Brandon cleared his throat and then sighed. "Ashley and I have loads of problems. The straw that broke the camel’s back was when I caught her cheating on me with her friend Regina. I think we are here to repair the marriage for the children's sake."
"Ah." Jill nodded. "It's curious how you framed that. You didn't say that you want to repair the marriage because you wanted to be with Ashley."
Brandon nodded. "That's correct. I don't think I want to be with Ashley. Maybe that is another reason why I agreed to come. Maybe I can discover the spark, the trust or something for Ashley again, because God knows there is none left. I am feeling empty."
"Oh, for heaven's sake," Ashley spluttered. "He left the house after my little indiscretion and he fancies himself in love with somebody else, a home-wrecker who should know better. He was just looking at a picture of her and drooling as if he was a teenager."
The counselor looked between the two of them. "Is that true, Brandon, are you in love with somebody else?"
Brandon clasped his hands and looked down at them. He twiddled his thumbs and then shrugged. "Yes, it is."
Ashley gasped, "But why? You barely know her. How can you know somebody in six weeks?"
"I barely know you, and I lived with you for eight years," Brandon countered.
"Okay," Jill said, "calm down, you two. I can see that this will take a while for us to get through. The important thing is that you both want to save your marriage."
Brandon breathed a telling sigh and leaned back in the chair.
*****
"This is ridiculous!" Ashley had been talking since they left the counselor's office and Brandon had not heard a word. He was still marveling that he could completely tune her out. He wondered why he hadn't mastered that art years ago.
He only heard her exclaim that something was ridiculous. "What is ridiculous?" he murmured absently.
"You and your 'I'm in love with someone else crap'. You are saying it to hurt me."
Brandon turned into the driveway and spotted Regina's yellow car. He didn't feel a thing, not really. Not as devastated as he had been in the past.
He looked over at Ashley and even managed a half smile. "Your lover is here. I thought you said she was in the past…ancient history."
"She is." Ashley worried her lips between her teeth nervously. "I wonder what she is doing here. I haven't heard from her since the morning after...you know."
"Yup. I know." Brandon got out of the car and watched as Regina, who was leaning on her car and smoking a cigarette, slowly unwound herself from her relaxed pose. She turned to the two of them and sneered.
"Brandon and the lovely Ashley."
"Regina." Brandon nodded, while Ashley drifted closer to him.
Regina observed that and her expression darkened. "So, imagine my utter amazement when I found out that you two are back together."
"Are you spying on me?" Ashley asked, her voice shaky.
"I always check up on you, you know that," Regina said. "You are my girl."
Brandon watched the byplay with an utter sense of calm. He was not the idiot he was six weeks ago who thought that he needed to fight for his relationship with Ashley at all cost. For the last couple of days he had been wondering if he wasn't wasting his time.
"I thought you were finally going to ditch this dude and the two of us could finally be together without sneaking around. So what, seeing that divorce lawyer was in vain?"
Ashley turned to Brandon. "About that—it was the day after. I honestly thought you and I were through. I was feeling guilty and.. and...and..."
Brandon nodded, feeling disinterested and curiously detached from the drama. What Regina said just now would normally have made him cringe, but now he just felt a mild revulsion.
"Leave me alone," Ashley hissed. "Just go away, Regina!"
Regina smirked. "Oh, so you think it will be that easy. I still have feelings for you and you are mine." She looked at Brandon. "I really never thought you were going to come back to her. Isn't it enough that you caught her cheating with another woman?"
"Oh, just shut up and leave," Ashley squealed. "As you can see, you are not needed here. My husband is still with me. You haven't quite managed to scare him off."
"I wonder why," Regina said slyly. "Because of the children? Which may not even be his?"
Brandon straightened up on the car. Now he was interested.
"Yes, that's right," Regina snarled. "She had an affair with a guy at the bank the same year that Alisha was born, and she had an affair when she went to Paris for her little fashion show thingy, the same year she got pregnant with Ariel. Now Brandon, even you can see that that child is not yours. Two black people can't have a mixed-race child."
"Stop this, Regina, this is ridiculous!" Ashley turned to Brandon. "Let’s ignore her. Let's just walk away from her. She's poison. She doesn't want to see me happy."
But Brandon was looking at Regina's knowing smirk, and something inside him snapped. He wanted to shut her up. He wanted her to stop hurting him with every utterance from her mouth.
He clenched his fist and advanced toward Regina, a hitherto unknown rage driving him forward.
Regina lost her casual, cocky stance and squealed fearfully, "Don't blame me for delivering the news!" She quailed at the livid fury on Brandon's face. "Ashley had an affair with Carlos King, her supervisor at the bank. She was boinking him shortly after your honeymoon, when she was supposedly a born-again Christian. And that is why I can't take her reconciliation with you seriously. Ashley is not very good with commitment, and she definitely isn't loyal."
Brandon stopped in his tracks and looked back at Ashley, who had gone still and was sobbing quietly. "I am sorry about that, Brandon. I am so sorry."
What was she saying sorry about? He needed answers and he needed them fast. He headed to Ashley and dragged her toward the house; he wasn't gentle. He didn't even care that she was in a pair of her ridiculous five-inch high heels and that she was tottering to keep up with his pace. He stopped suddenly; Ashley twisted her ankle and uttered a muffled oath.
He looked behind him at Regina, who was watching them, her mouth slightly opened.
"Get off my property," Brandon growled. "If I see you anywhere near this house again..."
Regina jumped in her car and drove out quickly. The sound of her car was the only noise besides Ashley's loud sniffling. Brandon opened the front door and pushed Ashley down into the nearest chair. She immediately kicked off her shoes.
He leaned over her. They were eyeball to eyeball; her mascara was running down her cheeks.
Brandon looked at her dispassionately. "Be honest. For once." His voice was low and rough but controlled compared to the turmoil he was feeling inside.
He now knew how it felt to want to murder someone and right here, right now, he felt as if he could happily strangle Ashley. He clenched his hand around the chair and spoke in her face. "Talk, tell me right now, all of the secrets. All of the affairs."
Ashley sniffled. "Regina was lying. She lied about everything. Can't you see that she only wants to hurt me?"
"No," Brandon gritted. "Regina may be brash and she talks tough, but with her what you see is what you get, unlike you." He shook the chair. "Tell me the truth, you lying, twisted..." He bit his tongue before he swore.
He was on the verge of losing control. He didn't even want to think about all the things that Regina said about his children not being his. He would come to that eventually. The thought lingered at the back of his mind that if that were true he would definitely kill Ashley.
He backed away from the chair and staggered into the one opposite hers. He would really do it. He could see himself doing it as soon as she opened her mouth to confirm it; he could see himself overcome with blinding rage.
He was angry enough to tear into her, right now. Two affairs—three if you counted Regina—and here he was sitting around trying to work out this marriage. He had spent eight years of his life being thoroughly fooled.
<
br /> He closed his eyes and fought for control. Lord help me!
In the charged silence Ashley said hoarsely, "The children are yours Brandon. I wouldn't be so foolish as to give you another man's children, okay? About the affairs—I did have a thing with Carlos King at the bank but that didn't last long. It was seven years ago. I didn't want to bring it up now when we, er... are recently reconciled. I didn't have an affair with anybody in Paris. I was only there for three weeks! Where would I meet a guy and have an affair?"
Brandon squeezed his eyes shut. He couldn't believe a word that she was saying. He might never believe her again. She was a liar and she was out to ruin him. For the second time in two months, prison beckoned him.
He got up. His sister and father were right, but this time when he left he was leaving according to his own plan. He was going to see a divorce lawyer tomorrow. He believed that he had indeed reached the end of his tether. This was it—the maximum of his pain threshold.
*****
"So you left the witch for good?" Latoya asked him the next morning, He was sitting in her office after dropping the children off at school, a little later than their usual drop off time. He had stopped at A and E Genetics to get a home DNA test kit. The place wasn't open until eight and he was determined to get a sample from both Alisha and Ariel before they went to school. He had swabbed them right there in the parking lot of the genetics lab and returned the kit to them for assessment before taking the children to school.
It was going to take him two to three days to get the results. He felt restless. He had to know if they were his. He had looked at each of them this morning for the longest time, and the necessity of a DNA test had only made him feel angrier toward Ashley.
He zoned into what Latoya was saying and nodded. "Yes, I am ready for Kenneth's number. I understand that this can take me up to a year. I want to just get it over with."
"What did she do to tick you off this time?" Latoya pulled her chair closer to the desk and leaned on her arm, looking at him.
Brandon didn't answer. He clenched his jaw and forcibly told himself to relax. Every time he thought about the possibility of Ashley hoodwinking him through the years he felt angrier and angrier. Last night he hadn't slept a wink. He had sat outside on the balcony of the guest room and just stared into space until daybreak. He had never felt this unsettled in his life.
"Some women are not marriage material," he said contemplatively. "I can't fathom why Ashley wanted to marry me in the first place. Why me?"
He sighed and looked at his sister. "I am a good man, or at least I try to be. I am always trying to do things God's way, and I get blindsided by this."
"Ah Brandon," Latoya sighed, "she fooled us all. She is a really good actress."
"But couldn't God have stopped me?" Brandon asked, "I mean couldn't he have warned me?"
Then he remembered that God had warned him in so many ways. Last night he had thought about them. There was the time when she had walked into church, beautiful, extremely attractive, and he had found himself slightly repulsed. That was not a normal reaction for a man to have.
And when she had started coming to Bible Studies he had the feeling that she was not genuine. That had been quickly suppressed when she had seemed to know the scriptures pretty well.
The pastor counseling them had told him not to do it. His own father had looked him squarely in the face on his wedding day and told him that if he changed his mind, there was no shame in not going through with the wedding.
He hadn't listened. He had gotten gentle promptings and outright shoves and he hadn't listened.
He got up. "Latoya, I have a ton of things to do but the chief thing today is to see Kenneth."
"Yes, Here is the number." Latoya wrote it down hurriedly. "Call me. Don't you dare internalize this and suffer alone."
*****
Kenneth's office was on the same office block as Alisha and Ariel's dentist. Brandon had called ahead and when he reached the office the receptionist gave him a pleasant smile and told him, "Mr. Welch will see you now."
Brandon entered the spacious office and sat down. Kenneth was a jovial guy with a pleasant smile.
After the pleasantries he said to Brandon, "Here's the thing: divorce in Jamaica is not easy or quick. It takes exceptional circumstances for a person to get a quickie divorce, or if you personally know a judge who will not take forever to sign the decree nisi. The decree absolute takes only a few weeks after that.
"Luckily for you, I know quite a few judges I can lean on to expedite things a bit. I am known as the man to get you the quickest divorce done. This could take six to eight months instead of the usual year if you retain me as your legal counsel. I assume there is property involved, and children?"
"Yes," Brandon said, feeling slightly overwhelmed.
It just dawned on him that he was sitting in a lawyer's office discussing divorce. The cessation of his marriage to Ashley. He should feel odd about it, but he had this burning desire to just get it over and done with.
"Is there any hope of reconciliation?" Kenneth asked.
"Oh no." Brandon shook his head. "Never. We already tried that several times."
Kenneth cleared his throat. "Good. So we are going to have to talk division of assets and custodial rights to your children."
Brandon nodded.
"But we don't have to do that now," Kenneth said quickly, "this is the part where negotiations may stretch out for a while."
"Well," Brandon said, "she can keep her store; that's all she cares about anyway. I want the house and kids or alternatively to sell the house and give her half of the proceeds. I don't think I want to ever live there again."
"Unusual," Kenneth said contemplatively.
"I am planning on leaving Jamaica for a while, so those are my demands. I really don't want to have anything to do with Ashley after this."
"Except that you have children," Kenneth said. "Unfortunately for you, man, that is a bond for life. She'll always be the mother of your children."
Chapter Fifteen
Ashley came home earlier than usual. She had had a raging headache for four straight days since Regina had come back into her life and derailed it, again. Brandon was treating her like a pariah.
He didn't even pretend as if he wanted to talk to her anymore. He was giving her the silent treatment. He wouldn't even make an effort with her in front of the kids, which was making her fret because each morning she got up early enough to join them at breakfast, hoping that at least with the children there he would talk to her and try to appear normal. He didn't seem much impressed by that.
The first morning she had attempted to talk, Brandon had told her that he didn't speak hypocrite.
She popped two migraine pills in her mouth and swallowed them with her bottled water and closed her eyes. She needed to plan a new strategy to win back Brandon. She needed to do something before she really lost him for good. Their last bust-up had not been encouraging in that regard.
The ringing of the bell from the postman had her cracking her eyes open. She watched as he put a bundle of mail in the mailbox at the gate and then drove away. She couldn't recall being home this early to actually see the postman delivering mail.
Through the years she had quarreled whenever Brandon left a monetary gift for him at Christmas. She thought it was excess; after all, he was just doing his job.
She got out of the car and headed to the letterbox, pulling out the fistful of letters, and walked slowly to the house.
How had her life come to this?
Really. How?
She once had it all: an attentive husband who loved her to distraction and would do anything for her...now she was the one who was fighting to keep their marriage together.
She threw the bundle of letters on the side table for Brandon to deal with as usual but then the words A and E Genetics caught her eye.
Genetics Laboratory.
She picked it up and leaned on the wall. No, he didn't. She felt a cold
hand of fear clasp her heart; she was so weak with it that she slumped on the wall. Why was Brandon doing this to her? It was unconscionable. He had changed so much. At least he used to take her word for things. Now he was actually checking up on what she said, like he was some sort of super sleuth.
She opened the letter with shaking hands and then read through it.
She heard footsteps at the top of the stairs and she shoved it in her bag. She hadn't realized that Brandon was even around. By the time he had appeared at the top of the stairs and was making his way down, she had kicked off her shoes and arranged herself on the settee with her hand on top of her head.
Brandon didn't even say hi to her as he sifted through the letters. She watched him as he looked through each one with a disappointed frown on his face.
Well, good for you, Ashley thought waspishly. How dare you question my integrity?
She felt Brandon's eyes on her as he spun around.
"Ashley." His voice was harsh, as usual. Was he any way else these days?
"Yes," she whispered. "My head is pounding; can you keep your voice down a notch?"
"No," Brandon shouted. "Where is the letter from A and E Genetics?"
Ashley opened her eyes wide. "What letter?"
Brandon sighed. "You never bring in the mail. Never. You usually leave it up to me. Now, where is that letter? They said it would be here today."
Ashley groaned. "Seriously, Brandon, it is the first day that I have ever seen the postman. I have a headache but I decided to get the post and save you the trip. I am changing a bit, aren't I? I am trying to save our marriage and proving to you that I can change. This is just one of the things that constitutes the new Ashley. I get home early and I get the post. I put them there, on the side table where you always put them. What is A and E Genetics--is that an engineering firm?"
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