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“Hello, Lee. This is Newell Lockwood, Tanya‘s brother in law. I‘m doing ok. So how‘s Tanya doing?”
“Tanya‘s heartbroken, man. The father of her child dumped her.” Newell was outraged. “Say what?”
“She‘ll explain everything to you when she gets here.” Lee told Newell exactly where he and Tanya were and even gave him directions on how to get there because Lee would travel this road regularly to visit his girlfriend and his baby. Right now, they lived slightly far away from him, but he was planning to move to their neighborhood. Lee‘s mother had died three years before, leaving him the house as an inheritance, and he planned on selling it to buy another house. Lee was lucky because the house was currently worth five hundred thousand dollars, and the house that he‘d already picked cost half of that amount. He just wanted to be close to his woman and his child. They were going to get married soon, but they didn‘t want to live together. They conceived their child, although they didn‘t want to make love before getting married because Hope‘s evil ex-boyfriend was threatening her and Lee‘s relationship, and she wanted to show her ex that it was Lee she loved, not him. She thought that this was the only way to do it. Even so, they were successful at abstaining and they didn‘t think their child was a mistake. Every time that Lee visited Hope all they would do was eat dinner together and watch movies before going to work the next morning.
Two hours later, Newell and Teresa got to the place that Lee and Tanya were in together. It was very far away from their home. Luckily, Tanya and Teresa lived in the same neighborhood. Newell got out of the car. Teresa stayed in the car because she couldn‘t move much. She was only three weeks from giving birth, but she didn‘t want to stay home. She wanted to be here for her sister. Newell shook Lee‘s hand and thanked him for staying here all this time with Tanya. Lee was on his way back home after visiting Hope, but he didn‘t want to leave Tanya alone.
“It‘s ok, man,” Lee said, giving Newell a hug. “I did what I had to do. I couldn‘t leave her here all by herself.”
“Now what worries me is that you‘ll be late for work tomorrow morning for not getting enough sleep tonight. I appreciate what you‘re doing for my sister in law, though. Just know that if you get fired, I will compensate you. Just tell me how much money you‘ve lost. I‘ll even help you find another job.”
Lee laughed. “Don‘t think that way. I won‘t get fired. My boss loves me like a son and he‘ll understand. Don‘t pay mind to that. Right now all I care about is that Tanya makes it home safe tonight. I‘m going to call a tow so they can make sure that Tanya‘s car returns home.”
“That‘s right because Tanya‘s going home with us,” Newell said. “There‘s no way that Tanya‘s going home alone tonight after what happened.”
“Also, I want you to make sure that the father of her child steps up and takes care of his
baby.”
“Oh, Lee, you can count on that, trust me,” Newell said. “I won‘t let that son of a bitch get away with what he‘s done. There‘s no way.”
Three hours later, Tanya‘s car was back in her garage and Tanya was home with Teresa and Newell, a few blocks away from her own home, in the dining room, crying with Teresa and Newell by her side. They had their arms around her, trying to comfort her. Tanya was twenty-seven years old, and Stephen wasn‘t her first love, but he was the man that she‘d loved the most in her entire life. It was horrible for her to know that he never loved her the way that she loved