Another three years went by…. During that time we moved several more times with Lee, and without. Austin started school, and we both continued to grow. He was such a “mama’s boy” according to Lee and his brothers, they’d tease him about it all the time. It used to infuriate both of us, but now we both wear our “badges” with honor. Any two people who’ve endured what we’ve been through together, I believe, will naturally be drawn to defend (to the death) if need be, loving so fiercely that they’d do anything for the other. Also known as motherhood. Ours is special though, Austin and I, not that my other kids aren’t, just different. I was the mama AND the daddy for the most part. Lee was sporadic at best and oddly enough, it was after a DNA test proving Austin as his biological son, that he turned his back on us…..
I had moved me and Austin into a little apartment right next to my parent’s neighborhood; Lee came to stay with us quite a lot at first. It was a nice place, second floor right by the pool, with CeeCee right across the parking lot. We also met new friends in the building and had our own “Melrose Place” going on around there. CeeCee had recently gone through a divorce so we were back to spending most of our time together with the kids. On Austin’s 5th birthday, we had his party at a pavilion at the community center. Lee’s brother Wayne (different Wayne from CeeCee’s ex), was there of course, and had always had such a crush on CeeCee. He was always telling me that it would happen someday; I’d tell him to keep dreaming because no it wasn’t. That party was kind of a free-for-all, the kids were running wild, and soon after, so were the adults. We had super soaker water guns and there was definitely an attack on us girls. I’ll be danged if I didn’t see CeeCee flirting with Wayne. I chalked it up to my imagination and the party ended and so did my thoughts about it. It wasn’t long though until I realized that had been a turning point for them. She started asking about him casually and we all started spending a lot more time together. It was on Lee’s birthday, three months after Austin’s, that they rounded the corner out of the friend zone. We were at the drive-in movie, Lee and I sitting on the tailgate of Wayne’s truck, CeeCee and Wayne behind us, leaning up against the cab. Lee suddenly elbowed me and jerked his head behind us. I turned around just in time to witness the first kiss between them. Well, he told me it was going to happen….. I was so surprised and thrilled at the same time, Wayne was always like a little brother to me and here he was with my best friend. That’s when she became part of OUR family, not just mine and Austin’s. She and Wayne have been together ever since, THANK GOD!, and have also seen Austin and I through all the craziness from then on. Oh, the things we’ve all seen each other go through, throughout the years.
It was in those apartments when the truth all came out. Austin had just turned six years old, and Lee and I had been fighting worse than ever before. He was staying at Ray’s house, if you don’t remember who Ray is, let me refresh your memory… MY HUSBAND! And not only was it just the two of them living there, but Michael too! I believe you call that a trifecta?! Now y’all remember I had my relationship with each of them before they moved in with Ray, and if you had told me back then that I’d end up marrying Ray someday, I would have laughed in your face. I would say that God has quite a sense of humor sometimes! I knew Ray from high school and obviously after; we clearly had several mutual “friends” but back then, I would’ve classified our relationship as acquaintances at best. In fact, I wasn’t a huge fan of his at this particular time in our lives. They were living life in the VERY fast lane back then, and Ray was the obvious person to blame for all the things that were going on in my broken little family. Ugh, I was in such denial.
So one afternoon in particular, I had had it with Lee’s lies and hatefulness. We had a major blowout on the phone and I was looking to get revenge in some shape or form. That’s the day I decided to pull the trigger on a DNA test with him. Not because I thought he was Austin’s father, but because if I could prove he wasn’t, then I could finally move on and get him out of our lives for good. So, I called DHS and scheduled a time for us to give our samples and then I dropped the bomb on Lee that he needed to be tested too. Needless to say, that didn’t go over well, but he went just the same. It was just a few days before the results came in before I got the shock of my life. I walked down to the mailbox, and there it was… The letter from the lab that was about to change the course of all of our lives. I was shaking so badly by the time I got back to the apartment, I couldn’t open that envelope fast enough. When I finally did there were charts and percentages and I couldn’t focus on what it all meant until there it was, at the very bottom of the page. “The probability of Lee being Austin’s biological father is 99.997%”. There was that strange metallic taste on my tongue again, was this really happening?! I called the lab to confirm that I was in fact interpreting the results correctly, the woman I spoke to was giggling with me by the time I could process what she was telling me. In a nutshell, the boy who’d been my first real boyfriend, the first one I had kissed and lost my innocence to, gave all I’d ever had to, WAS in fact Austin’s father. I was in complete shock. I tried to call Lee but he didn’t answer, so then I called his Uncle Matt, who was like an uncle to me as well, and someone whom Lee had looked up to. He too was blown away by the revelation and was going to try to track down Lee for me. I then called CeeCee at work and broke it to her as well. I could tell by the sound of her voice, that she shared my sentiment; she said, “Shut up! Are you okay?! Come over here now!” So of course, I did. CeeCee and her big sister worked at an off-track horse betting establishment, Wayne and Uncle Matt were already there when I walked in. We all just kind of sat there at first, all in shock and disbelief. None of us had seen this coming, nor had we acknowledged that we did at the time. Matt had gotten in touch with Lee and that was when it all became anticlimactic. He denied it at first, he then accused me of rigging it; now what!?
I was in disbelief, after all that we had been through, he now decides that he’s out? Now that the little boy he had always claimed before was finally, REALLY his, and he was denying him? That was the beginning of the real end of Lee and I. Not the cheating, not the constant drama of just knowing him, not the mistreatment and emotional abuse, but denying our sweet and innocent baby. Watch out sir, this is where it’s going to get ugly. I’d never felt as hurt as I did in that moment, and there had been some MOMENTS!!!
John 16:33 “Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”
