Chapter 11 - Deanna
The dining room buzzed with overlapping conversations. Tia’s two paternal uncles were arguing good-naturedly about football, while their younger kids laughed at something on someone’s phone.
I stood at the kitchen island, wrapping leftovers in foil, grateful for a task that kept my hands busy. Staying busy meant not thinking. Not thinking about the nausea that had been plaguing me for weeks, or the conversation I wasn’t ready to have with anyone.
“Dee, baby, you feeling alright?”
I turned to find my ex-mother-in-law, Mama Nettie, beside me, her weathered hand resting on my arm. Those sharp brown eyes had seen me through my last year in the foster care system, my marriage to her youngest son, Tia’s cancer, and through the divorce. They missed nothing.
“I’m fine, Mama Nettie. Just tired.” I smiled. “Big meal, lots of people.”
“Mm-hmm.” She studied my face, then her gaze dropped to the foil-wrapped turkey in my hands, my midsection, and back to my face. “How far along are you?”
My hands stilled. “What?”
“Don’t ‘what’ me, child. I’ve had three babies.” She kept her voice low. “You’ve been green around the gills all day, barely touched your plate, and that dress you’re wearing is too big for you. So I’ll ask again, how far along?”
There was no point in lying to her. “Fifteen weeks.”
Mama Nettie glanced toward the dining room where Kevin’s laugh carried over the other voices. When she looked back at me, her expression had shifted to something fiercer. “Is it Kevin’s?”
“No!” The word came out loud.
Relief flooded her face, followed quickly by confusion. “Then who—” she stopped herself, shaking her head. “Never mind. That’s your business.”
“Keep this between us. I want Tia to hear it from me.”
“Your secret’s safe with me.” She pulled me into a hug, and I had to fight back tears. “You take care of yourself. And if you need me for anything, you call. You hear?”
“I hear.” I pulled back, wiping at my eyes.
Nettie patted my cheek and headed back toward the dining room. I’d barely placed the turkey in the fridge when my best friend, Kandi, swept into the kitchen.
“Girl, Tia hit the jackpot.” She grabbed a bottle of wine from the counter and topped off her glass. “That Santo is gone over Tia. I’ve been watching him all day. He would peel off his skin and give it to her if she needed it.”
Despite everything weighing on me, I couldn’t help but smile. “He is pretty smitten with her.”
Tia and Santo had flown into the U.S. two days ago. Tia had a final dress fitting in Manhattan two days ago, and I had convinced her to make a pit-stop her to spend her last Thanksgiving as an unmarried woman with the family.
“Smitten? Honey, that boy is obsessed. In the best way.” Kandi leaned against the counter, swirling her wine. “Wish I could say the same for Zariah’s situation.”
Zariah was Kandi’s only daughter. The young woman was a couple of years younger than Tia.
“How’s she doing?”
“Holding up. Barely.” Kandi’s expression hardened. “Found out last week that Marquis got another woman pregnant. Baby’s due in January, a month after Zariah’s.”
“Oh, Kandi. I’m so sorry.”
“Twenty-one years old and already dealing with this mess.” She took a long sip of wine. “I told her what I learned the hard way. You can’t make a man be what he’s not. But she’s got to figure that out herself.”
We’d both learned that lesson young. Two young mothers working night shifts as nursing assistants, swapping childcare and dreaming of better lives.
Kandi had moved up and gotten a job as the medical office receptionist at Bedis’ private health center. I’d gone back to school for psychology, then pivoted to digital marketing and built my agency. We’d survived bad men, good men, and everything in between.
“She’s got you,” I said. “That counts for something.”
“And she’s got her mama’s grit. She’ll be fine.” Kandi’s expression softened as she looked toward the dining room where Tia and Santo sat close together. “Tia’s lucky to land a fine and rich man on her first go-round.”
“Yeah.” My throat tightened. “They’re both lucky.”
Watching them together brought a suffocating rush of unwanted feelings. I’d had a taste of what Tia had found, that intoxicating pull of being completely consumed by someone.
Kevin’s arrival in the entryway broke through my thoughts. Ever since he moved back, he’d been finding excuses to touch my arm, stand too close, reminisce about “when we were good.”
I slipped down the hallway toward my office the moment he became distracted by something his mother said. I closed the door and leaned against it, pressing my palm to my stomach.
I’d made it through Thanksgiving. There were just a few more hours until everyone left, and then I would collapse.
My phone buzzed with an email notification. I pulled it out, expecting another work crisis.
From: Aristides Christakis
Subject: Final Guest List – U.S. Side
Attached was a spreadsheet. I scrolled through the names, but Kevin’s name wasn’t there.
I hit call before I could think better of it.
Aris answered on the second ring. “Dede.”
Just my name in that accent, and something low in my belly tightened. “I’m looking at the guest list,” I said, keeping my voice professional. “Kevin isn’t on it.”
“Your ex-husband.”
“Tia’s father.” I scrolled through the list again. “Her grandmother convinced her to invite him to the wedding. He should be included. His two other children should be added as well.”
“Of course.” I heard typing in the background. “Should I arrange accommodations for him at the castle or the hotel in town?”
Everything in me screamed to banish Kevin to the hotel, but that would mean Kev and Savia being at the hotel with him. It would be petty to have Tia’s siblings at the hotel while her cousins stayed at the castle during the celebration.
“The castle,” I said, hating how reasonable I sounded.
Another pause, longer this time. “You’re certain?”
“Yeah.” I pressed my free hand against my stomach, where two tiny heartbeats were making my life infinitely more complicated.
“Very well. I will share it with the wedding planner.” His voice was unreadable. “Anything else?”
Yes. I’m carrying your children. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you. Those summer nights spent with you ruined me for anyone else.
“No. That’s all. Thank you for handling this.”
“Dede—” he stopped himself.
My heart hammered. “Yeah?”
“Nothing. Enjoy the remainder of your evening.”
The line went dead.
I stood there, holding the phone, feeling the weight of everything unsaid. In three weeks, we’d be face to face, and I would have no choice but to tell him the news.
The door opened behind me. I spun around.
“Kevin. You startled me.”
He closed the door. “Sorry. You disappeared. Wanted to make sure you were alright.”
“I’m fine. Just needed a quiet minute.” I moved behind my desk, putting furniture between us. “You should get back out there. Kev and Savia will wonder where you went.”
Kevin Jr. and Savia were his children with Ashley. He had moved back to town with the children earlier this year after separating from Ashley.
“They’re teaching Tia and Santo some card game. They’re fine.” He stepped closer. “It’s you I’m worried about.”
“Don’t be. I’m fine.”
“Deanna.” His voice dropped lower. “I miss you. We were good together.”
We were never good together. We were two kids who got caught up when I got pregnant.
“You have a wife.”
“Had. We’re separated, and you know it.” He reached for my hand. “That marriage was the real mistake. I never stopped loving you, Dee.”
“Oh, please. You convinced me to have a tubal ligation because you didn’t want more children, then slept with my best friend while our child was in chemo. You had two more children with her and abandoned ours. And fourteen years later, you have this revelation.”
“You haven’t dated anyone seriously since our divorce because you still love me.”
“That’s not—” The nausea surged again, and I pressed my hand to my mouth.
“Are you sick?” Concern creased his face.
I swallowed hard. “You need to leave.”
“What about us?”
“I’ve had bigger and much better dick since you.”
“Liar.” His hand cupped my cheek. “I know you, Dee. We were married for nine years.”
“Kevin—”
He kissed me.
My hands came up instantly, shoving hard against his chest, but his grip tightened on my arms. I twisted my face away, breaking contact.
The door swung open. “Mom, do you have…”
Tia stopped dead in the doorway. Her eyes went wide, her mouth slackened, and her expression crumpled before smoothing into nothing.
For a fraction of a second, nobody moved. Nobody breathed.
“Baby, I know what this looks like, but—” I began, finally shoving Kevin back hard enough that he stumbled.
But she was gone, the door clicking shut behind her.
I rounded on Kevin, fury replacing the nausea that had plagued me all day. “Get. Out.”
He had the decency to look ashamed. “I shouldn’t have—”
“No, you shouldn’t have.” I moved to the door, yanking it open. “Go back to your family. And don’t ever put your hands on me again.”
“Dee, I’m sorry.”
“Out.”
He left without another word.
I stood there, hand pressed to my churning stomach, trying to decide which crisis to handle first. The nausea threatened to overwhelm me, but the look on Tia’s face had been heart-wrenching.
I had to find her. Hurrying upstairs, I found her in my bathroom, standing motionless with a bottle in her hand.
“Baby—”
She turned slowly, her face completely blank. “Why do you have prenatal vitamins?”
There was no point in lying to her. “Because I’m pregnant.”
Nothing. No reaction. She just stared at me with empty eyes.
“Tia? Sweetheart, did you hear me?”
“I heard you.” Her voice was flat and emotionless. “Do you have pain meds?”
“What?”
“Pain meds. For my headache. Do you have any?”
“Tia, we need to talk about—”
“Do you have pain meds or not?”
I reached into the bottom of the medicine cabinet and pulled out a new bottle. She took it without looking at me, shook out two pills, and swallowed them dry.
“Tia, please. Talk to me.”
“Aggelé mou?” Santo’s voice came from the hallway. “Where are you?”
She walked past me as if I wasn’t there. Santo stood in the doorway, concern creasing his handsome face as he looked between us.
“I want to go back to Greece. Tonight.”
“Tonight? Aggelé mou…”
“Tonight, Chrys. Please.”
He looked at me, confusion and worry in his dark eyes. I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move. Could only watch as my daughter walked away from me with her fiancé following behind, asking questions she wouldn’t answer.