by H. H. Fowler
“You impertinent child! What on earth is wrong with that brain of yours?”
Ellie stood her ground. “So I’m a child now, Leroy? What an odd thing to say, because this child made you unzip your pants, resulting in the birth of an eight-pound-eleven-ounce baby boy. Don’t treat me as if I’m Tayah, or any of your other children, because you know that I’m more than just a child to you.”
Leroy was too livid to reply with a sensible comeback. How could he, when what Ellie said was partly true. What he meant to say was that even though Ellie had the curves of a fully mature woman, her thoughts and her actions were those of a bratty ten year old. And Leroy simply was not going to subject himself to that.
“Rehashing my past sins is not going to make me any less abrasive,” he told her. “I’m annoyed with you and I want you out of my life.”
“Well, I can’t say the same for me.” Though Ellie was visibly shaken by Leroy’s stern expression, she didn’t let that dampen her determination. She lowered LJ to the concrete, giving him a gentle push toward Leroy. “Look. I’ve brought your son to see you. He’s been asking a lot of questions about his father and I would have brought him much sooner, but your disgusting wife always seems to have a problem with me –”
“Enough, Ellie!” Leroy roared, causing the six year old to retreat to his mother’s side. “If you don’t stop harassing me and my family, I’m going to get an injunction against you.”
“Go right ahead, Leroy. What difference is that gonna make anyway? The only person that would get hurt in the process would be our son.”
If Ellie had been hoping to see some display of compassion from Leroy, she was sadly mistaken. Not only did Leroy avoid eye contact with the boy, he showed little regard for his presence.
“Why won’t you look at your son?” Ellie snapped. “Scaring him away is not going to change the fact that he’s got your DNA.”
Leroy responded icily, “I will not allow you to use this child as a bargaining chip. Either you submit to my terms or you will leave me no choice but to proceed with legal action.”
“I don’t care about an injunction!”
“No? But you will care when full parental rights are handed over to me. That means I will fight for full custody of our son and leave you to grapple with two to three visitations a month.”
Ellie’s eyes widened as Leroy’s words began to take effect. “You would never do that to me…”
“I will do what is necessary in the interest of my family. You don’t have to look very far to see where this type of behavior has landed your sister. Be wise and reconsider my terms, because it would be easy to prove to the court how unfit of a mother you are.”
Leroy turned swiftly toward the Escalade.
“Your son and I deserve more than just a measly three thousand dollars a month!” Ellie yelled, as she fell in behind Leroy’s long strides. “How could you let your wife poison you against your own flesh and blood? Do you want him to grow up resenting you?”
Leroy kept walking, not expecting Ellie to pull at the tail of his coat. But he simply brushed her off and climbed into the passenger seat before slamming the door shut in her face. He instructed Mackey to drive, despite Ellie pounding on the Escalade with her fist. Her desperate cries could still be heard as Mackey made a sharp right onto the asphalt.
Once they were on the I-75, Mackey decided to break the silence.
“This has got to be hard for you,” he said. “Dealing with Sean being in the hospital and then having to tangle with Ellie.”
Leroy allowed his head to fall back on the headrest, releasing a heavy sigh. “If you don’t mind, I’d prefer not to talk about the situation right now.”
“Of course…I understand.”
Although Leroy’s brusque response could be attributed to the difficulties he was experiencing at the moment, Mackey couldn’t help but think that his fight with Bernard the other night had turned Leroy cold toward him. He was not used to Leroy being so dismissive and disinterested in matters that had once fueled their conversations. But not wanting to add to Leroy’s burden, Mackey did what he usually thought was best, which was to finish the drive in silence.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“You certainly wasted no time coming over here,” Rachel said, as she twisted her wheelchair aside for Eric to enter through the front door.
Seeing how disturbed Eric had looked the other night at the youth forum, Rachel made it her business to invite him over to her home for a little chat. And though she was still not settled with him hanging around, her curiosity to get to the bottom of things always overrode her fears. Thankfully, both of her parents were out at the moment, which would give her and Eric some privacy to hash things out.
“Don’t get the bighead just yet,” Eric told her. “You invited me over, which means you are as eager to see me as I would have been had you not gotten engaged to my brother.”
Rachel rolled her eyes with a good dose of cynicism. “You are nothing but a well-practiced philanderer.”
“And you are enjoying every bit of it.”
“Oh, please, Eric. You don’t know when to quit and be serious, do you?”
“I am simply an excellent judge of character. You can’t hate a brutha for that.”
“Oh really? How can you judge someone’s character when yours is one big convoluted mess?”
Eric grinned, despite the prick he felt from Rachel’s words. “You see, that’s why I like you. No other girl has ever been able to stand up to me and tell me off the way you just did.”
“Maybe that’s because I’m not obsessed like those silly girls who don’t know their worth.”
“You may not be obsessed, but you were certainly turned on alright. That’s what got us into this situation we’re in now.”
“Excuse you? Newsflash, Mr. Proud and Conceited: You were the one who kissed me and blabbered to Sean about it. The nerve of you to throw that garbage in my face.”
“But you weren’t going to tell Sean anything, which makes me think you wanted it – and please, don’t refer to me as being proud and conceited, because you don’t know anything about the real me.”
“Then tell me who the real Eric is!” Rachel spat. “Because all I see is a boy who is confused and mad with the world like someone owes him something. What are your reasons for being the way you are when you have the most supportive and loving family ever? I won’t even mention your lucrative career.”
“You don’t have any idea what the heck you’re talking about,” Eric seethed.
“Maybe I do, maybe I don’t but I know for sure that you’re full of yourself and that you hate to admit it. If you’re man enough, don’t only tell me that I’m wrong, but open your heart and let me see what the real you looks like on the inside.”
Eric held back his response. He couldn’t believe that within the first five minutes of visiting Rachel, she’d categorically disarmed his resolve to retaliate. That was how he knew there was something special about this girl and the reason he’d been so jealous of her engagement to his brother. She had what it took to make him stop and think. He moved deeper into the Italian-designed living room and edged his butt on the fireplace hearth, intentionally keeping his back turned toward Rachel.
“Okay,” he spoke up, his voice surprisingly steady in view of the amount of pressure he felt in his chest. “You asked for it, so here it is. I slept with a girl who is rumored to be HIV positive and I’m scared to death that I may have been infected. I know that doesn’t explain everything, but I’m at this place in my life where I feel there is no coming back for me. I feel complete darkness and a sense of hopelessness – to the point where I’ve been contemplating suicide.”
Initially, Rachel was blown away to hear such a confession coming from a strong and confident jock like Eric. But almost immediately that feeling was eclipsed by anger as it dawned on her that Eric had almost seduced her into having sex, knowing he could be infected with a deadly virus. She wanted to scream and dem
and Eric to leave her house at once. But the way his broad shoulders appeared to be drooped in remorse, she amazingly kept her composure intact. Certainly it was a display of emotion unlike any she’d ever seen from him. Yet, she struggled to find the right words to say.
“Scream, tell me to leave…just say something,” Eric prompted. “The silence is killing me.”
Rachel swallowed the proverbial frog that had wedged itself in her throat and uttered the first thing that had finally come to her mind. “You pushed your tongue into my mouth.”
“Yes I did.”
“But you ought to have known the risk you were exposing me to.”
“You were never at risk.”
“You just said you’ve slept with someone who is HIV positive,” Rachel spat. “So don’t tell me that I was never at risk.”
Eric turned to face Rachel’s fiery gaze. “I was expecting you to understand, not blow my head off.”
“Because you are not taking this thing seriously. You shouldn’t be walking around with a deadly disease in your body, kissing people – or trying to seduce them into having sex.”
“Is that what you think I’m doing? I could have had you if I wanted, but I pushed you away, didn’t I?”
“Like that has solved anything. The fact is, you knew!”
Eric got as close to Rachel as he could without hitting against her cast. “So you really think I’m that evil? I wasn’t going to sleep with you.”
“You were wrong to have kissed me to begin with,” Rachel fired. “Double wrong for assuming I wanted you and now you’re telling me you’d never intended to sleep with me. I don’t believe you, because I’ve heard just how much of a womanizer you are.”
Under different circumstances, Eric would have considered Rachel’s words a compliment, but the way she said it, made it tasteless and utterly disgusting to his stomach.
“I know you’re hurt, and frightened,” he told her. “But you have nothing to worry about. Sean is gonna wake up, forgive you and then you two will proceed with your fairytale wedding plans.”
“You think it is that easy, huh? What if I’m infected?”
“Stop saying that because you’re not. It was just a stupid kiss.”
“It was more than a stupid kiss. You swiped your tongue in and out of my mouth. It was more like a wet kiss. And according to what Ms. Tobias explained in the youth forum, that type of kissing could have some risk.”
“Only if the infected person has sores or bleeding gums and blood is exchanged. And I can assure you I don’t have any of those things in my mouth. HIV is not spread through mere saliva.”
Rachel stared at Eric, visibly relieved. “I thought you weren’t paying attention.”
Eric was quick to recognize the decline in Rachel’s acidic tone, which gave him some indication that maybe he hadn’t been entirely wrong about her after all. Maybe he’d gotten over the most difficult part of their conversation, and with a small sigh, he walked back to the fireplace and sat in the same spot. He then leaned his head against the newly-refaced design. It was a somnolent gesture that suddenly made Rachel feel a sense of a pity.
“I pay attention alright,” he told her. “But I didn’t get that part about the kissing from Ms. Tobias. I read that online. It’s simply uncomfortable for me to hear people talk about the consequences of unsafe sex and what it could lead to.”
“I don’t see why. Because if you aren’t informed –”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t informed,” Eric interrupted. “I just don’t like having to be told about it when I could read about it for myself.”
“Well, you’re speaking as if your test came back positive.”
“I have not been tested as yet.”
Rachel gave Eric a puzzling stare. “Then how would you know for sure that you’ve been infected with HIV?”
“In a lot of people’s eyes, I am a football superstar – the man who is at the top of his game. Can you imagine if the media got wind of the news that I’d gone into a medical facility to get tested for HIV?”
“And what would be wrong with that? By law, your medical records are kept confidential.”
Eric smirked. “What world are you living in? As long as there is a lot of money involved, anything can be leaked. And what if the test came back positive, then what?”
“There are also FDA-approved HIV home test kits that you can take in the privacy of your home.”
“I feel fine and I have no symptoms.”
“Come on, Eric, if you are that terrified, I’ll order the kits myself – for the both of us. But it is important that you know your status, especially after being exposed to someone with HIV. If you don’t say anything, I certainly won’t. And whatever the results are, we will deal with it together.”
Eric looked away to suppress the affection he felt building for Rachel. Even though they were talking about something so depressing, he’d never felt so relaxed talking to anyone, not even to his own parents.
“My brother is lucky to have you,” he said, turning his attention back to her. The abrasions from the accident didn’t spoil her beauty all that much. “You’re pretty cool to be around.”
Rachel smiled in response – the first ever since Eric had arrived that morning. She beckoned to him and commanded, “Please draw nigh unto me.”
Eric gave her a suspicious side glance. “Why?”
“Would you just come over here, please?”
The moment was uncomfortable, but Eric obeyed.
“Now take my hands,” Rachel said.
“What are you planning to do to me?”
“Take my hands, Eric. How much harm could I do with a broken leg, and with me sitting in this wheelchair?”
When Eric took Rachel’s hands, she bowed her head and lifted her voice in a heartfelt prayer.
“Dear Jesus, we love You and we honor You today for Your unconditional love. We take this time out to say thank You for bringing us through an accident that was designed to kill us. You have kept us alive for a reason and for a purpose and although we might not understand all that has happened and how the future will turn out, we still honor You for Your goodness.
“Now Lord, I present Eric before You, with all of his fears and frustrations and his doubts about his divine destiny. Give him the strength to face his challenges and the wisdom to determine his purpose. Woo Eric with Your love, oh Lord, and fully restore him to that place of peace and contentment. Let Eric know that You love him and that Your arms are open wide to receive us, no matter how vast our sins or how much of a mess we’ve made of our lives.
“Your mercies are renewed every morning and You have the power to make us into brand new people. Vessels of honor and of great worth. I decree that Eric is healed, emotionally, physically, and spiritually and that he will blossom into what You’ve created him to be. A man of love, wisdom, power and might. And now, Lord, I pray on Sean’s behalf…”
Up to that point, Eric had kept his gaze fastened on Rachel until he felt that familiar sting behind his eyes, and an unexplainable warmth, which gripped his heart and began to massage the pain he’d been carrying around for so long. Such gentleness and love emanating from an unseen force was mindboggling. His chin soon tipped toward his chest and as effortlessly as the river flowed into the sea, his tears crawled down his masculine jaws. Something significant had happened in that moment and Eric knew that there would be no going back.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Tayah stared at the calendar and grimly counted down the days before she would have to return to work. Eighteen days to be exact, which felt like two days in comparison to the six months she’d requested for maternity leave. Her position as Senior Financial Analyst with JP Morgan Bank was temporarily being occupied, which was a little unnerving. Because in the back of Tayah’s mind, she always wondered if after such a long stay at home her job would still be available.
And even though her boss had assured her that her position would be safe, Tayah called into the office ev
ery other week, just so that she could stay abreast of the current events of the company. Not that she wouldn’t love the role of a stay-at-home mom, because she was quite content tending to the needs of her now five-month-old twins. And she hoped one day she could be a stay-at-home mom, but knowing how strong-willed and goal-oriented she was, if certain dreams were not fulfilled, she would battle for a long time against feelings of regret and incompleteness.
One of those dreams was to become the next COO of JP Morgan Bank by the age of thirty-five. Up to the time of her maternity leave, she’d had a glowing track record, which showed she’d worked long and hard to impress not only her clients, but those above her who had the power to change her future. So while she felt depressed about the dwindling days of her maternity leave, she was ready to finish her career on a high note. Dominic had told her that she was a workaholic and that she would not be willing to give up her career anytime soon. She hated to admit it, but her husband was spot on with his prediction.
And speaking of her husband, Tayah began to wonder why he hadn’t returned home as yet. He said he would be home by two in the afternoon to help her with the twins, but it was nearing six in the evening. Tayah could understand that Dominic may have gotten tied up at the church, but the fact that he didn’t call to inform her was reason to worry. That wasn’t Dominic’s style, especially now that they had the twins. Maybe she should give him another hour before she went into panic mode, because it could be that he was still upset with her from the argument they’d had that morning.
She picked up the calendar from the kitchen table and made her way to the nursery. It was around this time the twins would be up for their evening meal. But as Tayah was on her way to the nursery, the phone rang. She quickly backpedaled toward the kitchen to answer it, praying that it would be Dominic so that her mind would finally be put at ease. However, it was Josiah Nixon from the Hillsborough Police Station, and although she was a bit disappointed, she’d been expecting his call. She’d left Nixon a voicemail message, briefly mentioning the second email Shaniece had sent.
