“So working at it means you just pretend nothing’s wrong and act like your blind while everyone is just ... doing whatever?”
“It’s not that simple ... not the way you make it sound.”
“I used to think that, too,” I said. “But ... now I think it should be.”
In that room, the last promise holding my family together withered like an old rose petal orphaned at the bottom of a vase. If this was who we were, then who was I? What was I? What life was I living? Whose life was I living?
“You told me everything would be okay,” I said and I wasn’t sure if I was talking about her marriage or mine. “You sold this to me. You wanted all of this for me? Knowing what it was like?”
“So your life hasn’t been good? I haven’t protected you? Helped you make the right choices? You have a good husband. Don’t throw it away because of what’s happening in this house. Don’t be a fool.”
“No, Mama,” I said, getting up. “My life hasn’t been good.... It’s not working ... and maybe if you and everyone else hadn’t been protecting me all these years, I wouldn’t feel like I’ve been just ... just ... sleepwalking around in my life. Mama, I’m thirty-three years old and I feel like I haven’t ever left home. Like I’m stuck here. And now I see that all of you are. And I’m just like you ... just like you, and Daddy and Jr... . I’m stuck.”
I just wanted to get home. To get into my house, up the stairs, and into my bed where I could be alone and stop the noise in my head from rumbling. It seemed that just when I thought I had a hold on one thing in my life, had figured things out and how to just be happy, everything else was unrecognizable. My parents. My brothers. My marriage. Even Billie and Clyde. My whole world that just one month ago was quiet and forgivably imperfect was now screaming and ruined. And I knew that the things that had just been said, the things that had been done, couldn’t be changed or taken back now. We’d never be silent again.
Evan’s car was pulled closer to the front door than usual and the door was wide open. I thought maybe he’d come out and walked around the back for something, but when I entered the house, I saw Evan sitting in the living with colored pieces of paper scattered everywhere around him.
“Evan?”
I walked over to him. His shirt was pulled out of his pants and crumpled. His tie was gone. I could tell he’d been crying.
“What’s wrong? What happened?” I walked closer and looked around at the papers. They were glossy pages from a magazine. My heart thumped hard and I felt my throat swell.
“Where did you go when you went to Atlanta?” Evan’s voice was so low that it was frightening. He looked at me and the redness in his eyes seemed to infiltrate even his irises.
“What?” I asked, peeking at the pages he was still holding in his hand.
“Where were you?” he growled.
“I ... Billie and I—”
“Don’t lie to me!” Evan jumped up from his seat and pushed me in the center of my stomach until I was up against the wall next to the fireplace. “Don’t fucking lie to me, Journey!”
“What? What is it?” I cried. “Tell me. Tell me what it is.”
“You tell me where you were. You look at this and then you tell me where the fuck you were!” He handed me a page and in between two columns was a picture of me and Dame sitting on a furry red couch at the Apache. His arm was around me and at the bottom of the page was the date and a caption: “Dame chills with mystery beauty at concert in Atlanta.”
I dropped the page and felt the last bit of air I had coming through my throat squeeze out. I crouched over and started coughing.
“You tell me,” Evan screamed, spittle flying everywhere. “You tell me how my wife is in People magazine with a rapper when she told me”—he came over to me and banged me against the wall again—“she was going to see a play.”
“I can explain,” I tried. “It was—”
“I told you not to see him anymore. I told you not to see him anymore and you just went and did it. You did it. Why were you there? What were you doing?”
“He invited me and I just went.”
“No! No! Don’t lie to me. Because you could’ve told me that. You could’ve told me.” He let me go and turned his back, knocking over a lamp as he walked away. “Are you sleeping with him?”
“No... . I wouldn’t do that. You know that.... I just—we were just—”
“Then what is it?” He turned back to me. “Then why would you lie to me? I know something’s going on. You won’t even let me touch you anymore. Stopped talking about the baby. And I couldn’t figure out why, but I knew something was going on with you.”
“It was just a crush,” I said. “Just a crush, but it’s over now. I swear. I told him never to contact me again.”
“He’s a kid. He’s a fucking kid.”
“I tried not to ...” I said, sitting down on the couch. “I tried to let it go, but he’s just—”