To Build a Vow

by Chencia C. Higgins

  “What’s going on?”

  Candice grabbed my elbow and led me to the end of the hall, similar to the way I’d pulled Ja’mya only hours earlier.

  “That’s what I was going to ask you.”

  I frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Ja’mya just went home. Her grandfather picked her up.”

  “What?!”

  Candice glanced around me to see if any heads were peeking out of their classrooms.

  “Yes, ma’am. About fifteen minutes ago. I came straight here after I finished my report. What is going on?”

  I shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. She was relatively fine when I spoke to her this morning.”

  Candice’s shrewd eyes bored into me. “Relatively?”

  I sigh and massaged my forehead. “Yes. I mean….” I pushed out a heavy breath. I might as well get used to saying it aloud. “I left Jeremiah and Ja’mya is…not taking it well, for lack of a better phrase.”

  Candice’s hazel eyes ballooned and she took a step back. “You what?”

  “I left him. I broke things off with him and moved out and didn’t tell Ja’mya the truth about it. I think Jeremiah just told her last night, though.”

  I could envision Candice’s mind moving a mile a minute as she probably tried to figure out why I hadn’t told her sooner.

  “That explains a lot, actually.”

  “What does?”

  “Karen brought Ja’mya to my office because she was, to quote Karen directly, catatonic. When she got there, she stared into space with a blank expression on her face without saying one word for ten whole minutes until she finally acknowledged me. When I asked her if everything was okay, she burst into tears and didn’t stop crying, not even when her grandfather arrived. He basically had to carry her out of here.”

  I gaped at her in horror. “Why didn’t anyone come get me?” I was enraged, my baby had a breakdown and no one thought to inform me? What kind of nonsense was that?

  She wrung her fingers as she looked at me. I could already see the sympathy in her eyes. “I asked Ja’mya if she wanted me to call you and she said no.” I started to speak but Candice cut me off. “Her actual words were ‘Don’t call my mommy, I don’t want to see her’.”

  My hands flew to my chest over my heart which, even after everything, was still able to break beneath my ribs. My eyes flooded with tears and I tried unsuccessfully to hold back a sob.

  “So you called James?”

  Candice shook her head. “I called Jeremiah. He said he was in Little Rock, but was headed back immediately, and to let her go with his father who could get here sooner. Since Mr. Hawkins is on the emergency list, we were able to release her to him.”

  I hated to ask my next question but I needed to know. “Did you—did he say—”

  “I had to tell him what she said, Lisa. I didn’t ask any questions but all he offered was that you guys were having some issues at home. He said that Ja’mya wasn’t taking things too well.”

  I cried into my hands. This was my doing. I did this to my family. Candice enveloped me into a tight hug and I was so grateful for her steady strength. She rubbed my back until I got myself under control and stepped back.

  “Thanks, Candice, for letting me know what happened. I know it’s well outside of your job description to do so and—”

  She held up a hand, shaking her head. “Let me stop you right there. I’m not talking to you right now as your daughter’s counselor. I came to you as your friend. I was concerned for you and came to check on you. None of those platitudes are necessary.”

  I nodded and stepped around her to enter the adult restroom where I blew my nose and wiped my face with a damp paper towel. After washing my hands I rejoined Candice in the hallway.

  “Are we still on for lunch?”

  I shook my head. “Not today. Since my kids have music right after lunch, I’m going to stop by the house and check on my baby.”

  Candice nodded. “Okay, keep me posted, okay?”

  “Of course.” She squeezed my hand then headed back down the hallway.

  I returned to my classroom to find my students surprisingly quiet. Maybe they picked up on my mood because they behaved themselves for the next two hours as well as during the walk down to the cafeteria. After a firm instruction for them to behave themselves, I power-walked through the building and peeled out of the parking lot. My foot was to the floor and the normally fifteen-minute drive only took me eight. Instead of pulling into the garage, I parked alongside Jeremiah’s truck and walked up the path to the front door.

  Then, I just stood there. Should I use my key? Should I knock? Ring the doorbell? I had no idea what was proper protocol after walking out on my family. Finally, I knocked on the door and waited. It swung open and Jeremiah stood there looking deliciously rumpled with his brows furrowed. His polo shirt was wrinkled and untucked, and his eyes were obviously tired underneath the confusion.

  “Why did you knock on the door?”

  I sighed. “It didn’t feel right to walk on in, not after…everything.”

  He stepped back, allowing me room to enter, and closed the door behind me. “This is your house too, man. Your name is on the deed, right beside mine. If you want to use your key to come check on our daughter or even to come tell me that you changed your mind, you can do that.”

  I inhaled sharply. All I wanted to do was tell him that I didn’t mean a word of what I’d said. That I wanted to come home and forget the whole thing even happened. But that wasn’t going to happen and I told him as much. I had to avert my eyes from his when they clouded with pain.

  “She’s upstairs?”

  “Yeah.” His voice sounded so hollow compared to a minute ago. “But she’s asleep. Pops gave her a hot toddy when he brought her home.”

  “He drugged my baby?!”

  The corners of his mouth curved up at my fake outrage and I felt my blood heat at the sight of his thick lips stretched into a grin. “You know that’s the deacon’s go-to for everything.”

  I smiled briefly. But only briefly because I shouldn’t have been there smiling and giggling with him and the reason I was there, wasn’t a good one. “Let me go check on her.”

  He nodded. “Alright. I’ll be in the living room.” He walked off and I headed upstairs.

  The door to Ja’mya’s room was open and the room was dark and empty. Looking into the other three bedrooms, I found her in the master bedroom, curled into a ball on my side of the bed. The skin around her eyes was puffy and I could see dried puddles of tears on my pillow. Her hands were flattened under her cheek and her mouth hung open slightly as she snored. My baby was knocked out and had apparently cried herself to sleep. My throat burned with tears. It hadn’t even been a week. How would I be able to keep this up and how would I know when it was okay to reclaim my family?

  Knowing that I wouldn’t find my answer while staring at her sleeping form, I ran a hand over my daughter’s hair and pressed a kiss to her forehead. Downstairs, I entered the living room to find Jeremiah hunched over his laptop, so focused on the screen that he didn’t notice me across the room. I had purposefully avoided seeing him in person since his appearance at the school on Tuesday because just the sight of him weakened me. My greedy eyes devoured his lean frame in the business casual attire he wore, and all I wanted to do was climb onto the couch and straddle his thighs as I apologized with my body. Unbidden, a whimper escaped my lips and the sound caught Jeremiah’s attention. He looked up from his computer.

  “You okay?”

  Not at all. “Yeah.” I cleared my throat and leaned against the back of the chair. “What happened?”

  Jeremiah moved his computer from his lap to the coffee table and scooted to the edge of the seat cushion. “I was going to ask you the same thing. When I dropped her off at school this morning, everything was fine, so something must have happened at school.”

  The guilt churning in my belly warred with the indignation I felt at the accusation h
idden in his words. I gripped the couch and I fixed my unwavering gaze on his.

  “Ja’mya stormed her little self to my classroom, causing a disturbance and, surely, rumors because of a conversation she had with her father.” I noticed a tick appear in his jaw as he tightened it, more than likely in an attempt to hold his tongue. “A conversation that you told me needed to wait. It’s ironic that you apparently talked to her right after telling me not to.”

  He shook his head. “That’s not what happened. I had no intentions of having that conversation with her, as I told you. However, our child is nosy—like her mama—and happened upon a conversation taking place between two adults where she proceeded to misunderstand what she heard and had to be corrected.”

  I opened my mouth to rebut his jab but he stood up and continued talking.

  “Now, I’m not going to argue with you about it and outside of telling you exactly what I said to her, I have nothing else to say on the matter. If you want to be mad that she’s angry with you, you’ll have to take that up with someone else because I’m not the one who told her you hadn’t been home because you were helping Trisha with a project. I didn’t make any disparaging comments about you, even though you were lying to her, one: because I would never do some juvenile bullshit like that, and two: because it would be counter-productive to my end goal.” As he spoke, he stalked over to me until we were only separated by the couch. Head tilted back, I watched his lips part. “How would I get you to come back to me if I was talking shit about you to our daughter? And I will get you back. I told you we weren’t over and I meant that. Whatever you have going on that made you leave, you might as well reconcile that shit because your time to be mad is up.”

  His words stung; first, because they turned me on something fierce, and second because my desire to believe in them was so intense. Jeremiah had never been one to wait for things to happen. If I gave him the slightest indication that we had a chance to reconnect, he would attack me with everything he had. That was one of the millions of things I loved about the man that stood in front of me. I dropped my eyes to my hands and shook my head. I shouldn’t still be here. After I checked on my baby, I should have left without saying a word. Standing here conversing with him like this was dangerous. I was a few words from falling to my knees in front of him, and an afternoon delight wouldn’t help me leave him, even if it was urgent. I backed away from the couch.

  “I’m leaving, J.”

  His eyes widened. “Damn, again?”

  I winced. “I have to get back to work. I’m on my lunch break and I only came to see how Ja’mya was doing. Besides, I need to go have a conversation with Karen and find out why she didn’t come down the hall and let me know something was wrong with Ja’mya.” I was pissed about that. Ja’mya’s homeroom is only three doors down from mine in the fifth-grade hallway, yet her teacher, Karen, decided I didn’t need to know what was going on with my own child. I had some words for her.

  “Baby, please—” He walked around the couch, approaching me cautiously with pleading eyes. I took another step back and held up a hand.

  “Don’t, J.”

  His forward momentum halted immediately and I had to turn my head so that I wouldn’t see the pain I had, once again, caused to darken his brow. Without saying another word, he nodded.

  I grabbed my purse and keys and turned to the front door. Just before turning the knob, I hesitated then turned to face Jeremiah.

  “Would you—I’d like for Ja’mya to spend the weekend with me. Will you bring her over, or do I need to come pick her up?”

  “Oh.” He looked both surprised and disappointed by my question. “We’ll be in Houston this weekend. It’s All-Star weekend and we are going to support Hawk, remember?

  I snapped my fingers. “That’s right.” With everything going on, I had completely forgotten about that. Jeremiah and Ja’mya had been planning this trip for months, even before the players were announced. With her turning thirteen this year, Jeremiah and I had agreed that she was old enough to go. It was an event that Jeremiah had attended every year that his brother played and the last couple of years, I had accompanied him. This year, Trisha was participating in a half marathon on the same day, and I had signed on as her one-woman support system. “Okay, well…I’ll just see her at school on Monday.”

  “Uh…not quite. We’re staying down there until Wednesday.”

  “What?! Why?”

  “The livestock show and rodeo are starting, and Pops wants to catch a couple of the private events happening. Hawk got him tickets to some barbecue cook-off and a whiskey tasting.”

  I couldn’t stop my eye-roll if I had wanted to. He couldn’t have been too broken up about me if he was getting hype behind some dang barbecue. “Seriously, Jeremiah? You’re going to make her miss school so you and your father can go to the rodeo?”

  “See, you’re only saying it like that because you wish you could go.” His voice was light and teasing.

  I frowned. “I have no desire to do anything like that.” I had apparently done an excellent job of infusing disgust into my voice because the small smile on Jeremiah’s face melted away and he straightened.

  “I miss you so much, Lee. Don’t you miss me?”

  I hesitated, the word “No” halfway out of my throat, the lie sticking to my tongue, unwilling to be said. And he saw that. Like I said, all he needed was the slightest indication and I unwittingly gave it to him. He moved so quickly; I blinked and he was right in front of me, framing my face with his hands as his lips descended upon mine. My heart begged me to lean into him, to allow him to put me out of my misery and let him love on me. I almost listened, my eyes started to close and I could feel his breath on my lips when my mind snapped me back to reality. I brought my hands up in between us and shoved him back.

  “I said don’t, J!”

  His groan was that of a wounded animal, filled with pain and frustration. He linked his hands behind his head as he paced back and forth behind the couch. “Come the fuck on! Why are you doing this?! What are you punishing me for?!”

  “I’m not! I told you, this isn’t about you; it’s about me and what I want.”

  He stopped pacing and turned to face me, his chestnut eyes blazing with fury. “You’re not being honest with me, Lisa!” He stared at me for a moment, his eyes searching my own. “Did something happen? Do you think something happened?”

  I tried to mask my sigh of relief with an annoyed huff. I could have sworn he was about to ask me if something had happened in Houston. The universe was on my side at the moment and I needed to skedaddle before I tempted fate even further. I stepped backward until my foot hit the front door. Reaching behind me to grip the doorknob, I stepped to the side and pulled it open before walking out.

  Jeremiah followed me outside but stopped at the edge of the porch. “You’re not gon’ say anything? You’re just gon’ leave like this?”

  “There’s nothing left to say, you should have listened to me the first time!” I didn’t even break my stride to my car. Within minutes, I was inside and backing out of the driveway, my tires nearly screeching as I stomped the pedal to the floor and sped back to work.

  ♥♥♥♥

  “Do you think I’m doing the right thing?” I looked over at Trisha who was stretched out on the ground next to me with her face currently pressed to her right knee. We were amongst hundreds of other people occupying the field at the university stadium to get in some final stretches before the start of the marathon at eight.

  Trisha rolled her spine in one smooth motion until she was sitting up. She gave me a blank look. “Does it even matter what I think?”

  Affronted, I gasped. “Of course it does! That’s why I asked you!”

  She rolled her eyes and folded her right leg to her side while straightening the left out in front of her. I mirrored her movements. Although I wasn’t running, part of my support was training alongside my friend in solidarity.

  “You asked me because you want reas
surance.”

  I twisted my lips. “That too…”

  I grunted. My nose was about a foot above my knee and I felt the stretch in my hamstrings and in my back. I might have trained with her, but I definitely wasn’t as dedicated, and it showed.

  “I was right there with you, Lee. I heard what she told you. You’re doing what she instructed. Insisted, really.”

  I sat upright and looked down at my friend. “But is it the right thing?”

  Ten seconds passed before Trisha rolled upward. As she moved into her next stretch, she gave me a sympathetic smile. “I can’t tell you that, boo.”

  Frowning, I twisted one arm across my chest and turned my head in the opposite direction, just as she was doing. “What happened to all of that ‘Jesus is my homeboy’ stuff,” I muttered.

  Her chuckle sounded effortless and not at all strained like my words had been. “Nothing happened to it. It’s still true and I still took my reading to heart.”

  My head snapped in her direction so quickly, I knocked my chin on my shoulder. After wiggling my jaw back and forth a few times, I spoke.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m saying that I believed what Mama Sari said to me and I’m altering my path to avoid ending up a gnarled, sexless, spinster.”

  I sputtered with laughter. “Girl! You are not going to end up a gnarled, sexless, spinster. That’s crazy!”

  Trisha inhaled deeply and exhaled as she released her pose. “I will if I continue to live in the closet.”

  My frown returned. “You are not living in the closet.”

  Her words hit me right in the gut. Many times over the years, I had been witness to Trisha bemoaning her ability to live as freely as she wanted. Even after the ruling on same-sex marriage was passed, most people didn’t magically become more accepting, and Trisha didn’t alter her life in any way because of it. Honestly, though, I didn’t see what she would have done differently. As long as I’d known her, she’d been a low-key and private person. Mostly, I just didn’t like the phrase “in the closet”. It made me think of hiding, and since Tisha was the most fearless person I knew, I didn’t like to associate that phrase with her.