200 Letters

by Amy Watkins

  Then my job got wind that I was under investigation for child molestation and recommended I resign. They told me that it would be better than being fired. That way, when I was exonerated, I’d have a better chance at being rehired. I agreed it would be best—so I resigned…from my dream job.

  With that, I hit rock bottom. I was in a bad place. I felt cold and alone. I had no job. I had no money. I had no shoulder to cry on. And I couldn’t see my kids. Those were some of the worst moments of my life. I desperately needed some encouragement. So, I went home to Kentucky.

  I didn’t admit that I had lost my job; I wasn’t ready for them to hear it. But I spoke with my mom and Caroline a lot about the hurt I felt from my second failed marriage. They listened and both became great shoulders to cry on. They didn’t know what to say, but their hugs and empathy made a world of difference. They encouraged me. “Everything will be okay,” Naomi would say. “Hang in there,” Caroline added. “Tracy is no good. You don’t deserve this. Let her go and look forward to a better future. I’m sure God has someone out there who will give you the love and kindness that you deserve.”

  I prayed to God nightly and debated daily whether or not I should try to work things out with Tracy. I had nothing and she had everything. Leaving was too hard. And…she’s my wife— right? Through thick and thin, right? But even Jesus said that you could divorce when there was infidelity. And I was miserable being married to her, but I was more miserable alone. I had no idea what to do. I asked for help and direction because I was feeling low. My whole life had fallen apart. Tracy’s vindictiveness and affairs really put me in a bad place and I didn’t know what to do.

  One night, a vision came to me while I was praying. All of the sudden, I plainly heard a man’s voice behind me. Looking over my shoulder, surprised, I realized I was alone. Closing my eyes, I heard him again. I turned around and heard the voice behind me again. Every way I turned, God spoke to me. I couldn’t see Him and He ended up behind me every time I tried to turn to face Him.

  “Why do you feel you need to work things out with Tracy?” He asked. He placed his hands on my shoulders and pulled my soul out of my flesh. I was having an out of body experience. It was like something straight out of Dr. Strange. Scenes from my life played in front of me.

  “Look at your life. It does not matter what you do, the outcome will always be the same if you stay with Tracy. You and Tracy are not equally yoked. You have gone above and beyond and she doesn’t appreciate a thing,” He explained.

  I saw several occasions where I bent over backward only to get the short end of the stick. I gave her a lot of me and put most of my life on hold for her. I could have taken my career to another level were it not for her demands. I could have taken my spiritual growth to another level had I not foolishly followed her instead of God. I worked my ass off for her, trying in vain to be a good husband. But in the process, I forgot to be a good Christian, a good son, a good friend, and a good father.

  I turned towards the voice again but could not see Him. I asked, “Why won’t she acknowledge all the things I’ve done? Why won’t she compromise?”

  He continued, “Some people will never appreciate anything you do because they are not meant for you. You were on a spiritual journey before you met and married her. You walked a path most are unable to follow—the narrow one. She has chosen a different course. Did you not notice she always had some excuse not to go every time you asked her to go to church with you?”

  At that moment, He replayed several instances when I asked Tracy to attend church with me and she refused. The few times she did go, she wasn’t into it. Instead of getting into the Word, she was sucking her teeth, rolling her eyes, and looked bored.

  I sat in silence, observing scenes from my marriage.

  “Married couples are a team. The only time Tracy rooted for you is when it benefited her,” He explained.

  He showed me a memory of a time when I was working late, wanting to finish some things so that the next day would run smoother for me and all my coworkers. Tracy was furious. She texted and called me several times, asking my whereabouts and accusing me of having an affair. I explained to her where I was and why. I even took a picture to show her, but it didn’t matter. She still did not believe me. I finally gave up and went home, leaving those tasks half finished.

  I hung my head down, realizing I needed to walk away from our toxic relationship. I needed to become the man I was destined to be. But how? I never had a good male role model. I never met my father and he died when I was a teenager. My stepfathers were not very good men.

  I asked, “What do I need to do? How do I bounce back from this?”

  “First, you need to keep your head up. No one is perfect. You must take the good and bad and own it. Once you own it, you learn from your mistakes and grow into the good man that I know you are. There will be many devils trying to steer you wrong—some close to you and some not. You need to block those devils in your ear. I will continue to help you grow and teach you. There will be hard lessons if you don’t listen,” He replied.

  I was upset when I awakened. I felt like a fool for allowing myself to be played. I lost everything, and I had a feeling there was more to come. Tracy was a very vengeful person and I knew she was not done trying to harm me. It didn’t matter that I was the father of her son. It didn’t matter that I had been a good husband to her. She was out for blood.

  My mom and Caroline continued encouraging me. Their words helped and the dream helped; but I still hurt. I turned to the bottle to mask the pain. I got wasted just about every day and dwelled in my pain. Caroline was there to listen. She told me more things Tracy had done during our marriage. She once hacked my phone to get evidence of me cheating so that she could leave me and get alimony; but it didn’t work because I had never cheated on her.

  I knew Caroline was telling the truth because I already had suspicions that my phone had been hacked. It began lagging, and some of my friends and family said they received messages from me that I hadn’t sent—some about me leaving Tracy for a man and others asking for money.

  Caroline also told me that Tracy began cheating only months after we were married. She told me Tracy confessed to her that she’d slept with my brother Quentin while I was deployed. I couldn’t believe my brother would do something like that, but I called him to confirm.

  I had a tough time getting ahold of Quentin because he constantly changed his number. I called Ricky, and he didn’t believe that Quentin would do something so foul, but he gave me Quentin’s number to check anyway.

  “Yo, bro,” Quentin said when I called and confronted him, “I know your wife ain’t been faithful but I never touched her. Ya know, I tried to tell you that you can’t change a ho into a housewife.”

  “What?” I thought, “Those exact words were in that text from an unknown number. Could that have been my brother, all along?”

  I tried to convince Quentin to let me go over to his place. I wanted to talk to him in person to see for myself whether or not he was lying. But he avoided me. He wouldn’t answer the door when I went to his apartment. He stopped answering my calls and he changed his number again. I asked Ricky for Quentin’s new number, but Quentin already made Ricky promise that he wouldn’t give it to me.

  “See, I told you,” Caroline said as she sat next to me on my mother’s couch. “Quentin wouldn’t avoid you if he was telling the truth.”

  I was even more devastated. It hurt when I knew a stranger was fucking my wife, but to find out it was my own brother was crushing.

  “Caroline, I want Tracy to hurt as much as me.” I said as I took another sip from the almost empty bottle of Jack Daniels, “I have been faithful to her. I’ve done everything she asked of me and she is fucking my brother? I want her to hurt, too.”

  Caroline nodded her head in understanding. I leaned over and kissed her but she pulled away and looked at me. Then she leaned over and kissed me back. She grabbed my hand and led me to
her bedroom.

  I woke up naked the next morning, still a little nauseated from last night’s drinking binge. Caroline lay next to me, awake and naked.

  “Damn, did we…?” I asked.

  “Mmm, hmm. A few times.”

  “Damn. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. You okay?”

  “Yeah,” she looked annoyed as she yanked on her clothes.

  I hoped I would feel better knowing that I had my revenge. Tracy slept with my brother so I slept with her friend. But it did not solve any of my problems; instead, I felt guilty.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I think you are a great friend, but I am not ready for anything more. I’m sorry if I hurt or misled you.”

  “You ain’t hurt me,” Caroline replied. “I don’t want you in that way either. You’re not my type. I just felt sorry for you, that’s all. I’m good.”

  After that, I decided to slow down and start focusing on getting my life back on track. Tracy was determined to take me for everything I had while making me regret standing up for myself.

  Caroline and Tracy still texted every night, but Tracy didn’t know Caroline was my little informant. She shared all of Tracy’s plans with me, which helped me to prepare for the divorce proceedings. Tracy issued a change of address with the post office so that I could not receive mail from the court, making it seem I abandoned the residence. Then she filed for emergency child and spousal support. She figured she could demand whatever she wanted at that hearing and it would be granted to her if I didn’t come to court. Had it not been for Caroline, I would never have known I had a court date coming up.

  I was at the local library preparing for the hearing when Caroline called to tell me she was pregnant with my child and that she was debating what to do. I was shocked and scared, but I wanted to be supportive. It was then that I confessed I had lost my job and had no money but assured her I would be there for her no matter what.

  I started receiving all types of emails from fake email addresses. I knew they were from Tracy. The emails contained slang she used often and some of the content of the emails were similar to things we had fought about before we separated. I tried to trace the emails back to the source so that I would have more substantial proof that Tracy was threatening me, but they were untraceable. Each email was about two to three paragraphs long and filled with threats:

  To Ethan, From Wifey369: Your kids will be fatherless and your mom will be wearing black soon. Guns and Roses, Bitch. Till death do us part. DEATH! I can’t wait for your bitch ass mother to die from that breast cancer.

  She sent messages, day and night.

  Sometimes, she talked about meeting up to try to resolve our issues. Then those emails were followed by more threatening or lewd emails. Sometimes, she would even talk about Cierra.

  To Ethan, From Wifey369: That fat nasty bitch of a daughter you got? She will never measure to my Madeline. Madeline’s your only true daughter.

  Tracy’s rage didn’t stop there. She posted all kinds of crazy statements on social media.

  “I caught my husband fucking another man and then he beat me up and left me with no money and no food. He cut the lights off at our house and stopped paying the rent. He uses all of his money on male prostitutes. He doesn’t contribute any finances to our children. But I am a survivor. I will survive,” her post read.

  Ty called me up, “Man, did you see what Tracy wrote on her page?”

  “Yeah, I saw it. It’s not true. We are separated, but the rest of that shit is all lies.”

  “I know, man. I didn’t believe it for a second. I unfriended and blocked her. But Imma pray for you, man. Told ya, leave them crazy chicks alone.”

  “I know, right? Now, I’m having trouble getting a job. They Google my name and her page and those posts pop up. No one wants to hire me.”

  “Damn, that’s fucked up.”

  Chapter 6 – Angela

  I drove up I-95 and my phone started ringing. I saw it was Terrell and ignored it. Another call, Terrell. I put the phone on mute and made my way to Ronda’s house. When I got there, Ronda’s husband, Cedric answered the door.

  “Oh man, Angela, Ronda is on her way to your house,” he said as he let me in. “You guys okay?”

  We all looked sad and hurt.

  “Yes,” I said, “We are okay.” The kids nodded in agreement and I ushered them upstairs to go hang out with Ronda’s two kids.

  Cedric came over and gave me a big hug. “Oh, Angela, I’m so sorry.”

  “Thanks, I needed that.”

  I finally took my phone off silent and saw I had three missed calls from Ronda and seven from Terrell. I called Ronda. “Girl, where are you?” I asked.

  “I’m almost at your house. Where are you?”

  I snickered. “I’m at your house.”

  We laughed, “Imma go to your house, then I’ll head up there.”

  “Okay, cool.” Next, I texted Janice:

  We made it home but Terrell was there with another girl, so we left.

  I was sure she didn’t know what to say. It took her a while to text back, and when she did it was only a sad face with a tear drop and one word— “Sorry”.

  The reality that I was about to become a single parent again sunk in, as was the reality my marriage was over. And it finally hit me that Terrell had been cheating on me, meaning I had unprotected sex with this hound dog throughout our entire marriage. What if he gave me something? What if he gave me HIV? What if Amber was pregnant? I prayed. “Lord, please be with me. Please help me keep it together. Please don’t let me have any sexually transmitted diseases but, please, heal my body if I do.”

  God spoke to me, “Terrell is trying to ruin your destiny. Time for you to escape. He is headed down a dark path filled with drugs and disease. He will infect you if you stay.”

  I thought of the dog’s vomit on my living room floor. God continued to speak, “Terrell is choosing not to change. I have given him the way and he chose not to take it. He is the dog going back to his own vomit. He is the pig going back to the mud pile. And he will continue to do it whether you stay or not. That is what is really in Terrell’s heart.”

  An hour later, Ronda came through the door and she had Lana. “You brought the dog?” I smiled as I gave Lana a hug and a pat.

  “Lana did not want to be in there with them fools. She knew something was wrong.”

  “Yeah, that’s probably why she threw up on the carpet.”

  “Hell, I couldn’t leave her there. She looked at me so pitifully, I was like, ‘Come on Lana!’ and she jumped in the car with me without batting an eye. You got a smart dog.”

  “So, what happened? Are they still at my house?”

  “Well, I talked to Terrell. He said that girl is his drug dealer and they were just doing drugs.” I looked at her sceptically. “Well, maybe he’s not lying.” Cedric and I both looked at her sceptically. “Terrell showed me the drugs. I took pictures.” She thumbed through her photos. “I got one of her license plate too, just in case.”

  Good, more evidence, “Send them to me,” I said.

  “That girl was not cute. Do you really think he’d mess with a girl like that?”

  Cedric interjected, “I think Terrell is an asshole. He’d fuck anything. And I tell you like this, there ain’t gonna be a girl at no niggas house at nine o’clock in the morning if they ain’t fucking.”

  I agreed with Cedric. “Well, are they still at my house?”

  “They were still there when I left, but said they were leaving.”

  “Damn.”

  I texted Terrell:

  Me: You gone yet?

  Terrell: Yes, we left.

  I stayed at Ronda’s house for a few more hours. I couldn’t think straight. All I could think about was Terrell fucking that girl. I imagined him having an orgasm with her the way he did with me. I wondered if she was better than me and that’s why he cheated. Did I suck in bed? Is that why he treated me
so bad? I thought of herpes, genital warts, gonorrhoea, and AIDS. The whole situation made me sick to my stomach. I felt faint but decided to go back, so I dropped Jordan and Jasmine off at their house and kissed them good-bye. Then I went home.

  When I got there, the house felt so…dirty. I immediately started cleaning. I washed the dishes, shampooed carpet stains, put away misplaced items, and then swept the floors. When I made my way upstairs, I started cleaning my bathroom and bedroom. While I was trying to collect any items from under my bed, I pulled out a pair of black underwear that I knew were not mine. They were a unique pair with rhinestones and lace. They were large, stretched out, and tattered at the seams. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back and I finally broke down and cried. “I can’t believe this. How can he be so cruel? He gonna fuck some girl in my bed? My bed. He doesn’t even fuck me in my bed.” I cried loud and shouted to God, “How can he be so cruel?” I pulled myself together and grabbed my phone, managing to take a picture. More evidence.

  I couldn’t sleep in my bed that night. I couldn’t even sit on it. The thought of them fucking in my bed made me sick. So, I slept on the couch. Then I wondered if they fucked on my couch. I got up and washed the slipcover on the couch, too. Then I put some freshly washed sheets down on the floor in Abigail’s room and slept there.

  Terrell called me in the middle of the night. “Baby, don’t hang up,” he begged, “Please, listen to me.”

  I grit my teeth and growled, “Fine, I’m listening.”

  “Look, I didn’t sleep with her. I put that on everything. I promise you. She is nothing to me. I love you. I want to make this work with you.”

  “Mmm hmm. Try again. This time try the truth.”

  “Angela, I’m telling you the truth. Come on. You know I wouldn’t do you like that.”

  “Then what the fuck are her panties doing in my bed? You fucking this bitch in my bed!”