3
I sighed as I parked in my spot in front of Genesis. I usually arrived early enough that I was often the only person in the building for an hour or so unless someone was laboring or in another stage of childbirth. In that case, a nurse and either Cass or I would be there attending to them. But there was no patient there that Monday morning. No other nurse. The only car on the lot was mine…and my husband’s.
I knew when I finally got up the nerve to file for divorce and have him served, he’d find a way to see me since I had been ignoring his phone calls and had instructed my mom and my sister, Nicky, not to let him in our home. He hadn’t been desperate enough to show up at my job, but I suppose I’d forced his hand.
As I opened the door and climbed out, Robert hopped out of his car and approached mine. I closed the door and waited for him, wanting to get this confrontation over with before I began my day.
“Good morning, Robert,” I said, as pleasantly as I could manage.
He replied with, “What the hell is this, Renee?!” as he held up what I assumed were the divorce papers.
I opened my mouth to respond, but he cut me off.
“You gonna just do some shit like this without discussing it with me first?!”
“Robert, you’ve known since the day I left that I wanted a divorce. It’s been more than a year. Making it official is way past due.”
“It’s not only about what you want! What about what I want? I want my damn marriage back!”
“No, what you want is to stay married to me for some unknown reason while doing whatever with whoever, and that’s not happening. Not anymore.”
“That’s not what I want!”
“I think little Robert Jr. proves that’s a lie.”
“That was a mistake. A one-time thing. We can move past it if you’ll try.”
“Move past you having a baby by another woman? I don’t think so. Look, I need to get in here and get to work. There’s nothing to discuss; nothing you say will make me change my mind. Our marriage is over. Whatever we had ended a long time ago.”
“But I still love you, Nay. I do.”
“Yeah, I know,” I replied, more than a little sarcastically.
“And I’m sorry, baby. I really am. I love you and I need you. Please don’t do this!”
He sounded so sincere, I almost believed him. But since I didn’t believe him, I shook my head and walked past him.
“If you go through with this, you’ll regret it, Nay,” he warned, as I unlocked the door and stepped inside the building. “I promise you will.”
*****
Mondays were my days to catch up on paperwork. There were usually no patient appointments unless it was unavoidable, and unless I had a patient in active labor, I was normally able to stay holed up in my office in relative peace. Robert’s little visit and threat had ruined that for me. I did stay in my office, but got nothing done as I sat there staring into space, remembering how happy we had been all those years ago when we first got together.
I met him at a charity function. Back then, I was active in several organizations, including the local chapter of Mahogany Sisters in Motion or MSM—an organization that, at its core, sought to uplift and empower black women. They held a fundraising gala every year to the benefit of their community outreach program, complete with silent auctions and live entertainment. That year we were able to get Charlie Wilson. I was sitting at my table, rocking in my seat, when Robert, whom I hadn’t noticed, approached me and asked me to dance with him. He was shorter than me, an odd, ruddy shade of brown, and not particularly attractive, but his suit fit him well and he had a nice smile. So I accepted. By the end of the night, he’d left his table and took a seat at mine, engaging me in conversation about his job. Robert was smart, and that attracted me to him almost as much as the fact that he wasn’t handsome. My father was a handsome man, very handsome, with charm dripping off of him. He was the reason I didn’t trust handsome men. I dated more than a few. A couple even proposed to me, but I couldn’t shake the thoughts and memories of my mother being left alone in a big house with her three daughters. The look of sadness on her face as her handsome husband, my daddy, ran around with God knows who was unforgettable. I figured an unattractive man would be a safer bet.
I was wrong.
We’d only been together two years the first time I found out he’d cheated. He apologized, begged for forgiveness, promised he’d never do it again, and I made myself believe him because I loved him. I never told anyone about that first affair he had with some woman he met online, not even my sisters. The second time he cheated, it was with one of my patients—who was only six weeks post-partum and married—that he’d met in the waiting area at Genesis one day when he came to take me to lunch. I found out about them when she made an appointment and announced the affair to me while sitting in my office. That time, I was so utterly and completely humiliated that I told my sisters and even left him, but not for long. He apologized again, of course, and said he believed he was a sex addict because he loved me and loved having sex with me. He promised it wasn’t me. It was him. He didn’t know why he kept cheating and said he needed help. So he went into counseling and we both did couples therapy. At the time, we were six years into a marriage that was already a bit crippled. We had hobbled into ten years when the baby popped up.
I don’t know who the mother is or how Robert met her. I wouldn’t listen to his reasoning or his apologies this time. I loved him. But that just wasn’t enough anymore. Loving him and having loved him for more than ten years wasn’t nearly enough to erase the feeling of complete disrespect I felt when that woman dropped her baby, my husband’s baby, off on my doorstep. Yes, I was initially confused, maybe even torn. I had always wanted a baby, had tried and tried to conceive to no avail, and maybe for a second or two, I saw that little boy as the answer to my prayers. But the more I ruminated on things, the more I realized how badly he’d betrayed me, slept with that woman without using protection, possibly exposing me to all kinds of diseases. And I also came to realize his cheating wasn’t a pattern or something he had to fight to control, it was a way of life for him. It was simply who he was—a cheater. And it was who he would always be. So I left him again.
But this time I didn’t go back.
By lunch, I was starving despite my unproductivity. So I grabbed my purse and decided to head out to eat since I’d been cooped up in my office all morning, thinking maybe I’d call and see if Angie could meet me somewhere. I thought about taking the back door out to the parking lot but quickly decided against that. With Robert’s current state of mind, I wouldn’t put it past him to be out there lurking around, and since he’d actually gotten a little violent with my sister, Nicky, in the past, I wasn’t taking any chances on getting caught out there alone with him again.
I passed the front desk, tossing a smile and a wave at Janine, our receptionist, and as I pushed the glass door open, ran right into Lorenzo Higgs.