The Eyes I See Through: Pretty Lady

By Pretty Lady

Kandy Jakes is a mother of two, whose one dream in life was to have a happy family. She meets up with Lance, a car dealer who shows her what family was all about. All her plans meet dead ends and to make matters worse, the man of her dreams was withholding a secret that ruined their long standing relationship.
Kandy does some investigations on her own after finding some paperwork that resulted in more than she bargained for. This forces her in the open arms of Thomas who teaches her another way to love.
Ultimately she must decide between this new love and her love for family after finding out some devastating truth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 27, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664181526

Book preview

Copyright © 2021 by Pretty Lady.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-6641-8153-3

                eBook             978-1-6641-8152-6

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 06/21/2021

Xlibris

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Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Many think that they know what goes on in the

average person’s life . . . but what about seeing life

through the eyes of a black superwoman . . .

Chapter 1

It was July 29, the last day at my university. Many people would have been so excited. I had turned in all the assignments and was on my way to . . . nowhere. The thing about that was . . . for a little over years, I had been dreaming of the day when I would reunite with my kids and Lance. We had been separated all this time, and I decided that after my studies, one of the reasons we were separated, I would get everything together, and that included my family.

I am a thirty- year- old mother of two who had struggled throughout my motherhood. I got pregnant with my first born, David, when I was completing my first degree in college. My parents owned a little business. Their only wish was that I finish college and hold a career.

My mom would always say, The world is in your hands once you have that education.

I couldn’t understand why this was so important to her as she never made it past the eighth grade, and yet she managed to own her own business and take care of a household of six, with the help of my dad, of course. But the way I grew up, what Mom wants, Mom gets, and if she wanted me to get an education, by golly, I had no choice. I had an unexplained fear of my mom. I mean, she could be the sweetest person one minute, and then she would just go off the next. I feared her so much that during my last year at college and getting pregnant, I couldn’t muster up the courage to tell her. What would Mom think? How would she take it? What was the rest of the family going to think? I did manage to complete school, which I was three months shy of completing, three months pregnant and, you guessed it, single. David’s father jumped ship when he found out I was pregnant. My parents knew George, David’s dad, and thought that we made a great couple.

George, my mom would say, if I could turn the hands of time, I would have dated a guy like you.

Yeah, a fine guy, all right. The fine guy who didn’t want to be seen with me after we spoke about me being pregnant.

George, will you please return my call, were the voice messages I would leave on his cell phone.

No response at all. I remembered once I heard his mom in the background when I called his house number. I think that you both should get married. She had answered the phone when I called and had decided to play the responsible role and had her say.

No, Ma! he shouted. I can’t be tied down to this right now, and further more . . . He was going to say something else, something I knew I might not have wanted to hear, so I hung up on more.

I thought that this would have been the end for me. I thought that my mom would kick me out of the house and I would have to live the life so many know as a single parent. How in the world was I going to pull this off? I have never lived on my own before, barely nineteen at the time. I have no friend who would be able to help me. Because of my mom’s unsure personality, I made it a point never to have friends over. I was on the verge of holding a degree in one hand, already had a baby in the pouch, no man to stand by me, no job to sustain an income, and don’t forget, dear old mother.

Hiding pregnancy from a mother of five in her own home was one of the stupidest things anyone one could ever do. Call me stupid because I tried to do it. I thought I was getting away with it, but my mom was smart. Too smart for her own good! I was book smart, but she was street smart. I was watching a soccer game on television one Sunday evening when my mom visits me in my room. She never comes in there unless it was some monetary figures she wanted me to check, some papers she wanted me to fill out, or something serious like my dad was at it with some shenanigans. She stands at the door with a look of care on her face, a look that made my heart pound and had me pull the pillow closer.

I noticed that George hasn’t been by in a few. Are you two okay? she asked.

I wanted to say no. I wanted to say that immature piece of trash got me pregnant and doesn’t want to take responsibility. I wanted to tell her that I was sorry. I wanted to say so much. While I was thinking about it, I just heard myself say, No, we are okay . . . He’s just busy getting his career off, you know George.

I was not looking at her. Had I done that, I would have noticed the pack of unopened Always with wings that she was holding in her hand. My mom used to always pick up sanitary napkins from the pharmacy for me every month and place it in the cupboard under the sink. I would use them and would always end up getting a fresh pack each month. With all this going on and me trying to keep my pregnancy a secret, I forgot that one minor detail. Females my age should use a few of them every month unless something was wrong. Busted! I was teary- eyed and busted. I stared at the contents my mom was swinging back and forth in her hand. Care to explain?

My mom never called us by our names, none of us. She always spoke in the imperative. Good or bad, she would just speak. That was the same way she spoke to me that Sunday, even though her face showed something else.

We had a long talk that Sunday, right back until Monday morning. Each time, my dad and siblings would come venture in my room to ask if everything was okay. I guess they knew that something was up, but the only safe way to find out was to wait until Mom says something. The last bit of the conversation I remember ever so vividly was when my mom said, "Are you going to graduate? Will I be seeing you walk and get that degree in your hand? She said it with so much hope that I couldn’t disappoint her even if I wanted to.

I sang my response to the tune of the old jazz song Whatever Lola Wants, and I looked her in the eyes and said, Whatever Mommy wants, Mommy gets.

She took in a deep breath and let it out while shaking her head. Oh, and by the way, no matter what, no abortion, you hear me, no abortion. You are going to be a mom, she said smiling. You are going to be someone’s superwoman soon, someone who will think the world of you, someone who thinks you can do it all. Prepare yourself, it’s not going to ever be an easy road anymore.

I was glad we had that talk. I thought that to have been the hardest revelation I would have had to encounter . . . From then on, I considered myself superwoman. My mom said that I will be superwoman. Nothing was too great for me to accomplish now. No struggle too hard for me to overcome. No pressure of life that I couldn’t woman up to. After all, I had to be strong.

The months passed by quickly. I was days away from having David, the name my mom chose. We had everything ready. We went shopping and walking. We walked a lot. Walk him down, my mom would say. We don’t want to bring a lazy baby in the world. We already have too many of those.

We were laughing and chatting at the mall, my mom and I, when she tugged at my shoulder.

What’s wrong now? I am not walking fast enough again, I said a little winded.

I looked on her, and I noticed that she was looking elsewhere. I followed her stare and noticed that she was looking at a very familiar yet now painful sight. George was some fifty feet from us. He was dressed in his favorite Brazilian jersey that I had gotten him for his birthday the very first year we met, which was the same year I had gotten pregnant. He was busy purchasing a meal in the food court that he never saw us. Something told me it was going to get real heated at the mall, and I wasn’t really ready for that kind of embarrassment.

George Ruthers! shouted my mom.

The place was so noisy that I believed he didn’t hear her. I think she thought him not hearing her was him actually ignoring her. A few people in the mall heard her, though, and the way she sounded, they were not going anywhere until they found out what the full- name yelling was all about. My mom walked over to him while continuously yelling out his name. On the third or fourth yell, I saw him look in my mother’s direction. I didn’t go with her. I slipped into the passage way that led to the public bathroom and peeped around the wall. George looked like a trapped deer about to be devoured by a famished lion, well, in this case, lioness. With nowhere to go, he gave a nervous smile. From the distance, his mouth seemed to have moved as if he was saying hello to my mom. I couldn’t hear, even though I wished I could have. My mom’s hands were flying in all different directions for a while, and George was nodding and smiling to whatever my mom was saying to him. After about three minutes, I saw my mom looking around as if she was searching for me. "Oh no!’ Not after that show. I will not be coming out there at all. I shuffled more toward the bathroom and out