Page 5 of Pretty

I lifted the light-skinned baby with curly hair and golden eyes—the one whose paternity my family always questioned, the one who looked nothing like me—into my arms. I pressed a kiss to the top of his curly head and exhaled slowly.

“God, give me strength to do what needs to be done,” I prayed softly.

Jolie “Pretty” Anouk Mercier-Brightwell

SEVEN MONTHS LATER

I sifted through the personal belongings in the trunk. I had struggled to deal with them for the last three years. Although packing the clothes, shoes, and gaming equipment hadn’t been easy, it wasn’t as difficult as going through his personal items.

This box of mementos had been stored in a trunk in our guest bedroom. I had ignored it for a while, but I was ready to face the ghosts of the past today. I no longer wanted to pretend the trunk did not exist. It had taken three years to get up the courage to go through this, and another week to figure out how I could open the trunk.

There was no key that would open the lock, or if there had been a key, it wasn’t in the house. I had racked my brain trying to recall if Sergeant Patterson had brought a key to the house with my deceased husband’s other belongings in the week after his demise, and I couldn’t recall ever seeing a key. I had finally decided to pull the trunk away from the wall. After sweating and much labor, I had moved the heavy wooden container. When I searched the back of the trunk, I found the key taped there.

Tears stung my eyes as I chewed on my bottom lip. More than three years had passed since that fateful Memorial Day weekend. My parents had invited all of my siblings and myself, along with our significant others, up to their vacation home in Martha’s Vineyard. We had a wonderful time together, sunning, swimming, grilling, playing, and laughing like we had as kids.

We vowed to spend at least one week there together out of every summer moving forward. After college, we had all drifted our various ways and not visited with our parents. That weekend, we decided that we didn’t want that separation any longer. Only, I had no idea that two days later, the vow we created would be broken.

When my husband, Cassius, went swimming, I had been lying underneath an umbrella reading. My father and brothers had been further out on the water fishing, and my mother and sister were in the house, along with my older brothers, Enzo’s and Maël’s wives.

Cassius appeared to be tired and lethargic after a while. That puzzled me because my husband was an expert swimmer. He had been on the swim team in high school and college, and as a police officer, he was on the underwater search and recovery unit. He had undergone rigorous physical training, so there was no way that he was tired after only ten minutes of swimming.

I had stood and called out to him, but when he didn’t respond, I immediately jumped in the water and swam out to him. My father and brothers jumped off their boat and did the same, but it was too late. Despite all of our efforts, we weren’t able to save him from the heart attack that he’d suffered.

It was a no-brainer that I never wanted to return to our family’s vacation home again. The memories were too painful, and I was lonely without my husband. I had grown to hate the Memorial Day holiday and had come to spend that weekend in bed or away at an Airbnb all alone. I never answered the phone during that weekend or responded to texts.

In fact, I had become somewhat of a recluse in the last three years. My friends had given up on me, and I thanked God for the love of my family and the greed of my agent. They were the only ones who hadn’t given up on me. I smiled at the thought of Lauren. She was more than an agent, she was also a friend, and I loved her. Yet, we both knew it was her greed that allowed her to stay on my ass about painting and doing shows.

I had an art showing coming up in a week, and I dreaded it. I used to love seeing people’s reactions to my paintings, but not anymore. I no longer gave a shit about what they thought. I had more than enough money to never paint again if I opted not to.

I never had to work a regular nine-to-five or commit myself to work that I didn’t enjoy. From the beginning, I was able to make a living off doing my first love: painting.

During my time at Templeton Heights University, where I pursued an art degree, I built connections through Professor Evergreen and the art program. Thanks to her setting up a private showing designed for the students, I built the most important connection of my life that night—Henri Wilson, a philanthropist. He immediately became interested in my works and after speaking with me, he became interested in me as a person. He adopted me as an artist because he thought I had very promising talent.

It took a lot of convincing for my parents to agree and see that he wasn’t just some old pervert trying to bed a young, Black college student. Henri provided a living allowance, studio space, and gave me access to collectors that I wouldn’t normally have access to, all so that he could nurture the creative ecosystem. In short, he funded my paintings. Thanks to his generosity, my works and name became known and highly in demand. These days, I easily earned a quarter of a million from one of my paintings.

I sifted through the items in the trunk and immediately tossed some things into the trash can beside me. It wasn’t until I reached the bottom of the trunk that I found something interesting. There was an envelope that had the words “Baby Brightwell” at the top. Below that in smaller lettering were the words “To: Cassius Brightwell—our baby made from love.”

My stomach tightened, and my head pounded. Through my confusion, I opened the envelope to find a picture of a sonogram inside. I frowned and turned it sideways to look at the name on the picture: Tanika Cunningham.

My heart seized in my chest at the name. “Why would he have this?” I mumbled aloud.

I scanned the sonogram for the date on the picture. It was a year before he died. Tears stung my eyes, and I struggled to breathe. There had to be something more, something tangible to prove this was all a lie or some sick, twisted joke.

Another envelope and an old cell phone that I had never seen were nestled in the corner of the trunk. I peeled the envelope away and opened it, hoping that it would be the answer to my unspoken prayers. I didn’t want to believe that my husband had cheated on me. Inside the envelope were pictures confirming that he had. There were photos of him, Tanika, and what appeared to be a baby girl in his arms. He kissed the baby, held the baby, and played with the baby in different pictures.

Then there were the pictures of him with his hands around Tanika’s waist, them staring into each other’s eyes, and others where he kissed her forehead, her pregnant belly, and even her lips. They looked so happy together, so in love. All the photos had date and time stamps on them. The date stamps were during our marriage.

Even if the dates weren’t on the photos, I knew they were taken while we were together. I could tell by the length of his locs. He hadn’t started growing them until he and I started dating. The most damning evidence was the final paper included with the pictures—the DNA test that confirmed the baby’s paternity as being undoubtedly linked to Cassius Brightwell. My eyes welled with tears, and a sob clogged my throat.

How could the love of my life, the man I had pledged to love and honor forever, betray me this way? I thought the sun rose and set on his half-white ass, and he’d never given a shit about me. He played me for a fool, a joke. Was it my money? Was it my name? What had he been after?

I crumpled into a ball on the floor and sobbed for an hour before I pushed myself to my feet. I grabbed a bottle of wine from the wine cellar, popped it open, and returned to the room to wallow in my misery.

I drank directly from the bottle, and a quarter of the way in, I remembered the cell phone. I reached back inside of the trunk and grabbed it.

I stared at the black screen, knowing the phone held truths I wasn’t ready to receive. I was ready to throw it across the room.

Before I reacted too quickly, I rushed into my bedroom and hooked the phone up to my type C charger. I let it charge for five minutes before I tried to power it on again. It had three percent battery life.