Should Have Known Better

My mother’s body covered the slit beneath the door. I sat muffling my cries in the darkness. I listened until my father found his whiskey and slammed the front door.

“Wake up, Mama,” I cried, trying to slide my wet hand beneath the door to shake my mother. “Wake up!”

“Wake up, Dawn.”

Reginald was shaking me.

I was still naked and alone in the bed, shivering in the early morning chill. My eyes were wet with tears from my dream.

“Wake up!” Reginald was holding my arm. He was fully clothed and wearing a jacket.

“What? Where’d you go?”

“I didn’t go anywhere,” he said. “I’m leaving now.”

“Leaving?”

He let go of my arm and I sat up.

“Leaving for what? Where’s Sasha?”

He went to the dresser and got his watch.

I got up and went to the bedroom door to see the door to the guest room on the other side of the end of the hallway wide open. “Did her driver come? What time is it?”

“A little after six,” Reginald said. “Look, her foot is pretty swollen. Just a sprain, but she can’t walk. I can’t let her go home like that in a limousine. How’s she going to get around and stuff?”

“She can call someone . . . I don’t know.” I put on my slippers and went to the bathroom for my robe.

“She’s in the truck. Waiting for me.”

I turned back to see him.

“Waiting for you for what?”

“To take her back to Atlanta.”

“No. I’m going to talk to her.”

“She doesn’t want to see you.”

Reginald stood on the other side of our bed, by the dresser, looking at me with cold eyes.

“She’s pretty upset,” he said. “And I told her maybe you two should just let things cool down a little before she—”

“Cool down?” I grabbed the bathrobe off of the back of the closet door. “I didn’t do anything. She’s the one who came in here and tricked me into having a threesome. I didn’t want to do that.”

“Now, she tricked you?” Reginald looked at me like I was crazy. “How did she trick you? Or was it the alcohol tricking you?”

“You don’t believe me. Why would I try to hurt Sasha?”

“None of that matters,” Reginald said. “I’m just going to take her home, make sure she’s OK, and come right back.”

“But what about the kids? What about work?”

“Just tell them I’ll be home for dinner. And I canceled all of my appointments for today.”

“You canceled work?”