Back to Life Series Box Set

by Danielle Allen

  He gave me a look that I couldn’t distinguish. “I am.” He took another step toward me. “Are you happy?”

  I gave him a genuine smile. “I’m getting there.”

  Chapter 14

  Thursday, July 6th – 2:12am

  Philadelphia Inquirer

  Baby Emma Marie was born and died on the twenty-fourth of June. She will be laid to rest on the first of July. She is survived by a loving mother and father, one big sister, two big brothers, doting grandparents and her favorite aunt, Auntie Em.

  I thought that I’d be okay. I’d gotten back from Philadelphia in enough time to go with my beginner, intermediate, and advanced ballet girls to Atlanta for their event. I didn’t drive with them because I thought the time alone would be good for me. I’d spent the last couple of weeks surrounded by people, comforting them so I just needed some time alone.

  I drove the four hours to Atlanta late at night on the Fourth of July and the competition was on the fifth. Although they didn’t win, they placed high enough to compete in a Labor Day event so I tried to celebrate with them and my employees with frozen yogurt and a movie. Even though I could’ve stayed overnight with the team, I felt the long drive, the starry night, and some alone time would be good for me.

  I was wrong.

  Emma Marie.

  I folded the newspaper clipping of Emma Marie’s obituary and held it to my chest. My head fell forward bumping against the steering wheel as a mournful cry ripped out of me. I’d pulled off to the side of the road the moment I saw the billboard of three babies with the caption, ‘General Med Delivers Our Future.’ I knew I wasn’t going to be able to continue on the highway without a mental breakdown.

  I don’t think I ever cried more than I’d cried between the time when my niece died and when she was buried. I was a complete wreck. My entire family was a wreck. It was hard and I tried to be so strong for everyone around me, but the weight of what I was going through was too much to bear. The death of Emma Marie was the thing that pushed me over the edge.

  To see the heartbreak in everyone’s eyes as the stillborn baby was placed in her casket was hard, but to hear the mournful cries of her parents was devastating. As if it wasn’t hard enough dealing with the loss of my youngest niece, I was also confronted with the sexist reality of divorce at the repast. I replayed the conversation with my aunt and cousin in my mind.

  “Are you really letting a good man slip through your fingers?” my aunt’s friend had asked as if it were any of her business.

  “He is a doctor,” my aunt’s other friend added. “I don’t care what he did, you make it work. Especially with a good looking doctor.”

  “Are you kidding me? Besides the fact that this isn’t the time or the place, who the hell are you?”

  The two women looked flustered so my mother’s oldest sister had stepped in. “Emily! Mae and Tracey are my friends from church. Don’t be rude! Upon your mother’s request, I asked them to open up their church for your churchless friend.”

  I’d stared daggers into my aunt. “Me, rude? You’re over here gossiping about my personal life with strangers. Why are they here?”

  And why are you here? Just because Mom asked to use your church connections for the funeral, doesn’t mean you have to attend the repast.

  My mom and my aunt didn’t see eye-to-eye due to my aunt’s tendency to be judgmental and overbearing and therefore, they had a very prickly relationship. While I was very close with my cousin Patricia, her daughter, I wasn’t as close to my aunt.

  “If you attend a tragic funeral without your husband, it’s not a secret that you’re heading toward divorce. It’s not gossip; it’s a fact. You used to wear that big fancy rock on your finger like a trophy and now I can’t help but notice it’s not there. I don’t know how you managed to let this happen, but we are going to be praying for you.”

  I’d never been as angry with my aunt before. I was livid.

  My uncle had cheated on my aunt for years, then left my aunt with a six-year-old Patricia, and never looked back. She’d let him play her for the next fifteen years as he dated other women and blatantly disrespected her to her face until he decided he wanted to marry his pregnant mistress. He’d filed for divorce without a second thought. When the pregnant mistress broke things off with him, he’d stopped moving forward with divorce. When the mistress had the baby and they reconciled, he’d reignited divorce proceedings. All the while, my aunt just took it. So for her to not only judge me, but to gossip about me was outrageous.

  My face had contorted as I tried to hold it together. My blood boiled with words I tried my hardest not to say.

  Turning toward her friends, my aunt had replied, “Now, now ladies. This new generation doesn’t view marriage the same as we did when we were her age. Men are more focused on instant gratification. Women are more independent so they are more focused on career and not maintaining the home. It’s that focus on career that leads a man astray.”

  “Amen,” my aunt’s friends had chirped in unison.

  I’d balked in utter shock. “First of all, I don’t even understand why you two are here,” I’d snapped at the two gossipy old women as they crunched on carrot sticks. Turning to my aunt, I’d frowned. “And I don’t know what Mom told you, but I’m going to assume you know that he was the one in the wrong. He’s the reason that we’re not together. I filed the paperwork to end the marriage because of his behavior.”

  “I understand that.” She’d placed her manicured hand on my shoulder and guided me out of earshot of her friends. “But boys will be boys. You have to stick it out for the happily ever after.”

  Like you did? I’d silently questioned her.

  I was seriously disgusted, but more than that, I was sad for her.

  She’d given me a look as if she knew what I was thinking. “My husband will be back. He’s with that little forty-year-old now, but he’ll be back. He’ll realize what he’s got at home and he’ll be back.” She’d looked wistfully away before locking eyes with me again. “You had it all, Emily. Don’t lose it over something minor. Forgive and forget. Stand by your man.”

  “Cheating isn’t something minor,” I’d pointed out with my hands on my hips. “And stand by your man is bullshit.”

  “Emily!” She’d clutched her pearls and gasped, looking around as if I’d embarrassed her although no one could hear us except possibly her nosey friends. The diamond wedding ring had glimmered with her quick movement. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Just because you want to abandon your vows and run away when it gets hard doesn’t mean that everyone needs to follow in your misguided footsteps.”

  I’d taken a breath and did my best not to explode. “No two situations are the same because no two people are the same. What works for one person may or may not work for someone else. I am not advocating everyone abandon his or her marriage as soon as it gets hard. I’m just saying that at some point, you have to ask yourself the hard questions. When one person keeps choosing to be selfish, how long are you supposed to wait around being selfless, sacrificing your life, your health, your overall wellbeing? That’s all I’m saying. You do what you think is right for you. But don’t judge me because I chose a different path than you.”

  She’d given me a look as if I didn’t understand her. “You’re supposed to stand by your man.”

  I had snapped at that point.

  “This stand by your man mindset is dangerous and was probably created by a man who wanted to guilt his woman into staying or a woman who didn’t know her worth and wanted to justify remaining in a relationship that’s no good for her. Whatever the case may be, it’s complete BS.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with forgiveness, Emily,” she’d hissed defensively, saying my name as if it were a curse word.

  “You’re absolutely right. There’s nothing wrong with forgiveness. I am in complete support of forgiveness. But you can forgive someone and still not want to be with them. For the sake of argument, let’s say you do want
to be with them, in order for it to work, you can only forgive someone and move forward with them if they are accountable and sincerely remorseful for their actions. My husband is an ass who won’t take accountability for what he did and even though I caught him in the act, he’s still lying about it. Your ex-husband is an ass who continued to treat you like crap while he weighed his options. Even worse, he pretty much told you what he was about and you stayed anyway. You made the decision to stay. You did! You can do so much better, but you are still holding on to this idea that if you stand by your man, he’ll come running back to you. You stopped living your life. You just stopped. For thirty years you’re waiting on him to show you a side of him that clearly doesn’t exist. And it would be different if he cheated and was consumed with guilt and regret and he apologized and begged for forgiveness then committed himself to making your relationship work. But it’s been thirty years, five years since he initially filed and he’s still doing the same bullshit. He’s not going to change. You deserve better. And until you realize that, you’re going to be stuck in the same mindset.”

  Her eyes had widened and she’d crossed her arms over her chest. My eyes had watered as I stared into the face that looked so much like my grandmother’s. We stood on opposite sides of the spectrum, yet bonded by the same type of hurt.

  “I’m talking about my husband, Emily.” Her voice had cracked with the pain of betrayal.

  “And I’m talking about mine.” My voice was steady with the growth from surviving betrayal.

  In that brief moment, I had felt a semblance of understanding pass between us. I was just about to apologize, not for the message, but for tone of my delivery, but she’d cut me off.

  “Maybe if you worked as hard on your marriage as you did dance, you wouldn’t be in this mess…”

  I’d held up my hand to stop her from continuing. I knew she was projecting her hurt onto me so I tried to reel in my anger.

  “I don’t even completely blame you for that.” I’d frowned as I began. “I blame a society that shames women when their husbands don’t know how to keep it in their pants. I blame a society that reinforces this attitude that ‘boys will be boys’ and lying and cheating is to be expected. I blame a society that conditions women to believe that marriage and family are all they can aspire to. I blame—ow!”

  Patricia had yanked my arm and wordlessly dragged me away from her mother and out the door of the back door of the auxiliary building beside the church.

  When we’d gotten outside and away from the thirty-five to forty people milling around the building, my cousin had let go of her death grip on my arm.

  With the same dark hair that we inherited from our mothers, Patricia had tucked a few strands behind her ear before she started grilling me. “What are you doing, Em?”

  “I was trying to mourn, but I realized that I was being judged, bullied, and gossiped about on the day of my niece’s funeral and I couldn’t take it anymore.”

  She’d given me a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry. You know how my mom is. Sometimes I have to snap at her because when she’s with her friends, she’s at her worst. But now is not the time. Your best friend is a mess right now. Your focus needs to be on her. Your family is her family so she needs you to be strong. Anthony is like my dad—not worth the time or energy. And don’t get me wrong, I love my dad. He was a shitty husband, but he was a decent dad. Or at least he was until he met his new wife and started his new family. But I got through my childhood with him being there for me so I’ll give him a pass.” She’d shrugged and put her hand on my shoulder. “People are always going to have something to say—good, bad, or indifferent. You just have to focus on you.”

  “I just hate having to constantly face scrutiny about what I didn’t do to ‘keep’ him or the fact that his infidelity is somehow my fault, but Anthony gets a pass because boys will be boys. Fuck that and fuck him—”

  “Even though we’re next door, I’m pretty sure this is still church property.” Patricia had interrupted, cracking a smile.

  I’d paused and then smiled for the first time in days. She’d hugged me and I’d held her tightly.

  “You’re dealing with a lot and you’re trying to hold it together for everyone, you’re trying to be everything to everybody. But you’re hurting too, Em. Don’t forget that you’re hurting too. You have this going on, your marriage stuff, the stuff with your legs. It’s a lot. It’s a whole lot.”

  And it was a whole lot.

  As I replayed the entire funeral and repast in my mind, I felt overwhelmed. I wasn’t even able to cry anymore. My head, face and tear ducts hurt. I pressed my forehead into the steering wheel.

  Why does it have to hurt so bad?

  Without thinking, I grabbed my phone. I started to call Monique, but realized she had to wake up early. Even if my family didn’t have to work, it was very late and they were feeling the same hurt I was feeling.

  Who is up right now?

  Even as I thought it, I knew who I wanted to call.

  Please be up. Please be up. Please be—

  The ringing stopped and in its place, a voice. “Hello?”

  I swallowed hard, knowing I should’ve called the other owner of December.

  “Hi,” I rasped into the phone, scared to speak louder. “Are you busy?”

  “Just walking to my car,” CJ answered, the sound of a horn blared around him. “How are you?”

  I lifted my head and reclined back in my seat. “I’m okay. I just…” My voice trailed off into silence.

  “You just decided to call me in the middle of the night? You don’t call me. You can. You can always call. But you don’t. So something has to be wrong. Talk to me.”

  I heard the closing of his car door and the starting of his engine.

  “I’m sorry,” I apologized hoarsely as I squeezed my eyes shut. “I should’ve called Addy first.”

  A fresh pain washed over me. It was unlike the typical burdens of death, divorce, and discontent that had consumed me. It was purely emotional and somewhat irrational “I shouldn’t have bothered you. I keep doing this. You keep coming to my rescue when I’m in need and that’s not right. I don’t deserve that from you. I keep pushing you away and you are still so good to me. I know you have your own life and I shouldn’t keep interfering with my mess of a life right now. I’m sorry, Cedi. I’m sorry.”

  My eyes burned and my voice cracked as if I’d cry, but there were no more tears left to shed. I felt hollow.

  “Emily, listen to me,” CJ started, the depth of his voice was both sexy and soothing. “Everyone has shit with them. Life happens. You’ve had a rough year and if you need someone to be strong for you, there’s nothing wrong with that. And if I am the person who needs to be strong for you, I am honored to do it. You don’t ever have to apologize for reaching out to me.”

  I think I love him.

  The thought hit me in the gut and before it could get settled, I rejected it.

  I’m just vulnerable and he’s here for me. That’s it. We don’t even really know each other. Well I mean, we know the big stuff, but we haven’t seen each other outside of the two times he came to my rescue. He just knows that I am having a rough time, but he doesn’t know how strong I am. He doesn’t know that I can stand on my own two feet. He doesn’t know that I’m not this damsel in distress.

  I sat up straight and started my car. “I’ve had a couple of setbacks, but I’m not a damsel in distress,” I explained with a little too much bite in my voice. Hearing the way it came out, I instantly regretted it. “I’m so—”

  “I don’t think you’re a damsel in distress, Emily,” he interrupted, letting out a little chuckle under his breath. “You’re a fucking beast. You survived a car accident, a cheating husband, an assault and you’re going to survive this. Survival doesn’t mean you have to pretend to be strong. It means knowing when to let someone else be strong for you. And you needed someone and you called me. That doesn’t make you any less of the strong, beautiful
woman that you are.”

  My heart swelled as I listened to him. I bit the inside of my cheek and pulled back onto the road. Between his voice and his words, I felt my strength coming back.

  “I just didn’t want you to think I was this weak, meek, dam—“

  “Stop,” he interrupted.

  The forcefulness of his quiet tone sent a chill down my spine as it rumbled through the speakers of my car. I placed my phone in the seat of the car with a shaky hand. I shivered even though it was a balmy July night.

  CJ Addo always managed to have an effect on me.

  “Do you really want to know what I think of you, Em?” Without waiting for my response, he continued, “Instead of putting words in my mouth, ask me what I think of you.”

  “What do you think of me?” I whispered.

  “I think you are smart, strong and capable. Damsels in distress don’t walk out on their shitty husbands without a plan. Weak women don’t refuse to be bullied by drunk assholes in a bar or again, shitty husbands. And meek girls are shy and the way you threw yourself at me when we met was the exact opposite of shy.”

  The corners of my mouth turned upward until a small giggle escaped.

  “Was that a laugh?” He asked, I could hear the amusement in his voice.

  “Maybe,” I sighed, realizing it was the closest thing to a laugh I’d experienced since Emma Marie died. “I don’t know how accurate you are, but thank you.”

  “I remember everything about that night. My recollection of the events that took place happen to be seared in my memory.”

  My stomach fluttered.

  “Oh really?” My voice was shallow and riddled with nerves.

  “Really,” he replied, and then he hesitated as if he realized what he’d said, or at the very least, what his words were doing to me.

  Filling the awkward moment that was building, I tried to change directions. “Thank you. You always manage to make me feel better,” I paused, letting out an unsteady breath as my truth accidentally spilled out. “You have a way about you that calms me down. You give me peace.”