by Kelli Walker
I stood there on pins and needles, waiting for my son’s response. And when he took a step closer to the man, I felt my heart drop to my knees. He was within kicking distance of that man’s feet, and every single image from the day he entered the hospital flashed through my mind. The broken ribs. The bruises. His eyes swollen shut and his lip busted open and stitched back together.
I threaded my fingers with Tristan’s and squeezed, trying desperately to give my son the moment he deserved.
“I’m gonna tell you what Ma always tells Dom about his father,” DeShawn said.
I held my breath as Tristan’s eyes dropped to the side of my face.
“I’m gonna tell you exactly what she told me when I finally had the courage to call her ‘Ma’ for real and ask her why in the world my father could’ve done to me what you did. She told me to grieve. Told Dom to grieve. To take the time we needed to process who our fathers ended up becoming. See, you don’t know that about her. You don’t know that about my Ma. You don’t know that she was raped at fifteen and had Dom anyway because she didn’t want to make a bad situation worse in her life. You don’t know anything about her because you were too busy blaming me for my mother’s death.”
“I know now it’s not your fault, son,” Darnell said.
“But at one point, you didn’t. At one point, you really thought a small, innocent kid was responsible for killing his momma. So here’s what I have to say to you. My Ma? That woman over there that took up the place you should’ve taken? She told Dom and I to grieve you guys. Grieve the choices you made. To accept them as reality. She helped Dom accept the fact that his daddy was nothing but a lowlife rapist. And she helped me accept the fact that you’re nothing but an abuser. A weak, trembling coward who couldn't rise above his own grief to take care of his son.”
“I’m not perfect. I’ll never say that,” Darnell said. “But I love you, son.”
“No, you don’t. You think you do because abusers have this twisted idea of love in their heads, but you don’t. You care about me. But you don’t love me. You loved my momma, and you loved your booze, and you really loved your anger. But you didn’t love me then, and you don’t love me now. You’re not capable of it. You love me out of guilt. Out of necessity because you don’t have anyone else. Not because you really, truly love me.”
“I might not have raised you, but I’m still your daddy. You better mind your words when you talk to me, boy.”
“Good. Because I only got a few more. After all the coping and all the truth-telling and all the tears and all the questions, Ma gave me one last piece of advice.”
“And what was that?” he asked in a mocking tone.
I watched my son square off with Darnell. Toe-to-toe as he looked straight into the man’s eyes. Tristan tightened his arm around me and I tightened my grip on Dom. I felt him moving towards his brother. Moving to defend him and fight for him if anything happened.
But I knew, deep within the rational crevices of my mind, that DeShawn needed to say what I knew he was about to.
“Ma told us to move on,” he said.
“What?” Darnell asked.
“Ma told us to move on. See, her daddy was a piece of crap, too. And the best advice she ever gave me was to tell me I had the chance to show you I could do this life without you. She looked me dead in my eye souls and told me to show you I could do this life without your help. Without your guidance. Without your advice. She told me and my brother that the best thing we could do is be successful without you. She convinced us we could succeed without you.”
“You wouldn't be here if it wasn’t for me,” Darnell said.
“Then tell me. What is it you taught me after you beat me? What did you teach me after you put me in the hospital? What did you teach me while you were behind bars? Because having a kid doesn’t make you a daddy, Mr. Winston.”
Darnell lunged at DeShawn, but he didn’t once flich. The officer caught him just in time and DeShawn watched his biological father get slammed into the back of a police car. I released Dom, watching as my son took off for his brother. DeShawn never once let up eye contact until the officer had driven off with Darnell, then DeShawn dropped into his brother’s arms and cried. He released every single tear he’d ever stowed away from my sight. Every single emotion he never came to me with poured out onto the shirt on Dom’s back. Tristan kept a tight hold on me, despite wanting to move toward my boys. I watched them grow into men in that very second. Men who held one another up. Men who understood the other’s pain. Men who would be there for each other long after I was gone. Long after they went to college and created lives and families of their own.
Then, the two of them turned their eyes to me.
“Come here,” I said as I opened my arms.
As they ran to me, I pictured the very moment we moved into our home. How small they were. How childlike their joy was. It was the summer before their fifth grade year, and they ran around the house claiming their rooms and talking about how they would decorate them. As they ran to me, I envisioned them running around on the playground. Swinging high in the sky and playing in the sandbox together. As their legs carried them closer, I envisioned them running to me down the hospital hallway just before I wrapped my arms around my family. Around my boys.
Around my sons.
I barreled back into Tristan’s strong form as they hit me with a force that left me breathless. They buried their faces into my neck as Tristan wrapped his arms around all of us again. We swayed side to side, all of us crying and releasing every moment of stress and every moment of fear and every moment of sadness we hadn’t yet coped with. The officers stood around us. The paramedics stood around us. They all gave us the time we needed to ebb and flow as a familial unit before we dispersed and went our separate ways.
“I’m so proud of the men you boys are turning into,” I said breathlessly.
They both lifted their heads and kissed my cheeks as Tristan’s lips came down onto the top of my head.
“It’s because of you, Ma,” DeShawn said.
“It’s because of what you’ve taught us,” Dom said.
“I think I agree with them on this one,” Tristan said. “They’re great men because they’ve got a great mom.”
And as I sniffled and dried my tears on their shoulders, I felt my heart swell four times its original size. I felt a peace and a calm overcome my body as I smiled against their cheeks. I rubbed my boys’ heads and leaned back into Tristan, reaching my lips up to kiss his jawline before he gazed down at me with that brooding stare of his.
“Now, let’s get you and Dee checked out by a paramedic,” I said. “Because those trucks are pretty mangled.”
“Yes ma’am,” he said with a grin. “But I did promise your son pizza after all this.”
“Are you ever not thinking about your stomach?” I asked.
“What? I’m hungry. It’s like, almost dinner time,” DeShawn said.
I rolled my eyes and shook my head before I hooked my arm around his waist.
“Come on. Let’s make sure you can eat before we stuff your stomach, okay?” I asked.
“Wait, seriously? There’s a chance I can’t eat?” DeShawn asked.
And as the officers began to tape off the area and examine it for evidence, I shook my head and led my son and the man that saved him over to the ambulance. I wanted to make sure they were okay. I didn’t want any other surprises cropping up on us. I wanted to go back home and not have to worry about whether or not my son was a ticking medical time bomb. But mostly, I needed a few more minutes to process. A few more minutes to cope.
A few more minutes to figure out how the hell I was going to thank Tristan for saving my precious boy.
Tristan
Both DeShawn and I got cleared by the paramedics with a clean bill of health. Despite his truck ramming into mine, we walked away with nothing more than a few scratches and some emotional bruising. Officer Lopez then piled us all into her police cruiser, and we made our w
ay back home. I talked with one of the officers on the scene, and once my truck was done being part of a crime scene, I arranged to have it towed back to my home so I could work on getting it back on the road.
And in the meantime, I’d have to purchase a new vehicle.
The officer pulled us all up to Isabelle’s home and I saw the darkened spot on her driveway. It made me cringe. Thinking about what all Dom and Isabelle had witnessed unnecessarily because I couldn't be in two places at once really rubbed me the wrong way. I helped everyone out and bid the officer farewell, then I escorted everyone back into Isabelle’s home.
It felt good to be back.
“All right, I believe someone mentioned pizza,” Isabelle said.
“I think that’ll be the easiest thing to do tonight for food,” I said.
“Can I get extra pepperoni on mine?” DeShawn said.
“And mushrooms this time, too?” Dom asked.
“The two of you can have whatever you want on your pizza, and I’ll order some cinnamon pull aparts. How does that sound?” Isabelle asked.
“Soda, too?” Dom asked.
“Plenty of it,” Isabelle said with a smile. “Now go get cleaned up. I have to slave away putting in this order.”
Then the boys hugged their mother one last time before stampeding down the hallway.
I stood off to the side, watching as Isabelle pulled her phone from her pocket. The look on her face told me everything I needed to know about what she was thinking and how she was feeling. She turned her back to me and focused her gaze, trying to conceal the emotions running behind her eyes. I pushed off the wall and made my way for her, slipping my arms around her delicate waist.
She leaned into my body as she drew in a shaky breath, and I chanced yet another kiss on top of her head.
“I could’ve lost my boys today,” she said with a whisper.
I buried my nose into the top of her head and closed my eyes. I felt her hands trembling. Her abs jumping. Her chest heaving with tears she tried to keep at bay. The pizza order had been forgotten about as she struggled to conceal her emotions, but it wasn’t necessary. Not with me, and not at a time like this.
“Why don’t you take a second to take your own advice?” I asked.
She turned around in my arms and tossed her confused stare up towards my face.
“What are you talking about?” Isabelle asked.
“What you told your boys to do,” I said. “Take a moment to yourself a grieve.”
And she didn’t have to be told a second time.
Tears rushed down her face as she fisted my shirt. She brought me closer to her, burying her face into the dip in my chest. I ran my fingers through her hair while water ran in the background. I heard Dom and DeShawn singing their own respective tunes from their bathrooms, concealing their mother’s crying. I held her as tightly as I could. Wrapped her up in my warmth and pressed kiss after kiss into her head. My heart ached for her. My soul was weighted with the heaviness of the situation. One of the things I’d never been privy to in my line of work were what Jackson and I called the ‘after-moments’. Those first few hours after a family had been reunited--or altered permanently--when everyone who had been affected had to cope. Had to get back to their lives. Had to proceed like everything was normal while dealing with the trauma of their conundrum.
I was experiencing it for the first time with Isabelle and the boys, and it shattered a part of me.
I smattered her head and cheeks with kisses as my hand slid down to hers. I pried it from my shirt and threaded our fingers together, then held it at my side as I swayed us in a small circle. Side to side. Around and around. Small undulations that rocked her like a parent rocked their infant. I pressed my lips to her ear and shushed her lightly, calming her trembling body down.
I slowly danced her around the kitchen as a song began to fall from my lips.
“Hush now baby don't you cry. Rest your wings my butterfly. Peace will come to you in time, and I will sing this lullaby.”
I sang through the entire song twice, until her chest steadied against mine and her sniffles stopped. The out-of-tune song fell from my lips effortlessly. Anything I could do to get her to settle down, I’d do it. I reached behind her and picked up her cell phone, shocked that it was still unlocked. I finished up the pizza order and typed in my memorized card number, then ordered the food and put a rush delivery notice on it.
“There,” I said. “Dinner made.”
She giggled into my chest and it filled me with a calm I hadn’t experienced in years. Relief flooded my veins, sure. But a calm poured over me in that moment. I crooked my finger underneath her chin and rose her beautiful gaze to mine. Her eyes were puffy from crying and her eyes bloodshot from the rush of adrenaline coursing through her veins. I smoothed my thumb over her cheek, catching the last of her tears and brushing their trails off her radiant skin.
“Isabelle.”
“Yes, Tristan?”
“Pizza here yet!?”
My shoulders moved with my chuckles before the two of us backed away from one another. The boys came striding into the room, still dripping with water and ready to eat. We all sat the table and gathered glasses before the doorbell rang, and I tipped the pizza delivery guy very well for his prompt service. I set everything on the table and opened up the soda to pour everyone a glass, then I sat down with all of them and ate.
The dinner was silent, with nothing but moans of gratitude and loving glances whenever the mood struck one of them right. Isabelle gazed into the eyes of her son a little too long before DeShawn’s gaze caught Dom’s. Watching these after-moments unfold almost made me feel as if I was intruding.
Until I looked up at Isabelle and saw her staring at me with that same longing glance.
I hadn’t experienced that kind of family dynamic once in my life. I didn’t have a good relationship with my parents and neither did my late wife. And for some reason, a couple sitting down at a table and eating didn’t quite feel like the dynamic the four of us had sitting there. But once Isabelle gave me that look, Dom did. And once Dom did, DeShawn did.
“I’m really glad you’re okay,” Isabelle said.
My eyes whipped back over to hers as the boys nodded their heads.
“I’m glad you’re okay, too,” I said. “I’m glad all of you are all right.”
I set my pizza down and reached out for their hands, connecting all of us at our fingertips. For the first time in my life, I felt like part of a family. The dynamic Isabelle shared with her sons was unmistakable, but the dynamic I shared with all of them was just as noticeable and tangible. I squeezed their hands before we all released one another, and I gazed into Isabelle’s eyes again as the boys began to chow down on their food.
I saw something in the depth of her beautiful stare that gave me pause. A flash of something that stopped my jaw from chewing and shoved my heart into my throat. I didn’t dare look away for fear I’d imagined it. But the second she disconnected her gaze from mine and began to talk to her sons, I saw it again.
Flashes of our hands interlaced. Snippets of her hair flowing down her back. A brief moment of me sitting on the couch and asking her sons for permission for something. I clenched my jaw as all of the snapshot moments hit me with a fury. Wedding bells and a pregnant stomach. Sweating foreheads and cries of pain. Wrinkles on her face as the morning sun poured through the window and my crooked fingertips reaching out to brush her beautiful white hair from her face.
A future.
For the first time since I’d lost my wife, I saw a future in her eyes.
And the elation that filled my chest shocked my stilled heart back to life.
Isabelle
“You really were hungry, weren’t you?” I asked.
“Ma, you don’t have to sit on the side of my bed and talk to me. I’m fine. Really.”
I smoothed my hand over my son’s cheek before dipping down to take his hand.
“I know you might be physically fin
e for now, but one day soon all of this is going to hit you hard. Once the adrenaline wears off and you give it a couple days, it’ll become hard to process. The first thing I want to tell you is that it’s fine. It’s okay to be scared and it’s okay to admit that you were. I was scared. The second Dom came running out, yelling that someone had taken you, I knew exactly what had happened.”
I looked into the eyes of my boy as he sighed.
“When you’re ready to talk, I’m here. And if you need someone to lean on without talking about it, I’m here. Whenever you need me, no matter what. Okay, Dee?”
“I hear you, Ma. I love you.”
“I love you too, sweet boy.”
Then, I leaned in to kiss his cheek.
I tucked him in like I always did when he was a child, smoothing my hand over his head. Then I turned his light off, closed his door, and started across the hall. Dom was upright in bed, his pajamas hanging off him like feed sacks while he read his book in bed. He looked up at me with that little grin of his and it made me smile. But it wasn’t until he patted the edge of his bed that I shook my head.
“That obvious?” I asked.
“I heard you talking with Dee. I figured you’d come over here next.” he said.
“When did you two boys get so big on me?” I asked.
“We’ve always been big, Mom. We just got smart on you.”
I ruffled my son’s hair before I pulled him close.
“I love you, you know that?” I asked.
“More than I could ever tell you.”
“I want you to know that I’ll always be here for you. No matter what, sweetie. Through thick or thin, whatever it takes. Until the day I pass from this earth.”
“I know, Mom. I know.”
“I’ll always come after you, and so long as I’m here you’ll always be safe.”
I felt Dom press a kiss to my cheek before he settled down into bed. I tucked him in and kissed his forehead, then stroked my fingers through his hair one last time. I didn’t want to cry in front of them. I didn’t want to break down again in front of my boys. I needed to find my resolve for the next few days while they processed and broke down all that happened. Dee with being taken and Dom with watching it. Both two different experiences that brought a trauma down onto my boys that I’d need to be prepared for once they began to cope and accept what had happened.
