Love/Fate Read Free Page A

hood, and how to be his better half. He had also, unknowingly, taught her how to hide assets, and how to conceal money. He had been quite a teacher.
    â€œLeo had a bad heart. He was getting a disability check on the first of every month, and he would always give me half of it up front. But then he was disappearing for a few days, until he smoked up the other half. All along, his disability check was steady, but for as long as I knew Leo, he was always coming through with extras, money always trickled in. But soon that stopped. That’s when I had to pick up the pieces. I tried to keep you occupied so you wouldn’t notice. But you started asking questions, and it got harder to hide. That let me know right away that something was causing him to lose his grip. He had never been so sloppy. I didn’t admit it to myself at first, Marquis. At first, I convinced myself that it was another woman. I told myself that Leo was shacking up with some other bitch, that he was spending his money on someone else. But that wasn’t it. Soon, I had to admit to myself that it was more than that. Leo got arrested for buying crack from an undercover when you were small. He did about eighteen months for that. I made excuses, told you he was down south with his family ‘cause his uncle was sick. Just all kinds of lies.”
    Ingrid shook her head, wishing she had known how inevitable it wasfor Leo’s promise to stay clean to come crashing down. “Leo came home, and went right back to his old ways. People saw him around the other buildings, looking a mess, spaced out. He wouldn’t do his dirt in our building, because it would get right back to me. So he went to the other buildings to get his shit. I knew about it. I just kept on going. Just kept trying to keep it all together. For you.”
    Born listened to his mother. “How did you handle it?”
    Ingrid shook her head, dismayed. “I didn’t handle it at all. I ignored it. When Leo did come around, I would pretend I didn’t know. I would act like everything was okay.” Born watched his mother pause, appearing to fight back tears. “I was so impressed by your father, Marquis. He taught me so much. I learned more from him than from anybody else in my lifetime. He showed me how to read people, how to see through bullshit. I felt like he was the smartest man I had ever met, like he was invincible. I knew him so well that I could complete his sentences. I loved him. I watched him. So when he started slipping, I saw it right away. He thought he had his addiction under control, kept telling me it was alright. It was no big deal. And I wanted to believe that. I wanted to believe that he would pull himself together and get right back on track. He was still making money. But he was smoking it now. After a while, Leo was no longer respected like he used to be. But by then, I didn’t have the heart to put him out, or to leave him. It got to the point where I really didn’t care anymore. I was past all that.” She stopped talking. Thoughts ran through her mind about how she would have done things differently if she could have. How she wished that she could have those days back once more, so that she could pull her husband back from the clutches of his addiction. Deep inside Ingrid wished she could have reached Leo before it was too late.
    Born remembered his father being strung out. He remembered the point in time when Leo began to lose the respect of all the folks who once had bowed to him.
    â€œWe never really talked about all this before,” Ingrid continued. “I guess it was so much a part of our life that we didn’t address it at the time.” She looked at her son, thought about the twists and turns his lifehad undergone after being exposed to all the activities within the four walls they called home. She wanted to help him deal with the devastating news he’d just found out about the woman he loved.
    â€œYou need