Unfaithful Ties (14 page)

There was a hollow hissing sound surrounding the room. It was coming from a machine that was apparently helping Vanessa breathe. A thick band of gauze was wrapped around her head along with a tangle of tubes protruding from her helpless body. Every tube possible was tied to her arms, feet, and her head. Realizing how much pain she must’ve been in broke Jason’s heart, to the point where he felt like he was standing there with a big hole in his chest. Accepting the fact that there was absolutely
nothing that he could do to help her made him feel even worse. 

Vanessa had been in Jason’s life since he was a kid and as he stood there with tears crawling out his eyes, twenty-two years of memories came rushing back to him. The latest memory being the phone conversation that they’d shared earlier that day. If he could get back that moment he wouldn’t tell her to hurry home. He’d tell her to take her time. He’d tell her to drive safe. He’d tell her he loved her over and over again.

He got down on his knees, grabbed her by the hand and said, “I’m right here with you baby. I’m not going anywhere”

He cried out loud for at least two minutes.

“I know that you’re going to come back to me. I know that you will.”

Hearing himself say those words nearly broke him down again.

“You have so much more life to live” He wept.

He kissed her hand again. “You can’t leave me now”

“What am I going to do if I can’t see that beautiful smile again?”

His voice leaked a mentally painful cry for what felt like hours.

“Sweetness you’re the only woman that belongs inside my heart. Please don’t go.” He begged, sobbingly.

“I don’t want to walk a day in this world without you. I don’t even remember how my life was before I met you because it’s seems like my life didn’t start until the day I met you.”

He sniffed.

“You know the day that I’ll always remember?
Our first dance at our wedding. We were both so happy. In a room full of our friends and family. Everyone’s eyes watching us as we danced. Do you remember on our honeymoon how we slow danced every night before we fell asleep?” He giggled and pulled her hand against his face. “Sweetness I don’t want to lose that. I want the chance to dance with you again. So you have to fight. Fight to come back to me.”

He pulled himself from the floor and stood there
for hours watching her, wanting to be there when she woke up. She didn’t. She was in a coma.

chapter 6

Stacy...Chicago Illinois

“How many of you in the courtroom today have said something that you did not mean in the heat of the moment? I ask the jurors as I pace by the jury box.

Twelve sets of eyes are following me as I move and I have been doing this long enough to know that their ears are listening to every single detail that I say at this very moment because they know that my client’s future depends on their judgments.  “I know that I have. Does that make me a murderer? No. Does it make you a murderer? No.”

“So how is it that a voicemail message recorded in the heat of the moment, when a person is upset, and hurt, and enraged
make them a murderer?”

I stop walking, fold my arms across my chest and I give the jurors the sternest look that I can muster and then I say, “It can’t”

“According to statistics, nearly one third of women murdered in the United States die at the hands of their husbands, ex-husbands, and even their boyfriends. These are records kept by the FBI and Bureau of Investigation. Now these statistics have been proven to be true in plenty of homicide cases however it’s not true this time.”

I uncross my arms and start walking again. “Look at the evidence. The bloody footprint found at the crime scene was not my client’s. The strand of hair found at the crime scene was neither the deceased victim’s hair nor my client’s hair. So what does that information prove?” I ask. “That it was not my client that committed the crime. The person who Killed Alana
Schmitzu on January 1, 2010 is still out there.”

“The only claim that the prosecution has is a voicemail message from a man who’d been betrayed. He was simply venting. Saying things that he did not mean. And because of that one message Mr.
Schmitzu has been charged with First degree Felony murder.”

“Where is the proof?”

“The prosecution wants to plant this horrid picture in your mind that Mr. Schmitzu is this coldblooded murderer but they have not provided you with one shred of evidence. They have not provided you with any actual physical proof. What they have provided you with is their version of what happened on January 1, 2010. They argue that my client had a motive, that he was an enraged husband but yet their only proof is a voicemail message that Mr. Schmitzu left on his late wife’s voicemail box weeks before she was found dead on the bedroom floor in their home. At the time that Mr. Schmitzu recorded that message he was upset. Who wouldn’t be? He’d just learned that his wife of fifteen years was having an affair. But a voicemail message in the heat of the moment does not make you a criminal because like I said we have all said things that we didn’t mean when we were upset.”

“Pay attention to the evidence that you’ve been provided with, so that my client, an innocent man, can be set free. Don’t let statistics and a fabricated version of what the prosecution claims is the truth, destroy an innocent man’s life. My client is a doctor, he saves lives, he doesn’t’ take them.”

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury I ask you to take a good strong look at the evidence and you’ll realize just like I did, that my client is innocent. Nothing further Your Honor” I say before heading back to my seat.

After the judge dismisses us for recess I head to the ladies room. I’m in a tight and I walk there quickly. Once inside I rush into the stall and handle my business. Then I walk over to the sink and check my makeup in the wide mirror behind the six sinks. I turn on the water to wash my hands when
Khylie, an attorney that works at the same firm as me approaches the sink beside me.

“I heard that you’re being a little pit-bull in the courtroom today”

I should ignore her because I know her snooty behind really doesn’t like me but I really want to see where she’s going with this conversation. “I have to be, after all it’s the only reason I’ve won every single case”

“I don’t know about this time.  You have a tough case, think you’re going to win?”

“Well that’s what I’m hoping for.”

“Good luck,
Although I still don’t think that it’s going to help you much”

“Help me with what?”

“Making partner. Even if you win this case plus a million more you’re never going to make partner at
Reeves Morris
. There is only two spots and eight candidates up for it. Surely you know that no one is going to vote you in. I have a better chance at making partner than you”

I turn off the water and give her a stare down. “What makes you say that? Is it the color of your skin or the fact that you’ve screwed half the men on the board?”

“Maybe if you’d screwed someone a long time ago you’d be partner by now. I don’t know though I don’t really picture any man on the board sleeping with a black woman. Even Horace has a white wife.”

My hand desperately wants to slap her pale white face but I restrain myself. “Has it ever occurred to you that this black woman doesn’t have to sleep with men to get awarded for what I do best? What I’m damn good at. So, you just keep on sleeping with every man in the damn firm and I’ll continue watching them toss you around like the little slut that you are. And you know what else? After they’re doing having their little fun with you, you’re still not going to be a partner at
Reeves Morris.
Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go” I snap giving a look that says helfa’ you better not say another word to me unless you want to pull my pumps out of your mouth, and I march off.

I’ve always hated the moment right before the verdict is read. I always get this nervous rush that settles right in the pit of my stomach, but anyway here it goes.

“I understand that you have a verdict” The judge says to the jury foreman.

“Yes”

The jury foreman, an African American woman in her late ages hands the forms to the court deputy.

“As to count one, murder, we find the defendant not guilty”

I’m elated this is my fifteenth win in three years. I better make partner this year.

****

When I get home from work, Layla is curled up on the sectional, crying. She has her days. Some days she’s in Great Spirit and some days you’d think she’s just buried our mother. I try to be there for her in the best way that I know how and I never fix my mouth to say, “I know exactly what you’re going through” or “I understand” like most of our family members. Because I don’t.  Only the people that live with HIV everyday truly know the difficulties of the battle.

Lately she’s been depressed and she’s also lost some weight. When she told me that she’d been diagnosed with the disease it broke my heart. It breaks my heart when I see her the way she is right now as well.

My sister is gorgeous; she’s a few shades lighter than me, an inch or two shorter, with shoulder length hair. She has a banging body, that’s to die for. You wouldn’t know the factors of her health by just looking at her. She looks perfectly healthy. That’s the number one reason I make sure that I always use protection. You can’t judge a person’s health status by simply looking at them.  You never know what a person has. Most people are not going to tell you their health status and most people don’t even know that they have it, because most people don’t get tested. But if a man thinks for one second that he’s going to get these goodies without showing me the results of his HIV screening first he has another thing coming.       

I wish it were something I could do. Something I could say. But nothing I do seems to help. So I just listen. After I set my purse on the coffee table I sit down on the sofa, and pull
Layla’s legs over my thighs. “Layla what’s wrong?”

“I heard Noah crying in my sleep last night. I just keep hearing him screaming every time I close my eyes. He’s helpless. And he’s hoping that I can save him. I can’t and the nightmare never seems to end. I feel like the disease is winning. It’s just chipping me away.” She sobs.

“Layla the disease can only win if you let it”

She wipes her eyes with a Kleenex.  “I’m tired of taking these pills every day. I’m tired of people treating me like I’m abnormal because I’m HIV positive. Like when I go visit friends and I use a glass, and they think that I don’t see them tossing it in the trash when I’m done. It’s driving me crazy.” She says and sits up. “Sometimes I feel like the whole world is pushing down on me. That this
abundant load I’m carrying is to heavy and it’s pulling me down. That’s the way people make me feel.”

Crazy how your life can change within the blink of an eye isn’t it? All it takes is one bad decision; one stupid careless choice and your life can change forever. For the longest time I blamed my brother. If it weren’t for him being locked up in the state penitentiary
Layla wouldn’t be in this mess.  That’s how she met Philippe. She’d gone to visit my brother one day and came back home with a secret admirer. My brother shouldn’t have ever allowed it to happen. The next thing I know she’s going to the state pen every weekend to see this jailbird that she hardly knew anything about. “I’m in love with him” she confided to me shortly after they’d met” I tried to warn her. “Layla you don’t know anything about that man. You don’t know what he’s done while he’s been locked up” I said. “Hell he’s been locked up for ten years” Of course she got upset with me and didn’t care to talk to me for a while. By the time we’d started communicating again the two of them had already moved in together.

It wasn’t until she learned that she was about to be a mother for the first time that she found out she’d been infected. She left Philippe shortly after but leaving him wasn’t going to change the fact of her diagnosis. My nephew Noah was born HIV positive.  He died in his sleep at eighteen months old. In my heart I feel that if Noah would have been born a healthy baby and hadn’t died
Layla would be in a much better place than she is right now. The baby would have at least given her a reason to want to live.

“People like that are just ignorant”

“Our parents treat me that way”

“I know and I think that it’s because mom and dad just haven’t been educated on HIV, that’s all. That’s with most people. Most people base their perception about the disease on hearsay, including mom and dad.”

“Life is just so hard for me now, ya’ know? If mom and dad treats me like I’m abnormal how can I expect the rest of the world not to?”

“Eventually everyone will come around. Even mom and dad”

“You have no idea what it feels like. You have no idea what I go through.” She said. “I went from being perfectly healthy, having a wonderful job, and a supportive family to feeling completely alone. The last time I visited mom and dad I felt like a prisoner. They bleached everything that I touched and mom even got mad at me for washing the dishes.
What if you cut your finger, and we get it?
She shouted at me.  It’s like going to bed and waking up to the realization that someone has put a big cloud over your life.”

“
Awwww Layla. I’m so sorry that they treated you like that. But you have to be strong. You have to. And you have to pray. That’s the only way that you’ll get through this. People will come around. Trust me”

“That’s easier said than done.” She sniffs. “People are so cruel and it could be years before people accept me. This disease could very well have eaten me alive by then.”

“Layla I think that you should really consider visiting the support group your doctor recommended”

“Why? There is nothing that no one can say to me that will change the way people treat me. Talking to
someone is not going to change anything. It’s like I’m being haunted. Why didn’t God just take my life too?”

“God hasn’t taken your life for a reason. Because your life is a testimony and you can help others.  I agree that a support group can’t change the way people treat you. Some people are cruel and that’s just the way they are. But the support group could help you learn how to cope with those
type of people.  Another plus about the support group is it will be beneficial for you to interact with other people living with HIV. Because they know and understand the different challenges you face every day.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Give me a hug” I say, and squeeze her. When she hugs me back I realize how much weight she’s lost and my heart aches for her. Pulling back, I suggest, “Let’s get out of this house”

“I don’t feel like going out”

“Come on, let’s go get our feet done. Let’s go grab an ice cream. Let’s do some things that you once loved to do”

“ I just want to stay right here
” She says. “Maybe another day”

“Okay, well, whenever you want to get out and have some fun you just let me know”

“I will”

“I love you sis”

“I love you too” She says and curls back up on the sofa.

My feet are killing me. I kick off my stilettos and head into my bedroom. I feel so sorry for my sister. I wish I could do more.  When she’s like this I feel so helpless.

****

I’m running on the treadmill when my mobile vibrates. It’s Harold. I’ve been dying
to hear his voice all day long. We’ve talked every night since we met at church and for the most part, he’s definitely someone I could get use too.

I turn off the treadmill and answer. “ Hello” I say in my sexy voice.