His Last Wife

“No!” Kerry barked behind the driver with so much power that he had to listen to her. “We can’t leave!” Sitting beside the lowering window, she was the only one in the car who could see the face on the other side of the door. It was no reporter. Just a familiar foe with red hair and a long history with Kerry.

“So now he’s alive and on the run from the CIA?” Coreen said, looking over at Kerry with all of the contention between the two women, the first wife and the first mistress, clear in her stare. “That’s funny. That’s really funny. Because a few months ago you were so sure that I was the killer. Had every detective in Georgia down my throat.” Coreen was pointing her index finger at Kerry and this got the attention of a few cameramen who immediately started recording the incident.

“I was just telling them what I knew. What I heard and saw that day,” Kerry said in what sounded like an apology but could never be. The last time she’d seen Coreen the two women were in a church and Ke

rry was still trying to fight to save her marriage. She’d given Coreen a sharp warning that was more like a threat. She’d told Coreen to stay away from her husband “or else”; well, Coreen clearly hadn’t listened, and that threat was still there.

Realizing who Kerry was talking to, Lebowski was back to his foul language and begging the driver to plow over the bevy of photographers and whoever else was blocking the SUV’s trajectory. All of that while simultaneously trying to keep Val from jumping out of the truck and charging at Coreen herself because she was all curses and threats too. He was a seasoned veteran, and so he’d expected some of these little bumps in this escape plan, but nothing like this. Nothing like this at all. Later, while replaying the circus of Val trying to claw her way out of the SUV to get at Coreen and thus nearly tearing the collar off of his shirt, he’d tell his brother and best friend, “It was like a bunch of black woman with baby mama drama. These girls wanted blood.” While he’d admit a part of him was entertained being in the center of the melee, he said he had to maintain only two goals: keep his team in the car and get out of there as fast as possible.

“You killed Jamison, Kerry. Period. You threw him from the roof because you were jealous of his relationship with me and his relationship with his son. Admit it!” Coreen said.

“What did she say?” Val asked Lebowski, trying to get out of his hold.

“Jealous? Do you really think I could ever be jealous of you? Some random ass he flew across the country to see and then left?” Kerry said to Coreen. “His little secret?”

“His little secret who ruined your marriage,” Coreen replied nastily.

“You did. Sure you did,” Kerry admitted. “Does that make you feel good? Make it easier for you to sleep at night? Does it? Knowing the only way you could ever get a man like that was by stealing him? That you had to get on your back and open your legs just to have him? And that even then, you still didn’t get him? He still wasn’t yours? Right? Because after all of that—after taking him and trapping him with your bastard son and even after our divorce—he still didn’t marry you. He married someone else. Does that make you feel good?”

The commotion in the car had silenced as Kerry, once demure and sweet, tore into Coreen with all cylinders smoking. Even the driver had given up on the escape and was peering at Kerry from the front seat, wondering when Coreen was going to spit on her or hit her or something—because those words were fighting words.

Meanwhile, the onlookers on the outside of the car had already made the first seconds of the argument a viral event. The bombshell news Kerry revealed in her rant had dropped on social media—Jamison Taylor had a “bastard” son. But what was the boy’s name?

“You can call my son a bastard if you want to, but remember to also call him Jamison,” Coreen said. Her invoking the boy’s name sent chills up Kerry’s spine. She’d heard it before, but every time she even thought of the name it made her hot with fury and scorn all over again. It was the most aggressive thing Coreen had done to slap her in the face. Coreen flicked her hair behind her ear and went on, “And while you’re at it, don’t forget to call my son, Jamison junior, rich . . . because all that money you bitches got when his father died, some of it is his and I’m going to make sure he gets it. That’s the only reason I’m here. I don’t even care who killed Jamison. I just want my money.” She looked at Val, who was back to fighting to get out of the SUV after hearing Coreen call her a bitch. “I told you not to play with me. Don’t play with my son’s money and don’t play with me.”

Val had gotten away from Lebowski and now Kerry was holding her back. The poor assistant in the front seat had seen the damage done to her boss’s shirt, so she was less than anxious to help out.

Kerry let out a surprising laugh that would be noted in the viral reports.

“What the fuck is so funny about what I said?” Coreen asked.

“You just played your last card,” Kerry said. “Without even knowing it, you played your last weak card. You let the secret out and now you have no more cards to play. You want money? Fine. But you won’t get it from me the way you got it from Jamison. We’ll see you in court.”

When the SUV made it to Thirjane’s house where Tyrian was waiting in the front window for his mother, Kerry insisted that Val come inside to talk about what had happened at the jail with Coreen. But really, everything was clear to her about the incident. She’d put the pieces together about the ten thousand dollars and decided she would wait until Val brought it up. In truth, the somewhat forced visit wasn’t about Coreen or the money or Val; it was because Kerry felt right then that she needed a friend. Some bestie or buffer, a third party to mediate the one thing about getting out of jail she wasn’t sure about facing: her mother.

Reminding Kerry of why she so desperately wanted Val there, when Thirjane opened the door to let Kerry in, she was all tears and cries of joy. Her arms were extended toward Kerry and she made Tyrian stand there and wait as she hugged Kerry.

“My child is home!” Thirjane cried. “Thank you, Jesus!” she added, rocking Kerry and blocking Tyrian from getting to her. Kerry looked over her mother’s shoulder and smiled at Tyrian as tears began to fall from both of their eyes. And maybe it was more touching, more meaningful than it might have been had they been in each other’s arms. Because the gaze, the look on his mother’s face from inches away was something Tyrian would remember for the rest of his life.

In his memory, so quickly he would then find himself in her arms. He could smell her again. He’d thought he’d forgotten what she’d smelled like, but there it was. His mother’s scent. Indescribable but so immediate and fused into his being. Then the feeling of her tears wetting his back.

She released him and she was busy wiping his tears as hers fell.

“Hey you,” Kerry said. “I’ve missed you so much.”

“I’ve missed you too, Mama,” Tyrian said, with his grandmother standing behind him then, and Val behind Kerry.

Thirjane was, of course, eyeing every inch of Val and wondering why she was in her house. That and how she was getting home—that black SUV had rolled away.

“You know what I was thinking when I got the news that I was coming home?” Kerry asked Tyrian. “That I was going to see you. That’s all I was thinking. That’s all I wanted.”

Kerry pulled her son into her arms again.

“I love you so much, baby,” she said to him in his ear. “And I’m so sorry for all of this.” She looked into his eyes again. “But your mama is back home now and I’m never leaving again. Not ever.”

“Company? I didn’t know we were having any company,” Thirjane said with her eyes still locked on Val, who was returning the stare, but had something else hidden in the scrunched-up frown aimed at Thirjane. The two had been in each other’s presence a little over a handful of times when they’d bumped heads, trying to get Kerry out of jail and then in a brief struggle for power at Rake it Up before the CEO less than politely told both women he wouldn’t be taking direction from either of them. The company was just remaining afloat with the scandal concerning Jamison and Kerry and if they wanted to keep it from drowning, they needed to step back and off.

“Yes, Mama,” Kerry said to Thirjane. “I invited Val to stay to have lunch with us. I figured we could show her a little Georgia hospitality for everything she’s done for our family.”