Things We Lost In the Fire

What's Done In the Dark...

April 4, 1999

"Sis, are you coming to Sunday dinner later?" Clad in her Sunday best, Morgan inspected my fridge in search of something to fulfill her pregnancy cravings.

"No I'm not. Dad is still pissed that I'm turning down that job offer."

Forking her way through a jar of pickle spears, she said, "Now see thats one of the few things I do agree with him on. You're stupid for turning that down. Six months in LA,  making as much as you make in a year here?!"

"Yeah but I don't know anyone in LA. Hanna is going to do it too, but what if Hanna's assignment is at a different hospital or in San Francisco?"

"Your concerns are dumb. Life is all about meeting new people."

"Oh yeah? Well what about daycare for my baby? I don't want to leave him in the care of some hippie strangers."

She turned her nose up. "That's even dumber. Are you going to home school him his entire life? You don't know the people at whatever pre-school he's attending next year."

"Thats different."

"No, it's not. I bet you that jelly donut on your plate that I know exactly why you don't want to leave Minnie." I rested my chin in the palm of my hand, unamused by her know-it-all attitude. "You don't want to leave because of Prince." Damn. Examining the look of defeat I had, she snatched the half eaten donut.

"I never told him about it."

"Why? Are you afraid he might say no?"

"I know he would say no! You work with him, you know he loves to be in control", I shot back at her.

She grunted, "Ugh, don't remind me. But we're not talking about my woes for the last five years. I think you should tell him."

"There's no point, I'm not taking the job. It—"

"I also think you should bring up the divorce." I stared at Morgan as if she had sprouted two extra heads. Now she's trying to be an instigator. Although I've had thoughts about the situation, I don't think it's my place to get in his business like that. As far as I know, she lives in Spain full time and they don't communicate on a daily basis. If he doesn't bring it up, neither will I.

"Morgan, aren't y'all going to be late for church?"

———————

"I hope you know you're not going next year."

As I was washing off Noah's face with a wet rag, I scoffed at P's statement and turned to see him digging through Noah's Sesame Street backpack. "Are you really still on that? I showed you those pictures like two hours ago."

After two months, I finally got around to getting the photos we took during Carnival developed. Since P was curious as to what happened on my excursion to Trinidad, I brought the pictures over for him to see. But because I left most of the photography to Tori, I had to sit down and weed out at least seventy-five percent of the photos first. Not because they were super inappropriate, I'm just not sure if I want to see my boyfriend blow a blood vessel because he saw a picture of me shaking my ass on top of a taxi during J'ouvert with body paint all over me.

It's bad enough he wanted to see my costume, that's the picture he's been ranting about for the past hour or so. Luckily, I was able to divert his attention for a little while when we took Noah out to the jungle gym at Paisley. But as soon as we walked into the kitchen, he started up again. I tried to flash him pictures of Noah like this one, but even his cuteness couldn't faze the sheer dissatisfied look on P's face.