How Did I Get Here: A Novella Read online

  After taking a couple of double takes and not feeling threatened, she slowly opened the door and heard a chipper voice say, “I have some things for Preston.” The young lady carefully placed the box in Delight’s hands with Preston’s name written on it in big, black letters.

  “Why the heck does this little “hoochie” have a box for my Preston”, Delight thought to herself as she shook the box in curiosity. She wanted to have some more conversation, but the girl ran off so fast that she didn’t have any time to say anything else.

  Delight shook the box and it smelled like the same perfume Preston bought her for their wedding anniversary. She put the box onto the kitchen table so that Preston could open it himself when he got back. But, after a few minutes of those familiar fumes starting to fill her house and an odd, young woman coming to their house and rushing off; something just didn’t add up. “You know what, I am going to open up this box and if Mr. Brown has a problem with it all he has to know is that it was in Mrs. Brown’s house too!”

  She sifted through the box and was bewildered at what she saw. There were clothes of Preston’s, underwear of Preston’s, some clothes she has never seen before and even some of the socks that she’s been looking for the last couple of laundry days. “Oh, no! Oh no! Oh, no!” Delight cried out hysterically. Her hands trembled as she began to read the letter page by page in very detailed fashion. With every word her heart began to sink deeper and deeper inside of her stomach. There was no way that all of this could be true she thought to herself. “A baby? But, he promised me for life. He’s supposed to be getting ordained soon? I am just going to call Preston right now. I know he better not know this chick or we have some hard times ahead.” Nervously, she tried to dial Preston’s number, but the sweat from her hands just kept taking her to the other keys that she was not intent on dialing.

  The phone rang several times, but she got nothing, but the voice messaging system. She tried again, nothing but the voice mailbox. “I am going to dial him up one more time and if I don’t get in touch with him, I know something is wrong.” She dialed his number once more and listened to the greeting and she wailed into the phone, “How could you? How could you do this to us? I can’t believe you! Why won’t you answer your phone! What’s wrong, cat got your tongue? You better answer soon!” After leaving three more voice messages of the same monologue she began to prepare the house for the ultimate conversation that would be had as soon as Preston made his way home.

  XXX

  Preston looked at his cell phone in class and could not believe what was transpiring before his eyes. First, Lustray delivering stuff to his house! Then Delight calling emphatically. “This has just got to be a dream,” Preston mumbled to himself. Prestonwas so vexed by the entire sequence that he could not even hear what the instructor was saying. All he could think about was if he should go home or not. After the fifteenth call from Delight, then Mama Brown leaving a text it was time to go to Longs’ house and to try and talk out some type of strategy.

  Within five minutes Preston rolled up the driveway, let himself into Longs’ house and without speaking, just showed him the cellphone.

  With wide eyes and an open mouth all Longs could say was, “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.” He said it so frequent and so fast; he began to sound like he was talking in tongues!

  Preston enraged, grabbed Longs by the throat and exclaimed, “This is not helping me, and this is a matter of life and death. What should I do here?”

  “Black man, you know I have nothing but love for you but you know I told you to leave that broad alone while you were ahead. Honestly, I don’t know what to say on that one. But, you better call your pops since he’s the one with all those kids and don’t pay a dime in child support. I know he got something figured out to pull that one off,” Longs held his hands up defenseless.

  “You know what; you got a point right there. Let me go ahead and do that.” Preston dialed his dad and filled him in on the situation just to hang up the phone in disappointed fashion. He was hoping to hear that he should not go home, but it was more than evident that he had no choice but to do so.

  “So what did pops say?”

  “He said that I had to go home and had to try to talk it out. Honestly, I don’t know if I go in there and come back out alive. I mean forget Iraq and Afghanistan this is terror on the home front for real!”

  “All I know is that I will pray for you my little brother and stay out of the kitchen. If there is anything that I can tell you that makes any more sense than what I told you, it is to stay out of the kitchen. That way you can avoid any pots, pans, or knives that may come about.”

  Preston paced back and forth heavily like he was strung out on crack, but knew deep down that he had to go home. He shook so much that he had rather have been dead to stop the internal misery. “So this is what it’s like to be shook,” Preston mumble to himself. All of a sudden he stopped, looked at Longs, took a deep breath, and smiled. “You know what; I’m the man and I’m gonna handle my business. I’m out and I will fill you in if I’m kicked out of the house or not. If I am I will be back here and if not, I will be on the couch. Peace.”

  “Little brother, you don’t understand. You are not going to get out that easy.”

  “And why not,” Preston asked looking puzzled.

  “Because she wants to give you hell first, before anything happens. It maybe a night, week, or the rest of your life, but hell is imminent my brother.”

  With that note, Preston just shook his head and made his way back to the car. While driving home all he did was rehearse the conversation that he thought he might have. He didn’t know if he should apologize, play hurt, or just get yelled at. “I have to know where her head is at before I head in there,” he thought. So he dialed the home number and called her.

  “Hello, and I know you are on your way home, because we are about to get real deep and you are about to explain everything to me,” Delight yelled.

  “Well, all I want to know is if my stuff is out there on the porch yet?”

  “Oh, no mister, you think that it is going to go down that easy, bring yourself here right now.”

  This terrified Preston even more, because this was something that he totally did not expect to come to fruition. The ride home was once again too short and it was time to face the music. He pulled up to the driveway and began to walk very slowly to the front door, but could already see Delight pacing back and forth through the kitchen window waiting for him to come in. As soon as Preston walked through the door he received immediate instructions and he had no choice, but to comply.

  “Sit down! Sit down right here as I read a little something to you from your little b---- today! She came over here making sure that I read a letter that was supposedly addressed to you, but I know the drill.”

  “No, I actually think that it was addressed to me-”

  “You just shut up and sit down,” Delight yelled. She read the letter to him and asked him about every detail that was written.

  If there were ever a time that Prestonwished he could inflict death by internal suicide it was now. He felt like he was being held hostage in his own home. All he could do for the remainder of the time was look at his little baby boy who tried to figure out what all of the hostility was about. Preston could still not believe that he potentially created a baby that was going to be only eleven months apart from his baby boy!

  “So what were you thinking Preston? Was it good? Was it because she was thick? Come on, tell me, because I just need to know, what the hell you were thinking lying down with that,” Delight demanded as she stood on top of the chair.

  Preston figured that he’d better say something or it would never stop, or it could get progressively worse in a hurry. And if he did answer he had better be honest, because the cat was already out of the bag. “Well, yeah it was good, I mean, I guess there was a reason that I kept going back.” Okay, just keep the answers short and sweet Preston kept reminding himself.

  After
Delight paced back and forth hysterically for a few minutes without saying a word; she grabbed her coat and said, “You know what, I just can’t stay here any longer I am leaving you here with the kids and I will be at Vashti’s. Good bye.”

  XXXI

  Delight pulled up to Vashti’s house at lightning speed and saw her there talking to Brandon as he dropped Tony off from his midweek visit.

  At the top of her lungs Delight yelled out, “Girl, you will not believe what type of sugar just happened to me today!”

  As Vashti listened to the story her and Brandon began to look at each other with eyes wide open. As Delight continued on she could tell there was some type of irony going on between the two of them. Vashti cleared her throat and stated, “Girl, I am sorry to tell you this, but that is Brandon’s friend I was telling you about and I am sure that there is more that he could tell you instead of me.”

  “Well, Brandon get to explaining because I don’t have time to waste,” Delight hissed at him. By the look in Brandon’s eyes he knew that he had better come out clean with himself dealing with three women, all at the same time.

  “I don’t know everything, but what I do know is that they use to go on some dates, trips, or something like that and Lustray would bring her kids to my house so that she could have a sitter for the time being,” Brandon said choosing his words carefully.

  “I need answers, so the best thing you can do right now is to call her and to tell her to come over here right now, because this is about to turn into one messed up family reunion,” Delight amped in a New Jersey state of mind.

  Subsequent to him dialing the number Delight snatched the phone out of his hand and began dialoguing with Lustray. “Oh he just sent you a text? Okay, well you know where I live so just meet me there in about forty five minutes and we will sit down with Mr. Brown and have a nice little chat. I don’t have anything against you I just want to know the truth so that I can get on with my life.” Delight hung up the phone, handed it to Brandon and sped off out of the driveway.

  XXXII

  Preston sat at home not wanting to move from the same spot he had been sitting in for the last hour. All he could do was flip through his phone wandering how he could convince Lustray that he genuinely cared about her. There was no way he thought that Delight would let him into the life of a child outside of his marriage. Being someone that was raised by his father, he just could not bring himself to the point of not being involved in the life of his own flesh and blood. After debating with himself for so long as he looked around the apartment he could only resolve to contemplate divorce. “That will be the only way that I could be involved with all of my children and not have any strings attached. They could all be treated fairly and valued the same. All of the preachers around here preach about being involved with their children and that is exactly what I am going to do.”

  After Preston came out of the bathroom feeling a little bit better about his decision, Preston could not believe his own eyes at the sight in his kitchen. It was Lustray, her girls, and Delight waiting for him at the kitchen table!

  Preston opened his arms, looked to the ceiling and cried, “Lord, just take me now.”

  TO BE CONTINUED . . .

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