The Deal, the Dance, and the Devil (33 page)

He asked, “She actually said that she was pregnant?”

“Well, she didn’t tell me directly. At least, not at first. But we talked about it.”

He shook his head. “I don’t know why she’s doing this.”

“There is no rationalization for the devil.” I paused, hoping that now he could see what I saw. “So, you understand, right? You see that I can’t go back there. Not with everything: the taxes, her threatening to come after you—”

He squeezed my hand. “You don’t have to worry about that. That will never happen.”

I wanted to believe him, but I didn’t recognize my life anymore. Anything could happen.

“And I really can’t go back with that talk about her being pregnant.”

“You don’t have to worry about that either; she’s not.”

He spoke with the same conviction that I had about that; just like me, he knew for sure that she wasn’t pregnant and my load was lightened. “I didn’t believe her. She’s too old,” I said, taking some satisfaction in the one advantage I had over her. “Plus, I knew you’d use …” I hated to say the next words because it was such an acknowledgment of the deal. “I knew you’d use a condom.”

I don’t know which came first—the way his eyes shifted or the way I gasped.

“Oh, my God. You
didn’t
use a condom.”

He still held on, but he didn’t look at me. “No.”

I jerked away from his grasp and punched his arm. “Are you crazy?”

He flinched, just a little, though I was sure it wasn’t my punch that hurt him. “She didn’t want me to use a condom,” he whispered.

“Who cares what she wanted? Why didn’t you insist?”

His eyes were back on mine. “She was paying us five million dollars. I had to do everything her way.”

I couldn’t even keep my head up. This situation was like a weed, growing wildly, getting worse every moment.

“Then, she could be—”

“No.”

“If you went at her bareback, how do you know?” He let so much silent time pass that I wanted to scream. “You can’t stop talking now, Adam! You owe me this.”

“I never wanted to bring the weekend to you … into our home.”

“It’s already here; it’s already ruining us.”

“I know,” he said softly.

That may have been the most hurtful thing that I’d heard today. I didn’t want Adam to so readily agree that our marriage was in trouble.

“What happened?” I whispered. “How did she take you away from me?”

He reached for me again, and though I wanted to pull back, I didn’t. “She hasn’t taken me away. She can’t.” His fingers curled around mine. “I’m still here.”

“It feels like you’re not,” I said. “It feels like you’re still there … with her.”

He shook his head. “That’s not it at all. It’s just hard for me to talk … to you through all of the guilt.”

“Guilt about sleeping with her?”

With a little shrug, he said, “Some of that, because now I will never be the man that I’d promised you that I’d be.” He paused. “But mostly I feel guilty about being with her.”

That made no sense to me, but Adam explained.

“In the beginning, when I first left, it was the sex that got to me.”

You know that cliché about being careful what you ask for? Well, I was living it—I’d been begging Adam to talk, but now I didn’t know if I had the courage to listen.

Adam kept on, “I had to keep reminding myself that I was there for my family.”

I nodded. For the greater good.

“But then, it wasn’t about the sex anymore. In fact, after Friday night, we didn’t have sex much at all.”

Whoa!

“I mean,” he began, “we didn’t have it as much as I thought we would—for five million dollars.”

I wondered if he’d counted, and if he had, would he tell me the number of times. Maybe then I’d feel better. But then, maybe not.

“After a while,” he said, “it became about just the two of us, hanging out, being together, talking and sharing.” He swallowed. “That’s why I know she’s not pregnant. We talked about it.”

I laughed, but not because I thought anything was funny. I laughed because this was all so sad. “You talked about her … wanting to be pregnant … by you?”

“No, she wasn’t even thinking about a child. This wasn’t about that for her. It was about being with someone. Being part of a couple. Shay-Shaunté just wanted to make a connection.”

I squinted, shook my head, and shrugged—all at the same time.

Adam continued, “We talked a lot, and one of the things she told me was that she could never have children.”

I sat in horror as he told me the story of how she’d been brutally raped as a teenager, with so much damage to her body that she’d never be able to conceive. He said, “The shame of what she went through made her pour herself into school, into work, never wanting a relationship, knowing that she’d never be able to give her partner children.”

I would’ve felt sorry for Shay-Shaunté if I’d cared. Not that she needed any concern from me; the tone of Adam’s voice let me know that he felt sorry enough for both of us.

“Why did she tell you this? Why was she talking about that when she paid so much … to be with you?” I folded my arms and wondered. Shay-Shaunté didn’t have to pay anyone just to
talk—at least not that much money. There had to be more to this. I said, “Five million dollars is a lot for just talking.”

He shrugged. “When you have the kind of money that she has, you buy what you want. And that’s what she wanted. Someone to be with. Someone to talk to. She told me that the things she shared with me, she’d never told anyone else. She told me about her lost hopes and new dreams …”

My head pounded as Adam went on and on about the beauty of Shay-Shaunté. That wasn’t the word he used; the adoration was in his tone.

“Before we began talking,” he said, “it was hard being there with her. But once we connected on a different level, I stopped thinking about my reasons for being there; there came a point when I was just there.” He paused. “And that’s what I’ve been feeling so bad about. That’s why I didn’t want to talk about it. Because part of the time with Shay-Shaunté, it stopped being about you and the kids, and my mom, and your mom. At some point, it became just about her … and me.”

There were no tears left in my eyes, but there were plenty on my heart. I cried so hard inside that my chest hurt.

“Have you … are you … in love with her?” I asked.

“No,” he said gently, too gently for me. Where was his indignation at my question? “No,” he repeated. “I’m not in love with her. It’s just that something happens when people talk, and they’re in your arms—”

“You held her? Like that?”

He nodded. “That’s what she wanted. Someone to hold her while she talked. Someone to hug her when she got to the parts of her life that hurt. Someone to say to her, ‘I love you.’”

“You
did
that?”

He couldn’t even look at me when he answered. “That’s what she wanted.”

“Oh, my God. This isn’t even about what I thought this
weekend would be. This is worse. I thought I was going to lose you in her bed, but I lost you on her couch or at her dining room table, or wherever it was that you held her and told her you loved her.”

“She knows I don’t love her. She knows it was part of the fantasy; just part of this weekend.”

“Then why are you acting like you love her?”

“I’m not. And again, I don’t. I just need some time—to decompress. Get those days out of my mind.”

“Because she’s still with you.”

“Not in the way you think. But I do feel sorry for her. And now I understand her.” His eyes were back on mine when he said, “That’s why you have to go back.”

“What?” I screamed, not believing him. “After what I just told you and what you told me?”

“She’s only lashing out at you because she’s wounded,” he rationalized.

“Well, whatever her problem is, she is not about to work it out on me. I am not going to sit anywhere and let anyone beat me down for six months … not even for you.”

“But now that you know where that comes from …”

I twisted so that I faced him, because I wanted him to not only hear me but to read my lips, too. “You’re right. Now I
really
know where this comes from. And it’s not because she’s wounded or hurt. It’s because she wants to destroy me to get to you.”

“It will never be that way,” he said strongly. “I am with you, Evia. We’re going to make it through this. But we have to get past this lawsuit, which will happen if you don’t go back.”

“You’re not hearing me.”

“And clearly, you’re not hearing me. Because this is the deal we made. I gave up a lot and did my part, now you have to do yours.”

I let some time go by so that nothing would interfere with the words Adam was about to hear from me. Because I vowed that I would not say this again. “I’m not going back,” I said slowly.

“Not even if it will ruin us financially—and even our marriage?”

I stared him down. “Is that a threat?”

“No, it’s a question.”

“Well, I’ve given you my answer. That’s what I’m going to do, and now you do whatever you have to do.” I jumped out of the car, slammed the door, then stomped across the lawn.

That was when I felt the pull; I looked up. To the second floor, the center window, the one to Alana’s room.

Alana’s face was pressed against the pane. Even from where I stood, I could feel her despair—from the tears in her eyes to the way her bottom lip trembled. My sensitive child looked as if she feared that something horrible was happening.

That made me sad … because this time, it wasn’t just some teenage machination. This time, whatever was going on in my child’s mind was probably very close to the truth.

Chapter 55

T
HE GREAT DIVIDE THAT WAS BETWEEN
us was no longer physical.

Yes, Adam still hugged his side of the bed and I hugged mine. But the miles that separated us in the king-size bed were no longer about our flesh alone. The chasm was mental, emotional, even spiritual now that I knew that Adam truly had been unfaithful. He’d cheated on me and connected with Shay-Shaunté on levels that were far more dangerous than sex.

It was that new pain that had kept me awake all night and made me ecstatic to see the first light of the new day as it peeked through our window.

I was so close to the nightstand that all I had to do was reach out and touch the alarm before it even did its thing. Obviously, I didn’t need to be awakened, and Adam … well, these days I preferred my husband asleep. That way I could make believe that we were living in the time before the New Year’s weekend, before the five million dollars, before Shay-Shaunté.
But the moment I turned and lay on my back, Adam rolled over to me.

Two things surprised me: one was that he was even awake, since Adam never climbed out of bed before seven. And the second was that he’d slid so far across the bed that his body was touching mine. He actually wrapped his arm around my waist.

I rested in this feeling that was once so familiar and now felt so foreign. We’d only held each other once since he’d been home, and we’d yet to connect as husband and wife.

Remembering that made me realize that Adam was probably still asleep. His body was just doing what it was used to doing; his mind was not aware.

Then he whispered, “Good morning,” in his predawn voice, the tone deep and filled with sleep.

The way he spoke, the way he held me, made me wonder if I’d just imagined yesterday. Maybe all those things Adam had said about him and Shay-Shaunté were just a dream.

But when he asked, “Did you think about it? Are you going back to work?” I slipped away from Adam’s embrace, realizing that this was nothing but the same old nightmare.

As I shrugged my bathrobe onto my shoulders, Adam sat up. “Evia, we have to—”

I held up my hand. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore, Adam.”

“So now you don’t want to talk?” he said, his voice rising. “When I told you that I didn’t want to talk, you insisted.”

“Well, I don’t want to talk because my answer is the same.” Before he could start singing that song about how Shay-Shaunté was going to come after us, I belted out my own tune. “She’s not gonna do anything.”

He shook his head, silently telling me I was so wrong.

“Well, if you’re concerned,” I said, “go talk to her. Don’t you two have a special connection now?”

I didn’t give him a chance to protest the fact that I’d twisted his words a little; I just marched out of the room. I was sorry about one thing, though—why in the world had I told Adam to go see Shay-Shaunté? I didn’t want him anywhere near that woman; didn’t want the chance of more damage being done to our marriage.

But these days, I didn’t recognize my words, didn’t recognize my actions.

In the kitchen, I set the coffeemaker, then climbed the stairs to wake the children. I knocked on Alexa’s door first, but when I peeked inside, my child, who was always the hardest to awaken, was already up, already in the shower.

Alana was up, too, laying out her clothes on her bed, waiting for her turn in the Jack-and-Jill bathroom she shared with her sister.

“What’s going on?” I asked as I gave my daughter a hug. “You and Alexa are up already?”

Alana’s voice did not match the fake cheer that I’d put into mine. She said, “Yeah, we were up almost all night—we couldn’t sleep.”

I didn’t want to ask—really, I didn’t need to. My girls had probably had one of their let’s-figure-this-out sessions after Alana had filled Alexa in on the madness she’d witnessed yesterday.

“Are you okay, Mom?”

“I should be asking you that,” I said, knowing she was still stuck on yesterday. But I wasn’t about to let her go there. “How are you feeling?” I asked, as if I could deter my smart, sensitive fifteen-year-old.

“Physically, I’m fine.” She sounded as if she had some type of medical degree. “But I’m really worried about you and dad and that other woman—”

I held up my hand. “Alana, I told you. I’m not discussing
this with you.” She sighed, as if the weight of all that ailed this family rested on her. I asked, “Are you sure you’re feeling up to going to school?”

“Yes.”

“Well then, I’m going to get breakfast ready. You want some toast and fruit?”