A Cold Piece of Work (26 page)

“Sorry for what?” he said. “For not telling me you have an ex-husband? Could that be it?”

Michele did not answer for a few seconds.

“Solomon, I'm sorry,” she said, finally.

It hit Solomon just then; there was a reversal of power. With the revelation that Michele was married, she lost her edge. Solomon's issues were pushed aside. He had the upper hand.
And Solomon being Solomon, he did not waste the position of strength he suddenly held.

“So what else haven't you told me? Seems like you're good at holding back important information. First Gerald, now I find out that you were married? Damn.”

“It's not fair to put Gerald in there; you left me, remember?” Michele said.

“Oh, so you have no shame about your stuff? You hold back info—important stuff—and it's okay?”

“No, it's not. I'm sorry, Solomon. I should've told you.”

“So why didn't you?”

“Where's Gerald?” Michele asked, looking toward the rear of the house.

“You can talk,” Solomon said. “I told him that he could have thirty minutes playing a videogame...I'm listening.”

“It was so long ago that I didn't feel like it was something I needed to share with you,” Michele said. “It was a mistake. Gary and I were married for fourteen months. That was about four years ago. A different life ago.”

“Really?” Solomon's anger was misplaced; he was more concerned with making her feel guilty about how she judged him than he was about her not sharing important personal information.

“Do you recall me telling you the same thing about my situation with that woman?” he added. “That was four years ago, too? So, if I take the position you took with me, I'd think you were full of it.”

Michele looked at him.

“But I'm not going to be like you,” Solomon said. “I'm going to do like you should do when you learn something; listen and not judge.”

“I appreciate that.”

Solomon, who had been standing over her, took a seat on the couch with her.

“The reality was that I was searching for someone, a man, to be there for Gerald,” she said. “I met Gary and I knew in my heart we weren't supposed to be together. But he was good to me and to Gerald. So when he asked me to marry him, I looked at Gerald and did it for him.”

“Michele, you're a smart woman,” Solomon said. “You have to know marrying for something other than love is a bad idea. Even I know that.”

She did not respond.

“Here's the problem with women that I'll never understand,” Solomon went on. “You hope and pray that someone who's not right for you will magically become right for you. You know it's a mismatch, but you convince yourself that you can change him, or that the things he falls short on are not that bad.

“You know how many times I've heard this same story? ‘He didn't please me in bed, but I figured it would get better after we were married.' Or ‘He liked to go out every weekend, but I thought that would change when we got married.' And on and on.

“If you're forcing it, it won't work; simple as that. And here's the thing: I've heard the same crap from women of all levels of education, success, backgrounds, whatever. And that tells me one thing: You are all the same.”

“There's some truth to that,” Michele conceded. “But my reasons for marrying him were different. I realized that he wasn't right for me, but it wasn't about me. It was about my son.”

“That's all well and good,” Solomon said. “That's honorable, like the guy who marries the pregnant girl because she had or is having his baby. I get it. I don't understand how a thinking person can fool himself into believing a marriage will work when you
basically are in it for the wrong reasons. But still it happens; a lot.

“Any woman I ever met who was divorced told me that she was divorced. Why not you? We talked about our lives in the eight years we were apart. You never even mentioned the guy, or marriage.”

“I can't even explain why I did that, other than the fact that I was embarrassed. I knew better. Literally, about a month into it, I was like, ‘This is such a big mistake.' I tried, though. And as much as I wanted it to work for Gerald, for him to have a man around, it was totally not right for me.

“I woke up early one morning, around four. I couldn't take it anymore. There was nothing there. So I woke him up and I told him, ‘Gary, I'm sorry, but this isn't working for me.'

“He wasn't even surprised. He could tell long before I said something. I give him credit; he accepted it better than I would have if the positions were reversed. He said, ‘I realized this was coming one day.' Two days later, he was gone. It wasn't easy, though; I really did like him and I respected how he was with Gerald, who was so young that he didn't really notice that he wasn't living with us anymore.

“Anyway, I'm sorry I didn't tell you about all this. It's really a part of my life that I wanted to forget. My friends and my family said I did it because I was depressed. We didn't have a wedding. We went downtown and saw a judge and got it done. It all was very unromantic. No one came. No one supported it.

“When we got divorced, it was like I regained my family and friends. They were still there for me, but they knew I was someplace I shouldn't have been.”

Try as he might, Solomon knew that had he not vanished on Michele, there wouldn't have been a need for Gary to try to fill
the role of father figure. So, in a sense, he blamed himself for Michele's decision.

“I respect the fact that he was there for Gerald,” Solomon said. “That says a lot about him. But why was he here this morning?”

“He calls every so often to check on us,” Michele said. “He asked if he could take us to breakfast this morning. I told him that I wasn't going but that he could take Gerald. They were just getting back when you arrived.”

“So where is he now?” Solomon asked.

“He left. He got mad at me because I didn't tell him about you, that you were Gerald's dad,” she said. “Of course, he knew the entire story of us. And I think, even though it's been four years, that he still held out hope that we could get back together.

“So, finding out about you, well, he just left.”

“Michele, what are you doing here?” Solomon said. “You didn't tell me about him and you didn't tell him about me. What's that about?”

“I don't know,” she said, and then proceeded to reveal why. “With him, I knew he was still interested in me and I didn't want to hurt his feelings. I—”

“You didn't want to hurt his feelings?” Solomon jumped in. “What sense does that make? If you are not interested in him—”

“I'm not,” Michele interjected.

“Then don't you understand that not telling him about me, about us, is unfair to him. I'm not trying to look out for the guy, but the reality is if you were not telling him about me, you were, in essence, telling him that you had no one, that you were available. This is the kind of...crap I've dealt with in the past with women.

“You have me, but you still want to keep this other thing at a distance, but not too far. That's why I became as cold as I did.
That's why I was able to get up that morning and leave you and not look back; I knew something like this would happen.”

“Something like what, Solomon?”

“Something like we're all good, but there's this other person lingering in the shadows, this other interest. That's why I went cold; I don't have time for the deceit. And when I told you about how many times I was disappointed by women, that was an ideal time to tell me your little secret.

“But you didn't. All these months later, you continued to communicate with him, obviously, and yet not tell either of us anything.”

The more he talked, the more angry and disappointed he grew. Solomon was on the other end of her decisions; the worst place to be for him.

“So what I am I supposed to think about you, Michele? What other secrets do you have?”

He asked the question but he already knew the answer. She had made him wary of her, with how she reacted to him telling her about his arrest. This latest revelation added to his inner tumult.

“What secrets do you have?” Michele fired back. Playing the victim was not working, so she got on the offense. “You didn't tell me about your arrest until I forced it out of you.

“And I know you have women who you've been seeing. You ain't been with me every night.”

“Oh, that's your response to all that has gone down?” Solomon said. “Turn the tables and put it on me? Well, as I said, I could've lied about why I was arrested. I didn't. I didn't because I thought I could share things with you. You're the only person I ever told about that and you tripped on me like I'm some abuser.

“And, yeah, I was dating when I ran into you. But I told you
that I was dating other women. I didn't hide it. I may have done you wrong—no, I did do you wrong—but I don't lie or hold back information. But know this: I saw one of them recently and told her that I was in love with you and that I had a son and that we were done. That's how you handle situations.”

“Really? How many women were you dating? Who you think you are, some Romeo?” Michele asked. “And what about the others? What have you told them?”

“Listen, Michele,” Solomon said, sitting back down on the couch. His voice was calm. “Don't take this the wrong way. I told you that I don't trust women. And the women I dealt with understood the limitations in our relationships, if you want to call them that. I'm telling the other three why they haven't seen and hardly heard from me in months. At least I was.”

“Three, huh? What's that mean?” Michele sighed. “So you don't feel like we're together anymore so you can do whatever you want?”

“What is it that you want, Michele?” he answered. “Let's cut out all the back and forth and really talk here. I'm trying right now. Usually, in the past, I would roll out. But I'm trying to do something different here.”

“You jump all over me but never addressed beating Gerald or you smacking a woman. I—”

“I DID address it; right then. What's wrong with you? You don't remember that? And I spoke to Gerald and he and I are great. I told him that I don't want to whip him again, but that as a boy, he probably would get in trouble again. That's how it is. He was all right with that. So, there is no issue there as it relates to him.”

“Oh, yes it is an issue; I don't want you hitting him.”

“Well, I'm not going to tell you something untrue. I don't plan
to or even want to beat Gerald. Why would I? But I'm not going to promise you it's not going to happen again. That's a part of teaching discipline.”

“We'll never get past this; or you smacking that woman,” Michele said.

“I see.” Solomon was remarkably calm, considering she had just sealed their fate. “That's too bad, Michele. I've tried; more than I ever have. But these last forty-eight hours have been exhausting. You think you'll be fine without me because that's exactly as it is. I've been all I could be to you and that's not enough. So, fine.”

He did not even wait for a response from Michele. He got up off the couch and called for Gerald. He came running out and Solomon hugged him.

“Hey, man, I'm going to leave now.”

“Where you going, Daddy?” he asked.

“Gotta go home and do some things. Want to go with me?”

Gerald turned to Michele. “Mommy, can I, please?”

“You don't want to stay here with me?”

“I'm always here with you. Please, can I go?”

“What time will you be back?” she asked.

“Why don't you pack a bag, Gerald, and spend the night? We can go to the gym and then cook dinner together tonight and watch a movie,” Solomon said. “And I have this golf videogame I play online; I want you to check it out.”

“Okay,” Gerald said, and ran off to his room.

In the three minutes or so it took Gerald to throw his things together, Solomon did not even look at Michele. He stood by the door, playing with his BlackBerry or staring off in another direction.

Michele looked at him and forced herself to not say anything.
If he wants to be without me,
she thought,
then he should be. I don't want someone who doesn't want me. In fact, he's walking out on me again. This time I'm wide awake. Fine. Go.

Gerald came out and Solomon took his bag. “Bye, Mommy.”

“I don't get a hug?” she asked.

As Gerald headed over to embrace his mom, Solomon headed out the door. And he did not look back.

M
ichele realized that she had a big problem, one she did not know how to solve.

She did not trust her instincts.

In fact, she was not sure if she had any instincts anymore, which ultimately meant she had no trust. And that scared her. She thought,
What kind of female is devoid of a woman's intuition?

She believed Solomon was a keeper six months into their first go-round, but then he vanished. She reluctantly moved on and believed Gary would be the elixir to her problems. A year or so later, they were divorced. And Solomon's second time around seemingly ended as he walked out the door.

Sensations ran through her body to stop him from leaving, to tell him she really loved him, that she respected how he had embraced fatherhood and that their reconnection meant they were destined to be together. Those were real feelings. But she did not trust that was the right thing to do.

So, Michele kept her mouth shut and let him walk. She was left home alone, with her thoughts, insecurities and uncertainties; not exactly a comforting place. In the past she found clarity in skydiving. But she was unmotivated to use the certificate Solomon got her. She actually was saving it so they could jump together.