Chapter 17
I smothered myself in work to avoid thinking about Quinn. Hampton took notice of my sudden rededication to Northcomp. “Don’t work yourself too hard,” he’d warned one evening as he breezed past my office on his way out the door. It was already close to six o’clock, and I probably could have worked until eight, but there was still the steady job of mothering Eric that had to be done.
With Quinn out of the picture and my mother not even talking to me, I was a single mom for real now. Raphael hadn’t requested any more regular days with Eric, aside from time with me included.
And where was this whole thing with Raphael going anyway?
The day care closed at six-thirty, so finished or not I had to leave my place of work and head toward the center. Those folk don’t play about their extra ten dollars for every five minutes you’re late picking up your child.
Eric’s sullen face didn’t even tilt upward at me when I called him toward the sign-out area. He slung his backpack over his shoulder, held it in place with one arm, and trudged over to me.
Actually, he looked like I felt, but I didn’t want to say so. “Well, you sure look happy today,” I chirped as we walked out the door, headed back to my car.
“I talked to Mr. Quinn today.”
“Oh.” My pace quickened. When we were both buckled into our seat belts—bracing myself for the impact. “What did he say?”
A coarse wail escaped my son’s throat. I peeked at him through the rearview mirror to verify the horror. Yes, my baby was crying. Crying like a big boy who was ashamed to be crying but couldn’t hold it in any longer. Between sobs, Eric managed, “He’s ... hmt ... he’s moving away.”
I slanted the rearview mirror up, denying Eric an angle to view my reflection. He wasn’t the only one crying now. It took everything in both of us to avoid an all-out breakdown. I started the car, cleared my throat, and tried to offer some comfort. “Eric, you can still talk to Mr. Quinn. And you’ve still got me, and your daddy—”
“But Mr. Quinn is like my bestest ... hmt ... friend in the whole wide world, except for God.”
I didn’t have an answer. No comfort. No solace. A gaping hole filled my chest area. This business of breaking up ain’t no joke. I hadn’t suffered this kind of pain since ... well, since Raphael dumped me, if I wanted to be honest with myself.
But I couldn’t be honest, because if I heaped the memory of Raphael leaving me on top of the pain of me leaving Quinn, I wouldn’t be able to breathe. I had to forget one or the other, and then Raphael’s was the easiest to subdue.
What happened between Raphael and me took place a long time ago. I wasn’t the same woman, he wasn’t the same man. Starting over with him would, hopefully, be like starting with a new person altogether. Only this new person happened to be my child’s father. I didn’t have to worry about whether the man would try to molest my son or if he would treat Eric any differently than he would treat the child we might have together. This was a win-win. Right?
It had better be right. The very idea that this heartache over Quinn might all be in vain was too much to even consider. If my potential relationship with Raphael didn’t work out, I would be totally devastated, not to mention embarrassed and guilty for taking away my son’s bestest friend next to God.
No. I had taken the driver’s seat like a good, independent black woman was supposed to do, and I wasn’t going to let anything or anybody tr y to make me look a fool while gripping my life’s steering wheel.
“Hush up crying now, Eric. Everything’s gonna be all right. You want some ice cream?”
He sniffled, wiped his face with the back of his sleeve. “No.”
“Well, I sure do. I’m going to stop at Braum’s. You sure you don’t want anything?”
Eric remained silent.
I ordered the sundae as well as dinner at the drive-thru. No sense in cooking when I could just get a quick fix. “Let me have a number three, a number seven junior size, both with Sprites, and a double-dip hot caramel sundae with nuts. No cherry.”
The attendant’s voice came back scratchy and loud. “You want to upgrade that adult meal for seventy-nine cents more?”
I poked my lips out. What’s seventy-nine cents? “Yes, please.”
Eric asked for his fries and I passed them back to him. I normally don’t allow eating in my car, but French fries are the exception. They’re at their best when that hot, fresh grease is still glistening on every side. Eric and I both enjoyed the treat as I drove home.
“Momma, can we go visit Mr. Quinn one day?” my son asked with a full mouth.
“Swallow your food before you speak.”
I heard him gulp down what must have been a gob of fry mush. “I want to see Mr. Quinn. Is Philadelphia far?”
“Yes.”
“Like far far?”
“So far you have to get on a plane to get there.”
Eric squealed. “Ooh! I can’t wait!”
“I never said we were going there. Stop putting words in my mouth.” No sense in belaboring the issue. “Eric, Quinn and I have broken up. Do you know what that means?”
“Is that the same thing as a divorce?”
I sucked in my neck. “What you know about divorce ?”
“Like you and my daddy got.”
“Your daddy and I were never married.”
Eric begged to differ. “That’s what my daddy said. He said you and him were married, and then you got a divorce, and now he wants to marry you again, but he told me not to say anything around Miss Cheryl.”
It’s a good thing I was at a stop sign because I might have had an accident otherwise. My head swerved around almost more than humanly possible, allowing me the opportunity to look into Eric’s eyes. “Your daddy said what?”
“Oops.” Eric put a hand over his mouth. “He told me not to tell you, either. Momma, please don’t tell Daddy I told you.”
The driver behind me blew his horn and I was forced to turn back around, but my mouth was still wide open. How dare he tell our son that we were getting remarried. That’s got to be the most confusing thing to tell an eight-year-old who knows his mother is engaged to another man. I wondered exactly when Raphael had told our son this presumptuous tale.
I wondered even more how Eric thought I was going to pull this off. “So, baby, what did you think I was going to do? Marry Raphael and be with Mr. Quinn, too?”
“No. But some people at my school have, like, two moms or two dads or like ... and I kind of have two dads, so ... I thought it would be the same.”
Good Lord! What is the world coming to when kids don’t even understand the basic institution of marriage? “Well, let me clear something up for you. The Bible says let every man have his own wife and let every woman have her own husband.”
“So how come you had two men?”
I jumped to my own defense. “I don’t have two men. I only have one. Maybe.”
“Who?”
“Your daddy—maybe. But he’s not nor was he ever my husband.”
Eric was really trying to figure this out. “But what about Miss Cheryl? I thought she was Daddy’s wife.”
“They’re not married, either.” I sighed and shook my head. “Eric, we’ve talked about this enough, okay?” I had to close off this conversation because if I wasn’t careful, this would work its way around to how I managed to get pregnant if his father and I were never married. Not a conversation I wanted to have with Eric just yet. I’d always told myself I wouldn’t lie about what happened. I would tell him when he was ready—whenever we started having talks about God’s desire for His people to remain pure until marriage.
Eric pressed once more. “But if they’re not married, how come they live together?”
“Eric, this is grown folks’ business, you hear me?”
I got a glimpse of him through the mirror again. His eyes squinted, one finger resting on his temple. My baby was thoroughly confused.
And he wasn’t the only one.