1. Who the （Bleep） Did I Marry? #3
“We can protect Micah’s college fund,” my attorney said, sliding the last petition across her desk.
“But the house is gone, Alyssa. The car. The savings. It all has to be liquidated toward the lenders. We can fight to keep more, but that’s long and expensive, and expensive is the one thing you no longer are. ”
“Hand them the keys,” I said, and my voice was calm. Pride is not a financial strategy. I was done bleeding for a dead man’s sins.
When Raschad found out I’d lost my house and moved into our mother’s, he nearly took her front door off its hinges.
“I make millions playing ball, Alyssa! I could’ve cleared your entire debt column in an afternoon! Why the hell didn’t you call me?”
“Because Malik was my mistake!” I shouted back.
“I chose him. I married him. You already bought Mama this house. You paid for my law school. You carry half this family, Raschad! I am not strapping my dead husband’s crimes to your back.
I will file bankruptcy and lose every single thing before I let one dollar of your money go to bail out his ghost.”
He stopped pacing, his eyes swimming with rage, hurt, and helplessness as he watched me fracture.
He didn't speak for a long time, then stepped forward and pulled me into a chest-crushing hug. I put my face in my baby brother’s shoulder and, for the first time since the knock at my door, I let myself come apart.
present day
I ended up leaving my corporate law job for a lower-paying position at Newark Legal Aid. It gave me more flexibility as a single mother while I continued navigating the fallout of my marriage.
But living in my mother's house was a slow suffocation. It wasn't overt cruelty, just the daily barrage of passive-aggressive comments. That skirt is awfully short for a courtroom, baby. Are you sure you want to give Micah that much sugar? I noticed you had another glass of wine last night.
Then, the true-crime vultures came circling.
At seven a.m on a Monday, my phone rang while I was making Micah's school lunch. I put it on speaker.
“Alyssa Carter? I'm a producer with the Investigation Discovery channel,” a polished, clinical voice said through the receiver. “We're scheduling interviews for an episode of Who the (Bleep) Did I Marry? focusing on the Malik Chambers embezzlement and homicide—”
I hung up. Five years later, and the media still wouldn't let him stay buried. Because it had everything the shows feed on. A respectable banker, a double life, stolen millions, a wife betrayed, a bullet in his head and two in his mistress’ arm to tie it up.
My ruin made good television. Micah's father made good television.
To them it was an episode. To us it was Monday, and then every Monday after.
“Mommy? Why do people always call to talk about my dad?” Micah asked from the kitchen table. He was seven, going on eight now, sharp and observant, the small crescent scar on his forehead catching the morning light.
“Because some people like sad stories,” I whispered, smoothing his hair. “But we don't have to listen.”
My phone buzzed again. I went to reject it, but saw Raschad’s name flash across the screen.
My baby brother had retired from the NBA almost two years ago after discovering he had a son, Zhaire.
He’d relocated to a small town in North Carolina called Lennox Falls, completely reinventing himself as a full-time father, a record producer at a Black-owned label called WadeHouse Records, and was currently planning his summer wedding to his fiancée, Simone.
“Lyss,” Raschad’s voice came through. “I’ve got an idea, and you’re not allowed to say no until I’m finished.”
“Good morning to you too, Raschad,” I sighed, leaning against the counter.
“Zhaire won’t stop asking about Micah. Let him spend the summer down here. He and Zhaire are pretty much the same age, they’d be inseparable. And you’d get a break.”
“Raschad, I don’t need—”
“Not a break from him,” he said quickly. “A break from everything else. From true-crime producers calling your house. From people going quiet when you walk into the grocery store. From living where every single thing reminds you of what you’ve gone through.”
"You could visit whenever you want," Raschad continued. "Stay for weekends. Hell, stay for the whole summer if you feel like it. We've got plenty of space, and privacy.”
I knew what this was. My brother, who'd tried to save me from financial ruin and gotten his pride bruised watching me lose everything because I was too stubborn to let him help, was trying to help me through the back door. My knee-jerk thought was to decline. Then, I looked around my mother's cramped kitchen, listening to her upstairs slamming the linen closet doors in that rhythmic, disapproving cadence I’d come to despise. Then I pictured a country town, and a place where nobody knew my name or my dead husband’s crimes.
“Okay,” I agreed despite myself. “Yes. We'll come down.”
Three weeks later, I threw our suitcases in the trunk, handed Micah a cooler of snacks for the ride, and pointed my Honda Accord south toward North Carolina.
As Jersey faded in my rearview mirror, I let out a breath.
I was finally stepping out of the blast radius, ready for quiet, and for my son just be a little boy running around a safe field.