A Tale of Two Women - A Mini Series, Part X

Adam started his own auto sales business in late summer, and things were moving really quickly for him. Much preparation was needed to get everything up and running, but Adam was confident he could handle everything because after all he had essentially ran his last boss’s business entirely. Deanna helped in anyway she could in getting his business running smoothly. He acquired a little office space for retail sales, which was perfect since he was starting with very little capital. Deanna was thrilled to see his enthusiasm and worked right along side him since the inception of his business. In fact she was the one that assembled his furniture from scratch because he was struggling to figure it out, along with every other aspect of the business.

Deanna and Adam continued their weekend routine’s of going out, and one particular weekend Adam had suggested that perhaps Deanna should give up belly dancing because it really wasn’t a respectable thing. Deanna argued that she wasn’t doing it for a living nor planned on making it her life’s work, but rather something she really enjoyed doing once a week. However, since Adam was not backing down from his position as well as reminding Deanna that they were respectable people and what would people of his culture think if they found out his wife was belly dancing. Deanna decided that it wasn’t worth the argument and discontinued her dance classes. Besides her days were so busy now that she was working full time in her job and helping Adam with his business during the evenings and weekend. Her time was pretty much exhausted, so giving up belly dancing wasn’t the worst thing in the world.

In the end of October first of November Deanna discovered she was pregnant. She could not believe her good fortune in spite of the fact that she felt sicker than a dog. From the moment she opened her eyes until the moment she closed them at night and maybe even into her slumbering sleep she felt nauseously green. She shared the news with Adam and he was thrilled. He couldn’t wait to spread the word to his colleagues. He even called his family back home whom he hadn’t talked to in years due to some misunderstanding they had. Adam shared that he came from a relatively affluent family back home and sometime back he had asked them for some assistance on something and according to him they turned their backs on him. From that time forward he vowed he’d not contact them again, but Deanna believed because she shared a close relationship with her family and the fact that she held family values at such a high standard that perhaps now that Adam was starting his whole family he reconsidered his position and contacted them. Until this point, Deanna had never met any of his family or even spoke to them on the phone, so she was delighted to finally talk with his father and sister.

Somehow Deanna managed to awaken every morning and get out of bed although she was feeling extremely sick. She tried every possible remedy suggested in order to get through the ‘morning sickness’ part of the pregnancy, but after four months it was still going strong.

Deanna’s daily activities consisted of going to work for nine to ten hours a day, get off work drive to Adam’s work and process any files that needed processing and organized the mayhem office that seemed to explode somehow every single day. She would usually get home around nine or ten in the evening and then just collapse.

As with all newly weds you learn more about one another once you are actually residing under one roof, and one thing in particular that stood out to her was the fact that Adam went out every single night with or without her. This was troubling her because she was not use to this type of living arrangement. She could only base her present experience from her past, and her past taught her that families dined together, spend the evenings together, but this was not the case with Adam. He had explained to Deanna that in his culture it wasn’t unusual for the guys to get together at the end of the day and spend time playing cards, drinking tea or coffee and visiting with one another. Deanna had no problem with them keeping their friends and doing things with others outside of their little union, however she felt that every night was a little excessive. By time Adam would return it would be one or two o’clock in the morning to which he would finally drift asleep on the couch sometime around three in the morning. Deanna started her day by waking at six in the morning, so was always sure to be very quiet and not disturb Adam’s sleep.

Clint and Claudia’s arguing was increasingly getting worse. It was becoming more of a daily activity of life than an occasional bantering. This had escalated so much that Clint was now talking about divorcing Claudia. He was so fed up with her and her lack of responsibility. The man that only saw the sun rise and set in his beautiful bride was now only seeing red flurries. He was so fed up, and was complaining to his mom regularly. Finally one day Deanna’s mom told her about her brother’s decision to divorce Claudia who had been nothing but a burden to her son all these years. She felt bad for her grandson, but thought maybe it would be the right thing. Although she didn’t like the idea of her grandson moving to Mexico as she knew that’s where Claudia would go because there would be no other reason for her to remain here and more importantly she couldn’t take care of her self here. If Deanna didn’t know better she would think her mother was just waiting patiently for the call to back Claudia up and ship her back to Mexico, but she knew better.

Deanna contacted her brother to see how things were going, knowing full well she knew what was going on, and her brother just opened his mouth and let the flood gates of distaste flow freely. Deanna realized that some of the things he was sharing were based of bits of rage, other things were based on his tainted one-sided version, but she also knew there was probably some truths to the spewing. Deanna offered suggestions on how they could curtail some of the spending habits to which her brother thought were great ideas, but didn’t implement one of them as he didn’t have time and besides it was Claudia’s problem they were in all this trouble. Deanna stated that regardless of whose fault it was for the situation, there still needed to be a resolution, and with a few simple changes, things could go back to the way they were previously…blissful. Clint was far too gone, he had already resolved himself that he was ending this marriage at once. He was tired of Claudia being the dead weight in the structure, and he had worked to hard for her to piss away everything . If he hadn’t been investing through his 401k every month, then she would have spent that money as well. When Deanna asked Clint what Claudia spent so much money on, he said, “sis, I have no fucking idea what she spends money on. She has to go to the damn grocery store everyday and buy something.” Deanna inquired as to what else, to which he replied that he wasn’t completely sure, but the money was going through her hands like sand. Deanna felt there was definitely more to this story, but wasn’t feeling up to getting into it with him because she felt miserable. Moreover, she was still struggling to figure out how she was going to tell her parents she was married and pregnant. She knew this was not a secret she could conceal forever, but still hadn’t felt the moment was right to say something.

After the beginning of the New Year Deanna’s doctor wanted her to have an amniocentesis done because of her age; she was in her mid-thirties. She was so nervous about having this procedure done, and she didn’t bother Adam with her fears because he was always so stressed out and she didn’t want to add to it. Merely out of fear for the procedure needing to be performed the very next morning, Deanna decided to call her mom and tell her everything. Her mom listened in silence and when Deanna was finished telling her, her mom told her to call after the appointment and let her know how it went. Deanna was relieved because after all she knew she just unloaded a bombshell on her mom and she’d need time to process this information as well as tell her father, as her parents shared everything with one another.

The next day Deanna went alone to the medical facility where she was greeted by the most warm and friendly staff she had every met. They could not only see the fear in Deanna’s face, but knew they needed to calm her down for the sake of her unborn child. Deanna made it clear to them as she did to everyone in the medical community that she didn’t want to know the sex of her child; she was only concerned for the well being of her baby. In this day in age, Deanna felt it was harder for people to keep this information quiet than it was to tell someone so easily the sex of their child, but she liked the idea of having something to look forward to. Like opening a present on Christmas. The procedure itself although serious in nature went very well, and Deanna was allowed to leave shortly thereafter knowing they would be sending something to her doctor letting them know her results. A few weeks later at Deanna’s next ob/gyn routine scheduled appointment her doctor shared the test results with her which were all negative. Deanna praised God for this news, and continued to pray for His blessings upon this unborn child.

Through the day-to-day operations of work Deanna was able to occasionally have a sense of humor about herself in spite of the sickness. She shared with her best friend as well as others that she believed if the baby was a boy, then she understood him trying to suck the life out of her because of their ‘neediness’. On the other hand, if it was a girl she was going to cheer ever so loudly exclaiming how proud she was of her little girl taking everything from her because she’d use it for strength.

Deanna’s relationship was a little strained with her family, but they all still managed to communicate by phone, but other than that she didn’t see them much because of the number of hours she was putting into her jobs and marriage. Moreover, Clint’s situation was also causing her parents to be a little sidetrack.

By late spring, two months before the arrival of their baby, Deanna and Adam moved into a bigger home. For until this time they were living in Adam’s one bedroom apartment and that just wasn’t enough room for three people. Deanna in the meantime sold her Chateau in the Ghetto and paid off her Mercedes. Her mom helped Deanna a couple of times when Deanna was going through her home and ridding herself of a lot of things. Her mom who was not one to really know how to show comfort to her daughter seemed to be hurting inside seeing her daughter going through all these things…the hours of work, the packing and selling of her home, but most of all what bothered Deanna’s mother was that she felt her daughter was giving everything of herself to her husband and was not seeing the same in return for her. On one of the packing days Deanna’s mother actually mustered up the courage to share her thoughts with her daughter. She told her daughter that she hated to see her being treated this way because Deanna was a good person, she was smart, she had a good heart and deserved so much better. She asked Deanna directly, “what do you guys do that you like to do Deanna? It seems you guys are always doing the things that Adam likes to do, but what about the things you like?” Of course, Deanna got defensive and told her mom the things Adam likes to do she likes to do as well, which was absolutely the truth, but there were other things she would have liked to do to but didn’t. The two women sat with tears running down their cheeks and just hugged one another. Nothing further needed to be said.

When Deanna’s condo had finally sold, her family and a couple of Adam’s workers from his car lot helped Deanna remove the last of her belongings from the condo. Deanna recalls her family leaving her alone inside the condo for a bit by herself so she could say her last good byes to the Chateau in the Ghetto that oddly enough had become a safe haven for Deanna. Perhaps a place where she came to actually know herself for the first time, although not completely and certainly not perfectly, but nonetheless her first real meeting of herself as an adult.