My Soul Cries Out (4 page)

I took Kevin's dirty plate to the sink, rinsed it off, and then turned to look at him. Thought about things that now made sense. “I thought you never wanted to make love to me because of my weight. You were so affectionate before we got married, but the first time you saw my thunder thighs and dimply butt, you didn't want me anymore.”

“Monnie, it wasn't that. I've always told you your weight never bothered me.”

“Yeah, but that was until you saw me naked.”

Kevin came over and put his arms around me. “No, Monnie, you're the most beautiful woman, the most beautiful person I've ever met.” He held me like he always did, but it didn't feel the same. “I'm sorry I ever made you think you weren't desirable or sexy to me. It wasn't you . . . I'm sorry I did this to you.”

“Yeah.” I pulled away from him. “Me, too.”

I could tell that hurt him. I always told him I wanted to spend the rest of my life in his arms.

“See, now that you know, you don't want me to touch you. See—”

“See nothing, Kevin. You know what the real deal is here? You cheated on me. Whether it was with a man or a woman, it was still cheating. The whole gay thing is a separate issue—a huge issue, mind you—but the fact is, you slept with another person while we were married. It would be one thing for me to find out you had been with a man in the past, but you had sex with Trey the day after you had sex with me. In our bed. As sorry as I am for everything that's happened to you, I can't get past that.”

“It was only that one time.”

“Only that one time?” I laughed sarcastically. “Oh, in that case I forgive you. Let's go back to our life like nothing happened and live happily ever after.” I rolled my eyes. “Do you think I can get that picture out of my head? I keep seeing it over and over.”

“I'm sorry, Monica. I never meant for you to walk in and see that.”

“I would hate to think you planned it.”

“That's not what I meant. I don't know how it happened. One minute we were playing music and horsing around and the next thing I know . . . he started rubbing my back and—”

I screamed and covered my ears. “Do you think I want to hear this? Seeing it was bad enough. Now you want me to relive it?”

He held up his hands, terror in his eyes, no doubt remembering yesterday's violence. “Sorry. You don't have to worry. Nothing like that will ever happen again. I promise. Trey will never come over here again.”

“He sure won't. He won't have any reason to 'cause you're about to pack your sh—stuff and get out.” I turned and walked into the family room. Didn't want to see the look in his eyes when I said that.

“Monica.”

“Get out, Kevin. I don't want to hear another word.” I sat on the family room couch, pretending to watch a movie while he went upstairs and packed. When he came down with his bag, he walked up and stood over me.

“Monica, I . . .” He looked around the room. “What happened in here?”

“Nothing. Just me letting off a little steam the other day after the . . . incident.”

He tried to sit down beside me, but I stretched out my legs. “Just go, Kevin. Please. And do me a favor. Don't come back unless I ask you to.”

He started toward the door then turned around to say something. “Monnie—”

I held up my hand. He turned and finished his slow trek to the door. I held my tears until I heard it close behind him.

I
hardly slept that night. Images of Kevin as a little boy, Kevin and Trey, and Bishop Walker kept floating through my mind. I finally gave up at six in the morning and slipped out of the bed and onto my knees. I tried to pray like I did every morning, but my prayer didn't come out too good.

I knelt there for a while trying to find the right words to pray, but nothing else came out. I finally decided to get up and get dressed. Thank God I didn't have to put much effort into finding something nice to wear to work. I took a hot shower, pulled on some scrubs and stepped into my clogs. I wiped the steam off the mirror and stared at my eyes. They needed some work.

I wandered down to the kitchen and tried to use cucumber slices to get rid of the puffy bags. Hopefully, my coworkers wouldn't notice. If they said so much as a “What's wrong, Monica?” it would send me into a fit of tears.

I pulled up at the office at eight o'clock. I liked to get to work before everyone else to get the rooms stocked with medical supplies and make sure the charts were ready. I was the only RN on staff and supervised two medical assistants. We also had an office manager, and Anthony was the receptionist. Dr Stewart and a nurse practitioner shared the practice.

The other staff members trickled in slowly.

“Hey, baby, how you doin'? Everything all right?” Odessa, one of the medical assistants, was like everybody's grandmother. Everybody was “baby” to her. “What's wrong wit' yo' eyes?”

“Allergies acting up, Miss Odessa.” I sniffed.

Tammy, the other medical assistant, stared at me. “Allergies? In the middle of January?”

“Tammy, could you pull the labs off the printer and pull the charts? Dr. Stewart likes to go over test results before she starts seeing patients.” I didn't have to tell her that because she was always on top of things. I just wanted her to get out of my face.

“Sure, Monica.” She smiled but kept staring at my eyes. I walked over to my desk, determined to ignore her.

Tammy sat at the nurses' station, flipping through lab results. She sucked her teeth. “Oooooh, girl, look. These kids around here sleeping with everybody and wonder why they always catching something. Here. Put this with the abnormals.” She held out a piece of paper. I scanned the name and looked at the results.

Tammy kept fussing. “Gonorrhea
and
chlamydia. Girl, I'd kill a man if he gave me a disease. These young girls act like they don't know nothing 'bout condoms. If they . . .”

I stopped hearing her chirpy voice as the thought hit me like a sledgehammer. What if Kevin gave me something? He said he only cheated on me one time, but why should I believe him? Oh my God, I had to get tested for sexually transmitted diseases. Me, Monica Harris-Day, virgin 'til she got married at the age of twenty-six, pure as the driven snow, champion of abstinence and keeping oneself pure for Jesus.

This was one of those times when being a nurse was not a good thing. All I could think of was the women I had told that their boyfriend, husband, or one-night-stand had given them a disease. I thought about all those times of trying to keep the disgust off my face while assisting Dr. Stewart when she froze genital warts, or swabbed multiple genital ulcers to diagnose herpes.

The worst was the woman a few years back whose unexplained chronic yeast infections were finally explained by an HIV test. She had been married for eleven years and had no idea her husband was bisexual and very promiscuous. She'd probably been infected for years and now was sicker than dirt. Skin and bones, hair thin and falling out, sores and rashes everywhere . . . sick. She stayed with him, too. Took care of her husband until he died of AIDS about a year and a half ago. I wish I would take care of a man who gave me AIDS. If I found so much as a bump on me, Kevin was a dead man.

I looked at my watch. It was almost nine o'clock. We'd be seeing patients soon. Obviously, I couldn't get Dr. S. to do my STD tests. I was close with my office staff, but I didn't want them up in my business. I could picture Tammy logging my test results. “Oooooh, girl, look.”

I'd have to go to Planned Parenthood or a free clinic. I would just have to tell Dr. Stewart I needed a couple of hours during lunch to finalize some business. I knew I had missed work Saturday, but my top priority right now was making sure I was disease free.

My stomach tightened.
God, please let me be disease free . . .

J
ust walking into the free clinic made we want to turn around and run. It was packed to the hilt. On one side of the waiting room sat a lot of teenagers and young women with screaming babies. Then there were the Lil' Kim dress-a-likes with ten-inch fingernails, popping their gum. On the other side of the clinic, college students hid behind large textbooks, pretending they weren't getting birth control or an STD check, looking up every once in a while like they were afraid their parents would walk through the door. Then there were the professionally dressed women looking like they were considering the disadvantages of being self-employed or cursing their jobs for not providing them with health care.

There was no way I could get back to the office in a couple of hours. I flipped open my cell phone to call Anthony to let him know I would be away longer than planned.

“Is everything okay, Miss Monica?”

His lisp was overwhelmingly annoying today. “I'm fine, Anthony. Just got some things I need to take care of.”

“Well, if you need anything, just let me know. You know I'm here for you, right?”

I know you just want to get in my business.
“Of course. I'm fine. See you later.”

I closed my cell phone and tried to read a magazine, but between the screaming babies and my screaming thoughts, I couldn't concentrate. After two hours, they finally called my name. When the nurse took my vitals, I wasn't surprised my blood pressure was a little high.

I shivered on the cold exam table with the flimsy paper thing over my naked bottom half. It felt weird to be the patient instead of the nurse. An older white lady came through the door.

“Good afternoon, my name is Kate Lawson. I'm a nurse practitioner. What can I do for you today?”

“I need STD testing done. Everything.” My voice cracked. “I need to be tested for everything.”

She looked at me over the top of her reading glasses. “Okay, dear. First let me get some history.” She clicked her pen. “How long have you been sexually active?”

I took a deep breath. “Just over two years.”

“Only two years?” She wrinkled her eyebrows and looked at me for a second, then scribbled on the chart. “And how many partners in that time?”

“One.”

“Only one?” She looked at me like I had three heads, as if her asking me that would suddenly jog my memory and I would admit that I—like every other young, black woman who sought care at this kind of clinic—started having sex at the age of thirteen and had slept with at least thirty men since.

“Yes, only one.” I tried to keep the edge out of my voice.

“Umm-hmm. Have you ever had an STD before?”

“No. Look, I know the whole drill. I'm a nurse. I don't have any medical problems. The only medicine I'm on is the birth control patch. I don't have any allergies, and I've never had sex with any man other than my husband. Any other questions?”

She nodded slowly as it registered. I wasn't the promiscuous whore. I was the poor, innocent victim of a philandering husband, sneaking off to the free clinic so I wouldn't have to admit this to my regular doctor. She took off her judgmental face and put on her sympathy face.

“I'm sorry, dear. Let's get this over with.”

I tried to disappear as she examined me. I stared at several posters on the wall promoting abstinence, safe sex, condom use, and birth control. Mercifully, she finished quickly and left me to get dressed.

The overworked and underpaid-looking nurse came in to do my HIV test. “I'm going to draw your blood to test for antibodies to the HIV virus. If your test is positive . . .” I knew the whole speech by heart. Had given it numerous times to trembling adolescents, promiscuous young adults, and shell-shocked wives.

I thought about a statistic I had recently read about black women being the fastest growing group of individuals newly infected with HIV. It was in an
Essence
magazine article about sistas dealing with brothers living on the down low, as they termed it. It talked about men dibbling and dabbling in having sex with other men, but not necessarily considering themselves homosexuals, and others who were secretly gay or bisexual. While reading the article, I thought about how lucky I was not to have to worry about that kind of stuff.

“. . . now, it can take up to six months for antibodies to show up in your blood after an exposure, so if you're concerned about any body fluid exposures in the last six months, you should have a follow-up test six months from now. Until then, try to practice safe sex as much as possible. That means using a condom every time you have intercourse.”

Please. I might never have sex again for the rest of my life.

She put a Band-Aid on and indicated for me to hold pressure. “We don't give results over the phone. You can come get them in person as early as next Monday.”

“Monday? At my office, these tests only take two days.”

“Honey, this isn't a private office. That's the best we can do. Sorry.”

Great. I was going to be on pins and needles for a whole week.

I got dressed and got out of there as quickly as I could. As I pulled my car out of the lot, I flipped open my cell phone. I couldn't deal with going back to work, so I called Anthony and told him to let Dr. Stewart know I needed the rest of the afternoon off.

“Monica, is something wrong? If it is, you can tell me. You know you can always talk to me, sister to sister.” Anthony gave his signature little giggle.

Any other time that would have been funny. Today it reignited the brewing ember of anger that had been burning in me the last few days. “Thanks, Anthony, but everything's fine. I'll see you tomorrow.” I tried to keep the edge out of my voice.

“Well, you ain't got to get snippy. I'm just trying to help.” He sucked his teeth.

“Sorry, Aunt Tony.” Me and the girls at the office called him that because he always gave us relationship advice on how to keep our men in line. “Just got a lot on my mind. You know I don't mean to hurt your feelings.”

“That's okay, honey. I know you a little
skressed
out lately. You can tell Aunt Tony all about it tomorrow. Smooches.”

“Smooches.” I closed my phone. I was sure Anthony would love to hear that Kevin was gay and available. Every time Kevin came to the office, Anthony would go on and on about how fine he was and how I better not ever mess up because he'd be waiting to pick up the pieces.

I swung by Popeye's on the way home and got a popcorn shrimp basket with an extra order of fries. By the time I got home, it was already gone. I was gonna have to slow down on my eating . . . right after I got my test results.