No, I'm not singing.

With Good Reason

By
Christopher Ian Grant


I went into the hallway closet, up the small stepladder and pawed blindly on the top left shelf. I swept my hand from side to side since I’m too short to see over the edge. My stomach clenched with fear until the tip of my pinky finger brushed up against the leather shoulder strap of my holster.
Selwyn bought me the gun. It was silver, a custom-made Springfield Armory V10 with an ivory grip. He believed his woman should know how to handle a weapon. I was against it at first but I am glad he bought it and showed me how to use it, because I’m about to use it.
I removed it from the holster, slapped the clip in, cocked it to load the chamber and turned the safety off, just like he showed me. I cut the light in the closet and closed the door, tiptoed the ten odd steps back to the bedroom. When my husband turned to face me, I shot that motherfucker right between his eyes.
There was no hesitation, no remorse, not so much as a second thought. It wasn’t like the movies. There was no labored breathing, tears of sorrow, nothing. I brought the gun up, touched it to his forehead and squeezed off a round. His brain exploded all over my brand new white comforter, all over our daughter.
Sage was a month short of four. I’m sorry that she had to watch her father die. She started crying, shaking hysterically. His blood and bits of his brain were all over her face. I washed her off, cooed reassuringly and gently rocked her until she stopped screaming. She sucked her thumb and remained wide-eyed and nervous but at least she stopped that awful wailing. I haven’t seen my baby since the shooting but my mother told me she’s still not talking. I pray to God that doesn’t last for too long.
Selwyn used to tell me stories about how crime scenes got contaminated so I knew not to touch anything. Now his would be untouched, everything in divine order, especially his carcass, his lifeless limp body. I left him slumped at the end of the bed with a glazed look of fear and realization permanently fixed on his face. The contents of his head pooled near his left hip. The bloody splatter marks stood out against the white glow of the bedroom I’d spent months perfecting.
I looked at him for a long time before leaving the room. The lemon-sized hole in the back of his head and the sight of his right leg twitching unpredictably did not affect me at all. What turned my stomach was the muffled patter of his blood dripping onto the carpet.
I called my mother and told her I needed her.
“Selwyn’s dead mommy. I shot him.”
There was a brief pause then she answered, “Okay baby… I’ll be right there.”
Selwyn’s phone went off a few minutes later. Even before I peaked out of the blinds I knew it was his partner Rich calling from his car. He picked Selwyn up on Fridays and was idling in front of the house. I opened the door and motioned for him to come in.
“What’s up…” he stopped short of kissing my cheek when he noticed the blood on the bottom of my blouse. He pulled his gun and sprinted up the stairs to the bedroom.
“Ahh shit” I heard him groan. “Oh my God.”
When I reached the doorway of the bedroom, I saw his eyes bulge when he caught sight of what was in my right hand. I set the gun down on the television stand.
“Why?” he pleaded.
Rich was Selwyn’s best friend. He deserved to know.

A few minutes later there were cops swarming all over my house. I sat there cradling my daughter in the middle of all the commotion. Rich leaned in to talk to me but I cut him off.
“I’m not leaving here until I see my mother.” My statement was so matter of fact that he didn’t even bother to argue with me. I’d seen him huddled off in the corner with a superior, a Captain, I think. Their hushed tones made it hard for me to hear but it was clear from his body language that this man wanted to get me down to the police station as quickly as possible. Rich tried to mediate but no one was willing to budge. After what she’d been through, I wanted to make sure my daughter was okay and I exhaled with relief when Rich spotted my mother at the front door. I’d bet my big toe the Captain didn’t have any children, or else he would’ve known better than to come between a mother and her child. With God as my witness, I swear there would’ve been two dead cops if that motherfucker had tried to take me out of there.

Rich sat in the back of the squad car with me, glancing over in my direction every few seconds. He was shaking his head, searching for something to say, finally settling on, “I, I just can’t…”
“Believe it,” I snapped, holding his gaze before he looked away in shame. He kept quiet for the rest of the ride and helped me out of the car when we reached the station house.
I’d been to the precinct many times before, never as a captive but still, it was only natural that I recognized a lot of the faces in the room. When I wasn’t working, I would bring Selwyn his lunch after I finished running my errands. Before that day, I had never had a want or need to see operations from the other side of the table.
I shared nervous glances with the other detainees. Well, actually, they looked a whole lot more nervous than I was. It seemed like some of the other inmates were studying me, trying to figure out what I was up for. This one sister, a prostitute I guessed, based on her whorish clothing and (don’t know what else to call them) hooker heels gave me a nod, as if being locked up at the same time had created some sort of bond between us. I didn’t know her, didn’t know what she did nor did I care to know. I looked right through her.
A young brother was processed before me, couldn’t have been more than 18 years old. Tears were streaming down his face. He was terrified, his panicked breathing showing his nervousness. The boy looked about ready to shit himself. Maybe whatever he had done didn’t seem like such a good idea anymore. His eyes opened wide when they led him into the back area, into the holding cell, a small dank room full of hard-backed, rusty-skinned vagrants. They started hooting at him as soon as they saw him getting fingerprinted. It’s a shame but I’m sure he learned a lot about himself being locked away with those grown ass men, hard lessons I imagine. Who was I to talk about regret? I had just killed my husband.
“You did the right thing.”
I looked away from the young man and met her eyes.
“Anya” the clerk said, smiling slightly.
She could relate. I imagine all women could in some way. I opened my mouth to say my name, return her good nature but she smiled, pointed to the top of my fingerprint card and tapped where my name was.
“You’ll have to stay here for the weekend,” she continued, positioning my fingers for the prints. The art of fingerprinting was obviously something she had perfected through years of repetition. The gentleness with which she held my hands only added to her motherly appeal. She had tried her best to hide her age with hair dye and cheap make-up but the crow’s feet branching from her eyes told the real story.
“It’s Memorial Day and these lazy ass judges ain’t trying to cut into their golf time” she sighed, shaking her head in contempt.
I nodded my head, half-listening, intrigued by the black ink that was slowly making its way underneath my fingernails. It had been a long time since I was able to relax and as weird as it may sound, during that weekend in jail, I’ve never felt freer.

My best friend Colette was the first one to show up at the hearing on Tuesday morning. Colette was frantic. I could see her shaking a little bit. She was taking deep breaths and fanning herself with a Japanese sensu.
Colette could be so extra sometimes. In a lighter moment, I probably would have joked about her choice of clothing. She showed up looking like a bootleg movie star, complete with the black dress, silk scarf and Bulgari shades. She tried to smile but her mouth was quivering too much. We shared a glance before she looked away, reaching into her purse for a tissue.
Looking at things from Colette’s perspective, I know she thought I killed Selwyn because he used to hit me. I’m not about to lie. Selwyn beat my ass. When I was around friends and family, I thought of any and every excuse (I tripped and fell), tried every brand of make-up to hide things as best I could. It didn’t work. They all knew. I mean, how many times could I go to the hospital without arousing suspicions?
Before I got with Selwyn, the thought of being pounded was so foreign to me, something I knew I wouldn’t tolerate. My father never, ever hit my mother. In his eyes, a man that hit a woman was a coward. Even worse, a man that hit his daughter was breathing on borrowed time. Part of me is glad he passed on and didn’t have to see what I went through. God rest his soul.
I’d heard horror stories from Colette about an ex-boyfriend that pummeled her. I remember her having black eyes and swollen lips and I swore to myself that no man would ever raise his hand to me. The thing is you never know how you’ll react to something until you’re right in the middle of it.

Our first anniversary was memorable, for all the wrong reasons. I spent damn near a month making sure every detail was perfect, down to the last grain of rice. Selwyn stayed out all night without as much as a phone call. As the candles dimmed and the food cooled, I could feel a heat rising on the back of my neck.
When he opened the front door the next morning, I hurled a wine glass at him. It exploded against the wall, inches from his face. He didn’t even flinch.
“Where the fuck were you?” I said.
“You know you almost hit me right?” was not the answer I had been looking for.
The filet mignon hit dead center on his chest, leaving a trail of gravy as it slid down his light brown velour jacket. I was looking down at the table, about to pick up one of the plates, but instead, decided on a steak knife, oblivious to how fast he had closed the distance between us. Everything moved in slow motion, everything but his open hand, which crashed against my jaw.
I could never imagine Selwyn laying a finger on me but that shock didn’t stop the right side of my face from swelling up. He was left-handed so the blow came from a funny direction. There were things about his left-handed awkwardness I liked but getting hit from odd angles was not one of them.
I was always taught that when someone hit you, you hit them back. I responded, and slapped at him. It was a serious miscalculation, a swing and miss. It was a retaliation that Selwyn was waiting on.
I had forgotten how fluid his movements were. Selwyn ducked under my awkward lunge and responded with a flash of ferocity. He beat me so badly that I had to spend three days in the hospital. If that was how he could injure someone he cared about, I felt sorry for the criminals that crossed his path.
An argument could be made that I deserved the beating. I never gave him a chance to explain himself and I started the whole thing, the physical part at least. Of course that argument would only stand up if that had been the only beating.
There were other little outbursts, a push here, a smack there but the incident branded into my memory was when he came into the house piss drunk, accusing me of cheating on him. Healing from the scars he left that night went beyond ice and stitches.
He pulled his gun on me; thrust it under my chin. He was hovering over me, breathing deeply and slowly. There was drool hanging from his bottom lip and spittle caked in the corner of his mouth. As long as I live, I’ll never forget the look in his bloodshot eyes, a gaze of pure, premeditated evil. He never said a word to me but the way he looked at me, I thought he meant to kill me right then and there.
He undid my pants and fucked me instead. It was a violation but I didn’t dare protest. He took a part of me away that day. My husband was never a big drinker so seeing him in that condition just didn’t make sense. I later found out that a cop in his precinct went home from a Christmas party and found his wife in bed with another man. There were three dead bodies the next day, no need for a note.
Why did I stay? I loved him. There was no denying that. The feelings I had for Selwyn bordered on obsession. I met him when I was eighteen. He was six years older than I was and so much more mature than the little boys who used to come after me.
I felt like I couldn’t make it without him. I was afraid to be by myself, a single mom with no skills, no money, nothing, the typical battered woman who was totally dependent on her abuser. Then, of course, there was my fear that he would hunt me down and kill me if I ever left.
I know the hitting wasn’t right but my daughter and I were well taken care of. Things must have looked bad from the outside. I’m sure my friends and family thought I was an ass for staying with him but I was all about making my marriage work.

My younger brother Shaka strolled into the courtroom; chin up and chest out, just like our father told us. Colette’s despair seemed to subside when she saw how handsome Shaka looked in his suit. I couldn’t remember the last time I saw him in one, maybe for his high school graduation. He hugged Colette, kissed her cheek and turned his gaze on me, nodding his head a few times. His eyes said, “You did the right thing” as he mouthed, “I love you.” I smiled slightly and turned back toward the front of the room.
Shaka always said that Selwyn had changed me, that I let him control me. He said one day I would snap out of my trance and see what my life had become. He said he wouldn’t be surprised if I flipped and took Selwyn out.
Shaka was right. My husband was very controlling, dictating with whom, what, when, where, why and how we did everything. We called him Castro behind his back. I was a free spirit and being told what to do was something I had to adjust to. Isn’t that what marriage is all about, making adjustments and compromising? That’s what I kept telling myself.
He was old-fashioned in a lot of ways, especially when it came to his views on the roles of men and women. Life as a housewife would’ve been fine had Selwyn taken more of an interest in me. I tried to talk to him about spending more quality time with me but his response was, “Who’s gonna pay for all this?” He was waving a pack of Sage’s diapers; motioning around the room to all the electronics I was never allowed to touch.
“I could work.” My eyes were on the floor, where they always were when I talked to him. A black eye from months earlier had taught me not to eyeball him for too long.
“And do what?” he smirked. “Who’s gonna hire you?”
I shrugged my shoulders when he asked me that. He had this way of convincing me that whatever I was thinking made no sense. It was your idea for me to drop out of school. That’s what I wanted to say at the time. I had already learned not to give too much chat, as he would put it. That lesson came in the form of a busted lip.
“You should be at home taking care of the baby. That’s what my mother did with me and my brothers” he said. Whenever he made reference to what his mother had done, I knew there was no hope.
On the rare occasions he was around, he was always doting over his daughter and never had any time for me. He was good with her, making sure she had everything she needed. Sage’s face would light up whenever he came into the room. She would make the cutest gurgling noise that I couldn’t get out of her no matter what I tried.
There are women who would kill just to have a positive father figure in their children’s lives. I was finding fault in the time he spent with our daughter, jealous because Sage was his lil dumpling while I’d be lucky if he nodded his head at me. As miserable as I was, I did recognize the benefits. My daughter was fat, healthy and loved, the bills were paid and I had a gorgeous black man coming home to me at night. I tried my best not to complain but when I noticed Star Jones wearing the same pair of shoes on two different episodes of The View, I knew I needed to get a life.

I would try to get Colette and Shaka to come over, to break the monotony but they were always so busy. Whenever one of them did come by, I was usually the butt of their jokes, literally.
“Damn Sis. When did your ass get so big?” Shaka said. My little brother was never one with tact, telling me I needed to put a Do not pass on the right side sticker on my butt. He hadn’t seen me for a while and I had let myself go. “And look at your hair. Looking like a damn treasure troll,” he said. I remember him shaking his head and setting up his face as if he smelled shit.
What could I say? I’d put on 25 pounds after Sage was born and with the way my hair was, I could have easily passed for Don King. I smiled when he said, “Yo, we going to the club Ma.”

“Where you think you going”? That’s what Selwyn said when he saw my halter-top, tight jeans and 3-inch heels. I’d gone to the Dominican salon so my hair was looking tight too.
Earlier that week, I told him I was going out, whom with, where and what time I would be back. He didn’t have a problem with it but when he saw me all dressed up, he told me that I wasn’t going anywhere. I smiled with anticipation, thinking my tight clothing had gotten him aroused. I hardly went anywhere so most of the time I was dressed in sweatpants and a tee shirt. It had been a while since he’d given me some of that good stuff and I was in the mood, all set to tell Shaka and Colette to go ahead without me.
That feeling faded away as soon as Selwyn said he had to leave to take care of some things. He knew I wanted to go out but he just grabbed his keys and left. I started crying but Colette wasn’t having it. We were going out and she didn’t care what Selwyn thought. She snatched me up, put Sage in the car seat and dropped her by my mother’s house.
Hitting the club with Shaka and Colette was like the good old days, when I was still in college. The DJ was playing all my old tunes and I was attracting a lot of attention dancing and having fun with Colette. Shaka was off in the corner macking, corralling just about every girl that passed his way. He made sure to keep an eye on me and would come over every so often to bring me a drink or usher away a guy that couldn’t understand why I wanted to dance by myself.
After the club, we headed for the diner and I got my usual, or what I used to get when I went out, two scrambled eggs with cheese and home fries plus an extra side of toast. Colette, Shaka and I were talking shit and having a great time. It was a night that I really needed and it felt good to know I had two people in my life that cared so much about me.
When it was time to leave, I asked Shaka to take the local streets back to my house.
“Shit, if I was you, I wouldn’t be rushing back neither,” Colette sneered. She put her arm around me when she realized my forced laugh was a front. I wished I didn’t have go home but it was the life I had chosen and I had grown to accept it.
Even with the porch light off, I knew Selwyn was sitting on the veranda waiting for me. Shaka insisted on walking me to the door. Selwyn was on the swinging chair sipping a Heineken, one leg stretched out as he rocked back and forth.
“Whaddup Sel,” Shaka said. He hated my husband almost as much as my husband hated him. Selwyn didn’t respond. He just stared.
“You gonna be alright?” Shaka asked, never taking his eyes off of Selwyn.
“Yeah, baby. I’ll call you tomorrow,” I said, kissing him on the cheek. I turned to the idling car and waved to Colette. She had her cell phone out, ready, probably had 911 dialed in and her thumb hovering over the send button.
Shaka got in the car and they drove away. The front door of my house had barely closed before Selwyn kicked me from behind. My head snapped back and I fell to the floor, my face narrowly missing the edge of the marble end table. He pulled me up by hair, seized me by my shoulders and started shaking me around like a rag doll.
“I know I told you not to disrespect me.” His tone was even and without emotion. Selwyn never raised his voice. “Who the fuck you think you are walking out my house dressed like that?” He slapped me, then wrapped his huge hands around my throat and began to squeeze. I must’ve blacked out because the next thing I knew he was standing over me.
“Don’t ever disrespect me,” he said, “and you better talk to your bitch ass brother before I break my foot off in his ass.” Selwyn opened the front door, grabbed his beer and walked up to the bedroom, leaving me on the floor with my hands and mouth bleeding.
I shouldn’t have let Colette talk me into leaving the house. That was what was running through my head at that time. I stopped speaking to her for a while.
I got up and went into my bedroom. I stood in the doorway and looked at him. He was on his back, shirtless, staring at the ceiling with his hands behind his head. I don’t know if it was the way the moonlight was shining on him or the way the sheet was resting just below his waistline but I could feel myself getting aroused. I slipped out of my clothes and climbed into the bed. He turned his back to me. He only did that when he was mad. I hated when he was upset with me. I knew I had to make it up to him.
I snuggled up next to Selwyn, started kissing his back, pulling down his boxers. I winced when the cuts on the back of my hand rubbed against his waistband but I took care of him that night. During that period of my life, that’s all I ever wanted to do.

My mother was the last of my family to get to the hearing. She walked in calm as ever. Nothing ever shakes her. My brother rushed to the door to help her to her seat. She shooed him away and sat directly behind me. I bet Shaka offered to drive her to court but she’s always been an independent woman.
My mother told me Selwyn was no good even before he turned into a demon. She had this uncanny ability to judge a person’s character and now in hindsight, I can admit that I was wrong to ever doubt her.
My mother was quick to say that I shouldn’t stand for Selwyn stepping out.
“If dat was me, me woulda string him up by him balls!” Her Panamanian accent came out strongest when she was upset.
I know I’m not the prettiest woman in the world and Selwyn did his best to remind me of that just about everyday. I’m cute and well put together but I’d seen pictures of his ex-girlfriends and they were a few levels higher than I was. Honestly, I felt lucky to have him. He was gorgeous, 6’4”, well-built, perfect smile, articulate and the best lover I’ve ever had. Most of my boyfriends before him were right-handed, and until I met Selwyn, I never even paid attention to it. He was a lefty and everything he did was different. The way he moved in the bedroom was just…unreal. The man’s dick was like a magic wand.
He was perfect, flawless, and he was mine, all mine. I saw how women used to look at him, got those calls in the middle of the night from ladies mad that I stole their man. I’ve been called every word synonymous with whore, cyprian being the best of the bunch. I had to look that one up on Dictionary.com. The late calls, the constant harassment never bothered me because he came home to me every night.
That all changed after I had Sage. After she was born, I put on a few pounds, more than a few. He wasn’t too happy about it and threatened to leave me if I didn’t take the weight off. Try as I might I couldn’t get rid of my tank ass. That was one of Selwyn’s many nicknames for me during my pregnancy. When my nose spread clear across my face, he would mock me, sticking his pinky fingers into his nostrils, pulling them apart and saying, “Breathing for two now huh?”
When he started staying out late, I knew what he was doing. I tried to confront him, told him I wouldn’t stand for it.
“How can you treat me like this? How can you do this to me?” I sounded like one of those spineless abused women from a Lifetime movie. Most times, Selwyn would respond to that blubbering by sucking his teeth and turning his attention to something else. I was a little surprised and very hurt by his response.
“What do you expect?” he snapped. “You gotta weigh like 350 pounds. You expect me to get turned on?”
He started to walk away from me, like he always did when he didn’t feel like talking.
“I’m leaving you.” The words kind of seeped from my mouth.
“What?” He spun around. I remember seeing the tiniest glint of fear.
“I said I’m leaving you,” I repeated with a little more confidence.
He glared at me with clenched fists and his eyebrows scrunched up. I was breathing deeply, expecting him to charge me. He blinked his eyes a few times and straightened up, relaxing his arms. He started smiling at first, and then laughing. Selwyn was laughing at me.
“You ain’t going nowhere,” he said over his shoulder as he walked away. I wished he had hit me instead.
I didn’t have the courage to walk out and it hurt that he knew that. Feeling like I had no other choice, I starved myself to lose the weight. As I dropped the pounds I could see his attraction beginning to grow. He would pat me on the ass and say, “Still gotta lose some back there.”
Where many women would have taken those comments as demeaning, it made me smile that he was showing an interest in me again. It motivated me even more. I had to do whatever I could to keep my man and make sure he was happy. I lost all that weight, finally started feeling good about myself, but his indiscretions didn’t just persist. They intensified. It seemed like since I knew what he was up to and was still willing to stay, he felt there was no sense sneaking around.
He would come up with the lamest excuses but I heard what I wanted to hear. That’s what people in love do. They hear what they want to hear; never believing a person they cared so much about would do things to deliberately hurt them. I could lie to myself when I was hearing about the things he was doing but there was no denying it when I saw it for myself.

He told me that he was staying home from work so we wouldn’t need to take Sage to the babysitter. My menstrual pains were always bad but after I had my baby, they were ten times worse. He had dropped me off at the shopping center and told me he would be back 2 hours later. My bottle of Motrin was empty and I was in so much pain, I couldn’t finish the shopping. I tried to call him but he didn’t answer the phone.
I called Colette and she left work to drop me home.
“You need to get your damn license,” she said as she pulled into the driveway behind Selwyn’s car.
There was another car parked on the curb, a car I used to see drive past the house all the time, slow down and then drive away. Thinking nothing of it, not making the connection, I walked through the front door and stumbled up the stairs to my bedroom. I saw him on our sleigh bed, on our good sheets, with another woman. She noticed me before he did and smiled at me. The bitch smiled at me. I looked over at the crib and my daughter was standing at the edge watching the whole thing.
I fucking lost it. I ran downstairs and grabbed the biggest knife I could find. This bitch was in my house, in my bed, fucking my husband and she had the audacity to smile at me? Oh she was getting shanked.
I never saw the hit coming, just remember hearing a loud thud and watching a tooth fly out of my mouth. He punched me and I dropped. He didn’t stop, kept kicking me until I had no breath left to cry.
Selwyn went downstairs, I guess to walk that bitch to her car. When he came back up, he knelt beside me and said, “Why you gotta act like that?”
He was holding my face in his hands, looking for the best place to put the bag of ice. I remember groaning, feeling a whole new kind of pain when he pressed the ice against my swollen lips.
“You wanna go to jail over some stupid ho?” he said, shaking his head. “That’s just sex. What you and me got, that’s real. That’s love.”
If I had to change one thing about that whole encounter it would have been not to have lost my cool and go after that inconsequential bitch. Although his open unfaithfulness would’ve been more than enough reason to leave, I was willing to look past that. He had beat the dog shit out of me for the umpteenth time, told me he was protecting me but even that I would have gotten over. The thing that upset me more than anything else was how he had disrespected Sage. He exposed my daughter to images that she was not ready for, things no child should ever see. That I could not tolerate.

I left him. I waited until he went to work and packed up a few things for Sage and myself. Colette wanted me to stay at a motel but I knew better. Selwyn would track us down regardless of where I went. He was a detective and hunting people down was what he did for a living. Better to be with someone he actually respected (my mother) than on the lam with no money, car, or support system.
Staying with my mother that weekend, I felt like a prisoner. If Selwyn wasn’t staked out in the front of the house, there seemed to be a patrol car rolling down the block every other minute. I knew he had the house under surveillance because as soon as my mother left for church that Sunday morning, the phone started ringing off the hook. He must’ve said hello about 15 times before I answered him.
“Baby, baby. Please don’t hang up.” His voice cracked. That was something I hadn’t heard before. “Look, I know I did you wrong. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have hit you. I shouldn’t have had the woman in the house like that. I know I was wrong. Please let’s work it out. I’ll do anything to get you and Sage back. Please. I just wanna make things right. I never realized how important you were to me until you were gone.”
It had only been a couple of days. How much could he have possibly missed me, us?
“I miss my daughter. I miss you. I’m miserable. Please come back home baby. I can’t live without you and Sage.”
I had picked up the phone expecting things to play out in a totally different manner. I was so sure he was going to come at me aggressively, remind me that he would never stop chasing me until he found me. I just knew Selwyn was going to curse me and tell me that if I didn’t come back to him he was going to kill me. I just knew he was going to tell me that there was no way he was going to let me take his daughter away from him. But that nastiness, that confrontational behavior I was expecting was missing and I didn’t know how to respond.
I remember peaking through the Venetian blinds, watching him pace back and forth next to his car while he pleaded for forgiveness. I had never seen Selwyn look so disheveled.
“I haven’t slept for three days thinking about you and Sage.”
He looked up at the window, caught me watching him. I tried to move away but I know he saw me because he marched up to the front door and rang the bell. I peered through the peephole for a while, told him to go away. His back was to the door as he scanned the foot traffic, probably keeping an eye out for my mother. He was afraid of her. She had this way of looking at people and making them cower in fear.
I opened the door and there was an awkward silence. He started by saying, “Listen baby. I know I messed up. I’m not gonna stand here and try to put the blame on you. I was wrong. I shouldn’t have done what I did. I’ll do whatever it takes to get you and Sage back.”
“I don’t trust you Selwyn. You have hurt me so many times before. Why should I believe you now?”
He opened his mouth to speak but exhaled and bit his lip, realizing that there wasn’t much he could say. He paused for a while longer, then said, “Tell me what I gotta do and I’ll do it.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know that there’s anything you can do. I’m tired of this. Getting beat on. You treating me like a piece of shit, having Hos up in my house. Why you don’t go with one of them? You don’t love me. Look what you was doing in front of your daughter.”
I don’t remember everything I said to him but I let him have it. A swell of confidence built in my chest, a feeling of superiority. I hadn’t had the upper hand in our relationship since the first time I slept with him.
“Daddy,” Sage squealed, pushing through my legs. Selwyn bent down to pick her up and held her close to his chest.
“Hey baby. How Daddy’s lil’ dumpling doing?”
“Good.” At the time, that was Sage’s way of describing everything.
“I missed you yesterday,” he said to her, kissing her forehead. He was smiling and so was she. My husband was a good father and I saw how much he loved his daughter and she loved him. I couldn’t bring myself to sever the powerful bond they shared.
Selwyn looked up at me and said, “I’m sorry baby.” He was shaking his head. “I’m so sorry baby.” He broke down, started crying. I had never before seen my husband cry or show any sign of weakness. My daughter looked up at me. Her eyes seemed to ask me what I had done to make her father cry. My leverage was gone.

I remembered packing as fast as I could, praying that I wouldn’t run into my mother before I could leave. I locked the front door and turned around only to see her standing two steps from the front gate watching me. Without saying a word, I could sense her pleading with me to reconsider what I was about to do. I would not meet her eyes. I just couldn’t. I stared at the floor in shame, clutching my daughter tighter and tighter, hoping my mother would just disappear. My mother mercifully opened the gate and I scurried by her, ducking into the car as fast as I could. She thought that I had finally come to my senses. She couldn’t make me see what she was seeing, what she had seen from Day One.

The last six months with Selwyn were the best of our marriage. I’m not going to say he turned into Prince Charming overnight but it was obvious that my leaving and taking Sage had had a drastic effect on him. I noticed he would do little things to try and make me happy, things that I had never gotten before, like being taken out to eat, and getting flowers for no particular reason. He even started washing the dishes. He bought me a gorgeous white Lexus IS 300 at a police auction, all the motivation I needed to run out and get my license.
I was still very wary of him, needing to see that the changes he had made were genuine. The true test of the change in his personality came when I told him that I had taken a job. I didn’t consult him or ask for his approval and I was expecting his wrath. I saw an ad in the paper for an Administrative Assistant and I went in for an interview. It turned out that the girl who interviewed me was one of Shaka’s concubines. I guess my brother was working it right because she hired me on the spot.
“So when do you start?” That was the first question Selwyn asked me when I told him about the job. I smiled and hugged him.
Selwyn was allowing me to find myself, have a life outside of him and this made everything flow better. Things were going so well that all the beatings, abuse, the blatant infidelity almost seemed like another lifetime, as if that stuff had never happened. The way he was treating me, I really shouldn’t have complained, but I couldn’t help it. In the back of my mind, I was always on guard, expecting him to turn back into the taskmaster I had grown so accustomed to. I just didn’t think it was possible for someone to change that quickly, that drastically. It felt so unnatural to be happy. I kept asking myself why he was so willing to be good to me when he had been such a bastard before.
“I never want to lose you and Sage and again. I can’t be without my daughter.”
He would say that every so often. Those words ring in my head constantly and will probably echo until I take my last breath.

I was running late for work that morning. I remember things so vividly. The night before, I had stayed up late putting the final touches on a presentation, so I slept right through the alarm. Selwyn had to wake me up and hustle me into the shower. He was rushing me out of the door trying to make sure I would get to work on time.
“Don’t worry about Sage. I’ll take her” to the babysitter, who was out of his way, and mine if I had any hope of making the meeting on time.
I got in the car and had driven for about 10 miles when I realized that I had forgotten my folders and a diskette for a slideshow. I would have just been able to make the meeting if I didn’t have to turn around. I was pissed, cursing like a gypsy. Had I been able to pull the presentation off the way I had planned, I would’ve put myself in the mix for a promotion.
I tried to call Selwyn and have him meet me outside with my stuff but the phone just rang out. I was thinking that he must’ve already left to take Sage to the babysitter. I pulled up to the driveway and saw his car there. I instinctively looked for that bitch’s car on the block, the one who smiled at me. It wasn’t around so I ran in to get the stuff out of my office. I ran past the bedroom and saw his back to me. He didn’t seem to realize I was there so I continued down the hall and grabbed the disk out of the computer and the folders I needed off the top of the desk. I went in to the bedroom to say goodbye and tell him that I was off again. Before I could speak, I froze, only for a second. I blinked and walked out of the room.
I went into the hallway closet, up the small stepladder and pawed blindly on the top left shelf. I swept my hand from side to side since I’m too short to see over the edge. My stomach clenched with fear until the tip of my pinky finger brushed up against the leather shoulder strap of my holster.
Selwyn bought me the gun. It was silver, a custom-made Springfield Armory V10 with an ivory grip. He believed his woman should know how to handle a weapon. I was against it at first but I am glad he bought it and showed me how to use it, because I’m about to use it.
I removed it from the holster, slapped the clip in, cocked it to load the chamber and turned the safety off, just like he showed me. I cut the light in the closet and closed the door, tiptoed the ten odd steps back to the bedroom.
I walked up real close to him, called his name softly. He was startled, even jumped a little when he heard my voice. He turned around, surprised, ashamed, and finally terrified. This was his end and he knew it. I brought the gun up to his head and pulled the trigger. I killed my husband because he had his penis in my daughter’s mouth.