Part One… #8
“Hey!” Narri jumped up greeting Tate who’d she become much cozier with since Adair and Sabine’s wedding. They hooked up a few times while she was in school but nothing serious until recently.
“Sup baby?” Tate vulgarly kissed and groped her.
“Tate, stop!” Narri squealed and he pulled her down onto his lap. “You missed me?”
“Mhm…” he licked his lips while feeling her up.
“What happened?” Adair asked, already feeling a weird energy from his wife who held a melancholy expression. “What’s wrong baby?”
“Gone and tell him girl!” Pam asserted.
“What is it?” Adair pulled Sabine to her feet and into his arms. “Talk to me.”
Sabine nervously shifted from one foot to the other. “I’m…I’m…”
“Oh shit,” Tate grinned. He didn’t even need to hear the rest to know what would come after the “I’m.” There was the general way of saying “I’m”, then the way a woman translates it before dropping the bomb that she was carrying.
“I’m pregnant.”
“For real?” Adair smiled but he could read his wife like a book. “Come here…”
They traveled through the house before he locked them inside of his bedroom. He was well aware that his mother could be smothering sometimes and a little pushy, but it came from a good place. Pam considered Sabine her daughter and meant well.
“Talk to me, baby, what’s wrong? What you thinkin’?”
“I…” Sabine shrugged. “I don’t know…everything is moving so fast.”
Adair sighed, “what can I do to relieve your stress? I don’t…wait, you don’t wanna have the baby?”
“Of course, I do,” Sabine insisted. “I’m just trying to process it all with everything else going on around me. We’re moving soon, I have to transfer schools, my parents don’t even care if I’m dead or alive…”
Adair got up closing the blackout blinds making the room dark. He kicked off his sneakers and laid on the bed bring her into him. “I stink?” he asked, making her laugh.
“No, not really just a lil musty but I don’t want you to shower yet,” Sabine said, holding onto him tight. “Just lay with me.”
Somehow, it all went quiet, outside and downstairs commotion no longer registered. Their world had sealed around them and all she could hear was his heartbeat that had always been louder than the noise.
JULY 23, 2011
“You sure you want all of it?” Tate asked Adair just to be certain. “While I’m at it, you sure you don’t want to at least be plugged in New York?”
“Yes and no.”
Tate blew out a heavy breath while shaking his head. Adair had been saving this money since they were teenagers. It was block bills, but he worked hard for that shit.
Adair sacrificed living the way he could’ve at his very young age which he deserved, to make sure his mother didn’t have a care. He didn’t even touch it while being a college student, instead getting a job.
Tate was proud of his best friend for beating the odds and just wanted to be sure he was still being smart.
Everything he had left; he was taking it all for him and Sabine.
“I mean, ain’t she rich?”
“Her bitch ass daddy is rich; she just had access to the benefits of that her whole life.”
“So her ass ain’t got no money?”
“I didn’t say that and what the fuck is your problem with my wife all of a sudden?” Adair paused putting stacks of money in the bag before grilling his best friend.
“Relax, my nigga, ain’t nobody feelin’ no way about your wife, I’m just being a good fuckin’ friend.”
“Well be a good friend and help me get all this shit outta here, let me worry about my wife.” Adair went back to throwing stacks of money into the bag.
He was the one uprooting Sabine and basically changing her whole life in what felt like overnight to her, so he was going to do everything in his power to make sure she was taken care of, especially now that they were having a baby.
Adair wanted to tell Sabine that they were more than good, but he didn’t know what she would think about how he was able to put them in that position.
“You hype as shit! My wife,” Tate imitated Adair making him crack up. “Stay ready to fight over her.”
“Nah,” Adair shook his head. “I ain’t doin’ no fightin’ over her…I’m killin’ somethin’ behind that.”
Tate put his hands up in surrender. “You got it but don’t come cryin’ to me again when she—”
“I ain’t never cried!”
“Yea okay.”
AUGUST 1, 2011
“Awww,” Parthenia held Sabine’s ultrasound up. “I can’t really tell what I’m looking at but awwwww, my wittle niecey or nephey so cute!”
“I still can’t believe you are having a baby,” Narri said, staring at one of the other pictures. “How do you feel? And don’t give us that generic brand bullshit you feed him and his family.”
“I don’t feed Adair anything. I am happy. To be his wife and have his baby.”
“But…” Parthenia probed.
“Nothing, but nothing,” Sabine ended their investigating into her amygdala, swishing the food around on her plate. Pam made sure she ate breakfast, lunch, dinner, and unlimited snacks which were also full meals.
“Holding everything in won’t make things better, Sabine.” Parthenia knew her sister and Sabine out of habit swept things under the rug—the sweeping being her feelings.
“Adair says whatever apprehensions I have regarding our marriage, needs to be heard by his ears only because other people in our marriage don’t fix our problems.”
“Mmm…” Narri poked her bottom lip out. “I guess he has a point.”
“But you admit there is a problem?” Parthenia quizzed.
“Not necessarily,” Sabine shrugged. “He knows I’m overwhelmed with the move and being pregnant which is why he won’t let me lift a finger to do anything.”
“You won’t be that far away,” Parthenia got up, sitting next to her sister. “New York is nothing but a hop, skip and a jump away.”
“Exactly!” Sabine perked up. “I’m just happy that I’m going to be with him,” she smiled, playing with her locket that she never took off.
“What about money? How are y’all going to survive?” Narri inquired.
“Honestly, I don’t know but Adair told me not to worry about anything, so I don’t.”
“You don’t think…” Parthenia leaned in a bit as they were in Pam’s house. “He’s selling drugs again, do you?”
“No!” Sabine defended. “He wouldn’t risk his future like that.”
“Whoa,” Parthenia held her hands up. “I was just asking.”
“That’s enough prying, I don’t have to explain the ins and outs of my marriage. Even if he couldn’t take everything on by himself, I have money saved.”
“Sabine!” Pam shouted, thumping through the house. “Where is your stankin’ ass husband?!”
“I…I don’t know.”
“You don’t keep tabs on your nigga?”
“Ummm, I didn’t think I needed to.”
“I heard Tate nasty ass throwing him a going away party and ain’t nothin’ there but five niggas and a army of freak hoes.”
“What?!” Narri pulled out her phone. “I am going to skin that muthafucka!”
“See now,” Pam pointed. “That’s the energy you need to be having.”
August 2, 2011, 3:33 am
Sabine felt the movement from her husband getting into bed at the wee hours of the morning.
No call. No text. Nothing to explain that he was staying out late.
He was getting comfortable as if he didn’t even have to offer her an explanation.
Feeling the urge to cry she simply closed her eyes and went back to sleep.
AUGUST 2, 2011
Later that day…
“So you not gonna tell me what’s wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong, Adair,” Sabine responded as she sat in the passenger seat with her arms crossed, staring every way but in his direction.
“Ain’t shit wrong, but you haven’t been fuckin wit me all day.”
“Why don’t you ask yourself why I haven’t.”
“The fuck am I supposed to know?”
“If you don’t know then neither do I.”
“You mad because I stayed out late?”
“Ding ding ding.”
“Bro…” Adair shook his head. “Then why not just say that shit?”
“Why do I have to explain something to my husband that I’m sure you know isn’t cool? Then you don’t call, text, nothing.”
“I was just out wit Tate bullshittin’.”
“Until damn near four in the morning?”
“Yea, we was at the hall.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yep, okay. If that’s your explanation and you think it’s a good enough reason not to call your wife and come home late then…okay.”
AUGUST 3, 2011
“You’re not going to answer that?”
“Nope,” Sabine shoved some more salad in her mouth.
“It’s your husband.”
“Mhm…”
“It’s your husband.”
“Mhm…”
Parthenia leaned forward, arms folded. “So you just not gon’ answer his call?”
“Nope.” Sabine speared another piece of lettuce. “If he can disappear ‘til four in the morning, he can figure out how to get in touch now.”
“You know he probably didn’t do shit.”
“And if he did? What then?”
Parthenia didn’t answer that.
Sabine pushed the bowl away and stared out the window. The light hit her ring, and she turned her hand just slightly—just enough to make it disappear. She didn’t want to talk. Not about him. Not about the voicemail. Not about how tired she was of being the one who cared more.
A few hours later…
Adair was already home when she walked in the house.
Sitting on the edge of the bed. Shoes off. Hands clasped. That same look he always gave when he was trying not to say the wrong thing.
“You good?” he asked.
“I’m fine.”
“You been acting funny.”
Sabine dropped her bag on the chair. “You stay out all night, I don’t say shit. I stay quiet for two days and now I’m the one acting funny?”
Adair stood up slowly. “I’m not tryna argue.”
“Then don’t.”
He crossed the room. Reached for her hand. She didn’t move.
“I didn’t do nothin’, Bine. I was just chillin’. Got caught up.”
“That’s the problem,” she said. “You always ‘get caught up.’ You never just say, ‘I should’ve called.’ You always got some story. Some excuse. It’s disrespectful.”
“You my wife,” he said, voice low. “You know I love you and I would never intentionally disrespect you.”
“Do I? Because love shouldn’t feel like this,” she continued. “Love doesn’t feel like me waitin’gup all night and getting a voicemail at 6AM. It doesn’t feel like me tiptoeing around your mood swings or pretending I’m okay when I’m not.”
“I ain’t never asked you to do that.”