy?” Beasly said.

  “Out. For a walk. Don’t make no sense in me staying here.”

  “What you mean? All those men sitting in front of your chair need cuts.”

  Lewis turned around, looked back over at the six old men, their hair in various stages of needing attention. A couple were balding, some bearded, some with full heads of salt-and-pepper Afros, but they all definitely needed cuts.

  “I thought those were your clients,” Lewis said, practically astonished.

  “I know those old fools. But they say they want a younger barber, say I don’t know the new styles, so I told them about you,” Beasly said, then winked at Lewis.

  Lewis didn’t know what to say, didn’t know what to do. So he just told Beasly, “Thanks a lot,” then rushed over, threw on his smock, and took his first client.

  When Lewis pulled his car in front of Selena’s apartment, he had a hundred dollars in his pocket and a huge grin on his face. He had cut so many heads today that he was able to give Beasly back his $60, and have $100 left.

  After he had finished with the last of Beasly’s friends, it was only 5:30 P.M. Lewis walked over to Beasly and thanked him again.

  “That’s a mighty big grin on your face.”

  “Yeah,” Lewis said, trying to shrink the smile, but he just couldn’t. “I’m a happy man.”

  “Then why don’t you knock off early? Ain’t nobody probably gonna come in for you tonight, and I know you want to go home and tell your lady about how you got paid today.”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “Then get out of here. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Lewis climbed out of his car and knew that Selena would be surprised to see him this early in the day. She would wonder if he got fired or something, and then try to start yelling, but he would instantly shut her up with the money that he would show her, and then he would tell her that he was taking her and the baby out to dinner tonight.

  Lewis slid his key in the lock, opened the door quietly, stepped in, and when he saw that Selena wasn’t in the front room, he closed the door carefully behind him.

  He was so excited, because now she wouldn’t have to go out there and do that nonsense she was talking, and he knew that she would be so grateful to him for saving her from that.

  Lewis took a step farther into the apartment when he heard something coming from the bedroom.

  He stopped dead, his head whipping in that direction, knowing that he did not hear what he thought he had—a scream.

  Lewis rushed toward the bedroom door, all the while with an image of some man that had climbed through the window, holding a gun t
o Selena’s head. Or maybe he had used the gun already. Maybe…

  Lewis shook the thought out of his head as he burst through the bedroom door—not to find a man with a gun to Selena’s head, but to find some man stretched out naked across the mattress, Selena’s naked body gyrating on top of his.

  Lewis was taken aback, could not make his mind believe what his eyes were seeing at first. Then it all quickly came to him, the conversation last night, the need for money, for the bills, the medicine for Layla.

  Lewis’s eyes darted over to his daughter’s crib, still in disbelief; he was relieved that at least she was sleeping.

  Selena had whirled around on top of the man to see that it was Lewis who had rushed through the door, and not some intruder as she looked to have more than expected, because of how early in the day it was.

  Selena looked to be trying to pull herself off the man, but couldn’t quite dislodge herself, when Lewis grabbed hold of her by her shoulders and tossed her aside to the floor.

  Lewis was now lunging for the man, who had for some reason spun onto his stomach, reaching frantically toward the top of the mattress.

  “Lewis, no!” he heard Selena scream. He looked in her direction, then quickly looked back to deal with the man before him, when he heard a loud click and felt the barrel tip of a gun pressed to his head.

  “Now what, nigga?” Lewis heard the man say, his voice low, heavy.

  Lewis slowly raised his hands to shoulder level. “This my woman you in here with,” Lewis said, trying to do everything within him to control his anger.

  “I’m sorry to hear that, but we made a little business deal, and it looked like you was trying to mess that, and me, up.”

  “My little girl right there,” Lewis said, cutting his eyes to see Layla, feeling his anger starting to get away from him. “You fucking my woman, and my little girl right there!”

  “All right, nigga. Calm down,” the man said, pressing the gun harder against Lewis’s head. “I know that too. I said something about the little girl, but yo’ woman said leave her be. So I did. Didn’t make me none.”