Chapter 28 #2
“Shan—”
“I was early,” she starts again. “I decided to make it a special day with Randy, for Christmas since I was able to find a sitter for Charlotte. I took him to see Santa Claus at the mall. I figured there would be fewer people during the week.
“A fun mommy and son day.” That’s when she looks at me, tears streaming down her face.
“It was a really fun day. I even let him get ice cream and you know I don’t let him eat a lot of junk food.”
The quiver in her voice beckons me to sit closer. I move to her side and begin stroking her back, still remaining silent. I don’t want to rush her.
“She was supposed to be there to watch my baby,” Shanice says, a tinge of outrage making its way into her voice. “We’ve hired her since she was in high school. She was seventeen the first time she babysat Randy.
“Now, two years later, she’s home from college on Christmas break, and I think I might be able to get a little help with watching the kids every now and then. I even suggested we hire her one night so we could have a date night. Like we used to when we first got married.”
There’s so much pain in her eyes when Shanice looks up at me again.
“But instead, I get home to find my babysitter in bed with my husband. In our bed,” she cries, her body trembling.
After taking the mug from her hands before she drops it, I place it on the coffee table next to my untouched hot chocolate.
“Oh, sweetheart,” I say, pulling her into me.
While I was married to Rick, I had my suspicions that he was two-timing me, but I never had proof. I don’t know what I would’ve done or felt if I’d walked in on him betraying me like that in our home … our bed.
After a minute, Shanice pulls away.
“That’s not even the worst part.”
Oh goodness. How can it get any worse than that?
“After he saw me and Tricia went scurrying out, crying about how sorry she was, he blamed me. He said it was my fault for coming home earlier than I told him.”
“No!” I cannot believe my damn ears, but I do my best to rein in my anger. Shanice doesn’t need to deal with my emotions on top of her own.
“And while they were busy in our damn bedroom, Charlotte was in the playroom screaming her head off. Th-They, p-put my b-baby in the pl-pl-playroom so they could f-fuck.”
I can’t help the way my eyes bulge. Never in her twenty-seven years of life have I ever heard my daughter curse.
I highly doubt she even does it around her friends or little sister. In other words, Shanice doesn’t curse.
She’s hurt and angry.
Charlotte stirs a little, sighing, her eyes blinking as if she’s on the cusp of waking up.
“I’ll take care of her,” I tell Shanice when she starts to reach for the baby.
I pick up my granddaughter, patting her back and rocking her gently until her head lays gently against my shoulder. Once I’m assured she’s asleep, I ask Shanice for her baby monitor.
Somehow, I knew she’d have it on her because she’s always prepared. I turn on the camera monitor and then carry Charlotte down the hall to the same bedroom where her brother sleeps peacefully.
The bed is big enough that the two can share it. After creating a pillow fort around Charlotte, I set up the monitor so it’s able to catch a view of the both of them and then head back to the living room.
Shanice is pacing once again.
“Do you want to keep talking?” I ask, taking a seat back on the couch.
She comes to sit beside me, facing me.
“How could he do that to me?” she asks with tears streaming down her face. “To us? We were supposed to be a family. He promised that if I just took care of our home and him, that he would work and take care of us. Do you know what he said when I reminded him of that?”
I wait expectedly.
“He said that he was holding up his end of the deal. That he’s a man with needs and a woman who has two kids hanging off of her all day couldn’t possibly fulfill his every need. Then he told me I just needed to get used to it.”
She shoots up to her feet. “Get used to it!” she repeats, her voice growing more erratic.
“I told him I would not tolerate that and that I was leaving. I tried to leave the room, and that’s when …” She holds up her bruised wrist.
She sinks back to the couch.
“He laughed in my face. Asked with what money I was going to use to leave. When I didn’t answer, he laughed in my face again and said, ‘See, that’s what I thought. You’re not going anywhere and you’re not taking my kids.’
“Then he left to let me cool down.”
“Is that when you booked a flight for you and the children?” I ask.
She shakes her head.
“I couldn’t. I was too messed up to think. This happened two days ago. I let him leave and go to work as normal, acting like I had calmed down. But yesterday I took the kids to the library, and I used the computer there to book our flights and rental car.”
Shanice looks at me with so much hurt and anguish that my heart breaks.
“Because of the money you gave me, I was able to leave,” she says before breaking down completely.
I hold her and rock her back and forth as she sobs. She murmurs her thanks for the money, but I pat her back and console her knowing I would have given her my last dime to keep her safe.
After I received a pay out from my mother’s life insurance, I gave Meghan and Shanice both a portion of the money. While it was to do whatever they chose, I encouraged Shanice to keep it in a separate bank account and to never tell Jake about it.
“A woman should always have her own money.”
Those are the words I told her not long after she got married and told her father and I that she was abandoning a career in media communications to focus on being a wife and eventual mother.
I’d loathed myself for setting such an example.
“It’s going to be okay,” I tell Shanice, kissing the top of her head while she cries.