Should Have Known Better

“You don’t know how to play my games,” she said. “You play R. J.’s games.”

“Come on. Let’s not go down that road. You know I spend time with you. And what I do for your brother, I have to. He just needs more attention than you,” I said. “You know that.”

Cheyenne rolled her eyes and let the bottom of her mouth hang low to show her disgust.

“Do you want to watch a movie with me?” I asked, trying to ignore her demeanor.

“I think I’m going to go to bed,” she said.

“Bed? It’s so early.”

“Test tomorrow.” She got up from the beanbag and went to grab her bathrobe. She wrapped it over her arm like she was ten years older and looked at me. “I’m going to get into the shower.”

“OK,” I said. “Well”—I started getting up from the bed—“I’ll be in my room if you change your mind. We can watch something scary. You like scary movies.”

“Not anymore,” she said. “But I’ll let you know.”

She turned and walked down the hall toward the bathroom. I was left standing in the middle of her room alone with my hands in my pockets. I wanted to scream for her to come back and make her talk to me. But it would only make things worse. We’d had this argument before. I wasn’t a bad mother. I knew that. She knew that. I was doing what I had to do. And no matter how angry Cheyenne got with me, the fact was that R. J. was always going to need me more. He just would. And she needed to be strong enough to understand that. Another fight wasn’t going to get us there.

I carried a bottle of wine to bed that night. I don’t know how it got into the refrigerator, or how it got so quickly in my hand, but I hadn’t been in bed alone in years. And after dealing with Reginald leaving with Sasha and Cheyenne’s attitude, I needed something to ease my nerves. Everything seemed so impossibly upside down—and in two days.

“She’s gone,” I told myself, lying in the sheets with an emptying second glass of wine in my hand. The light from the TV crept along the blanket over my lower body in the dark room. Sasha was on the screen wearing a thin yellow sweater and huge diamond earrings. She was sitting next to a woman holding a book. The word “bliss” was on the cover.

“All women need to chase what they want,” the woman said. She had blue eyes and a blue broach on her blouse to match. “They need to aggressively

pursue their dreams.”

“At all costs?” Sasha said, leaning into the woman and smiling the same way my family had smiled at her around the table this morning—it was expectant, taken. “No matter what? That’s what you say in the book.”

“Well, that’s what aggression is. It’s about fighting. About chasing. Women need to learn more of this. You don’t hear men questioning whether or not they should go after a job because another man has it—no, they go in and they fight for their position. They chase bliss relentlessly.”

“If only all women knew this,” Sasha said firmly. She reached out and held the woman’s hand. “Thank you for coming on the show.” She looked at the camera, at me. “This has been Sasha Bellamy with a little message every woman ought to hear: chase your bliss. Good night.” She smiled at me with her blush and glossy lips, and winked.

I finished my wine and poured another glass, hoping it would keep my eyes open long enough to catch Reginald coming in the door.

So when Reginald did finally get home, I was asleep alone, for four more hours. I’d stay that way. Whispers from the living room pulled me from a dream at about 3:00 a.m.

“Reginald,” I called, shaking myself awake. I looked at the clock. The room was dark. I could hear laughing outside the door. Murmurs. A hush and a warning for quiet. I was about to get up, but then Reginald came creeping into the room. He slid into the door and snapped it behind him.

“Babe?” I called sleepily. I bent over and turned on my night-light beside the bed.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Did I wake you?”

“Yeah,” I said. I tried to get up. “Where’s R. J.?”

“No, no, no,” Reginald said. He came over to the bed. “He’s fine. He’s in bed. I already put on his nightclothes and everything.”

He went over to his side of the bed and sat down to take off his sneakers.

I looked at the clock again.

“It’s after 3:00 a.m.,” I said.

“You know,” Reginald started, “I have no idea what time it is!” He laughed and I could tell that he’d been drinking. “No idea.” He pulled off his socks and tossed them across the room.

“So, what happened?” I asked. “How was the game?”

Reginald got up and started removing his clothes. Even in the dull light from my lamp, I could see his tight stomach muscles, a little patch of hair over his pelvis.