Page 6 of Pretty

I went to the call log and then the contact list. There was only one number listed in both under the title “My Whole Heart.” That weakened me because it wasn’t my number. I had always considered myself a lady, elegant and classy, but that made me want to roll up on that bitch and beat her ass and then head to the cemetery and pull him up and beat his too.

I dialed the number, knowing who would answer.

“Pretty. It’s been a long time.”

“How did you know it was me?”

“I knew that you would call in time. That you’d figure things out.”

“Why?”

“Why did I know?”

“Fuck that. Why did you do it? How could you lower yourself to being someone’s side chick? How could you cheat with my husband of all the men out there? How could you lower your baby’s standards to never having her father in her life fulltime or even being acknowledged for that matter.”

She laughed. “Is that what you think? Pretty, he was about to serve you with divorce papers.”

“You’re lying.”

“Take a look at those pictures again; they don’t lie. Look in the phone again. All you have to do is read the text messages; it’s all there in black and white.”

I glanced sideways at the phone in question. My fingers itched to confirm what she said, but I wasn’t ready to acknowledge it yet. “Why would he do that?”

“He loved me. He told me that. Cassius was just looking for a way out of the marriage—a way to walk away from you with some of those millions you were cuffing. Besides, he said he had never fit into your world.”

I swallowed the bitter pill she had shoved down my throat without water.

“Why would he ever get with me in the first place, if he didn’t want me?”

“He wanted you—until that week you left town to go to Maryland for the art exhibit.”

“What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

“It was one of the roughest weeks of his life. He didn’t make detective, his grandmother had recently died, and all you could think about was your art career and the money you would make. Someone had to be there for him, and it was conveniently me.”

“Bitch, I let you stay in my home during that time because you had nowhere else to go!”

“And I was grateful for your hospitality.”

“You can say whatever you want, but you were always second best. Never good enough to have your own anything. Always stuck in my shadows, wishing you could be number one. Hell, you weren’t ever even number two. His ass made me the beneficiary in his insurance policy, not you or your child. What did he leave you except for a kid? Huh?”

“What insurance policy?” She sounded devastated.

I snorted. “Sucks to be you.”

I ended the call, blocked her number, and grabbed the other phone. I sat for an hour reading text after text that they had exchanged for more than a year. Everything she said was confirmed in that text. There were discussions of their next hookup, the lies he would tell me about being on a search and recovery mission, and how he hated to hurt me, but he couldn’t live without her. The times they had sex in my home and in my bed whenever I left town. He explained it was only right that he should get some of my money since I’d painted several paintings during our marriage, and he was my inspiration. He pointed out that the income was earned during our marriage, but that no one could find out about their affair or it would be over.

I cried for another hour before I finally got up and tossed the pictures and the sonogram in the trunk along with the phone. I walked back into my bedroom and grabbed all the memorabilia, including a favorite hoodie of his, clothes that I kept that still smelled like him, and every gift he’d given me, including my wedding ring. I threw all of them into the trunk, lugged it out back, and went back for the bottle of wine.

When I returned, I pulled a lounge chair a safe distance away from the trunk. I walked back to the trunk and started a fire inside of it.

I returned to the lounge chair and watched the flames consume my deceased husband’s items as I polished off the bottle of wine.

I sat thinking about how she never would name her baby’s father. No one thought much about it because she got around. We all thought she just didn’t know who her baby’s father was.

I thought about how I let her come into my home when she had no place to go. Then I thought about how she disappeared when I lost Cassius. She dropped away before all my other friends. I figured it was because she had her hands full with raising her child . . . I never thought it was my husband’s baby.

“Lord, I will never trust another man, and I damn sure won’t give them my fragile heart.”