Should Have Known Better

“I see you, devil. Come in my house and ruin my family,” he said. “Get out of this child. I see you, devil. I see you. I see you!”

He whipped the Bible up over my head and began beating me with it.

“I see you, devil! I see you!”

He pushed me and Mama down to the floor and began beating both of us, first with his book and then with his belt. Heavy and hard and angry.

“No, Herbert,” Mama cried. “She ain’t done nothing wrong!”

“What you know about what she done wrong? She following you! She’s a whore like her mother. A whore!”

The belt came down on my head so many times I stopped feeling and started thinking. This was it. This was enough. The last moment had come.

The belt came down on my face.

And I grabbed it.

“I’m hungry, Mama!” R. J. groaned with his hand pressing into my shoulder.

Pulled from the burning memory of my father’s belt wrapping around my bare arm, I saw the sun lowered over the front of the car. We were just thirty minutes east of Atlanta and cars in a desperate race through traffic were piling up on either side of us.

I peeked back at R. J.

“Get back in your seat,” I said wistfully.

“Can we get something to eat?” he whined. “I need something to eat. I don’t feel good.”

“We’ll stop in a minute,” I answered, watching him in the rearview mirror as he buckled himself back up. I looked over at Cheyenne. Her eyes were closed, but she was only playing sleep. I could tell because her head was straight up and pointed toward the sunlight coming in through the window.

Slowly, she crept her hand off of her lap and slid it over to R. J. She clasped his hand and squeezed it tightly like she used to do when they were very small and just walking and she, through some knowing intelligence, could feel that her brother was about to cry.

And this is where I actually have to stop telling this tale for just a second. Because it wasn’t until that moment when I saw my babies sitting in the backseat, clutching hands like they were still toddlers, that I realized what was really going on. I’d been hurt by Reginald’s odd behavior, angered by Sasha’s clear betrayal, and even silently mad at myself for being so blind and ignorant for so long. And I’m not slow or stupid. I know that about myself. I know I have faults, but I’m smarter than some simple woman who’s dumb enough to let another woman come in and drag her husband off into space. That’s not me. I’m a lot of things, but that’s not me.

There was something else. Something that was keeping me from seeing things as they were. Seeing things the way I saw them at that moment in the car. Clear as day. It was like I was waking up. I was starting to feel like, up until that moment, each and everything that was happening to me seemed like it was just an echo of my life. I don’t even know if that makes any sense. But it was like, after that first night that Sasha came into the house, everything was fuzzy, not real, and kind of like a dream, even that night in the backyard, even that night in my bedroom, even that morning when Reginald left. It was like I’d been railroaded or run over or robbed in my own house, while I was awake.

And that, well, just the idea of that, infuriated me. Put a loud fire in my heart. Do you know what that’s like? When you can feel anger rumbling inside of you. And not some sense or emotion. A real fire. Fury. My life, my completely imperfect, clichéd, and tedious life, was under some kind of siege. And I was furious at the idea of that. Because it was mine.

Even looking back on it now that I’m on the other side and can see things as they were, I don’t know if I can actually put into words the kind of sudden panic I flipped into at that moment. It wasn’t about me getting into a car to go and get Reginald. That was just a part of a drama that failed to have meaning just yet. It was about me losing myself. About me being tossed into a situation where my children could now lose themselves, or what they thought they were. And that was unacceptable. Sharika was right. I couldn’t let this just be. I had to do something.

Something got into my head and that old and shaky car managed to skate over three lanes and snake off of the highway where I sat and watched the kids eat chicken nuggets and French fries as I made a plan. I couldn’t just show up at Sasha’s house with R. J. and Cheyenne. I couldn’t put them through that. I had no idea what Reginald would say or if he was even still there. I needed to protect them.

“Are we in Atlanta?” R. J. asked, licking ketchup off of a French fry.

I nodded and smiled at another woman across the restaurant, who was sitting with two small babies.

“Isn’t this where you’re from?” he added.

I nodded again.

“You’re lucky I’m home.” There was no smile. No hugs or kisses. This was just the sound of my mother’s voice as she opened her front door and disappeared into the house before we got to see her.

R. J. and Cheyenne looked up at me.

“Go inside,” I offered as pleasantly as I could and smiled. I reached for the screen door.

The three of us filed into the foyer and I could hear my mother still talking to us, though she’d walked into the kitchen.

“Been meaning to get dinner started,” she said distantly. “But no sense rushing to cook when it’s just me. Didn’t know I was expecting company.”