Chapter 9
MAHOGANY
With my legs tucked underneath my bottom I sat on the couch wrapped in my favorite blanket.
I’d had it since I was a kid. It was unhealthy.
My attachment to things. The blanket... it was harmless.
But it attested to just how hard it was for me to let things go.
It was worn, faded, almost twenty years old, closer to tan than it was to white, frayed, and stained with baby oil, hair gel, and only God knows what else.
I washed it, of course, but some stains were harder to get out than others.
Leaning forward, I grabbed my glass of cabernet from the coffee table.
It was my go to. About eighty percent of the wine in my cellar was Caymus .
While most people preferred the lighter sweet wines, I loved a good ass dark red.
Tonight, I’d drank damn near the whole bottle.
I wanted to polish it off, but I didn’t want to be that much of an alcoholic.
Today was a day. Tomorrow would be too. My birthday.
I was turning thirty-four. So, I mean, I could say I was pre-celebrating, right?
More like preparing, for real. Tomorrow, I had to put on a mask I hadn’t worn in quite a while, and it would be both emotionally and physically exhausting.
Putting the glass to my lips, I took a sip.
Instead of sitting it back on the table, I slowly swirled what was left, around in the glass, as my thoughts began to drift to Duke.
I felt like he was cheating again. We had therapy scheduled yesterday and couldn’t go because he was held up at work.
Held up at work my ass. My “spidey-senses” were tingling like a muthafucka.
The house being quiet gave me a little time to decipher between what I knew to be true, and insecurities.
There was a part of me that said Duke wouldn’t cheat again.
But his patterns were changing. He’d shown a bit of effort.
More effort now than he ever had. But on the other hand, there was the fact that men were men and most of them were stupid as fuck.
That side of me told me to make my way to Pandora’s for a little bit of get back.
But… for what? What’d I gain from that? I’d probably fall into a fit of tears before I even got to the VIP suite.
It felt like I was on that slippery slope again.
The one that ended with me losing myself.
I didn’t want to go there. Couldn’t go there.
Physically and mentally, I was over it. I was reverting back to the old me.
The one that let him cheat. The one that just noticed things and pretended not to until God practically forced me to see it by putting it in my face.
I thought I was lightyears away from that woman but when reality started to shift, and patterns started to change, I felt it.
Her. Being dug up to remind me that I hadn’t grown at all.
Life was wasting away. When I was on my deathbed, I wanted to have more than Couture and four kids to show for.
Didn’t want to be the girl who’d poured into work and family, forgetting about her own life.
Didn’t want to die that way. With the weight of misfortunes and bad hands hanging over my head.
Didn’t want to leave the world without experiencing the type of love I desired from my husband, because I’d decided to stay with my husband.
We were back on that merry-go-round. Off the seesaw. Just, going around and around again.
I bit down on my middle nail and contemplated.
Maybe I was tripping. Maybe he wasn’t cheating at all and new construction on the freeway really did have him working extra hours.
Should I check his phone? Fuck that. Absolutely not.
And ruin my birthday? Instead of breaking my own heart, I wouldn’t go digging.
I decided to let spirit lead me, as God always had.
If it was meant for me to find out… which, it would be if he was cheating, the proof would fall into my lap.
Chanté and that word came up.
Fears. Clearly I had them. Fears that ran so deep that I had even convinced myself that ‘this’ was okay.
Sure, I was afraid of spiders and drowning.
And losing, and failing, and settling, and…
being alone. Afraid to admit that I’d done that already.
Lost myself because of my failing marriage.
Settled daily. But nothing scared me more than being alone.
Because I had a big family, there would always be someone, somewhere.
But them without him wouldn’t fill that void.
He was the yin to my yang. Always there.
Since I was fifteen. Was I supposed to be okay with the thought of being without him just because life was bleak?
I was afraid of what that would do to me.
Though it may have been bleak now, I was afraid of what life would look like without him in it.
Change… it petrified me. Couldn’t see me without him.
Literally could not imagine what a future without him in it would look like.
And that scared me most because, what was I supposed to do?
With those fears hanging over my head? Knowing that every day, life gave me a push in a direction opposite of where ‘we’ stood as one.
Was I supposed to succumb to complacency?
Was I supposed to allow fear to strip me of more time?
I’d lost thousands of hours already—how much more would I lose before I chose me?
And not in the way I chose me before, by rummaging through Pandora’s box.
Choosing me, while losing me had been detrimental to my soul.
Since therapy though, I’d looked at time from a different standpoint.
Not as it was ticking down, but as it was speeding up and I was wasting more and more of it on a marriage that was clearly over.
He wasn’t what I wanted. Not if he was cheating again.
And that, for me, was a hard pill to swallow at thirty-four.
I didn’t want to uproot my entire life. Didn’t want to break my kids’ hearts.
Didn’t want to do anything but make this marriage work.
Didn’t want everyone to know the truth. To learn the truth rather.
That we weren’t goals. I wasn’t happy. I was miserable.
He was miserable. We were miserable. Miserable and trying damn hard not to be.
I drank what was left in my glass and circled my finger around the gold rim, as I stared at the fireplace, into the fiery abyss.
It was close to midnight. I should have been in bed, but instead I stayed awake because midnight was for me.
Plus, I couldn’t sleep. My mind was flooded with what ifs.
I tossed and turned, having mental arguments with myself, trying to convince myself to do like Chanté suggested and find a divorce attorney.
You’d think, after all of the shit I talked, after all of the promises I made to myself…
that leaving would be a piece of cake. I said if he cheated again, I’d leave, right?
Why was I sitting on the couch, crying, nursing a glass of wine, then?
I did that often.
Sold myself dreams.
Lied so good I actually believed it. I was Mahogany, the proud business owner, boss ass bad bitch who drank one-hundred-dollar bottles of wine.
I was confident, sultry, sexy, and seductive.
Walked with my head high, shoulders back, exuding grace and fire with every step I took.
But I wasn’t her. She was a mask too. I was…
I didn’t know who I was. What I did know was that I was tired.
Tired but not enough to quit. I couldn’t leave yet.
I wasn’t trying for Duke; I was trying for me.
I—I couldn’t see past us. Couldn’t plan for it.
Couldn’t wrap my mind around what was happening.
I was—I’d rather—it was easier for me to stay.
Easier for me to just be. To exist with him because without him, who was I really?
The stairs creaking pulled me out of my thoughts.
Quickly, I swiped tears away from my face and sat the glass down.
A couple of seconds later, Duke turned the corner into the living room.
I hated him. Granny said what granny said, but fuck what granny said.
I hated him. He saw me breaking… saw me trying…
and just… spat on me. Didn’t give a fuck about how much of an effort I made when I shouldn’t have made an effort at all.
“You still up?” Duke asked.
“What it look like?” I snapped.
The kids were asleep, and I was good and drunk.
Later was that soft, subtle shit. Fuck him.
I wanted him to feel the hate I had oozing from my pores.
Wanted the room to be filled with it. Suffocatingly.
I wanted him to choke and die from it. But it was okay.
He wouldn’t be dead for long. I’d bring him back.
Because, hello… apparently, I couldn’t live without him.
He nervously ran his hand down the back of his neck with a deep breath. “You good?”
“Please don’t,” I laughed. “Do not come in here acting like you not… Duke, get the fuck out of my face.”
“Mahogany—”
“Still!” I yelled, mushing my finger into his forehead. “After all of this time… I can’t believe you still?—”
“I still what?” He interrupted, with a deep frown, knocking my hand away from his face. “Still what, Mahogany? Because I’m not?—”