Second Thoughts

by Kristofer Clarke

  “Trust me, man. I wasn’t going to ask you that.”

  Chance sat on the other end of the phone, silent. His silence made me nervous. What the hell was he going to ask me?

  “Where’s my father?” he finally asked.

  I thought carefully about my response. I didn’t know what he already knew.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Come on, Patrick. Don’t tell me you’re still protecting me? And I guess that’s what Colleen has been doing, since she hasn’t said anything to me, either. At dinner you kept referring to Omar as this man I keep claiming to be my father.”

  “I remember,” I admitted.

  “What else are you and Mother not telling me?’ What Omar did, I don’t think my father would have done something like that to me, his own son. So I need you to tell me the truth. I’m twenty-four years old, so whatever the truth is, I’m sure I can handle it.”

  “Okay.”

  I waited for Chance to ask his question. I had a pretty good idea what he was going to ask. I hated that I would be the one to tell him, after we’ve managed to keep it from him all this time. I didn’t think there was any harm in helping Mother keep this undamaging truth from Chance, but after his disclosure, I’d realized keeping this from him had already done more harm than good.

  “Am I adopted?”

  “Yes,” I answered without hesitating.

  Chance was quiet. Although he asked his question with certainty, it was obvious my reply had disappointed him.

  I told Chance he was adopted from The Children’s Home in Tampa when he was two years old. Colleen and Omar had fallen in love with him the moment they saw him running through the house, his hands flailing above his head. He had a carefree spirit and a smile to die for. The faces of those around him would disappear before they would become familiar, though not all of them had been so lucky. Some would leave only to return, for one reason or another, before they had a chance to be missed.

  Chance’s mother was a teenager from California. After she’d met my mother, Omar, and me, the deal was sealed. He was introduced to us as Phillip-Michael. That’s all I remembered, no last name. By the time he came home he had become Chance Duvall-Parker, though every document, including his first basketball contract, was signed Chance Parker. I’m not sure when he’d stopped using the name that connected him to Omar, and I never bothered to ask.

  “So you know my birthmother?”

  “I don’t remember her name or much else about her, and I doubt any reference to her exists on your amended birth certificate. I know the best person for you to ask. Why don’t you meet me at Colleen’s? I haven’t told her I was coming, as grandma suggested, so seeing the two us there could be a nice surprise.”

  “Cool.” Chance agreed. “I’ll see you there in a few.”

  “Hey, Chance. I need to tell you,” I started to add, but the silence on the other end interrupted me. Chance had hung up. I didn’t bother calling him back. If Khoury was pulling wool over my brother’s eyes, he was definitely going to know about it. I was hoping to tell him sooner rather than later, but it seemed I had no choice; later would have to do.

  Chapter 21

  DaMarcus…

  Stupid

  I stood in the living room looking at the large wedding picture above the fireplace―the one that was taken as we renewed our vows. She looked happy. My story was persuasive. She believed me when I told her I was nothing like her ex-boyfriend Terrence, the only other man she’s every loved, the only other man to hurt her. Staying around and waiting for a man to fall back in love with you is the worst thing a woman could do, and that’s exactly what Belinda did. Against her better judgment she allowed herself to fall deeper in love with Terrance while he fell deeper in love with the woman he now calls his wife.

  Belinda had no doubt that I was telling her the truth when I gave her the story that Taylor and her then fiancé Chad had been fighting, and she just needed someplace safe ‘till both their tempers had cooled. Taylor was enraged when she showed up at the house that night. Unfortunately, it was the same night Belinda and her best friend Shayna came home early from their Caribbean getaway to the Parrot Cay Resort in the Turks and Caicos Island. What I didn’t tell Belinda was that Taylor and Chad had that fight because she’d decided to tell him the baby he thought was his, was actually mine. No, Belinda found that out from Taylor herself. Taylor sat in the front row in the backyard of Belinda’s childhood home next to Dexter, Belinda’s best friend, and listened to my vows to Belinda, and then to Belinda’s vows. Before that, she and Dexter serenaded Belinda and me with their rendition of ‘For Love, For Ever’―just as I had asked her to.

  Taylor wore a Cerulean blue Armani couture gown with matching teardrop diamond earrings and a December Lady necklace whose heart-shaped diamond sat nestled in her cleavage between lifted breasts. Those were my hush gifts to her. I guess the only thing that would have kept Taylor quiet was having me to herself. After all, that was all she’s ever wanted. She’d made that clear on several occasions, but all I had to do to shut her up was to tell her I loved her. I was telling her the truth; I just didn’t love her enough to leave my wife. After Taylor watched Belinda and I renew our vows, she wrote her letter to Belinda⎯just like she wanted to. She knew what that admission would do to my marriage, but what did she care? I guess that was her way of righting her wrong, especially when she realized her plans to get me for herself weren’t going to work. Instead of running to Taylor, I did what I needed to keep my wife in my life. Most of what I did was lie, but I wasn’t lying when I told my wife I loved her. What the hell would make Taylor think I would ever leave my wife for her anyway?

  So, I was staring at this picture, looking at this woman who was no longer my wife, wondering how dumb could I have been to have messed that up. I had Belinda’s French style diamond wedding band on my pinky finger. She’d removed it from her finger and placed it on the divorce decree right after she’d signed her name. I held the cell phone in the other hand, trying to persuade myself not to call her, but the reasons why I shouldn’t had outnumbered the reasons I should, and I dialed anyway.

  “I don’t know what you want, DaMarcus, but you better make this quick,” Belinda answered.

  She sounded out of breath, as if she had just run up a flight of stairs.

  “I was calling to see how you’re doing.”

  “Just like the last phone call, and the ones before that, I’m doing just fine. Nothing has changed,” she answered horridly. “I’m getting along very well in my life without you, DaMarcus Nealon. Now, is that all? ‘Cause that response should just about cover any other questions you may have.”

  Before I could answer, I heard his voice in the background.

  “Honey, the Gala starts in another hour. We’re going to be late. Who are you talking to?”

  Damn, I thought, someone else was calling Belinda “honey”. My heart sank. But it was her response that made it sink even lower.

  “It’s no one, baby,” Belinda responded as if whom she was talking to didn’t matter and could be easily dismissed. “Look, DaMarcus,” she said, speaking back directly into the phone, “I can’t stand here and entertain you. I have someplace to be with my fiancé.”

  “Do you have to be so callous? You don’t have to act like I don’t matter; like you never loved me.”

  “It’s not an act,” she declared. “When it comes to you, yes, I do have to be, as you say, callous, unless you think I’m supposed to give a damn about your feelings when you’ve pissed all over mine. Is that it, DaMarcus? Have I hurt your feelings? Okay, you want to know if you still matter, if I still love you? Fine. You did matter, DaMarcus, and I did love you, up until I found out about your lies. Now I get to feel that way about someone else, and I can’t help it if that someone else is not you.”

  “So that’s it? Everything we had isn’t worth holding on to?”

  “Everything? You know, that’s a funny word, coming from you. You did say I was
your everything. The question is when did that become a lie, too?”

  She paused and waited for me to respond.

  “I wish you could hear how you sound. Just think. If it weren’t for Taylor and her conscience, I would still be laying next to you, thinking I almost lost you because I didn’t give my husband the benefit of the doubt. I’m sure Taylor had her reasons for telling me the truth, my only question is, why didn’t you?”

  “The truth wouldn’t have made you stay.”

  “Only now you will never know. I’d been so cautious when it came to love. I’d made mistakes that I wasn’t going to repeat when it came to a man’s love. I’d promised myself I would never let anyone close to my heart again, but I let my guard down and fell for you. And look what I got for loving you. I used to think you hung the moon.”

  “I know I hurt you,” I admitted.

  “Really!?” she said sarcastically. “And how long did it take for you to figure that out.”

  “He doesn’t understand you, Belinda.”

  “Please. Leave Shedrick out of this. He’s only the beneficiary of your mistakes, your dishonesties, and your unfaithfulness. Need I go on? And don’t presume to know anything about him. He’ll learn from your mistake. God knows you didn’t learn from anything I told you about Terrence. But you are just a man. You probably thought you could cheat better than he did. All Shedrick needs to understand is that I don’t want to be hurt. I thought you understood that, DaMarcus. You were supposed to take care of me.”

  “And I did,” I quickly interjected.

  “Forever,” she interrupted. “Not just until the next easy woman waved her panties in front of your face. That was the scent of your attraction. And now what? I know this isn’t exactly what you bargained for, DaMarcus,”

  “Our time away hasn’t changed my love.”

  “That’s your issue to deal with. Frankly, your love should have. As you can see, I’ve moved on.” She paused. “Don’t you have women throwing themselves at you during your football games? Now you have nothing to keep you from acknowledging their advances. Clearly your marriage to me never did.”

  “I want it all back, Belinda,” I said as I sat on the floor next to the fireplace with my back against the wall and my knees folded close to my chest. I had my head in my hand, and although I hated to admit it, I was fighting back tears. I remembered the times I would rush home to her because I hated every minute I was away from her. I remembered when her nights belonged to me. I was ready to break into a verso of Mary J. Blige’s I’m Going Down, if it meant getting my wife back. That’s exactly where I felt like I was going.

  “This ‘all’ you want back, does it include what you had with Taylor, too?”

  “Don’t be stupid.”

  “Sorry, my darling ex-husband,” she spoke mockingly. “Just like love doesn’t live here anymore, stupid moved out a long time ago, too. Stupid loved you. Stupid sat at home and cried every night that image of you and Taylor crept in. Stupid stood at that bedroom door while the tears brought headaches because I couldn’t bring myself to sleep in the room I’d seen my husband and his woman in. Stupid sat at L’Enchantment and listened to your expertly crafted lies, and when it was all said and done, Stupid took your lying-ass back. So, no, I’m not being stupid. I didn’t take ‘all’ away from us, you did.” She paused. “Do me a favor, DaMarcus. Go find your next easy ass and leave me alone.”

  “Look, Belinda, you really want me to leave you alone?”

  “I mean, I thought I had been clear all along. Apparently, I wasn’t. If answering your calls gives you the wrong impression that you were making some headway, slowly making your way back, then forgive me. So yes, DaMarcus, I want you to leave me alone. Do you think you can do that? You made this happen. Your infidelities pushed me into the arms of another man. It was always you and I. You and your greed messed up that equation.”

  I allowed her to speak without any interjection. For the first time, I listened to the pain in her voice.

  “And now what? You want me to throw away what I have with Shedrick and give you another opportunity to hurt me? No thanks. You got your only chance to hurt me.”

  “I would never hurt you again. Just give me a chance to show you.”

  “Gosh,” she laughed, “I swear, if women got paid every time a man fed them that lie. You weren’t supposed to hurt me to begin with, DaMarcus. I never expected life with you to be perfect, and I don’t expect perfect with Shedrick, either. But I never thought our ‘for worse’ would be me walking into my own bedroom and seeing my half-naked husband and our goddamn accountant. And all I’ve been hearing for the last years is ‘I’m sorry’. Well, save that shit for a Hallmark card and send it to someone who has time to listen to that bullshit, ‘cause I think you’ve given me enough of your bullshit and lies already.”

  Whether or not she knew it, Belinda was adding insult to injury, throwing salt into a wound that was my bruised ego. She wasn’t the first woman I’ve loved and hurt, but she was definitely the first woman I’ve loved and hurt who wasn’t going to let my pleas and promises draw her back to me. I tried my best not to become involved with Taylor. Nothing about being with her made sense. She was beautiful, but so was my wife. There was nothing she did in the bedroom that Belinda didn’t do and wasn’t willing to do. I got caught up in the excitement, and so I became one of those men who had the perfect wife but cheated because it was easy. It was right in front of me, and I didn’t have to work hard to get it. Just like them, what I had to lose was an afterthought, second to the feeling I had after Taylor had put it on me right.

  I hadn’t counted on it, but it seemed all the reasons she shouldn’t give me a chance were stacked high against me, and at the very top was Shedrick Wise. No one had ever walked away from me and not come back.

  “For what it’s worth, I still love you, Belinda. I still feel connected to you.”

  “For what it’s worth, you not loving me isn’t what keeps me up at night. Get unconnected.” She ordered. “I feel a connection, too, but it’s definitely not to you. Now, if you’re done, I do have to go.”

  I hung up without saying goodbye.

  I’d lost Belinda, but I hadn’t done it on my own. Taylor made sure that happened, and now I was ready, one way or the other, to make her pay for going back on her word. She didn’t have her mother or her father in her life, and if everything works out, she wasn’t going to have her only sister, either. I went to sleep with my plans swirling around in my head. I was counting on Vanessa saying nothing to either Dillon or Taylor like I had asked. I needed her to be a part of this plan if it was going to work.

  Chapter 22

  Taylor…

  Trust

  I’m glad I wasn’t holding my breath waiting to hear back from DaMarcus. Wednesday came and went and he still hadn’t called to tell me about taking Quinton while I sorted things out in my head about Vanessa and my almost bad deed with Dillon. Just this once, I expected him to keep his word. Luckily I wasn’t holding this expectation too close to my heart.

  Since Tuesday, I had been walking around this house on eggshells. I avoided being in the same room with Vanessa and Dillon. Vanessa hadn’t been acting as if she knew what had transpired between Dillon and me, but she still hadn’t been acting her usual self. She still insisted on making an appointment for me to see Dr. Reeves. In fact, that was mostly what we talked about during dinner, and DaMarcus, and Quinton. Nessa did most of the talking, and I spent most of the conversation dodging questions. I’d sat across from her at Le Castagne, an Italian restaurant on Chestnut. Sitting there, I was reminded how life used to be with Nessa, before I allowed one man to come between us. Before Dillon, I thought nothing could come between my sister and me. I wished I could undo everything that had damaged our relationship. My promise to never keep secrets from Nessa and never tell her lies ended with Dillon Aldridge. I had become a colossal fuckover, and the person I had fucked over was my own sister. Nessa wasn’t going to ease up on me going
to see Dr. Reeves, and I figured if I didn’t acquiesce she would attempt to dig deeper into my dissent.

  So, I sat in Dr. Isis Reeves’ office on Thursday morning. She waited for me to tell her about how my mother’s death made me feel. I was fifteen years old. I dealt with those feelings the best way I knew how. For the first fifteen minutes we sat in silence, avoiding eye contact at all cost.

  “You know you can start talking whenever you’re ready. We have,” she paused and looked at the silver watch that was slightly too big for her wrist, “exactly forty minutes. We can’t get through this unless you say something.”

  Now she was giving me permission to open my damn mouth.

  Dr. Reeves spoke in a diluted African accent. She stood with her hair swept low over her ears and vanishing behind her in a short ponytail that stopped in the middle of the broad of her back. She had a pronounced beauty mark on the left side of her face, closer to her chin. Her make-up was not overwhelming, but embellishing everything about her face that would’ve made her still beautiful without it: her high cheeks, her wide, dark eyes, and her straight nose that rose effortlessly from her face. She looked to be about 5’9” sans heels, with arms looking just as long as her legs. She wore a black sleeveless T-back dress that exposed slender, toned arms. Its V-neckline made it look as if her neck went on forever. I thought her attire was inappropriate for the office, but as attractive as she was, I guess she was able to get away with it

  Look, Doctor, I thought, looking at her out the corners of my eyes. I don’t want to tell you my business.

  “There’s nothing to get through, Dr. Reeves. Coming here wasn’t exactly my idea.”

  I spoke out loud, and with that we were both silent again. Movement from the espresso stain-finished wall clock dominated our existence. I paid more attention to the scent of amber and sandalwood and less to those dark eyes that pierced through me.

  “What exactly do you want me to say?” I finally broke in.