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Understanding is What I Need…
I woke up in the dead of the night to the sound of crickets chirping a melodic blend with the occasional frog croaking through my open window. I reached for Destiny as I had every night since she’d been gone. Her side of the bed was cold, and my hand came down to rest on her empty pillow. Not only was she absent from my bed, she was no longer in the guestroom. At least when she stayed in the guestroom, I could go stand by the door and feel her energy wafting through the air. Her essence vibrated through me in the spiritual sense, and that was enough for me. But with her gone, and hurt by my actions, I was slowly going insane.
I slid into my suede slippers and trekked along the mahogany wood of my lengthy, third-floor hallway. I peeked inside Junior and then Montana’s empty rooms, and it became excruciatingly real. My family was gone.
I had flown back to Miami hours ago, after a week of staying at the Marriott Atlanta. I tried to reach Destiny on a deep level to get her to remember me, the man she married. I wanted her to really think about if she felt I would cheat and risk losing her. I needed to get her to understand what happened, from my standpoint, but she wasn’t hearing to me.
In my mind, I kept thinking that if I didn’t know I was sleeping with Justine, technically I didn’t sleep with her. Justine’s bombshell about her baby beat my case to smithereens.
Destiny tuned me out. If she was hearing me, she wasn’t understanding how it could happen the way I said it did.
She moved back into her old house that to my chagrin hadn’t sold on the market yet. She would barely let me through the door, until I threatened to knock it down. I would never go that far. Just needed to get her attention.
Give me time Jacob.
Let me go, Jacob.
She kept asking me to just give her time and to let her go. I refused to do either. I dreaded being separated from her, and since she told me about my baby growing in he
r womb that dread went up exponentially. Her having part of me inside her was more reason I could never just let her go like she wanted me to. She was mine, the baby was mine, and there was nothing no one could do to change that.
The only reason I made the trip back to Miami without my family was to confront the people who meddled in my marriage and caused Destiny and I to come to this heart wrenching halt.
There were some bad actors from day one. If it weren’t for them needing to be addressed, I would have been in Atlanta groveling like a bitch, trying to prove to Destiny that she was the only woman for me, always had been and always would be.
My first stop after I got up and got dressed was my mother’s house. I went into the garage and hopped in my SUV. I had given Henry the day off.
Thirty minutes later, I pulled up to Mom’s freshly built village style estate. Construction was still happening on part of the mansion, but the landscaping on the front yard was complete with Miami palms strategically sculpting the driveway. She had spared no expense in building a home just as exquisite as the one my grandparents passed down to Dad; the one she had been exiled from because of her inability to be a compassionate, loving woman.
I parked my Lincoln in front of the walkway to the front door, hopped out and sighed. No man ever wants to have the kind of conversation I was about to have with my mother, but it was going down. I strolled to the door and rang the bell.
Surprisingly, it took Mom three minutes, which gave me plenty of time to think about how to broach the conversation with her.
“Why if it isn’t my—”
“She left. Are you happy?” I said before she could complete her sentence.
“Son…” she finished her statement and then asked, “Who left?”
“Destiny, she left me and she won’t be coming back, thanks to your and Justine’s constant games that you played. Now, the papers are printing that she’s pregnant with my child, which is probably just another level of the games she’s playing.” I glared at my mother. “Did you know about this?”
“No, I read about it the same time as you probably did, Jacob. And, wait a minute. You’re coming in here hurling accusations. Why on earth would I be happy that your wife left you, Son?” she asked, but before I could answer she said, “Poor girl never knew what she had in the first place. If Justine hadn’t gone crazy and killed that man, she would've been the perfect wife for you, whether she played games or not.”
“You’re wrong for defending Justine’s bullshit, Mom. Do you even hear what you are saying? Justine never was the woman for me. Destiny is. I didn’t know love until I met her. It’s just a shame that you would want me to be with a murderer, just because you and your friend arranged for us to be together when we were kids, instead of Destiny.”
“I never said that.”
“But you did say it.”
“Son, I just wanted what was best for you.”
“Bullshit, and you know it! Rick would still be alive if you had not played with Justine’s marriage.” Mom’s eyes bucked wide and her jaws tightened with her lips in a straight line across her face.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I went by and had a talk with his wife and she told me all about what you did to interfere in Justine and Rick’s engagement, including paying her money to quit the guy she was with and to try to get Rick back. You knew that since she and Rick already had children he would be willing to reconcile. He didn’t want to leave Justine, but you and Martha just kept interfering until he was persuaded to go back to his family and leave Justine at the altar. Do you know that man would probably still be alive, and Justine wouldn’t be facing hard time, if you had not meddled in their relationship? Instead, Justine would probably be happily married.”
“Watch how you are talking to me, Jacob. I’m still your mother.”
