Never Keeping Secrets (16 page)

Another tear raced to find the other.

She hated being alone with it all.

Her relationship with Omari was far too casual to burden him. And although she could almost see Monica, Keesha, and Latoya here at her bedside she couldn't bring herself to call them. How could she use them up for love and companionship when she turned her back on them to focus on herself?

“Two steps forward, three fucking steps back,” she said with a tinge of bitterness, wishing she had the strength to even punch at the air.

Danielle had set the rules of her life and now felt she just had to live by them.

“I'm cumming. You better get this nut.”

“Latoya.”

Her eyes opened just as she felt the explosion going off inside her. Her body was still tingling and alive. Her core felt extra moist.

Taquan looked down at her from his side of the bed, his Bible open in his lap.

That had to be real. Right?
she thought, fighting the urge to press her hand down between her legs as she felt herself throb with life.

“Where are you coming to, baby?” he asked.

Latoya looked around the room. The sun was just beginning to rise. She was in her nightgown and nowhere near naked. Taquan nor she would never use the foul—but titillating—language like “good pussy-having bitch.”

It was most definitely a dream. A wet one. But a dream nonetheless.

Taquan used the piece of ribbon attached to the Bible to mark his page before he closed it. “I'm glad you're up. I wanted to talk to you about something before I headed to the bank to see about the loan today.”

Latoya sat up in bed, leaning back against the pillow.

“You know I finally got the church on board to grow the church and if that loan goes through today there's going to be even more pressure on me—on us—to make sure that we keep their support. A church doesn't double or triple in size overnight.”

More rules. More obligations. More restrictions.

Latoya just waited to hear the next phase of his plan for world domination via his beloved megachurch.

“I want to adopt Tiffany,” he said.

Latoya was confused and she knew it showed on her face. “Tiifany's father isn't dead,” she said simply.

“I know but he has a jacked-up hip-hop image for smoking weed, making all that women-hating music with every other line filled with cussing,” Taquan said as he sat his Bible on the nightstand. “I feel we need to distance ourselves from him.”

“Well we—as in you and I—are distant from him. So distant we don't speak to him. But I will never keep Tiffany from her father and as a man, a father, and a minister I can't believe you would even suggest that,” she said, climbing from the bed to look at him. Her face was beyond incredulous. “Really, Taquan? Really?”

“I see her more than he does,” he balked, jumping up from the bed as well.

“Because she lives with us not because you're the better man.”

He looked offended. “And I'm not?”

She shook her head. “Of course you are but it's not about that and you should know that.”

“You still want that fool or something?” Taquan asked.

She eyed him in disbelief. “You really are a mess,
Reverend
,” she finished with mocking emphasis.

“Judge not, Latoya,” he shot back at her in a hard voice.

“Oh, so you can judge Bones, but I can't judge you?”

Taquan threw his hands up in exasperation, before he placed his hands on the low-slung rim of his sleep pants. His chest was bare and the hair on his abdomen perfectly dwindled down to what she knew to be a skillful penis that he only released once a week. Tops.

She shook her head to stay focused. “Look, if he ever does anything to risk Tiffany's health and well-being when she is in his care then we'll look at revising the custody agreement. But only then. Okay?” she asked, softening her tone at the end because like Keyshia Cole she just wanted it to be over.

He shrugged and waved his hands like “forget it.”

She said nothing else as he grabbed up his clothing and strode into the bathroom to prepare to start his day.

Latoya eyed the closed bathroom door and waited for the sound of the shower before she crossed the room to get her purse from the top of the armoire. She quickly went in her can and popped some pills before replacing her purse and climbing back into the bed to wait for the effect to take hold.

“Latoya . . . Latoya. Wake up.”

She smacked her lips and fought hard to raise her head from the pillow. She fought and she lost. She opened her eyes and the bright light of the bedside lamp caused her to wince and squeeze them back shut.

“Latoya, you in the bed and these kids are here?” Taquan asked, his voice filled with reprimand.

“You wake now, Mama?” Tiffany asked.

Latoya fought her limbs, feeling like dead weight, and sat up on the edge of the bed, rubbing her eyes before she opened them. Her line of vision rested right on Taquan Jr. sitting in the middle of his playpen with his legs open wide to help him sit up. She could tell from the massive swelling of his Pampers that he was wet. Very wet.

Sometime around noon she had taken more pills and she absolutely did not remember falling asleep. She was trying to make the kids lunch, preparing her speech for the Women's Night during the annual conference, coming up with ideas for a church fund-raiser, trying to clean the house, making appointments for Tiffany to get her shoes in preparation to start school next week, needing to finish up her school shopping....

The list went on and on.

Top that with her sister and parents getting into it and she getting thrown in the middle when Latasha let them know the offer was on the table for her to live with Latoya. Sweet baby Jesus. That was a two-hour conversation and berating from both her parents on children
of all ages
honoring and respecting their parents.
I told her fast behind to wait and let me mention it.

Add on a nearly sexless marriage, an ambitious husband, a judgmental church board, and missing her career working for DYFUS. Latoya didn't know any other way to make it through her day.

She stood up and stumbled to her left, holding her hands out in front of herself to keep from falling. “I think it's something I ate,” she lied to her husband as he continued to watch her. She sat back down on the bed. “I just dozed off for a few minutes.”

“Tiffany said she's been trying to wake you all day,” Taquan said, coming to sit down on the edge of the unmade bed beside her.

Latoya shifted her eyes to her daughter as her husband checked her neck and forehead for signs of fever. She smiled at her and was rewarded with Tiffany coming over to sit her favorite pink elephant in her lap. “You can hold Bungee until you feel better, Mama,” she said.

“Thank you, baby,” she said softly.

“Well the kids are all right. Praise God for that,” Taquan said, bending to press a kiss to her forehead.

Latoya successfully rose to her feet. “Let me get myself together and I'll make dinner, baby,” she said, running her hands over her unkempt hair and tasting the residue of her pills and sleep in her mouth.

“Actually, I have good news and I thought we would go out to dinner to celebrate,” Taquan said, taking the baby out of his playpen and laying him on the bed to change his diaper.

“They approved the loan,” she said, moving into the bathroom at a snail's pace to brush her teeth.

“Not just that, baby.”

That was bad enough, she thought, rinsing the toothpaste from her mouth before she stood up. She jumped back at the sight of herself in the mirror. Darkness under her eyes. Sleep drool crusted to the corner of her mouth. Her short-cropped hair standing up in every porcupine-like direction on her head.

Taquan came to stand in the doorway with the baby blowing bubbles as he held him in a sitting position in his arms. “The renovations to the church won't start until the first of the year but in the meantime a producer contacted me about televising the service on a local cable channel every week.”

Latoya forced herself to smile as she stepped forward to kiss his cheeks and then his lips. She leaned back to look up at him as he wrapped one strong arm around her waist. She had to admit it was the first time in a long time that she had seen the man she loved so genuinely happy.

She understood he had dreams and she believed in those dreams, but along the way their connection to God was diminishing . . . and he couldn't see it.

His wife was addicted to pain pills . . . and he couldn't see it.

She needed him . . . and he couldn't see it.

Ambition had him blinded.

She kissed him again and again, wishing he could feel her desperation in the pressure of her lips. She didn't have the strength or the guts to cry out for help. And unfortunately she had far too much practice with leading a double life.

“Congratulations, love,” she told him as the baby reached out for her.

“Oh no little man. You're going with me so your mama can get back pretty,” Taquan told their son.

Latoya eyed him. “Get back pretty?”

Taquan nodded somberly.

“Your behind, Reverend Sanders,” she said, turning to fill the bathtub.

Taquan reached out to soundly slap her bottom.

Latoya whirled with a gasp, her hands rubbing her cheek.

“You better be glad these kids are awake because I would get in that tub and teach you some manners,” he said, before leaving the bathroom and softly closing the door behind him.

Latoya smiled, thinking of her wet dream that morning. She could actually use some alone time with her husband the man and not just her husband the minister. They had a fabulous sex life but their activities at the church and raising two children left them both so tired at night that they seemed to be snoring before their heads hit the pillows.

Latoya moved to stand back in front of the mirror over the pedestal sink. “Maybe we have to make the time,” she spoke to her reflection.

And she knew one thing was tying her up.

She left the bedroom and grabbed her purse from where it sat on the top of the armoire. Thank God she had enough sense to keep it out of Tiffany's easy reach. She walked back into the bathroom and closed the door, locking it. Her fingers trembled as she took the Altoids can out of her purse. It looked just as beaten, battered, and worn as she felt.

Tiffany could have very well gone in her purse and taken the pills thinking they were candy while she lay in a drug stupor.

She opened the lid to the commode. Then she lifted the lid of the Altoids can. Twenty OxyContin pills sat there figuratively calling her name.

“Help me Father God,” she prayed. “Help me.”

Latoya took a deep breath and turned the can over. The pills hit the water like heavy rain.
Plop-plop-plop-plop-plop . . .

She slammed the lid down and swirled her body around to plop down on it.

“God helps those who help themselves. God helps those who help themselves,” she said, almost like a chant.

And she needed the affirmation because there was a sick and twisted piece of her that wanted to open that lid and stick her head in the toilet to lick at the water that dissolved the pills.

Danielle rocked and clutched her purse to her chest. “Father God, I'm calling on you. This ain't our first rodeo. Please help me help myself, Lord. Please,” she prayed reverently.

With one last deep, steadying breath she reached behind her with her right elbow and flushed the toilet.