asked a bogus question to delay my decision. “Who?”
NormaJean scoffed, then sniffled. “Your baby, silly.” Of course, she knew. Ashton’s people, including Jimmy, were a different breed, hiring private investigators, and shit. “I promise to leave after. I don’t even have to hold him.”
After thinking a few seconds more, I left to get Bobby. When I brought him back out, NormaJean’s tears fell again.
“Whoa, my god! He’s beautiful!” she whispered excitedly, mindful of him sleeping. “He’s what? Four months now?”
“Almost,” I answered, admiring his beauty, too.
“What’s his name?”
“Robert,” I answered, hesitantly. “Robert McNabb.”
NormaJean’s voice deepened when she observed, “You named him after his father? I mean… His grandfather.”
I wouldn’t look at her. She didn’t deserve to know my reason for doing it.
“Okay. I promised I wouldn’t stay. And it’s clear to me you’ve moved on, something I wasn’t expecting.”
“Why?”
She shrugged, rubbing her palms back and forth over her thighs as though she was cold. “Because when we small-town girls encounter a god-like Ashton Spencer, we do desperate shit to stick around.”
“You wanted him?”
“Still do. My plan was to let him have his fun with Aivery until he matured to see he didn’t belong with a child. He was ready for a real woman. One who had taken him in young, and taught him how to physically satisfy a woman. A seasoned woman, because he knows how to pleasure her in every other way.” Another tear fell from her ivory face. “He bailed on my birthday two days after Christmas, spending it with you. It hurt. That’s when I knew for sure, he’d fallen for you. I hated it. I popped up on him to introduce myself to you on Valentine’s Day instead of going straight to visit my sick mother. I knew, I knew, I knew…” Her tiny fists banged her thin thighs each time she said that. “…he’d lost himself to you, another woman relatively his age.”
And there it was. The pathetic truth that turned my life upside down. I listened to NormaJean’s truths for the next ten minutes while rocking Bobby against my breasts. True to her word, she stood to leave, but not before handing me another check. This one was already made out to me.
“I don’t want your pity or your monetary apology.” I refused it.
“Good. It’s not for you anyway. It’s for him. I’ve deprived his father the first few months of his life—or however long it will take for you to tell Ashton about him.”
I shook my head. “I won’t tell him. You know the last thing Ashton needs now is me weighing him down. I’ll be fine—I’ve been fine.”
She lay the check on the table, just as she’d done eleven months ago in Ashton’s BSU apartment. “Again, this isn’t for you.” NormaJean walked to the door carrying less swag than she once had.
“Are you going to run your mouth and tell Ashton…about?” I jerked my chin toward Bobby.
“I’d have to be able to reach him to tell him. But the answer is no.” My lungs emptied in relief. “He wouldn’t believe me if I told him anyway.” She winked, letting herself out.
A few weeks had passed in my “winning” streak in life. I was able to retire my mother’s hooptie for a better one. I bought a used Jeep Cherokee. It had great room for Bobby’s car seat and my mother’s walking aid. I didn’t hear from NormaJean—or Ashton—but Jimmy did mail down a few words of hello two weeks after NormaJean left. I guess pen-palling was his thing. I took my time responding.
Then the bad season hit, transforming my life from its peaceful state I’d single-handedly built. One Saturday, after taking Treesha to Philly to drop off NeNe to her father’s, I came home to a quiet house and bad news. After getting my coat off and slowly unzipping Bobby’s Bundleme covering while he slept, I went to check in on my mother. She hadn’t called in a couple of hours, making me believe she was asleep, too. Only she wasn’t. When I walked into her room, my mother was in her favorite chair, slumped to the side with her tongue hanging from her mouth.
She’d had a heart attack and died. Months later, when I received the autopsy, the coroner said he believed she was asleep when it happened and she didn’t suffer much at all.
Renata was upset she couldn’t be released to come home, but I understood. She was a member of the Armed Forces now with a job to do.