Waiting to Exhale by Terry McMillan Read Free Book Online

wife, and you had done what you'd been taught to do: let him take the wheel while you took the back seat.
    You fool. You didn't even realize that you had stopped looking at the road, until John got bored watching the fish multiply in the ponds he'd had dug in the backyard and said he thought it was time to start a family. So you got pregnant. Your blood pressure skyrocketed and you had to quit your job, but John said it was better this way. You should be at home. So you followed both his and the doctor's orders. You stayed in a horizontal position for six months and read Dr. Spock and every baby book on the market until you felt like a child expert.
    When John junior was born, you poured all your energy into motherhood and watched your husband's business prosper. You believed in him, in the safety of his plans. And at his request, before John junior could say a complete sentence, you had another baby. John insisted on naming the first child after him, and you insisted on naming the second one. But he didn't want any child of his to have an African name. He wanted to name her Jennifer or Kristen or Ashley or Lauren, but you had made a deal, and you kept it. By the time you were weaning Onika off breast milk, you started feeling restless and bored and got tired of staying at home with the kids all day long. You started watching those stupid soap operas and game shows and got a prescription for Xanax because you were screaming all day long. And your brain, it felt as if it was shrinking.
    Every single time you said you were ready to start your catering business, John would think of something else for you to do with the kids that would usurp your time. He wouldn't let you put them in day care, because he thought those places were dangerous. So you spent your afternoons taking John junior to piano lessons, karate, Cub Scouts, T-ball, and soccer. You dragged Onika to ballet and gymnastics when the child could barely walk straight. He had convinced you that being a good mother meant staying at home with the children until they were at least school age.
    So you postponed your dream again. For five more years. But you felt like a single mother, because John worked long hours and the kids were always asleep when he got home and barely saw him on weekends. It was you who read them bedtime stories. You who took off work to take them to the doctor, the dentist. You who stayed home to nurse them when they were sick. It was you who didn't miss a recital or a game. It was you who took them to school and picked them up. It was you who got the wax out of their ears, made sure they took their vitamins, and later made sure they did their homework right. And it was you who took them trick-or-treating, you who dressed up like the Easter bunny, and for the last eight years, it was you who coordinated their birthday parties and sat through hundreds of others.
    And then there were the conventions. The conferences. The trade shows. The potential-client dinners. Potential-client meetings. John went everywhere he could so he wouldn't have to come home.
    And sex. It became almost irrelevant, almost an afterthought, because when it did happen it was as if John was doing you a favor, and even then he tried to overcompensate. So you stopped wearing the garters, the G-strings, the lace, and those four-inch heels. You hid all those videos that had given him most of his ideas. You stopped pretending to enjoy it altogether and started giving him mummy pussy. You simply stopped moving. Of course by then you knew something was terribly wrong, but you didn't know how to fix it and didn't want to.
    And last year, right after Onika had started first grade, John had a brainstorm. He wanted another baby. For the first time in years you felt strong enough and told him no. That you had not been educated to become a permanent housewife, that you needed more stimulation and you were going to get it. He got mad and you got your tubes tied. You complained to Gloria, your