His Side Chick III (But I Love Him To Death)

Epilogue

Epilogue

3 Years Later

(Beyonce)

I sat on the front row of the church along with my mother, siblings and nieces and nephew, staring straight ahead as the pastor spoke. My husband held my hand tightly in hopes of giving me comfort. Micah, now three years old, sat one row back with his grandparents, while our five month old son, Michael, sat on Micheal's lap. I looked back and smiled at Kelly, Adrian and Ardeema who were seated a few rows behind us. The church wasn’t overly crowded, but every pew was filled with a mixture of family and friends. The huge picture that sat at the head of the casket was the only way to tell who the deceased woman was. I looked at it carefully and tried hard to remember how my sister was before the drugs took over her life and eventually killed her. It was so hard to remember the good times since we never really had many to begin with. True to his word, Micheal made sure that I saw Janaé at least twice a week. He was skeptical about bringing her to our house, but he would always let her take a shower in one of his vacant properties. I always made sure she had a clean change of clothes and a hot meal before we dropped her back off to wherever she wanted to go. After doing this for a few months, Janaé up and disappeared on us. We would pass through the areas that she was known to hang around, but she was never there. Either no one had seen her, or we would have just missed her right before we came. Then, out of nowhere she would show up to one of her old hangouts and we would start the process all over again. I thought that she had pulled a disappearing act on us again this last time, but that wasn’t the case. Instead of going to pick her up and giving her a hot meal, I was going to the morgue to identify her body. She was found in an abandoned house, dead from a drug overdose. I was heartbroken, but not more than my mother was. She predicted Janaé's death at the hands of the streets a long time ago. It pained her to have to make arrangements for Janaé because even though she wasn't my mother's child biologically, she treated her as if she was so my husband, and I had to do it for her. We tried to get in touch with my father and her biological mother, but failed. I couldn’t imagine how my nieces and nephews felt, especially since they hadn’t seen their mother in over a year. They didn’t cry, so there was no way to guess their feelings. I watched silently as the visitors walked up to Janaé's casket for the final viewing. A lone tear escaped my eye as a nurse in pink colored scrubs wheeled a weeping man to the front of the church to view the body. He was only about thirty years old, but the sickness that ate away at his body made him look twice as old. Bentley had been diagnosed with full- blown AIDS about a year before Janaé died. He was still an active drug user, so his condition declined rapidly. When he was admitted into a nursing home about six months ago, Janaé started running with another group of junkies and things only got worse. As much as I wanted to hate him, something inside of me couldn’t do it. I had to come to terms with my sister’s drug use without putting the blame on anyone else. We all had choices, and she made the wrong ones. I thought back to some of the choices I’ve made, and I silently thanked God for bringing me out alive. After years of sleeping with another woman’s husband that could have easily been me lying cold in a coffin for the entire world to see. Courtney had finally snapped, and another woman was dead because of it. Jay was confined to a wheelchair and after trying to take her own life, she was doing time in a crazy house. Courtney pled temporary insanity and avoided going to jail. The newspapers called it a crime of passion, and she gained a lot of sympathy from the public. I still spoke with her mother from time to time, but I hadn’t seen her in a while. She was raising the kids along with the help of Jay and his family. Brenda was still a praying woman, and I knew that prayer was the only thing that got her through it all. After viewing my sister’s remains, we all headed to my mother’s house for a small meal. Tori's remains were being cremated, so we didn’t have to go to a burial site. After fixing Micah and my husband something to eat, I excused myself and went to the ladies' room. Feeling blessed, I didn’t waste any time dropping down to my knees and giving God thanks for bringing me this far. I had so many things to be thankful for, and I didn’t take any of it for granted. I have a great career, a loving husband and two beautiful kids. I may have gone through the fire, but I came out as pure gold.

{FIN}