Should Have Known Better

“For what, Mama? We’re going to see Daddy?” R. J. asked as the phone started ringing again.

Cheyenne stepped to get it.

“Don’t you dare touch that phone,” I forbade her and she stopped fast. “You two go upstairs and put your shoes on.”

“But it’s twelve o’clock at night. You can’t have them out there so late,” my mother said, and the twins looked from her to me.

“Go,” I ordered and they scrambled up the stairs.

“What’s this?” my mother said over the ringing phone. “What’s going on with you?”

She got closer to me and frowned.

“You’ve been drinking,” she said. She looked over at the nearly empty bottle of Scotch. “Got that devil in you?”

“Oh, Mama, please stop that.”

“Don’t you know that ain’t no good? Didn’t your father show you what that stuff does to you?”

“My father showed me a lot of things,” I said.

“You can’t take those kids out of this house. It ain’t right.”

“It ain’t right? No, what’s not right is what’s being done to me,” I cried. “And I want them to know what their father is doing and who he’s doing it with. I won’t keep his secret so he can save face.”

R. J. and Cheyenne came back down the steps in their shoes and nightclothes.

“This isn’t about you or him; it’s about them,” my mother said. “And I won’t let you do this.”

“Oh, Mama. Save the speech.” I grabbed the phone from the couch.

“Don’t do this,” she said. “It’s the devil in you.” She looked into my eyes. “I see it. I see your daddy. You’ve got to stop it. I know you wouldn’t do this if you weren’t drinking. And now you want to drive. At least let me come with you.”

“Come with me?” I laughed. “You want to come? For what? To protect me? Please, you couldn’t protect me from him all those years ago, and you can’t protect me now.”

Cheyenne and R. J. sat so close together, their little bodies fit into one seat in the back of the car. R. J. was crying and had his arms wrapped around Cheyenne’s neck.

I watched them from the front, blinking in seconds to keep the alcohol from fading my vision.

And I knew I was wrong. Knew I shouldn’t be listening to my cell phone tell me how to get to Sasha’s house in the middle of the night, drunk and taking my children along for the ride. But right and wrong had just left me. I was aching. Aching in every part of me. And nothing in me could control it. I was there, but then I wasn’t. The lanes raced beneath the car. I was screaming, angry. Hot. I couldn’t hear anything knocking in me. It was like I was hollowed out and desperate. And I knew it wasn’t just Reginald. Couldn’t be. There was more riding me in that car. No man could pull me from protecting my children. Risking my life and theirs. But I wasn’t me. I was someone who was angry at me.

I got off of the highway exit and the pleasant little voice on the GPS on my phone told me to make a right. There was a long road ahead, winding and dipping down. I went so fast the car flopped on a bump. Our bodies hopped out of our seats and fell down hard.

“I shouldn’t have let her into my home,” I said to Cheyenne’s wet eyes looking at me in the mirror.

Cheyenne pointed up ahead to the windshield in front of me.

“What’s that?” she asked.

I flicked my sight from the mirror to circling blue lights flashing ahead on the narrow road. There were two lanes with police cars set up on either side. A row of cars sat in the dark behind the police cars. Another, right down the middle, was streaming through.

“What is it?” Cheyenne pressed.

“I think it’s the police,” I said delicately. I slowed the car and came up gently behind the car in front of me that was edging into the streaming cars. Police officers came up on either side of that car and flashed their lights inside. The driver held his wallet out of the window.

“What do they want?” R. J. cried.

“It’s nothing, baby, just a roadblock.” I tried to calm him, but my whole heart was beating so fast I felt it was about to knock me over. I heard it in my head, my ears, and through my mouth. How could I pass them? I was drunk. I could smell myself. My face was wet with tears. The children were still crying. I tried to wipe my eyes and pushed on the gas when the car in