The First Lady Read Online Free Page A

with my husband before he moved to New York and became one of the most respected men of God in the city. So, it wouldn’t be a huge shock if somehow you were to become the woman at his side.
    If anything, it might be more of a shock to you to be reading these words from me. Nonetheless, I can’t help but think that God had a reason for putting you back into T.K.'s life after all of your years apart from him. And if it’s the Lord’s desire for you and T.K. to become one, then I find comfort in that because God doesn’t make mistakes. And since God put it in my heart to write you this letter, I only ask that if the day does come to pass that you become the wife of my T.K., take care of him like I would, because he is a good man.
    All the best,
Charlene
    I placed the letter down on the nightstand next to my bed, almost afraid to look at it again. I stared off into space, actually wondering for a moment if I was dreaming or awake. I pinched myself, and the pain that shot through my arm told me I was indeed awake. Suddenly, I had so many questions. Was the note real? And if it was, who had left it on my door? Was it one of his kids, or was it T.K. himself? I went to Charlene’s funeral and watched them put her casket in the ground, so she obviously didn’t leave this envelope on my door.
    The bigger question, of course, was, Who had written the letter? Had Charlene, before her death, really given me her blessing to be with T.K.? I guess it was possible, but if so, why? And even more importantly, was I going to act on her request? I closed my eyes and buried my face into the palms of my hands.
    I’d been in love with Thomas Kelly—T.K., as they called him now—since I was sixteen years old. He was the captain of the football and basketball teams, and I was the head cheerleader when we were in high school in Richmond, Virginia. I let him take my virginity the last day of my sophomore year, and I never regretted it once. He had always treated me with respect. We both attended Virginia State University, and he even asked me to marry him during our freshman year.
    I messed that all up a few days after school let out for summer break, when some guys from New York introduced me to crack cocaine, or as we in the South called it back then, cook-'em-up. Hell, they were giving it away back when it first came out, just to get you hooked.
    Thomas Kelly tried to warn me about messing with that stuff from the start, but I didn’t listen, and he didn’t press the issue because I had him under control. The power of pussy is a dangerous thing when it comes to men, young and old, and Thomas Kelly was no different from the rest. The last thing he wanted was for me to cut him off from the poontang.
    Nobody knew how cook-'em-up really was back then, so I was oblivious to the danger I was putting myself in, until it was too late for both me and Thomas Kelly. I tricked him into smoking some crack about two weeks after I started. We’d gone to a cheap motel on Jeff Davis Highway that night, like we always did on Friday nights. I’d already smoked up my check from working at Church’s Fried Chicken before we got there. I wanted some more of that rock so bad that I flat out refused to have sex with him unless he gave me twenty dollars to buy some more. Well, he was a horny nineteen-year-old boy, so you know he gave me what I wanted. By the time we got back to the room, I’d promised to give him his first blow job if he’d try smoking with me. Well, to make a long story short, we ended up smoking up his check from Home Depot by the end of that night.
    Within six months, everyone on our side of town referred to us as “Mr. and Mrs. Crackhead.” The community joke about us was, “The couple that smokes together stays together.” And I guess they were right to an extent because we were crackheads, and we did smoke together. What most people didn’t understand was that despite our addiction and the foul shit we did to our bodies, we still