I walked over to the glass mirror hanging on our kitchen wall. It revealed a reflection I wasn't prepared to see. Mama is always right, I could hear her vivid words playing out in my mind.
My image forced me to put more stock in the meaning of the words. My petite frame was devoid of the beautiful spirit that once dwelled within it. My eyes were cold and unreadable. My lips were pouty, pale, and puffy. My hair, though healthy and glowing from the best care money could buy, was disheveled. The pretty caramel skin that covered my flawless face was flushed red from anguish. Not only had Titus stopped loving me, I stopped loving myself.
Thank God I had Rhonda's shoulder to cry on. She listened to me. There were no judgments passed. She was there any time I needed her, lending me her time and support unselfishly, as she had consistently done the entire six years of my marriage.
The streets helped Titus make good on his promise to be the first one in his family to make it out of the hood. He dabbled on the wrong side of the law in pharmaceuticals and ran operations in practically every hood in east Alabama. The same streets that keep generations of his family's spirits broken and in despair were the same streets that catapulted him to his millionaire status. Once money piled up and we were financially able to live every dream we had ever dreamed, he forgot about me. It slipped his mind that it was me that stood by his side when it was all just a pipe dream.
I had so much on my mind. Rhonda snapped me back to the ever so palpable present when she said, "Shayla, are you still there? Shay-la!"
"I'm here," I assured her.
"Are you going to be okay over there, honey?"
"I will be all right. Just thinking about how different things would be if he…." I stopped mid-sentence. I could not bring myself to think the thought that my husband didn't love me anymore.
Rhonda sighed. "If he what?"
God knew I loved me some Ronnie, but she was single. Sometimes, she just didn't understand me. Gladys would have been more sensitive to my situation; however, she was unavailable. After receiving an invitation to a masquerade ball from her old college buddy, Brenda Jackson, Gladys skipped town without a second thought. In desperate need of a getaway, she found the nerve to take a trip to Miami without her husband or kids. I was sure that her husband, James, was losing his mind. But, she was my shero for making that move. If only I had the nerve to do something for and about me for once. At that precise moment, I smiled with a glimmer of joy for her.