She sat at the kitchen table, her short, relaxed hair perfectly coiffed, drinking coffee from our Keurig machine, when I entered the house from the side door. “Hey, Ma. Did KJ get to school okay?”
“Yes, he did. He wanted to see Jamie this morning, and I had to make up some lie because no one was home. Didn’t look like anyone had been home since yesterday. Where were you, and where is my grandson?” She peered at me over the coffee cup, waiting for an answer she already knew.
“With his real father,” I answered. “I just left them to come here.”
She sighed deeply. “Fix me another cup of French roast, please.”
“You hungry?” I pulled out a mug and two coffee pods from the cabinet and rinsed out the mug.
Mama shook her head. “Too worried about you to be hungry.”
“You don’t have to worry. I’m a grown woman.”
“Are you sure? Because from what I see, you’re acting like that teenager caught up in a boy who’s no good for you again.” She tapped her manicured nails on the table. “Spending the night at his home with Jamie when you’re a married woman. What self-respecting man wants to pursue a married woman in the first place?”
“Wow…he’s right. No matter what he does, we judge him.” I put the mug down and turned to rest my backside against the counter. “What do you know about Freedom?”
She tilted her head. “He used to run the streets and knocked you up before going to jail. He’s lucky he has a talent.”
“He had to take care of his brother, Mama. His dad was a drunk and abusive. But when he met me, he found honest work because he wanted me and my family to be proud of him, to accept him. And we both decided to have unprotected sex. He never forced me or guilted me into sex.” I stopped myself. “I don’t need to explain to you what you’ll never accept. I love him. Still and always. And I plan to leave Kody.”
Mama scoffed. “Leave all of this to be with a man who will probably abandon you? People have affairs, but they don’t leave their marriages for the person with whom they had the affair. It never works. Be grateful that Kody hasn’t left you yet. He told your father that he still wants his marriage.”
“His marriage or me?” I waved my hand. “Whether Freedom and I make it, I can’t stay with Kody. I will always love the friend he had been to me when Jamie was young, and that he gave me KJ. Other than that, it’s not enough to stay. Freedom helped me see that.”
“Of course, he did,” She retorted. You’re not thinking clearly. Too caught up in the past, and that he has money and fame, to see that you’re making the biggest mistake of your life.”
I folded my arms. “No, Mama. The biggest mistake was not telling Freedom about Jamie. He missed out on fourteen years of his life. He would’ve been there for me and Jamie had he known.”
“Freedom did know.” She snootily replied. “He came to the house, looking for you, and didn’t want to have anything to do with Jamie. We didn’t want you to be hurt further, so we nevertold you. We saw how devastated you were when he stood you up for the prom and when he got sent away.”
I eased into the chair beside her. “Were you with Daddy that day?”
“No. He told me later that night what happened, and finally told Kody when you became a couple.”
I shook my head. “Freedom didn’t know about Jamie until three months ago. His brother works at Oak Valley High and put two and two together. Daddy lied about Freedom knowing. He slipped up and admitted to lying last night when he arrived at the hospital and saw Freedom.”
“I didn’t lie to him, but I lied to you,” My father had quietly entered the house from the front door. Our parents had an extra set of keys to our home that they used to pick up and drop off the children when we needed them. “I told him you didn’t want him anymore and that he needed to leave you alone because I believed you didn’t want him anymore. I didn’t tell him about Jamie because I didn’t want him to mess up your life when you were finally picking up the pieces of the destruction he left behind. He showed up at my doorstep with some weak flowers and pleaded with me about getting in touch with you. You think I was about to let that criminal back into our lives?”
My heart. My heart wilted at the hope I could picture on Freedom’s face, anxious yet ready to prove he was worthy of me. “No wonder he never came back to me,” I said quietly. “And I made him feel the same way last night. I’m the lucky one if he decides he wants to be with me.”
My father grunted. “Everything you’ve built, this house, the business, and your boys…throwing it all away for him.”
I nodded. “I should be telling him first, though I suspect Kody already knows that I plan to separate. I’d appreciate it if you keep your thoughts, comments, and disappointments to yourself when the children are around. It will be an adjustmentfor us all. I don’t need the two of you and your judgmental ways interfering.”
My mother implored, “What if Jamie comes home and says he wants to date a girl who uses drugs or is out there wild? We only wanted what was best for our girls, and Freedom wasn’t it.”
“One, Jamie may or may not bring home a girl, which is a discussion for another day, and second, I do understand why you didn’t like Freedom for me at that time. But I loved him and had a child with him, and he deserved to be in his life. You took that away from him, and it’s years and millions of dollars later, and he’s still bad news?” I gripped the sides of the table. “He has been in Jamie’s life now for a little over a month, and to be around the two of them makes me smile. He’s already a doting and thoughtful Dad, and Jamie is mature enough to want Kody and Freedom in his life as his fathers. I need you to show the same level of maturity. I want my children to continue to have the best relationship with their grandparents, despite what happens with either of their fathers.”
My cool-as-a-cucumber father punched the counter, startling my mother and me, and stormed out of the house.
I shrugged. “I’m grown, and I need to do what’s right for me. I see the love that you and Daddy still have for one another. I want that love, or I want nothing at all.”
“Every love can’t be like me and your daddy.” Her soft smile spoke volumes. Just thinking of him made her happy after thirty-seven years.
“I feel that possibility with Freedom, Mama. And maybe Kody and I could make it if he wasn’t a serial cheater, and I’m not sure if he can stop.”
Her head snapped back so fast. “Kody has cheated on you more than once?”
