Wrath

by Victoria Christopher Murray

  We were quiet as we climbed into the Uber, then, about thirty minutes later, carried our bags up to my condo. But the moment we stepped over the threshold, I admitted that Xavier had been right. Until we found a space that belonged to both of us, his condo made more sense. His three-bedroom plus den made this space feel like a closet, not to mention that his had been decorated by Aziz, one of the city’s premiere designers, while all I could claim was that I’d unpacked.

  Xavier followed me inside, then took a twenty-second tour on his own. “Your place is beautiful, baby,” he said when he met me back in the living room.

  I laid my head on his chest when he hugged me. But on this, our third night of marriage, all we did was unpack enough clothes to dress for bed, then we fell onto my queen-size mattress, which had little room at the bottom for Xavier’s six-four frame.

  For the first night since we’d been husband and wife, we didn’t make love. While I was sure it was exhaustion for Xavier, I was too wound up for sex or sleep. All I could think about was what tomorrow would bring.

  30 Chastity

  Even though I was home, I was doing what I’d done in the office—just staring out the window. I’d been distracted all day, thinking about my parents.

  The day hadn’t started this way. Over a breakfast of K-cup coffee, a bagel for Xavier, and a PowerBar for me, we’d sat on the stools at the kitchen counter and strategized.

  “This is what you have to remember,” Xavier had said to me this morning. “The only thing your parents can say is we did this quicker than most. But that’s not a sin or a crime.” He’d taken my hand. “We’ll do this together.”

  “Are you sure you want to be there?”

  He’d leaned away as if he didn’t understand my question. “Of course. I’m your husband, and just like I told you, I will always have your back.” He paused. “Your parents need to hear this from both of us.”

  By the time we’d ridden the elevator downstairs, then hugged and kissed at the curb before he hopped into an Uber and I headed toward Ninety-Sixth Street to catch the train, I was convinced my husband was right. My parents would be surprised, shocked even, but like my mother had told me before I left for New Orleans: If Xavier is the man God has chosen, then your father will be the first to step up and not only accept him but love him. We both would have no choice. Because God has the final say.

  While I might have to remind my mother of her words, I had no doubt what she’d said was her truth. They’d get over any shock; my mother would see the similarities between Xavier and my father, and Papa would see my happiness. They’d come to the same conclusion—that I’d done the right thing.

  But as the clock ticked and time passed, my apprehension returned. Because of my father. From my experience, I knew God never told my dad everything… just enough for Papa to become suspicious, sit me down for my interrogation, and ask so many leading questions that I always confessed to every accusation. I was confident my father didn’t know this end—he just knew something wasn’t right.

  Turning away from the window, I needed to do something to release the anxiety that was rising in me. I glanced at the time on my phone: 6:53. I hadn’t realized so much time had passed. Xavier should’ve been here by now. Right away, I opened up my messages.

  Where are you? I texted.

  Just a moment later, Xavier replied:

  I was just about to text you. I still have an hour here, baby. Can you postpone?

  Seven minutes before my punctual parents were to appear at my door, and now he wanted to postpone?

  Not possible. They are probably downstairs at this moment.

  I tapped the phone, waiting for his response. It took about a minute for him to say:

  I’ll get there as soon as I can.

  I closed my eyes. What was I supposed to do with this? Should I entertain my parents and wait for Xavier? Before I could answer that question, the doorbell rang.

  The concierge was supposed to announce all visitors. But my father was Kareem “KJ” Jeffries. Even though he’d never been here, I was sure he’d been recognized. And his celebrity (both past and present) opened all kinds of doors, including the one that led to my condo.

  Right before I opened the door, I glanced at my rings. Truly, I wanted to keep them on, but I needed to prepare my parents before I slapped them with this news. I slipped the rings off, slid them into my blazer pocket, and pulled open the door.

  “Mom, Papa,” I said.

  Even though my mother was in front of my father, she stepped aside so he could embrace me first. He rested his hands on my shoulders, and though he smiled, his eyes peered into mine. “Princess,” he said. “I’m so happy to see you.”

  “You sound as if you haven’t seen me in a month,” I said as he wrapped his arms around me.

  “It feels like a month of Sundays has passed since we last shared the same space.” Now he was the one to step aside so my mother could hug me, and then together, they entered.

  “It’s crazy you had to come here,” I said, closing the door. After a quick prayer, I faced them. “I feel like I’m back in college, when you would drive all the way to Hanover, when a phone call would have worked just as well.”

  He nodded. “Sometimes, I might be a little over-the-top, but I’ve told you more times than you’ve ever wanted to hear—you will always be my responsibility.”

  My mother chuckled. “Except for when you get married.”

  “Even then,” my father said as he lowered himself on the sofa, “when the young man comes to me to ask for your hand in marriage, I will explain that while you will be his wife, I will always be your father.”

  My mother chuckled. “Well, you and that young man might find yourself at odds,” my mother said, the two of them continuing this conversation without me.

  I stood frozen in horror. How had the conversation turned to my marriage?

  “I get it, Papa,” I said, stopping both of them from going any deeper.

  “You’ll just have to get used to this until you get married,” my mother said. “He was the same way when you were in Atlanta. You have no idea how many times I had to stop him from boarding a plane.”

  “That’s crazy. You can’t worry about me whenever I’m out of your sight.”

  He nodded. “It’s difficult for any father to get used to his little girl growing up, but I assure you, I wasn’t just being an overbearing father this weekend.” He straightened his pant legs, then continued, “From the moment your mother told me you were going away, I couldn’t shake the feeling that you were in trouble… and you needed me.”

  I took a deep breath. God had definitely spoken to him. “I was fine, Papa, really.”

  “I can see that, and I’m grateful,” he said. “So your trip… it was good?”

  I nodded, swallowed, and prepared myself, but before the truth could pass through my lips, my father kept on:

  “I can’t say I was happy about you going away because you and Xavier haven’t known each other very long and—”

  Before the lecture could continue, my mother said, “Pastor, it was just a little weekend trip.” Then she winked at me, her signal that she was coming to my rescue. She added, “Remember how it was when we were young? They just wanted some time together. My goodness, you’re acting like she ran off and got married.” Her chuckles took it beyond torture for me. “She’s young, she’s single, and—”

  “Mom, Papa,” I interrupted her, “there’s something I have to tell you.”

  Their heads tilted to the right in unison, their synchronization one of the manifestations of their thirty-five years of marriage.

  I inhaled the biggest breath, then exhaled the words, “Xavier and I got married.” Then to add a bit of levity, I said, “Mom, I guess God was talking more to you than to Papa this time.” I laughed, though I sounded deranged.

  My parents sat like twins, eyes and mouths as wide as the tea saucers my mom used to serve guests, and as still and stiff as any wooden board. It o
ccurred to me that maybe I should have given my parents more of a preamble. Because with the way they sat in shock, I’d never forgive myself if either of them had a medical emergency behind this news.

  They just sat, for seconds that turned into at least a minute. It was the loudest silence I’d ever heard. And then… my mother burst out laughing. As I stared at her (and my father stared at me), my mother laughed. She pressed her hand against her chest, threw back her head and let it rip, almost roaring, something my delicate and decorous mother never did.

  But while my mother’s shoulders shuddered with her chuckles, my father did not move. There was no laughter in his expression, just understanding and the realization of what had been stirring his spirit.

  “Oh my goodness, Chastity,” my mother said, “you really do tease too much.” It was our silence that made my mother pause, her glance volleying between us more than a few times before she said, “Oh my God. Chasity, tell me you were kidding.”

  Before I could speak, my father said, “She’s not.”

  I held up my hands as if that would stop the impending attack. “Please let me explain.”

  “Explain?” My mother’s tone was filled with incredulity. “What’s there to explain? Your father and I know what ‘I got married’ means.”

  “I want to explain… We didn’t plan this, it just happened.”

  “How could this just happen?” my mother asked.

  “Xavier and I got to New Orleans and we were having such a good time being together, it seemed like the right thing to do. Truly, it just happened.”

  My father shook his head. “These things just don’t happen.” He finally broke his gaze from me, lowered his head, and pressed his hands together. I’d seen that stance before. He was pray-think-speaking… that’s what he called it. Talking to God while he was trying to make sense of what I’d said.

  “Papa, it did just happen.” I sat next to him and faced them both. “The weekend before Xavier and I went to New Orleans, he asked me to marry him, so we’d already made the decision to spend the rest of our lives together. We already knew we were going to be married; we just didn’t know we were going to do it this weekend.”

  “You were… engaged… and you… didn’t tell us?”

  My mother sounded like she was hyperventilating, and so I spoke fast: “I wanted to, but I knew you’d be upset thinking I hadn’t known Xavier long enough to be engaged.”

  “Oh!” She tossed up her hands. “So it was better for you to come home and tell us you were married instead?”

  “No. We just—”

  “You didn’t ‘just’ anything, Chastity,” my mother interrupted. “You got married.”

  “Sisley,” my father said, “let Chasity speak.”

  I’d just turned the world inside out. Because it was my mother who’d always jumped to my defense. She was the one who chided my father into being silent so I had a chance to make my point.

  My mother blew out a long breath, folded her arms, and my father nodded for me to continue.

  “Xavier and I have been moving in this direction since the day we met, and by last week, we knew we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together. When we got to New Orleans, we realized there was no need to wait. Yes, it was spontaneous, but it wasn’t done totally without thought.”

  “It wasn’t spontaneous.” My father shook his head again. “This took some planning.”

  “Why do you keep saying that? I’m telling you what happened, but you don’t believe me?”

  “I believe you, and I also believe this was planned.”

  My eyes narrowed. What was my father saying? Did he think Xavier had manipulated me? Had set this up?

  Offended, I folded my arms. “I’m sorry this has come as such a shock. But I’m thirty-four; I’m not twenty, like you were, Mom.” It wasn’t meant to be a shot, but my mother’s head reared back. I was sorry about that, but reminding them of that fact was all I had left. I continued, “I’ve lived, I’ve worked, I’ve taken care of myself. I was ready and wanted to do it.”

  My father nodded as if he were trying to hear me. “I can understand all of that. So you’re in love… but what’s the rush? Why did you have to get married right now?”

  His accusation was inside his tone, and I had a hard time believing what he was saying. First my father insinuated I’d been manipulated, and now… Was he really asking this?

  “If you’re asking if I’m pregnant, I’m not!” I snapped.

  My father held up his hand. “Of course you’re not pregnant. You haven’t known him long enough to be pregnant. And that is my point. You don’t even know this man.”

  “Lots of people have gotten married knowing each other with less time than me and Xavier.”

  “And none of those people are my concern.”

  “And I’m not your concern either, Papa. At least not in this way. I’m telling you, I know marrying Xavier is what I was supposed to do. He’s my purpose, just like you and Mom are each other’s.”

  My mother moaned. “You’re comparing what I have with your father to you and Xavier?” She didn’t give me space to answer. “Yes, I was young, but I’d known your father for two years before we married.”

  I pressed my lips together and swallowed all the words I wanted to say—like how she had married my father even when her parents didn’t want her to.

  My parents had met on a commercial shoot in Philadelphia; she was a young dancer from South Carolina whose mother had escorted her to her first professional gig, and he was KJ Jeffries, the star, rookie point guard of the New York basketball team. Smitten was the word they’d both used the many times they’d told me their story. The seven hundred miles between them did nothing to keep them apart. My father courted the young girl (he was five years older), even taking my mom to her high school prom.

  They often talked about the barriers they encountered: the distance, their ages, his celebrity, her conservative parents, who didn’t want her anywhere near a professional athlete—but none of that stopped them.

  My mother had convinced her parents when she told them about her purpose. So couldn’t she see I felt the same way? If she was able to see purpose in her late teens, why couldn’t I see mine when I was almost double that age?

  “Okay, you knew Papa for two years, but what does time have to do with purpose?” I said, finally responding to my mother.

  “So because that was my journey, you feel as if you had to do the same?”

  “No, of course not. I just want you to understand that I really believe we do have that in common, Mom. I do believe Xavier is my purpose.” When my parents exchanged disgusted glances, I continued, “I know this down to my soul. Papa, you’re the one who always says there are no coincidences. So explain to me why Xavier and I have so much in common, why we feel so connected, why everything just fell into place? We are the missing puzzle piece for each other.”

  Just as I said that, the doorbell rang, and I was filled with relief. I rushed to the door, and the moment I opened it, Xavier pulled me into his arms as if he knew I needed the strength of his embrace.

  “My parents are here,” I whispered.

  He nodded, then entered my condo with the smile that always brightened my world. “Hello, Pastor and Mrs. Jeffries.”

  One of the things I always said was that I’d been raised right. My social lessons came from watching Pastor and Mrs. Jeffries and then emulating their behavior. But the reception they gave my husband made it seem as if the pastor and his wife didn’t have any manners at all.

  Their aloofness didn’t faze Xavier. “I’m sorry; I really wanted to be here when you arrived, but I was held up with a client.”

  My parents remained silent.

  I said to Xavier, “I told them.”

  He raised his eyebrows as if that surprised him, and I wondered if he had expected me to wait. There was a question in his eyes when he glanced at me, but only for a moment. He turned his attention back to my parents. “I wanted Chas
tity and me to tell you the news together,” he said. “I didn’t want to put this all on my wife.”

  Both of my parents flinched at how Xavier addressed me.

  He continued, “I know this comes as a shock, but what I want you to know is that I love your daughter, and I promise you, Pastor and Mrs. Jeffries, I will take care of her.”

  For the first time my father spoke. “The question that Chastity can’t seem to answer for me is—why the rush?”

  Xavier nodded. “I know you think this was fast. And it was. But this was about us wanting to start the rest of our lives together now. I didn’t want to wait when I knew she was the one.”

  “And so you took my daughter to New Orleans and tricked her into marrying you?”

  Xavier and I spoke at the same time:

  “Is that what she told you?”

  “Papa, no!”

  I added, “I told you what happened. Why are you doing this?”

  “Because I believe this was planned,” my father said, his voice calm, but his tone stringent. “This was planned in the dark.”

  I shook my head. I’d known this was going to be rough, but my parents’ reaction was much worse than I’d ever imagined. And then Xavier spoke, taking it over the edge:

  “Well, the only thing I can tell you, Pastor Jeffries, is that Chastity wanted to marry me as much as I wanted to marry her.” His eyes were still on my father when he said, “And no matter what you think, she is my wife now.”

  There was a challenge in his tone, and I wanted to shake my husband. Why would Xavier speak to my father this way? He had to give my parents room for their shock. This was tough, but this would pass. Now though, with the way Xavier was speaking…

  If his objective had been to piss off my father, he’d landed the punch. My father pressed his lips together, and his nostrils flared. He stood, rising to a height that seemed beyond his six-foot-seven stature, and he glared at Xavier with a death stare. “Sisley, it’s time for us to go.”