“Just a minute,” I called out as I struggled to get up from the floor. Being six months pregnant and sitting on the floor was not well thought out.
I made it to the door and looked through the peephole. The person standing on the other side was not who I expected. She'd shown up at my house before unannounced and Aric had gone out to confront her and made her leave.
“What do you want?” I asked through the door.
“I just want to talk. I know I haven't made this thing that Aric has caused between us any better, but I'm willing to sit down and listen to your side of the story now. All I ask is that you allow me to apologize,” she explained.
As I stood there and listened to her a part of me was screaming for me not to open the door, but the part of me that felt guilty about being pregnant by her husband made me open the door and let her in my house.
“You can have a seat over there,” I told her as I pointed to the love seat.
She slowly walked into my home and looked around. She was dressed in black skinny jeans that hugged her frame, a black body shirt, and black gym shoes as she clutched her purse underneath her arm. I'd never seen her dressed in anything but the best and for some reason her attire gave me pause, but I let it go once she'd taken a seat and looked over at me. She sat on the edge of the love seat as if she were afraid germs would jump off on her if she sat back any further. I wanted to sit but for some reason I didn't feel comfortable sitting so I stood across the room and leaned on the wall. I noticed she kept looking at the ring on my finger and that made me want to hide it from her glare as if it would shatter the diamonds in it.
“What do you want to know?” I asked her as I leaned against the bookcase on my wall.
She removed her sun glasses and her eyes were so red that it was almost frightening. “Tell me what's really going on with you and Aric.”
I shrugged. “I don't know what you mean.”
“I mean . . . are you guys calling whatever you're doing. . . are you two in a relationship?”
Shaking my head I said, “No. Aric never put a title on what we were doing even before I found out he was married.”
“So, you honestly had no idea that he had a wife?”
“No.”
“How long were you guys having sex before you found out about me?”
“Almost from the time he took over at B&G. I found out I was pregnant after you and I fought...”
She chuckled a bit but it was derived from the anger I could clearly sense in her attitude. “I guess my question for you, Chyanne, is why haven't you left him alone? You know he's married now, why are you still sleeping with him?”
“I can't leave him alone because I'm pregnant. This is his child and Aric will always be a part of my life because of that. To be honest, I've tried to leave him alone, but . . . it's hard to when he is always coming aroundâ”
“Yeah, but why would you continue to give in knowing how much this hurts me?”
I wanted to answer her sincerely but, for the life of me, I couldn't understand why it was up to me to leave her husband alone and not the other way around. If I could leave Aric alone, I would. There were times when I wished he would leave me alone so I could move on, but I knew that wasn't happening, especially not with me being pregnant.
“Stephanie, you always ask me these questions, but why not tell Aric to leave me alone? Do you know how many times I've tried to walk away and leave him alone? He always finds a way to make me come back or make me feel bad about it. If I could leave him alone, I would.”
“You can! You just don't want to. You and Aric are both selfish and only thinking about yourselves,” she yelled. “Why can't you just go away, leave him alone? Is it the money? I can give you enough money to move away, you and your baby, and start a new life somewhere else.”
I looked at her as if she had lost her mind. No way in hell was I moving or taking my child away from his father. The look on her face was shrewd and she looked as if she was so dismayed with me that she couldn't stand to be in my presence.
“I can't just move without letting Aric know where his child is.”
“This isn't about Aric! I'm talking to you woman to woman. You will never be enough for him. He will always have to have more.” The more she talked the louder and louder her voice became. “Do you know how much shit I've put up with from this man? Do you have any idea what it takes to live with and love a man like Aric? He's way out of your league and the only reason he's still interested in you is because you're carrying his bastard! I've seen it plenty of times before. He's cheated on me countless times. So take the money I'm offering you and do the right thing.”
By then she was standing in the middle of my floor and I'd stopped leaning on the wall. We were in a stare down, me trying to process all that she was saying and I was sure she was about ready to snap. It was written all over her face and to be honest she was making me nervous. All she'd said had pissed me off. I'd grown to know Aric and I knew what I was getting myself into. What I didn't appreciate was her insinuating that I wasn't good enough for him and that I was only something for him to play with.
“I think it's time for you to leave,” I told her as I pointed to the door.
She just stared at the ring on my finger for a second before shaking her head, snatching her purse from the couch and heading for the door. I heard her mumble something about him putting a ring on my finger and lying to her. I followed close behind her not paying attention to what she was doing. All I wanted was for her to get out of my house, quickly! What happened next was something out of a vague impression from my memory. Before I knew what'd happened she'd quickly turned and with a closed backhanded fist knocked me to the ground. I screamed out and quickly scrambled to my feet as my teeth felt as if they rattled around in my brain. That's when she used a back kick that only Jet Li could have taught her and kicked me dead center in my stomach. Pain abruptly grappled me as I fell into my entertainment system and onto the floor. Tears burned my eyes and clouded my vision as I screamed out and frantically backed away from her swift approach.
Doubled over in pain I screamed out. “Oh God! Please don't do this,” I pleaded with her holding my stomach.
“All you had to do was take the money and leave,” she said seething in anger as she kicked me again, this time in my side.
I fell over on my back as vigorous anguish tore at my insides. All I could do was pray, pray that she was trying to hurt me and not kill the baby. After the third kick, I simply prayed she would stop kicking me.
“Why couldn't you just leave him alone,” she roared out as she tried to stomp me in my stomach.
Fight or flight instinct kicked in and I rolled out of the way. When she kept up her approach and yanked my head back with a hand full of my hair, I stuck my nails in her eyes and tried to pull them out of the sockets. She screamed, let go of my hair, and fell back. That gave me time to quickly stand and balance myself on the wall. I saw her quickly scrambling for her purse and I tried to get to my cell phone lying haphazardly on the floor, but because of the pain I was in she was quicker than me and I found myself staring down the barrel of a silver plated 9 mm Sig Sauer. The breath that I assumed would be my last got caught in my throat and I could only stand there.
“Put the phone down, bitch,” she said coolly, her aim never wavering.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked barely above a whisper.
“Because your stupid ass just wouldn't listen. You can't just go around fucking up people's marriages and think there won't be consequences. I asked you over and over to leave . . . my husband . . . alone. I've put up with too much shit for him just to walk away from me, and you just wouldn't back off! Then you had the nerve . . . the nerve”âshe spat out bitterlyâ“to walk into my home with my parents there to tell him he was the father of that thing you're carrying?”
Stephanie looked like something out of a psycho thriller. She was sweating with tears running down her face and slobber sticking to her mouth and lips. Blood slowly oozed from the corner of her eyes from where I'd tried to tear them out.
Before I could respond to her, a gushing liquid splattered down my legs like a water fall and pain like nothing I'd never experienced made me scream so loudly that Stephanie gasped and pulled the trigger on her gun. I dropped to my knees as the bullet ripped my flesh and tore through my left shoulder.
“Help me,” I pleaded with her as my body hit the floor. I knew that either my baby or I were not going to make it. Pain and fear overrode pride and I continued to ask . . . plead for help.
She just sat there like she was shocked with her mouth opened half mast.
When I saw that she was too shell-shocked to do anything to help me, I slowly tried to crawl for my phone. The pain in my shoulder and lower abdomen made me crawl at a caterpillar's pace, and once again, she was quicker than me. She quickly scrabbled and grabbed my cell phone out of my reach. I pleaded with her to help me again as delirium took over. My house phone rang and snapped her out of the trance she was in. She jumped over me and I could hear her snatching the phone cords out of the wall and knocking things over.
I quietly lay there crying as life edged its way out of my body. I never thought I'd be killed the same way my father had been killed. The only difference was, my mother had killed him, emptied a gun in him because she couldn't take the beatings anymore, and there I lay with a bullet lodged in me because another woman couldn't take the madness her husband had taken her through.
With the last little bit of life left in me as Stephanie ran past me, picked up her purse, looked back at me one last time, and ran out of the door, I prayed that if a life had to be taken that it be mine. I prayed that God wouldn't take my son's life because of the stupid mistakes that I'd made and I prayed that my mother wouldn't be too disappointed in me like I'd been in her. I hadn't gone to see my mother in Augusta State Medical Prison since she'd been convicted of voluntary manslaughter seven years ago and I prayed to God for forgiveness for my judgments of her.
Aric
“Damn son. I wasn't expecting to hear from you until âround the next holiday,” my dad said and chuckled into the phone. “To what do we owe the honor?” his velvety smooth voice asked next. My dad had a voice that was smooth enough to make his worst enemy trust him and that voice had gotten him in a lot of trouble over the years with women.
It'd taken me a couple of months to decide if I wanted to tell my parents about Chyanne and the baby. It's not like I would have been able to hide it after a while anyway, as I'm sure Stephanie would yell it from the rooftop sooner or later. She and I'd had another argument that morning and before it could take on the makings of a physical altercation, I'd left. I would no longer sleep in the bed with her, had decided against doing that the last time she'd threatened my unborn child. Gabe and I had been talking a lot and he made some very valid points. If I didn't want to be with Stephanie then I had to stop treating her as if I did. I'd stopped sleeping in the same bed with her, stopped having sex with her, and stopped giving her any indication that I wanted to work on our marriage.
“When a woman is desperate to make a relationship work she will latch on to any semblance of hope,”
Gabe had said to me one day after work.
“So stop giving her hope if you know that there is no chance in hell of you two staying together. . . .”
Usually I didn't take others advice, but Stephanie had been acting strange and talking about how we could celebrate our next anniversary, but there would be no next anniversary. I knew to try and kick her out of the main bedroom would be a problem so I moved out into one of the guest bedrooms. Since then, I'd been contemplating on calling my parents.
“I just decided to call and see how you guys were doing is all,” I replied.
He gave a light hearted laugh that many say I'd inherited from him. “You're going to learn to stop lying to me one day AJ.”
Neither my father, nor I were big on talking on the telephone, and talking to him always took me back to my childhood. The fact that he'd called me by the name that only my immediate family called me also took me back some years. I'd come to the end of the work day and decided to phone home before trying to fight rush hour traffic. Rush hour traffic in Atlanta started around four and I wasn't that anxious to get home anyway.
“Sure you're not calling to tell us about the
âfat bitch'
you've gone and gotten pregnant?” He went on to ask.
To hear him call Chyanne that had aggravated me. It also let me know that Stephanie had already called my mother.
“Her name is Chyanne,” I told him in a no nonsense tone.
“Chyanne is it? She has a name then...”
I could picture my dad standing in the kitchen next to the fridge casually leaning against the door post as we talked. I would bet any amount of money that was what he was doing and probably had his pocket knife out shaving his finger nails while doing so.
“I see Stephanie's already called mom then?”
“That would be correct. I should kick your ass too. That's all I've been hearing about for the last couple of days from Nadine. She wanted me to call and talk to you, but you're a grown man, son and as long as you haven't asked for my advice, I ain't giving it to you.”
Hearing my mother's name made the muscles in my jaw twitch and made me wonder just what Stephanie had told her about Chyanne. I wouldn't say that Stephanie and my mom had been close during our marriage, but they had enough of a bond for Stephanie and her to talk about certain things. I'm sure that they'd ripped Chyanne apart and I'm sure my mom had passed judgment on her before even getting a chance to meet her. That's the type of woman my mother was. She had the solution to everyone's problem but her own.
Looking at the time, I began to wonder why Chyanne hadn't called me. She was supposed to have called to tell me the sex of the baby, but I had yet to hear from her. That was the plan since I couldn't go with her to this doctor's visit. I'd been disappointed when we weren't able to learn the sex of the baby on the last visit and she knew how excited I was to know. It struck me as strange that she hadn't called to let me know yet, but my dad clearing his throat brought me back to our conversation.
I sighed and replied, “I'm sure mom has had her share to say.”
“You damn skippy, but every time she's picked up the phone to call you, I've hung it up. You don't need her messy ass all in your business either. I done hung up on Stephanie about five times. You would think the knacker would get the point by now,” he said.
“I didn't mean to cause you and mom any problems dad, but it is what it is . . .”
“Look, like I said you're a grown man and what you do in your personal life is your business. But do know that wife of yours is a fucking loose screw and you should mind yourself around her. Called here this morning talking crazy and crying. Her and your mother carrying on like two clucking hens calling that gal you got pregnant all kinds of names. After a while I snatched the damn phone out of the wall.”
I knew my father and I knew if he said that he'd snatched the phone out of the wall then he'd literally done so. The last thing I wanted was for him and mom to be fighting because of me. I'd seen the way they fought and I knew when my father got angry . . . stuff happened. He was a calm man until you pissed him off. I wiped my hand down my face and leaned back into my desk chair stretching my legs to get the blood back flowing in them. Picking up my phone, I checked it once again to make sure Chyanne hadn't called and I'd missed it. There were no missed calls and no text messages.
“Dad you and mom shouldn't be fightingâ“
“Do I tell you what you and your wife should be doing ?”
“No.”
“Then it would do you good to keep your opinion on what me and my wife should be doing to yourself.”
“Dad, all I was saying was that I don't need you two fighting about what's going on with me,” I repeated to him.
I heard jingling in the background and knew he was now shaking the loose change he always carried in his pocket.
“I'll worry about that and you worry about telling me about this twenty-five year old you done gone and got knocked up.”
I really didn't call my dad to tell him the whole story as it pertained to Chyanne and me, but I knew he was anxiously awaiting an explanation. I gave him a brief, but detailed version of what happened with me and Chyanne and he didn't interrupt much. Every now and then he would ask a question here and there like âwhat was I thinking not using protection if I wasn't intending to get her pregnant?', or âwhy Stephanie and I weren't divorced before I decided to move on?' I explained to him the same thing that I'd had to explain to Stephanie's father to which he had some choice words, but only after my mother had walked into the kitchen and started to fuss about not being able to speak to me.
While he put me on hold to fuss with my mother in the background I dialed Chyanne on my cell. It wasn't like her not to have called or texted, I thought as I looked at the time. It was thirty minutes after three and her doctor's appointment had been at one. I sent a text message to her after leaving her a voice message telling her to call me. When my dad came back to the phone, I quickly ended the conversation telling him I would get back to him later. For some reason I couldn't fathom, Chyanne was heavily on my mind and I couldn't shake the feeling that the only thing that would keep her from calling was if something was wrong. I'd begun to hope that nothing had gone wrong with the baby and that everything was okay. The thought of anything going wrong with Chyanne and the baby unsettled my nerves and put me on edge.
My cell rang just as I was about to make my way out of the office. It was April. My first mind was to ignore her call, but when the phone stopped ringing only to immediately start again and her name popped up again, I answered the phone.
“Yeah.”
“Aric?” The voice was that of a young male.
“Yes, this is Aric.”
“This is Aaron, April's son. Mama said to call you and tell you that something's happened to Chyanneâ”
My heart rate made haste and felt as if it was about to take a running leap out of my chest.
“What do you mean something's happened to Chyanne ?”
I could tell he had been running because he was breathing hard. “The old man that lives across the street from her called mama and said that some lady had attacked Chyanne and that she was bleeding . . .”
Not having time to wait for the elevator, I took the stairwell to the parking deck. April's son was still talking but the only thing I could hear was wind in my ear as I raced down the stairs. In my mind all I could see was the image of Chyanne laying somewhere bleeding and clinging to life. I made it to my car and sped out of the parking deck almost having a head on collision with another car in the process.
“Where is she now?” I asked when I'd finally turned into traffic.
“The police and the ambulance are still at her house. I'm standing outside with mama.” I could hear the commotion in the background mixed with sirens. “Mama said somebody shot Chyanne and looked like her house had been robbed.”
Hearing that Chyanne had been shot puzzled me as I questioned him about why and who had done it. He had no answer. He could only relay what his mother was repeating to him. I could hear April asking questions about Chyanne's condition and questioning what hospital they would be taking her to. I stayed on the phone as I sped down I-75 trying to get to Chyanne's place. April got on the phone and gave me a better explanation of the things he son had relayed to me. I had questions that April couldn't give me the answers to. I asked her if Chyanne and the baby were okay. She said she didn't know because the police and detectives wouldn't give her any information which only frustrated me more. I found myself stuck in traffic which caused me to punch the steering wheel and curse out in anger. Stephanie kept beeping in on the other end of my phone and I had to ignore her calls so I could keep April on the line. So much was happening at one time that I felt as if I had lost control.
By the time I found an exit so I could maneuver around traffic April was telling me that they had taken Chyanne to Atlanta Medical hospital. Forty five minutes later I was rushing through the halls of the ER trying to get someone to give me any information they could on where she had been taken. In the end I was led down a hall and into a waiting area for the families of those who were admitted with life threatening injuries. The room was small with dim lighting. About twenty sky blue chairs with brown arm rests sat back to back in the middle of the room while six more cushioned chairs sat sparsely against the four tan colored walls. A small flat-screen TV was perched against the wall and a vending machine sat off in the far right corner. I took a seat in one of the chairs that occupied the middle of the room.
All the nurse told me was to wait and as soon as she heard something she would tell me. I'm surprised she even told me that after the way I'd cursed her and every other person within hearing distance. I was frustrated, angry, and I felt lost because I didn't know what was going on. It seemed like hours ticked away as minutes trickled by slowly. My leg shook as I irritably rubbed both hands down my face worrying myself trying to figure out just what the hell had happened to Chyanne. A feeling of dread washed over me as the thought of never seeing her again barraged my mind. I hadn't put in perspective just how much she'd meant to me until that moment. Feelings of guilt paraded through me because I hadn't been there to protect her and my child.
A few minutes later April and her son's came rushing into the waiting area. She looked like she had just thrown on the first particle of clothing she could find and made her way to the hospital. Her hair was not done up like it usually was, she was in sweats and tennis shoes, and she had on no makeup.
“You hear anything yet?” April asked me as he she carelessly tossed her purse in a chair next to me and rubbed her hands together.
She and her sons stood surrounding me with fear and worry etched over their faces.
I shook my head and exhaled. “No, nothing yet. What happened?”
“You guys go sit over there for a minute,” she said to her sons and she took a chair next to me.
“Why? I want to know what happened too.” The tall one who looked to be close to my height said. “Chyanne don't do nothing to nobody. She's nice to everybody and I wanna know who fucked wit' her.”
“Jo-Jo if you don't watch your damn mouth, I'm going to jump up from here and put my foot in it. Now sit down! I know you're mad right now, but don't forget who I am,” she said to him sternly.
He stood there and stared her down for a few seconds. The muscles in his jaws twitched before he turned away and stormed out of the waiting room. I recognized the anger and resentment behind his eyes. It reminded me of my own whenever I thought of my childhood.
She turned to the twin boys. “Go get your brother before he ends up sharing a bed with somebody up in here,” she told them.