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Those types of rifts can be repaired. No, the blow up between me and Saundra was big enough to drive a truck through.
True, bringing that guy home from happy hour was stupid. I’ve never done anything like that before but that day I had been thinking about myself as Nick’s woman. Some man’s woman. Something owned. Someone who was going to be betrayed. I flipped!
On top of that, I lost out on a job promotion over the Splash Sendo mess. The two bickering partners returned our money but the whole incident hurt my credibility.
But getting back to Saundra. I knew the very second I opened that door that me and Saundra were not designed to be roommates. Why didn’t I just call Yero to come fix this shit and take her over to his house?
Saundra is not a bad person.
She is the kind of woman who most people don’t ever get the chance to meet—kind, gentle, faithful, spiritual, non-materialistic, honest to a fault with a genuine love for all of mankind.
When Mama died, she made sure that Phil understood we were always going to be sisters. There was not going to be any of that “time and distance caused Asha and Saundra to drift apart” crap. Saundra made Phil agree to let her call and come see me whenever and however she wanted. She told me all that the week after Mama’s funeral and I’ve never loved her more than I did at that moment.
So, my question is: How do you get rid of a younger sister who is driving you crazy but doesn’t deserve to be thrown out?
Before the Clark incident, Saundra would have said that her moving in with me had made our bond stronger than ever. And I would have grudgingly acknowledged that I was relieved she had me to turn to during her dark night of the soul.
But if she keeps preaching at me, I’m going to explode. After the dust settles, our relationship will be in microscopic pieces. We’ll end up parting company, never to call or speak to each other again.
In the meantime, I’m going to avoid her as much as possible. This shit just ain’t working.
Chapter 48
SAUNDRA
Asha got dumped in high school and she changed. Mom died and she changed. My father bought a house a few years ago and I moved in and she changed. Now I need to stay with her for a while and she has changed again. I am so sick and tired of Asha and her changes. If she changed for the better that would be one thing, but anytime she gets the slightest disappointment or inconvenience, she expects the world to care; and when it doesn’t, she gets more and more withdrawn or just plain mean. She actually had the nerve to say “you should have known better than to trust Phil or get engaged because none of that fairy tale shit ever works.” What kind of thing is that to say when your sister’s life has been shattered? Not cool at all.
I always suspected that Asha was jealous of my relationship with my father because her father was such a deadbeat; and now I’m sure that she would laugh at me about how Phil really turned out. Acting against God, that’s how he turned out. Asha’s dad was a tormented drug addict but at least he liked women. I simply can’t stand the idea of Asha’s secret mocking and ridicule. That is why I have not been able to tell her the truth about Phil.
Her dad was nothing but a drug addict and he never so much as gave Mama a penny to help raise her. My father gave more than his fair share to Mama after they broke up. They were together for a few months after I was born but Daddy said she dumped him because she never truly got over Asha’s crappy father. Mom would never talk about why she broke up with my dad and I always assumed she didn’t because she knew she really blew it by tossing back such a great catch. I vowed to myself I would never make that mistake if I met the right man, and that’s why I took a chance with Yero.
Well, I was wrong about my own father but I’ll never let Asha know just how wrong. She won’t have me to kick around much longer. I’m quitting school, getting a job and my own place even if it is just a room no bigger than a cell. After that, we’ll never have to see or speak to each other again.
Chapter 49
PHIL
I had a concussion.
I didn’t want to hurt Evelyn any further by telling the emergency room doctors what really happened, so I told them and the police department that I slipped and fell in my own driveway. After a two-night stay in the hospital, I signed myself out and went back to work. With zero tolerance for lying suspects or anyone who resisted my attempts to put the cuffs on, I worked double shifts to the point of exhaustion. My weight was dropping, Hugo and I were barely speaking, and out on the street the words “excessive force” were being linked with my name. But I didn’t care. I realized that I really did love Evelyn. Not in that man/woman way that she needed but like a best friend or beloved sister. What I hadn’t known for all this time was that I depended on Evelyn and she had become my rock, my foundation. Losing her really hurt. Knowing that she hated me was as unbearable as losing Saundra. That’s why Hugo and I were on the outs. He could not understand my grief over Evelyn. Worse, he refused to go visit her and apologize for his role in her tragedy. And he really needed to do that, because the whole Evelyn as decoy thing had been his idea.
I was twenty-one years old when I became a cop and scared to death that someone on the force would find out that I was gay. So, I stopped dating altogether and for the next four years, I used work to ease my loneliness and misery. When Lola started coming on to me, I resisted at first. Then I began to imagine how wonderful it would be if I could really make it with a woman. No more sneaking and hiding—I could go back and reunite with Mom and Dad, see how my little brothers had turned out, and have a “normal life.” So I started going downstairs to see Lola and her little girl, Asha. What a cute kid! It felt good to put money in Lola’s hand and know that she was going to buy some nice clothes for Asha or a new pair of shoes for herself. Lola was a good woman—funny, kind, warm. She just wasn’t what I needed and, since I didn’t tell her the truth, she blamed herself. She accused me of thinking she was too ugly, too fat, too yellow, too poor. It drove me crazy. One night I gave her what she wanted. Saundra was born nine months later.
I felt awful when Lola told me she was pregnant. She was already struggling with one child and there was no way I could marry her. I watched her deteriorate emotionally and vowed to leave women alone forever.
Then I met Hugo. He had a reputation around the station house as this Latino heartthrob who had a string of ladies, but it takes a gay man to know a gay man. I peeped his card right away and he knew it.
We’d been doing our thing for a month or two when he scared the hell out of me. People in the precinct were talking, he said. Wondering why the two of us were always together. Why I didn’t seem to have a woman. Hugo said he had an idea. His old friend, Evelyn, was divorced, lived at home with her elderly mother and needed a man to take her out from time to time. What was the harm? he asked. The othe
r cops would get hip to my new “girlfriend” and stop the talk. Evelyn would have a social life until she met someone else, and everybody would be happy.
I bought it.
Then Lola died and that changed everything. I had to take Saundra or let her go into foster care and what did I know about mothering a grieving teenage girl? She was the only biological family I had left and there was no way I was going to lose her to drugs or one of these knuckleheads out here who just wanted to get in her panties. Evelyn was just what the doctor ordered. But I wasn’t crazy. I wanted Evelyn to take over Lola’s job and make sure that Saundra turned into a decent, educated, sensible woman who had clear goals and didn’t sleep around. Evelyn wanted a lover. Plain and simple. Only very small children or simple-minded adults expect to get their needs met without giving the other person what they want.
So I became Evelyn’s sexual partner. At first Hugo was furious and threatened to tell Evelyn the truth. I told him that I’d shoot him in the balls, cut him off for life and simply find another Evelyn to mother Saundra. Only this time it would be a woman who he didn’t know.
Evelyn’s long-term feelings didn’t enter into the plan at all.
