Only in my dreams—which I totally need to stop having. Seriously, what the heck, Subconscious? Not cool!
But locking the door before I go to sleep with the baby in her bedside bassinet, makes me feel, if not safe, at least like I have some control over our current living arrangements. Even if it’s just one tiny little push button lock.
“Tu novio showed me how,” Aunt Mari answers, her brown eyes twinkling as she shatters even that small illusion of control. “It was so easy. He said I could take just any old key and twist it in the lock.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I remind her for the millionth time as Aunt Mari decides to do a clean and bustle around my room like she’s been invited.
“Go take a shower and make up your face. Men like women who put in some effort,” she answers before launching into a noisy all-Spanish sermon about how my generation has forgotten that women need to take care of themselves, and that’s why we can never keep a man.
Luckily Garnet sleeps like a rock. Even with light flooding into the room and Aunt Mari’s sermonizing, she stays peacefully asleep. Which leaves me free to shower and okay, okay Aunt Mari, rub on some foundation and a little mascara. The bare minimum by Aunt Mari’s standards, but I didn’t inherit that Beauty all You Can Beauty gene from my Dominican side of the family.
It’s not like I need to worry about looking pretty right now anyway, I decide right before I wake up my adorable three-month-old by smoothing a hand over her soft black curls. This is all the complication I want or need in my life. I nurse Garnet before putting on my clothes for work.
Too bad the first thing I see when Garnet and I enter the kitchen is the ruthless enforcer who refuses to move out of the house he’s been forcing me to live in for the last few months. Stone’s seated at the round breakfast table and being fussed over by Aunt Mari.
“Isn’t it so nice to have a big, strong man in the house?” Aunt Mari asks as she sets a Los Tres Golpes down in front of the hulking Italian.
No, it isn’t, I think, eyeing his plate filled with fried eggs, fried cheese, fried Dominican salami, and last but not least, mangu, mashed plantains, with sautéed red onions on top. Stone has no right to be here at my breakfast table. Eating all my favorite Dominican breakfast treats. And ugh…looking better than any man with his severely limited emotional capacity should in a linen suit and open-collar shirt.
“Don’t worry, I made you a plate, too, mija,” Aunt Mari says. She sets my own Los Tres Golpes down in front of me and takes Garnet out of my arms, leaving me free to eat.
My mood lightens as I scarf down her delicious food, and I darn near sing a happy hallelujah song, when she replaces my empty plate with a cup of coffee, all while balancing Garnet in one arm like an old pro.
The original plan had been for Aunt Mari to only stay for a few days, but three months later, I find myself not minding that she’s moved herself in with the full blessing of Stone and her six children who brought over all her stuff after church a few Sundays ago.
“Mai’s right. This is house is too big for just you and your novio and your baby,” Osner, one of my cousins, called out to me as he and Jhonny, Aunt Mari’s other son, carried in a divan.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I answered, even as I led them to the downstairs room where Aunt Mari had decided she would be staying permanently after talking it over with Stone.
I’d been annoyed then, but I have to admit it’s really working out as I sip my coffee to the soundtrack of Aunt Mari’s crooning to Garnet in nonsense Spanish.
The scene would warm my heart—if not for the hulking presence on the other side of the breakfast table, drinking his own cup of coffee, and scrolling through his phone.
I can’t believe Stone is still here after three months. He still hasn’t found the right threat to make me take his lethal hand in marriage. And he flies back to New York four out of seven days of the week. Yet he’s managed to insinuate himself into every other aspect of my life.
This house has both our names on it. And guess what I can see from the kitchen window…the matching His and Hers Cadillac Escalades he leased, sitting in the driveway.
He also forced an interior designer on me a couple of months ago. “Either work with him, or let him decide, I don’t give a shit. But my kid ain’t growing up in an empty house.”
Despite his weekly four-day absence and his not-ever-going-to-happen status as my husband, he seems hell bent on us pretending we’re one of those normal suburban families. Why?
I have no frickin’ clue. He’s barely here, and as for “his kid,” he has yet to touch his niece, much less establish any kind of connection that could be described as a father-child relationship. He sleeps in the guestroom the few days he’s here, and so far I haven’t had to worry about making nice with him. Other than at meal times, I rarely see him.
Aunt Mari loves him, and always fusses over him when he’s down from New York. But to me, it feels like I’m living with a ghost. A huge, scary ghost, who dresses in expensive suits and only haunts the house on Sunday, Mondays, and Tuesdays.
But somehow I’d ended up working with the interior decorator to furnish our house with a modern mix of Herman Miller and Bernhardt Design furniture, along with some imported pieces from the Dominican Republic and Haiti to keep it from appearing too much like an interior design magazine spread.
So now I’m eating my breakfast in a house that looks exactly like what it is, a home that belongs to the two of us. And after I’m done doing that, I’ll be hopping into the oversized car Stone bought me to drive into the office. Anyone looking at us from the outside would think we were some kind of happy family.
But we’re not. We’re definitely not. Which was why I spent most of my leave applying for jobs in the Dominican Republic, the one place Stone couldn’t easily ramrod his way into my and Garnet’s life. All I need is for one job offer to come through. Just one, and this weird living under the same roof with a man I despise nightmare will be over.
I’ll be able to raise Garnet exactly as I planned. Just me and her. Far away from the Ferraro family and all their nonsense.
Thinking of that possibility brings me some solace as Stone and I drink our coffees in complete silence.
At least it does until we reach the next part of our now usual morning routine.
Stone sets his cup aside and pulls out a small, velvet box. “Here ya go.”
I stoically continue to sip my coffee. Pretending like I can’t hear any evil, can’t see any evil…
Unfortunately, Stone is totally all right with speaking evil. “Stop playing and put it on already. I don’t want you going into the office today without a ring on your finger.”
With that, he pops open the box. As usual, it feels like getting shot point blank right through the heart with his gun when he does this, and the ring he’s trying to make me wear is the bullet. This ring…it’s even more impossible not to look at than Luca Ferraro. French set with a huge princess cut diamond right in the middle. All the carats. It’s basically everything I secretly online shopped for when I thought Rock and I might go the distance. Only super-sized.
As always, my heart stops ticking for a few seconds as I helplessly stare at the exquisite ring Stone’s trying to make me wear. There was a time I wanted the whole nine yards, a ring, a wedding, a man to love me and call me his own. One who I would adore in return. This ring reminds me of those silly dreams and make emotions drum in my throat.
But then I remember who’s doing the offering. No, offering is the wrong word. More like, who’s ordering me to wear his ring, even though I’ve already said, “No way, Jose” to marrying him, like, a million times.
I think there’s something honestly wrong with you. Something I’m not seeing. What are you hiding from me?
The dream lingers, my subconscious tugging at me to open a case file on the emotionless man, commanding me to wear a ring that looks like it costs way more than two months of my salary. Maybe more than I make in an entire ye
ar.
But no, no. I’m not going to do that. He isn’t one of my clients. And I refuse to case file him. I mean, how hard did I learn my lesson after doing that with both Rock and Amber? I’m Not Nice Naima now, I remind myself. I’m hard and cold. No more trying to understand anyone the state isn’t paying me to help. No more overextending myself for people who don’t appreciate or want me in their lives.
With those thoughts placed solidly in my mind, I get up from the table, kiss the baby in Aunt Mari’s arms, then head off to my first day of work. Leaving Stone and the gorgeous ring I refuse to accept, much less wear, behind.
But even as I escape the ring gauntlet yet it again, it feels like a temporary release. Like I’m the mouse who thinks she has a chance in hell. And Stone’s the lion who’s just biding his time.
Chapter Nine
“Thank you for your interest. After discussing our Facetime interview with my colleagues, we have decided that we would love to have you join our team. Here are the details….”
The message from the director of Organizacion Dominicana de Ciegos appears in my inbox right before my lunch break. And, oh my God, it’s exactly the offer I’ve been waiting for!
The Dominican Republic doesn’t have much in the way of government infrastructure, but after applying to several non-profits for the visually impaired, the ODC, a rehab center for the newly blind, had agreed to let me do a Facetime interview. The conversation had been scheduled for one of Stone’s out-of-town days, thank goodness, and apparently, it had gone well. Not only were they offering me a job as a training course teacher for their youth program, but they were also willing to give me a whole month to get my affairs in order before I moved permanently to the Dominican Republic. It would be half the pay I’m getting now, but at a much lower cost of living than the States. And I’d be near my parents.
“Isn’t that great?” I ask, when I call my mother and father during my lunch break.
However, my parents don’t seem nearly as enthused about the prospect of me moving as I am. “Why do want to come here, so far away from your boyfriend?” my mother asks, her Haitian Creole accent even thicker now that she’s moved back to Hispaniola, even though the assisted living facility they currently reside in is on the Dominican Republic side.
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
“That’s not what Mari said,” my father replies, his Dominican accent just as thick as my mother’s Haitian Creole one. “She said this Stone tipo asks to marry you every morning and is offering to raise that fatherless child of yours. I say you should take the deal.”
Oh my God, Aunt Mari told them that? I should have known she wouldn’t be able to resist spreading that piece of juicy gossip across international lines.
“Marriage is not a business transaction, papa.” I rub the side of my head. This conversation isn’t going nearly the way I thought it would when I decided to call with my good news. “And besides, I don’t want to marry him. I want to move to the DR with Garnet and be closer to you.”
“Why would you want to do that now?” my mother asks, like she’s talking to a complete stranger, not the mother of her only grandchild. “Your boyfriend is rich and drives a Cadillac. We’re poor and you know, the facility banned papa from driving after that golf cart accident.”
“Wait, what accident?” I demand, seriously alarmed, because my severely visually impaired father shouldn’t be driving anything with four wheels.
“Oh, your faithless père is cheating on me again, you know. Another dumb slut nurse. She let him sweet talk her into allowing him to drive one of the golf carts but then did not properly supervise his foolishness.”
“You cannot fault her, mi amor,” my father chides. “It easy for women to become distracted when gazing upon my fine features. This is something you would know if you were not blind as the bat.”
“Naima, say goodbye to your father now for the very last time. As soon as we end this call, I am going to replace his Viagra with cyanide.”
“You are a selfish, selfish woman. You should learn to share instead of scaring all of my girlfriends away. If you were nicer, we could have a threesome. Or maybe even a fivesome!”
“Naima, please check for me if his will is in order. The judge will most likely pass everything to you after I am sent to jail for his murder. But I want to make sure you have something left over from his worthless life.”
“Mama, you know he doesn’t have a will…” I say, rolling my eyes at their antics. My blind mother has been accusing my blind father of cheating on her for as long as I can remember. As for my father, he’s utterly devoted to the Haitian woman his family didn’t initially approve of him marrying. And, from what I can tell, has never cheated on her in his life. But for some reason he derives great joy from encouraging her delusions.
Normally I let them play out their little routine, but today I just don’t have the patience. “Can we get back to the conversation about me moving to the DR?” I ask.
“Ayayay! This again?” my mother answers. “We have already told you to stay right where you are with the rich boyfriend who wants to marry you.”
“And why would you even think about abandoning your Aunt Mari after moving her in with you?” my father asks, in the same tone prosecutors use to accuse defendants of heinous crimes.
“I didn’t move her in with me,” I point out. “And I’m sure she’ll be just fine if I leave her here in North Carolina with her six children.”
“Six children? Are you sure?” my father asks. “I thought she only had five.”
“Yes, I’m really sure, papa,” I answer, my tone dry. “I know because all six of them showed up to help her move in, and a few of the older grandkids, too.”
“No, that can’t be right. There’s Jhonny, Heaven, Yara, Osner, Bessy…that’s it, right?”
“You’re forgetting Alaysha.”
“No, that’s her oldest gran, isn’t it?”
“No, it’s her youngest daughter,” I answer, rubbing my forehead some more. I can’t quite understand how we went off-topic so quickly again.
“Are you sure about that?” my mom asks, her voice totally skeptical. “You know, your pére and I were watching one of those telenovelas of his. Turns out the family’s youngest daughter was really the daughter of the slutty oldest daughter. And you know me. I do not like to talk about anybody. It is not the Lord’s way. But naming a daughter Heaven is just asking for the ungodly behavior, non?”
Before I can answer a voice appears in the background of the call, announcing the bus for Punta Cana will be leaving on the hour.
“Oh, cheri, it was so nice talking to you, but that is the announcement for our two-day Punta Cana excursion. We have to go now, or we won’t be able to take seats together, and one of those slutty widows will try to put the moves on your pére.”
“Love you, mija. And say hello to your rich novio,” my father adds. “Tell him he has my blessing, just send over one of those Cadillacs!”
“Papa, Mama, wait—”
“What will you do with a Cadillac, you blind fool?” my mother demands, before I can finish.
Then they hang up without letting me get in another word.
I look at the phone for a long time after the call ends. I should be amused. I know I should. According to Amber, my mom and dad are cute and completely lovable.
And back when they lived in New York with me, I totally agreed. We felt like an inseparable unit, and I loved my parents. So much, it was easy to let my twenties slip away while I took care of them at night and my clients by the day.
But one day they decided out of the seeming blue to move back to the island. And now I’m a single mom in my late thirties over here, while they seem to be living it up with excursions to Punta Cana.
I should be happy that they’re having so much fun in their sunset years. And I am. At least I’m trying to be. I just can’t help but feel a little bit dejected that my parent’s only response to my announcement was a bunch of jokes abo
ut my rich boyfriend and their usual banter.
Like Aunt Mari, they fail to see why Stone’s presence in my and Garnet’s life is hugely problematic. I can just hear my Aunt Mari complaining to them this morning about how I couldn’t appreciate a good, rich, and guapo man. And how I was what was wrong with my entire generation of women these days.
She probably said the same thing to Stone after he presented me with that ring command.
Yeah, I need to get away from here, I decide as I return to my desk after making that disappointing phone call outside. For both my sake and Garnet’s. Even if my parents were less than encouraging about me moving to Santo Domingo.
I type back an enthusiastic reply to the organization’s director. Then I use the rest of my lunch hour to start making plans.
Thank goodness, Stone didn’t get himself listed on Garnet’s birth certificate. As soon as he leaves tomorrow, I’ll buy tickets and order an expedited passport for the baby. Then a month from now when he’s out of town, I’ll fly out without a word to anyone. We’ll finally be free.
The ding of my calendar brings me out of my planning reverie, and my spirit plummets as soon as I see the reminder.
Back to school meeting with Cami (update her on her sister’s case if possible).
Crossing my fingers that I’ll have something positive for her, I close the reminder and navigate through the system to find the case file on Talia Marino, Cami’s little sister.
However, that hope dies as I go over the social worker’s final conclusions. I read over passages like “pillar of the community”, “reported his oldest daughter threatened to blackmail him if he didn’t give her money”, “believes she has undiagnosed mental problems”, “youngest daughter did not corroborate story.” It’s a complete exoneration, followed up by a personal testimonial from the social worker herself, who happens to attend the same church as Cami’s and Talia’s father.
Oh, man. I was looking forward to helping Cami get whatever supplies she needed to begin her senior year at UNC. Though Cami is a bright, young college student who’s overcome sexual abuse and the foster care system to excel as a Computer Science major, the last time we spoke she seemed to barely be holding on due to this case. But now…
STONE: Her Ruthless Enforcer: 50 Loving States, North Carolina Page 5
