Page 23 of Midlife Woes (Ex)

“Yes, Dad.” I cried like a baby, and he stood there and held me, and when I finally pulled away, there were tears in his eyes as well.

This is what cheating does: the domino effect. It breaks apart bonds that it had taken years to forge for a few minutes of sexual gratification. When you think about it, the benefits are nowhere near the price you pay.

It hit me so hard in the gut, then just what Kevin had done, and I was back to being pissed again. I didn’t even say goodbye, I just walked upstairs after Dalton walked out the door and left Jonathan and Sheila to deal with my ex.

True to her word, even though he was gone, Sheila stayed the whole week. I came downstairs one morning to find some man in my kitchen with his ass crack showing and Sheila offering him coffee.

She passed me a bunch of keys and then gave me a piece of paper with codes on it. “Your locks have been changed, and we added these keypad things; you can change the code whenever you’re ready. You can open the damn door with your phone if you’d like. Don’t forget the garage door while you’re at it.”

She’d thought of everything. I know some people might think she’s overstepped, but when you know someone as well as we know each other, you don’t look at these things that way. Sheila was in the hospital room throughout most of my labor with all of my kids because she’s one of the people I trust most. That, and she would lay into that hospital staff if they didn’t hop to on her command.

When she left later that week, it was as if all the air was let out of me. I just deflated. I stayed in bed for three days straight and only spoke to my kids on the phone. They wanted to come be with me, and maybe I should’ve let them because this was affecting them as well, but I didn’t even have the strength to walk down the stairs to open the door.

Or maybe that was just my mind telling me so. Anyway, by day four, Savanah called her Godmother, Miss. Sheila and she called to let me know she’d break every window in my house if I didn’t come and open the damn door.

So, I dragged myself downstairs half an hour later and was forced into the shower because, according to her, I smelled like roadkill in the hot southern heat. The shower did feel good, but I did not need to be threatened by my bestie to wash my ass unless I wanted her to come by the next day and do it for me.

My days went like that for the next two weeks until I realized I was not being fair to my kids and I was a horrible mother. I called them crying, but they said they understood. Their Aunty Sheila and Grandpas had been keeping them up to date.

My Mama called as well, but she said she was too mad to come by here, so she was waiting until there was no danger of my ex showing up anywhere in the vicinity. I guess she figured out how to use DoorDash because she kept sending me meals every afternoon like clockwork. My Mama can barely use the phone.

Three weeks later, I felt almost human again. I hadn’t heard from Kevin because I’d blocked him, at least for now. I just couldn’t deal with anything that had to do with that mess. I needed a break to deal with the trauma of what I’d just gone through.

Well, slowly but surely, that Saturday morning, not only my kids but Sheila, Jonathan, and Dalton showed up at my door, hounding me for my stuffed French toast. Before I knew it, we were out in the backyard, and the guys were firing up the grill, and we were playing around in the pool.

I looked over at my daughter with a wine cooler in her hand, cursing all cheaters to hell, and realized she was an adult. I said a quick prayer that none of my children ever suffered this pain and promised them all right then and there that if they ever treated anybody’s child like that, I would disown them.

About a month and a half later, I was ready to step outside my door again. I was tired of looking at the walls in my house and just wanted to go somewhere where I didn’t have to stand my own company. I took a nice long shower and shaved my legs for the first time in weeks.

As it turns out, Sheila must have a sixth sense because no sooner had I stepped out of the shower than my phone rang. It was her calling to check up on me to make sure I was doing okay. Before I could tell her about my plans, she hit me with a zinger.

“Maeve is coming over this weekend.”

“Which weekend? Wait, did you tell her?”

“I did!”

“For Pete’s sake, why did you go and do a fool thing like that?” I was more nervous about facing Maeve than I was, the idiot judge who had got me stuck in the hell I was in before.

Now, Maeve is what we in the South call a bad bitch. Maeve is Sheila’s little sister. She got pregnant in high school and went to the local community college while her man went off to the top-tier college that he’d been accepted to before the pregnancy came to light.

When he was done, she went back to school full-time while holding down a job and taking care of her family. Now, twenty-something years later, those two are still married with two kids in college, one on the way there, and five-year-old twins that are just as beautiful as the sunrise.

She’s also batshit crazy. “You’d better get your shit together by the time the crazy train pulls into town.”

“What’s she gonna do to me now? She’s not hunting down Kevin, is she?”

“No, but I’m almost certain she put the juju on him.”

I hope his balls fall off.

JOLENE

Isweated through the next few days until the weekend, waiting to see what hurricane Maeve was gonna blow in. She walked through my door, took one look at me, and shook her head.

“Nuh-uh, this ain’t gonna work. What the hell are you supposed to be? Bitch, I wish the fuck you would sit up in here looking like Broom Hilda because of that jackass. No, girlie, when they go low, we go scorched earth. Get up. Get your ass up those stairs and get dressed.”

I looked at Sheila, and that heifer just shrugged and poured herself a cup of coffee. I went under my own steam because, sure as spit, she would’ve taken me up there herself, and there’s no guarantee that I would’ve been using my feet. She’s a hairpuller; just saying.

---