Keeper of My Soul. Keshia Dawn

the wheel.” he just couldn’t help but do the reenactment of the very funny Mr. Brown from Tyler Perry’s movies. “Oowee.” he stretched to get out of the driver’s side.

      He already knew the devil’s hell Michelle would bring when she got home, and almost opted to undo his bow tie and sleep in the car. The thought of them arguing almost made him crank the car once more and go to the nearest five-star hotel. Instead, he thought about all the hard work he did on a daily basis to try to make his marriage work. He knew he had as much right to their bed as she did. Her ignorance would just have to go ignored as far as he was concerned.

      As soon as he made his way into their abode with the lofty ceiling, Keithe did exactly as he felt. Instead of doing what Michelle would have recommended, taking clothes off in the bedroom only, Keithe undressed as he made his way through the winding house. Shoes here, pants there, shirt elsewhere. When it was all said and done, Keithe only had his socks on to show evidence of his no longer caring what Michelle thought.

      By the time his head hit his favorite pillow, the only rhythm in the marriage bed was that of his pounding headache. The BC powder, a crushed aspirin concoction, was the only thing that helped him doze to sleep. Twelve-thirty was the time the loyal and dependable husband fell asleep. Without any sound of an alarm, two twenty-eight in the morning was the time he awoke to his wife’s drunken stupor.

      “How dare you! how dare you leave me. In my own car! Do you know how humiliating that was for me?” Michelle barged into their master suite and turned on every light within her reach.

      Her energy level never letting up, she raced around to where Keithe had been in deep sleep and snatched the 1000-thread-count sheet from his body.

      “Did you hear me, Keithe?” she slurred from her drunken lips. “Keithe, are you listening to me?” she stood over his head. “Not to mention, sir, you aren’t supposed to be driving. What, you want to kill yourself on my watch?”

      “Michelle, leave me alone,” Keithe managed to get out with one stale and heavy breath. “I have to get up and be at church early.” Thinking for only a millisecond, Keithe didn’t give her a second thought as he pulled his goose-down pillow over his head to ward off the light.

      “I don’t give a—” Right as Michelle was about to make an obscene gesture toward the house of God, Keithe flew from the bed with only his boxers on, and stood in her face.

      “I don’t have the time or the energy for this or you. But you, you better watch your mouth when you talk about something that means so much to me.” he tried his best to be civil.

      “More than me, right?” Michelle already knew the answer, but wanted him to say it. “I said, more than me?” she asked as her husband grabbed his pillow and walked away from her.

      Stopping to make himself clear to his disrespectful, yet breathtakingly beautiful, wife, Keithe fought the urge to hold her once more.

      “Yes. Much more than you, Michelle. Now if you’ll excuse me.”

      CHAPTER 3

      Michelle

      Michelle was no longer sleeping off her drunken trance, but still couldn’t bring herself to get out of the comfortable and curve-catching silk queen-sized bed. When she glanced at the open space on her husband’s side of the bed, she figured Keithe had long ago dressed and called his driver to take him to church. Then she abruptly remembered that he had removed himself from their shared quarters after the entrance she had made. Screaming at the top of her lungs hadn’t guaranteed herself or Keithe a good night’s rest. At first thinking maybe he would sleep the day through, knowing her husband all too well, Michelle knew he would att-end church regardless.

      Looking over at the decorative and antique wall clock, she saw that a quarter to twelve was the time. That alone meant that Keithe wouldn’t be home for another two hours or so. Unless he went to brunch with his church friends, Michelle could account for her husband’s whereabouts. Silly as it sounded, Michelle thought maybe that was the problem: him being too good to be true. Sucking her teeth, Michelle couldn’t believe her marriage had turned out to be a bland, dull, and uneventful inconvenience.

      Some days she didn’t know if it was just Keithe or if it was the fact that he was such a holy roller. If she had known he would turn out to be so into God, she would have rethought the path in marrying him. Then again, she couldn’t tell the future. All she had known was that the young man she had encountered loved being around her, and wanted and needed her. Now things were different. It wasn’t like she didn’t believe in God. Michelle prayed and had even tried the “God thing” before. She just didn’t dwell on the hope that some man she didn’t know could possibly help her through all of her woes. If that were the case, why so many years ago did she have so much heartache? why didn’t he make her crooked paths straight as he seemed to do for everyone else? Loving men had always seemed to have a damaging effect on her, and loving him, God, didn’t seem to differ. So by the time Keithe came into her life, Michelle figured she’d go for someone she could train. She had moved from Dallas to Houston, and started a new life where no one knew her or would question her about her life’s circumstances. Doing lectures at colleges throughout Houston’s metropolitan area, at age forty, she spotted Keithe’s eye for her and didn’t deny the attraction she, too, had for him. A brief courtship led to the nuptials she’d always felt were way overdue for her. With the previous love of her life, Marcus Jeffries, Michelle felt her chances were swept away once he rekindled with a high school love, Gracie Gregory. Being bitter over that only led her to one day fall in love with a friend of his. Ultimately, what she thought she and Ky had didn’t last either. But then again, all the issues seemed to fall in her lap. With the entire ruckus she had caused both men, she knew why she had to revamp, leave Dallas, and start fresh. That was what she thought she had then found with Keithe: a new, fresh beginning.

      In the early stages of their marriage, life was good. He with his dark skin and height of a NBA point guard complemented her “pretty girl” appeal. Never once cutting her hair, Dark & Lovely creased her hairline then as it did now.

      Easing out of bed, Michelle walked over to the mantle that graced their fireplace in their room, and stared at their wedding photo. Deep down Michelle knew that Keithe was a great man and a hard worker, and that he really did love her. All the issues their marriage had inherited had no doubt come from her.

      “What is your problem?” she asked her own photo. “You’re not getting any younger, woman. Why are you still trying to push him away, knowing he is not going anywhere?” she questioned herself. But she knew the answer. There was no trust. She never really had any, and if she didn’t make any real effort, she never would trust a soul.

      That was just it. For ten of the fifteen years they’d been married, Keithe had stood by and let her get away with the ridiculous antics that she’d brought into their marriage. Cheating on him, lying to him, arguing, and even fighting him had become her way of affection.

      At first he’d argued back, and even found himself physically pushing her harder than he wanted to, but he made a complete change. He turned 180 degrees and started going to church more, praying more, and reading the Bible more. There was something deep within her that wanted the same thing, but she just wouldn’t let go of the stubborn ignorance that lodged itself in her. It was the same ignorance she had held for her own mother. When people didn’t or couldn’t do things in the fashion Michelle saw fit, she closed down and veered the way she wanted.

      With her latest ’do matted to her scalp, Michelle made her way into the hallway, en route to find some sort of breakfast. Before she could make it past her bedroom door, a yellow sticky note caught her eye. As the note was plastered to the floor, Michelle had to hold on to the door’s frame to steady herself as she reached for it.

      “Huh?” was all she could muster, and she had to make herself read Keithe’s writing out loud to believe it for herself.

      Going to Dallas for a quick getaway. Don’t know when I’ll be back.

      It was all she could read before the churning of her stomach’s alcoholic content made