Chapter 17 #2
After the talk earlier, he left and went down into the man-cave and I stayed in the office.
It’d been hours since we saw each other.
I imagined he was down there crying, just as much as I was sitting at my desk crying myself.
This wasn’t easy. I said that before, but it really wasn’t.
I wasn’t just losing my husband, I was losing my best friend too.
Someone who’d witnessed me at so many stages of my life.
We’d gone through so much, and I wasn’t just talking about the ups and downs.
I was talking about in general. We experienced losses together, we experienced a lot of firsts, and a lot of growth in between.
He was a part of me in a major way. But regardless of what he was to me, I was sure.
I was more than sure. Had never been so sure about anything in our relationship until now.
“It’s really happening.”
He stepped forward and went to grab my hand. I stepped back and he stepped forward again, snatching my hand. “So, I can’t do anything? There’s nothing I can do to fix this?”
I shook my head. “No, Duke.” I sighed. “We already… we been here before.”
He tossed his head back with an angry growl. “I—I know that. I just… man… You know what Bry asked me to do the other day? She asked me to fix it. And before I could even get a chance to really try to… you pull this. I… I didn’t get a fighting chance.”
“You don’t have a fighting chance. Listen… I don’t want to do this anymore, Ducati. Let's just do what we’re supposed to do and leave it at that.”
He stood staring down at me for a few minutes, tears rolling down his face, in silence.
I stared back up at him, with tears of my own falling down my face.
This was heavy. Heavy in a sense that it felt like I was drowning.
Like I was sinking. Further and further into the surface.
Feet planted in quicksand type of heavy.
After a couple of minutes or so, he nodded and walked out of the office.
Throughout the day, we spent a lot of time with the kids.
I made dinner. They did their chores and their homework, too.
I was stalling. Not because I didn’t want to tell them but because I was in no rush to break my children’s heart.
It got to a point where I felt like Duke thought I’d wait another day, he was smiling, so comfortable.
But an hour before bedtime, I called them into the living room.
Didn’t have to tell him it was time. Didn’t have to mention anything to him.
He knew what it was. Gave me a knowing look from across the room.
One that read, ‘please’. One that I ignored.
I told him if he didn’t want to do it together, that I’d be doing it myself. I wondered what choice he would make.
“This about the chores, ain’t it?” Honesty asked. “I promise I’ll do a better job with keeping up with—“
“No, no, baby it’s not the chores. Even though I am tired of telling y’all to do them,” I said, standing in the middle of the room, while Duke stood a couple of feet away, not too far behind me.
I looked over my shoulder at him. He shook his head but stepped forward anyway.
With a deep breath, I looked down at my children.
They didn’t have their phones. Aubry sat with her head resting on her fist, elbow pressed into the arm of the couch.
Gabe sat next to her with his arms crossed over his chest, wearing a frown.
Sparkle was busy jumping around the sectional, from one end to the other.
Honesty was Honesty, worried about being the perfect child, sitting with her hands in her lap.
“Sit still, Spark, baby,” Duke softly said.
“So—”
“Your mom and I have something to tell y’all,” Duke interrupted, taking the initiative.
We made eye contact and he nodded, letting me know we were in this together. Letting me know that I wouldn’t have to struggle through another battle alone.
“What?” Aubry asked, sitting straight up. “Y’all gotta tell us what?”
We were quiet for a second. It got to a point where I started to say something, but he did before I could.
“First off…” he cleared his throat. “Y’all know we love each other, right?”
“Aw man,” Gabe mumbled. “Y’all getting a divorce? I knew it. I knew it bro.”
Honesty sucked her teeth. “Shut up Gabe! Mom and dad are not breaking up!” She looked over at us with raised brows. “Right?”
Duke and I exchanged looks, and he blinked a few times, pivoting to turn away. He dragged his free hand down his face and I stepped forward. With my arms wrapped around my body, I shook my head.
“No baby,” I struggled to say. “Mommy and daddy… we are… we’re breaking up. Gabe was right. We’re getting a divorce and—“
“No!” Honesty cried. “No! No!”
Aubry didn’t say anything; she just stared at Duke with this empty expression on her face. Gabe got up and stormed off. Sparkle just looked on with dipped brows, confused. She didn’t really know what was going on, but she did know something bad was happening.
I consoled Honesty. I wrapped my arms around her and rocked back and forth. Duke paced. After about three seconds or so, Aubry got up and walked over to him. She shook her head, and said, “I told you to fix it, dad! I told you to… I—”
“I tried!” Duke yelled. “I tried, Bry! I can’t do shit about…” he paused and lowered his voice. “I can’t do anything about it.”
She tilted her head to the side and stared up at him with a perplexed look. “You always fix it. You… dad… things always get better.”
He always fixed it? She noticed… when things were bad… she noticed. Despite how hard we tried to pretend, she knew. I wondered if the other kids noticed too.
“Not this time baby. Not this—”
“Why not!?” She yelled. “Why can’t you fix this!?”
Duke glanced over at me as Sparkle climbed into my lap, and I wondered if he’d drop the bigger bomb on her.
I wondered if he’d tell her the truth. Not just about Diary but about everything.
I wondered if he’d tell her he hurt me time and time again.
I wondered if he’d tell her he mishandled my heart and out of it came a bastard child. I wondered…
But he didn’t. Instead, he wrapped his free arm around her and held her as best he could with one arm.
She buried her face in his chest and sobbed.
I lowered my head into the sides of my baby’s neck and cried myself, rocking back and forth.
Upstairs I heard ruckus, like Gabe was throwing things around.
I didn’t know how I would handle that. Didn’t know if it was even up to me to handle it.
I looked up at Duke, and he was looking at me already.
He shook his head and looked up, likely thinking the same thing I was about Gabe.
“Why?” Asked Aubry, her voice muffled by Duke’s chest.
“Not right now, Bry,” Duke said. “Okay not right—”
“If y’all love each other, why are y’all getting a divorce?” She pulled away and looked over at me with this look of disgust. “If you love him why are you leaving him?”
I drew back, caught off guard. I didn’t expect that. I didn’t expect things to flip on me. I expected the tears. The anger. And the confusion but anger toward me? Never.
“Aubry—”
“And don’t tell me it’s grown-up stuff! I’m grown, too!” She yelled, tears pouring from her eyes.
“Chill, Bry. Now’s not the right time, aight? We’ll talk. I promise we’ll talk,” said Duke with a pause, before grabbing her face. “You hear me? We will talk.”
She snatched away and stormed off.
How was I going to handle that? What was I supposed to do with her being upset with me?
Blaming me? When it really, truly wasn’t my fault?
I made the decision, yes but I didn’t do this.
It wasn’t on me. It was on him. She couldn’t be mad at me.
I—all I did was choose me. All I did was make the right decision.
Not just for me, but for all of us. What would we become?
What would this family become? With Duke and I staying together with me having a ton of pent-up resentment.
Was I supposed to welcome Diary in with opened arms?
Was she supposed to move in here? Were we supposed to be one big happy family?
I couldn’t do that. Not without hate in my heart.
“Why are y’all getting a divorce, ma?” Honesty asked. “Why? What… what happened?”
I looked down at her, kissed her on the top of her head, and took a deep breath. “Grown up stuff, baby. We just… mommy and daddy… we grew a part and—”
“How?” She cried.
I looked over at Duke, and he joined me on the couch. “Stuff like that just happens sometimes, baby girl,” he said, pulling Honesty into his arms. Sparkle climbed over and they rested on his chest.
I stood up and told him I’d check on Gabe. He nodded and I walked off.
The walk up the stairs was just as heavy as the living room was before.
Felt like that quicksand feeling had been following me all day.
When I got to the top of the stairs, the sound of things being tossed around stopped.
What was I supposed to do? Was I to walk in, wrap my arms around him and apologize?
What was I to do when he started to ask questions like Aubry? Would he get mad at me too?
I slowly walked down the hallway until I got to his room. His bedroom door was partially open. I slowly pushed it. “G,” I softly said, finding him pacing back and forth surrounded by a mountain of mess.
He knocked everything from his shelves onto the floor. There were things all over the room.
“G,” I repeated.
He looked over his shoulder at me, and my heart broke at the sight of tears running down his face. I took a deep breath, pulled my lips into my mouth, and fought back tears of my own. Well, I tried to at least. The fight was a fight that I lost.
Instead of saying anything to him, I approached him with opened arms and wrapped them around him.
My baby boy melted into my arms and started to bawl.
I ran my hand over his back and told him that everything would be okay.
Did I know that for sure? Of course not.
But I hoped everything would be. I prayed everything would be.
Everything had to be okay. If divorce was going to break them, it wouldn’t be happening.
If this was something the kids wouldn’t be able to bare, God wouldn’t have put it in my heart to go through with it.
He would have given me the strength required to go on with Diary in the picture.
But He didn’t. He would have given me strength a long time ago.
He would have kept me on the path of making this marriage work, if it was supposed to work.
But He didn’t. And to me that meant the path I was heading down was the right one all along.
“Ma,” Gabe cried. “Did he hit you?”
I pulled away from the hug and cupped his face. “No, Gabriel, your father didn’t hit me. Okay? He did not hit me.”
“So,” he paused to catch his breath. “What’s going on then? Why—why is this happening?”
I pulled him back into my arms and rubbed the back of his head.
Instead of responding to him, I just held him tighter.
I hated that question. I didn’t have an answer for them today.
I mean… yeah, I had one, but I couldn’t just tell them.
I couldn’t tell them their father hurt me more times than I could count.
I couldn’t mention Diary. As bad as I wanted to, I couldn’t.
I couldn’t handle this from a place of anger or resentment.
I had to handle it from a place of compassion. Not for Duke, but for my children.
The rest of the day was spent consoling my children. And when bedtime came, sleep didn’t come easy. I laid there crying while Duke did the same. We didn’t say a word to one another. Just laid beside each other feeling pain from two completely different places.