17. Shante #2
“All that cheating and the lies of whatever the fuck you thought you needed.” I looked at him. “You had a wife who loved your stupid ass. A daughter who thinks the world of you. I paused. “And somehow that wasn’t enough.”
Deuce didn’t have one slick comment. “I would’ve killed to have what you had.
” My voice came out quieter. “I thought I was about to have it with Malik.” That was the truth I’d pictured a whole life with him.
Marriage eventually and kids that were actually ours.
Family dinners and coming home to the same person every night.
Arguing over dumb shit and making up, normal shit. “And now he’s gone.”
Deuce shrugged. “You’ll find somebody else.”
I stared at him because Deuce thought people were replaceable.
Malik wasn’t a pair of shoes I could replace because the old ones didn’t fit anymore.
Trust wasn’t something I could walk into a store and buy another one of.
“That’s what you don’t understand.” I grabbed my purse. “You think everybody is replaceable.”
His expression changed. “That’s why you did Alisha the way you did.
You thought she’d always be there and that Kim could stay on the side.
Thought I’d always clean up whatever mess you made and that Grandma would always forgive you because that’s what Grandma does.
” I stood. “But one day you’re gonna look around and everybody ain’t gonna be there no more. ”
Deuce stared through the glass. “And when that happens, don’t act surprised.” I hung up the phone.
“Shante.” Deuce yelled.
I stopped, a small part of me hoped he’d finally say it. That he was sorry and that he shouldn’t have asked me to do this. That he understood what it had cost me, but instead some dumb shit came out his mouth. “You sure Alisha ain't acting different?”
I closed my eyes for two seconds because this nigga was hopeless. When I opened them, he was still sitting there waiting on an answer. “You know what, Deuce? I hope she leaves your ass.” And I hung up.
Once I made it outside, I stopped beside my car and dug through my purse for my phone.
No missed calls from Alisha or Malik. It was time to figure out how to tell my best friend that the babies she’d been buying clothes for weren’t mine and Malik’s.
Time to explain why I’d lied and try to somehow make her understand why I’d agreed to do something so fucked up in the first place.
I should’ve gone home after leaving the jail.
Instead, I found myself headed toward Grandma’s house.
I didn’t feel like being alone. That apartment had become depressing as hell since Malik left.
Every time I walked through the door, I noticed something else missing.
A lamp, a picture, a damn kitchen utensil.
That nigga had packed like he was evacuating before a hurricane.
I pulled into Grandma’s driveway and sat there for a minute before getting out. Her curtains moved, grandma stayed watching that damn window. By the time I made it to the porch, the door was already opening. “What are you sitting in my driveway for?”
“Hello to you too, Grandma.”
“I saw you sitting out there.”
“I just pulled up.”
“You were out there long enough for me to wonder if you were coming in or casing the place.”
I walked past her. “Who casing this old house?”
“Somebody who wanna die.” That was Grandma Lorraine, seventy one years old and still convinced she could beat everybody’s ass. I headed toward the living room.
“Take them shoes off.”
“Grandma.”
She looked at my stomach, then back at me.
“Never mind keep ‘em on, I ain’t picking your big ass up off my floor.”
“Why I gotta be big?” I asked.
“Because you are.”
I rolled my eyes and sat down. Grandma disappeared toward the kitchen. “You want something to eat?”
“No.” She came back carrying a plate anyway. “I said I wasn’t hungry.”
“And I didn’t ask twice.”
Fried chicken, macaroni, greens, and cornbread. I picked up my fork and started eating.
“Where you been?” she asked.
“To see Deuce.”
Her face immediately tightened. “Lord, what that fool done said now?”
That opened the floodgates and I told her everything.
How I’d gone down there because I needed Deuce to understand what this whole situation had cost me.
I had sacrificed my body, my peace, and damn near everything else because my brother convinced me this surrogacy would somehow help him.
And after all of that Deuce was sitting in the county anyway. “I did all this shit for nothing.”
Grandma shook her head. “You did it for the wrong reasons, that's different.”
Then I told her the part that really pissed me off. After everything I’d said to Deuce, all that nigga wanted to know was whether Alisha knew.
Grandma closed her eyes. “That boy has been selfish since birth.”
“Exactly.”
“But don’t get too comfortable.”
I stopped chewing. Grandma settled back in her chair. “Deuce being wrong don’t make you right.”
“I never said I was right.”
“You ain’t gotta say it, everytime you blame him for everything, that’s what you’re trying to convince yourself of. Right is right and wrong is wrong. Deuce was wrong, Kim was wrong and baby, you were wrong too.”
I looked down at my plate. Grandma wasn’t yelling, she didn’t need to. “You knew who Kim was, you knew Deuce was married. You knew what Alisha meant to you and you knew what Malik believed.”
That last part hurt. “I know.”
“I believe Deuce used your love for him against you.”
My eyes came back to hers. “He did.”
“I know.” Grandma nodded. “But you still had a choice.”
There wasn’t much I could say to that, because she was right Deuce had manipulated me.
He’d made everything sound urgent. Made me feel like helping him was the difference between saving him and watching his whole life fall apart.
And after I got pregnant, I kept choosing the lie every time I had an opportunity to tell the truth. That part belonged to me.
“You've been saving that boy from himself since y’all were little,” Grandma said. “Maybe if everybody stopped catching Deuce every time he fell, he’d learn to watch where the hell he was walking.”
“He is still my brother.”
“And he’ll still be your brother while he’s suffering the consequences of his own bullshit.” Grandma had a way of making complicated shit sound like common sense.
I picked at my food. “He said Malik wasn’t my husband like that makes what happened less important.”
“That was ignorant.” Grandma replied.
“I wanted to reach through that glass.”
“You would’ve got arrested, and I ain’t putting the commissary on two books.”
I looked at her. “You wouldn’t put money on mine?”
“Depends what you did.”
“Grandma.”
“I got bills.”
I shook my head. She was ridiculous, but she was right about Deuce. He couldn’t understand why losing Malik had broken something in me because Deuce treated relationships like people were interchangeable. He thought I’d find somebody else like that fixed anything or like I could replace trust.
I told Grandma about Kim calling too and that irritated her almost as much as it irritated me. “She really believes her and Deuce are gonna be together once these babies get here.” I let her know.
Grandma stared at me. “The same Deuce sitting in the county trying to save his marriage?”
“Yep.” I answered.
“Bless her heart.”
I knew exactly what that meant coming from Grandma. “She’s crazy but that ain’t for me to diagnose.” She paused. “But I wouldn’t leave her alone with scissors.”
“Grandma!”
“What? I said I ain’t diagnosing nobody.”
I shook my head, then Grandma’s expression changed. “Kim ain’t the one you're scared of though.”
I knew immediately where she was going. “Alisha is the one you’re scared of.
My appetite disappeared, grandma watched me. “I already told you I’m not telling her.”
“And I already told you I won’t either.” I looked up.
She’d promised me that before, grandma believed it was mine and Deuce’s truth to tell.
But knowing she wouldn’t expose me didn’t make me feel much better anymore every day it got harder.
Every time Alisha called, I had to think before I spoke.
Every time she asked about the babies, I felt like I was walking through a room full of glass trying not to break anything.
And the apartment visit had made everything worse.
She’d walked through my nearly empty home furious at Malik for me and ready to defend me.
And what did I do? I lied again. I told her Malik cheated, that wasn’t panic anymore, that was a decision.
I had put dirt on a man who hadn’t done anything except find out I’d been lying to him for months.
Grandma must’ve seen something change in my face. “That’s what’s bothering you.”
I didn’t answer. “That lie about Malik.” She asked.
I pushed my plate away. “I didn’t know what else to say.”
“You could’ve said nothing.”
“I panicked.”
“And now?”
Now I was trapped, if I told Alisha the truth, I wasn’t just admitting one lie.
I’d have to explain everything. That Deuce had been messing with Kim and that Kim couldn’t carry.
That I’d agreed to be their surrogate. That I’d let Malik believe these babies were his.
That I’d stood at my own baby shower while Kim announced the truth in front of everybody and still didn’t tell Alisha.
That I’d watched my best friend beat Kim’s ass without stopping to explain why Kim kept calling them her twins and after all of that, I’d looked Alisha in her face and lied again about Malik. There wasn’t one confession waiting for me. There were months of them stacked on top of each other.
And once I started telling the truth, I wouldn’t get to choose which parts Alisha found out, she’d know everything. “I can’t tell her, Grandma.”
“You can or is it you just don’t want to?” She asked.