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I could hear the distaste and the anger all wrapped up into one in his voice. I had no idea what he found himself having an attitude with me for, but they were his kids, so he deserved to know where they were.
“Our kids are over their aunt’s house,” I let him know as I stood by the door frame with my arms crossed over my chest.
I examined his attire for the night, and I had to admit that he looked good. Jerrod always dressed well, but over the years, I’ve become so accustomed to seeing him in only suits, so it was nice to finally see him in something a little bit more laid back. He wore a plaid Burberry shirt with a pair of khaki bottoms, and the matching Burberry sneakers were on his feet. His hair was freshly cut, and even with the little distance between us, I could smell his cologne.
I was going to turn on my heels and head back to my room, but when he released a sarcastic laugh, followed by him pulling on his chin hair, I felt the strong need to stick around a little longer. He was looking at me, so I raised my eyebrows in confusion because I wanted to laugh too. I didn’t just tell him a joke, so I wouldn’t mind finding out what the hell was so comical.
“It’s just a little inside joke, man. I’m just trying to think of a time when my mom ever just dropped me and my brothers off to our grandmother’s and our auntie’s and uncle’s house, and I’m having a hard time remembering that. If my parents had to go on little business trips throughout the year, then, of course, they would drop us off with an aunt or something, but even then, my mom hated doing shit like that. You’re so different, though. You think this parenting shit has an on and off button. You get a little headache, and there you go, dropping my fuckin’ kids off to the projects somewhere! On top of that, you never even ask me if it’s okay for my kids to stay in a certain place. You just make certain moves without consulting with me first. How the fuck you think I feel after coming home from a long night, only to find out from you that my kids are not even here. And you wonder why the fuck our thirteen-year-old daughter got pregnant.”
His dumb ass tried to mumble the last part, but I heard him loud and clear. This was the shit that I was talking about. He was so fuckin’ quick to try to bring me down as a mother, but I had something for his ass.
“Let me ask you something, Jerrod. What color was Jaden on this week in school for his behavior?” I asked him, and he waved me off. “What about Jada? What was her color? The twins went on a field trip this Friday, do you know where they went? What’s the twins’ favorite television show? Why does Journey insist on sleeping with both of the lamps on in her room every night? Those are all questions that you don’t know the answer to, yet you have the fuckin’ balls to try to discredit me as a fuckin’ mother?
“Yes, Journey got pregnant, and you want to point the finger at me, but we are both to blame for that! Best believe I’ll never let another thing slip over my head when it comes to my kids! You cannot tell me shit about my kids that I don’t know, and the sad thing is, I can’t say the same thing for you! Talking about I drop my kids off to my family every chance I get when you know damn well that that’s a fuckin’ lie. The twins are damn near glued to my fuckin hip, so they can’t stand to be away from me, even if it’s for a few minutes. I deal with the kids on my own every fuckin’ day! Seven days a week, while you walk around like the only priority you have is that fuckin’ job. You know what? What the fuck are we even doing, Jerrod? I can’t do this shit no more with you, man! I can’t do it,” I said, and my voice cracked because I knew that this was it.
“I’m not happy. I swear I want a divorce. Call the lawyer in the morning so we can make this happen,” I said, and there he was again, laughing like something was funny.
“Say that shit again, and I’ll make you feel what you’re going to feel for the rest of your life if you decide to walk away from me. You said you want a want?” he asked, standing up from the bed and walking over to me.
Now that he was standing in front of me, breathing down on me, and looking at me, I could smell the liquor on his breath, which only proved that his stupid ass was drunk. I wasn’t scared of Jerrod at all, so I didn’t even bother to step back even a little bit when he was all in my face. My tears were falling because I felt like I hated
this man. I felt like I was punishing myself by staying with him.
“I said I want a divorce, Jerrod! I’m serious, and—”
The towel that I was wearing around my body, he quickly snatched it off of me. In seconds, it hit the floor. I looked at him like he was crazy, and in a few short seconds, he had my body lifted up in the air. He held me in his arms as he walked out of the room with me. I screamed, telling him to put me down, and with sweat dripping from his forehead, he kept telling me that he would.
When we got down the stairs, he walked over to the front door and struggled to hold my body up with one arm and use his free hand to unlock the door. Reality set in on what he was getting ready to do, so I kicked and I screamed even louder. The door was finally opened, and as if I was a piece of trash that he no longer needed, he tossed my ass outside, and I fell right on the hard pavement floor of our circular driveway.
The crash from the fall wasn’t even the reason why I was crying. The fact that he would do this to me is what hurt. I quickly tried to stand up to run back inside the house, but he quickly went back in and closed the door behind him, making sure to lock it.
“Say what you want again, bitch! A divorce? Do you see what comes with divorcing a rich ass nigga like me? You leave me, bitch, you leave with nothing! You don’t even get to leave with the clothes on your fuckin’ back because I own all that shit! You don’t even get to leave with the kids because I’ll fight for my fuckin’ kids in court and hire the best fuckin’ Jewish lawyer that I can find, and I’ll make sure that you never see all three of them again. Fuck you mean you want a divorce? Woman, I fuckin’ own you!” he barked on the other side of the door, but I could hear him loud and clear.
I was standing right in front of the door, banging on it like a damn mad woman, telling him to open it. I was butt ass naked, and at any second, someone could drive by and see me. My ass was burning from me falling on it when he threw me, along with my elbow, and my ankles.
“Yeah, that’s right! Beg me, bitch! Hell no, I’m not letting your ass back inside this fuckin’ house! I done let you get away with murder around this fuckin’ house! You call yourself fuckin’ ignoring me! Bitch, you ought to be bowing down and kissing my fuckin’ feet every time I walk through the damn door because I’m a damn king around this bitch! I took your project ass from out of a rat infested two-bedroom apartment, and this is how you do me? Nah, you going to learn some damn manners tonight, bitch! I’m talking to you like this because this is what you want. Had you never got with me, this is how them niggas would have been talking to your ass. I bet you wouldn’t have wanted to divorce them,” he said, babbling off a whole bunch of disrespectful shit to me.
I don’t know if it was the liquor that had him saying this shit to me or what, but either way, he was saying things to me that proved exactly what he thought of me. I didn’t care if my kids and I had to go back to the fuckin’ projects, I bet my last dollar that this was it. I’d be a damn fool to stick it out after he said all this shit to me.
Eventually, I just gave the hell up. I took a seat at the bottom of the porch steps and mentally stored everything that he had said to me. I was called everything from a bitch to a project hoe, he even went as far as to say that I pinned all three kids on him and that he didn’t even know if Journey actually belonged to him. He made fun of me for not knowing who my daddy was, and he even talked about my friends and my sister, calling them ghetto trash. I was called trash right along with them.
At one point, the front door opened. I thought that he was going to let me back in just so I could throw on some clothes and leave, but that didn’t happen. Actually, something far worse happened. The trash bag that was inside the kitchen was poured over my head, and everything from the milk that I’d put in there this morning to the old coffee beans and whatever other disgusting items were poured over my body.
My pride had already been ruined the moment he picked me up and threw me in the driveway, letting me know that I owned nothing, so I didn’t even bother to put up a fight. I just simply used the back of my hand to clean the soiled milk that had fallen into my mouth, and I kept quiet. After that, the door was closed.
I sat out there on my ass for hours. Around three the next morning, I heard the front door turning. I gave it about five minutes before I got up. When I did, it was only so that I could run inside the house, grab my keys from the key holder, remove my wedding ring so I could leave it on the kitchen counter, and I was out. I hightailed it to my car, smelling like garbage and with not an item of clothing on my body. The moment I was inside my car, I made sure to lock all the doors, and I finally pulled out. Tears flooded my vision as I drove, making it hard for me to see as I hightailed it out of the community.
“Meaning, you have other people in the world that you’re living for. You can’t be driving all crazy like that because you’re upset. Anything could have happened tonight. You lucky to have just walked away with a little cut on your forehead and a broken arm. Your kids only get one mama. Remember that shit.”
Za’Kai’s words echoed in my head when I jumped on the highway, and I found myself driving like a mad woman again. Suddenly, all three of my kids and their faces popped up in my head, and that was the only thing that got me to slow down. I couldn’t let me kids see me like this. They would ask too many questions. They didn’t have to think of their father the way that I thought of him after tonight, so I wasn’t going to even go over to my sister’s house tonight. I would just go and pick them up first thing in the morning.
It took me about thirty minutes to make it to the projects, and I was going to get out until I remembered that I didn’t have any clothes on. I knew for a fact that people, men especially, were hanging out at this time of night. I cut the light on in the car, and I thanked God when I found Journey’s dance bag in the back seat. I scanned the bag, and luckily, I was able to find one of her tank tops along with a pair of shorts.
I felt exposed, so when I got out of the car, I made sure to wrap the bag around me, in hopes that it could hide my nipples that were showing because I wasn’t wearing a bra and my ass cheeks that were hanging from the shorts.
“Takari!” I heard a deep voice say from across the way.
I knew who that voice belonged to. How the hell could I have forgotten it?
