One Dead Lawyer Read online

  Chapter Two

  Three nights ago I was at home in a laid-back mode. It was muggy outside, but the central air had the place feeling crisp and the new housekeeping service had put fresh sheets on my high-post bed. I was apprehensive about getting a housekeeping service because it felt like I was frontin’ or something, acting the part of a big shot, but a brother really needed some help; somebody to cook, wash and clean up; somebody who did it better than me. I could never really get the place clean like it was supposed to be. Sure I mopped the floors and washed the dishes, but the dishes stayed in the rack on the counter, and my oven and microwave were biohazard zones. I don’t do household chores well.

  About two months ago I was flipping through the newspaper and saw an ad for a household-management service. For a monthly fee, one that I now feel is way less than what I should pay for the services, they take care of everything. They vacuum, mop floors, clean windows, wash dishes, cook three good meals a week and do the laundry. I do, however, wash my own underwear, some things others shouldn’t do for you.

  They put out fresh towels in the bathroom and clean sheets on my bed. The service is great. I’m gone most mornings so I hardly ever see them working, which is cool because I still feel a little guilty about having people cleaning my house. However, when I enter my home, the place is neat and clean and I love it all the more. It’s as clean as my grandmother used to keep it, which is how a house is supposed to look.

  That night I was stretched out on my bed in a pair of Nike baggy shorts with two big pillows behind my back and The Matrix playing in my bedroom DVD player. I’d left Chester and Regina a couple of hours ago, but I was missing them. Mostly I was missing Regina.

  Although we had spent a lot of time together, I had made no deliberate romantic advances toward her. My plan was to show her that I was ready to be the man she needed. Actions speak louder than words.

  I started doing the tasks around her house that a husband would do: washing her car, cutting the grass, barbecuing, fixing the lose doorknobs, stopping running toilets, organizing the garage—and I paid a couple of her monthly bills while knowing full well the alimony the courts had me send covered most of her house expenses. I wanted her to get used to having me around again. I made myself available whenever she needed me.

  During our small talk, we spoke around the past and never of the future. We conversed on the moment. We’d had a couple of innocent bumps and slight physical touches here and there, but nothing intentional on either of our behalfs until that afternoon.

  On the way from the grocery store she held my hand on the drive to her house. And after dinner we were washing the dishes and while standing at the sink I had to wrap around her to reach up to the cabinet, she didn’t withdraw when my body leaned into her. In a matter of seconds my jones was as hard as an old oak. When she felt my firmness she stepped away.

  I hadn’t been with a woman for over four months, and that had been of my own choosing. After messing up with Regina once, if there was any chance of us getting back together I didn’t want to be the one at fault if it didn’t happen. I wanted my desires to be centered on her and that plan of action was working for me because a brother wanted her bad. When the thought of sex entered my mind, I saw Regina. That night stretched out in my bed, I was thinking about Regina and sex.

  My mind floated back to the times when we used to lay up and watch movies in the bedroom. We seldom finished watching a movie. Back then, our bodies couldn’t lay next to each other without joining.

  I was laying there remembering our healthy sexual life when her phone call came in. She said she needed to see me right then. I thought we were on the same accord because I sho’ needed to see her right then as well. I slid into a white mesh T-shirt and some flip-flop sandals. All I grabbed were my car keys.

  My plan was as soon as she opened the door I was going to get started: no words, only hot kisses and caresses. When she opened her front door, I got one hot kiss in before she pushed me back. For a second I felt her clinging to me. I felt her wanting me, but only for a second. Once she pushed me back her words let me know that I was the only one going down memory lane to our once-shared passion.

  She was dressed in jeans and a white oxford shirt and it was buttoned to the collar. Out of my embrace, her demeanor was stern.

  “David, I believe you misinterpreted my call.”

  She wasn’t smiling. She wasn’t teasing. She was informing me of a fact.

  What was stiff on me subsided. This was not a booty call.

  “I felt you were getting the wrong message from our time together. Please come into the living room and let’s talk.”

  “The wrong message”—man, I was ready to leave and I guess my expression told her that because she added another, “Please.”

  I followed behind her, watching her narrow hips in those tight jeans, thinking about how difficult it used to be for her to get out of them. She offered me a seat on the beige leather sofa I bought when we were married. She sat across from me in an armchair I’d never seen before.

  The decor of the living room hadn’t changed much from the time when we were a family. The tall gold lamps were the same, but the coffee and end tables along with the light gray carpet were different. While visiting with Chester, most of my time in the house was spent either in his room or the den.

  Both lamps were on and the room was bright. It didn’t feel like twelve-thirty at night, and I suddenly felt under-dressed in my shorts, T-shirt and flip-flops. She scooped up a manila folder from the coffee table and began.

  “David, we have both started new lives apart.”

  I didn’t like the sound of her statement, but looking at her soft hair, combed back and hanging down on her long, slender neck, I ignored the tone and for a moment went down memory lane again. I used to love kissing her neck.

  “It’s never easy to start over, David, but we both have done it. We have actually done better apart than we did together. I would have never thought your protection business would have grown as successful as it is now. If we were together I believe my doubt would have hindered its growth.”

  I nodded my head in agreement. When we were married she wanted me to stay in mental health and go back to school and get a master’s in counseling, even though I told her I hated the field. That was a constant argument between us.

  “You have always been a trailblazer, David, following your own path, doing things your way and thinking your own way. My Lord, there is no way I would have agreed with rehabbing your grandmother’s house, especially in that neighborhood. No, there was no way if we were together I would have gone for that. Englewood, my God, but Martha tells me it’s beautiful. And she tells me you and Ricky have been rehabbing houses out in Gary, Indiana too. Goodness, I thought that little African American city was gone under, but I read they elected a white mayor years ago. So perhaps they might find direction.”

  We had been talking for just a minute and I sensed no good was going to come from this conversation. She was letting out the part of her personality I detested—the part that believed white people always did and knew better than our own people. When we were married, any tradesman or repairman who came to our house had to be white. This was another constant argument between us.

  Regina was an African American girl raised in the rich suburb of Glenco. Despite her best effort not to be, she was a bourgeoisie. When we were dating it was the part of her personality she talked about changing. She once told me her greatest fear was becoming like her mother. In her words, her mother was “a black woman who enjoyed the fact that her father’s money kept her from being a common black woman.”

  Regina desired to be a regular sister in the struggle, one who worked to make ends meet. But she wasn’t. Her folks had serious loot. Not that her mother ever gave us a dime when we were married, because she didn’t. Marrying me put Regina in the day-to-day struggle she wanted to be part of. When we met, independence from her mother and her mother’s money was important to her. S
he wanted to make it on her own.

  Her mother made it clear that if she married me we weren’t to expect any assistance from her. Which was funny to me, because coming from a black working-class family I didn’t expect anybody to help us but us. Nor did I have an idea of what their help would consist of; had I understood wealth, I might have tried to work something out.

  Regina’s cousins who married in favor of their family’s wishes received full stock portfolios, income property, employment offers from friends of the family, monthly trust-fund checks and financial advice from folks with money.

  When we got married I figured our degrees and our desire to succeed would be all we needed. I was right, but the money wouldn’t have hurt us one bit. Where we were working to get were her cousins’ starting points. When we were worried about getting approved for an apartment, they were applying for a mortgage. When we were starting a joint checking account, they were diversifying. I had no idea how far behind her pack we were and if she knew she never spoke of it to me.

  “David, I have sold this house and put a down payment on one of the new homes being built on Clark Street. We will be able to move in in less than a month.” She paused and looked at me with concern I hadn’t seen in her eyes in years. “I truly hope you are not too upset about this. As you know, the house was mine through the divorce, and I have the right to do with it as I see fit.”

  I said nothing, letting her continue.

  “Mother’s lawyers assured me it was all legal and my pastor assured me that I wasn’t doing you a disservice by using the home this way.”

  “Your pastor? You’re kidding right?” It came out with more of a sarcastic overtone than I intended. At the end of our tattered marriage I caught Regina in a hotel with her/our pastor.

  She rolled her emerald eyes at me and said, “I changed churches, David. The man I was with in the hotel is no longer my spiritual advisor.”

  “I’m glad.”

  At that point two emotions were colliding in my head, anger and disappointment: anger from her past cheating and disappointment over the fact that it wasn’t a booty call that had me in her house.

  “Shall we return to the topic at hand?” She brushed aside her infidelity so easily she might have been discussing a knitting technique. “Selling this house freed up so much capital, David, and with a little help from Mother, I was able to secure the loan at a very low rate. You have to understand, David, next year Chester will be starting preschool and the nanny service Mother recommended doesn’t travel this far south.

  “Living in a better-populated area will benefit him greatly. You couldn’t have thought I was going to continue to raise him in Harvey? Why just last week they arrested two boys on the corner for selling some type of drug. I don’t want my son exposed to dangers I can prevent. Say something, David.”

  Say something? As far as the house went, I had put it out of my mind after the divorce; it was hers. Rationally, I wasn’t upset by anything she had said so far. A better area, a better school, all this was good for my son.

  Then the thought entered my mind that maybe her plan was for “us” to move downtown. She mentioned me moving downtown before; perhaps she was testing the waters. I might have been able to stomach living in the loop if I had my family back in place. I began to feel hopeful; the anger and disappointment went away.

  “Regina, I see nothing wrong with your plans. Of course I’m a little surprised, but I understand your concerns. You want the best for Chester, and so do I.”

  Her face relaxed, and she smiled.

  “Yes, I do want what’s best for Chester. David, are you seeing anyone? Someone special, I mean.”

  At that point I was certain the conversation had turned my way.

  “No, baby, after I got out of the hospital I spent most of my free time here with you and Chester.”

  Between work and her and Chester, how could I be seeing someone? She had to know that.

  “Yes, I thought that was the case, and I knew I was being slightly dishonest by not telling you that I am seeing someone. Someone special, I mean.”

  I heard her with my ears, but it didn’t register in my brain. She couldn’t have said she was seeing someone, someone special. Who, how, and when? Did he sneak over after I left?

  “I didn’t tell him until yesterday about our time together. Oh God, I don’t know what I was thinking. Part of me was trapped in thoughts of perhaps there was a chance at an ‘us,’ but there is far too much water under that bridge.”

  I was confused—no, dazed. It didn’t sound like she had plans for me moving downtown with her and Chester. She was laying her cards on the table. I scooted up on the edge of the couch, trying to lessen the space between us.

  “Regina, baby, I was thinking, no hoping that . . .”

  “No!” She quickly yelled and closed her eyes for a moment. She sat further back in her chair. When she opened her eyes she said, “Let me finish before you speak.” She took a long, deep, runner’s breath and blew the air out slowly. I taught her how to do that when we used to run together. Breathing the right way helps with stress and Regina is a person who seldom vents, so learning how to take the cleansing breaths helped her a lot.

  “I felt I owed you, David, because I kept Chester a secret from you. You missed so much of his life because of my own confused emotions. I didn’t want you back in my life due to a child. I wanted you to want me and me alone, but it never happened.

  “Do you know you didn’t call me once after your grandmother’s funeral? True we were separated, but David, we made love that night. And you couldn’t pick up the phone to call and say ‘How are you.’ I was your wife for eight years!”

  My grandmother died shortly after our son Eric did. She was very dear to me and the two losses shut me down for a while. I was numb at my grandmother’s funeral, and that night Regina and I went to a hotel as a couple even though we were living separated at the time.

  “Regina I . . .”

  “Allow me to finish, David. I think I have earned the right to tell you how I feel and felt without interruption.”

  Basically she told me to shut up. The rigid way she looked at me made it clear that she was certain she’d earned the right to be heard.

  “We had a life, a family. Did you think our getting together that night was just a casual occurrence? I waited for your call for weeks. God, I thought you wanted me back in your life, but you didn’t. Did you? It was just sex to you. Men! Oh my sweet Lord, you tore my heart out.

  “I thought our making love that night was you forgiving me. I thought you were forgiving me for my infidelity, forgiving me for our son’s death.

  “I missed that doctor’s appointment. Me! I chose not to take him to the doctor that morning and that night he died. He died. Our son died because I didn’t take him to the doctor. I know you blamed me. I blamed me. I blamed me!”

  I went from the sofa to her. I wanted to hold her and tell her to let it go, to tell her I had forgiven her because it wasn’t her fault, but she pushed me away. She pushed me away hard.

  “Don’t! Please go back to your seat.”

  She wasn’t crying. Her eyes were cold and dry.

  “I don’t need your hugs now. When I needed them you gave them to whores.”

  I dropped to the sofa speechless. Wasn’t a thing I could say; she was right. When we should have been together I ran to the streets. I didn’t think about her needs. I thought about only stopping my own pain.

  “Last night, Randolph asked me to marry him, and I accepted.”

  “Randolph?” I didn’t know any Randolph who she would be dating, but she made him sound as common as salt. “The Uncle Randolph Chester’s been talking about?”

  “Yes he is quite fond of Randolph. They enjoy each other’s company and Randolph loves Chester as if he was his own son.”

  At that moment a dunce cap could have appeared on my head and I wouldn’t have minded one bit. Regina has an uncle named Randolph. I was thinking it was the same d
ude. I had no idea Uncle Randolph was Regina’s new man, but it made sense; “Uncle Randolph took Mommy to the movies,” “Uncle Randolph and Mommy bought me some new gym shoes.”

  “I thought Chester was talking about your Uncle Randolph.”

  “I figured you did.”

  She figured I did but didn’t bother to correct me? This woman was one of a kind. With that statement, the past four months evaporated from my consciousness. I had created a false Regina as the object of my desire. In my erroneous thoughts, Regina wanted me as she did early in our marriage. I thought of her as the girl I dated, a sparkling smile and a person who looked to me to change her life.

  However, the true Regina was sitting before me: the Regina I had hurt, the Regina I caught in the hotel with the preacher, the Regina who didn’t take my son to the doctor on the day of his death. I didn’t want that Regina.

  “Well what can I say, baby? I’m happy for you.”

  Yep, I was about as happy as a crackhead in Utah.

  “Are you really, David?”

  Hell naw! I wasn’t happy for her. I went over there thinking I was going to get me some. But not only was I being denied a little trim that night, it had become painfully obvious that she hadn’t really desired me at all. I was the only one lusting.

  “Yeah, baby, if this nigga floats your boat, I’m not going to be the one to sink it.” And I really meant that. No matter how disappointed I felt at the time. Regina was right; we had too many issues as a couple to be together.

  I don’t think I continued to blame her for Eric’s death, but who knew what would surface if we were together every day? And even though I wanted her body, I really didn’t want all of her, her attitudes and moods for example.