It sounded ridiculous.
It sounded even more ridiculous a week later, when I called Malik Freeman, a friend from nursing school, divorced, purely platonic, and asked him to pretend to be my boyfriend for a few weeks.
“You want me to what?” He laughed so hard I had to hold the phone away from my ear.
“I need someone at dinner. Around the girls. Around Patrice. Paying attention to things I’m too close to see.”
He agreed. I think mostly because he was too good a friend to keep asking follow-up questions.
For three weeks, Malik came by twice a week. Let Aubrey wreck him at chess. Sat through one full episode of whatever reality show Skylar was obsessed with that month, complaining the entire time and watching the next episode anyway.
Patrice was warm to him. Quiet, but warm. The first two visits, nothing happened.
Third visit, I got called into a double shift. Pediatric floor, no warning, no way to say no. I called Malik from the break room, apologized for bailing.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I’ll stay. Keep things normal.”
Discover more
Recipe book
Cooking tips newsletter
Italian cooking class
The next morning, he showed up at my door before his own shift.
“Denise. I need to tell you something. I need you to actually hear it before you get mad at the wrong person.”
“Okay.”
“Last night, after the girls went upstairs, Patrice asked me to help carry something out to her car. Once we were outside, she started talking. Real gentle. Real concerned-sounding. Said I seemed like a nice guy. Said I should know what I was getting into.”
“Getting into how?”
“She said you get ‘different’ once you’re comfortable. Said the last few men found that out the hard way. Then she said something specific — that there’d been a situation, a couple years back, before Xavier, that ended with a restraining order. Said it wasn’t something you liked talking about. Said she felt obligated to warn me before I got in too deep.”
Discover more
Healthy food guide
drink
Tea subscription box
I have never had a restraining order in my life.
“She’s lying,” I said. My voice came out steadier than I felt.
“I figured,” Malik said. “But if she said that to me, unprompted, on visit three — I think she’s said some version of it to every one of them.”
If you’d been standing where I was standing right then, you’d have guessed exactly what I guessed first.
That maybe the twins had struggled more than I realized. That maybe fifteen-year-old girls, watching new men rotate through their mother’s life, had acted out in small, private ways the men were too polite to mention. That the truth was some version of teenage heartbreak showing up sideways.
It would have made a certain kind of sense.
It wasn’t that story. And finding that out broke my heart in a completely different way.
I didn’t confront Patrice right away. I document things before I act on them. I’ve learned that feelings without proof get you nowhere in a fight that matters.
I called Chris first. We’d stayed civil enough that I still had his number.
“I’m trying to understand something,” I told him. “Did anyone ever say anything about me that made you pull back?”
Discover more
How-To, DIY & Expert Content
carpet
Italian dessert recipes
A long pause.
“I felt bad about this for months,” he finally said. “Your sitter pulled me aside at your niece’s birthday. Told me you’d had ‘anger issues’ with a past boyfriend. Hinted police got involved. Didn’t want to bring it up myself. Felt easier to just back away quiet.”
I called Reginald next. Same story, different lie — this time, that I’d “cleaned out” a previous boyfriend’s bank account, that he should be careful what he shared with me financially.
Under Georgia law, since it’s a one-party consent state for recorded conversations, Malik was legally allowed to record any conversation he was personally part of, no permission from Patrice required. He didn’t have anything running that first night in the driveway. The next week, he did.
Patrice, in her own voice, warning him off with a brand-new fabricated detail — something about a custody dispute I’d supposedly hidden from him.
