by Mia Madison
The tears could wait until later, until I was alone again.
For now, all I could do was wait and pray.
And just keep smiling.
The nurse had been right. It had taken hours—five hours, to be exact—for my dad to wake up.
But the look on his face when he saw me there, still holding his hand as I sat there fighting the urge to drift off to sleep, had been more than worth the wait. More than worth the uncertainty and the tears and the seemingly endless hours of sitting in uncomfortable hospital chairs.
“Kimbella,” my dad’s voice was strained and sounded more weak than I’d ever heard him. “You shouldn’t be here… Angel won’t like—”
“Shh, Daddy,” I shook my head, still smiling at him even though I was worried and afraid. “He brought me here. And he’s letting me come home, so don’t worry about that anymore. As soon as you’re feeling better, we’ll both be back home together.”
“That’ll be nice,” he said, patting my hand as his eyes fluttered closed again. “I’m so tired, Kimbella.”
The nurse had told me he’d be exhausted, but I hadn’t really anticipated how taxing it would be for him to sit and talk for just a few seconds. I didn’t like seeing him so weak and frail. All my life, for all the mistakes he’d made along the way, he’d been my rock—the one person I could count on to always be there no matter how crazy everything else got.
Now, though, I was starting to realize that he was still human, just a man, and one of these days he wouldn’t be around anymore.
“Just rest, Daddy,” I said. “I’ll make sure everything is clean and nice at home when you’re ready to get out of here.”
If I hadn’t been watching, I would’ve missed the slight movement of his head that passed for a nod, and the little twitch at the corners of his mouth that told me he approved.
“Good, Kimbella,” he whispered. “Go now. I don’t want you to see me like this.”
“Okay,” I said, squeezing his hand again. But if he heard me, he didn’t say anything else, and after a few moments I could see his chest rising and falling in that slow, familiar rhythm that told me the pain meds had kicked in again.
I waited for a little while longer, just content to sit there with him and watch over him. But then I remembered his words and how agitated he’d probably be if he woke up to still find me there.
He might be weak at the moment, but I knew my dad, and he didn’t like to look weak. Sending me off to stay with Angel had been a hard blow to his ego, and I’d worried at the time that he’d die if I didn’t go.
I hadn’t anticipated him nearly dying because of it.
Stress caused heart attacks, though, right? And there was no doubt that I’d stressed him out with my last-minute plan to buy him more time to pay off his debt.
Now, though, we’d have to come up with a better plan—together this time. One that would keep me home and still let him own up to his other obligations.
I sighed and stood up, finally letting go of his hand for the first time in hours.
There would be plenty of time to worry about all of that other stuff later, once he was safe and sound at home. For now, the best thing for me to do was to go there and make sure everything was perfect for him. He’d need food and medicine and a comfortable place to sleep downstairs, and those were all things I could take care of for him.
At least I felt like I had a purpose again, and maybe, just maybe, it could be a new beginning for us. A clean slate.
A chance to finally put the past behind us and start over as a father and daughter.
A family.
I was barely standing by the time the bus stopped in my neighborhood and I slowly eased myself down onto the curb. More than twelve hours had passed since Angel and I had gone racing to the hospital, but it felt more like a lifetime to my aching feet and back, sore from a day of pacing up and down tile corridors and fearfully perched on the edge of foam seat cushions that might as well have been made of concrete.
I had to stop myself in the courtyard when my legs automatically started carrying me to Angel’s condo, and for a moment I simply stood outside in the dark, trying to remind my body of what my brain had been wrestling with all day—that I wouldn’t be going back to Angel’s condo tonight.
That I might not ever go back there, now that he’d granted me the freedom to go home.
Home.
Finally getting with the program, my feet carried me back across the small patch of grass to my dad’s front door—our front door—and I fished my old key out of my purse as a grin spread across my face.
I had mixed feelings about leaving Angel’s place—about leaving him—but it was never supposed to be something that would last forever, and certainly never supposed to be something I would end up missing.
Still, if I was being honest, as happy as I was to be going home, a part of me did miss Angel already.
I’d have to push that part of me aside, though, and deal with what was happening in my life now. My dad’s heart attack had changed everything for me, and taking care of him had to be my number one priority. I owed it to him, and to my mom, and to myself to make things work, to fix our strained relationship and get back to a place where we could maybe, finally find a little bit of happiness as a family.
With that thought in my head, I started moving around the old condo, sighing as I realized the place probably hadn’t seen a vacuum cleaner or a dust rag since I’d been gone.
That was okay, though. Those were things I could easily take care of. That’s what I was there for.
I walked back to the hall closet to grab a broom and start working, determined to at last get something accomplished, no matter how tired my feet and back might be, and that’s when I spotted it.
A simple sheet of paper on the end table by the stairs, folded in half.
Dad never left mail lying around, and anything important never made it out to that table. In his line of business, he was always careful not to give any information away, especially when so many pairs of prying eyes were in and out of the place on a daily basis.
It was probably something as simple as a grocery list. Maybe something my dad had been holding onto when he’d had his heart attack.
That only served to make me more curious, though, and I crossed the hall to pick it up.
Important or not, I had to know what it was.
My brow furrowed as I read the handwritten note, and then tears started to well up in my eyes for what had to have been the hundredth time that day.
Calvin -
If you’re reading this, I hope it means that you’ve made it home and are recovering from your heart attack. We’ve had our differences and our ups and downs, but I’ve always considered you a friend.
You can rest assured that I have done my very best to take care of your daughter over these past few weeks, and I know it might seem hard to believe, but I really do care for her.
A lot.
She’ll be staying with you again, though, and I wish you both only happiness. As far as I’m concerned, all of our former debts are cleared out—paid in full.
I never meant for things to end up like this between us, old friend, and I hope someday we can get back to the way things used to be.
I’ll be sending a check in the mail to your address soon. It should be enough to cover Bella’s tuition for the next year until she graduates, and there should also be a little bit left over for the two of you. Go spend some quality time together. Eat a good meal. It’s on me.
I don’t want or need anything in return, and I’ll be gone for a while anyway, so don’t even try to thank me.
Get better soon, friend.
Much love,
Angel
By the time I got to the bottom of the letter, my eyes were so blurry with tears that I could barely read it, and I was already out the door and halfway across the courtyard before the last words registered in my brain.
I’ll be gone for a while…
Gone
?
For the second time in less than ten minutes, I stood lost and confused in the middle of the courtyard.
I looked up at his darkened windows and shook my head. He couldn’t be gone. Not yet. Not until I could talk to him, could thank him, could tell him how much he meant to me.
Maybe he was still in there somewhere, sleeping or packing or… something.
All of the aches and pains in my body were temporarily forgotten as I broke into a run to his front door. Please be home. Please let me see you.
I knocked on his door and waited, but there was no answer. I still had the spare key he’d given me the first day I stayed with him, but… was it right to use it?
Did that count as breaking in?
“Fuck it,” I said, digging the key out and unlocking the door before I could talk myself out of it.
But I didn’t even have to go through the whole place to tell that he was already gone. Just standing in the foyer, I could sense that he wasn’t there. The place felt empty. Cold. Lifeless.
With nothing more to do, I walked back outside and closed and locked the door behind me. All of the day’s aches and pains came back with full force as I slumped against his doorframe.
I couldn’t even cry anymore—not after the day I’d had.
Every tear I could muster had already been shed, and now I was just… there.
Alone.
Tired.
Broken.
Angel
It was only a four hour flight from Miami to Savannah, but sitting in rocking chairs sipping lemonade on my mother’s front porch while we watched the slow-moving traffic felt like we were on the other side of the world.
“It’s been too long since you’ve come to see me, Angel.” She raised a disapproving eyebrow. “You know I don’t like to go to Miami anymore.”
“I know, Mama.” I nodded.
She hadn’t been back there since my father was shot twenty years earlier. She’d said then that she’d never go back, and I always thought maybe she’d come around and change her mind once the pain and the memories had faded a little.
Now, though, she seemed perfectly at home in Georgia, and she still talked about Miami like it was hell on earth. She seemed content to live out the rest of her days in the hot, humid Savannah sun, and I seemed destined to keep disappointing her.
When she wasn’t worrying about what I got up to in Miami—a valid concern, though I’d never admit it to her—she was asking me when I’d settle down and get married, when I’d bring her some grandchildren on one of my not-frequent-enough visits.
“Have you found a nice woman to make your wife yet?”
I frowned. It was as if she’d been listening to my thoughts, but I knew the reality was that she was just going through her usual list of questions, bracing herself for another round of disappointment.
“Maybe,” I said, surprising both of us with the closest thing to a yes as I was likely to get. “But it’s complicated.”
Complicated didn’t even begin to describe the way I felt about Bella. The state of our… relationship—if it could even be called that—was so much more than complicated, but I didn’t have any other words to describe it. Anyway, it’s not like my mom would’ve understood.
And she definitely wouldn’t have approved if she’d known all the details. But just because I didn’t want to tell her all the details didn’t mean she wasn’t going to ask.
Repeatedly, if she didn’t get the answers she was looking for.
“Well?” She asked. “Is maybe all you’re going to say? I’m too old for riddles and mysteries, Angel. Tell me. Who is she? What does she do? When will you bring her here to meet your forgotten mama?”
I snorted and turned away so she wouldn’t see me roll my eyes. Old woman or not, she still wouldn’t have hesitated to cross that porch and slap my face for being disrespectful.
“It’s not like that, Mama,” I said, finally. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”
Even though I didn’t want to sit and answer twenty questions about my dysfunctional non-relationship with Bella, I also regretted getting my mother’s hopes up.
I knew that she only asked because she cared, because she wanted to see me happy—the way my parents had been when they were younger, back when we still lived in Cuba, back when the world had seemed like a simple place.
“It’s not like what, Angel? Do you love her?”
“Yes,” I said, without hesitating—without needing to even think about it. “I’ve loved her for a long time.”
It was the first time I’d said it out loud, but it was true. The way Bella made me feel went deeper than anything else I’d ever felt before. Deeper than friendship, deeper than sex. I would lay down my life for her if I had to—and for a man who had lived his life surviving, that was a pretty big revelation.
I’d never been in love before Bella, but that was the only word that could come close to expressing how I felt about her.
Her happiness meant everything to me. It’s why I knew I finally had to let her go—staying with me hadn’t made her fall in love with me the way I’d naively hoped it would.
In fact, it had probably made things worse between us.
“Does she love you?” My mother was still in twenty-question mode, and even though I was tired of playing, I still felt like I owed it to her to give at least a few more answers. I’d been the one to bring it up in the first place, after all.
“I don’t know, Mama…” I shrugged, and shoved a hand back through my hair. I did know, though—or at least I was pretty sure I knew. I just didn’t want to admit it. Still, that plan hadn’t really worked out for me, either, so… fuck it. “No, actually,” I corrected myself. “No, I don’t think she does.”
“Then she’s a fool.” She stated it in such a matter-of-fact way that it would’ve been hard to argue with her. “And it’s her loss.”
Except I knew that Bella wasn’t a fool. She was smarter—in book-smarts and street-smarts—that anyone else in my life. She was nobody’s fool.
“I feel like I’m the one losing out though, Mama.” I sighed. “I know I shouldn’t whine, but… how am I supposed to turn off my feelings for her?”
She gave me a hard look and then leaned in a little, squinting against the sunlight. “You really love her? You’re sure?”
“Yeah, there’s no question about that. I’ve tried to deny it for a while, but I just can’t fight it anymore.”
“And you’ve told her how you feel?”
I shook my head. “No… what’s the point?”
She clucked her tongue and rolled her eyes. “Silly boy. You have to tell her how you feel. If she loves you back—and I can’t imagine why she wouldn’t—then she’ll tell you. And if she doesn’t… at least you’ve been a man about it, and you can move on. But until you say something to her, you won’t be able to stop thinking about it. That’s just how it goes.”
I sat back in my chair and thought about my mother’s words. She’d loved and lost more than anyone I’d ever known, and she’d lived long enough to know what she was talking about.
Should I tell Bella how I felt? Was there any point to it? Would I at least be able to move on, no even if she shut me down?
Maybe…
Maybe it was worth a shot.
“You really think so, Mama? You think that’s what I should do? Just… tell her?”
She nodded and took another long sip of lemonade. “I know that’s what you should do. Have I ever given you bad advice before?”
“No,” I laughed. “You definitely haven’t.” I stood up and stretched, then crossed the porch and leaned down to kiss her cheek. “Thank you, Mama. You’ve given me a lot to think about. And… I think I know now what I need to do.”
“What?” Her brow furrowed. “Are you leaving? Without even staying for dinner?”
“I’m sorry, Mama. I have to go back to Miami. I don’t want to waste any more time… but maybe the next time I come to visit, I’ll have a gu
est with me.”
Her dark brown eyes lit up as a wide smile spread across her face. “You’d better have this girl with you, Angel. I want to meet the future mother of my grandchildren.”
“Cross your fingers, Mama,” I said, giving her a little wave as I turned to go. “I’m going to need all the luck I can get.”
And whether or not I ended up being lucky enough for Bella to love me back, I’d made up my mind.
I had to tell her how I felt. I owed her the chance to hear it and respond to it, and I owed it to myself to say the words.
To tell her I loved her.
Kimbella
The two weeks since my dad had come home had flown by. My life had started to feel like a never-ending cycle of sleep, school, cooking, cleaning, and taking care of anything else that needed to be done around the house.
That was okay, though, because it kept my mind off Angel.
Well, mostly.
Sort of.
Okay, so it hadn’t stopped me from thinking of Angel at all. But my mountain of daily chores had at least given me an outlet for my frustration and all of the mixed emotions I still had for him.
Plus, as long as I was keeping my hands and mind busy, I didn’t have time to cry. And that was a win, for sure.
I’d barely made it home from class, and I was already bone-tired just thinking of all the things I still had left to do before I could go to bed. I opened the front door and let my book bag fall from my shoulder, giving my dad a little wave when he looked up from the TV in the living room.
“Kimbella, I’m glad you’re home,” he said, his eyes immediately moving from my face down to my hands. “Did you stop and get a newspaper like I asked?”
I nodded and reached down to grab it out of my bag. “Yeah, I’ve got it right here. Nothing exciting going on, though, from what I could tell.” I walked it over to him and kissed him on his forehead as I handed over his must-have newspaper. “What was so special about today’s paper, anyway?”
“Oh, nothing,” he said, immediately thumbing through the paper in a way that seemed a little too deliberate for casual browsing. “I just need to check my numbers, and a couple of these races…”
