ALL IN THE NAME OF LOVE

The sun was shining bright this morning. It was one of those mornings that most people looked forward to facing. I knew by the churning in the pit of my stomach that things wouldn’t be so great for me in the hours to come. I knew it before I opened the blinds to let in the sunshine. When I rolled over in bed, this morning, the space where my husband usually lay had been empty. I fought back the tears and tried not to think of where he could have been.

I hoped that a long hot bath would help get my day started. I added a little bit of coconut oil and some coconut foam to the steamy water. I’d been neglecting myself and decided that it was time for a change. I walked on my treadmill for thirty minutes, mainly because when I saw myself in the mirror my stomach looked like a big tub of lard. I couldn’t believe that I had gotten so out of shape. If you didn’t know me, you might have thought that I had given birth to two or three babies. I thought about swallowing a couple of laxatives to clean out my system but decided against it since I already had that churning in my stomach.

When I sank into the water, the heat brought instant thoughts of the baths that I’d taken with Patrick. I like my bath water lukewarm rather than hot. Therefore, we would always argue about the temperature, of course, he would win. When he finished making love to me the water would be nice and warm just the way I like it.

My hair was just fine. I was wearing a sewed bob style straw set that turned heads everywhere I went. I knew that a new wardrobe would just set things off for me but shopping had begun to depress me. I’d gained so much weight since I left college that I was a dial tone away from calling Jenny Craig. I decided that it was time to give up on the Junior/Miss sections and start shopping in the Women’s section.

When I was dressed and looking half way decent, I heard Patrick at the door fumbling with his keys. I snatched my purse and headed toward the door. I wanted to look him in the eyes. I wanted to see the guilty glare that those brown eyes reserved. I have been married to this man for almost four years; the past three of them have been nothing but pure hell. I was standing there shaking like a leaf when he came into the house. "Excuse me I need to get to the bathroom," Patrick said, with a look on his face that warned me to not say anything. I couldn’t believe it. I slammed the door as hard as I could, with hopes that he could hear the anger inside me. I was in tears before I could reach my car. I considered going back in the house to ask him where he’d been all night, but didn’t bother because the point was that he’d stayed out all night, again.

I drove to my friend Kim’s house. She has always given me a shoulder to cry on. I’ve been going through drama with Patrick so often that I think that Kim is getting tired of the same old sob story. I know that she cares about me but after giving her advice on my relationship there’s not much more that she can do.

"What’s up, Jazz?" Kim asked, when she answered the door. I wasn’t crying anymore so I didn’t bother telling her about Patrick.

"I came to check on my girl, that’s all," I said.

"Is there something wrong?"

"Naw," I said under my breath.

"Oh well, give me a few minutes while I finish curling this frizzy hair," Kim said.

Kim has beautiful hair but she’s never been satisfied with it. She’s a small boned person but after her second child, she started to pick up a few pounds. She thinks that she’s fat now and sometimes that offends me because compared to her I look like a whale.

Kim’s uncle is my mom’s old man that’s how we came to know each other. It has always been Kim, Shawnda (another good friend of mine), and I. We have been through so much together. We weren’t bad kids but we weren’t good kids either. I suppose our parents figured that out when Kim had gotten pregnant at the age of fourteen. My mom instantly assumed that if Kim was doing it then I was too. On my fifteenth birthday, my gift from my mother was a trip to the Family Planning Clinic to get my first pack of birth control pills.

Now Shawnda, on the other hand, didn’t have anybody to get on her about those kinds of things. Her aunt raised her. Her mother was murdered when we were about thirteen years old. That was my first experience with death. I remember hearing the grown folk talk about the events that led up to her mother’s death. I tried to visualize Ms. Sharon lying in the middle of the street with nothing on but her panties, after being stabbed to death by her lover’s deranged wife. "It’s a shame she wouldn’t leave that woman’s husband alone," or "It takes two, it wasn’t no one sided affair," some of them would say. My friend Shawnda was an only child and I knew that she would need me. We instantly became as close as sisters.

When we graduated from high school, I broke up our trio and left for college. Seven months later, Patrick and I were married. Who would have ever though that Jasmine Evans and Patrick Carver would marry?

I fell in love with that man instantly. I’ve never been the kind of person to sleep around; therefore, when I gave myself to Patrick, I was his forever. When Patrick asked me to marry him, I didn’t think that he was serious. He proved how serious he was with a silver and gold 2 CT. diamond ring. I’d heard that his mother paid for it, but I didn’t care, as long as it was on my finger. From that point on, there was no