The Other Side of the Pillow

“Good.” She paused. “It wasn’t like I woke up this morning intending on turning someone’s world upside down. But what if he’s given her something? Or if I didn’t say anything and he eventually gave her something?”

“Baby, I hear what you’re saying and I receive it,” I said. “I rec

eive it and I agree with what you decided to do. Like I told Floyd, not only today but also all along, he was dead-ass wrong and it was inevitable that it would come out.

“Honestly, it’s better that Courtney found out from you, someone who actually cares about her. My mother had to find out from a trifling whore who decided to accost her and throw Daddy’s affair up in her face.

“That’s what’s so crazy about the entire thing. Time and time again, I told Floyd about how my father’s roving eyes and dick had destroyed our family. How love does not equate to doing unnecessary and unwarranted shit simply because you believe you can get away with it.”

Jemistry sighed. “Yeah, I know about all of that. Even though she’s not married, I used to preach that same stuff about wilding out for no good reason to Winsome.” She stared at me like she wanted to add something. “Speaking of Winsome, she came by the school today.”

“For what?” I asked with much disdain. “She needs to stay the hell away from both of us.”

“And I made that clear. She came by to wish me happy holidays. You have to understand that we’ve spent every holiday season together, in some way, for at least the past decade. That’s not going to be the case this year.

“Winsome means well, but she has to figure out how to make better choices. I told her that I would pray for her and be there for her in spirit.”

Jemistry giggled.

“What?” I asked.

“She did make one choice and she says that it’s final. She’s now a full lesbian instead of being bisexual. She has sworn off dick for life.”

I chuckled. “Yeah, right. For life, or until she sees a man she can’t resist.”

“She said that she has a girlfriend. That she’s committed. Some woman named Sharon that she met on the Metro train.”

“Great place to pick up people. It’s not going to last.”

“You picked me up in a bar after I’d just finished delivering a male-bashing poem, and look at us.”

“You have a point.”

We both laughed.

“She also said that she’s been going to counseling,” Jemistry said. “To try to figure out what she wants to truly do with her life and why she keeps making irresponsible decisions.”

“That’s good. That’s really good. I don’t have anything against Winsome,” I said. “I’m over it. But if you ever let her come back around on the regular, she can’t disrespect our marriage.”

Jemistry sucked in her bottom lip. “Maybe sometime. She’s my ace and I love her and all. And I miss her. But right now, I want to concentrate on establishing our life together and having a healthy baby. We have so much to still do to the nursery.”

Her statement about the nursery sounded accusatory, not to mention the look she was giving me, as though I should have been ashamed.

I lifted my brow. “Don’t look at me. You’re the one who keeps changing your mind about the color scheme. And going all out by having that man paint a mural. We can’t put any furniture in there until the walls are painted and dried.

“You need to hurry up. It might take me a couple of months to put that fancy crib together that you picked out.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard some nightmares about men trying to follow the instructions to put together cribs. Even for surgeons, common sense isn’t always so common.”

“Oh, so now you’ve got jokes!” I chuckled. “There are a lot of parts but if I can put a human being back together, I can damn sure get that crib up without tearing up something.”

“I can’t wait to see that.”

Jemistry stood up, took my plate, and walked over to the microwave to heat it up. As it was rotating on the glass base, I asked, “Aren’t you going to fix yourself a plate?”

“Baby, please. I’ve had three servings and four pieces of bread already. I’m going for round three when Criminal Minds comes on at nine.”

I took a swig of my beer. “What time do we have Lamaze class tomorrow?”