As was her usual, she launched into a string of screaming curse words. I hung up after the first F-bomb. I turned the phone off and laid it on the nightstand table. I made a mental note not to answer any more phone calls from unknown numbers. I went back to sleep, trying to decide whether I would tell Brianna she had called.
I didn’t wonder long. The next morning, I slept a little later than usual and Brianna pounced on me. “Wake up, Daddy.” I opened my eyes to see her jumping on the bed around me.
“Morning, baby girl.”
She disappeared and came back a few minutes later with her diabetes kit. “Hurry up, Daddy. She’ll be here soon.”
I was half asleep, but checked Brianna’s sugar. She grabbed a pencil and wrote the number down. We were going through logbooks twice as fast because her first-grader handwriting was huge and took up two lines instead of one. But I thought it was important that she took an active role in her diabetes, so I bought plenty of logbooks.
Brianna ran out of the room and ran back in a few minutes later dressed in a new pair of jeans Cassandra had bought her, and a bright pink sweater. “How do I look, Daddy?”
“Beautiful, sweetie.” I laid my head back down and closed my eyes.
“You sure, Daddy? I have to be extra-special cute today. After art class, Miss Cassandra is taking me to Build-A-Bear at the mall. We’re having a special godmommy day.”
“That’s good, Brianna. You look fine.” She disappeared back into her room again.
I was still sleepy and grateful that Cassandra was taking Brianna for the day. We had developed a routine. Most Friday nights Brianna would spend with her grandparents so I could take Cassandra out somewhere. Cassandra picked Brianna up at my parents’ house Saturday mornings on her way to art class and then they had “godmommy time” afterward. It was usually something simple like McDonald’s or going to this special ice cream shop in downtown Decatur where they had diabetic ice cream. Other days, like today apparently, they’d go for an all-afternoon outing. Cassandra would drop Brianna off and then I’d do something special with my little girl on Saturday nights.
On Sundays, we all went to church. On Cassandra’s Sundays off from children’s church, we sat together with Chuckie and Tisha. A few weeks after that last time in the emergency room, me and Cassandra became an official couple. Since I had graduated to “her man” status, I could sit with her in church.
After church on Sundays, me, Brianna, and Cassandra had family dinner with my parents. On Wednesday, Cassandra’s day off, she would either cook me and Brianna a big dinner and we’d go to her house and eat, or we’d all go out to a restaurant.
Dating Cassandra made my life more fun than it had been in years. She liked to do all kinds of different things. We went to art galleries, museum exhibits, and arts festivals. She liked to go to all kinds of theatre stuff like plays and ballets. At first, I wasn’t feeling the idea of going to the theatre, but it was actually kinda nice. Well, the plays were cool. Ballet? Not so much.
But she went and played pool with me, even though she wasn’t that good at it. She was willing to embarrass herself at the bowling alley, even though almost every ball for her was a gutter ball. And we watched football together every Sunday and had even gone to a couple of Falcons games with Chuckie and Tisha. She understood the game perfectly and sometimes screamed and yelled louder than me.
Sometimes things got kinda expensive, but I enjoyed doing different stuff and she was worth it, so I didn’t complain. Plus, I had extra cash every month since I didn’t have to pay child support anymore. I considered Cassandra a worthwhile investment.
At first, it was strange trying to figure out how to date Cassandra with her being Brianna’s godmother. It was too late for my rule about a woman not meeting my daughter until I was seriously serious about her, planning on marrying her. Cassandra was a part of Brianna’s life from the time when we first met. And for real, I had finally dealt with my Natalie issues and had decided I was seriously serious about Cassandra.
“How’s this, Daddy?”
I opened my eyes. Brianna had changed into a pale blue sweater and had added an orange hat and some lime-green tennis shoes. I would never know why my mother bought those ugly shoes for her. Brianna loved them even though they didn’t match anything she wore.
“Cute, Bree. Very cute.”
“Daddy, you didn’t even hardly look at me. Why are you such a sleepyhead this morning?”
I looked into Brianna’s happy face and decided at that moment that the last thing she needed was to hear that her mother had called, hadn’t even asked about her, and was trying to come back to Atlanta to get married and have a new baby. If Shauntae decided to show up later in Brianna’s life as she had promised, we’d deal with it then. But for now, I wanted Brianna to stay as happy as she was in this moment. “No reason, baby girl. Daddy’s just being lazy.”
I didn’t tell her I was up a few hours after the phone call from her mother, wondering if there was anything I needed to be worried about. What if Shauntae tried to sneak back into Georgia to marry the poor dude who now shared my misfortune of knocking her up? I honestly believed her when she said that she wouldn’t try to contact Brianna. If she came back for this dude, she wouldn’t need to kidnap Brianna or try to get any money out of me. If he was as good a man as she said he was, she wouldn’t try anything crazy that would jeopardize their relationship. Knowing Shauntae, she probably hadn’t even told him that Brianna existed.
I was more worried about what would happen if Brianna saw Shauntae one day—maybe at the mall or in McDonald’s or somewhere. If she saw her mother with a new baby, a new man, and maybe some stepchildren, what would it do to her?
Brianna pounced onto my chest. “Daddy, get up and get me breakfast. Miss Cassandra will be here any minute and I haven’t eaten or taken any insulin yet.”
“Okay, Bree. Did you wash your face and brush your teeth? I know you’re excited, but you don’t want to go to art class with eye crusties and stinky breath do you?”
She giggled. “No, Daddy.” She jumped off the bed and started to run out of the room and then came back and grabbed my foot and shook it. “Get up now, Daddy. If I leave, you’re gonna fall back asleep again.”
“No, I’m not. I’ll race ya.” I sat up in the bed. “Last one to the kitchen is a rotten egg.”
She screamed and went tearing down the hall to her bathroom. I pried myself out of bed, brushed my teeth, washed my face, and put on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt.
I heard Brianna scream from the kitchen, “I beat you, Daddy. You’re a rotten egg.”
“Did you clean the toothpaste off the sink and hang up your towel? You haven’t beaten me if you left your bathroom messy.”
I heard her tear back down the hall to her bathroom and splash some water. I sat down on the bed to give her a few minutes to win our morning ritual that kept me from having to fight with her to get dressed every morning. Once a week or so, I’d have to beat her to keep the game interesting, but most of the time, she won. A few seconds later, I heard her feet clomping back down the hall to the kitchen.
“Now I won,” she yelled. “Haha ha. I beat you again, Daddy.”
I walked into the kitchen. “Yes, you did, baby girl. Daddy’s gotta try harder.”
I took out some frozen pancakes, frozen sausage, and diabetic syrup we had found that actually tasted decent. After everything was heated up, I put Brianna’s plate down in front of her. She had a thoughtful look on her face. I could only imagine what was coming. As always, I didn’t have to wonder long.
“Daddy, now that you have this new job, are we gonna get a new house?”
“Huh?” I wasn’t expecting that.
“Now that you have a new job and you’re making more money, we can get a new house, right?”
I frowned, wondering where this line of questioning was coming from. Two weeks prior, I had started a new job. Cassandra had continued pressing me with questions about my dreams and what I wan
ted to do with my life and what kind of job would really make me happy. She hated when she called me in the afternoon at work to find me playing Sudoku or checking football stats. After about a month of her bugging me with her “purpose and destiny questions” as she called them, I got to thinking. Since I was no longer in survival mode with Brianna and Shauntae, I could give her questions some consideration.
After us talking about it for a while, I had applied for a few jobs and had landed a new one—still in IT, but now I got to do some programming and quality assurance stuff. It held my interest and actually challenged my brain. Best part was, I was making about 50 percent more than I had at my last job.
“Why would we need a new house, Bree? You don’t like this one anymore? I thought you liked your princess room.”
“I do, Daddy.” She chewed on a piece of sausage, obviously trying to figure out how to say what she wanted to say. “But don’t you think we need more space? I mean, this house is good for two people, but if another person wanted to move in, don’t you think this would be too small?”
It dawned on me where this was coming from. Last week after church, Chuckie and Tisha invited me and Cassandra to go see the house they were thinking about buying. Chuckie had finally popped the question about a month ago. Since they didn’t plan on having a long engagement, they had been looking at houses for a few weeks in anticipation of moving soon. We went right after church, so Brianna had gone with us and I guessed that’s when the idea started percolating in her head.
“What other person might want to move in with us?” I said it all innocent, like I had no idea what she was talking about.
Brianna let out an exasperated breath. “Daddy!” She rolled her eyes in that way she did when I knew she was thinking I had to be the dumbest daddy on the planet. She had kept our deal of not mentioning me and Cassandra getting married other than in her prayers. But she made enough indirect hints about it that she might as well have come out and said it.
The doorbell rang. Brianna’s face lit up. “She’s here!” She almost broke her neck falling out of the chair to race to the door. You’d have thought she didn’t see Cassandra several times a week the way she acted each time she came over.
I walked into the living room in time to see them doing the “happy to see you” dance they did every time they got together.
After Brianna finished squeezing the life out of Cassandra, I moved in for my own hug.
“Hey.” I still loved the way she fit perfectly in my arms and I was still intoxicated by her peachy smell. About a month ago, she tried to switch to another fragrance, but I insisted on those sweet peaches. Even took her to Victoria’s Secret to stock up on that heavenly scent.
“Hey.” She studied my eyes. “Didn’t sleep well?”
“Got an interesting phone call last night.” I looked down at Brianna and said, “Tell you about it when you guys get back.”
Cassandra frowned, trying to read my expression.
“Later. I promise.”
“Okay. You ready for tomorrow?”
I smiled. “Yeah. I got everything the instructions told us to wear.”
She smiled back at me. “Good. It’s gonna be a special day.”
Me and Brianna were getting baptized in church the next day. A few weeks back, Brianna had accepted Jesus during children’s church. She freaked out when she found out that getting baptized meant she actually had to go under water. She asked me if I could go in the water with her. I explained to her that it was something she needed to do by herself and that God would take good care of her in the baptismal pool. When I thought about it later, I figured it might be a good idea for me to go under again. I had gotten baptized as a kid in my parents’ church, but it didn’t really mean anything to me then. Now that I was grown and had made the decision to live for God myself, I figured it would be a good idea to get baptized of my own will.
“I hope you’re not doing too much,” I said.
“Just a little something something. I think it’s a great reason to celebrate.”
Cassandra was going over to my parents’ house later that evening to cook for a feast we were having after church the next day. She wanted to have a big dinner to celebrate my and Brianna’s baptisms. Chuckie and Tisha and AJ and his family were going to join us.
“Can we go now?” Brianna pretended to be irritated by my and Cassandra’s quiet conversation, but we both knew she loved seeing us together.
Cassandra looked down at Brianna and ruffled the orange hat. “Yes, chickadee, we can go.” She looked back up at me. “Get some rest while we’re out, okay? Don’t be looking all tired when I get back here.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I kissed her on the forehead. “Love you.”
Cassandra smiled like she did the first time I said those words over a month ago. “Love you, too.” She tilted her face up and I planted a soft kiss on her lips.
As I watched her saunter her fine self down the driveway to her car, walking hand in hand with Brianna, who was chattering a mile a minute, I decided that Brianna was right.
We did need to start looking at new houses. Just as soon as I finished paying for the ring I had picked out.
The End
Reading Guide Questions
1. After their break-up, Regina calls Devon and says that something must be wrong with him since he can’t make a commitment to a relationship. What do you think is the cause of Devon’s “commitment issues?”
2. Devon is upset that Shauntae has company in the house while Brianna is there. Shauntae points out that he sleeps with women he’s not married to. Is he being hypocritical in his anger toward Shauntae?
3. Cassandra tells Devon that she’s not trying to be anybody’s girlfriend; she’s the “marrying kind.” Is it unwise for a woman to say this so early in getting to know a man?
4. Devon says that some women love a man who’s devoted to his child. Is this true and why?
5. Cassandra tells Devon that to be with him, she has to break all the rules she made to protect her heart from getting broken again. Where did these rules come from and was it wise for Cassandra to break them?
6. Devon says that he expected that Chuckie would turn out to be an old player like his dad and uncles. Devon’s father says that he expected Devon to be a family man and raise his children in the church as he had been raised. Why did they have these expectations?
7. Even though he grew up in church, why is Devon so surprised about Cassandra and her “no fornication rule?”
8. Is it possible for a couple to stay celibate without both people being completely committed to it?
9. Even though Shauntae left Brianna in the house alone on more than one occasion, Devon didn’t want to put her in jail. Why do you think he made this decision and was it the right one?
10. Shauntae accuses Devon of ruining her life because he won’t lift the warrant. Why does she say this? Should Devon lift the warrant?
Biography
Sherri is the Essence bestselling author of My Soul Cries Out, Dance Into Destiny, The List, and Selling My Soul. She attended Howard University as an undergraduate, then the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
After working for ten years in the medical field, Sherri recently left the medical field to pursue writing and ministry full time.
Sherri recently founded the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry—Cameroon and graduated the pioneer class in 2011. She has been privileged to preach the gospel of the Kingdom in Cameroon and Nigeria and looks forward to reaching more of the continent of Africa.
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Finding Mrs. Wright Page 20