If It Ain't Broke

by Brenda Barrett

  We have never really dealt with the problem; we’ve brush it aside and we’ve pretended, but we’ve never dealt with it. Thea is twelve, a very bright twelve and Matt is ten. They will understand and they'll ask questions.

  You don't have to go into details about the affair, but you do owe your children an explanation. These are the kinds of secrets that create family problems. If we are open about it now, it will spare you a load of heartache in the future."

  "It's easy for you to say," Kelly said, feeling deflated. "You aren’t the scarlet woman who has to confess her sins to her own children."

  "Well, I'll be here to support you, Scarlet Woman, and I really do think that Chris should be given some kind of access to Mark."

  "No," Kelly said forcefully, "I don't want Chris back in my life."

  Theo got up and loosened his tie; he held out his hands. "Come here."

  Kelly got up shakily.

  He walked her to the bedroom and she stretched out on the bed.

  "Now listen to me carefully," Theo said soothingly. He sat at the foot of the bed and started massaging her feet. "I have felt guilty about keeping Mark away from Chris."

  Kelly closed her eyes in pain. "It's my fault we are having this conversation."

  Theo smiled. "Yes it is, but it happened, and now we have to deal with it. You don’t have to be involved in Chris' life or he in ours..."

  "But you just said..."

  "I know what I said," Theo massaged her feet slowly. "Have you ever stopped to think about the fact that Mark will unavoidably meet up with his biological grandparents and cousins and even siblings when Chris has children of his own?"

  "No." Kelly mumbled.

  "The Donahues live a stones throw away from your parents, Kelly. We can't have Thea and Matthew spending time with your family and hide Mark. Caleb works with Chris at Villa Rose. They are friends. They all go to the same church…it's a small world.

  “We may have moved to Cayman but we had still managed to run into Chris in less than three years. The children will be going to Jamaica for summer holidays this year, to spend time with their grandparents. There is no excuse why Mark shouldn’t go.”

  "He is too young to travel," Kelly said hopefully.

  Theo shook his head. "That may work this year, it may not work next year. And I don't think we should treat Mark any differently from the other children by holding him back from the rest of his family. We actually left him with a nanny to attend Erica's wedding. It's time we stopped hiding him. He is not a dirty secret. We don’t want him to grow up thinking that he is different in a bad way."

  "I hate this." Kelly closed her eyes. "Wake me up when everything is sorted out and I don't have to feel so ashamed."

  Theo kissed her on the forehead. "We'll talk to the lawyer this evening and see what she has to say. Afterwards we'll deal with this together, you hear me?"

  "I don't deserve you," Kelly said weakly. "I sometimes wake up in the nights and I hug you tight to me and wonder why I had to cheat, why I had to be dishonest…" Her voice petered off.

  Theo lay beside her and hugged her from behind. "That was the biggest test of our marriage, we got past it. God has been good to us. Now relax, I want Luke to be born without much trouble to you."

  "Luke," Kelly giggled, "I should have known this child would be one of the gospels. Suppose it's a girl? "

  "Then we'll name her Lucia—" Theo kissed her in her hair and listened to her gentle snoring, she'd be out like a light for most of the day. He carefully withdrew his arms from around her and then walked out of the room softly.

  *****

  When Geraldine arrived at the Spanish style home on the East Side, the reception she got was not quite what she had expected. She was expecting hostility and strain. Instead, a handsome man with warm brown eyes opened the door.

  He politely asked her to come in. She had stood there staring at him aghast. This was the husband Kelly had cheated on?

  She had quickly regained her composure and walked in behind him into a comfortable living room.

  "Please have a seat. My name is Theo Palmer."

  "Er...my name is Geraldine...Geraldine Brown," she said briskly, struggling to sound as business like as she could. "Where is your wife? I'd like to talk to the both of you."

  "She's in the kitchen overseeing supper," Theo replied politely.

  He sat across from her. "You are Miss Angie Brown's granddaughter, the one who was doing law at Harvard, or was it Yale?"

  "Yale," Geraldine said. "I almost forgot that you were the pastor at Three Rivers Church."

  Theo nodded. "Lovely church. Miss Angie would give me a blow-by-blow account of what all her grandchildren were up to. I admired her determination to learn how to use the Internet in order to keep up with all of you."

  Geraldine nodded. "I live with her now, I recently moved to Jamaica."

  Theo nodded and then looked up. "Ah, here she is."

  Kelly came into the room and sighed. "They are using the carrots as battleships."

  She went over to Geraldine and shook her hand. "Hello."

  Geraldine looked at her closely; she looked relaxed and pretty, very much unlike the frantic voice that she had spoken with on the phone with this morning.

  Kelly went and sat beside her husband.

  Geraldine said stiffly, "I don't like to beat around the bush, so I'll just come out and say it. My client would like access to his son."

  Theo nodded. "I understand, but technically your client has no parental rights where Mark is concerned. Under Jamaican law a child born into a marriage situation, is in effect the child of the husband unless the couple are estranged or separated, and the biological father can prove his claim on the child via a DNA test, which would have to be obtained by a court order. Even then the husband of the relationship will have to declare that he has given away all parental rights to the child and state his reasons. I have no intention of doing so."

  Geraldine's eyes widened. "So you have done some research?"

  Theo nodded. "In effect, Chris has no case. Getting married was a long shot for him. And even then, he would have to prove that Mark is being ill-treated and is not being cared for properly in order to get access—much less custody."

  Geraldine settled back in her chair drumming her fingers. "I came here to inform you that Chris is serious about getting access and I will do everything in my power to see he's successful. Will you volunteer for Mark to do a DNA test?" she asked them both.

  Theo shrugged, "Mark is Chris' biological son there is no need for a DNA test."

  Geraldine huffed inside. She thought they would have been scared at the thought of her coming but they were looking at her confidently and she felt like a novice.

  "Well, this is a warning." She got up forcefully. "I will not stop until Chris gets access to the child."

  Theo nodded. "It doesn’t have to come to court cases and threats. We can have dialogue with Chris, without lawyers."

  Geraldine nodded and wished them both a good evening. Theo showed her out.

  "You showed her," Kelly said, grinning.

  Theo smirked. "Textbook stuff—Now you need to call Chris to call her off, until we decide what to do."

  *****

  The next morning Kelly dialed Chris' number reluctantly. She had really thought that this whole scenario would never need to happen. She had wished that Chris could be swept under the rug and treated like a mistake that she shouldn't have made.

  The phone rang several times throughout the day unanswered. Then at twelve a breathless jovial voice came on the line.

  "Speak to me, baby."

  Kelly smiled. Chris would have a handful with this girl. Then she frowned, her son would be in this woman's life, she would need to know more about her.

  "Is Chris there?" Kelly asked abruptly, feeling angry all over again that he had the audacity to send a lawyer to try to scare her.

  "Nope," the person on the other end said cheerfully.

  Kelly
asked hesitantly. "Who is this?"

  "This is Mrs. Chris Donahue."

  "Oh," Kelly said stiltedly. "The woman who he married just so he could get access to my son."

  There was a very loud inhalation and then the voice on the line became serious. "Is this Kelly?"

  "Yes," Kelly said feeling sorry that she had blurted out what she was thinking. For all she knew Chris loved his wife, and his trying to get custody was just a weird coincidence.

  "Chris is not here," Pinky said softly. "I'll tell him you called though."

  Kelly felt ashamed. The poor girl sounded wounded, like a bad bully had just socked her a punch.

  "I am sorry that I said what I said," Kelly said, repentantly. "I am going to blame it on pregnancy hormones…I’m a bit more emotional and mean spirited these days. Can you give him my number and ask him to call please?"

  She gave Pinky the number and when she hung up. Kelly felt uneasy. She was sure she heard a sob before the phone was put down. She shrugged it off.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Pinky was sitting in the living room. The lights were turned down low and the television was muted. She was curled up in a sofa, feeling vulnerable and wounded. She had cried today and her face was puffy and swollen.

  She was tired from all the crying though and she felt pathetic. Why hadn't she realized that it all came back to Kelly? When Chris had said he needed her that was not idle talk; he had really needed her to get this custody show on the road.

  She felt a loss so heavy it was actually pressing down on her chest. She imagined herself having a heart attack right in the chair and Chris coming in to find her dead. The thought of his suffering brought a smile to her lips and she wondered if she had finally gone mad.

  She sat up in the settee straighter. This was all her fault. She had married Chris knowing that he had other emotional commitments. For a foolish moment she had thought that he had finally pushed them aside.

  She sniffed. In the whole scheme of things, it was admirable that Chris couldn't or wouldn't callously give up his child for others to raise. He wanted to get to know him so badly that he was willing to get married for it. Except in this scenario, she hadn’t been consulted about this whole thing. She felt deceived. She had really and truly been sucked into Chris' damaged sphere as her brother had warned her.

  Maybe that's why his mother was so standoffish, maybe the poor woman didn't approve of the way Chris was handling things.

  Pinky sat up straighter and stared at the television absentmindedly. She had to present her latest science project in four days before a group of her peers and the teachers of the chemistry department. She had been leaning more toward cosmetic chemistry and for her final project she had chosen to make a hair relaxer.

  She had to show, from scratch, how she obtained potassium hydroxide from wood ash and then show the exact formula she used to achieve a creamy end product, which by her calculations could penetrate the protein structure of the hair by up to 70% without severely weakening the cortex layer of the hair.

  It was simple stuff for a final year chemistry student and she had done everything from scratch. Today she had used some in her hair after testing it for weeks on several Afro wigs and found that it really worked.

  She had been ecstatic until she answered the phone and was reminded that she may be good at school chemistry, but where relationship chemistry was concerned, she was a failure.

  She had even deceived herself into thinking Chris was happy. How delusional could a girl get?

  "There you are!" Chris said, walking into the room his tie was askew and his hair ruffled. He looked adorable though slightly weary around the eyes. Usually she would greet him effusively but she sat in the sofa looking at him sadly.

  "What's wrong? Who died?" Chris asked urgently.

  "My rose colored spectacles," Pinky said mournfully. Chris sat beside her and kissed her on the cheek.

  "What on earth did I do wrong? You look like you've been crying."

  "I was," Pinky said looking at him; her eyes tearing up again. "First I was so happy. I finally made hair relaxer with a weak alkaline agent, all by myself."

  Chris nodded puzzled. "Congrats, that's for your final project, right?"

  "Right," Pinky sniffled, "then Kelly called."

  Chris inhaled sharply. "She did?"

  "Yup," Pinky nodded. "I found out that... this...ours is a marriage of convenience. That she is pregnant and that you are planning to fight them for custody of your son."

  Chris sighed and leaned back in the settee. His mind was racing; what could he say? He had not told her the truth about this hasty marriage. He hadn't allowed her to make up her mind about it. He had reasoned that if he married anyone else she would have been devastated. He was right but what he did was really a deception.

  "I am guilty." He looked at her sorrowfully. "My lawyer suggested it. I really have little recourse if I want to see my son, but I couldn't see myself marrying anyone else."

  "I am not going to shout. Curiously, I have little energy for that sort of thing. My main feeling right now is that I was betrayed." She fidgeted with her fingers. "I am going to move in with Charles for a bit."

  "No," Chris growled, "I want you here. Why are you leaving?"

  "Because," Pinky said slowly, "I have exams in two-weeks. This whole thing is a distraction I can do without. I want to get my degree, I am going to be terribly heart broken in the future and I’ll need an education to fall back on."

  "Pinky, don't talk like that," Chris said urgently, "and don't walk out on our marriage."

  "I am not walking out," Pinky said standing up, "I just need a break. I am not even taking my clothes. Well, only a few pieces for the next couple of weeks. I have some serious lab work to do, handling some combustible chemicals. I can't afford for this whole business to distract me, okay. I know you don't love me, I had at least hoped you like me just a little bit to want to see me do well in school."

  The protest that Chris was about to make died rapidly at that plaintive plea. If he protested now she would be reading it as him not even liking her. He watched her walk out of the room her shoulders slumped, but he had this urge to beg her not to leave him. Every time she left the house it was like an empty space opening wider in his chest.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chris was tired of the stilted conversations with Pinky over the phone. It was going on for two weeks. She had her final exam today and then he was going to Flatbush for her. He missed her like crazy. He couldn't concentrate and he was hardly eating. Even the cat was walking around the place with his tail drooping—the two of them making a sad pair.

  Pinky had forbidden him from visiting her. She had used the, ‘if you like me, you would want to see me do well’ argument. He heard the sadness in her voice and had relented but he wanted to see her face, touch her skin, and bask in the high voltage energy that was Pinky.

  Today he was going to put a stop to this estrangement. He didn't like it. Geraldine had called him a few days ago and told him about her conversation with Theo and Kelly. Apparently they refused to be scared into anything. They knew their legal rights and weren’t willing to be browbeaten by big, bad Geraldine. He had laughed when she said ‘big bad Geraldine’.

  He propped up Kelly's number on his desk; he hadn't had the urge to call her yet. A part of him was reluctant to hear her voice. A part of him didn't want to know what she had to say because he was sure it would be negative for him.

  He leaned back in his chair and thought about her objectively. The very thought that he could do that gave him pause. Whatever it is that had him in a grip of Kelly obsession was gone and he hadn't even realized it.

  He poked around the wound that had Kelly's name on it and realized that it was mostly scar tissue. Not even a pinch of pain when the memories of their affair came flooding back. He thought about her smiling over his desk in only his shirt. He remembered the day they spent in bed together when Theo had gone to a conference; like a blind fool he h
ad pretended that they were married.

  The memories dangled across his mind one-by-one and he reviewed them realizing something vitally important; it hadn't been about love. It had been about winning. It had been about revenge and what he considered to be delayed justice because Theo had the audacity to take his girl.

  He had been arrogant and egotistical and had stayed that way for years, brooding and unhappy…all those years wasted but then again probably not. He had to wait for Pinky to grow up because frankly he could not see himself with anybody else.

  He counted down the time until he could go and pick her up from Flatbush. One thing was for sure, he wasn’t going to sleep another night without his wife.

  *****

  Chris followed Pinky's car until it parked up at the gate on Flatbush Scheme. She got out of her car and dashed inside the house with a sickly look on her face. He hurriedly braked behind her car and dashed in the house after her. She had even left the front door wide opened. He heard her retching in the bathroom. He appeared in the bathroom doorway and she was on her knees over the toilet.

  He became alarmed. "What's wrong?"

  Pinky flushed the toilet and got up shakily. "Food poisoning, I guess. It's the weirdest thing but I haven't been eating much and then I feel like crap in the evenings."

  "So if you haven't been eating, how can it be food poisoning? Chris frowned "You look like hell warmed up."

  "Thanks." Pinky slowly reached for her toothbrush. "I feel like hell."

  Chris whipped out his phone. "We are going to see the family doctor." He moved away from the bathroom and made an appointment with Dr. Mansfield.

  "He's expecting us in an hour," Chris said with concerned that Pinky didn't look so good and actually appeared to have lost some weight—a lot of weight. How could she have lost so much weight in such a short space of time?