Second Thoughts (13 page)

Tell Me Something

I like air travel in the summertime. I didn’t have
to deal with delays caused by deicing
planes or clearing the runway of a few inches of snow. It felt better not having to sit in a plane on a tarmac waiting for a storm that was taking longer that it was predicted to pass through the area. Today, I didn’t have to wait until some summer storm passed
through the area either. I
experienced every one of those delays before.

It had been another beautiful July day, as far as the weather was concerned. A sea of perfect blue stretched across the sunlit sky. The clouds were very few and very far apart, and
looked cotton-ball white. I
called Chance several times since our conversation last night, but the only v
oice I heard was the one he
prerecorded on his voicemail. In t
wo of the messages I left, I
asked him to return my call, but the only call I had received so far was f
rom my old buddy DaMarcus. I
included my flight information in one of those messages. I wanted to see Chance before I left. What I told him yesterday was fragmented, and I wanted the opportunity to tell him the missing pieces. During dinner, I had seen both sadness and disappointment in my younger brother’s eyes. Because of Omar’s conviction, and me, Chance had become a man and his father had nothing to do with it. Because of his father, the brother he thought he knew well had kept a secret from him when he thought we’d shared everything.

I had called and changed my flight to Atlanta instead of going to see Devaan. I needed to talk to Dr. Kendrick. Everything was happening sooner and faster than I was ready for them to. After hearing from Dexter that Devaan had already found out about my previous relationships with him and Jacoby, I decided to purposely avoid her. It did bother me that she had kept this information to herself, and I wondered if she was plotting the perfect revelation. Chance now knew the secret my mother and I had managed to keep from him for so long, and Omar, as far I knew, was now a free man. Dr. Kendrick was squeezing me in between lunch and a client at 1:30 on Wednesday. In fact, she was cutting her lunchtime short. Since I still hadn’t heard from Chance, I had decided to give up. He knew how to reach me, after he had had enough time to make sense of everything.

I stood in front of the television, channel surfing. I’d settled on CNN as they streamed live videos from the courtroom, teasing for minutes that the verdict for Casey Anthony was coming up soon. Soon was already taking a long time. I walked back and forth, retrieving my toiletries from the bathroom and placing them in my bag that rested on the bed. I kept my ears open.

“As to the charge of first degree murder, verdict as to count one, we the jury find the
defendant not guilty, so say we all…..”

I sat on the edge of the couch. My eyes had a difficult time believing what I was seeing. My ears had an equally difficult time believing what they were hearing.

“…not guilty…not guilty,” the clerk continued, reading each charge and its verdict. 

I’d watched this trial closely─probably because it involved the death of an innocent child─but I hadn’t drawn my own conclusion. The trial of Casey Anthony had come to a surprising end. She stood listening to her fate, her hair pulled back in a ponytail. H
er eyes batted to fight back tears. Her chest rose and fell as she breathed deeply, and I could only imagine how fast her heart was pounding under her pink ruffled button-down shirt.

“Are you fucking serious?” I said out loud, as if I hadn’t been watching this outcome by myself, or if those on the television could hear me.

I needed to call someone. Someone had to be as surprised as I was. I looked around for my cell phone and found it buried between the cushions. I had thrown it there after talking with DaMarcus. I had been waiting for this verdict, much like everyone else. I dialed her number and waited ring after ring for her to answer.

“Hey Patrick. How’ve you been?” Colleen answered in her usual pleasant voice.

“Are you sitting down?”

“Do I need to?”

“She’s been acquitted,” I said, expecting my mother to know exactly whom I was talking about.

I didn’t know if she had been following this case as closely as I have, but I do know she had expressed some interest.

“She…?  Wait, maybe I do need to sit down.”

“Casey Anthony was just found not guilty.”

“You’re lying,” Colleen uttered at the top of her voice.

She quickly calmed to a whisper as if she had just realized her environment. Of course, I had no reason to lie to my mother. This little girl had died, and no one had been held responsible for her death. Surely she didn’t kill herself.

“Of all charges?” Colleen continued. 

“Mother, I would have said the same thing if I didn’t just watch the verdict myself. But I kid you not.”

“Say it isn’t so,” she said, pleading.

“I can’t, because it is so.”

My mind flashed to my father as he stood before the jury ten years ago, listening to his own verdict for the hurt he had inflicted on me. He should have been protecting me, but instead he punished me for what I was. Casey’s hearing had ended on the day of my father’s release from his own punishment, something I had forced myself not to think about as the years ticked to months, and then weeks, and now just hours. I remembered how he sat in that witness chair, unabashed, as if he were sitting at a bar waiting for a drink he had just ordered. I remembered how he sat unemotional; unfazed by the years he would be serving behind bars, as if he had just been sentenced to a mini vacation on the islands of the Caribbean.

My mother had become silent, which meant one thing: she needed to tell me something. She’s kept things from me before, worrying about how I was going to react. Often she’s thought I overreact to situations. I’ve always thought my reactions were appropriate.

“Patrick, your father is out,” she whispered into the phone.

“She was found guilty of lying to authorities. What is that going to get her, probation?” I said, purposely ignoring my mother’s statement.

“Patrick, did you hear me?”

“And this little girl will never know the promises or even the disappointments life had in store for her.”

“I said your father was released,” she continued, disregarding my obvious attempts to ignore her and anything she had to say about this man. “He stopped by here yesterday, look
ing for you and Chance, asking me if I gave you the letters he had written.”

“Please stop referring to him as my father. If you’re going to call him anything, call him what he is─a rapist, a scum. He doesn’t deserve any other title.”

I paused to process w
hat my mother said.

“What do you mean he stopped by yesterday? Early release? How early? He doesn’t deserve to serve a day less than the sentence he was given.”

“I didn’t ask,” she quickly responded.

“And what letters are you talking about? How dare he assume I would be interested in reading anything he had to say? He lost the opportunity to say anything to me. Any words he had for me should have been said before he climbed on my fucking back.”

That language I rarely used to my mother fell from my mouth before I had a chance to take it back.

“Listen, Patrick. I know how you feel.”

“Do you, mother? Clearly you don’t.” I was becoming enraged. “You left me with him. You sent me back to him holiday after holiday.”

I angrily tossed the few items I had traveled with in the bag.

“You didn’t tell me he was doing anything to you. How was I supposed to know?”

“You just should have.”

I knew I wasn’t being reasonable and my mother agreed. 

“That’s not fair, Patrick. How could I put a stop to something when I didn’t know anything was going on?”

“Come on, Mom. I couldn’t have been that good at hiding my pain. I wasn’t the same person after that. How could you not have seen that?”

Slowly I’d become a fragment of the boy I was before. There were times I hated looking in the mirror because I didn’t recognize the person that stared back at me. I’d never known myself to be shy or introverted, but Omar had caused me to become withdrawn. Often I felt insufficient, the biggest disappointment to my father. 

“Do you seriously think I would have ignored any signs that anyone was hurting my own children? Was I supposed to rely on instincts I never had?”

“Mother, I begged you not to send me back there. Did you think I was saying I didn’t want to go because I wanted to hear myself talk?”

“Are we really going to have this conversation again?”

“Yes, until you give me a satisfying response.”

She was silent.

My mother had never been at a loss for words. It was one of the reasons she and her mother Georgia, my grandmother, never got along. She blamed her mother for nearly everything, relinquishing power over many aspects of her life she never thought possible. As far as my mother was concerned, Georgia was the reason she and my aunt Lexi were never able to put their differences behind them and live like sisters. Whatever those differences were, my mother never bothered to explain to me. And my grandmother, whenever I inquired, went from being just as tight-lipped to then telling me that one day I would understand. After some time, I stopped waiting for that one day to come. I watched as my grandmother went from an emotional soul to a woman who had distanced herself in real estate and with every fiber in her heart as she came to terms with her loss and also the loss my mother suffered. My grandmother was even blamed for my mother’s divorce, as if she had been sleeping between Colleen and her husband. Actually, she had warned my mother against marrying Omar. My mother should have blamed herself for not listening.

“I’ve told you everything you need to know,” Colleen said, sounding as if that answer should have been satisfying enough.

“That isn’t the same as saying you’ve told me the truth,” I corrected. “And if there are still some things you haven’t told me, that’s just the same as lying. Come on, Mom. No more lies,” I pleaded.

“No more lies,” she repeated, but still I sensed her hesitation.

“I’m serious.”

“You are. I know.”

“What does he have over you?” I asked.

I sounded like I was sure there was something, hoping that would cause her to come
forward.  

“What makes you think he has something over me?”

“You haven’t seen or spoken to this man─as far as I know─in ten years and immediately after he gets out of jail he shows up at your doorstep. Sounds to me like he had a reason, and something tel
ls me it wasn’t to tell you about the upstanding men he bonded with in jail. Now, either you’re going to tell me or I’m going to find out from him myself.”

“Do what you have to because I have nothing to tell. Now, do you really think anything he has to say about me will have any truth to it? I seriously doubt it. I can safely tell you any hatred he had in his heart didn’t stop at you.”

“Mother, I surely hope you are right.” 

We both stood on either end of the phone in silence. The last person I wanted to confront was Omar Duval. I was sure he had a chip on his shoulder, I just didn’t know if that chip had my name or my mother’s name written on it. I was determined to find out.

I ended my conversation with my mother and finished preparing for my flight back to Atlanta. I hadn’t told her I was in D.C. because I had planned on getting in and getting out. I wasn’t sure if Chance had told her, either. I sat on the bed next to the bag, trying to shake from my head the idea that my mother was hiding something from me. I had this weird feeling that I might be right, and it wasn’t a feeling I liked.
What about this man was she not telling me?
I thought. I hoped to God my mother wasn’t giving him the opportunity to hurt me again.

I decided I would call Devaan as soon as I landed. I needed to know what she knew, and giving her the silent treatment wasn’t going to bring me any closer to finding out. So much was happening in my head. I was having a difficult time keeping my thoughts focused on any one thing. I definitely needed an hour or two on Dr. Kendrick’s couch. Hopefully she’ll be able to help me figure all this out.

Chapter
14

Colleen…

Promises You Don’t Keep

This was turning out to be one crazy week. Two
surprised visits on the same day. I hadn’t
been able to think about the two officers and the summons since Omar. I tapped the steering wheel nervously as thoughts of my conversation with Patrick played loudly in my mind. If I hadn’t worn my disdain for my sister on my sleeves and had been more careful with my plan, I wouldn’t be in this position now, with Omar threatening to reveal what I had done, and I hadn’t told him. There was only one other way he could have found out. Regardless, I was already counting on Patrick’s hatred for Omar. In my defense, I had no choice. My sister Lexi Parker had fallen in love with my child. Yes, she was carrying this child from conception to birth, but he belonged to me. How could she have changed her mind at the last minute? I’d never depended on my younger sister for anything,
but the one time I needed her―the one time I thought she would come through―she was ready to renege. She knew I was depending on this child to save my marriage.