Chapter 3 #2
She shook her head with raised brows. “Two very related things, Mahogany. The clock,” she looked over her shoulder at it.
“Is to put emphasis on time. But not for the reason you all assume. Shameek. The designer... his name is Shameek. I told him I needed a clock. Something huge to symbolize the value of time. It’s the only currency of true value here.
Think about it. It’s the one thing you cannot get back, yet we waste so much of it on things like fear.
You come here every week to talk about things that are directly linked to it, yet.
.. when I ask you what you’re afraid of.
.. you want to run. That’s your biggest culprit.
You want happiness, you want freedom. Before you get there, you have to conquer that fear.
Time is precious. How much longer are you willing to allow fear to rob you of it? ”
I sat there quiet for a couple of seconds before sighing. “Chanté, all I asked about was recommendations for a marital counselor. I don’t know how we ended up talking about a clock and fears. None of these things are related to?—”
“With all due respect, Mahogany. You don’t need a marital therapist. I honestly believe you need a divorce attorney. But because you keep running from your fears, you’re going to keep jumping on that merry-go-round you reference every session, wasting invaluable time.”
The drive home was spent in a blur. I was on autopilot the entire fifteen minutes in.
It was a blessing that I made it in one piece, to be honest. Chanté rattled me.
In a way that I’d never been rattled by her.
We’d talked about a lot of shit but today was just..
. it was different. The way she referenced time.
The conversation was a true eye opener. It wasn’t that I was in denial about the time I’d spent chasing potential.
Hell, my eyes were opened years ago. I saw shit for the way they were.
I just didn’t like to talk about it. My complacency. Those ugly fears.
I didn’t come out of the fog until Honesty greeted me at the door with a hug. “What’s for dinner, mommy?”
I looked down at my watch.
It was close to seven.
“ What’s for dinner ? Huh? Daddy didn’t cook?” I asked with a light frown.
She shook her head. “No. Daddy said you were.”
Here we go. We were like a seesaw—up and down, and down and up.
All of the time. The highs were exhilarating.
Filled with laughter, good sex, and mind-blowing orgasms. The lows?
The lowest of lows crept up on me. We hit the bottom at a slow pace.
Descended from the top with the speed of a turtle, little inconveniences pulling us down, building on top of one another, until the weight of it held us down completely.
And then… we’d go up. That climb was usually slow too.
Slower. Snail slow. But the more we ascended, the clearer that potential would become.
Just for us to be dragged right back down to the bottom.
We were like a rollercoaster—up and down, down and up.
It was exhausting. Marriage. Ours at least.
I worked my ass off. Woke up before the sun, got the kids ready for school, dropped them off, and then spent the majority of my day at the firm.
I lived the life of a stay-at-home mom, but I was the furthest thing from it.
I worked long, hard ass hours just like his ass.
But expectantly, he was the only one of us who were afforded a fucking break.
I peeled my jacket off and hung it on the coatrack at the foyer.
“Can I have macaroni and cheese?” Honesty asked.
“I want spaghetti!” Sparkle shrieked, rushing up to me with opened arms. “Hi mommy!”
“Hey baby,” I responded, wrapping my arms around her. “Okay, okay. Tonight gon’ be a go for what you want night. Mac and cheese cup for you. Microwave spaghetti for you. Because who cooking? Not me! No ma’am!”
The doorbell rang and I peered through the peephole. DoorDash. Fast food for Aubry. Noodles for Gabriel.
A couple of seconds later, Aubry emerged from the stairs. “Hey ma!” She pulled her lips into her mouth and looked towards the door. “Did they leave yet?” she whispered.
“You got DoorDash huh? Must be nice,” I said with a cocked brow, as I sat on the entry way bench to pull my heels off.
She tilted her head to the side and the corners of her mouth turned up into a light smirk. “Yes, ma. I got DoorDash. Why you lookin’ at me like that?” She giggled. “I got enough for yo kids too.” She paused and yelled, “It’s here Gabe!”
I lightly smiled and leaned back against the wall with closed eyes.
Aubry was my baby. When I found out I was pregnant with her, there was a lot of resentment.
Never in a million years did I think my baby would turn out the way that she had.
I was a teenaged mom for crying out loud.
A baby, raising a baby. I doubt anybody knew she’d be an A and B student with a part-time job, and her head screwed on right.
“Thanks boo-boo,” I joked with a light smile, eyes still closed.
About a minute later, Gabe walked down the stairs and greeted me with a hug. “Hey ma.”
“Hey Gabey. I hope you haven’t been sitting on that game all day,” I messed with him, getting on him about how much he stayed in the room.
He sucked his teeth with an awkward smile. “Nooo. I just got on, ma.”
“How was school?” I asked the four of them.
“Straight,” Gabe nonchalantly replied. “Ready for the weekend lowkey.”
Aubry grabbed two boxes of pizza from the porch and closed the door behind her. “School was school. I’m ready for it to be over.”
“De’Ontray was messing with me again. I told Mrs. Stewart this time,” Honesty said with an eye roll. “Can’t stand his ugly butt.”
De’Ontray was a little boy in her class that kept picking with her. I was sure the little boy had a crush on her since the picking he did was harmless. But the last time, she popped him in the eye.
“Mrs. Addison made pancakes!” Sparkle exclaimed, jumping into my lap.
She was in daycare. We might’ve had a support system, but I made sure Sparkle was in daycare, instead of with family.
“Why ain’t nobody tell me momma was home?” Duke asked while the kids were in the middle of talking over each other, giving me details about their day.
Opening my eyes, I offered him a weak smile.
He thanked Aubry for getting pizza and told her he’d send her the total in a little bit.
I had the urge to curse him out about dinner but.
.. I let it go. I let a lot of shit go for the sake of keeping the peace.
Outer peace, at least. I was boiling inwardly.
Wanted to call him lazy and inconsiderate.
Wanted to remind him of the promise he made about equal effort around the house months ago.
But I didn’t. I would. Eventually... maybe .
“Hey,” I sheepishly answered.
“Pizza!” Sparkle shrieked. “I want pizza!” She then climbed down from my lap and ran off, following behind her siblings and that pizza she loved so much.
Duke leaned down, kissed my lips, and then kneeled in front of me. We locked eyes for a second before I closed them again. Grabbing my calve, he pulled the other shoe off and I lightly moaned.
“Tired?” Duke asked, lightly massaging the arch in my foot.
I didn’t know what made me wear four-inch Tom Ford heels to work. I slipped them on, confidently, telling myself that beauty was pain. But my God! Twelve hours in four-inch heels did me dirty.
“Mmhmm,” I mumbled, opening my eyes to put them on his. “Tired as hell. Too tired to cook. Thank God my daughter got pizza.”
There it was. Sometimes it was as if my mouth had a brain of its own.
It was all about delivery though. I could’ve said all of the things I wanted to say but.
.. for the sake of that peace, I kept a lid on it.
I was too tired to argue, anyway because that’s exactly what mentioning another empty promise would lead to.
With a light smirk, he said, “You know I told Bre to order pizza, right?”
Lies.
He lied… right through the small gap between his two front teeth.
Duke lied bad. When God said all men were liars, in Psalm 116:11 He didn’t tell a lie.
Instead of arguing about how Sparkle had already told me he told her I would cook, I let it go.
Had to. Sometimes I had to. Some things were better for keeping tucked away inside of the vault that held all of the unaddressed lies.
Not for the sake of keeping score, but for the sake of discernment.
“Yep,” I dismissively said.
He shook his head with a squint. “Therapy go alright?”
That was his way of checking my temperature. Wanted to know if it’d gone good or bad, as to say my checking him was because of therapy. It wasn’t. He knew that. Duke just liked to blame my issues with his lack of effort on everything but himself.
“Therapy went how therapy goes,” I said with a light sigh. “Speaking of…”
With raised brows he said, “What’s up?”
“I think we should go.”
“To therapy?”
No, to mars. What the fuck you think?
“Yes, Duke. I know you don’t?—”
He shrugged. “I’m with whatever you with. If you think we need therapy, we can go to therapy.”
“You don’t think we need it?” I asked, giving him a questioning look.
I was loaded, cocked, and ready for him to say no.
If he did, that would be a bold face lie.
Duke didn’t like to talk about the past. Hated it.
Of course, he did. Our past wasn’t pretty and the majority of the shit we talked about was shit he’d done.
Who would want all of their dirt aired out in front of a stranger?
No one. And well… I didn’t want to have to relive it.
I stalled. Left marital therapy on the back burner to avoid facing a past I clearly couldn’t escape.
The one with him, where I didn’t love myself.
I hated that part. Tried to avoid thinking about it but it haunted me every time he touched me.
“I mean, yeah. I just?—”
“—Don’t want to talk about it. Me neither. But?—”
“Yeah, I know.”
There was an awkward silence. The elephant in the room was huge . Took up most of the small space.
“How was work?” I asked with a sigh to shift gears.
We didn’t talk about any of it. At all. Not how distant I was.
Not about the tension, or the tight-lipped kisses.
We just existed. Talked about everything but the truth.
I complained about what he didn’t do. Never about what he did.
Ran from that past like it was the plague.
Not only because I’d been in lala land for years, but because I was afraid of what reopening those old wounds would do.
The bandages I placed on them did a good enough job holding up, until they were touched.
You’d think that just because I did what I did, I’d be better.
You’d think the wounds would be gone. Healed.
Like revenge could do that. Revenge only made things worse.
I got nothing but an orgasm out of it and they didn’t last but about a minute or so. Right after, it was back to reality.
He sighed and I waited for him to spill. Duke worked as a structural engineer. He hated it. Preferred basketball. But after tearing his Achilles during one of the games, he had to kiss that dream goodbye.
I groaned when he hit the perfect spot on my foot. I was never wearing four-inch heels to work again.
“Eric—you remember Eric right? The new hire... The white boy... the one that show up every fuckin’ day smelling like yesterday’s shit.”
I laughed, resting my hands on my stomach. “Yeah, I remember him. What happened?”
Just like that, it was as if the short therapy conversation didn’t exist. It was right back to lala land.
“Caught him and Gina’s fat funky ass fucking in the trailer.”
With raised brows, I sat up and my jaw dropped. “I know you fuckin’ lying!”
He shook his head and sucked his teeth. “Mannnn.”
“Ain’t Gina in her fifties?”
Duke turned the corners of his lips up as to say ‘exactly’. “Fifty-five.”
I scrunched my face up. “Ew.”
This was us.
Monotone questions about work. Lifeless passion.
Barely any real chemistry. Every. Single Day.
It was the same thing. We weren’t on a merry-go-round; we were the merry-go-round.
The machinery. The very thing that kept going round and round and round.
Sometimes it—we— stopped... briefly. Very briefly.
For a special occasion. You know... birthdays, holidays.
.. anniversaries... shit like that. Sex every now and then.
But the next day, like clockwork; it was right back to this.
As painfully boring as it might’ve sounded, I stayed because of this.
Despite the bullshit we went through in the past, he was my person, still.
However, these days, he felt more like a best friend I fucked every now and then than a husband.
But... I settled. Believed that eventually, we’d get back.
Get back where? I wasn’t sure. We’d never really been anywhere but here.
But... I was tired of it anyway. Hoped that one day we’d get to that place.
The sweet place. The... place where my mind wasn’t filled with traumatic memories, and I could be as happy as I wanted—no, needed— to be.
“How was work for you?” He asked me.
I gave him a lazy smile. “It was good. Secured another contract.”
With raised brows, he lightly smiled and released my foot to pull me into a tight hug. “That’s what the fuck I’m talking about, NeNe! Congrats baby. You been on a fuckin’ roll.” He released me and tossed, “Ay! Mom secured another contract!” over his shoulder.
A few seconds later, the kids ran back to the foyer with smiling faces covered with pizza sauce to congratulate me, mouths full of food.
Cute, right? Wrong. Dismissive. Yes, he was supportive and massaged my feet, but I couldn’t stop thinking about how he’d lied about the pizza after telling the kids I was cooking dinner, knowing I worked twelve hours and had therapy. Resentful? No, not exactly. Just… observant.