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“Now that I’ve put your mind at ease. Why are you up so early?” Miranda asked as she crawled back into bed. She couldn’t figure out why she’d agreed to work today, but being a productive employee was not happening.

“My phone started ringing around seven. I thought it was Ma calling because she said she was going to call me bright and early to see how my first night out was. It was not Ma. It was Terry.”

“Who?!”

Miranda bolted up in bed so quickly she made herself dizzy. She had no idea where this conversation was going, but she knew she wasn’t expecting to hear Terry’s name.

“You heard me.”

“What is this, a new year, new you moment? Why are you talking to Terry? What did he want? You better not say he wants to rekindle anything.” The headache and grogginess that had her fighting for her life had miraculously disappeared.

Silent tears fell from Myla’s eyes down her face. People spoke of the truth setting you free, but the truth gutted her. For as long as she could remember, she had been a daddy’s girl. He was her rock. She’d seek his guidance and advice before going to her mother. Discovering that he was a part of a lifestyle that she knew nothing about hurt in ways she couldn’t fathom.

“Myla, are you crying? What did Terry say?” Nosiness transformed into concern. Crying was the absolute last thing that she expected to hear. Myla was a lot of things, but a crier, she was not.

“I’m about to forward you an email. Look at it,” Myla said.

Myla forwarded the email to Miranda, then sent it to the trash bin. She could not handle ever reviewing the contents of the email again. Nor could she handle saying to Miranda the things Terry said to her.

“OH, MY GOD!” Miranda screamed so loud her throat burned.

She flung the iPad away as if it were something that was coming to attack her. Miranda stared at the device as if it would get up and walk back over to where she was. She took a moment to gather her thoughts, because never in her life did she ever think she would see photos of Papa M, the man that raised her as if he were her father, the man who had his entire family sitting in the first row of church every Sunday, inserting items in his rectum.

“Myla, I don’t even know what to say.”

“Terry said he met my father in some type of kink club five years ago. My ex-fiancé and my father were having an affair for ten years. The day I came home from the trip, the man wearing the leather dog costume was my damn dad!

“Remember all those times Daddy encouraged me to leave Terry. Telling me things like he’s no good and he’s not my type. I thought he was just being a good father. Nah, he just wanted to be the only Pleasant that Terry was fucking,”

Gut-wrenching sobs filled Miranda’s bedroom as Myla cried through the phone. Miranda didn’t quite know what to say to this type of heartbreak. She knew how to handle the type of pain that came from a man having an affair with a woman. This was more than an affair; it was a betrayal because it was now obvious that Myron had continued his downlow relationship with Terry even after discovering that his daughter was engaged to him.

“Myla, I can’t begin to imagine how you feel. I don’t want to throw out a generic sentiment. All I can say is I’m surprised. I never expected or suspected anything like this.”

There were so many questions swirling through Miranda’s head. Did Mama Linda know about her husband? Did Papa M contract AIDS too? There was so much that she wanted to know, but she knew now was not the time to ask.

“I never suspected anything like this either. I was so hurt, I was going to ask Ma if she knew about this, but Dante didn’t think that was a good idea. As he said, this was the past. There is no need to dwell on it because Terry is dying and Daddy is already dead. Since I’m not able to get the answers from the person I need answers from, I need to move on.”

What the fuck did she say? Miranda furrowed her eyebrows. She had to think and replay Myla’s admission because there was no way she heard her correctly. Surely, she had heard her incorrectly. The only way to confirm what she heard was to ask.

“What did you say?”

“I said I need to move on. Now, I understand how some of my clients flashed out. Finding this out was a slap in the fucking face,” Myla answered.

Miranda wasn’t accepting that answer.

“Dante? Did you say Dante didn’t think it was a good idea?” Miranda asked.

She hoped that Myla had enough common sense not to divulge something of this caliber to a stranger.

“Oh, yeah. I did. He called me after I got off the phone with Terry. He helped me through all my chaotic feelings. I don’t see the issue.”

It took everything in Miranda not to call Myla a dumb ass bitch. Myla had completed well over a decade of higher education to become a psychologist. Myla loved to highlight her degrees and accolades, yet she tended to make decisions that were dumb as hell.

“Myla, are you serious? Why the fuck would you tell a person you met roughly ten hours ago about something so personal and devastating? You don’t know that man from a hole in the wall. He is a complete stranger. You don’t know what he could do with information like that. Why would you share that with him?” Miranda screamed; she was livid. With the level of anger she was displaying, one would think that Myron was her father.

“You need to calm down, Miranda. There is no need for you to be so mad that I—”

“I’m talking, Myla!” Miranda cut in sharply. “I’m mad because when it comes to men you always expose too much. The glass of your family portrait just broke into a thousand pieces, and you handed the sharpest piece to someone you don’t know.”