Should Have Known Better

“We haven’t been able to keep her in the house since.”

I smiled, remembering Cheyenne sitting at the screen door, just wailing when we got a latch put at the top of the door to keep her in. She looked up at the latch and hollered so loud the neighbors could hear her.

“What do you want, Reginald?” I asked.

“I don’t know if we should be moving so fast with this divorce,” he said straightforwardly.

“What? But you—”

“No. No. No. Listen to me,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about us and our family. I don’t know if I’m ready to just let it all die like that. What we had, it wasn’t perfect, but we had something. We were together.”

“Don’t you think you should’ve thought about this before you slept with my best friend? No. No. Before you so obviously chose my best friend right in front of me?”

“I’d prefer not to talk about that. Sasha and I aren’t exactly happy. There’s a lot going on.”

“ ‘I’d prefer’?” I repeated, laughing at the insanity in his statement. “I don’t care—no, I don’t give a damn what you prefer. Is this because things aren’t going so well for Ms. Bellamy? Now you realize what a crazy, psycho bitch she is? Or is it because things aren’t going well for you?” I stepped closer to him. “I heard about how you’ve been losing clients. Canceling calls. All to be with your sweetheart. In her rented house. And I know you didn’t get the Landon contract.”

He looked at me.

“You’ve got this big fancy truck and nowhere to drive it.”

“Dawn, I’m just—”

“I don’t want to hear anything you have to say,” I said, turning to walk to the house. I stopped. “You know, I can’t believe you had the freaking unmitigated gall to bring your black ass over here talking about what you prefer. I’d prefer not to be living in my mother’s house and living off of her life savings. I’d prefer not to have to uproot my children from their home and their school and their friends. I’d prefer not to be humiliated by the experience of knowing that everyone I know knows that my husband was dumb enough to run away with an insane lunatic.”

“I love you,” Reginald said.

“Don’t you dare!” I cried, feeling my heart breaking again. I turned to the house and started walking up the path.

“I don’t want this divorce,” he said, grabbing my arm.

I trembled.

“You started this,” I said. “You’ll finish.”

“Tell me you don’t love me, too. Tell me you don’t miss our family. Miss us being together.”

I wouldn’t turn around, so he walked in front of me.

“Tell me you don’t love me and I’ll let it go. Just say it.”

“I don’t have to say it; I know it,” I said. “Get out of my way.”

The front door opened and my mother turned on the outside light.

“Everything OK out there?” she asked.

“Yes, Mama,” I said. “I’m coming in.” I looked back at Reginald. “I’ll see you at the mediation tomorrow.”

“He was out there all night,” my mother said, opening the door for me. “I didn’t know what to do.”

“You could’ve called me.”

“I didn’t want to scare you.”

“Did the kids see him?”

“No. I’ve had them in bed since 8:30. He got here at nine,” she said. “What did he say?”