His Third Wife Read online

  “Of course I’ve seen my son,” Jamison said. “And I will tell Kerry when I’m ready to.”

  “Well, what’s his name?”

  “Jamison. His mother named him Jamison.”

  Val erupted in bitter laughter. Angry laughter. “She got you. Man, she got you good,” she said. “You know, the game used to be to have an abortion and get him for the two hundred and fifty dollars, but I guess it’s changed to have the baby and wait until he’s mayor, so you can get two million dollars.”

  Jamison responded, “Is that the game you played?”

  “It’s the game we both played. I just got better at it.”

  “Well, it seems your game is over now,” Jamison said coldly. “Don’t you think?”

  “Maybe it’s better that way—that’s what I’ve been thinking.” Val stood up in front of Jamison. “Maybe everything that happened was what was supposed to happen. Because there’s no way I could continue to live here. Not like this.” Val pointed to the door where Mrs. Taylor was still taking up residence on the other side.

  “You keep saying that—‘I’m not safe here. I have to watch my back,’ ” Jamison repeated words Val had said in mumbles covered by the strength of the painkillers she’d been taking after the miscarriage when he brought her home.

  “Why can’t you see? Why can’t you believe me?”

  “Believe what?”

  “That she killed our baby! Your mother! She killed our baby!” Val cried so loud it seemed like it was the first time she’d said it.

  “You kept saying that when we came home from the hospital. It was just the medication talking,” Jamison said. “You made it up in your head.”

  “I didn’t make it up. I told you everything that happened that night. I remember it all.”

  “She made you dinner. That doesn’t sound like a killer to me,” Jamison said matter-of-factly.

  “There was something in it,” Val said.

  “You said that before, but it’s crazy.”

  “Why? Why can’t you believe it?”

  “Because it’s crazy. Because she’s my mother. And that was her grandchild. Why would she do that?” Jamison listed.

  “Because she wants you to herself,” Val said. “And she wants me gone. Just like she wanted Kerry gone.”

  “That’s ridiculous. My mother may be a handful, but she just wants me to be happy. So, yes, she did want you gone, but that wasn’t because of the baby. It was because of your actions.” Jamison’s statement took him back to the kitchen that day when his mother had come in from her walk talking about the car—the silver car. Then his mind went back again, way back to a darker time. A dark night with a silver car in it. The Rainforest. The silver Maserati in the driveway. It was the same car at the news station earlier that day.

  “My actions? I didn’t do anything! I’ve been—”

  “Who was in that car?”

  “What car?”

  “That silver car. The Maserati.” Jamison stood.

  “No one,” Val stumbled with her heart jerking forward in fear.

  “Tell me,” Jamison said. “Who was it?”

  “I told you and your mother, it was nothing! I wasn’t cheat—”

  “I don’t care about that—” Jamison grabbed Val’s arms and started shaking. “I just need to know who it was. It’s not even about you.”

  Val wrestled loose from Jamison’s hold and his wild eyes and told him that name. The story. The past.

  “It was over between us when I met you,” Val said after telling. “And then he just showed up asking all these questions. That night at Paschal’s—he had all these questions about you. And then he wanted to know what you knew about Dax’s murder.”

  Jamison pushed away from Val and went to the window to look at the shadows gathering in the ground at the promise of night coming.

  “I knew something was up—something was going on, but I—I was afraid.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Jamison whispered.

  “I was afraid. Afraid of what he’d do to you. To us,” Val said. “He’s dangerous, Jamison.”

  “You should’ve told me.”

  “For what? What are you going to do?” Val asked.

  But Jamison didn’t respond. He never would. He went to the nightstand to gather his keys and his cell phone and walked out of the bedroom, out of the house, away from Val.

  “Enemy Territory”

  Keet walked into the mayor’s office the next day with a smile and a ginger step. He was in an argyle sweater and penny loafers. The visit came via an invitation from Jamison’s receptionist, who knew only her orders and greeted Keet in the lobby.

  “Officer Neales, welcome to Mayor Jamison Taylor’s office.” She shook his hand. “The mayor will be with you in a minute. Please know we don’t allow recording devices of any kind beyond the reception area. I’ll hold your cell phone up front. If you’d like a picture with the mayor, I can bring the phone back in after your meeting.”

  “Darling, I know the rules.” Keet held out his hand. “No phone. No camera. No recording devices.”

  “Wonderful. I’ll let him know you’re here.”

  Jamison and Leaf had come up with the idea to invite Keet to the office over a beer at a bar the night Val had told her story. The plan was simple: talk—say what they knew and see what he’d say. Keet may have been dangerous—obviously he was dangerous—but he wasn’t stupid. They could get him on their territory. Play by their rules.

  “Brother Neales,” Jamison said, standing at his desk when Keet walked in with his receptionist. He offered Keet a seat and excused the receptionist. Leaf was in the room adjacent to the office listening in. “I’m glad you agreed to come today.”

  Keet sat and opened his legs wide in comfort and ease, but the smile on his face had so many levels.

  “I’m sure you know I didn’t call you down here about a job,” Jamison started. “I’m sure you know I know that was never your intention.”

  “Maybe it was,” Keet said free of his stuttering. “Maybe that was my intention—a long, long time ago.”

  “Well, it’s not now,” Jamison said. “We both know that. You want something else. Something that has you following me around. Following my wife around. And, you know, I can say that because I don’t think you want it to be a secret. I think you’ve been waiting for me to figure it out.”

  “Why would I want you to do that?” Keet asked.

  “That’s what I’ve been thinking about. What I’ve been trying to figure out all morning. All night. We know it’s not that you want to be here. And it can’t be that you want me in your pocket—I know there’s already a list of people both of us know, who think they have me in their pocket.”

  “Really? Like whom?”

  Jamison went on with his list. “And—and it can’t be that you want both sides of your bread buttered. You’d be found out soon enough and, well, whoever’s on the other side of this toast, they wouldn’t take too kindly to that.”

  “So what if they do?”

  “Humph . . .” Jamison rocked back in his big leather chair and weighed options he hadn’t really considered yet. “Well, if they do, whoever they are, they’d probably get rid of you. Because they don’t need you. For whatever they want to do.”

  Keet laughed to suggest that Jamison was wasting his time.

  “You’re funny as fuck, Mr. Mayor,” Keet said. “Always have me laughing. Can’t even watch the news without you having me laughing—you know, that performance you made on Fox yesterday. Pure entertainment.”

  “I’m glad you tuned in. I only wonder if whoever so desperately wants Ras behind bars was tuning in too.”

  “I’m sure whoever was,” Keet said distantly before abruptly getting up from his seat.

  “I’m sure they realized they don’t have me in their pocket anymore. That probably made them very mad. Probably made them come down on the low guys on the totem pole.” Jamison stood up as Keet had turned his back to walk
out. “The low guys like you. The ones who do the dirty work.”

  “This is a joke,” Keet said firmly.

  “You think?”

  “Yeah, it is. It’s a joke if you think this little Columbo routine you’re playing here is going to get you anywhere. You can go on any news station you want to. It won’t stop.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re talking about men and money. And men and power,” Keet said. “The shit that makes this motherfucker go around.” He looked around the office. “All of it. The fucking reason you’re here—in office. Contracts. Business. That mean green. You think you got here by chance? They made you. They fucking made you. And when you’re gone, they’ll just make another one. Another contract signer. Get them in. Get them out.”

  “How much are they paying you?” Jamison asked.

  “What?” Keet laughed at what he’d selected as a joke and finally turned to leave.

  “How much did they pay you to kill Dax?”

  Keet stopped, and with his full back to Jamison, he answered, “I wasn’t there the night Dax was killed, Mr. Mayor. You were.”

  Jamison’s bubble of boldness burst with that mention. He hadn’t told Leaf, who was listening in, about the night at the Rainforest.

  Keet felt Jamison’s hesitation and turned to attack.

  “Don’t you know they have that in their pockets? That you were there that night? You put in work. Right?”

  “I didn’t do—”

  “No. No. No,” Keet said. “We’re both familiar with the law. You know you can’t be in the room with a dying man and not take some of the blame. Your hands are dirty too. How much are they paying you?” He looked around the room again.

  Jamison was stunned to silence.

  “And look, you can tell that girl not to worry. Won’t be bothering her anymore. I’m not into seconds. Plenty fish out here.” Keet tilted his head toward Jamison in mock concern. “And I’m sorry to hear about her baby. Your baby. Right?”

  When Keet walked out and Leaf walked in, Jamison felt that he was losing his step. He imagined Dax standing in front of him holding a microphone, smiling, youth alive in his eyes.

  The good thing about losing my marriage was finding myself. Not me before Jamison and I got married fresh out of Morehouse and Spelman. Me with a bow and arrow. Me with heart and nerve. With fight in me. It’s funny, because anyone who knew us back then knew that my weakness was part of why Jamison loved me so much. It was what made me available to him. What made him open so wide to me. Yeah, I was feisty—someone that had my mother for backup, but I was always falling apart and Jamison was always getting me together. Sometimes I look back and think maybe he felt like a needed thing. Like a hammer or wrench. A gun. But in the end, after the end, in the divorce, I, like most other women, learned to be my own hammer and wrench. Be my own gun. I didn’t need him like I needed him before. I needed me.

  Now, that’s a whole lot of catharsis. Liberating language that came after years in the world by myself. Raising a son. Living alone. Realizing that, at the end of the day, the only person who was responsible for my life was me. But I didn’t get there on my own. There were signposts I had to learn to read along the way. Friends who showed up and dragged me out to dinner. Lovers who made me feel sexy. Family who let me know I would trust again. A son who proved to me every day that it wasn’t just about me.

  Probably most influential in that journey was a place I found when I was way at the bottom of a barrel of misery. A place filled with other women who were going through the same thing and understood what I needed to understand. The women at Hell Hath No Fury House, an innovative counseling center for women going through divorce, held my hand and helped me over my hump. After I cut off my hair and everyone thought I was crazy, I showed up on the doorstep of the house and met with a counselor who said my sisters there were going to change my life.

  And they did. As they listened, I felt soft, empathetic hands wrapped over my shoulders. It was more than a rebirth. It was a baptism there. I became addicted to the place. To the feeling I got from being helped and helping. I referred friends and family, anyone I met on the street, there. And soon I realized being at HHNFH was more than nourishment for my spirit, it was what I wanted to do with my life—to spend it helping others. Interestingly enough, I was already on that path when I started at HHNFH. I was working on my second degree in public health with hopes of opening a clinic for handicapped mothers. Somewhere that they could go to get help and basic services. Really, it was everything I could do at HHNFH—just with women dealing with a specific kind of handicap. So, I put my hopes on hold and joined the board of trustees at HHNFH. It’s amounted to a career choice I don’t get paid for. But I put in the hours anyway, knowing getting paid in no way measures up to a payoff.

  “That little girl stays in some trouble. Doesn’t matter what I do, Cheyenne will find a way to get in some trouble and drag me and her brother and the little ones right up into it with her. You know last week she told Reginald she didn’t want him to be her father anymore? She said AJ is her real father now. Can you believe that? You know what kind of crazy phone call I got from her father after she made that little comment?”

  I nodded along. I could believe every detail of the tale. I was sitting at the front desk at HHNFH beside Dawn, one of my Spelman sisters who’d been having a hard divorce years ago when her roommate from Spelman arrived at her doorstep one morning for a visit and left one evening with Dawn’s husband in tow. It was a scandalous affair that had left Dawn on the brink, but I referred her to HHNFH and her brink experience became her calling for service. Now, she was in the vineyard at HHNFH working with me.

  “You’ve got to give Cheyenne some space. Let her get some bruises,” I said to Dawn. “And if her father was so hurt by what she said, he should’ve taken it up with her—not you. You didn’t say it. What did he want from you?”

  “Blood! I don’t know,” Dawn joked before smiling at a HHNFH sister who was walking in to meet with her divorce counselor. Neither one of us knew her name. None of us went by our real names at the center. Instead, we wore name tags highlighting the names of famous and infamous former brides (Ivana, Juanita, Jennifer, Elin, Star—there was even a Carol McCain) in an attempt to protect everyone’s anonymity because there were some pretty rich first wives walking through that door in tears and with black eyes and broken hearts.

  “Who do I write a check to?” the woman asked before picking up a name tag that read LisaRaye.

  “Oh, no one,” Dawn said. “You know all of your treatment here at HHNFH is privately funded through donations. There’s no charge to you. Not ever.”

  “Oh, I know. I’m donating today,” LisaRaye started as she pulled out her checkbook and a shiny silver pen. “I signed my divorce decree last night. I realized I never would’ve made it through that if it wasn’t for everything I learned in this place. Who do I make the check out to?” She looked from Dawn to me sitting beside her.

  “Oh, it’s Hell Hath No Fury House, LLC,” I said.

  “Great.” She knelt down and wrote before our eyes a check for twenty thousand dollars. She pressed the silver pen hard into the paper and drew a little heart over her name on the signature line. “That’s the last time I’ll be using this name. We can all thank Mr. LisaRaye for this twenty-K. Bastard.” She tore the check from the book and handed it to Dawn like it was a receipt from the supermarket.

  “Enjoy your session,” Dawn said to her back as she walked toward the steps that led to her counselor’s office. The actual Fury House was really a house. A huge Queen Anne with a porch out front made for sitting. There were hardwood floors throughout. Pictures of beautiful things and beautiful words on the walls. Dawn’s favorite was a Maya Angelou poem over the mantel in the group meeting room.

  “Twenty thousand?” Dawn read the check, amazed. “Did she really just do that to her poor ex-husband?”

  “Don’t act surprised. I know you’ve seen bigger checks than
that floating around here,” I said. “And don’t be sorry for her ex. I’m sure he earned every dime of that punishment. She wasn’t wearing that name tag for nothing.”

  Dawn and I laughed. I took the check from her and went to put it in a locked file cabinet for the director.

  Standing there, looking for the donations folder, I was talking about how it always seemed like the men were the ones messing up the marriages. The women weren’t without fault, but somehow it seemed between the assistants, Facebook friends, old girlfriends, bad business deals, and poor financial decisions, the men carried the blame.

  “I’m not trying to generalize and I might be a little biased, but I’ll be damned it it’s not true.” I’d stuffed the check into the folder and closed the drawer when I realized Dawn hadn’t said a word in a few seconds. I turned to the desk where she was sitting to ask what she thought and discovered why she was silent. Standing there with crossed arms was someone whose face we both knew.

  “Can I help you?” Dawn asked awkwardly. While she’d never seen the face before her in person, like everyone else in Atlanta, she knew who it was.

  “I need help.”

  I honestly thought she was there to fight me. There to start something. Get in my face about Jamison and call me out of my name. Why else would Val be at HHNFH?

  I stood my ground. Two feet planted firmly to the hardwood. Ready to fight.

  But then I saw the worry in Val’s face.

  I loosened one foot and wondered if maybe she was lost.

  But then I saw the tears in Val’s eyes.

  I loosened the other foot and wondered if she was trying to be found.

  I walked up behind Dawn, whose silence let me know she was actually waiting for me to say something.

  “I’ll handle this,” I said to Dawn.

  She looked up at me. “You sure?”

  “Yes.”

  Dawn got up from her seat and patted me on the shoulder. “I’ll be right in the back,” she offered. “Call me if you need me.”