Chapter 14 #2
“Why’d you leave?” Nicole asked, shifting her eyes to me for a moment, probably checking for any sign of discomfort.
Which… I gave her. The second Mahogany said she left, I shifted around in my seat.
Shit made me uncomfortable. The way she said it.
The finality. The gravity. The realization of it.
It made me damn near sick to my stomach.
Every time I thought about it, I was reminded of how scared I was when I couldn’t reach her.
I thought I lost my baby for real. Thought because she thought I was cheating, that was truly the last straw. I felt that shit down to my bones.
“Because,” Mahogany said, the palms of her hand beginning to sweat. “I needed a break. I was… overwhelmed and—”
“May I ask what brought this on?”
Mahogany took another deep breath and shifted around in her seat. “I thought he was cheating.”
“Why’d you think that?”
“Because he was… acting different. Moving funny. And,” she shrugged. “I don’t know. Just made me think he was cheating again. I mean… we had just talked about the past and the last session did bring up old wounds. Maybe it was that. Whatever it was… I thought he was cheating.”
“And what changed? Why’d you decide to go back?” Nicole asked.
I just sat there. Quiet. Listening. Trying not to say the wrong thing.
Trying not to interrupt her while she talked.
Trying to be a rock when the conversation was on me was tough though.
I wanted to defend myself. Wanted to yell about how I’d never cheat on Mahogany again.
Wanted to say therapy did that to us. Was tempted to really speak my mind about it but it wasn’t my time yet and to be completely honest, it wasn’t just therapy’s fault.
It was my own. So, speaking up… placing the blame solely on therapy alone…
made me uneasy. I was working on lying. Working on keeping shit one hundred and staying a man of my word.
If I took the coward way and went on and said this and that about therapy, I wouldn’t be doing that. I’d be taking a cop out.
I did that once already. Didn’t want to keep doing it.
I made Mahogany insecure.
Not therapy. I could admit that here. Would never say that shit out loud.
“Nothing really changed,” Mahogany said. “I just… I just went home. Had to. For the kids.” Pausing she added, “For Duke too…”
“Mmh,” Mumbled Nikki before shifting her attention to me. “Duke… You’ve been quiet. How did her leaving make you feel?”
I swallowed, shrugged, and said, “I mean…”
“Honestly,” She cut in.
I let go of Mahogany’s hand and rubbed my hands down the front of my pants with another swallow.
I wasn’t the best with expressing myself.
I could plead my case and shit but blatantly coming out to talk about how I felt?
Nah, I couldn’t really do that. It wasn’t a pride thing.
It was a guilt thing. I didn’t feel like I had the right to feel any of the things I felt.
The shit that I expressed inwardly? My most intimate thoughts?
I couldn’t really verbalize them like that because I didn’t feel like I should.
Or… like I could. I was in this predicament because of me.
“I mean…” I restarted. “I feel like…” I shrugged. “She needed some time away. She thought I was cheating. Shit got bad. Her leaving scared the hell out of me, but I understand why she left. I had been moving a little funny and—”
“I’m sorry to interrupt, Duke. But, I asked how you felt about her leaving. You seem to cater to Mahogany’s feelings a lot. While it’s okay to sympathize, it’s not okay to disregard how you feel in the process of it.”
I ran my tongue over the corner of my mouth with a deep breath. “How did it make me feel when she left.” I paused and stroked my beard, hesitating. “Mmmh.”
I was buying time. Trying to calm my nerves. I needed another shot. Wished I would have tossed two back instead of the one. Would have had I known therapy was going to shift to me and my feelings.
“Yeah. How did it make you feel,” said Nikki, reiterating her question.
A second later, I felt Mahogany’s hand on my thigh. I looked over at her, and she gave me a pursed lipped smile of reassurance. I took another deep breath and again shrugged.
“I felt,” I paused and scratched at my cheek. “I felt empty for real. Lost. Confused. Shit like that.”
“Hopeless?” Nikki asked.
I nodded. “Hopeless. I felt like all of the effort I’d been putting in was wasted. Like… shit… she gave up on us without a fight. Without a fair fight.”
Mahogany took a deep breath and in my peripheral I saw her shake her head. She disagreed. I swallowed. Didn’t want therapy to put us in an awkward place. Didn’t want the roses to be for nothing. Wanted to go out to eat after without the tension of therapy wearing us down.
“We don’t have to talk about it though. We already talked about it together. It’s cool—”
“It’s important for you to be honest with both Mahogany and yourself, Duke. This is marital therapy—not therapy for Mahogany alone. We’re here to help the both of you get through. Okay?”
I appreciated her including me. Just didn’t want to be included.
Felt like shit, sitting there talking about how her leaving made me feel.
As if I was important in that situation.
She left because of me. I didn’t have the right to feel anything at all towards it.
I mean, I might’ve had the right to feel…
but to talk about it? To shame her for leaving?
Nah… I didn’t feel like I had a fair argument for real.
Not in therapy. I said what I said before, to get her to see that I wasn’t doing shit for her to leave me but to argue about how it made me feel when she left? Nah… I couldn’t do that.
“Yeah, I hear you,” I said, lightly tugging on my beard. “But I don’t want to sit and talk about me right now.”
“You didn’t talk about you in the last session neither. Duke, do you want to be here?” Nikki asked.
“Yeah. I want to do whatever necessary to make Mahogany happy.”
“Hmm,” she hummed. “And what about what makes you happy?”
“If she’s happy, I’m happy.”
“That’s not how life works.”
“Duke,” Mahogany mumbled. “Just… be honest. How do you feel? It’s—it’s okay.”
She knew I was nervous. Just as much as I knew her, she knew me too. We’d only known each other more than half our lives.
“I’m good—”
“No you’re not,” she mumbled again. “Look… for this to work, we have to be honest about the way we feel. We locked in… remember?”
I took a deep breath and nodded. It took me a minute, but eventually I told the truth.
I talked about how her leaving made me feel forgotten about.
About how much it scared me. About how alone I felt and what that did to me too.
I didn’t want to be without Mahogany. Couldn’t see my life without her.
Literally. I couldn’t see past her. Just wanted to be with her.
The more I talked about needing her, the tighter my chest got.
Fear flooded me as I thought about the gravity of my secret.
It weighed me down because I knew that once Mahogany found out about Diary I would lose her.
And I couldn’t. I just said I couldn’t see life past her.
What would I become? Who would I become?
How would my days look if I couldn’t come home to my kids?
The fantastic four? My fantastic four? What would Mahogany do once she found out about Diary?
Would she fight for custody? Would she take them away from me?
Would I be left with Diary, and Diary alone?
How would that look for me? Coming home to the smiling face of one instead of…
five? I could do five. Mahogany wouldn’t. She’d—man…
I talked about what her leaving did to me with a lump in my throat. One that grew with every thought of being without her. It was to a point where Mahogany had to rub my back, I could barely talk without choking up. Every couple of words I was clearing my throat.
“That’s a lot to process,” Nikki said once I was finished.
I didn’t say anything. Just pulled my lips into my mouth and nodded. Right after, I reached for Mahogany’s hand and interlocked my fingers with hers. She gave my hand a light squeeze and I brought hers up to my lips and kissed the back of it.
The rest of the therapy session was spent with ‘processing’.
Nikki asked us a series of questions and talked about how therapy opens up old wounds and about how we had to be strong enough to prevail when things got tough.
I sat there, partially listening, mainly stuck in my head, pretending I was good.
I wasn’t. I was shaken. In a spot I didn’t want to be in.
I took the shot to avoid slipping too much in my thoughts.
But it was to no avail. A nigga was sad as hell because I knew all of the effort we were making was for nothing.
All of this? The touchy feely, supportive, locked in shit?
It would come to an end once my secret came out.
As bad as I didn’t want it to, I knew it’d have to come out eventually and that shit destroyed me.
“What up doe nigga?” Said my brother, Deante, when I walked into my ma’s crib.
The next day, right after I got off work, I pulled up at my ma’s crib. I was desperate, needing help before shit got out of control. Did I want my ma to know about Diary? Shit no. But I felt like the only way through this would be with her help. She was all I had.
Chucking my chin, I spoke back. “What up fool?” We slapped hands and I nodded toward the kitchen. “Fuck momma cooking today?”
He dragged his hands down over his fuzzy cornrows. “I think some chicken alfredo and garlic bread. You stayin?”
I stuffed my hands into my pockets, fiddling with the envelope in the right one. “Shit, for a lil’ bit.”
“Ain’t tryin’ to eat at the crib, huh? Sis might fuck around and poison yo’ ass,” He joked, looking over at me from the TV.