She shook her head and pulled away from the hug. “It’s not though. I’m so grateful for you, ma. I wish you would have had what I got.”
I wished I did too. I wished more than she would ever know. I might not have had a me growing up, but I had ‘a me’ now and going forward I vowed to treat myself with the love and compassion I’d been missing.
After bathing Sparkle,I took a shower, poured a glass of Caymus and curled up in bed with my phone. I was watching my Facebook story, checking the views when I noticed one from someone who wasn’t a follower. She’d been in my views a few times. Talia Tolbert. Talia… Talia… the name was familiar as hell, so I clicked on it to go to her profile. When I saw her profile picture, I immediately recognized the woman she was in the picture with. Char, Duke friend Tank baby momma. Talia was her sister. What the hell was she on my page for? I didn’t know the bitch like that. Duke must’ve been talking, telling people about the divorce and she came to be nosey. I didn't know what the fuck for. I didn’t put my business on social media. The only clue they would get about the divorce was when I changed my name and I was some ways away from doing that. The divorce process was annoying. He didn’t give me a hard time, it just was the overall process that was taking a minute.
Because I was curious, I scrolled her page, reading her statuses. She was one of them. Loud mouth, ghetto bitches that shared shit about being single and fucking who she wanted to fuck. When I got to a post about her fucking ‘somebody’s husband’, I paused. I didn’t know what it was about the post, but it stood out to me. With a squint, I clicked on the comments and read through them. Char posted the crying face emoji, saying her sister was going to hell and that she thought ‘he’ was one of the good niggas.
Something in me said they were talking about Duke. I didn't know what it was, but that’s what I got from it. I stared at the comments and even scrolled her page a little longer, with a smirk on my face, shaking my head. I thought back to the day he went to a card game over there and wondered if he’d fucked her then. My mind got to running, thinking maybe Duke never stopped cheating. Maybe he just got better at hiding it. After about five minutes of ruminating, I stopped, pausing mid-scroll to check myself. What the fuck was I doing? Did any of that shit matter anymore? Nope. Not at all. Instead of spending another second thinking about that nigga and this bitch, I scrolled to the top of the page and simply blocked her.
With a deep breath, I reached over to the nightstand for my drink. In the middle of sipping, my phone chimed. Picking it up, I saw that it was Sienna. She was checking in with me. At one thirty in the damn morning. I was a little bummed because I was hoping it was Crescent. He didn’t reply to my message. Opened it but didn’t say anything. I felt slighted but it was what it was. After messaging Sienna back, I went to Crescent’s text thread and stared at the ‘read at 3:45pm’ message at the end of mine. I guess it really was a wrap between us. Again, I didn’t have anyone to blame but myself.
27
DUKE
“Thanks ma,I appreciate it. I will be back to get her right after work,” I said to my ma, standing at the front door, getting ready to leave.
“I know the drill,” she said, holding the door open for me.
Kneeling, I kissed Diary on the forehead and told her I would be back in a couple hours. She wrapped her arms around my neck and laid her head on my shoulder. “Okay.”
“Be good for Ms. Adena, alright? If she tell you to do something, you do it. No back talk.”
“Okay, Mr. Duke,” she said, pulling away from the hug.
The last time she was here, she gave moms such a hard time that she threatened not to keep her anymore. Diary was used to being the only child and didn’t play well with others. She needed to get that in order quick because she had four other siblings and a shit ton of cousins to play with now. It was a transition for her though, so I was patient. I just needed moms to be patient with her.
Shit was moving swiftly. Diary was staying with me full time now. Ms. Rochelle was on her way to a nursing home. Her health was steady declining, so she needed care around theclock. Everything seemed to work out just right. Imagine me still hiding Diary with what’s going on with Ms. Rochelle? I would have had to tell Mahogany eventually because Diary wouldn’t have had anywhere to go. Imagine me not being set up at my own spot with that happening. You know how fucked up it would have been? Asking Mahogany to let my outside baby stay with us?
After telling Diary goodbye again, I left out of the house and headed to work. Although things were moving swiftly, it was still a transition I was adjusting to. I went from having help in the morning with the kids to handling everything between getting her dressed and making sure she was fed. On top of that, I had to travel twenty-five minutes every morning to drop her off at moms first. So that meant I had to get up at the crack of ass just to make sure I made it to work on time. The first week, I thought about Mahogany and how she’d made it seem so easy, getting up at five, getting the kids ready, having her morning tea and shit. Doing it with a smile and sometimes even a couple of jokes.
I missed her.
Yeah. She fucked another nigga.
But I missed her like fucking crazy. It’d been damn near a month since I moved out, and every day was still spent thinking about her. Thinking about what I could have and should have done differently to make us work. I had deep regrets. Deep regrets that kept me up at night. Shit ran through my mind so much that sometimes my alarm would sound, and I hadn’t slept at all. It was crazy what the divorce was doing to me. There was an emptiness that I didn’t think would ever be filled. The other night it was so bad, I got on my knees and prayed, asking God to take the thought of my wife out of my mind. Yeah, she was still my wife. Divorce hadn’t been finalized yet. Anyway... yeah... I cried, on my knees to God about the shit it was so bad. I had to stop myself from texting her a couple of times a day. SometimesI wanted to move past what happened. Had even asked God to help me forgive her for what she did. I felt like... shit... if I could move past what she did, we could have a chance right?
That was delusion though. Mahogany wasn’t even talking to me. She hadn’t called or texted. Shit was very weird, not talking to her. I had to settle for hearing the sound of her voice in the background when I called the kids. Sometimes I’d hope they were around her when I called just so I could hear her. Hearing the smile in her voice when she talked to them made me smile. Made me miss her more. But made me smile still. Sometimes I sit on the phone with them, with my eyes closed, envisioning her busying around the house... that smile on her chocolate face.
It hurt more than I imagined, to be honest. A lot more. I felt like it only hurt as much as it did because I caught her cheating. If she would have just divorced me and I never saw that shit, I probably would have been halfway decent because this was just the fall out behind the shit I did. Still... it would have fucked me up, but nothing hurt more than her giving her body to another nigga. I thought Mahogany was mine. I didn’t think she was capable of doing what she did. The fact that she did tell me she was further out of the relationship than I thought.
Things with the kids were rocky. I expected such. But what I didn’t expect was for them to decline coming over as often. Yeah. Getting them to the condo was kind of hard. Sparkle was the only one excited about coming over. The other three knew exactly what I’d done, so they were apprehensive. I understood and told myself to be as patient with them as I had to be with Diary and the transition. I just didn’t know how much longer I could go without having that old connection with them.
Shit with Aubry was the worst. I hadn’t spoken to her since she met Diary. All of my texts and calls went unanswered. I had to accept hearing how she was doing from her siblings. Gabe was short with me. We didn’t talk about sports like that anymore.Anytime I called his answers were flat and dry. There was no excitement in his voice. The only one besides Sparkle that gave me a little love was Honesty. She was sad mostly but always told me she loved me and that she missed me.
I was getting in the car when my phone rang. I fished it from my pocket and frowned at the sight of the therapist, Nicole name. Fuck? I hadn’t gotten a call from her in a nice ass minute. To stop another one from coming through, I answered. Might as well tell her we didn’t need a marital counselor anymore.
“Hello?” I said, closing the car door behind me.
“Hey, Duke?” Nicole said.
“Yeah, wassup Nikki? Mahogany and I are getting a divorce so?—
“Oh no,” she interrupted. “That’s why I haven’t seen you two, huh?”
“Yeah,” I somberly said.
Saying that shit out loud still fucked with me. And probably would for the rest of my life. This wasn’t supposed to happen. We were supposed to work through our problems and grow old together. If Diary never happened, we would have. I felt that in my spirit. But... it was later for regrets and shit. I couldn’t sit around hating the fact that I got Erika pregnant. Diary was here and that was that.
