Charlotte couldn’t imagine life being any better than it was currently. She and Curtis were closer than they’d ever been and, best of all, they hadn’t heard from Tabitha. Not once. Which was a wonderful surprise because Charlotte had been sure Tabitha was going to become the intrusion of a lifetime. Especially since she’d called the day the baby was born and tried to get Curtis to come see it. Or actually, come see her, because whether Curtis wanted to admit it or not, Charlotte knew Tabitha still wanted him. She knew because she’d never heard of any mistress who didn’t have high hopes that the man she was sleeping with would somehow miraculously leave his wife for her. She knew because to be honest, she’d felt the same way herself when Curtis had still been married to Tanya. Her desire had been as wrong as wrong could be, however, she had still wanted what she wanted and hadn’t cared a whole lot about who might be hurt in the end.
But right now, none of that mattered. What mattered was that she and Curtis had just finished making exceptional love to each other and they were lying in bed, snuggled closely, enjoying a beautiful moment.
“Woman, what in the world are you trying to do to me?” Curtis asked, breathing more easily than he had been five minutes ago.
Charlotte chuckled. “Are you saying you can’t handle it?”
“Me? The Curtis Black? Not able to handle my wife when it comes to making love? Please.”
“Well, that’s what it sounds like.”
“As Matthew would say, ‘Girl, don’t get it twisted.’”
They both laughed.
“You’re right,” she said. “That’s exactly what he would say. Although now he doesn’t have much of anything to say at all.”
“I know. He’s been on the quiet side ever since we told him the truth but I still say we did the right thing. He needed to know that I’m not his biological father.”
Charlotte heard what Curtis was saying but if she’d had it her way, she would have left well enough alone and worried about telling Matthew the truth at a later date. When Marissa had died, she’d begun feeling as though it wasn’t a good idea to keep secrets of any kind from anyone, including Matthew. She’d kept secrets most of her adult life and far too many people had been hurt because of them, so she’d decided she didn’t want Matthew learning about his paternity from anyone other than Curtis and her.
But now he was basically moping around the house, not saying any more than he had to to either of them, and Charlotte was starting to regret telling him anything. She’d wanted him to know the truth but she hadn’t wanted him to feel the amount of pain she could tell he was feeling and she certainly hadn’t wanted to create any tension or distance.
“He’ll be okay,” Curtis finally said. “It’s just that this is all very new to him and it’s going to take some getting used to.”
“I guess. But I hope he’s okay sooner rather than later.”
“He will be. He’ll be fine.”
Charlotte nestled closer to Curtis and laid her head on his chest but as soon as she did, the phone rang.
“Who could that be?” she said. “It has to be at least eleven o’clock.”
“Something must be wrong,” Curtis added.
Charlotte picked up the cordless from the nightstand and sighed deeply. It was Tabitha.
“Hello?”
“Could I speak to Curtis, please?”
“Tabitha, do you realize what time it is?”
“No, and to be honest, I really don’t care.”
Charlotte sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed.
“You don’t care?”
“That’s what I said, didn’t I?”
“I don’t believe you. You’re actually calling here this late at night to speak to my husband, and you’ve got the nerve to be getting smart with me? You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Look, Charlotte, will you just get over yourself and put Curtis on the phone? I need to discuss something with him about Curtina.”
The whole idea of the name Curtina was enough to make Charlotte cringe. She was annoyed by the fact that Tabitha had chosen to give the baby a name as close to Curtis as she could. Not to mention, Curtina had to be the ugliest name she’d ever heard.
“First of all,” Charlotte began, “you’ve been told more than once not to call this house and not to contact Curtis in any way, so why can’t you just leave us alone? Why can’t you just move on and forget about him?”
“Because whether you want to accept it or not, Curtis and I have a baby together. We have a gorgeous little daughter and you’re just upset because you don’t have any children with him. I mean, I know you claimed Matthew was his and then you lied and schemed about Marissa for as long as you could, but in the end, neither of those children was his.”
Charlotte felt her breathing accelerate a few notches and was thankful she wasn’t in the same room with Tabitha. If she had been, she would have beaten her unmercifully. She would have done whatever necessary to make sure Tabitha never bothered her and Curtis ever again.
“Will you just put him on the phone?!” she yelled.
“No. And the only way you’ll speak to my husband is over my dead body.”
“Oh, and you think that can’t be arranged?”
“Are you threatening my life?”
“Give me the phone,” Curtis interrupted, and reached for it.
But Charlotte snatched it away from him, turned on the lamp, and stood up.
“You look here, you crazy heifer,” Charlotte said matter-of-factly. “Just because you were stupid enough to mess around with a married man, stupid enough to get pregnant by him, and then stupid enough to think he was going to leave me once that baby was born, well, that’s simply not my fault. You hear me?”
“Oh, I hear you very well, but which do you think is worse, Charlotte? My getting pregnant by Curtis or your getting pregnant by your cousin’s husband? And let’s not forget about how you got pregnant by that schizophrenic, Aaron, who tried to burn down your house while you were still inside it. So, no matter which way you look at any of this, you’re as loose as Mary Magdalene. Actually, you’re much lower because even Mary Magdalene had the decency to take Jesus’s advice to go and sin no more. And those are not my words, sweetheart, they’re Curtis’s.”
Charlotte pressed the off button and threw the phone at Curtis as hard as she could. It landed against his chest.
“What did you do that for?”
“You actually had the audacity to say I was worse than Mary Magdalene?”
“What are you talking about?”
“That tramp just told me you compared me to her. So, is it true?”
“Charlotte, why are you listening to anything Tabitha tells you?”
“No, just answer my question. Did you ever say that about me?”
Curtis leaned his head against the headboard and covered his face, and Charlotte knew Tabitha wasn’t lying.
“Is that what you really think of me?” she asked.
“No. No.”
“Then why did you tell her that?”
“You know how hurt and angry I was after that whole Aaron situation, and I said a lot of things I didn’t mean.”
“Still. How could you be low enough to talk about me that way to some woman you were sleeping with?”
“Baby, you know Matthew is in the other room, so please don’t speak that way.”
“I’ll speak any way I feel like speaking. And for the record, which do you think is worse? Words or committing adultery?”
“I don’t know. You tell me.”
Charlotte knew he was referring to her own infidelity, but she ignored him. She pretended he hadn’t said a word and kept on her mission.
“I’m telling you right now, Curtis. You’d better stop Tabitha from calling here or else.”
“You know I’ve already told her not to contact me, and she hasn’t until now.”
“I knew when we didn’t hear from her over the last six months, it was all too good to be true. I always knew it was just a matter of time before she started thinking she still had a chance with you.”
“Tabitha knows what we had is over. She knows it’s over for good, so I don’t know why she called here.”
“You really piss me off when you do that.”
“Do what?”
“Pretend like you’re so naive about everything.”
“I’m not pretending anything. I’m just saying that Tabitha knows how I feel about you and that there’s not one chance of her and me being together.”
“Well, all I know is that you’d better handle this. You’d better handle it before it causes some serious problems between you and me. I told you I would stay with you but I only agreed to forgive you because you claimed that your only involvement with that woman would be through child support payments.”
“And that’s the only involvement I’ve had.”
“All of this makes me sick. It makes me wish I had divorced you right when you told me she was pregnant.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“Oh…yes…I…do. Because if I had, I wouldn’t be receiving phone calls like the one I just answered.”
“I can’t believe you’re saying this. Not after all this time.”
“You thought just because I never brought up this pathetic situation that it doesn’t bother me?”
“No, that’s not what I’m saying.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“That I thought we made a pact. I thought we agreed to forgive each other and move on with our lives.”
“We did. And I was fine. That is, until a few minutes ago.”
“If it will make you feel any better, I’ll call Tabitha and explain to her that if she contacts me again, she’ll be violating our contract.”
“From the way she sounded on the phone, she probably couldn’t care less. As a matter of fact, I’ll bet it’s only a matter of time before she does something even worse.”
“What else could she do?”
“Go public. Demand more money. Drop the baby on our doorstep. You tell me.”
“When we agreed to pay her that fifty-thousand-dollar lump sum and she signed on the dotted line, she knew that meant complete silence.”
“Yeah right.”
“All I can do is call her.”
“No.”
“Then what do you want me to do?”
“I don’t know, but I don’t want you talking to her.”
Curtis shook his head in frustration and Charlotte gave him a dirty look. Then she stormed out of the bedroom.
She felt like screaming and the only reason she didn’t was because Matthew’s room was just down the hallway. If only Curtis hadn’t started that affair with Tabitha and gotten her pregnant. Life would be so much easier. So much happier. So much more bearable.
But no matter how she fantasized about the way things could have been, reality struck her straight across her face. To be honest, it struck her so forcibly that she wondered how she would ever be able to live with it. She did love Curtis and of course she wanted the best for Matthew, but after hearing Tabitha’s indignant tone, she didn’t know if she could deal with this for years to come. Not to mention, the idea that Tabitha had a baby with Curtis and she didn’t made her ill. It made her wish for certain tragedies. Tragedies that would free them from Tabitha for good. The kind of tragedy that would allow her and Curtis to live happily ever after the way they’d planned.
The kind of tragedy that might happen by accident.
Or intentionally.