Family of Lies (8 page)

M
Y VISIT WITH
S
ARAH AND HER GRANDMOTHER LASTED A LOT LONGER
than I thought it would. I had not enjoyed such a scrumptious meal since the last time I visited Houston, and I couldn’t wait to get better acquainted with my daughter and her grandmother.

I got home around five that evening. Vera was in our bedroom taking a nap. She looked so innocent and peaceful lying on the bed on her back. For a brief moment I considered not telling her about my affair and Sarah. I had enough money to do just about anything a cheating man could do to keep his house in order. Vera didn’t have to know about me taking care of Sarah and her grandmother. But the downside was that I could never have an open and honest relationship with my only child. I could never claim her in public, bring her to my house, or introduce her to my friends and family.

Vera stirred as soon as I sat down on the side of the bed. She opened her eyes when I caressed her chin. “Hello, beautiful,” I greeted. “I’ve been thinking about you all day.”

She gave me a strange look at first; then she touched my hand, which was still caressing her face. “Where have you been?” she asked with a yawn. “I was getting real worried.” She sat up and stretched her arms. She wore a red see-through negligee with matching crotchless panties. And from the smell of fermented grapes on her breath, I could tell that she’d also sipped a glass or two of wine. “Why . . . what’s the matter? You don’t look so good.” Vera felt my forehead. “Did you take your pills today?”

I nodded. “All twelve of those suckers,” I said dryly.

“Good. I don’t want anything to happen to you,” she said with relief as she gently squeezed my arm. “I want you to be around for a very long time.”

“Baby, we need to talk. It’s real important,” I began. My chest tightened and I wondered if I’d live through my confession. “I have something to tell you . . .” The words left a nasty taste in my mouth. I knew that everything else I said in the next few minutes was going to taste even nastier.

“What is it?” Vera’s body stiffened. She pressed her lips together and blinked at me. “What’s going on, Kenneth?”

“I don’t know how to say this. First I want to say that if you want to leave me after I tell you, I’ll understand. But I love you more than I love life and I hope you can forgive me.”

“Kenneth, what did you do?” Vera didn’t even sound like herself. Her voice, which was usually soft and mellow, was so hoarse and cold I thought I was talking to a stranger.

“Baby, I’ve done something real . . . uh . . . real bad,” I fumbled.

Vera looked frightened. Tears formed in her eyes. “Well, what is it?”

“See . . . there was another woman.” I almost choked on the words.

“Another woman? Kenneth, are you telling me you’re having an affair?”

“Something like that,” I said in a voice just above a whisper.

“Who is she?” Her voice was so soft and gentle now it scared me. “Do you love her?”

I shook my head. “I did at one time.”

“But you don’t love her now?”

“She’s dead now.”

Vera pressed her lips together again. I didn’t like the look on her face now because I couldn’t read it. She didn’t look mad or hurt yet, so I really didn’t know what was going through her mind.

“This other woman you were in love with at one time is dead?” She released the words in such a detached, mechanical manner she sounded like a lousy actress reading from a lousy script. “Did you kill her?”

The odd question caught me completely off guard and I almost laughed. “No, she died in an automobile accident.” All of a sudden, I was itching in several different places. I snorted and scratched my nose and the side of my neck. But I was still itching. “Do you want the long version or the short version?”

“Give me the short version and then I’ll let you know if I want to know more details.” I still couldn’t decide if Vera was mad or what emotion she was feeling. But she did look dazed. I had a strong feeling that I was going to be doing some serious damage control until the day I died. If Vera stayed with me, I’d let her do whatever she wanted. I wanted to keep my wife just that badly.

“I had an affair with Lois Cooper. I didn’t know she was pregnant with my child when she disappeared. Maybe that’s why she disappeared. Anyway, I went to her funeral and I met her mother and . . . uh . . . the child.”

“She was the child in the picture that was in the newspaper?” Vera asked with her lips trembling.

“Yes. I knew when I saw that picture that the child was probably mine. She looks just like my late brother’s daughter. I had a DNA test done to confirm it. Anyway, I’m going to take care of my child. I’m going to move her and her grandmother into the Davis Street condo. I’ll be buying them all new clothes and everything else they need. I knew that sooner or later, you’d find out and I wanted to make sure you heard it from me first.” I stopped talking and held my breath. I couldn’t look Vera in the eyes. But when she touched my hand, I did.

The next few minutes were very tense. Vera cried, I cried.

“How could you do this to me, Kenneth? You . . . you bastard!” she exploded. “I’ve been a good wife to you! I don’t deserve this!”

I opened my mouth to speak, but before I could get a word out, Vera lunged at me like a tiger. We tumbled to the floor with her on top of me. She pummeled my head with both fists and I cried even harder. Then she slapped my face, bit my hand, and beat on my chest like she was beating a bongo drum. I thought she was going to kill me. I took my punishment like a man. I didn’t even try to defend myself. When she finished whupping me, I wobbled up off the floor and staggered into the bathroom. After I had pissed out what seemed like a quart of urine, I splashed some water on my face and cleaned off my wounds. I was glad that the bite marks and scratches were mostly on my lower neck and arms and other places where I wouldn’t have trouble hiding them from inquiring minds. I waited a few minutes until I thought it was safe and then I went back into the bedroom. Vera was sitting on the bed, looking like a zombie. I braced myself for another attack as I eased down next to her with a cold pack on my face.

“Kenneth, I . . . I love you and . . . and I don’t want to let you go,” she blubbered. “I know you’re only human and I know how some of these little girls behave around handsome, wealthy men like you.” She leaned over and grabbed a Kleenex off the nightstand. “If you want a divorce . . .”

“A divorce? Woman, I don’t want a damn divorce! I married you for life. I . . . I was a damn fool for cheating on you, and I swear to God it’ll never happen again. But I have to do the right thing by my child. I want us to be a family. You know I’ve always wanted children, and I know how badly you want to raise a child. This may be our only chance.”

Vera covered her face with her hands and sobbed very quietly for about a minute. And I felt like a piece of shit the whole time.

“Was Lois the only one?” she choked.

“Huh? Oh! Of course she was the only one! I was weak . . . I was going through that damn midlife crisis at the time, and that was the
only
reason I slipped up the way I did!” I couldn’t believe how easily the lie slid out of my mouth. But my goose was already in the oven, and I didn’t want to turn up the heat. The truth of the matter was, I’d been with at least two dozen women since I married Vera. “You’re all I want and if you’ll stay with me and forgive me, I promise I will make everything up to you.”

The room got so quiet I could actually hear my sorry heart thumping against the wall of my chest.

“When will I meet your daughter?” Vera asked, her gentle tone back. Her question gave me hope.

“As soon as possible. I spent this afternoon with them, even had supper over there. They started packing before I left. I’m going to move them into the condo on Davis Street this week—if that’s all right with you.”

Vera sniffed and shrugged as she swiped her nose with a tissue. “I don’t care. We hardly ever use the condo anymore and most of your out-of-town associates prefer hotels.” She gave me a weak smile as she tossed the tissue onto the nightstand. Then she pulled me down on top of her. “Kenneth, I think we can get beyond this intact,” she whispered. “We’ve put too much into this marriage to give up on it now.”

“I’m so sorry, baby. I promise I will never cheat on you again,” I whispered back. “Thank you for being such an understanding woman.”

We made love that night like we’d never made love before.

I
’D BEATEN AND BITTEN
K
ENNETH AS MUCH AS
I
COULD MANAGE
without breaking one of my nails. After we had both stopped crying, I allowed him to pull me into his arms and tell me how “sorry” he was several more times as we lay on the bed.

I had acted appropriately for a woman who had just been told by her husband that he’d fathered a child with another woman. That much I already knew, but I was appalled that he had already decided to take care of that child and her grandmother before even discussing it with me.

After I had calmed down and composed myself, I “forgave” Kenneth. I even allowed him to fuck me so that he would think everything was going to be all right. And it would be for me. I was going to make sure of that. From the moment he told me that I was going to have to put up with his whore’s child, I started planning my future. And it was not going to include Kenneth or his bastard child if I could help it!

Ten minutes after Kenneth had rolled his sorry ass off me, he was snoring like a moose. He was the only person I knew who could sleep through a tidal wave. I covered my ears so I wouldn’t have to listen to the annoying way he ground his teeth in his sleep. A few more minutes later, I took a long hot shower. After I’d reapplied my makeup and fixed my hair, I slid into a pair of pants and a blouse. I left him a note on the nightstand to let him know that I needed to be away from him for a day or so. Then I crept downstairs.

I could hear Delia in the kitchen cleaning up after the lavish dinner she had prepared and served. She was humming some silly-sounding song in Spanish, the way she always did when she was in the kitchen alone.

“Delia, my cousin and his wife are coming to stay with us for a while. Get one of the bedrooms on the second floor ready for them.”

“
Sí
, Senora Vera,” Delia replied with a puzzled look on her face as I left the room.

I eased out the front door and ran to my BMW that I had parked in the driveway.

It was around eight o’clock when I arrived at Tony’s place, a couple of hours after Kenneth had dropped his bombshell in my lap.

“I am going to make him pay through his asshole! I will never let him forget this!” I started hollering as soon as Tony opened the door for me and waved me into his living room. He cleared off his cluttered couch and trotted to his kitchen with me following close behind him, stepping on dirty clothes on the floor. No matter how often I tidied up his apartment when I visited, it always looked like a train wreck when I returned. Dirty clothes, dirty dishes, fast-food containers, and empty beer bottles were everywhere. There was no place to sit in the kitchen, so I stood in the middle of the floor waving my arms and stomping my foot. “I can’t believe that man! He’s going to pay for this!”

“Calm down, baby,” Tony said. He lifted a shot glass off the counter and handed it to me. “I just poured this for myself, but it looks like you need it more than I do.”

I snatched the glass out of his hand and gulped down the tequila in less than three seconds—and I didn’t even like strong-ass alcohol like this shit unless it was in a margarita.

“Now tell me what the problem is? I have never seen you this upset before.”

“He’s got a daughter!” I screeched. “He’s going to parade her to the world, making
me
look like a fool!”

“Who’s got a daughter?”

“Kenneth. He fucked some little hoochie coochie bitch from the hood and got her skank ass pregnant. Oh, it would have been one thing if the bitch had had some class, some education, some breeding. I could have gotten over that a lot easier and sooner. But he had to get him some of that nasty Hunters Point pussy! It’s a wonder he hasn’t given me AIDS!”

“How did you find out?” I was glad to see that Tony had poured himself another drink. And I was glad to see that he was already half naked. He had removed his shirt, so all he had on were his pants and they were already unzipped. His crotch had such a huge bulge it looked like he had stuffed a large fist down his pants. I was glad to see that too. I was going to need a vigorous workout to let off all the steam I had in me.

“He told me to my face a couple of hours ago! I thought I would faint dead away! And I beat the dog shit out of his black ass!”

“Baby, you didn’t know nothing about him having a child at all?”

“No, I didn’t know!” There was no reason in the world for me to tell Tony that I had known about Sarah since before she was born. That was one piece of information I would take with me to the grave. That and the fact that I’d been supporting that child all these years.

“Shit! That’s some knee-deep shit, if you ask me. Is he still seeing this woman?”

“Oh no. That heifer died in a car wreck a couple of weeks ago.”

Tony froze. A profoundly sad look slid across his face and covered it like a veil. I knew that he was thinking about his four-year-old daughter who had died in a wreck with his ex last year. “What about the baby? Did she die with her mama?”

Unfortunately, she didn’t!
was what I wanted to say. But because of Tony’s tragedy and the fact that I didn’t want him to think I was that insensitive, I said, “Thank God that child didn’t die with her mama. And now I’m going to have to deal with
that child
for the rest of my life! SHIT!”

“Uh, I know you’re upset, but you don’t have any reason to be mad with the child. She’s an innocent victim.”

I rotated my neck and gave him a hot look. “Whose side are you on?”

“I’m on your side, sugar,” Tony assured me with a hug. “At least you didn’t have to see that child all these years.” He snorted and cleared his throat. “But, uh, will you and Kenneth be taking her in to raise now? You’ve been telling me for the longest time how desperate he is to be a daddy.”

I almost choked on my tongue. “Hell no we’re not going to raise that child! She’s a teenager now and Kenneth will support her, but there is no way in the world
I’m
going to raise another woman’s child that she got by fucking my husband! She lives with the grandmother.”

“Oh. Well, I’m glad to hear that. That’ll lighten your load, I guess.”

“I don’t know about that. Just knowing about it is a load that’s way too heavy for me. He’ll be bringing her to the house and I’ll have to look at her, talk to her, and act like I care about her! And on top of that, Kenneth is moving her and the grandmother into the condo on Davis!”

Tony’s face looked like it had suddenly turned to stone. “I thought you told me I was going to move into that Davis condo eventually. I’m ready to get up out of this pooh-butt shoebox I’m in now.”

“I was going to let you have the condo, baby. You know I don’t lie to you. But I’ll hook you up with another place. One even nicer and bigger than the one on Davis! I’m going to make that motherfucker sorry he was born. By the time I get through spending his money, he’ll be panhandling.”

I slept at Tony’s place that night. I was still too angry to be around Kenneth, and I was too drunk to get behind the wheel.

I got home on Monday afternoon, after I’d treated Tony to a shopping spree in several upscale men’s clothing stores and signed a year’s lease on a three-bedroom, lavishly furnished apartment for him near Fisherman’s Wharf. Except for our housekeeper, the house was empty.

“Did Mr. Lomax go into his office today, Delia?” I asked as I limped into the kitchen. I immediately went to the refrigerator and poured myself a glass of tomato juice. I had a hangover that wouldn’t quit and I was aching in several places throughout my body. After fucking Tony a few hours after I’d fucked Kenneth last night, the insides of my thighs felt like they were on fire. When I was twenty-one, screwing more than one man within hours of each other didn’t bother me as much as it did now at the age of fifty.

“Yez, yez,
senora
. Senor Lomax go to office early in morning,” Delia said in her heavy Salvadoran accent. “I fix you a lunch?”

“No, I’m not hungry. And when you get the room ready for my cousin and his wife, make sure you put all new linen on the beds,” I ordered.

“
Sí
. Right away, senora,” Delia said, no questions asked. As soon as she left the kitchen, I called up my cousin Cash at work. He answered on the third ring.

“We need to talk,” I told him.

“What about?”

“Are you ready to move into a better location?”

“I’ve been ready to move into a better location since the day I got back here from the military. But I’m barely able to pay the rent where I’m at now. Why?”

“With Kenneth gone so much, I get real lonely over here sometimes. How would you and your wife like to move in with Kenneth and me? This mansion is way too big for just two people and . . . I’d like to have you closer to me, cuz. I did promise your mama I’d keep an eye on you when you moved out here.” Poor Cash. He was the family fool. Without me looking out for him, there was no telling where he would be now. He looked like a frog and I was the only family member who made him feel special and he did the same for me. I rewarded his allegiance by making it possible for him to enjoy some of the benefits of Kenneth’s money. In turn, he did whatever I told him to do. Last month when I lost control of my car and knocked over a mailbox, Cash climbed behind the wheel and took the blame. His license got suspended for thirty days, but I bought him a brand-new Ford Bronco for helping me out.

“It took you long enough to ask me. I’ve been in Frisco for almost twenty years.”

“Don’t get cute with me! It’s better late than never. Now do you want to move in here or not?”

“Would I like to live in that palace? Woman, do a bear shit in the woods? What the hell is going on, Vera? I’d give my left ball to live in a mansion like the one you and Kenneth live in!”

“I’m going to get one of the bedrooms on the second floor ready with my own hands—and you know how much I hate doing housekeeping of any kind.”

“Vera, you kidding me, right? What brought this on? When we asked you to let us rent a room in the mansion last year, you almost had a heart attack.”

“Forget all that. I want you and Collette to move into the mansion as soon as possible. Start packing up your shit tonight.”

Cash mumbled something unintelligible under his breath. “You trying to get back at Kenneth for something,” he accused. “What’s going on, Vera?”

“That motherfucker had a child with that Lois Cooper, that bitch who used to be his secretary. Now he’s moving the child and her grandmother into the Davis Street condo we own.”

“Holy shit!”

“Did you know about him and that bitch?”

“Who, me? Hell no, I didn’t know a damn thing! You know I would have put a bug in your ear.”

I knew my cousin was probably lying, and I didn’t blame him. He was not about to jeopardize his relationship with Kenneth and lose his job. Just like I had not been stupid enough to blow up my marriage when I first found out about Lois and forced her into that arrangement. For all I knew, if I had handled that situation wrong, Kenneth might have left me for her!

“I know you would have told me if you knew, Cash. I can count on you.”

“That’s right. I don’t get involved in nothing but what Kenneth tells me to do on this job. I need my job,” he stated emphatically, proving my point. “What the brother did was some stupid shit.” Cash was my mother’s oldest sister’s only child. I’d taken him under my wing when he was still in grade school. He had learned a lot from me. When it came to the art of deception, he was almost as devious as I was. Like me, he worked both sides of the street at the same time. And right now it was to his advantage for him to remain silent about his role in the mess Kenneth had created. He knew that as long as he respected me and did whatever I told him to do, I would never “encourage” Kenneth to fire him.

“Don’t be no fool, cuz. Don’t do nothing stupid. Not with the prenup you signed. I’d hate to see you going back to work for another one of them fly-by-night temp agencies like you did back in Houston. Please tell me you won’t be divorcing Kenneth.”

I hesitated for a few moments. “Divorce my foot! What’s wrong with you, man? I’m pissed as hell for sure. But like they say, my mama didn’t raise no fool. I’ve got a damn good thing going for myself and I want to keep it going.”

“That makes two of us,” Cash agreed.