“For fuck’s sake,” I said, sighing before calling her and backtracking to our last location.
“This is Kiyah. Leave a message.”
I swore and broke out in a light jog as panic settled in.
The dam burst in therapy, and Kiyah went into great detail about her brief stay with Thaddeus Branson Jr. The man was sick in the head, and our therapist agreed that he displayed signs of narcissism and borderline personality disorder, and that Kiyah was lucky that she had gotten out when she did.
According to Kiyah, she hadn’t heard a peep from that demented son of a bitch, but his silence only ramped up my anxiety. Branson was a man driven by ego and control, and Kiyah single-handedly crushed his ego and reclaimed her power when she told him to kick rocks.
The tightness in my chest eased when I found my wife chowing down on a cinnamon and sugar and salted pretzel with a look of pure bliss on her face.
“Kiyah, what the hell? Why didn’t you answer my call? Better yet, why didn’t you tell me you wanted to stop?”
“I’m sorry, G, but I asked you to slow down. Then we passed the pretzel stand, and I had to make a U-turn. You want some?” she asked, offering me a bite.
“No, I don’t want a bite, and you shouldn’t either considering the lunch we had.”
“Hold my pretzel,” she said, shoving the salted one towards me. I accepted it and couldn’t resist taking a bite while she answered a phone call. One bite led to another, and eventually, I was left with the wrapper.
“Are you kidding me?” she growled.
“What’s wrong?”
She sliced her fingers in front of her throat to silence me, eventually putting some space between us to continue her conversation. I wanted to interrupt her and figure out what thehell was going on, but I was working on not “bulldozing” as Kiyah so eloquently put it in therapy, and would allow her to come to me with her issues.
I hate marriage counseling, but it’s helping, I guess.
“All right, Burgess. Keep me posted,” she said before hanging up.
“I can sense that you’re going through something, and I want you to know that I’m here to lis—”
“Cut the shit, Grant.”
“Thank God,” I said, relieved I didn’t have to go through the therapy mumbo jumbo bullshit. “What’s going on?”
“Todd is suing me for breach of contract.”
“Okay. Let’s not lose our heads—we expected retaliation from him. How much?”
“Too much.”
“Too much, huh? Two weeks of marriage counseling and you haven’t retained a single thing our therapist said about communication. We are supposed to be clear and concise with our words—leaving no room for misunderstanding,” I fussed while we stood between the pretzel stand and a spouting fountain that passerbyers tossed coins in.
“Ten times my yearly nanny package.”
“Okay, no big deal. How much are we talking here? $500?” She shook her head solemnly. “More?” She nodded, and my blood pressure rose as the debt climbed.
“He’s suing me for $3 million.”
Grant
“Grant, you’ve been quiet today,” Dr. Haynes mentioned.
“I don’t have much to say,” I responded through clenched teeth.
“The tightness in your jaw and the pinch of your forehead say otherwise.”
“Grant is pissed at me,” Kiyah volunteered.