Читать книгу A Rich Man's Baby - Daaimah S. Poole - Страница 7

Tanisha Butler

Tyrone entered our bedroom happy and preparing for our weekly sex. Little did he know that was not going to happen. Our bedroom furniture was a hard oak set with mirrors attached to the back. The television set was on a stand with dozens of DVDs lined up against it. I just stared at them.

“You want to watch a movie?” he asked as he climbed into bed and took off the rest of his clothes. We had just come in from bowling and I was tired of him and his old-ass friends. I looked over at the fat roll on the back of his brown neck and shook my head. I knew tonight was the night I was going to tell him.

“No, Ty. I’ve been thinking a lot, and I’m just not happy with us anymore. I think you should move out.”

He didn’t see it coming at all. He slid back out of the bed, stood up, and stared at me.

“You serious, huh?” he said as he turned to study my face some more.

“I want you to get your own place and you can get Kierra on the weekend.”

“You really leavin’ me?”

I nodded my head yes. “I need to grow. I’m tired. This is not working anymore.”

“This is marriage. We supposed to work it out before we talk about wanting a divorce.”

“I don’t want to talk about it. I thought about it. I’ve been thinking about it for years. I don’t want to be married anymore. If you don’t leave, I will take the kids and I’ll leave,” I said as I grabbed a pillow and blanket off the bed and stood by the door. I was prepared to spend the night on the sofa. At that point, I didn’t want to even share a bed with him. He couldn’t believe what I was saying. I had caught him totally off guard. He put his pants and shirt back on, and took the blanket and pillow from me. He said he would sleep downstairs and he would start looking for a place immediately.

I’m thirty-two years young, and Tyrone, my husband, is forty-three years old. I met Tyrone in the market. My daughter Alexis was crying because I said she couldn’t have a Snickers bar. I barely had enough money to pay for our food on the belt. Then, out of nowhere, Tyrone came up to me and paid my entire bill. It was like he was working for God or something really, because I was just praying to God, “Please help me. Please let me have enough,” and all of a sudden, Tyrone appeared.

I was struggling at the time. I had two babies under two before I graduated from high school. My mother went off when I had my first. She kicked me out when I had my second. She was ultrareligious and thought I let the devil take over my body by having sex out of wedlock. So I left home at seventeen and never looked back. I was doing okay at first. I worked a job at a day care, and my children’s father helped me out. Then we broke up, and the next thing I knew, I had one foot in a shelter.

That day I was in the market using my electric money to pay for my groceries. After he paid my bill he gave me his number and said if I ever needed anything to call him. I called him when I got put out of my place, and he told me I could live with him.

I thought I would live there for only a month or two, but after six months he asked me to marry him and then moved us into a new house. He spoiled me so much I almost forgot about the eleven years that separated our ages. He stepped in as Jamil and Alexis’s father, and they always called him “Dad.” We had one daughter together, Kierra, who was four.

And even with all that, I still wanted to leave him. I loved Tyrone, but I hated his age and the way I lived. I didn’t have any friends my own age. I didn’t even know the last time I just had some fun. I felt like I was missing out on life. He was a truck driver and always came home tired, sweaty, and dirty. He has let his gray hair grow in on his sideburns, and that was a constant reminder to me that I was married to an old fucking man. Half of the time he was saying, “Hey, baby, remember this song or television show?”

And I’m thinking, Hell no.

But it was more about him than his age. There are a lot of men in their forties who are well kept, clean, in shape, and attractive. Tyrone wasn’t one of them. He complained about what hurt him, and I wasn’t trying to hear that shit no more. When I saw men my age, I got excited. Their muscular bodies made my cooch do flips. The way I saw it, he was almost fifty and not trying to change and didn’t have a chance of having a good life. I wanted a young man my age who still wanted to be a part of life, not somebody ready to check out.

I felt like I was wasting my life being with him, and I was tired of it. I knew I wasn’t wrong for wanting fun and excitement. I wanted to go to a club and stay out all night long. I wanted to meet somebody and go out on a date. I wanted to have friends and go out for lunch. There was just so much I was missing. I was getting out of this marriage while I still looked like something. I was pushing thirty-three, and I still had eighteen-year-olds trying to talk to me. Ty didn’t take advantage of me, but he did help me to miss out on a lot of things. Ty never beat me or cheated on me as far as I knew, but I was just tired. I just wanted out.