Wifey 4 Life by Kiki Swinson

this. If I was around, I would’ve made sure nothing
    happened to your mother,” I said, using my peripheral vision to look at Tony. I
    wanted to see his expression, but he must’ve known I was watching him, because he
    didn’t flinch.
    Tony then grabbed Li’l Tony by the back of his shirt and began
    pulling him down the hallway. “Bring your big mouth on down here to the living room
    and have a damn seat before I tear up your ass!” Tony escorted his son toward the
    living room area of the house.
    As Meagan followed behind them, I followed behind her. What
    I really wanted to do was turn around and go right back through the door I’d
    just come through. I honestly didn’t want to believe that Tony blamed me for Rhonda’s
    murder. In fact, he didn’t give me that impression when I’d first approached him
    at my uncle’s house.
    When I got to the living room, Tony asked me if I wanted something
    to drink, but I turned him down. I took a seat beside the kids on the sofa to watch
    TV. I draped my handbag over my lap and sat there like I was really into the show
    the children were watching.
    “Can I use the bathroom?” I asked.
    Tony took a seat on the lounge chair. “Yeah, go ahead. It’s that
    door underneath the stairwell.”
    “Thanks.”
    I got up from the chair and raced to the hallway bathroom. As
    soon as I closed the door behind me, I sat on the side of the bathtub and exhaled.
    A ton of things ran through my mind at once. I tried to collect my thoughts, but
    I couldn’t.
    Under normal circumstances, I would have stepped to Tony and
    addressed the situation, but for some reason, I felt out of sync with him. I was
    never his best friend, but we were really cool when Rhonda was alive. I remember
    him asking me to babysit the kids on a couple of occasions so he and Rhonda could
    either go out or stay in and have time alone. Every time he needed me to come through
    for him, I did, so it really was a shocker to me that he was holding back his true
    feelings and wasn’t being straight up with me. I guess I was gonna have to approach
    him with it. He and I had come too far to let something as serious as this come
    between us.
    I stood and looked into the bathroom mirror. “OK, Kira, you can
    do it, girl,” I said to myself. Before I walked out of the bathroom, I pushed down
    the handle on the toilet to make it seem like I had just used it, and then I turned
    on the bathroom faucet and pretended like I was washing my hands. As I prepared
    to exit the bathroom, I took another deep breath, exhaled, and strolled back into
    the living room, where Tony and the kids were watching TV.
    As soon as I walked into the room, I noticed that Tony was gone.
    The children were still seated in the same places on the sofa. I asked Li’l Tony
    where his father was.
    “I think he went into the kitchen,” he said.
    Badly wanting to set the record straight with Tony, I backed
    up into the hallway and turned around to see if he was in fact in the kitchen. I
    walked the short distance to the kitchen and made a left turn around the corner.
    To my surprise, Tony wasn’t in the kitchen. I started to call out his name, but
    I figured that wherever he was, he’d be right back. This apartment only had two
    levels, so he was probably on the second floor.
    I turned to go back into the living room, but the sound of Tony’s
    voice stopped me in my tracks. I paused for a minute to hear from which direction
    his voice was coming. It sounded like he was engaged in a conversation.
    I immediately turned around toward the front door and stood still.
    His words became clearer as I got closer. Then I heard him say, “I can handle that.
    That ain’t no problem.”
    I took two more steps toward the front door so I could reach
    over and grab the handle to twist it and open the door.
    “OK, I’ll do it, but he better have my money in hand when I get
    there,” Tony said.
    Before he could say another word, I opened the front door. He
    looked at