I couldn’t stop my body from trembling as I watched Leon stomp into the house. I stood outside, cursing myself for being so stupid. Dammit, was I ever going to catch a break? I still couldn’t believe he’d caught Michael and me together. He wasn’t even supposed to be on that side of town. He was supposed to be at therapy. Why the hell did I push Michael so hard to take me to that Chinese restaurant? If I had just listened to him, we’d be up in the Marriott getting our groove on right now with a lot less drama.
I stayed out there for a while, trying to gather the courage to go into the house. Leon and I had gotten into our share of domestic altercations over the years, but it had been me who couldn’t control my temper. I’d always lashed out at him first. This time, he was madder than I think I’d ever seen him, and I had a feeling the situation could get dangerous. I’m not gonna lie; I was so afraid of what he might do that I considered running. But it was my carelessness that had gotten me into this mess, and now I had to go inside to try to clean it up.
Don’t get me wrong; I felt bad that Leon’s feelings were hurt. But right now, my first priority was to calm him down so no one—not me, not Leon, and not Michael—got physically hurt. If that meant going in there and lying my ass off, then that’s what I would do.
Who knew where my marriage stood now. I didn’t want it to be over—I knew that much—but now that I was back with Michael, I didn’t want to give him up either. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I’d known I would eventually have to make a choice, but dammit, I wasn’t ready to make it yet. As I stumbled up the walkway on shaky legs, I had no idea which way this conversation would go. All I knew was I had to start somewhere, preferably without violence.
In the living room, Leon was pouring himself a drink. I wanted to tell him to move over and pour me one, too, but I needed a clear head if I was going to talk my way out of this one.
I kept a safe distance away from Leon as he finished his first drink. A bit of the tension seemed to leave his shoulders as he poured himself another, and I figured it was safe to start talking.
“Leon.” I took a few cautious steps closer to him. I’d already mapped out my escape route to the bathroom if things suddenly got out of hand. My heart felt like it was trying to push its way out of my chest, but I used every trick I’d ever learned in the business world to practice the art of “never let them see you sweat.” I needed Leon to believe I was calm. Only an innocent woman would be calm in a situation like this, right?
“You want a divorce?” he asked. “You want me to move out?”
His words threw me off for a second, but something behind his eyes told me he didn’t really want me to answer yes. I felt a glimmer of hope.
“No,” I told him, “this is our house, and you’re my husband. Neither one of us is going anywhere.”
His hands were unsteady as he poured another drink. “So you gonna tell me what I did to deserve this? ’Cause you told me sex wasn’t that important if two people had love.”
We went back and forth a few more times, with him accusing me of lying and me swearing that everything was all a big misunderstanding. This approach was clearly getting us nowhere. He was hurting, and not ready to let go of it yet. He didn’t want to believe I could be innocent.
Then I had a brilliant idea. It was time for me to go to therapy. Not that I felt like I had any problems—certainly nothing as serious as Leon’s past—that needed to be worked out; I just knew that offering to see a therapist would stop this conversation in its tracks and buy me some more time.
I was about to offer this solution when I was interrupted by the ringing doorbell.
“Who the hell is that?” he snapped.
He started to come out from behind the bar, but I stopped him. Thinking fast, I handed him the bottle of Hennessey. “Look, I’ll get the door. You just try and calm yourself down. Have another drink.”
“That better not be that nigga!”
That’s exactly what I was afraid of.
“He’s not stupid,” I said, praying I was right. “Why would he come here?” I trudged to the door, hoping it was UPS with some of the HSN stuff I’d ordered.
You guessed it. It was Michael standing on the other side of the door, and I had to put my hand up to stop him from rushing into my house as soon as I opened the door.
I stepped outside and shut the door behind me. “Michael, what the hell are you doing here? I told you I could handle this.”
I looked down at his hands, which were shoved into his pockets, and it scared the crap out of me. “Oh, no,” I gasped. When Leon first pulled up beside us, yelling and screaming, Michael shocked the hell out of me by pulling a gun out of his glove compartment. Would you believe he was about to get out of the car and confront Leon with it? I had to beg him to put it away and let me get out of the car alone.
I looked into his eyes, searching for a sign of his intentions. Did he plan on using that gun now? I took his arms and pulled him down two steps to the walkway, as if it would make a difference to get him that little bit farther away from my front door. “Michael, what are you doing here?”
“I just came to see if you were all right.” He pulled his hands out of his pockets, with no gun in sight. That made me feel a little better, but I still needed to get him out of there in a hurry.
“I told you I’d call you when I got a chance.”
“That was half an hour ago. He could have killed you by now.”
“Well, I’m not dead yet, but if you don’t get out of here, I will be. You’re only making things worse by being here.”
“Look, I don’t want you to stay here tonight. That guy’s unstable. He didn’t hit you or anything, did he?”
“I’m fine, Michael. Please, you have to go. I can handle this. I’ll call you later. I promise.”
“You promise!”
I could feel a rush of air as Leon opened the door behind me. He saw Michael and went ballistic. I ran up the steps and shoved my hands hard against his chest to stop him from going any farther. I planted my feet firmly on the ground, struggling to stay upright as Leon grabbed my shoulders in a painfully tight grip.
“You fucking disrespectful bitch! I know you ain’t got this nigga standing outside my house, talking to you like I ain’t even here!”
“Leon, this is not what it looks like.”
“What do you think, I’m fucking blind? This is exactly what it looks like. This high-yellow nigga just followed us home! But that’s all right. I’m gonna put a cap in your ass, nigga, and the law won’t say a thing, because you trespassing.”
Leon was talking a lot of shit for a man who didn’t own a gun, and I was scared Michael might put him in his place by pulling out a real weapon.
Fortunately, he restrained himself, only issuing a warning. “Loraine, you best tell this man to stop threatening me or you’ll be burying him instead of divorcing him.”
“Oh, God.” I could feel it; we were only seconds away from some real tragedy. I kept my hands on Leon’s chest but craned my neck around to speak to Michael. “Please don’t do anything stupid. Just get outta here. Please!”
“Get out my way! I ain’t scared of that punk-ass motherfucker.” I had both arms wrapped around Leon’s waist at this point, but he was still inching closer to Michael. “What’s wrong, sissy boy? You hiding behind a woman because you afraid you gonna get your ass whipped by a real man?”
Michael laughed. “I know you didn’t just call me a sissy and challenge my manhood, Minute Man.”
It took a second, but when Michael’s words sunk in, I no longer had to restrain Leon. All the fight went out of him like a deflated balloon. He was defeated without even one punch being thrown.
“What did you call me?”
“You heard me, Johnny Quick. I probably wouldn’t be here if you could last more than a minute or two.”
I turned and screamed, “Michael, shut up!”
Leon was looking at me with tears glistening in his eyes. “How could you? How could you tell him, of all people, about our…my personal business?”
“Leon, I…I…” I couldn’t answer because I didn’t know what to say. Michael had straight up put me out there, whether or not he’d done it on purpose.
“You want her, you can have her,” Leon said, pushing me toward Michael.
I tried to wrap my arms around him, but he slapped my hands away. “Leon, please don’t do this.”
“Loraine, come on,” Michael said from the walkway. “You heard the man. He don’t want you.”
I spun around, looking Michael dead in the eyes. “Get out of here! Get the fuck outta here! Nobody asked you to come here.”
I turned back to Leon, pleading, “Baby, please. I’m sorry. Don’t do this. He doesn’t mean anything to me!”
“I may have issues, but I don’t want your pity. I do have some pride. I’ll have my lawyer draw up some papers.” He turned to go into the house.
“No,” I screamed. “I don’t want no fucking divorce!” I refused to believe that things had really reached this point.
Leon stopped and turned around, and when I saw the look in his eyes, I knew that whether or not I liked it, I had to make a choice. His eyes weren’t filled with tears anymore. “What about him? You ready to give him up?” He pointed at Michael.
“I’ll do whatever it takes. You’re my husband; he’s not. We took an oath to be together for better or for worse, till death do us part.” I couldn’t, wouldn’t, look back at Michael, because unfortunately, I meant every word of what I had said.
“Then get your ass in the house. This shit ain’t over yet.” I couldn’t tell if the threat was directed at me, because he was looking at Michael as he spoke. “Now you can get the hell off my property. Your services are no longer needed.”
“Loraine,” Michael called out one last time.
“Go home, Michael, and please don’t try to contact me again. I don’t want to hurt my husband any more than I have.” With that being said, I walked in the house to deal with the consequences of my actions.