Page 5

“Hello?”

Eve answered her call with an attitude from hell. For the past two weeks, she received multiple calls from the last person she wanted to hear from. The fact that he thought he could talk himself out of the hole he dug for himself made Eve’s blood boil. She and Eden were thick as thieves, and by no means would she entertain the fake sincerity of a bullshitter.

Jermaine let out a sigh of relief when he heard his sister-in-law’s voice. For two weeks Eve had declined all his calls. He knew that no one in the Merci Family wanted to speak to him, except Envy, but he refused to give up.

He continued to call hoping that his aggressive approach would weigh her down, and low and behold, it worked.

“Eve, I know I’m the last person you want to speak too, but-”

“Yet you keep calling. Why is that?”

Jermaine sighed .

He wanted to tell her to get rid of the attitude, but he knew he wasn’t in a position to make any demands. Instead, he pushed forward because he knew that Eve was the only person that could make his wife speak to him.

“Eve, I know the family hates me. I just want a chance to fix things. Can you please tell me where Eden is? Please Eve. I just want to talk to her.” Jermaine begged.

He was a mess. Now that his dirty deeds were exposed, he realized how foolish his actions had been.

“Stop fucking calling me. If Eden wanted to speak to you, she’d answer her phone when you called. No real man would ever do the type of shit that you did. Because of you, she now has a criminal record. Leave her alone,” Eve spat.

“Eve. I just want to talk to her and explain my side. I just need ten minutes to talk to her,”

“Nigga, stop calling me!” Eve shouted coldly before ending the call.

There was nothing for Jermaine to explain. He had done the unthinkable, and there was no forgiveness in her heart for that type of fuckery. Instead of focusing on an apology that made no sense, she focused on her sister .

“How are you feeling Little Sis?” Eve asked as she rubbed Eden’s shoulder.

Eden’s thoughts were so convoluted that she didn’t hear the question that Eve asked. Nor did she hear her one-sided conversation with her husband.

Eden sat in the bland sterile room covering her legs and thighs with a thin paper sheet. She wanted to cry but disbelief had frozen her tears. She wanted to speak, but the doctor’s words had paralyzed her tongue. Eden could feel her body trembling, and it wasn’t because of the cold doctor’s office. She trembled because she couldn’t believe the news.

“How did this happen?”

Her heart raced so quickly that she began to hyperventilate.

“Eden, I know this is shocking. But I want you to think positively and stay calm. Any anxiety will upset the baby,” Dr. Brenda, Eden’s Ob/Gyn and friend, stated as she reentered the examination room.

“Upset the baby. Upset the baby.”

The words replayed in her head like a broken record. Eden cringed in disgust. She couldn’t understand how this happened. She took her birth control religiously and hadn’t discarded her pack of pills until last week. She couldn’t understand how she was pregnant.

Twelve weeks pregnant to be exact. After knowing what she now knew, the thought of growing Jermaine’s seed made her sick.

“What did I do to deserve this?” Eden asked as tears fell from her eyes.

Her tears were so heavy that they dropped straight to her lap and tore a hole in the paper sheet. It was hard to believe that the man she once loved was someone she didn’t know.

Brenda was stunned by Eden’s outburst. She had known Eden and Jermaine since college. The two of them were inseparable. She needed answers. Brenda tucked her professionalism and got into friend mode.

“Spill the beans Edy. I thought you would’ve been happy about this. The last time we spoke you said-”

“I know what I said the last time we spoke Brenda. Damn,” Eden snapped.

She didn’t mean to be so abrasive, but she couldn’t control her anger. Jermaine had asked her to have his child right before having unprotected sex with her sister. He had played her, and she never saw it coming .

Eve knew that at this moment Eden’s pot was boiling over. The last thing she wanted her to do was snap at their friend.

“Edy, calm down. Brenda didn’t make Jermaine do what he did. Don’t take it out on her,” Eve said soothingly as she ran her hands over her sister’s goose bump covered arm.

Eden sobbed. She knew she was wrong for her snappy response, but she couldn’t help it.

Brenda was accustomed to patients snapping, but when it came to people she knew personally, she snapped back.

“I’m waiting on my apology,” Brenda said as she rolled her neck like a common guttersnipe, instead of the educated doctor that she was.

Eden chuckled.

Anytime her friend transformed from professional physician back to “Beat a bitch Brenda” it was comical to her. She was thankful for the slight distraction because it was the first time she had laughed in weeks.

“I’m sorry Brenda. I didn’t mean to turn on you like you were the enemy. It’s not your fault,”

When Eve suggested she take a pregnancy test, she had no idea that the test results would be positive. Even though giving Jermaine a family was once her heart’s desire, now it was a nightmare. She hated the baby growing in her womb just as much as she hated the man that placed it there. This baby was a trap, a tether to keep her to the man that she no longer desired.

“Apology accepted. But seriously, I want you to stay calm. Babies are a bless-”

“Abort the baby,” Eden said angrily. She cut Brenda’s ‘Babies are a blessing speech’ off so quickly that Brenda’s mouth hung open.

Eve gasped.

Her head snapped up and jaw dropped at the three words that rushed from Eden’s mouth. Neither of them had ever expected to hear her say something so cruel.

Eden could see the disbelief on both of their faces, their shock meant nothing to her. She refused to carry the child of the man that she no longer loved. A man that apparently never loved her.

“What?” Eve and Brenda asked in unison.

Eden kept her mouth shut. There was no need to repeat herself because she knew both women heard exactly what she said.

“Edy. Don’t- ”

“My mind is made up. I don’t want this baby any more than I want the man that put it inside of me. From the first time I met Jermaine, I made him the center of my universe. Cooking vegetarian meals, praying over him every night, I never missed an opportunity to show him how much I loved him. He repays me by stabbing me in the back. Get this baby out of me,” Eden shouted. She was so livid that her entire body shook.

Eden was beside herself with grief. All she felt now was bitterness, hatred, and an intense need for payback. Jermaine’s betrayal had stripped her of everything that made her a good human.

“Eden, I know Jermaine fucked up, but this baby is completely innocent. He or she doesn’t deserve your wrath. Jason did the same thing, but I never thought of aborting our kids. Jason -”

“Jason wasn’t fucking our sister Eve!” Eden shouted.

Brenda clutched her invisible pearls as her jaw hit the floor. Of all the things she thought she would hear, hearing that Jermaine had been having an affair with Envy was not it. Brenda cringed.

She thought back to the multiple abortions that she had personally performed on Envy and wondered if any of the children belonged to Jermaine. She had also treated Envy for several STD’s. Envy had always been a horrible person, but Brenda never thought that she’d have sex with her sister’s husband.

“Edy, you’re right. Jason didn’t do what Jermaine did, but the fact still remains that your child is completely innocent. Don’t make a permanent decision based on a temporary emotion. You’ll regret it,” Eve said sincerely with tears filling her eyes.

“I love you, Eve. But this is not about you. I didn’t judge you, so don’t you judge me,”

Eve burst into tears. She never told Eden about the child that she secretly got rid of. It was her biggest regret. At the time she thought she would be hurting Jason, but she was the only one hurting because no one else knew, or so she thought.

“Dr. Young, I am of sound mind and body. I’m not under pressure. Can you please perform the abortion? I won’t ask twice. I’ll use a coat hanger and scrape his ass out before I beg you to do your job,” Eden said coldly as she stared directly into Brenda’s eyes. She refused to call her by her name, because she wanted Brenda to know that she meant business.

A tear fell from Eve’s eye. She had seen this type of pain several times in her life. Good wholesome women loving a man with every iota of their being. A woman giving a man their all and loving him so genuinely that she reserved nothing for herself. Eden had loved Jermaine that way and now she was conflicted. His selfish ways had unleashed the bad side of a good woman. Eve wept silently because she knew Eden would never be the same kindhearted woman ever again.

“Ok Eden,” Dr. Young responded solemnly.

She could tell by the way that Eden was speaking that she had already begun to change. The professional side of her told her that Eden would never mentally recover from this. She also knew that Jermaine would pay dearly for his mistake. Even though he didn’t know it, he already was.

“Since you’ve never done this before, I’ll explain it to you. Since you’re twelve weeks, I’m going to perform a D&E. Dilation and Evacuation. It is the most safe and common practice for pregnancy between twelve to sixteen weeks. I’ll inject your cervix with numbing solution, before opening it and emptying the contents with the suctioning vacuum,” Brenda sighed.

She had given this speech several times in the past. But somehow this time, it felt wrong. This was a procedure that she never imagined doing to Eden Merci Shelton. Jermaine had done something so cruel that Eden despised the child growing in her womb .

Hearing Brenda refer to her child as ‘contents’ was confirmation that the baby needed to be removed. Or at least that’s what she told herself.

“Let’s do it,” Eden said as constant tears rolled down her face.

“Eden, please don’t do this,” Eve begged as she stood in front of her younger sister. “Jason and I will raise the baby like he’s ours. Sis, please, please don’t do this. You’re only doing this because you’re angry. Please don’t do this.”

Eden ignored her. She knew adoption could have been an option, but she didn’t want Jermaine’s child to ever see the light of day. He didn’t deserve a lineage as far as she was concerned.

“Where will the procedure be performed? What do I need to do?” Eden asked as she diverted her eyes.

She looked at her bare hands. The large platinum 5-carat wedding ring that she once drooled over was long gone. After being released from jail, Eden had taken the ring back to the hotel and given it to Richelle to pawn. She knew the girl wouldn’t receive the full twenty thousand dollars, but whatever the Pawn shop chose to give her, would be more than she currently had .

“It will be performed upstairs. I’m going to need you to sign a few consent forms once we get you up there and before we get you prepped. When you’re done, the nurse will help get you changed into a gown, then start your I.V. The whole process of getting you prepared, and the evacuation will take about thirty minutes.

You’ll be rolled into the recovery room for an hour after the procedure. After that, you’ll be able to leave. You may experience bleeding and cramping for seven to fourteen days after the procedure. Do you have any questions?” Dr. Young asked.

Eden couldn’t speak. She was ragged with emotion. Instead of speaking, she shook her head left to right slowly, letting Dr. Young know that she had no questions.

She tried to hide the tears forming in her eyes, but the tears fell before she had the chance to wipe them away

“Ok Eden. I’m going to step out while you get dressed. I’ll be back in a couple minutes, then we’ll go upstairs.” Dr. Young said somberly as she stepped out of the examination room.

Brenda said a silent prayer for her friend. She prayed that this chapter of Eden’s life wouldn’t leave her mentally broken .

“I wish you’d reconsider, but I know you won’t.” Eve sighed.

“It’s for the best. I can’t miss a man that was never mine and I can’t miss a baby that I don’t want.” She lied.

Her voice cracked as she spoke. She turned away from Eve, because she knew her sister would be able to tell that she didn’t mean what she was saying.

Eden’s heart ached. In the past she believed that when she became pregnant, she and Jermaine would be in the doctor’s office listening to the heartbeat of their baby together. But he had altered those plans.

“We’re ready Eden.” Brenda said as she cracked the door open and poked her head inside.

Eden cried silently. She was walking into the operating room with two heartbeats and walking out with one. Envy and Jermaine would pay dearly for that.