Melissa

 

“Happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear, Melissa, happy birthday to you!”

For a moment, I looked around at my best friend and family and I want to cry. It takes some inner meditation and deep breathing, that I hope no one notices, to not flip this damn cake over and run into my childhood room and stuff my face into the pillow as I cry.

            Darius and I had made plans for this birthday, the big thirty-one. It wasn’t going to be anything fancy, but we wanted to do some wine tasting, get tipsy, spend the rest of the day in a hotel fucking each other's brains out, go to dinner, and then wake up and go to the spa. My parents had already planned to keep Raynique, our 7-year-old daughter, well, she was technically only my daughter. She wasn’t even his stepdaughter because we hadn’t gotten married. Just engaged, but those plans, just like our engagement had gone to shit. They all went to shit when Darius told me that he kissed his coworker after I caught them in what I could only describe as a lover’s quarrel, at his job. The coworker who he informed me about started as a friend, but things quickly got out of hand. I packed up my stuff, took Raynique and we left that night. It’s been 2 months since we’ve been staying at my parents and the anger, the betrayal, the freshness of the hurt I felt when he told me still makes it hard to breathe.

 

“Lissa, baby, make a wish.” My dad said, snapping me out of my thoughts, his face thoughtful as examined me.

“Yeah, mommy! Make a wish!” Raynique said from her spot on the dining room table chair that was strategically placed right next to my dad. If my dad did nothing, he would protect us with his life from anything like falling to having someone break your heart.

“Ok, baby, here goes.” I close my eyes. There was so much I could wish for and so much I didn’t want to even bother with. I could wish I was the kind of woman Jazmine Sullivan sung about Bust Your Windows, I could wish to never have met Darius, or I could wish that I was at somebody’s bar drinking my pain away, but I didn’t want any of those things.

            I shut my eyes and blew out the candles. I opened them to the smile on Raynique’s face, the warmth in my father's face, the pride in my mother’s, and the empathy in my best friend, Shayla’s face.

 

            “Time for cake! Gi-Gi, Grandpa, can we have the ice cream too?” Raynique asked as she jumped off the chair and ran to the kitchen. My parents happily followed her, my mom stopping to kiss my cheek before she walked out of the dining room. I plopped down into the chair closest to me and let out a deep sigh.

“Melissa-” Shayla started as soon as everyone else was out of earshot.

“Bitch, it’s my party, I can cry if I want to.” I said, swiping my finger across the top of the cake and messing up my icing name.

“Ok but be selfless for a moment and consider the fact that we want to celebrate without the cloud of he who shall not be named hanging over us.”

“Being selfless is probably why I’m in the predicament in the first place,” I mumbled to myself before sucking off the icing and swiping across the cake again. I pointed an icing-covered finger at her.

 “You’re the only one who feels that way. My daddy has been letting me mope for as long as I need to, Raynique is happy as long as she got ice cream and I’m still trying to convince my mama that I don’t want to drown my sorrows by running up her credit card. You want me to be all rah-rah today and that won’t be happening so let it go.”

I shrugged and licked the icing off my finger. It was delicious, buttercream, my favorite kind. My daddy must’ve made it because it tasted just like every cake I had growing up as a child. It tasted like comfort, which was just what I right now, if only for a moment. She sighed and ran her fingers through her straightened tresses, which meant she was ‘bout to lecture me.

“I think-” I raised an eyebrow at her, waiting to see what she would have to say. Her deep brown face contorted into a grimace before she stopped and threw up her hands.

“That’s what I thought. What can you say to make me feel good about the fact that I’m staying with my parents because the man I fell in love with, fell for somebody else and I’m just looking dumb as shit. It’s my birthday, I’m not doing what I don’t want to do. You better be lucky I got out of bed.

“Lissa, you know I love you to death. I just don’t want you sucking the fun out of your own life because of somebody else. It’s your birthday, you should be getting to go to the salon and get your nails done so you can get fine ass fuck for tonight and do all the things you want cuz it’s your day.” My hand reached up to my bonnet holding my wild curls back and I looked down at my pineapple sleep shirt and shorts that I didn’t even bother to get changed out of when Raynique woke me up, giggling, and begging me to come downstairs for a late “breakfast.” Shayla was kinda right, I did want to do a little something since I took the whole week off for my birthday. It had been Darius’s idea because he wanted me to enjoy a whole week of being spoiled by him.

“Hmm, maybe we can do dinner, but that’s it, ok?”

“Yes! That’s all I ask!” She clapped and jumped up to hug me. I wrapped my arms around her, suddenly overwhelmed with love.

            “Shay, thank you for being here.”

            “Of course, you know I got you for life, Lissa.”

            “Good, so I’ll see you later, save me some cake.”

            “Got you, boo.” She left me alone with my thoughts as she headed back to the office. Since I was taking the week off, that meant that she would be the only dentist on staff for a few days. We were so lucky having met in dental school and then ended up getting a job at the same office after graduation. My mentor had me prepared to be the only young, female, Black dentist in most spaces throughout my career and with it being less than 4 percent of us in the field, I was ready for that reality. Shayla and I were the only Black ones in our class which was why we immediately gravitated toward each other.

            It was right before graduation that I met Darius. It was one of our last pharmaceutical classes and he had tagged along with the guest speaker, Dr. Thomas. The whole time I could barely focus on what the lecture was about, I was interested in him and who he was. I knew he had to be somebody important, I figured he was a student, but when Dr. Thomas turned the last leg of the presentation over to him. I was suddenly all ears.

            He had already been out of school for a few years and was sharing his experiences with us so of course I bombarded him with questions, hanging on to every word he said before class ended. Shayla and I had clinicals later that day so we couldn’t stay after class, but the next week when I had to call the pharmacy and verify a prescription, I knew it was fate that Dr. Darius Walters was the pharmacist working that day.

            “You ok, baby?” My dad said sitting down next to me. I heard Raynique trying to convince her Gi-Gi to give her another scoop of ice cream in the kitchen.

            “Yeah, daddy, just thinking.”

            “You been doing a lot of the lately, huh?” He rubbed his bald head and leaned back in his chair and placed his hands over his protruding belly. The My Grandpa is my Superhero shirt complete with a built-in cape on the back stared at me. Raynique had him wear it every chance she got and since today was my birthday, it was a special occasion which mean the shirt had to be worn.

            “I know, I’m tired of thinking.”

            “What are you going to do?” He asked; I knew he was referring to the situation with me and Darius. We had wrapped our whole lives into each other, and I cut him off so quickly, I wasn’t sure how to move next. I was planning to get a house for me and Ray, but my daddy said this was our home too and there was no rush to leave. We could stay as long as we wanted too.

            My parents loved having me and Ray in their house; I had lived here almost my whole life. I moved out for college during my undergraduate years then when I met Shayla in dental school, we got a place together. That ended halfway through, and I moved back home when I found out I was pregnant. I knew there was no way that I would be able to finish school without them and Ray’s dad left as soon as he found out. He was honest in telling me he didn’t want kids and that whatever decision I made would have to be my own. I wanted my baby so I went home where I knew my mama and daddy would never turn me away or let me struggle.

            “I looked at a house last week, didn’t like it. Maybe I’ll build something from the ground up, you know? Something that’s completely ours. Good thing my daddy is a carpenter.” I laughed at the look he gave me.

            “And what you gone do when you and Darius get back together?”

            “Daddy…” My laughter stopped suddenly.

            “It’s ok to want that, Lis, I’m just throwing it out there that me and mommy are ok with whatever you do. I’m not happy about what he did, but I know people can make mistakes in relationships and it can get hard. Life is going to be full of hurt and so matter if you get back together or find another man, you will have to learn to deal with being disappointed and maybe even hurt by another person. Relationships are loving someone so much that you learn to deal with people’s bullshit, within reason, of course.” I nodded.

            If anybody understood that it was my parents. When I came crying to my mama the day I found out about Darius, I learned that at various parts of their marriage, they both had their infidelities. My dad when they were younger, and my mom just a few years ago. I was crushed. The sheer respect I had for them was what caused me to take my relationship for granted. I was convinced that Darius and I were on the way to being just like them. We were so alike in so many ways. My parents met through jobs, my mother was pregnant when my dad met her and raised me as his own. My mama said he stole both of our hearts. Just like Darius did to me and Ray.

            My real father, James, never got to know me. To this day he still walks this earth checking in on me sporadically, like I’m one of his high school classmates. He met Raynique one time when she was just a baby. But he exists in my life in small pieces.

            Gregory, my daddy, is the man who raised me. He came into my mother’s life when I was barely a bump in her belly, but he loved her, so he loved me. He’s the most consistent man I’ve met, and he’s shown me what it means to be loved unconditionally. He told me all the time how his family thought he was a fool to get involved with a woman who was very much claimed by another man, but I’ll never forget how he said that he told them ‘She had a baby in her belly, but she didn’t have a ring on her finger, so I gave her one’. I was a year old when they got married.

            Darius smiled at me when my daddy told him that story. He knew the feeling because he accepted me as a mother then he accepted my baby as his own and it didn’t take me long to put in my head that we were just like them. But I romanticized two imperfect beings who worked through their problems every day just like the rest of us.

            That reality still stings. I felt sick to my stomach like my whole life had been lie, cuz what the fuck was I supposed to do with that information after I had built my whole life around it. Now it had come crashing down and I was stuck. What my next move was, I had no idea…

            “Well, we taking Ray today, it’s your day so you enjoy it, and we’ll see you tonight or tomorrow.”

            “Y’all are the best, thank you.” I stood to hug him and went to give my mama and Ray a kiss. I planned to go shower, go to the gym, have lunch, get my hair done, and be back home in enough time to get ready with Shayla. I headed down to my room in the basement. My parents’ house was huge, and my old room was upstairs on the second floor, but I preferred the privacy of the basement, which my dad had fully furnished years ago and turned into a small apartment just cuz he could. He worked as a carpenter and made projects out of anything that he could since he did more administrative work than hands-on at his company.

            I plopped on the couch and grabbed my phone from the coffee table. I unlocked it and scrolled through my notifications, all from my social media accounts of people wishing me a happy birthday and tagging me in posts. For now, I would ignore them and respond to them later, but I tried to fight the smile and flip of my stomach at the tagged post from Darius with a collage of pictures of me, him, and Ray, the texts he sent, and the missed call.

            D: Happy birthday gorgeous, I hope you have a great time today, you deserve it.

            I sat there for a couple of minutes pressing the message and watching the balloons fly across the screen before I responded.

            Me: Thank you.