13. Pretty
NEXT DAY
I thought yesterday would be enough to keep me in a good mood, but as I suspected when my eyes opened this morning the memories of my past were unlocked. With the memories came depression, and with depression, the tears eventually came.
When I first woke up, I forced myself out of the bed and to the kitchen. I took my time creating breakfast: ham, French omelet, and beignets. I sat at the table alone and ate the meal with a Kir Royale.
I broke down somewhere between cleaning the dishes and wiping down the counters. The sobs racked me, taking over my body until I crumpled to the floor. I had to get out of the house, so I pushed through the patio doors and ran out onto the deck.
The lungful of air that I gulped wasn’t enough to purge my emotions. They overwhelmed me, and I found myself bent over with my hands gripping my knees. The tears flowed, and sobs poured from deep in my soul.
I quickly grew tired of fighting it. “Damn it! I’m so angry!
How could they use me the way that they did?
Why did I spend three years of my life grieving someone who wasn’t worth it?
Why do I care what they thought about me or what they talked about?
Cut them out of my heart!” I demanded as I yelled at the heavens.
I dropped down in a chair and used the palms of my hands to stop the flow of tears. They wouldn’t stop, and I finally gave up. I had no more sobs remaining, but the tears continued to trickle though they had greatly slowed up.
“Pretty?”
My chest tightened, and my belly felt topsy turvy. This was the worst possible moment for him to show up. I knew that I looked a hot mess with my tangled hair all around my shoulders, my eyes red and swollen, and my face tear-streaked and puffy.
I wiped my face again and sniffled as I sat up straight. I summoned a smile to share with him as he stepped onto the patio.
“I would ask if you’re okay, but I clearly see that you’re not.”
“No, I’m not,” I stated, turning to face him as he took a seat beside me. I wasn’t going to offer apologies because that wasn’t who I was.
“You want to tell me what’s wrong?”
I stared at him for several seconds, gauging how much I wanted to share, because I knew that I would share. There was no guessing about that. I inhaled deeply and nodded.
“Today is my husband’s birthday.”
He blinked rapidly and frowned. “Husband?”
“Yes. He died three years ago.”
Understanding dawned in his eyes, and he replied, “I can imagine that today is extremely hard for you.”
I was thankful that he didn’t say “I’m sorry” or the things that people usually said when they learned my husband died.
“I’m angry. I woke up this morning, and that was the first memory I had. Yesterday, I’d hoped that having fun with you and your family would make today easier to accept.”
“I wish that I’d known you were dealing with that. Running from the memories can’t make it easier.”
“It’s not the memories that I’m trying to outrun but the anger.”
“Tell me about him.”
I smiled at his kindness, surprised that he was willing to listen to me talk about another man. I knew that Drew wanted more, and I wanted more from him. Grief, hurt, and anger was what kept me from giving him more because I was afraid of hurting him.
He listened to every detail and asked questions at the appropriate time. When I finished, he just held my hand and sat in silence for a while. We stared out into the backyard at the beautiful flowers on the trees in my yard.
“I’m sorry he hurt you like that. Maybe that’s why it’s hard for you to let go. You were never able to confront his betrayal. Have you spoken with her?”
“No. Not since the day I called her. We have nothing to talk about. She’s as dead to me as he is.”
“Damn. That’s just cold what they did. On the other hand, I’m grateful you found out and didn’t spend the rest of your life in the dark.”
“Yeah, me too.”
“True love will heal your heart in time.”
I rolled my eyes and sat silent for a long time. After a while, I asked, “What’s your private pain?”
He screwed his face up and dropped his head.
His elbows rested on his knees. When he finally looked up, it wasn’t at me.
Drew stared off into the yard as though he were looking into his past. His voice when he spoke was thick with emotion as though he hadn’t confronted his grief, as if the memories and the pain were still fresh. I knew what that felt like.
“Since I could walk, I’ve always had a football in my hand.
It was no secret what I would grow up to be.
Coach taught me to always protect myself in every form: physically, mentally, sexually, spiritually, and emotionally.
Women weren’t to be trusted; that was the number one rule.
I’m a retired NFL running back. I just retired this year after winning my final Super Bowl championship. ”
Somehow, that didn’t surprise me. I wasn’t sure why he hadn’t told me, but I wasn’t in shock.
“I knew that something was up. Whenever we go places, if you don’t look like you’re trying to hide, then people are acknowledging you. It was giving married, but I knew that wasn’t true. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You were the first woman I met who had no idea who I was. I wanted to keep it that way for as long as possible so that you could get to know me, not the celebrity.”
“Did I pass the muster?” I asked, teasing him as I squeezed his knee.
“Hell yeah. You barely give my black ass the time of day, but I know that you like me.”
I winked at him and pinched my thumb and index finger together. “A little bit.”
We laughed.
“You seem to know a little something about anonymity, and you’re definitely holding your own when I think about the prices your paintings commanded in Naples.
During my time in the league, women proved my dad right.
Women wanted my baby, my name and a ring, the clout that came from being associated with me, or the doors I could open.
“I gave them none of that. If you hadn’t worked your ass off being by my side or couldn’t hold your own while you walked this road with me, then I had nothing for you.
Women were interchangeable in my life and had nothing to offer but sex.
I wasn’t trying to have their heart or anything else.
Somehow, I managed to screw that up. I allowed one woman to become too familiar with me and my life.
When I realized she had some issues going on, I tried to walk away, but it was too late. She told me she was pregnant.”
“You being the cool guy you are decided to stick around, I guess. Make no mistake about it: You might play the field, but you have a good heart. I can tell that right off, and it doesn’t matter what you got into as far as women were concerned. Some things you can’t hide or change.”
“Yeah, I guess. Either way, I decided it was time to slow down. I wanted to be there for her and my baby. I gave her my all, and she played in my face time and time again.”
“Did you consider it payback for how you treated women?”
“No. I never mistreated women. I had no problem taking them on dates and treating them to a nice time. The one thing no one can take away from me is that I was always upfront with them about my expectations and what they could expect from me. They could accept it or choose to walk. They accepted it.”
“We all have our choices to make.”
“Exactly. No matter the outcome, we have to stand in our decision at the end. Anyway, I was there through the entire pregnancy. When the baby was born, people expressed their doubts, but I didn’t get caught up.
I stood by her side, even when my little guy turned four months, and she started moving differently.
She was coming home late at night, ending phone calls when I walked in the room, and eventually not coming home until the next day.
She’d claim she was with a friend. I brushed it off because I was there for my li’l man.
“I would head out of town for away games, and when I returned home, my house smelled like someone had been smoking weed, and she didn’t smoke.
She would claim it was one of her girls.
Or I’d smell men’s cologne, and she would swear it was one of her male cousins.
I told her she had one time to let me catch a nigga in my place, and I was busting his ass and hers. ”
“Did you ever catch someone in your home?”
“No. She had an older son, and his dad would drop him off and pick him up. He’d linger a little longer than I thought he should have, and no sooner than I’d step out the house, that nigga would dip.
She disappeared earlier this year during the Super Bowl, and she didn’t bring him to the game or the parade like I asked her to.
When I returned home, I couldn’t find her.
She finally reached out and told me my kid was with her mom.
When I popped up at her mom’s house, she said she hadn’t seen them in a while.
“I started talking about getting a DNA test, and in so many words, her mother encouraged me to do it. I left and found my son. He was at the park with her and her older son’s daddy, but her son wasn’t there.”
“What did you do?” I feared there might have been an altercation.
“Snatched my kid and left. Wasn’t shit for me to say.
I wasn’t arguing with him or fighting over her.
She wasn’t worth that to me. I just wanted my kid.
When I looked at him and my kid, I saw the similarities—the light-colored skin, the curly hair, and the big red lips.
I didn’t say shit. Just took li’l man, made an appointment to get a DNA test, and headed to a hotel to hide out.
I didn’t want her to show up at my house and snatch him before I had a chance to take the test. I took the test, and when the results came back, it was everything everyone had ever said; he wasn’t my kid. ”
“And you knew it already? I mean, deep in your heart.”
“Yeah,” he answered in a thick voice. “Shit wasn’t easy, though.”
“Of course not. You’d developed a bond with that baby, loved him, taken care of him, and I can’t imagine it would’ve been easy to walk away.”
“Nah. It wasn’t.” He turned his head sideways and looked at me. His eyes were red and narrow. He rubbed his hands together and then pulled his hand over his mouth and through his beard. “I never told anybody this, but I cried like a baby when I got the results.”
I reached my hand out and rubbed his back. He closed his eyes for several long seconds.
“Was he with you?”
He shook his head. “Nah. She’d come to get him a few days earlier.”
“What did she say when you told her?”
“Wasn’t shit she had to say to me. I had the results set up to be delivered to her via courier at the same time that I received mine.
I made sure that she had to sign for them.
I got the receipt from the courier service, and I confirmed that it was her signature, so I know she got them.
She called me afterwards, blew my phone up.
Left all kinds of voicemails and text messages. ”
“What’d she say?”
“That someone switched the results, they didn’t test me, they didn’t test him, something was faulty with the test, and then she apologized.
She said she was sorry, and she didn’t mean it.
She said she had no idea, but it was a close time between us being together and her ending things with her other baby’s father.
She had every excuse. She begged me to forgive her. ”
“Have you spoken with her?”
“No. We ain’t got shit to say to each other.”
I stood and headed inside, gripping his shoulder first. I grabbed a bottle of wine, a couple of wineglasses, and a box of tissues. I sat beside him again. After I handed him the glass of wine, I handed him the box of tissues.
He looked at it and then at me. A tiny smirk came on his lips, bringing a smile to mine. Before I knew it, we had both cracked up laughing. After we regained our composure, he looked at me and asked, “We’re pitiful, aren’t we?”
“We’re entitled to one day of pity, and then we must move on!” I exclaimed, holding a finger in the air.
We drank the wine, talked about our pasts some more, and he finally declared, “I want to let go of my pain and build a beautiful life for myself. I regret nothing, but I don’t want to continue making foolish mistakes. I want a brighter future.”
“I would like that, too, but I don’t know how to grab hold of it.”
“By living one day, one moment at a time.” He reached out his hand, and I took it.
“You make it sound so easy.”
“It can be. We can take the journey together to discover how to truly live free of the pain of our pasts and embrace a life of happiness and peace.”
I squeezed his hand and smiled at him. “I’d like that, Drew.”
He lifted my hand to his lips and kissed my knuckles. A peace settled over me that I hadn’t felt for a long while.