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When I woke up the next morning, I was still in the back seat of the police car. I opened my eyes and looked around, and there was a black female officer, around my age, but about 100 pounds heavier, sitting in the front seat of the patrol car. I smelled a hint of rose-scented perfume and coffee.
I needed coffee more than I needed air. I sat up, and the officer got out of the car, opened the back door, and sat down next to me. After she removed my handcuffs, I noticed that she was holding a cup of coffee, and it smelled like it was perfect, like Steven had made it himself. When I sipped it, memories of Steven flushed through my mind, and before I knew it, I was back in front of our condo building, with Steven’s head in my lap. I broke down all over again.
The officer hugged me like a mother would hold her daughter if her husband had been murdered right in front of her. I needed that kind of compassion because it made me let it all out.
I sobbed in her arms the way I would have sobbed the previous night had I not been in shock. The officer rocked me and shushed me lovingly. Although I never met her before in my life, she let me bawl my heart out for what seemed like forever without saying a word. It was like she knew that was the one thing I had to do before she could get through to me.
After I had shed every tear I had in me, I turned to the officer and said, “Thank you for that, and the coffee. It’s been a rough night, but at least I can have a cup of coffee before...”
I broke down again, but no tears fell. It was the way your soul would weep at the thought of having to bury the love of your life. Your protection, your salvation, your future, laid in a hole in the ground never to be seen or heard again. His face was my reason for being; his voice, my proof that dreams, miracles, and happy endings exist. The thought of laying him to rest without lying dead beside him made my stomach turn until I started cramping more than any period I ever had before.
I keeled over, which caused me to spill the cup of coffee on the floor of the patrol car, and I felt my head sink between my legs, headed in the same direction. I was so weak, and hot, and hurt, that tears or not, every inch of my body cried as I mourned Steven.
The officer held me up, and said, “Mrs. Josephs, I’m gonna need you to pull it together, okay? I can’t imagine what you are feeling after last night, not to mention everything else, but you have to know that you are loved—”
I sobbed, “No, I’m not. No one ever loved me but Steven!”
She rubbed my head and said, compassionately, and in a reassuring tone, “Girl, the whole world knows that man loves you! Shit happens, people from the outside always gonna try to tell you what you doing wrong, but you know you’re doing right when you are loved at home and by any sane person who knows your story?”
Her words did nothing for me but make my cramps worse, so I snapped, “Fuck everybody else! Fuck the people online, and the news people, and fuck the police who stood by and watched Tyler kill the only love I ever wanted! I hate all of them for letting him kill my heart! And if Tyler’s ass ain’t dead, then, bitch, he will be by the time I’m done with his ass. I promise you!”
The officer leaned back and looked at me curiously, like ‘What the fuck did this bitch just say?’
I said, “Bitch, you heard me... Fuck everybody and Tyler’s ass is as good as dead!’
All of a sudden, my cramps got worse! As I bent over and screamed in mourning and pain, the officer laughed so hard that she started holding her stomach! I’m looking at this bitch like she was crazy, meanwhile, my stomach was hurting more and more with every cackle that escaped her lips. I could have beat the hell out of her, then I really would have went to jail.
Then she said, between laughs, “Bitch, I know that’s right! Honey, they is fucking with the wrong one today! Your husband is fine! Well, that Tyler boy did stab him up pretty bad, but he missed the organs so Steven gonna be okay in a couple of weeks.”
My stomach cramped even more, but I didn’t care. I hugged her and asked, “Where is he? I gotta go the hospital.”
The officer said, in a serious yet sympathetic tone, “Girl, that’s where we are. The officers on the scene saw everything; they just couldn’t get to Tyler in time to stop him. Steven’s still in a coma, but he’s going to pull through. When he wakes up, he is under arrest for attempted murder. So you can never repeat what you said about Tyler ever again, you understand what I’m saying?”
I nodded in agreement, and she continued, “The news cameras recorded the punch you landed on Tyler’s temple too, so did the rest of the world, but no prosecutor in America is going to come after you after what you and your husband have been through. The whole world is talking about you, Mrs. Josephs. A black woman who was brave enough to define love on her own terms and lucky enough to get everything she ever wanted and more.
“You are loved, Mrs. Josephs. You hear me? You are the embodiment of what a wife should be during a time when most wives give up on their husbands at the first sign of conflict. Although everyone questioned your motives and your intentions to start, they watched you go from tough enough to stop an attacker to so weak at the sight of your husband lying in a pool of blood, that you fell apart right before their very eyes.
“Girl, I been watching that video over and over all night while you slept. Everyone felt your pain, Mrs. Josephs. No one should ever have to go through that, especially someone as wonderful as you have proven to be.”
I couldn’t remember what happened, but when I heard the events of the previous night come out of the officer’s mouth, it was like it all came back to me again, firsthand. But I wasn’t hopeless now, knowing Steven was alive. I was hopeful! I wanted to go and get him, have a parade in his honor, and show the world who we were and how hard we loved. Not to impress them, but because we were happy, and in love, and alive goddammit!
But the officer wouldn’t shut up! She just kept going, “When I saw the hurt in your eyes, Mrs. Josephs, all I could do was run to you, place you in handcuffs, so that you didn’t hurt yourself in a fit of hysteria, and place you in the back of my squad car. I had to cuss out my brothers in blue on the crime scene because they said they had to take you in for questioning before they reviewed the news reporter’s footage. I watched it happen, I knew you were protecting your love, and that ain’t no crime as far as I know it.”
That’s when I got it. She was a fan of me; not as a straight woman who married a gay man, but one sister to another for finding love despite every obstacle imaginable! Now the roles were reversed, and the officer was crying. She was stronger and more stoic than I had been, but her tears warmed my heart, nonetheless.
She wiped her eyes, smiled at me, then said, after taking a long deep breath to compose herself, “Since you weren’t under arrest, nobody could stop me from taking you to the hospital where they said Steven was taken. I been checking on him too; he’s a fighter. He was only in surgery for a couple of hours. He’s in there just building up his strength for you, so there is no need for you to worry about that this second. Breathe through the pain. Those cramps can be a bitch, girl. Trust me, I know!”
My cramps were starting to subside, and I took a few deep breaths, which actually helped reduce the pain even more.
The officer continued, “Watching him fight to get better for you made me see you in a totally different light, Mrs. Josephs, and I figured you needed a sister to have your back, just like Dom! Trust me, don’t let the uniform fool you, I am a black woman who knows how hard it is to find love today and keep it close to her heart and committed only to her.
“I’ve spoken to Steven, his nurses, and the people in the coffee shop, and all everybody can talk about is how Steven was calling for you from the moment they wheeled him into surgery to the moment he went under, and you were the first person he called for when he woke up from the anesthesia. Not a man, his wife, Mrs. Josephine Josephs.
“I went to see him about an hour ago when he was assigned a room. He told me how you like your coffee even though I could tell it hurt him when he talked. The love he has for you is unlike anything I have ever seen, and I wouldn't have believed it unless I had seen it with my own eyes. It was beautiful, Mrs. Josephs!"
I could see everything she said as she said it, and I missed Steven’s face as if he had been in a coma for years. I cried tears again, thinking about him crying for me and not being there to hear and answer each call of my name.
The officer continued, “I could have woke you up then, but I said no. I knew you were gonna need your strength. I told my sergeant about what I observed when I looked at you asleep in that back seat, eyes puffy from a combination of having cried yourself to sleep and physical exhaustion, and girl, it made me cuss my boss like he was a criminal who took a shot at me! I was mad! I told him that I planned to sit with you until you woke up, and I would shoot any news camera operator, reporter, or gay man who approached my vehicle, just like you told me fuck everybody a few minutes ago.”
We both shared a laugh, then she continued, “I know you ready to see your husband, but I just had to say three things to you before you walked past these news people standing outside the hospital. One, you are a strong, proud, and successful black woman. I don’t care how you made your money; it was legal and you took care of your own. Tell people that when they question why you did what you did to earn a living, because ain’t nothing wrong with that.”
I remembered Darlene and her happy family in that moment smiling out at me and saw visions of my family for the first time in my mind’s eye, and said simply, “You are so right, and I will.”
The officer continued, “Second, Tyler did what he did to spite you, but because of your strong will, and your pain, you defended yourself and your family. Ain’t nothing wrong with that either. You got right on your side, not Tyler! You proved you are everything you appear to be already, so don’t worry about what the people say; continue to follow your instincts and your heart.”
The officer started to get out of the car, and I asked, “What’s the third thing? I like your advice!”
The officer extended her hand to me and helped me to my feet, as she watched me hold my stomach in pain. She rubbed my back and said, “I been a police officer for over twenty years. I answered domestic violence cases, and drug overdoses, and homicide calls alike. I know how to observe a crime scene. When you swung your fist at Tyler’s temple and turned your body into the punch, I saw a glimpse of your stomach. You pregnant, bitch! That’s why you cramping, you were stressed. So again, keep breathing.”
I laughed out loud. “Girl, I can’t be pregnant!”
The officer shook her head. “Hmm, like I said. I can always spot the pregnant battered wife, or the pregnant drug addict, or the pregnant murder victim. It could be a woman’s intuition, or the fact that I have four of my own, but after you see your husband, ask the doctor for a pregnancy test. When you prove that I’m right, give me a shout out when you do your official interview. I’m officer Josephine Lewis, Fifth Precinct, North Philadelphia.”
I said, “Bitch, if I’m pregnant, and it’s a boy, I’m naming him Joseph Josephs, but if it’s a girl, I’m naming her Josephine Josephs, after us. Could you imagine naming your babies that? That’s how I know I’m not pregnant.”
As we walked to the front of the hospital, the reporters started running toward us, and the officer said with a smile, “Okay, bitch! Remember what you said! And if you know like I know, you better be quiet and give the exclusive interview to Donna Seaworth. When I grabbed the coffee this morning, she was on CNN saying that she’s willing to pay you guys $10 million for the first exclusive story.”
I almost died when I heard her say that! “Ohh, bitch; I love the Donna Seaworth Show!”
I remember looking back at Officer Lewis, and she didn’t escort me through the crowd. She let me walk on my own, because she knew I was ready and could handle those punk-ass reporters or whoever else stood between me and my husband!
Just in case she was right about me being pregnant, I covered my stomach with one arm and began pushing reporters out of my way with the other. I remembered Officer Lewis’s advice about being proud of my life, my love, and my husband because, like she said, “Ain’t nothing wrong with that!”
Two people who nobody else wanted found each other despite all of the obstacles, and sexuality labels, and bitter exes, and if they just stayed in the house and hid their love selfishly, it would not have been able to inspire anyone else. What good would that be to us or anyone else?
When I walked through the hospital doors, I saw my mother and father, my brothers, and Steven’s mother and his siblings all talking and smiling, like they were getting along. A-Dog and Dom were there, as well as Darlene and her family. I wanted to hug all of them and say, “Thank you for being here for me and Steven,” but I just kept walking. I needed my man more. I walked past Alex and winked; he looked at me the same way he did the first day we met. That man was going places! Alex had proven to be loyal to a fault.
A nurse led me to Steven’s room. He was lying in bed, looking exhausted. There was an IV in his arm and he had heart monitors and other machines beeping all around him. He looked so sad lying there, but I was being filled with a sense of... I don’t know... happiness, warmth, and hope watching him lay there, unaware of my presence.
Thank you, God. I sobbed uncontrollably, too weak to even walk!
I sniffled, and Steven turned toward me. I watched his eyes brighten, and his body go from limp to strong the moment he recognized me. “Baby, did you have your coffee yet?”
Then just like that, my first non-sexually-induced blackout period. And there I collapsed, like a white bitch in a horror movie!