“I don’t truthfully care one way or another, Brenda. I like being around you and these kids.”

“And I love being with you, Cecil. I love how you treat my kids. I love how you treat me. That’s why I’ma make you some gumbo tonight, but you gotta go to the store to get the stuff.”

“I don’t mind.”

“When you think we gon’ be able to move?”

“Soon. Viola’s moving out the house next week. I went down there to talk to them IRS folks, and turns out I can put the house up for sale and pay what I owe from the proceeds. I should have enough change left over for us to find a decent place.”

“What’s wrong with that house?”

“We can’t live there.”

“Why not?”

“I can’t bring you into that house, Brenda; now, thank about that.”

“I wouldn’t care. It ain’t like we’d be sleeping in the same bed.”

“No. And that’s all I gotta say about the matter.”

“Okay. But when we gon’ start looking?”

“When we get a offer on the house.”

“We?”

“Well, that would be me and Viola. Whatever I get, I gotta split it with her.”

“Hakeem! Miss Q! Come on! Let’s go. We going to McDonald’s!”

And here they come.

I can tell she mad again, but it’s too bad. Wait till she hear this: “Speaking of Viola, I gotta stop by there to get my stuff out the carport.”

“Today?”

“It won’t take but ten or fifteen minutes at the most.”

“You sure you know what you doing, Cecil? I mean, I ain’t one to pressure nobody. I done took care of my kids by myself all this time, I don’t want you to feel obligated to me.”

“Brenda, stop.”

“You right, Cecil. I’m sorry. Glory be to Jesus. I know I’m blessed, and here I go being ungrateful. I ain’t got no hard feelings toward Viola. None. She been your wife longer than I been born, so I understand you kinda tied to her. Just don’t change your mind about us, Cecil. Please.”

We almost at my car in the parking lot. “I was thanking that if and when the house sell, I might should trade this old thang in and get us a van. Something the kids can be comfortable in. What you thank about that, Brenda?”

“I like it. I like that idea a lot.”

After we put the kids in they car seats, I bend over and give her a kiss on her lips. Brenda is a good kisser. A very good kisser. She just don’t know how blessed I feel, and I ain’t even close to being saved.

Is that fella back again? This is getting a little ridiculous. I mean he spending a awful lotta time over here with a woman who ain’t even divorced yet. He don’t feel no kinda shame, do he? I should ask him. But naw. I can’t talk about sinning. What I thank I been doing for the past five months? I still wonder what him and Viola been doing in there. I had a hard enough time trying to get her in the same bed with me, let alone getting her to do anythang else. I wanna see this fella. See what he sporting that I ain’t got.