Chapter 15

“The hardest thing to govern is the heart.” Elizabeth I

 

Kenneth Anniston didn’t know what to do. How had things spiraled out of control the way they had? All the years he’d been with both Annalisse and Carla and he’d always managed to keep his two lives separate. He loved both women. He didn’t care how much people said, 'You can’t love two people at the same time.' That was a lie, and he was living proof of it.

He and Annalisse had been through some rough and tough times, but through it all they stood by one another. Their marriage was solid. And even though Annalisse had never been able to give him a child, he felt blessed to have had Adanya.

Granted, the way she was conceived was horrific. There was barely a day that passed when he didn’t think back to that night some twenty-three years ago. He had honestly mistaken Anaya for Annalisse. If he hadn’t been so drunk out of his mind, then his life, and Annalisse’s life would be totally different. But that difference would have meant they would not have had Adanya, and Adanya was everything to him. She had ways just like him. She was his pumpkin, the one who he adored. And Annalisse, well their relationship had been made stronger because of it, in Kenneth’s opinion.

He hadn’t meant to hurt anyone, but now in a matter of months his entire world was crumbling rapidly. All the monetary wealth and success he’d acquired couldn’t change what was happening to him. And he thought his relationship with God was strong. He was a faithful churchgoers with both of his families. He paid his tithes, he prayed and sometimes fasted. He gave to those less fortunate, and still God let this happen?

He drove around town until he found himself on the street to his office. He turned into the parking lot of his office building and parked. The lot was empty except for the security team.

He got out of his car and headed toward the office building. Removing the keys to the building, he unlocked the double locks and was met by Dino, his lead security guy.

“Good evening, Mr. Anniston. What brings you here this time of night? Everything all right, sir?”

“Hey, Dino.” Kenneth shook his head. “Man, everything isn’t all right. It’s a mess.”

“Can I do anything to help? You wanna talk about it?” Dino offered his boss.

All the years Dino had worked for Kenneth Anniston, he’d always found him to be a pretty fair boss. He believed in treating his employees with the utmost respect, compensated them well, and he also believed in elevating them.

Dino was a prime example. He’d been with Anniston Digital Technology for going on eight years, starting off as a part-time temp from one of the staffing companies in the city. From working as a temporary security guard, he got on permanent and the rest was history. He had excellent work ethics and learned everything he could about his position in security. Dino considered himself more than the average Joe-blow security guy. He took ultimate pride in his job responsibilities, and he had been rewarded quite well in position and compensation for his loyalty to the company. He was the head of Security, and he loved his job.

“I’m going to be okay. I’m going to my office and try to settle my mind.”

“Sure you don’t want to talk about it?” Dino prodded.

“No, but you can pray for me and my family.”

“Yeah, of course, Mr. Anniston. I will.”

“Anyway, why are you here tonight?” Kenneth asked. “The rest of the team is in place, right?”

“Oh, yes sir, but you know how I do it. I’m not above coming out here at night to support my team. I told them I was going to come order pizza for the night team. They do a great job, and I wanted to show ‘em I appreciate ‘em; that’s all.”

“You’re a good guy, Dino. I’m going on up. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Take care, Mr. Anniston. I’ll be leaving shortly, but I’ll tell the team you’re here so they won’t get alarmed when they see lights on in your office.”

“Thanks, Dino,” Kenneth said and walked toward the elevator with hunched shoulders and a downtrodden spirit.

He opened the door to his office and went and sat on the same sofa where just a few months earlier he had listened to Adanya’s sobs. He stared blankly out the enormous window and began to think.

What was Adanya doing with his stepson? How did she even know Bleak? He thought about the night at the game when he saw Bleak approach her. He had purposely walked off to avoid Bleak seeing him and Adanya. Was that the first night Bleak met her, or had they already known each other? Had Bleak discovered that Adanya was his child? Were the two of them involved? The onslaught of questions kept racing through his mind, so much so that Kenneth couldn’t wrap his thoughts around the events that had transpired. He didn’t know what to think.

It was his personal mission to keep his life with Annalisse and his life with Carla apart. Bleak being a white boy, gave Kenneth an added sense of security because at least he wouldn’t have to be concerned with Adanya ever meeting up with his other family, or so he thought. But as fate would have it, everything had backfired. And all the years he’d spent ingraining into Adanya’s head about the importance of dating within her race had gone out the window. What could she have been thinking? Kenneth wrestled with thoughts of what might have gone wrong.

He met Carla some thirteen years ago at one of the technology conventions he used to frequent in the beginning stages of building his business. Back then she worked as an administrative assistant to the vice president of one of the companies that he later bought out, and now owned and operated.

When he saw her, he was immediately attracted to her. He was a happily married man, he’d told himself at that time. But in his eyes, there was nothing wrong with being attracted to another woman, as long as he didn’t act on his feelings.

Carla was not only attractive, he later found out that she was smart, intelligent, and there was a certain something about her that made Kenneth want to get to know her.

The second evening of what would be a weeklong convention, Kenneth had spotted her downstairs in the hotel restaurant and bar dining alone. He and some colleagues were in the restaurant discussing sports and politics while eating and having a few drinks. Kenneth tried to keep his eyes from roving to the table where she sat, but it was hard for him to do. He got up and excused himself from the table and went to the bar and ordered a glass of white wine and had it sent to her table. He also told the server that he would take care of her check. Kenneth rejoined his colleagues, but barely took his eyes off Carla.

Carla looked around after the server delivered her glass of wine and that’s when Kenneth met her look with a smile. She nodded, and then without touching the glass of wine, she got up and proceeded to leave the restaurant.

He got up and excused himself again and left his colleagues looking bewildered.

“Excuse me,” he said to the tall, slender, blonde who reminded him of a fashion runway model.

Carla was aloof at first and refused to give him the time of day. He didn’t know if it was because he was a black man or not, but he didn’t care. The more she evaded him, the more he pursued her. She continued to brush him off during the course of the convention, and Kenneth decided to let it go. Months passed and she was quickly forgotten, until he saw her again. This time, it was in Seattle, Washington which at the time was quickly rising to the forefront as one of the nations’ top digital cities.

Their chance encounter this time was more open and friendly. He saw her browsing at one of the hundreds of vending booths that lined the meeting hall where the digital convention was being held. He walked up on her, politely introduced himself as John Phillips and used the age old line, “Have we met before?”

Unknown to his immediate family, Kenneth often used his two middle names as a business pseudonym. He had chosen to do so as a d/b/a so the full knowledge of his business and now secret life would go undetected by Annalisse. He convinced himself that a d/b/a was the right thing to do just in case things ever fell apart between him and Annalisse. He didn’t want everything he’d worked hard for over the years to be taken from him like he’d witnessed some of his constituents.

As for Carla, she never had a reason to suspect anything differently. And when it came to conducting business, it hadn’t posed a problem because his financial and business attorneys managed to keep his affairs in proper order. He felt the name John Phillip, with an s, sounded more businesslike.

Anniston Digital Technology, Inc. had turned out to be a highly successful company, but it was never listed under the name of Kenneth Anniston. Unknown to Annalisse, everything Kenneth owned and operated, other than their shared property and assets was under the name of John Phillips. Now, years later his reasons for using John Phillips had backfired.

He continued to reminisce about when he first met Carla. That day in Seattle, Carla mesmerized him with her magnetic smile. This time around, for reasons unknown to him, Carla agreed to have lunch with him. While dining with her, he realized just how much he was attracted to her. Yes, he was a married man with a child, but he hadn’t set out to have an affair on Annalisse. It just happened. That’s what he told himself.

He had no real reason for lying to Carla either, telling her that he was divorced with no children. When she told him she was going through a divorce herself, and had two young children, instead of pulling back and respecting his own fully intact marriage, Kenneth went after Carla at full force.

By the time they ended lunch, he had her phone number and she had agreed to have dinner with him later that evening. The rest was history because as often as possible, he flew to Seattle, Washington to be with Carla.

When he found himself falling in love with her, he couldn’t entertain the idea of leaving Annalisse and Adanya, but he knew he couldn’t let Carla walk out of his life either. He was not only in love with her, he had grown attached to her then teenaged son, Bleak, and his twin sister, Bianca.

Kenneth used the Bible to justify his actions. Mighty men of God in the Bible had hundreds of wives and concubines. He didn’t believe he served a God who would God chastise him for having two. That would be absurd. When had things changed anyway from the way men lived in the Bible? If it was all right back then, surely God wouldn’t frown on it now. The laws of the land didn’t make sense to Kenneth. A man could have his cake and eat it too, and he was going to prove it.

The day he proposed to Carla, he had clearly gone overboard. He didn’t stop to weigh the consequences of his actions. All he knew was that he didn’t want anyone else to have her. He wanted Carla Blessinger all to himself and for himself. He proposed to her and she accepted.

In the beginning of his marriage to Carla, he commuted between Memphis and Seattle, spending sometimes two weeks at a time with Carla before returning home to Annalisse and Adanya. But when Carla became pregnant with their first child, Caitlin, Kenneth made a decision to relocate them to Tennessee. He purchased a house on the outskirts of Memphis in Eads, Tennessee. That way, he was assured that his two lives and two wives wouldn’t collide.

Carla was naïve herself in many ways because she never questioned the times John was gone for days, sometimes weeks at a time. He had always been a frequent traveler due to the nature of his business. And when she became pregnant with Caitlin, she surrounded herself with being a good mother, but relished the times when John was at home. He had been a good father and a loving husband. Miraculously, Kenneth juggled both women without either of them finding out about the other. He’d always somehow managed to keep both households together. He believed the saying, ‘You can’t make two people happy at the same time’ did not apply to him because he was doing it and had been doing it since marrying Carla ten years prior. Kenneth had gone so far as leasing office space in close proximity to where he and Carla and their kids lived. The name of that business was J. Phillips Technology Group.

He’d established that company for as long as the two of them had been married. And Carla, well Carla was clueless about Anniston Digital Technology just like Annalisse was clueless about J. Phillips Technology Group.

Bleak never had a reason to question his stepfather’s motives because he always saw his mother with a smile on her face. John treated her like royalty, in Bleak’s eyes, and even when he left for college and returned to Memphis, he saw how happy his mother remained. He’d treated him like a son, put him, and Bianca, through college, and did all the things he used to long for his biological father to do.

Kenneth pondered over what he was going to do. He didn’t want to lose Carla or his kids. He didn’t want to lose Annalisse, and Adanya, well he’d lost Adanya months ago, and now he knew that there was probably no chance of them ever reconciling. Their father daughter relationship was dead. Only God would be able to change that. His marriage to Annalisse was cooked meat too, that is if Adanya decided to spill the beans and tell Annalisse about his other life.

For the first time in his life, Kenneth Anniston contemplated ending it all. Maybe he should just take his own life, call it quits. God would forgive him. And both families would be well taken care of. He’d taken out enough insurance policies so they would never have anything to worry about if something happened to him.

Both hands extended toward the ceiling. “God, help me. Take care of my little girl. Bless my family, both of them, Lord.”