Flaw Less (18 page)

—
Lawson Kerry Banks

 

 

Garrett put down his cell phone when he heard Lawson's keys jingling as she unlocked the kitchen door. “There you are. I was just about to call you.”

“Before you ask, I didn't forget about dinner with your parents tonight. I had to make a quick run to the drugstore.” She pulled out a box of tampons. “I was out of these.”

Garrett's face dropped. “I guess that means we won't be making any announcements this month.”

“No,” she replied sadly. “But, you know, we can try again in a week or so. Maybe this time next year we'll be buying diapers instead.”

“That's what I'm praying for.”

“It'll happen, baby. We've just got to be patient. Besides, it's not like we won't be having fun trying, right?” she joked to lighten the mood.

“It's just frustrating sometimes, that's all.”

Lawson hugged him. “I know, honey. We've just got to trust God and have faith that it'll happen in due season. The Bible says there's a time and season for everything under heaven.”

Garrett gently pulled away from her. “Maybe it's time we thought about getting a second opinion. You know, make sure all of our parts are in working, baby-making order.”

Lawson grew uneasy. “Baby, I just had a checkup with my gynecologist a couple of months ago. She assured me that everything is fine. It takes some women longer to conceive than others.”

“It wouldn't hurt to talk to a specialist.”

“I'm sure nothing is wrong with either of us. This is probably a side effect from the birth control pills.”

“Yeah, but you've been off the pill for about two months now.”

Lawson gulped. “I just think we need to give it a little longer before we start wasting time and money going to see a specialist who's going to confirm what we already know. I'm fine, baby. Plus, we haven't even been trying that long.”

“The specialist wasn't just for you.” Garrett sighed, a little uncomfortable. “You might not even be the problem. Maybe it's me.”

“Garrett, don't say that. We're not even going to speak that into existence. There's absolutely nothing wrong with me or my brilliant, sexy husband or his brilliant, sexy sperm.” They both laughed.

“You're probably right, but I want to make an appointment with my doctor to be sure.”

“Look, it's almost six!” interjected Lawson, eager to change the subject. “We've got to hurry up and dress if we're going to meet your parents by seven. Where's Namon?”

“Back there in his room glued to the computer.”

“Ugh! I bet that boy didn't iron that blue button-down like I told him either. Let me go back there and straighten him out.”

Lawson marched down the hall to Namon's room. Garrett began unloading the shopping bags Lawson brought into the house. After putting up the paper towels, his eyes landed on a small white sack with a prescription attached.

Lawson reentered the kitchen. “All right, Namon is in the shower, and I'm about to—” She struggled to catch her breath when she saw Garrett holding the pharmacy bag.

“Lawson, what's this?” he asked, more accusing than curious.

She walked over and plucked the bag out of his hands. “It's a prescription; it's nothing.”

“A prescription for what?”

She shrugged, brushing off the question. “My doctor said that my iron is a little low. It's some kind of iron supplement.”

“So, this makes, what, the second lie you've told me in the last five minutes?”

Lawson narrowed her eyes. “What are you talking about?”

“Are you seriously going to stand there and play innocent while you lie to my face?” charged Garrett. “Then again, you've been doing it for months. Why would today be any different?”

She feigned ignorance, hoping against hope that he'd drop the issue. “Baby, I honestly don't know what you're talking about.”

He snatched the bag from her. “Do you think I'm that stupid, Lawson? I can read. I know what this is!”

“Garrett, it's not . . .”

“It's not what? It's not your prescription for birth control pills?” he fired. He hurled the bag across the room, startling Lawson.

She couldn't say anything. She definitely couldn't carry out the lie anymore, so Lawson lowered her head and said nothing.

“So you're mute now?” asked Garrett. “You had plenty to tell me when you were going on about our having a baby being the Lord's will and timing. Obviously, by
Lord
, you meant
Lawson
.”

“I don't know what you want me to say,” she replied meekly.

“I want you to do the one thing you obviously haven't done in God knows how long. I want you to tell me the truth. Do you think you're capable of doing that?”

“Of course I'm capable of telling you the truth, Garrett. The truth is that I love you very much, and I'd never, ever want to do anything to hurt you. You and Namon mean everything to me.
That's
the truth!”

“Yeah, that sounds real nice, Lawson, but you're leaving out one very important part of this
truth
of yours, aren't you? Come on, just say it.”

“Say what? That I renewed my prescription?”

“No, that you never canceled it!” he answered. “You never had any intention of getting pregnant, did you?”

“Baby, that's not true,” she sobbed. “I love you, and I want to have your child. I just needed a little more time.”

“Lawson, you stood there and let me go on and on about getting my sperm checked and going to specialists when you knew all along.”

Lawson smeared tears from her face. “I didn't want to lie to you. I just didn't know how to tell you the truth.”

“Did you know how to tell the girls? Do they know?”

She shook her head.

“What about Mark? Does he know?”

“Of course not!”

Garrett raised his voice. “I'm shocked. You talk to him about everything else.”

“Don't make this about Mark.”

“Why not when everything else is about him? Your job, Namon, Reggie . . . It all goes back to Mark. We can't even have a conversation without Mark being in the middle of it.”

She sniffed. “Garrett, you're not being fair.”

He laughed bitterly. “I'm not being fair? You've been lying to me for weeks, but
I'm
not the one who's fair? You know, I should've . . .” He bit his lip to keep from saying anything he might regret.

“Should've what?” pushed Lawson.

“I should've thought longer and harder before asking you to become my wife.”

Lawson's heart sank to the floor. “Why would you say that to me? How could you even think that?”

“I mean it, Lawson. Look at the way I let you string me along for ten years, then how you and Mark carried on behind my back, now this!”

“I wasn't carrying on with Mark, and you know it.”

“You were practically engaged to the guy. You have no respect for me, Lawson, none at all.”

“I have the utmost respect for you.” She tried to hold him. “I love you.”

Garrett rebuffed her. “Love and respect are not the same things. You can't say that you respect me and turn around and pull stunts like this—you just can't!”

“Okay, I admit that what I did was wrong and selfish and stupid. I know that hearing this right now doesn't mean anything to you, but I really am sorry, Garrett. I was afraid to tell you the truth.”

“Why? I'm your husband!”

“You haven't exactly made it a secret that you resent the fact that I have a child with Mark.”

“Don't go there, Lawson. You know I love that boy like he was my own son.”

“I know that, but he's not yours, not biologically. Whether you admit it or not, a part of the reason you want this baby is because I have a child with Mark, and you can't stand the fact that he and I share something that you and I don't.”

“Whatever. . . .”

“No, you said you wanted to be truthful, so let's be truthful. You're jealous of my connection to Mark and his bond with Namon.”

“Are you sure you don't have my jealousy confused with yours over his relationship with Reggie?”

“So what are we fighting about, Garrett—the pills or Mark?”

“Take your pick.”

Lawson was flustered. “This isn't getting us anywhere. Let's just go to dinner with your parents. We're going to be late.” She turned to walk toward their bedroom.

Garrett stopped her. “Are you kidding me? I'm not about to go front for my parents like everything is cool between you and me.”

“Garrett, we can't stand them up.”

“Namon and I are going. You and your pills can stay here. I'll just tell them you got sick. What's one more lie, right?”

She didn't bother protesting. “Can we finish talking about this when you and Namon come home?”

He shook his head. “No, I'm done talking about this. I'm through talking about babies. I'm through talking about Mark . . . I'm through talking about us.”

“What are you saying?”

He sighed. “I'm tired. I love you, but I'm tired.”

“Of me?”

“Of this.”

Lawson waited for Garrett in bed, a part of her wondering if he was going to come back. She thought back to how many times she'd chided Sullivan for lying to Charles and being secretive. Now, she was forced to eat her words.

She turned over and began speaking to the Lord. “God, I know you are a loving and forgiving Spirit. Thank you for forgiving us over and over again when we mess up. You already know exactly what I've done, but I need to ask for your forgiveness. Lord, forgive me for lying to my husband and for going behind his back. Forgive me for letting my feelings toward Reggie and Mark interfere with my marriage. I ask that you speak to Garrett on my behalf. Touch his heart, and let him forgive and love me the way you do. Lord, I know I can live without him as long as I have you, but I don't want to. Please let him love me enough to get past this.”

Relief flooded Lawson's body when she heard his footsteps coming down the hall. He came into the room without speaking to her.

She sat up in bed. “How was dinner?”

“It was good. I needed that time to get away and think.”

“Where's Namon?”

Garrett hung up his sports coat. “He's tired. He said he was going to bed.”

Lawson pulled back the blankets to invite him in. “That sounds like a good idea for all of us. Come on, let's get some sleep.”

Garrett unbuttoned his shirt. “I think I'm going to sleep on the couch tonight.”

She looked down. “You're still mad at me, I see.”

“I wish it was that simple. I really do.”

“It can be.”

Garrett shook his head. “Lawson, I know you had your reasons for what you did. Maybe they're valid—I don't know. I just know what it did to me as your husband.”

“Baby, I know I hurt you, but we can get past it. We've gotten past things before.”

“This feels different. You don't love me enough to have a child with me. I'm good enough to play stepdaddy for Namon, but not good enough for the real thing.”

She brought her hand to her chest. “Don't say that. That's not how I feel at all.”

“That may not be how you
want
to feel, but that's the reality. I've finally come to accept it.”

Lawson reached for his hand. “I don't like to hear you talk like this. It scares me.”

“You don't think I'm scared too? I feel like I'm losing the only woman I've ever really loved. I'm losing my family.”

“I'm not going anywhere, honey. I'm here,” she assured him.

“Whether you realize it or not, you left this marriage the minute you started lying to me.” Garrett let go of her hand and grabbed a pillow from the bed. “As far as I'm concerned, you left a long time ago.”

—
Sullivan Webb

 

 

Vera Jackson answered the door in her customary satin robe, glass of vodka and cranberry juice, and a lit cigarette and growled, “What are you doing here?”

Sullivan rolled her eyes and sidestepped her mother to force her way into the St. Simon's beach house. “It's good to see you too. Of course, I don't mean that literally. You have enough bags under your eyes to put Kroger out of business. And your hair . . .” She tugged on a lock of Vera's disheveled bob wig. “This wig is as old as I am.”

Vera slapped Sullivan's hand away. “Can you please get on with the reason for this visit? I have a facial at four.”

Sullivan looked around for Vera's live-in boyfriend. “Where's Cliff?”

Vera pulled on her cigarette and flung her hand. “He's out scouting locations or something. He'll be back on Sunday.”

Sullivan laughed. “
Scouting locations?
He directs porn! How hard is to find a bed and bad lighting?”

“He directs
movies
, not porn!” countered Vera, sprawling across the sofa.

“Funny . . . I don't recall his cinematic masterpiece,
Heels and Thongs, Volume One
, making its rounds to my local theater.”

“Say what you will, but Cliff's job has afforded me to live the lifestyle I've grown accustomed to. Now back to my original question—why are you here? You in trouble or something?”

“What makes you think that?”

“Because you're here!”

“It's the holidays. Is it so hard to believe that I wanted to see the woman who gave me life?”

Vera rolled her eyes. “Sullivan, please don't insult my intelligence. I haven't spoken to you since your obligatory birthday call back in June, and you haven't set foot in this house since Christmas '08. It doesn't take a genius to figure out you're in trouble.”

Sullivan sat down across from her. “I'm glad to see that you haven't totally lost your mothering instincts and intuition. You're right. I am in trouble,” she admitted. “The old-fashioned kind, to be exact.”

Vera shot up, spilling a little of her drink in the process. “Good Lord, Sullivan, are you pregnant?”

“Yep.” Sullivan rubbed her hand across her stomach. “This time next year, you'll be a grandma.”

“
Humph!”
Vera shook her head and sat back down. “Ain't that a blip? You know, I thought you looked a little fat around the jaws, but I didn't want to say anything just yet. I figured you had enough on your mind without worrying about fattening up like some farmhand's prized pig.”

“A simple congratulations would have sufficed, you know.”

“I haven't decided if the occasion is worth celebrating yet. Judging by the look on your face, I'd say it's not. The question is
why
.”

“You know me. Do you think I'm the maternal type?”

“I
do
know you, Sullivan, and I know how I raised you. Any fool worth her weight knows that having a rich man's baby is better than winning the lottery, so what gives? Did Charles lose his money?”

“Charles's financial state, which is none of your business, is fine.”

“Is he seeing another woman?”

“Of course not!”

“Then what's the problem? And don't give me some crap about not being ready for kids. We both know that you're just going to pawn the poor thing off on Charles or some nanny to raise.”

Sullivan's voice went up an octave, as it often did whenever she was lying. “Nothing's wrong. How many times do I have to tell you that?”

“Listen, honey, you can lie to Charles all you want, but me?” She bumped the ashes off her cigarette into the ashtray. “I can see bull coming from a mile away.”

“The baby might not be Charles's,” confessed Sullivan.

“What difference does it make as long as he doesn't know that?”

“He will once I tell him I'm pregnant.”

“How would he know? Are you over here crazy enough to think that God is going to reveal it to him?”

“Not God, Charles's doctor. He just found out that he has low sperm.”

Vera dropped her head. “Then who's the father?”

Sullivan swallowed hard. “Vaughn.”

“That grease monkey you were all over the Internet with?” Vera closed her eyes. “I need another drink. You want one?”

“Did you forget that I'm pregnant?” she asked, appalled that her mother would offer a pregnant woman a drink.

Vera smacked her teeth. “I drank all the time when I was pregnant with you. Then again, that might explain how in the world you could do something so stupid.”

“I know it was wrong to cheat on Charles again—”

Vera interrupted her. “It was wrong to not know how to avoid getting caught! I honestly don't know where I went wrong with you. I thought I raised you better than this.”

“Why? Because you raised me to be a gold digger and to use what I got to get what I want? What did that get me?”

“It got us a full bank account, a house I never made the first payment on, and a brand-new car in the driveway when you turned sixteen, that's what!”

“That's because Samuel Sullivan was married! He had to do
something
to keep you quiet.”

“He gave you his name. He didn't have to do that.”

Sullivan contradicted her. “He didn't give me his last name, the one that actually mattered.”

“What actually matters is that you didn't have to want for anything a day in your life. We always had the finest, and we didn't get that because your mama made careless mistakes. We got that because your mama knew how to bring a man to his knees and how to play the game. You had it for a while too, but now . . .”

Sullivan shook her head and rose. “This isn't helping. It was a mistake to come here.”

“You're free to go, Sullivan. Or you can stay and let me tell you how to get out of this mess.”

Sullivan turned around and sat back down.

“I would suggest the obvious, which is to have an abortion and pretend like this whole thing never happened, but if you were going to do that, you would've done it already. I suppose you had your fill of the surgeon's table in high school and college.”

“Thanks for reminding me,” Sullivan hissed.

“Sullivan, you know I'm not one to mince words. I'm here to give it to you straight.” Vera took a final puff from her cigarette before crushing it. “It definitely complicates things with Charles's soldiers being just as dried up as he is, but you need to thank your lucky stars that he told you before you told him you were pregnant.”

Sullivan became irritated. “Can you just tell me what the plan is?”

Vera began thinking. “Charles is a praying, God-fearing man, right?”

“Well, he
is
a pastor, Vera, so I would think so.”

“You're going to have to pass the baby off as Charles's, pure and simple.”

“I don't know if I can do that,” Sullivan disclosed.

Vera shook her head. “That's always been your problem. You never made a good hustler because you always ended up thinking with your heart instead of your head.”

“Forgive me for actually loving the man I'm married to,” Sullivan replied sarcastically.

“You don't love that man, Sullivan. You don't love nobody but yourself.” Vera stood up to retrieve more cigarettes. “That's the way it should be. When you start worrying about other people, you forget to look out for number one.”

“So what are you saying? Are you finally admitting that you never loved me?”

“I took care of you, didn't I?” countered Vera.

“It's not the same thing.”

“It is in my world. Look, Sullivan, all this love crap that you're so interested in is completely overrated. Get all that fantasy stuff out of your head, you're too old to be thinking like that. Life is all about gettin' the jump on the next man before he can get the jump on you. What is it that guy called in
Raisin in the Sun?
” She lit a new cigarette and inhaled. “Oh, yeah, ‘the takers and the tooken,' that's it! You don't ever want to be one of the tooken, honey. You save that for men like Charles.”

“I refuse to live that kind of selfish existence or bring this child up in it.”

“We're selfish people, Sullivan. That's what we do.”

Sullivan fanned the smoke away from her face. “Don't throw around words like
we
. I'm nothing like you, Vera.”

“No, you're not because I don't get caught. You want to be like me, but you never figured out how.” She puffed on her cigarette. “It wasn't for my lack of teaching, I'll tell you that!”

Sullivan reeled back. “What exactly do you think you taught me, Vera?”

“I taught you everything you know. You were never much in the brains department, but you did have your looks going for you. Thanks to me, you learned how to use your looks and that pot of gold between your legs to get what you want.”

“In thirty-one years, the only thing you ever really taught me was how to be a whore.”

Vera didn't deny it. “Considering the situation that you've gotten yourself into, it looks like I didn't even do that right. A real whore wouldn't be in this mess. You're an ungrateful wench, Sullivan—always have been, always will be.”

“You know, I used to sit and fantasize about what it would be like to have the kind of mother I could go to for sound advice, one who would take me shopping as opposed to shoplifting. The kind of mother who would talk to me about boys, not teach me how to seduce men.”

Vera was undeterred and resolute as she continued. “I raised you the way I was raised. And my mama raised me how she was raised, and her mama raised her how she was raised, and we all turned out just fine.”

“I intend to raise this baby better,” asserted Sullivan.

Vera took offense. “Better than what?”

Sullivan threw her hand up at the blatant ostentation that filled Vera's living room, relics from a lifetime of money-grabbing and bed-hopping. “Better than
this!
”

“What, because you go to church now and you're the first lady, that makes you better? Huh?” Sullivan didn't answer. “Maybe I need to remind of you where you came from!”

“I don't need you to remind me of anything. Trust me—the memories are here to stay.”

“No, I think I better refresh your memory because you seem to have forgotten a few things. You remember the eight months you spent locked up in juvie for shoplifting?”

“I was thirteen years old!” cried Sullivan. “You dropped me off in front of the mall with no money and said I better have my school clothes by the time you came back. What did you expect me to do?”

“Hmm . . . Maybe I need to remind you of the time I caught you messing around with my boyfriend when you were fifteen.”

“I wasn't ‘messing around' with him. He was molesting me, Vera. There is a difference between the two!” Sullivan shook her head. “You didn't even do anything about it. The counselors at school had to intervene for me to get any kind of help.”

Vera went on. “Oh, and we can't forget about your sophomore year in college when you got knocked up by your professor—your
married
professor, I might add. I believe that resulted in abortion number two, or was it three?”

Having her past flash before her all at once was almost more than Sullivan could bear. “I was young and stupid. He said he loved me and was going to leave his wife, and I believed him.”

“I can go back even further, Sullivan. I can dredge up the football player you blackmailed when you were sixteen. You remember—the one you threatened with statutory rape charges. Though I must say, that garnered us a nice li'l payday. Well played, my angel.”

“And I did it all under my mother's guidance and coaching,” surmised Sullivan, on the brink of tears. “What kind of mother does that to her own child?”

“It paid for your degree, didn't it?”

“Yeah, and it was worth every penny to get me away from you.”

“Don't put this all on me, Sullivan. You wanted that lifestyle—the cars, the clothes, the money. I didn't have to force you to do anything.”

“No, but you could've shown me a different way. You've could've instilled values in me and some sense of the Lord. You didn't have to make me like you.” Sullivan paused to compose herself. “You have no idea what this kind of upbringing did to me, do you?”

“Sullivan, you had everything a child could want. Who else was going to school with Chanel purses and Jimmy Choos on their feet? To this day, you ain't worked a single day in your life. I may not have been ‘Mother, May I,' but I taught you how to survive and get what you want out of this world.”

“You think you taught me how to survive?” repeated Sullivan in horror. “You taught me how to hate myself and how to feel like all I was good for was sex. You broke my spirit, Vera. You robbed me of the chance at having any kind of normal childhood. I had no values, no morals.” She hesitated. “No love.”

Vera lit another cigarette. “Don't give me this Lifetime movie sob-story mess, Sullivan! You turned out just fine.”

“Because I have the Lord in my life and Charles. It has absolutely nothing to do with you.” Sullivan whirled around and marched out of the room.