Bleu, Grass, Bourbon

by Olivia Gaines

  “Are you still pissed at me for leaving and going to Georgia?” Tameka asked Deshondra.

  “I was never pissed at you for leaving. My feelings are the same now as they were then – your circus, your elephants, and your shit to scoop up,” DeShondra said.

  Tameka placed her hand under Michelle’s bottom, looking at both Cabrina and DeShondra. She sighed loudly, about to say something that was certain to piss off DeShondra who waited for the mouth to open and spit out words to make her want to slap the color out of her hair.

  “Truthfully, the two of you should be thanking me,” Tameka said. “Had I not left for Georgia, you wouldn’t have come looking for me. Since you did set out to find me, you met two great guys and are both legally the aunts to my baby.”

  “And you still get on my damned nerves,” DeShondra said, reaching for the child. Although she and Tameka very rarely saw eye to eye on anything, she was the heart of the threesome. She held the crew together and she was often right twice a day like a broken watch. Soon, she would be a mother. The feel of a child in her arms should be a natural desire. Running away from holding a child wasn’t going to change the truth. In a few months, she would be a mom. She needed all the practice she could get. “Come, one baby, let me feed you and take a break from your crazy Momma.”

  She carried Michelle into the dining room, taking a seat in a side chair, looking down at the baby, who was ready for the bottle. “You are adorable,” she said to Michelle as her little hands fisted while she suckled at the nipple, her eyes closing as if it were the best thing she’d ever tasted in her short-lived life.

  In the kitchen, Isiah, in the middle of a sentence, lost his train of thought at the sight of her holding the child and feeding it. His bottom lip hung slack as he watched her feed Michelle and tears pooled in the blue eyes.

  “Oh for fuck’s sake. I don’t know what is wrong with my sons that every time their woman holds a baby, they get all soft and gooey on the inside. Buck up, boy,” Joe said. “What is wrong with you?”

  “Daddy, I am seeing my future,” Isiah said. “I’m going to be somebody’s Daddy.”

  “Yeah, but right now you are acting like a big baby. Get a grip on yourself,” Joe replied.

  From the kitchen Cabrina announced that dinner was ready. Tameka, happy to be a part of the family gathering, called out, “I made a blueberry pie for dessert.”

  Joe frowned and pulled Zeke to the side. “Son, I’m not sure what is up with that girl and the fucking blueberries, but you need to watch her closely. I think, and don’t quote me, that she is having an affair with a blueberry pimp,” he whispered.

  “I’m not eating any of that pie,” Isiah said. “Those blueberries tore my stomach up. She even sent two of them blue bricks with me on the road. I threw them out the window.”

  “Why are you throwing out my wife’s treats? She is just trying to be thoughtful,” Zeke said in her defense.

  “Thoughtful would be taking into consideration men don’t like to go to the bathroom and make blue shit. It ain’t natural,” Joe said eyeing Tameka like she was a perp that was good for at least two homicides on a college campus.

  Mary yelled at them to stop talking and come to the table. The dinner spread held a little bit of something for everyone, and Cabrina had outdone herself to ensure that she covered every palate and preference. It was the one trait of Connie Roberts in which DeShondra admired. The woman knew how to put on a dinner or special event that she handed down to her daughter. The food, while tasty as meals went, it still did not rival the savory dishes Maya Leman prepared. A wry smile touched the corners of her lips at the pride she suddenly felt for her mother’s cooking. The smile grew wider as she realized, if she wanted to, could easily replicate all of her mother’s signature dishes.

  DeShondra placed Michelle over her shoulder for a burp as she easily ate the meal before her with one hand, all the while holding the infant.

  “You do that so effortlessly,” Isiah said, touching her thigh.

  “I’m good at just about anything I do,” she replied with a wink.

  “Yes, Lord you are,” he replied.

  THE EVENING TOOK A mind of its own as she chatted about the upcoming wedding with her soon-to-be-mother-in-law and friends. A turn in the conversation came as Mary began to talk about the house that Cabrina now lived in.

  “I grew up in this house,” she said. “Joe grew up on the farm in London, where Zeke was also born. I don’t know why Isiah loved that house so much, but Joe’s Daddy always had horses and animals, which was his favorite place to be. My mom, who was a bit of a gourmet chef, or at least she thought she was, spoiled Gabriel, who loved it here. I guess that’s why he wanted this house.”

  “It is a nice home,” DeShondra said. “Cabrina, your furniture is perfect in it.”

  “My grandfather built this house. The stones are from the land as well as the mortar he handmade from mud and straw to go in between,” Mary said. “My Daddy continued the farm after he returned from the war and brought my mother here to live. I have an album around here somewhere. Gabe! Gabe! Where is that family album?”

  “I’ll get it for you, Mom,” he said, going down the hall to his office. He returned a few minutes later with a leather-bound album, slightly worn at the corners. The white pages inside had turned yellow with age. Mary cracked open the cover, showing off her family.

  “This is my grandfather,” she said, pointing at the first photo in the album. A tall thin man dressed in overalls and holding a shovel stared back at them. The next page revealed the same man with a short woman, thick around the middle. “That is my grandmother. She is carrying my father, Joshua Boone.”

  More pages flipped as images of uncles, aunts, and cousins were introduced to the newest members of Mary Boone Neary’s family. The image which made all three ladies lean forward popped off the page in vivid color, giving a staunch contrast to all the other black and white photos. In the photo were the grandfather, grandmother, and an adult Joshua Boone standing next to a deep complexioned African American woman with a 1940’s hairdo.

  “Who is this lady?” Cabrina asked, pointing to the African American woman.

  “That is my mother, Hattie Boone,” Mary said. “It was a different time and their marriage was illegal, but he loved my Momma and we had a good, but private, life here. She was a fantastic mother, but once she passed, I didn’t want to come back to this house. I’m grateful that you and Gabe will raise your family here. Coming home now has a new meaning for me.”

  Cabrina, DeShondra, and Tameka were all quiet as they looked at Mary with her creamy peach skin tone. Tears streamed down her cheeks as her daughters-in-law surrounded her with hugs and affection. It was now Joe’s turn to sit with his jaw agape. The daughters she always wanted had finally arrived via their sons. His old eyes misted as he watched the woman he loved begin a new chapter of her life as well. Their boys had made good choices for wives. He too was happy.

  Joe wasn’t too happy about the daughter-in-law with the blueberry fixation, but she too was a good egg. Zeke was a hard nut to crack yet she managed to get through to him and his oldest, looked satisfied with where his life ended up. As a father of three sons, he never really worried about the middle boy. Gabriel’s good looks pulled more women than the man wanted nor desired. He always thought the kid was more married to his bible than earthly desires, which in itself, wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

  The true concern had always been for the baby boy, Isiah. The mind of a scholar, but a hillbilly at heart. That one took after his Pappy, as they called father’s in the part of Kentucky where he was born and raised. Like his Pap, if Isiah couldn’t ride it or shoot it, he didn’t have much time for it. The it, in this case, was anything on four legs or four wheels. DeShondra interested Joe, but he wasn’t going to go make small talk with the woman. He would leave that to Mary.

  Chapter 18 – Closure

  DeShondra couldn’t sleep. The bed was entirely too soft and her pregnant
nose could smell all of the trapped-in scents in the old house, which severely needed to be aired out. She slipped out of bed, heading to the kitchen. Not quite sure what she wanted or needed to help her sleep, her gaze went out the window at the sound of chickens making a ruckus. Reaching for the back door, she jumped when a deep voice asked her to stop. Looking around for the voice, she saw no one but heard the creak of a door open, and Gabriel appeared in the hallway.

  “The doors are sealed at night and opening it would trigger an alarm that would wake everyone in the house,” he told her. “Everything ok?”

  “Not really. I can’t sleep, then I heard the chickens making a bunch of noise,” she said.

  “It’s probably a fox trying to get into the hen house,” he replied. “Would you like some warm milk?”

  “Yuck,” she said, frowning at him. “I would prefer a Xanax, but in my condition, the milk may have to do the trick.”

  He opened the fridge to retrieve the container of milk, collecting a pot from the overhead rack and rinsing it before placing it on the burner with a perfectly measured cup of cold liquid. From the open shelf, he grabbed a saucer and cup and set it on the counter. She watched him with a form of bored interest as he collected honey from the pantry and drizzled a bit into the bottom of the cup. What is with these men and the bee vomit?

  “My grandmother kept honey bees for years. This raw honey, people drove for miles around to come and purchase,” he said. “In her later years, she sold the hives to a neighbor who still collects and sells Ms. Hattie’s Honey. You know it’s one of nature’s cure-alls.”

  “Don’t really think it could cure what is ailing me,” DeShondra said softly.

  “Would you like to talk about it?” Gabriel asked.

  “No, but I thank you for the offer of spiritual counseling,” she said, removing the pot from the stove. If the milk became too warm she wouldn’t be able to drink it. She added the warm liquid to the cup, watching it mingle with the dark honey in the bottom.

  “Restlessness is a sign of a troubled heart as well as a troubled mind,” he offered, grabbing a wedge of cheese from the pantry with a few crackers.

  “I’m not restless, so to speak. The bed is too soft and there is a weird odor lingering in this house. It kind of smells like rubbing salve and fried dough,” DeShondra said which made Gabriel chuckle.

  “Isiah said the same thing, that the house smells like liniment and fried meat pies,” he said laughing softly. “I guess you too have the same nose in common.”

  “That and a love of real estate, which may be the only things we have in common,” Deshondra countered.

  “Ah, there it is,” Gabriel said.

  “There’s what?”

  “The source of your restlessness,” he said. “You are worried that all of this is happening so fast, and the fear it may all fall apart is hard to digest for a woman who is unaccustomed to failing at anything.”

  “Oh, I have failed at plenty of things, relationships being at the top of my list,” she confided in him.

  “If you want it to work, then it will. Bleu is not a man who does anything lightly,” he told her. “Yet if you need confirmation that he is the one, signs to move forward or not to proceed with a heavy decision come in threes.”

  “Right now, I am only experiencing the one which is growing in my belly,” she said, sipping at the warm cup of udder juice.

  “No, the child can be considered one, or the trip to Vegas as one,” he said. “Two would be my brother quitting his job and moving to where you are to take a position, which more than likely, he is going to hate. However, it was time for him to do something different.”

  “Yeah, this is something different for us both, Gabriel, but I mean, if he shaved off his beard tomorrow and walked into my office, I’m not sure if I would even recognize the man,” she said softly, which made Gabriel burst into laughter. “It’s not funny that I don’t know what my fiancé looks like without a beard.”

  “What’s funny, is that you do,” he said softly watching her facial expression.

  Her face contorted as she looked at Gabriel. Looking up as if she were accessing the catalog in her brain, she tried to recall a time when she didn’t see him with the beard and drew a blank. “I’ve never seen him without the beard,” DeShondra said.

  “It has been a while, but you met several years ago at a conference in Lexington,” he told her. “You sat next to him and agreed to get a drink after, but a phone call pulled you away. He looked for you all the next day and couldn’t find you. Another attendee told him you’d left for Louisville.”

  DeShondra held the cup to her lips, wracking her brain trying to remember the conference and the man. “No, that guy was blond with a high and tight haircut, he had these amazing blue eyes, and...wait, that was Isiah?”

  “That was Isiah and trust me, he talked about you for darn near six months after that. He got on my nerves so bad that I looked you up, gave him the address to your offices, and even offered to drive him, but he thought it would be stalkerish,” Gabriel said smiling. “Fast forward a few years and there you are on the screen with the two other people in the whole mail order bride scenario, which was the only reason he came to Las Vegas.”

  She played back his words from earlier in the week. I’ve wanted you from the first time I saw you. The only reason I came to Vegas was for you.

  “The baby, his move to Louisville, and you’ve met before, which makes, one, two and three signs,” Gabriel said with a warm smile. “Good night, DeShondra.”

  “Good night Gabriel, and thanks,” she said.

  “My pleasure. Sleep well, both of you,” Gabriel said as he went back down the hall to his office.

  Calm came over DeShondra and her eyelids began to droop. She washed her cup and put it and the saucer back where she’d witnessed Gabriel remove them, along with the cheese and crackers. In the kitchen, leaning against the counter, her thoughts went back to the man at the conference. Tall and blonde, blue eyes and a sexy mouth that flirted relentlessly with her was the reason she agreed to have a drink with him. The phone call had come in from John who needed her to come...she couldn’t remember where.

  “Hmmph,” she said as she made her way down the hall to the soft, squishy bed. Barely able to keep her eyes open, she snuggled up beside Isiah, who draped a hairy arm across her midsection.

  “Love you,” he whispered as he buried his nose into her back.

  “I love you, too,” she said, allowing the sleep to overtake her.

  THE KITCHEN WAS ABUZZ when she awoke. Every television in the house was on as the news flashed the latest headlines of a raid in the mountains of Georgia. Bearded men in handcuffs were escorted to police vehicles as FBI agents with weapons stormed old barns and shacks nestled in the wood lines.

  “What is going on?” DeShondra asked.

  “They are cleaning off our mountain,” Zeke said. “Wait! Is that Huckston?”

  “Sure is,” Joe said. “Dumb bastard should have left. We gave him plenty of warnings.”

  Cabrina moved closer to Tameka, “Are those men the Macklemores?”

  “I guess,” Tameka said disconnecting herself from the moment evolving on the screen. All of it seemed like a bas B-movie to her and a time from her past. She was moving towards the future with Zeke and still had no desire to discuss any of her ordeals with Cabrina. Her next words were stated with purposeful intent to shut down her friend and close the conversation. “I never met any of them. The only one I ever met or talked to was Harley.”

  In the background a buzzer hummed. Gabriel went to the control panel beside the door, flipping switches, disabling the guards at the gates. “Cabrina, your folks are here,” he said, which made Tameka tense.

  The closure she needed was about to walk through the door for breakfast. They would meet Zeke and Gabe’s parents and have the long-awaited conversation with her which had been held for well over a year. She dreaded it with everything in her but things had to be said.
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  “Morning, morning,” Nelson and Constance Roberts walked through the door of the home their daughter shared with Gabriel Neary. Having visited the home several times before, today was the day to meet Cabrina’s in-laws. “Something smells delicious,” Nelson said.

  “It smells divine,” Constance said. “Good morning everyone.”

  “Constance and Nelson, these are my parents, Josiah and Mary Neary, and my brothers, Ezekiel and Isiah,” Gabriel said, looking at Tameka. They knew her as Aisha. Everyone else addressed her as Tameka.

  “Mom and Dad, come on in, the table is set and we are ready to eat,” Cabrina said, pushing past the touchy subject of her lifelong friend.

  Nelson wasn’t ready to push past it as easily. Constance saw no need to bring up Tameka’s failure to provide them with one phone call in over a year. In her mind, if the child didn’t want to provide them the courtesy of letting them know she was alive or dead, then so be it. She wasn’t her mother. Although she tried to be as loving to Aisha as she could, the girl always held her at arm’s length as if loving her would be a betrayal to the memory of her mother. She’d fretted at night initially when she left, but after three months and co call, Constance realized that ruefully, that Aisha Miller had ceased hurting her feelings years prior.

  Tameka stepped forward. “Pops, Connie, this is my husband Zeke and our daughter Michelle,” she said.

  “So, this Zeke didn’t have a phone for you to call us and say, ‘Hey, I’m safe.’ He didn’t have internet for you to send photos of the baby?” Nelson wanted to know.

  “Sir,” Zeke stepped forward. “If you look at the television monitor, those men being arrested is why she couldn’t call. It has been a tense year during which we had to keep a very low profile until all this blew over. I cannot begin to tell you how much I regret not coming to meet you in person before marrying your daughter.”

  Tameka’s mouth was wide open, looking at her husband. He was flat out lying with a straight face. She had admitted to him about feeling guilty for not being in touch with the Nelsons since they had taken her in and been so good to her. Zeke said he would find a way to rectify the situation and include them in their lives. She took that as a sign that he didn’t want to miss out on a bitch session with his brothers on the in-common in-laws. His next words made her close her lips an smile at her adopted parents.