by Mary Monroe
“Don’t you want to take off your jacket and sit for a little while?”
“I have to get back to my place and make sure I packed everything I’ll need.” I noticed a concerned look on Uncle Albert’s face. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Rachel, I care more about you than anybody else in the world, except Kingston. You were the only one in the family who never judged me or turned your back on me when I came out of the closet. And I appreciate that.”
“I care about you, and all I want is for you to be happy. It wouldn’t bother me if you slept with a bull.”
“Honey, I love beef, too, so I’ve been with more than one bull, and a few snakes, if you really want to know. But let’s be serious. Romance is a double-edged sword, so it cuts both ways.”
“Where is this conversation going?”
“Hush up and let me finish. Now you tell me the truth. Do you really think you’re going to be happy being married to Seth?”
“Unc, I know I’m going to be happy being married to Seth. I love the man, and he loves me,” I declared.
“What about Ernest and Janet?”
“What about them?” This was a subject that my uncle and I rarely discussed. As far as I was concerned, everything that could be said about my siblings had already been said. But I was only fooling myself. “Are you talking about their conditions?”
“Yeah, I’m talking about their conditions. How does Seth feel about marrying into a mentally challenged family?”
“Mentally challenged family? There is nothing mentally challenged about me or Mama or you.”
“But you know as well as I do that there are several more folks in our family that . . . uh . . . have a few problems upstairs.” With a frown on his face, Uncle Albert stabbed at the side of his head with his finger.
“Like I said, there is nothing mentally wrong with me.”
“Then you have told Seth about Ernest and Janet?”
I shook my head.
Uncle Albert’s jaw dropped, and he gave me a wild-eyed look. “Girl, do you mean to stand here and tell me to my face that you’re about to marry a man who doesn’t know you come from a family tree that grows poisonous fruit?”
“That’s an ugly thing to say about your own relatives!” I scolded. “You make our family sound like a bunch of sideshow freaks.”
“It’s true, and sometimes the truth is ugly. Don’t you think you should have told him by now?”
“The subject has never come up.”
“Bullshit! You don’t need to wait for something like mental illness to ‘come up’ to let the man know what he’s getting into. The man deserves to know about something as serious as this. I’m black. Some well-to-do Asians don’t take too kindly to black folks at all. Kingston told his family about me right after he and I hooked up. I would have felt like a fool if I’d gone way over there to Japan to meet his family with them not knowing I was black!”
“I know I should have said something about Janet and Ernest to Seth by now, but—”
“Boo! Girl, I need to scare some sense into you! The longer you put it off, the worse it’s going to look when you do tell him. He’ll think you were trying to hide it from him, and that’s no way to start off a marriage, sweetie. For all you know, Seth might offer you some advice that might help you deal with Ernest and Janet.”
“Help me deal with Ernest and Janet?”
“Honey, your mama told me she already made you promise that you would take care of your brother and your sister if something happens to her. And she ain’t going to live forever. Eventually, you’ll have to take over her responsibilities, anyway!”
“I know I promised Mama that I would take care of them when the time comes . . . except . . .”
“Except what?”
“Except I haven’t discussed that with Seth yet. But he loves me and has already said he’s accepting me for better or worse. I’m sure he’ll help me with Ernest and Janet, if and when it comes to that. For all we know, some smart doctor just might come up with medication that will make them as responsible and normal as the rest of us.”
“And they might not. Girl, you better get real. Taking care of mentally challenged people, especially adults, ain’t no picnic. Why do you think I left Alabama? Even though your mama had pretty much disowned me, I figured that sooner or later she’d come to me and ask me to help out with Janet and Ernest, regardless of how she felt about me. I didn’t want to get dragged into a responsibility like that. And while we’re on the subject, why do you think I don’t have any kids of my own?”
“You don’t have any kids, because you only sleep with men.”
“Harrumph! You don’t know Uncle Albert as well as you think you do, honey. For your information, I have been with a few females.”
This time it was my jaw that dropped. “What?”
“Oh, I got me a little bit of pussy before I came out of the closet. Believe you me, it didn’t take long for me to figure out that that fishy-smelling shit between a woman’s thighs was not what I wanted. And if, for some reason, I ever sleep with a woman again, I don’t have to worry about babies. I got myself fixed right after I moved to California. With my luck, I probably would have had kids that were gay and mentally challenged. Just thinking about the field day your mama, Hattie, and all their small-minded friends would have had makes my flesh crawl.”
What my uncle said saddened me. I could not imagine life without children of my own. “Well, I hope to have at least three or four babies. And if any—or all of them—have special needs, I will love them just as much as my mama loves all her kids.”
“You are one brave little woman,” Uncle Albert said, giving me a thoughtful look. “And a smart one, too. You’ve come so far, and I’d hate to see you end up miserable and disappointed. I just think you should tell Seth about problems as serious as this.”
“Problems? Ernest and Janet are not my problems.”
“Not yet.”
“That’s not what I mean—”
“I think I know what you mean, baby girl. But the bottom line is, you can’t keep information like this from the man you’re going to spend the rest of your life with.”
“I will tell him as soon as we get to Alabama. I’m sure it won’t make any difference at all in our relationship.” I turned my head so Uncle Albert couldn’t see the worried look on my face.
The trip to Alabama had come and gone, and because of what it had involved, so had Seth. What bothered me so much was not just that he had severed all ties with me, but that he had met and married another woman and gone on his merry way. His betrayal had reignited the aggression that I had been able to keep at bay since my move to California. Now he was going to see the dark side of me, which I had managed to hide so well. I was determined to do anything and everything possible to disrupt his “merry way” for as long as I could.
Chapter 45
Rachel
MAMA HAD BEEN CALLING ME EVERY EVENING SINCE I’D TOLD her about Seth calling off the wedding. She called like clockwork at 7:00 p.m. each day. I had come home from work an hour earlier today, so by the time she called, I had already drunk a few glasses of wine and was feeling slightly tipsy.
“Hello, Mama. How are you doing?” I slurred. I felt a hiccup forming in my throat. I tried to stifle it with my hand, but I was too late. It sounded like something coming from a drunken frog.
“My goodness, Rachel. You sound terrible. You all right, baby?”
“I’m fine, Mama.” I slid my tongue back and forth across my chapped lips. “Don’t worry about me.”
“Well, I am worried about you. That’s why I called. I don’t want you sitting around boo hooing over no man or doing nothing stupid, like drinking or suicide. Why don’t you move back home? We’d love to have you back with us.”
“Mama, I don’t want to move back to Alabama,” I insisted. Silence followed for a few seconds. This seemed like the appropriate moment for me to change the subject. “How is everybody?�
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“Your aunt Hattie is down with the shingles. Ernest and Janet and everybody else are about the same.” More silence. “Remember what I told you Janet told me about why Seth changed his mind about marrying you?”
“What about it?”
“I know you still think she was hearing voices, but whether she was or not, that could be the reason Seth did what he did. Have you even given that notion some serious consideration?”
For the first time, I gave that notion some serious consideration. “If that’s the case, why didn’t he break up with me sooner? Why did he stay with me as long as he did after he found out about Ernest and Janet?”
“Maybe because you was helping him with his bills, baby. Like Janet said she heard him telling somebody on the telephone that day. Have you even given that some serious consideration, too?”
“Seth didn’t need my money. His business was doing really well.”
“It is now. He told me how he had struggled for a while before he started making money. Listen, honey, everything happens for a reason. Just think if you had married Seth without him knowing about our family first. Can you imagine how your marriage would have suffered? Be glad he broke up with you before you got into him too deep.” Mama let out a loud breath, which was usually an indication that she was about to end her call. “God’s got a better man in store for you.”
I heard Mama’s last comment before she hung up, but I couldn’t focus on that. All I could focus on was the fact that Seth had stayed with me for all that time after he found out about my family, and I had paid most of the bills. I could have lived with the knowledge that I’d been played for a fool for my money. But I couldn’t live with the knowledge that I’d been mistreated because of something I had no control over.
I knew right then and there that I had to find out the truth, and the only person who could tell me that was Seth. But getting him to talk to me at all had been so difficult, I wasn’t even going to try anymore. If and when he decided to talk to me on his own, I’d confront him point-blank about what Janet claimed she had heard him tell that person on the telephone.
In the meantime, I planned to move forward with my life.
For the next few weeks, I gave the impression to my friends, family, and coworkers that everything was all right with me. But Uncle Albert knew better. He came to my apartment one Saturday night to check up on me. I hadn’t talked to him all week or responded to any of the telephone messages he’d left.
“I know you, Rachel. That smile on your face is about as phony as a three-dollar bill,” he yelled. “I know you’re hurting. I’ve been in pain before, and it’s like having a poisonous snake biting you up and down. Sooner or later, that poison is going to destroy you. The only way to get rid of that snake is to cut off its head.”
“Meaning what? Me begging Seth to leave his wife and take me back?”
“Girl, you ain’t that crazy. If you did something like that, I’d be biting you up and down myself. Now, you know me and Kingston have our problems. One of the reasons he treats me better now is that he knows I can get anybody else I want. Don’t let Seth think you sitting around, thinking about him. I know from experience that the minute somebody thinks that another man is interested in you, he’ll change his tune. Once he realizes you don’t give a damn about him leaving you, he’ll be begging you to take him back.”
“Unc, I haven’t seen or heard from Seth since he dumped me. Even if I wanted to try to make him jealous, I wouldn’t know where to find him, and I am not about to start stalking a man who has made it clear he wants nothing more to do with me.”
“Well, get over Seth and find yourself another man, anyway. That’s the best advice I can give to you. Now pour me a drink so I can be on my way.”
When Paulette and Patrice came over later that same evening, they basically told me the same thing.
“Get over Seth and find yourself another man,” Paulette told me.
“I will,” I promised in a feeble voice.
And I probably would have, had I not run into Sister Beulah at the weekly flea market on Ashby Street on Sunday of the week before Thanksgiving. It was fairly warm for November, but it was threatening to rain. The sky looked like a dark gray blanket.
After Sister Beulah’s greeting, one of her extended hugs, and a few obligatory remarks, she started talking fast and loud.
“I’m so glad to see you out and about,” she told me, clutching the handle of a canvas bag bulging with various vegetables. “I come here every Sunday, and I’ve never seen you here before.” She wore one of her outlandish shawls. This one was red and black with fringes. Her gray hair was so tightly curled, her head looked like a large pinecone. I prayed that I wouldn’t end up like Sister Beulah—fat and alone, with only church and shopping at flea markets to look forward to. “It’s good to see that after all Seth did to you, it didn’t get you down the way what he done to me did. For days, I wept and wailed and hid out in my house like I had leprosy.”
I swallowed hard and gave Sister Beulah a serious look. “What did he do to you?”
“Girl, where have you been? Once he got into the swing of things and moved into that fancy new building, he didn’t have any more use for me. I wasn’t surprised. The way things were going, I knew it was just a matter of time before he decided I was not good for his image. He hired a man to do artwork for the flyers and cards that he pays young kids to go hand out on the street and leave on folks’ car windshield. Then he got a real good deal on a high-volume Xerox machine and an even better one with an office supply store. Now Howard doesn’t have to steal office supplies and do Seth’s copying at his other job. Matter of fact, Howard quit his other job the day before I left the company.”
“You don’t work for Seth anymore at all?”
“Nope. Seth and Howard are on a gravy train, and that same train ran over me when Seth up and booted me out.”
“You didn’t quit? Seth fired you? But why? What did you do wrong?”
“Nothing!”
“What reason did he give for letting you go?”
“He claims it was because I sassed him. Actually, he didn’t fire me, per se. He was going to, but I quit just minutes before he got that far. He claimed he was only going to suspend me, but to me that’s the same as getting fired. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of firing me, and that pissed him off, too. You ought to see that big-tittied Asian gal he hired in my place. I saw him and her having lunch the other day at a sushi place, which I’m sure she picked out. Asians eat the damnest things! Raw fish! Eyeew! I know Seth misses all the lip-smacking pig ears, oxtails, black-eyed peas, and whatnot I used to bring to the office. Anyway, I believe he let me go because he wanted to upgrade everything. And from what I’ve heard, that included you. ”
“Yes, he did break off our engagement.”
“He’s a fool. I mean, it was bad enough he made us all keep certain secrets about his personal life. I can’t tell you how many times I wanted to hunt you down and tell you about that other woman coming to the office to see him, staying for hours on end. I paid the company credit card bills, and every month there were three or four hotel charges, always on the same days when that woman came to see Seth. Each time, he’d leave with her and be gone for hours.”
“It doesn’t matter now. Seth fell in love with another woman, and I have to accept that.”
“Is that what he told you?”
“Not exactly. But it’s obvious. He fell out of love with me and in love with this other woman.”
Sister Beulah set her bag on the ground and placed her hands on her hips. Then she reared back on her legs and looked me in the eye and said, “When my brother was in Vietnam, he got shot up real bad. He came back home with a bullet in his head and some serious mental issues. His fiancée married him, anyway.”
“I’m happy for your brother.” I shrugged. I couldn’t think of anything else to say after hearing such an off-the-wall comment. “Excuse me, but are we still talking about Seth?”
“I am, and you should be, too. I just want to make a point. My brother’s wife stayed with him even after he started having blackouts and hallucinations because of all his war injuries. He died in her arms many years later. That’s true love. And if you ask me, love knows nothing about mental illness. For Seth not to marry you because he was scared he’d have children with mental problems, that’s a sin and a shame.”
The wind was fairly mild. Had it been any stronger, it would have knocked me to the ground after what I’d just heard. “Excuse me? Who told you that?”
“Do you mean to stand here and tell me you didn’t know?”
“I didn’t know.” My ears felt like somebody had come at me with a blowtorch. “Is that what he’s telling people?”
“I don’t know what he’s telling everybody else, but that’s what I know. After he returned to work after you and him went to Alabama, he told us all in the office about your brother and sister being, uh, the way they are and how he couldn’t accept it. He didn’t go into a lot of detail around me, but I know how to put puzzle pieces together. I knew more about his personal life than he thought I did, and I told him that to his face.”
“Seth discussed my family with you, and his feelings, but he couldn’t talk to me about it?” I felt like I’d been stomped on from head to toe. Every muscle in my body tightened, and for a few seconds I had a difficult time breathing. I was glad Sister Beulah didn’t notice me wheezing to catch my breath. The last thing I needed was for her to tell somebody who would tell Seth how pitiful I was, so he could sit back and feel sorry for me. Pity was the last thing I wanted from Seth Garrett!