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“Go figu
re?” I said aloud, knowing it was going to be yet another article bashing the other woman. I wished that they would keep it real for once, because we all know that it takes three to cheat – the frustrated husband, his hot ass mistress, and a homely wife not doing her job at home. For entertainment purposes only, I decided to humor myself and read the article anyway.
Home Wrecking Mistresses
Being a kept woman turns out to have no true meaning in the big spectrum of life, especially when the outcome is emotional turmoil, spiritual death and merely existing in a realm of misplacement. When a mistress’ livelihood depends on her man’s stolen time from his wife, she is not living a life of her truest potential…”
The last line jumped up and slapped me in the face. Was I missing out on my blessings, as the article stated, because I was coveting my best friend’s husband? I had always thought that I could never find anyone as perfect for me as Titus, but how could I know for sure? I had never given anyone else a chance, really. Since high school, I had been messing around with Shayla’s boyfriend, and later her husband, on the down low. I toyed with the idea that there was a man out there that was better for me – a man of my very own – that I would never meet, because I was spending all of my time with Titus. The thought sent my stomach back into knots, and I pushed it out of my head.
Or could it be that I was already spiritually dead before we had even started fooling around? On the inside I struggled against a feeling of nostalgia, reminiscent of feelings I had as a child. As a little girl, I yearned for affection and love from my mother when love and affection towards me were the last things on her mind.
Mama was a lively and vibrant lady who worked hard but never seemed to be able to get ahead. When she wasn’t working long hours to provide for us, she seemed to get her only source of enjoyment in life by being in the company of different men – many different men. Many of her boyfriends would end up being one-night stands that I hated to see come and go from her bedroom in the wee hours of the morning. That vision haunted me for years afterwards.
The men would make their hasty exit just as the sun threatened to peek up over the horizon outside my window. I’d hear their muted whispered outside my bedroom door in the hallway. Listening to Mama’s girlish giggles and the men’s empty promises to return, I would turn my face towards the wall as the front door clicked closed behind them. These men came and went as they pleased, with no ties to Mama, leaving her with nothing but a piece of a memory to hold on to until the next time they decided to show her some more love. Speaking of love, she rarely showed me any type of love or affection that I could feel in my adolescent soul. She’d say that I was a strong girl and that I could make it on my own in the world.
What she didn’t know was that an empty human shell is never strong. It has to be filled with love, joy, and hope to be strong enough to learn what truly makes a woman. I never had that role model to look up to. What I felt every time Mama chose a man over me could not be summed up in words, until she kicked me out of the house over the first man that decided to put a Rent-to-Own ring on her finger. It was then that my spirit was finally broken, and I was able to tell her in words how much I hated her.
It might have been at that point that I lost the ability to genuinely love another female. I mean, really love them like family, simply for the beauty of our friendship. Due to the fact that the one woman that I loved with all that I had in me to love threw me out on the street like a piece of trash for a piece of a man, I was incapable of loving the best friend I had ever had. Mama said I had to go, because Jessie didn’t feel comfortable in her house because of my attitude problem.
When it all boiled down to it, a woman was always going to choose her man over another woman, even if she said she loved you. Whether she was your mother, or your so-called Sister-From-Another-Mother, it was always the same. So, you might as well beat her to the punch, and look out for yourself.
Pushing my dreadful memories of Mama and their relation to my present decision to do everything I could to take my best friend’s husband from her to the back of my mind, I consoled myself with the thought that at least I finally had someone to love me for real. Well, at the moment, I at least had a part-time lover that was slowly but steadily working his way into full-time. Shayla might have thought that she had everything under control, but she had no idea. It was the real woman behind the scenes that ran shit in relationships. I could do amazing things in the dark, and Titus would come to see the light sooner or later.
I flipped the page to read the rest of the eye-opening article just as Dr. Swanman’s blond, bubbly, and always smiling, nurse called me to the back.
“So, Ms. Jackson, what’s bothering you today?” she asked, once I was sitting on the exam table.
I started to tell her to look at my chart, because the lady at the front desk asked the same question and wrote it there. Instead, I repeated my symptoms to her.
“I’m having really bad stomach cramps. I came in last month, because I thought I needed a new birth control pill since my periods had been irregular. The new pill has me cramping something awful, even worse than before. I’ve been on three different birth control pills this year, so maybe there is something else wrong with me.”
“Have you been under any kind of stress lately?” she asked, writing down notes into my chart.
“Well, I guess you could say that. I was at a party a few days ago, and someone came in shooting. But I was having pain off and on before then.”
“Okay,” The nurse looked at me strangely, as if she was judging me for being somewhere that shooting would take place. I really didn’t need her condescending attitude right at that moment. I was about to tell her so when she took a quick breath, looked back at my chart, and continued, “Well, let’s get you checked out. I need you to urinate in one of the cups in the bathroom for a urine sample. Then go to room seven, and remove all of your clothing. Cover yourself with the robe provided on the exam table, and the doctor will be in to see you shortly.”
I shot daggers at her with my eyes as she turned her back and walked quickly out of my exam room. I was still feeling a bit perturbed at the way she looked at me – I had enough people passing judgment on me on a regular basis. I certainly didn’t need it from some little petite Barbie look-a-like who had no idea what I had been through – hell, what I was still going through! She had probably been born with a silver spoon in her mouth and been handed everything to her by her mommy and daddy all of her life.
After I got undressed, hopped up onto the examining table, and covered myself, Dr. Swanman came in and began his brief examination. As expected, my mouth and ears were clear, and I didn’t have any lumps in my breasts. My lungs and heart sounded good, and he said everything looked normal. Since I had just had a pelvic exam and Pap smear the last time I was there, it wasn’t necessary this time around. The only thing left was for the phlebotomist to come in and draw some blood so that the doctor could run tests to see if my chemistry was all balanced. I was sure the blood tests were just another way for his office to make some more money, but I wanted to get to the bottom of my pain, so I agreed to it.
When the phlebotomist had drawn my blood and was about to walk out of the room, the doctor and his nurse met him at the door. They were both looking perplexed and nervous, raising my anxiety level up to ten on the feelings meter. If I had been wearing one of those mood rings that were so popular back in the eighties and nineties, it would be going from grey to black.
Dr. Swanman slowly walked to me and put a hand on my shoulder. He said, “Ms. Jackson, there has been some sort of a mix up in your chart. The last time you were here, your pregnancy test was positive, and it read positive again on this visit today. The mix up happened because another patient’s test results were erroneously placed into your chart, and your results were placed in hers, thus giving you both false readings.” With a look of disgust, he turned to the nurse and said, “Judy, call Mrs. Boutmore right now, and let her know that she is not pregnant.”
I’d never heard him address her by her first name before. I raised my eyebrows at the awkward situation. There was a definite cloud of tension in the room. The nurse nodded, shamefully avoiding my stare, with tears welling in her eyes, and quickly left the room. Dr. Swanman shook his head slowly, then began apologizing. “Ms. Jackson, I assure you that this type of thing has never happened in my office. It will not happen again. I am so sorry that it happened to you.”
“Wait… Are you sure that I’m pregnant?” I asked, as my world seemed to start swimming around for a moment, and I had to steady myself on the exam table with my hands so that I wouldn’t fall over.
“This test is pretty much conclusive, but we will know with absolute certainty when your blood tests come back because I’m going to run what we call a serum pregnancy test. This will test the amount of pregnancy hormones in your body. Now, based on the fact that you have been having irregular periods, we will have to wait a few months and watch the baby’s growth before we do an ultrasound to determine how many months you are.”
To say that I was in shock would have been an understatement. For some reason, I couldn’t comprehend what the doctor had just said. My head wouldn’t wrap itself around the idea. Me? Rhonda Grezille? Pregnant? My first instinct was to ask myself what would become of my sexy, well-maintained body. I couldn’t picture the possibility of stretch marks and a distended belly. On the other hand, the thought that I was going to be the first one to give Titus a child was exhilarating. There was nothing that sweet little Shayla could do about that one!
“Are you sure this is not a mistake, Dr. Swanman?” I asked again, just to be sure I wasn’t dreaming.
“Oh, we are sure this time, and like I said, once the serum pregnancy test comes back it will be pretty much conclusive. Right now, let’s set you up for a two-week follow-up, and we will call you with the results as soon as we have them.”
As Dr. Swanman handed me the instructions on taking care of myself and my baby for the next two weeks, the nurse, who had recomposed he
