Page 5 of Quiet as Kept
Yahirah was talking sense, but that didn’t lessen the discomfort as the tentacles of anxiety wrapped themselves around my lungs. The idea of people doing things for me made me uncomfortable. Probably because my family always made sure that any favor they did for you indebted you to them.
I didn’t like owing people. I trained myself to be content with the things I could provide for me. It didn’t matter if my belongings were meager by society’s standards. When I laid my head down on the pillow at night, I rested in the fact that nobody on Earth had anything over me. And while I knew logically that Yahirah would never treat me like I owed her, the thought of needing her to provide a plane ticket for me still made me feel some kind of way.
“Okay,” I agreed, knowing it wasn’t the last time that conversation would come up.
“Okay.” I could hear the smile in her tone. She was happy that I wasn’t fighting her on it. “Well, I know you were probably mere minutes from sleep when I called.”
“I was.” The giggle floated from my mouth because she knew that I didn’t play about my sleep.
“I’ll talk to you later. Love you.”
“Love you back,” I assured her before ending the call and heading to bed.
The last thought I had before I drifted into a peaceful sleep was,Something’s got to give. A change has got to come.
Two
Kept
It was a little after eleven o’clock at night on the first Thursday in March. I came into the house through the garage, landing in my mudroom. I quickly reset the alarm, slipped out of my shoes, and set my work bag on the bench. After a good stretch, I bypassed the kitchen since I wasn’t hungry. Once the Atterson, South Carolina city officials realized that the zoning meeting was going to run late, they ordered dinner.
A five-hour meeting, and I still wasn’t certain if or when I would be able to break ground on the new development we were planning to build in the mid-sized town. It wasn’t a large development—just twenty single-family homes with seven floor plans for buyers to choose from. None of the homes would be larger than 3,000 square feet, and only two plans offered three car garages.
I padded up the stairs in my stocking feet. When I made it to the landing, I busted a right to head to the side of the home that housed the bedroom my daughters shared. My house was a custom designed, six-bedroom home built by me. Each of mygirls could have their own room, but they were close and liked to share. Dakota, my oldest, was almost four years old. Her younger sister, Destin, had just turned two. My daughters were the light of my life and the reason for everything I did.
The overly done, over-the-top, princess-themed room was softly bathed in a warm glow from the strategically placed recessed nightlights. I crept across the room, the thick dusty pink area rug absorbing the sound of my footfalls. I came to Destin’s bed first. Bending at the waist, I placed a kiss on her cheek, pausing to just stare at her. My heart running around outside of my body. She was my hurricane—my little tornado. From the moment she learned to walk, Destin was everywhere and into everything. My younger sister, Trinity, liked to joke that the only time Destin was still was when she was asleep.
I walked over to Dakota’s bed—my serious angel. She was my do-gooder, the one who couldn’t stand the thought of me not being pleased with her. She was a perfectionist, and to me, she was absolutely perfect. Not a perfect person or perfect child, but she definitely had a perfect heart, 100 percent pure. I kissed her cheek and ran my hand over her soft hair. Despite all of my career success and my money making, the two of them were the best things I’d ever done with my life.
I spoke my nightly prayer over them then made my way to my own bedroom. I wasn’t a fan of overhead lighting. Personally, I found it too jarring and bright, but as a builder, I understood that it was occasionally needed. I always included it, even in my own home, though I seldom used it. This day, as I crossed the threshold, I flipped the switch without even thinking about it. My feet immediately stopped their forward march as my eyes adjusted and my brain fully processed what I was seeing.
In the middle of my king-sized bed, in all her naked glory, lay my girls’ nanny, Paisley. I didn’t want to be that guy, but something about the man in me caused my eyes to zero in on thespot between her opened legs where she stimulated herself using two fingers.
I started to back away but remembered that it was not only my bedroom; it was my home. I was her employer, and she was supposed to be in the bedroom assigned to her on the first floor by the kitchen.
“Um, I’m not going to even ask what you’re doing because it’s obvious. I’m just going to ask you to cease and desist. Then I need you to grab your clothes and make your way downstairs. I’ll give you thirty minutes to pull yourself together, and then I need you to meet me in the kitchen.”
“Mr. Boudreaux,” she practically moaned, because her fingers were still working to take her to that special place.
I couldn’t help the sardonic chuckle that escaped from me. That was what I got for hiring somebody so young. The younger generation didn’t have any damn shame. If I had walked in and caught a millennial, or God forbid, a generation X’er, they would’ve been mortified. They would’ve scurried past me in shame before I even had a chance to address them. But the young ones were raised with a level of entitlement that made you the bully and them the victim.
“Paisley, get your naked ass out of my bed, get your clothes on, and meet me in the kitchen in twenty minutes.”
She finally pulled her fingers from her pussy and focused her eyes on me. I pointed to the door. She slowly rolled from the center of the bed and did as I asked. I watched her leave my bedroom, her naked misshapen ass still swinging as she switched away. I didn’t need this shit.
“Stuff like that only happens to my brother,” my younger sister, Trinity, said as we sat on the balcony of our cousin Yahirah’s high-rise apartment.
I had just finished telling them about the incident with the nanny.
Trinity had recently accepted a new job in Atlanta. For the first time in years, she and I wouldn’t live in the same state. And I was messed up behind it. I had three half-siblings, all girls. Trinity was the only one that I had a relationship with, and I always felt that she was the best gift my dad had ever given me.
My father and Trinity’s mother were in a long-term relationship when my dad stepped outside of it and got my mom pregnant. At the time, my father, Gannon Boudreaux, was a hard-hitting, popular, and wealthy professional baseball player with the Londynville Lions. My mother, Vivienne Russell, was his favorite groupie.
The story I heard was that the pregnancy with me wasn’t the first time Gannon had gotten Vivienne pregnant. Each pregnancy had come with a stack of cash and outlandish, high value gifts in exchange for abortions. But before he had the chance to get Vivienne straight with her cash and consolation prizes, Gannon’s long-term love, Priscilla, showed up on Vivienne’s doorstep talking shit.
Priscilla obviously hadn’t considered the consequences of her actions. Vivienne made the spur of the moment decision that another abortion was not in her future. She was giving birth, and her child would wear the last name Boudreaux before Priscilla ever would. Then to add injury to insult, Vivienne named me “Kept,” a constant reminder to both Gannon and Priscilla that she was the only person who made decisions about her life.
Gannon and Priscilla had two daughters when I was born, Ganniece and Penelope. Much to Priscilla’s dismay, Gannon was excited about having a son. He was very active in my life, whichwas a blessing, because once Vivienne gave birth, she was very much absent in my life.