When he picked the phone up, I saw Aubry’s face on the screen. He looked over at me with this look of ‘yeah okay’. I rolled my eyes, walked over, and snatched it from him.
Answering it on speaker, I said, “Hey Bry, baby. I’ll be home in a min?—
“What did auntie Sienna say to dad?”
“What?”
“Not too long ago. Auntie Sienna was here. I left them alone for a couple of minutes and when I came back she was gone. And then not too long after that, he got into an Uber without saying anything to us.”
I brushed my hand over my forehead with a sigh. “What? She—I don’t know, Aubry. Your father is here. We’ll be home in a minute.”
“Really?You don’t know? I think she gave him divorce papers. He had an envelope in his hands. If you had Sienna give him divorce papers you really, really messed up, ma. What is wrong with you? Why won’t you just forgive him? He didn’t evendo anything! You said he didn’t hit you! Why won’t you just stop this!?”
I sighed and gritted my teeth. I didn't have time for this shit. I blatantly told Sienna not to serve him anywhere near the kids. What the fuck?
“I know you better lower your voice and recognize who the hell you talkin’ too. Stay out of grown folks business,” I said before hanging up in her face.
Duke huffed and shook his head. “You see what you doin? Tearin the fuckin’ family a part. You ruinin everything. Selfish as fuck. Don’t give a fuck about how this shit is affecting the kids or nothing. You the only person in this entire equation happy.”
I stood there in disbelief with my mouth slightly open. Was he serious? I mean... was hereallyfucking serious?Iwas tearing the family apart?Iwas ruining everything? Duke had lost his gotdamn mind!
“Hold up!I’mruining everything?I’mtearing the family apart? No! Bitch nigga you did that! Not me!”
He sucked his teeth. “Man, like I said... you doin this shit to them. Not me. House all quiet and shit. Kids sad. Meanwhile you out here fuckin’ clients like some dumb ass ho. Fuck wrong with you, Mahogany?”
I didn’t say anything. The room went quiet. We just stared at one another. Him with a heaving chest and a deep frown, me with tears running down my face. It wasn’t him calling me a dumb ass ho that stung, it was everything else. Was this my fault? Was it my fault for staying too long? Should I have left sooner? Before Spark? Before Honesty? Before Gabe? After that first time he cheated? Was the current climate of the family my fault for allowing us to grow on bad soil?
“Fuck you, Duke,” I said before snatching my purse off the desk to leave.
After I cut the lights out, I went to walk out of the office, but he grabbed me by the arm before I could. I snatched away.
“I’ma give you what you want,” he said with flaring nostrils. “At first, I wasn’t, but after the shit I just seen... you can have it man. Fuck it.”
I didn't say anything—instead, I walked out, and he followed.
“You knowI wouldn’t have done that in front of the kids. Aubry went upstairs for something. Maybe she saw the envelope after I left, Ne,” Sienna said, sitting across from me at her desk.
The ride home from Couture was rough. Duke sat beside me silently crying with a scowl so deep on his face that I drove with my knife in my lap. When we got to the house, he went straight for the mancave and stayed down there until late in the morning, when I was getting ready to leave. The morning... God, the morning. It was brutal, too. Aubry was short with me. Respectful but very short. She said good morning and answered a couple of questions and that was about it. She misplaced her keys and didn’t even ask me if I seen them. I had to tell her where they were without her asking. It was awkward. All of it. The mornings in the Mills-Morris household hadn’t been the same since we told them about the divorce and I was sure they never would be.
I ran my hand down the back of my neck with a sigh. “I should have waited. I should have had you go when they were at school.”
“Do not beat yourself up over that. What happened, happened. And the kids already know what’s going on anyway so?—”
“What’s going on?”
Both Sienna and I looked over towards the door at the sound of my mother's voice. I turned around, rolled my eyes and cursed under my breath.Fuck. Fuck. Fuck! I wasn’t ready for the family to find out. Especially not her. I didn't want to havethattalk. One about marriage and how you’re supposed to stand by your husband during tough times. I didn’t want to listen to her dick ride Duke. I’d be forced to sayitout loud. The truth. And I didn’t think I was quite ready to do that again. Not without a couple of drinks in me.
“Hello?” My momma said, walking into the office. “The kids know what’s going on. What’s going on? Because I sure as hell don’t know.”
Where in the hell did she even come from? She wasn’t here when I got here about twenty minutes ago. I would have never had this conversation while she was here. My mother was still on my shit list from the last little talk we had. I was one to hold a grudge. Silently, at least. I wasn’t one to come out and tell a person what they’d done wrong to get the cold shoulder from me. To me, muthafuckas didn’t need explanations when it came to doing me wrong and the repercussions that came behind that. People knew what they were doing.
“Hey ma,” Sienna said. “When you get here?”
“Just got here. Don’t be changing the subject. Answer the question. What is it that the kids know that I don’t?” She looked between the two of us, waiting for an explanation.
Sienna looked at me with raised brows before reaching for her cup of coffee. I took a deep breath, shifted in my chair, and shook my head.
“It’s nothing, ma. Don’t worry about it.”
