Welcome to Sunday Sips. I hope you enjoy this sample of It’s My Turn.
Beatrice Monroe Warrington had never felt so out of control. Life had a funny way of turning the tables on you. One day you were the one calling all the shots and controlling everyone else’s destiny. And then the next day you discover that you had no right to wield such power. Suddenly, you wake up realizing that the same power you abused had mysteriously tied a noose around your own neck.
Fingers gripping the steering wheel, memories flooded her mind of all the destruction she had instigated in so many lives. Memories she was trying to run away from, but had no idea to where she was running. Perhaps she would run until the noose around her neck asphyxiated her, absolving her of her past sins.
Beatrice drove until she found herself in a middle-class Washington, D.C. neighborhood. If the circumstances hadn’t been dire, and she wasn’t gasping for air, she would have never set foot in this area of town. Parking the vintage Jaguar, she turned off the ignition. Stepping out the vehicle, her legs reluctantly carried her to the modest, yet neatly cared for home.
The lush landscaped yard went unnoticed as a single tear trickled down her cheek. Shuffling up the sidewalk she wondered, My God, how did I get here? Never in her wildest imagination would she have ever guessed she’d have nowhere else to turn. Her only child, Langston Warrington, III, had turned his back on her. And it killed her to admit that he had good reason to cast her out of his life. From the time she learned she was carrying him, she’d used him as a pawn…but not anymore.
Another tear followed as she forced herself to accept another painful admission. He had done everything to get her affection from his earliest days of childhood. Never once had he caused her a day’s trouble. He was an excellent student, top notch attorney and wonderful dad.
Yet again, another tear fell at the thought of her granddaughter Zoe and her mother. She had committed a most wicked sin. Cunningly she’d convinced her son his then girlfriend, Ava Peretti, was wrong for him. Ava and her unplanned pregnancy would most assuredly interfere with his career as an up and coming attorney, and worse, bring scandal to the Warrington name. Pressing on, she played on her son’s desire to please her. Using her skills of manipulation, she believed herself to be so cleaver when she suggested that he convince the young mother to give up the baby for adoption.
The gulf between mother and son began when Langston decided after taking one look at his beautiful baby girl that he could not, would not, give her up. Giving her up would have been akin to attempting to survive without oxygen. Taking a defiant stand, he called off the adoption, deciding to raise the child on his own.
True to character, Beatrice did what she did best. With her lethal tongue she berated and emasculated him because of his inability to deny his fatherly instincts to love and protect his child. The harshness of her actions drove Langston to take his infant daughter to another state to practice law.
She choked back the sobs of shame threatening to shred her throat. Why hadn’t she wholeheartedly given in to the same motherly instincts with her own child? Hatred. Pure hatred was the reason. She was so young and naïve to think having her husband’s baby would make him love her. If anything, her actions caused him to resent her.
While most couples look forward to the joy of a new baby, there was no making plans to decorate the nursery, no sitting in bed at night as he rubbed her belly and they picked out baby names, no guessing about who the baby would look like. Beatrice and Langston Jr. barely had two words for each other during her pregnancy. When he wasn’t spending long hours working, he was spending nights away from home with his mistress.
With each passing month as her belly grew, she loathed Langston Jr. and his whore. How could he not love her when she was ushering in a new generation of Warringtons? Their child would be a Warrington who would carry on his family’s legacy.
On what should have been one of the most celebrated occasions of her life she was overflowing with bitterness and resentment. Those emotions settled deep in her bones when her husband sauntered into the hospital room and peered down at the sleeping babe. Picking up the infant, he gazed into the tiny face mirroring his own. A smile curved his full lips before tenderly kissing his son’s forehead. Not once had he glanced at his young wife.
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