I have changed my clothes three times already. The black dress is lying on the bed, then on the chair and then back on the bed again. I don’t know why I’m pretending the dress is the problem. The problem isn’t the dress, the problem is where I’m going.
A funeral.
His funeral.
Even writing those words inside my head still doesn’t sound real. I keep expecting my phone to ring, his name to appear on the screen and I keep expecting to hear his voice.
“Baby girl, where are you? Have you eaten?”
Five years together and he never started a conversation any other way…Have you eaten?
Such a small thing, yet nobody has asked me that question in weeks. Not since he died.
I sit on the edge of the bed and look at my son, he’s asleep. One leg hanging off the mattress with one hand under his cheek. He sleeps exactly like his father.
Every time I look at him now, I don’t know whether to smile or cry. He’s only four.
Four.
How do I explain death to a four-year-old?
How do I explain that the man who carried him on his shoulders and called him “my prince” isn’t coming back?
How do I explain that the world he knew has changed?
How do I explain that our lives may never be the same again?
I don’t even understand it myself. A month ago, I was still arguing with his father because he refused to take his medication seriously, now I’m deciding whether to attend his burial.
Life is wicked.
No.
Life is strange.
Very strange.
Because if somebody had told me at twenty-two that I would one day be sitting in a room mourning a man in his fifties, I would’ve laughed. Actually, I would’ve been offended.
At twenty-two, I had plans, big plans. I was modeling, traveling and living from one photoshoot to another. I thought I would marry some young, handsome businessman. Maybe an actor, or probably a footballer, definitely not a married man old enough to be my father. Life had other ideas.
I met him at an event. I still remember what he was wearing, white kaftan, gold wristwatch and that smile. I noticed him because everybody noticed him.
People kept greeting him, shaking his hand, and laughing at his jokes. He looked important, the kind of man who had spent his whole life being listened to. He then spoke to me.
I don’t even remember what he said, I just remember laughing. Then we met again, and again, and again. That’s the thing nobody tells you.
Nobody wakes up and says, “Today I want to become somebody’s second woman.” Life doesn’t happen like that. It happens slowly…
One conversation, one dinner, one phone call, one act of kindness, one person making you feel seen, and then before you know it, you’re somewhere you never planned to be.
I knew he was married. He told me himself…three daughters, a long marriage, a complicated home…I knew all of it.
I also knew I should’ve walked away.
I didn’t.
I wish I had a better explanation than that.
I don’t.
I simply didn’t.
Because somewhere between our conversations and our late-night phone calls and the way he listened when I talked, I fell in love and somewhere along the line, he said he loved me too. I believed him.
Maybe that was foolish, maybe it wasn’t, I still don’t know. What I know is that he took care of me, completely. He spoiled me in ways I didn’t even know were possible. The apartment, the cars, the trips, the little gifts for no reason, the flowers, the random phone calls, and the way he remembered every small thing about me.
But if I’m being honest, those things aren’t why I stayed. People think women like me stay because of money. Maybe some do, I won’t speak for them. But I stayed because of how he made me feel…safe, important, wanted and loved.
I know people won’t believe that, that’s okay. Some people think every kept woman is simply calculating. That every young woman with an older man is selling something.
Maybe because it’s easier to believe that than to accept that human beings are complicated. Love is complicated, people are complicated and sometimes your heart chooses someone that makes absolutely no sense.
Then our son came and everything changed. I’ve never seen a man so happy. The day he held our son, he cried, actually cried. I had never seen him cry before. He kissed the baby’s forehead and kept saying,
“My son.”
“My son.”
“My son.”
As though saying it made it more real. He adored that little boy, absolutely adored him and because of that, people started talking.
The heir.
The son.
The only boy.
The one who would inherit everything.
I hated those conversations because my child wasn’t a business transaction. He was just a little boy who loved his father but people will always talk, especially when money is involved.
I stand and walk to the mirror, I don’t recognize the woman staring back at me. I look tired, older, scared (very scared) because today isn’t just a burial, it’s an introduction to a new reality.
Today I have to face his family…his wife, his daughters…the daughters who are older than me, imagine that. Their father’s woman is younger than two of them, even I can admit how strange that sounds.
I don’t know what they think of me.
Maybe they hate me.
Maybe they blame me.
Maybe they think I stole something from them.
Maybe I did, I honestly don’t know anymore. I only know I loved him and he loved me, at least I believe he did.
Isn’t that the strangest thing?
A person can love you and still leave you in an impossible situation. He promised he would settle everything. There was always time…later…soon…after this…after that and then the stroke happened. Suddenly there was no later, no soon, no after, just hospitals, machines, prayers and then silence.
I still don’t know where I belong.
Am I family?
Am I a stranger?
Am I a mistake?
Am I simply the kept woman?
I hate that expression.
Kept woman.
As if I was an expensive handbag somebody bought and stored away.
As if my life and my feelings can be reduced to two words.
I was a person.
I am a person.
I loved.
I was loved.
Surely that has to count for something.
Doesn’t it?
I look at my sleeping son again and then another fear enters my mind.
What happens now?
Will they accept him?
Will they reject him?
Will he have to fight for his father’s name?
For his inheritance?
For his place?
Will people look at him and see a child?
Or a threat?
I don’t know.
I don’t know anything anymore.
All I know is that in a few hours I will put on that black dress, I will walk into a place where I may not be welcome, I will see the woman he married, the daughters he raised, the family he built before I existed and somewhere among all those people, I will mourn a man I was never allowed to call mine.
The funny thing is this: When people see me today, some will whisper.
Some will judge.
Some will call me names.
Some will say I deserve whatever happens next.
Maybe they’re right.
Maybe they’re wrong.
But none of them know what it felt like to be loved by him. None of them know what it felt like to love him back and none of them will have to go home tonight and explain to a four-year-old why his father isn’t coming back.
I suppose that’s the thing about life. The people outside the story always think it’s simple while the people inside it know better.
Because life isn’t simple.
Love isn’t reasonable.
And the heart…the heart doesn’t always ask for permission before choosing who it belongs to.