in the morning, depending upon whose perspective it was. She needed to talk to her husband, but sheâd give up calling him for the moment.
In the midst of the quiet, the phone rang. Whoâd be calling thislate? Maybe it was her Mom and Dad calling from St. Louis. Without looking, Mimi sprinted to the kitchen and picked up the phone before it stopped ringing. âHello.â
âYou shouldâve checked your caller ID,â the voice said.
âWho is this?â Mimi asked, confused.
âSo this afternoon has already faded from your memory. Iâm calling to remind you that I wasnât paying lip service to you today. Itâs not in your best interest to disobey me. Having lunch with Brenda would be bad for your health.â
âAre you through?â
âAs long as you understand the message.â
âVictor, you donât scare me. Threats are just thatâthreats. You can use all the scare tactics you want, but you wonât win. I will not play this game with you. My advice to you is get your own life in order, and DONâT CALL HERE AGAIN.â
Mimi slammed the phone down and shook uncontrollably. She ignored the phone when it rang a minute later, and when she didnât answer it and it rang several more times, she snatched the phone cord out of the jack. âIâm too blessed to be stressed,â she muttered under her breath, but she was visibly shaken.
Mimi went to her junk drawer, retrieved her journal and a pen, and then sat down at the kitchen table. She opened the book and reread her first journal entry, closed the book and her eyes, and began to pray. She hadnât been close to God in a long time, and if she needed Him, now was certainly the time.
When she finished her short prayer, Mimi picked up her pen and opened the journal to the next available space.
October 6, 2008
A one in a million chance was the odds of me running into Victor or Brenda. I would have never won the lottery with those odds, but somehowfate has a way of making a believer out of me. Who wouldâve thought my worst nightmare, which had been temporarily parked in the furthermost recess of my mind, would descend upon me out of nowhere in the middle of the day when I was minding my own business, oblivious to what the neighbors on either side of me were doing, let alone old friendships that had died hard. Maybe it was my paranoia or maybe I spoke this madness into existence, but now Iâve got a fight on my hands, one that has put a fight within me that I didnât know existed.
Victor had the audacity to show up on my doorstep today, get in my face, and demand to know if he was Afrikaâs father. Who in the hell does he think he is? And when he received confirmation from me that Afrika is his child, he had the nerve to tell me that Afrika and I had to leave Durham so that his reputation would stay intact. Iâm neither his wife or his concubine. I should have busted his tail a long time ago and explained to Brenda later, but she probably wouldnât have believed me if I told her that her sorry-ass fiancé had raped me.
Brenda wants to meet me, but I canât. Too many years have passed to try and rekindle a relationship thatâ¦that I still want. Iâve thought about Brenda often, wondering whether she married Victor, if she had kids, and what she looked like. Would she have that same award-winning smile that used to melt menâs hearts?
Something keeps tugging at me on the inside, telling me to tell Afrikaâ¦to tell Brenda before things get out of hand because no amount of talking will repair the damages my silence have rendered.
Lord, I need Your direction. I need You to show me what Iâm to do. Iâm prepared to fight Victor, but I need to know the how. Afrika is my primary concern, and Iâll let no one hurt her, except over my dead body. Sheâs my baby, my only baby.
Mimi Bailey
9
B renda sat in her office and mulled over the