by Linda Verji
Carrying her bag, she crept towards the children’s rooms and smiled sadly. Zain watched them sleep. Even in her sleep, Iris lay sprawled like she was trying to conquer the world, Lily was curled into a tight ball with her thumb in her mouth, and Maari’s fingers loosely held the medal his father had bought him.
Zain couldn’t kiss them good-bye because she knew she wouldn’t leave if she did. She couldn’t take them with her because Nadifa had refused any suggestions of Lucky and her legally adopting them. They weren’t her babies, but it sure felt like it and leaving them was ripping apart her soul. Tears clouded her vision and she could hardly see the stairs as she trudged down them.
Once outside in the cold night air, Zain took one last look at the large mansion that she’d called home for so long then walked towards the gate. The guard’s glance lingered on her obviously empty bag as she walked past him, but he didn’t ask any questions. He only nodded at her and said a quick good-bye as she entered the cab.
“Where to ma’am?” the cab driver asked.
“The airport.”
Once there, Zain made a beeline for ticketing. It was late enough that the woman who stood there looked dead on her feet as she gave Zain a small smile.
“One ticket to Baltimore please,” Zain requested.
“The flight will be leaving in an hour,” the ticketing agent said. She handed Zain her ticket. Zain walked to the lounge and sat with her empty bag next to her, waiting.
“Passengers for Baltimore Flight Four Seven Four One, the flight will begin boarding now.” The announcer said it three times and each time Zain wanted to get to her feet, but something in her refused to move and kept her stuck in it.
Was she really doing this?
Images of her life with Lucky flashed through her mind: the laughter, the good times, his smile, their children, and their love. Was she really leaving her life behind this easily? One hour later, she was still seated, plane ticket in hand.
She was going back home.
She stood, but like a bad nightmare taunting her Nadifa’s face flashed through her mind. Could she really go back to all that? Could she return to the hate, the disrespect, Sonia, losing herself, could she go back to the pain? Instead of heading for the exit, she walked back to the ticket counter. “Could I have another ticket to Baltimore?”
The ticketing agent was surprised to see her again, but didn’t make any comment apart from, “Next flight leaves at nine a.m.”
That was six hours away, but she really had nowhere to go while she waited. Zain stretched over the seat, the hard cold leather biting into her sides and closed her eyes.
CHAPTER 12
Sweetheart: Baby, where are you?
Sweetheart: Are you okay? Call me.
Tasha: Lucky keeps calling. Are you okay? Call me.
Sweetheart: Zain, did I do something wrong?
Chrys: Tasha called. Did you leave him? If so…yay! Where the party at? Bitch, answer yo damn phone.
Sweetheart: Stop acting childish and pick up your phone.
Zain threw the phone back into her bag. It kept beeping, as it had done since five a.m., but she ignored it. She didn’t want to talk to anyone because they’d just try to convince her not to go.
The airport had already begun to fill up with early morning travelers, most of them looking bright eyed and bushytailed. Compared to them, Zain was sure she looked a mess. She needed to fix herself before she got to Baltimore. Her mother would drive her crazy with the fussing otherwise.
She picked up a few toiletries at the gift shop and headed for the public bathrooms. The woman who stared back at her in the mirror was nothing like the Zain she’d once known. Her eyes were swollen from lack of sleep, she had chapped lips, and her weave looked like chipmunks had been playing Quidditch in it. Lucky had done this to her. The more she thought about it, the angrier she became. He was the one who’d messed up. Why did he get to keep everything while she tucked tail and ran? She needed to get her own.
With quick efficiency, Zain put herself back together – as best as she could under the circumstances – and hurried out of the bathroom. She had – according to the large clock dominating the large pillar right in the center of the airport – two hours to make things right before she could fly back home. Outside, she hailed a cab. A half asleep kid with spiky hair and a nose ring sat behind the wheel.
“Morning,” Zain said. “Briarhouse Preparatory please, and hurry!”
A few minutes later, Zain sat clinging to her seat for dear life and wishing she’d paraphrased her request. Spiky, the kid, had taken her literally. He drove as if he was trying to outrun Zain’s demons along with everyone else’s. They bobbed and weaved along the highway to angry hoots from irate drivers.
Zain’s phone continued to buzz, but she was too scared to be annoyed by Lucky’s incessant calls. Spiky was completely oblivious to the commotion he’d caused – courtesy of the heavy metal music he had banging in the car. When they finally stopped on the side of the street directly opposite of Briarhouse Preparatory, Zain was sure she’d lost at least three of her nine lives.
“We’re here.” Spiky turned to her with a wide grin as if he found the ride amusing.
With great reservation, she answered, “Can you wait a few minutes? I need to pick something up before we can go back to the airport.”
“It will cost you extra.”
They sat in the car for the next half hour, watching as parents dropped off their kids.
“Can we go now?” Spiky whined for the third time.
“No.” Zain kept her eyes on the gates. Lucky’s truck soon drove into the school with the kids inside. A few minutes later, he drove away. Zain was about to get out of the cab when someone tapped at the window. Her heart skipped a beat because she knew what she was about to do was wrong. Had Lucky figured her out? She turned quickly only to find Chryssa staring at her with narrowed eyes.
Zain rolled down her window. “How did you know?”
“I read minds, especially yours,” Chryssa returned with an eye roll, quickly gesturing for Zain to exit the cab. She was dressed up in a charcoal grey pantsuit, like she’d been on her way to work before deciding to stop here. “And whatever you were planning to do – bad idea! You wouldn’t look cute in prison orange.”
“I just want the kids.” Zain said as tears gathered at the back of her throat. She knew Chryssa was right. She didn’t need to be an attorney to know that taking kids who weren’t even hers and flying them across state lines would bring her a whole lot of legal hell.
“We’ll get them…” Chryssa picked Zain’s bag from the backseat. “…but not this way.”
“Hey, who’s going to pay me?” Spiky shouted from inside the cab. “I thought we were going back to the airport?”
Chryssa walked to her silver BMW and came back with her wallet. She handed Spiky some money. “Get a haircut.”
“At least my hair’s real!” Spiky shouted out the window as he sped away.
“C’mon.” Chryssa opened the passenger side door for Zain. “Let’s get you home so you can brush your teeth. Girl! I didn’t even know you had that early morning kung-fu breath.”
“I do not,” Zain protested, but for the first time in the last twenty-four hours she smiled.
* * *
The moment Lucky dropped the kids off to school, he headed to the airport. He’d already checked the credit cards and knew she’d bought a ticket for Baltimore when he’d seen the pending charge from JFK.
I sleep alone for one night and she packs up and runs to her parents. He was pissed, guilt-ridden, and nervous all in one breath. They’d gotten into worse arguments and had always resolved them. She’d never left before. Never! Zain had another think coming if she thought he was just going to let her up and run like that.
The jet was ready and waiting for him. He checked in and was soon up in the air. It wasn’t a long flight, but it felt like ages to Lucky before he finally landed. He spent the car ride to the Davis
home trying to call Zain; she still wouldn’t pick up her phone.
If he didn’t already known that Zain had come from an affluent family, the hoops he had to jump through before getting past their neighborhood’s main gates alerted him. The security guards insisted on checking his ID and calling the Davis’ home for confirmation that he was indeed a family member. He was half afraid Zain’s parents wouldn’t grant the required permissions, but a few minutes later the guards allowed him through.
The Davis home was a huge two-storey brownstone set on a large, well-maintained estate. Lucky could remember a time when just standing in front of their house had caused him to break into a cold sweat. It’d reminded him of the differences between where he and Zain’s background.
Sure up at until her teen years, she wasn’t this rich but by the time he got to her, she was firmly embedded in this affluent lifestyle. His fear that she was out of his league had pushed him to work much harder so that he could give her the kind of life she was used to. Until now, he’d believed that he’d done quite well.
He’d hardly parked the car before Rosemary opened the door and welcomed him into their home. Though Rosemary wasn’t Zain’s biological mother but rather a sister to Zain’s real mother, the similarity in their looks was uncanny.
Like Zain, she was a petite woman with a compact figure. Though, she had lighter toned skin from her mixed heritage, she had the same pretty – rather than classically beautiful –look about her that Zain did. Her eyes were a bit too large, her smile a bit too wide, and her forehead a bit too high, but it all came together to create a delightful package nonetheless. His wife obviously came from good stock.
“Lucky.” Rosemary smiled as she hugged him. “Come in.”
Lucky sighed in relief. Obviously Zain hadn’t yet told her about their blow up last night. Zain’s parents were very protective when it came to their only child.
“You’re looking good Professor D,” he said, following her into their living room. Where Lucky thought it was amusing that Zain’s mother was a tenured lecturer at the same college they’d gone to, it’d irritated Zain to no end. Add in the fact that her father was a prolific Cardio-thoracic surgeon and was eager for his daughter to follow in his footsteps, it was a wonder she hadn’t moved to another country instead of just student housing.
Lucky and Rosemary engaged in small talk as he waited for Zain to show her face. She didn’t come! Where is she? He tried to unobtrusively search the house with his eyes as he kept an ear on the conversation with Rosemary. Either way he was caught off-guard when Rosemary asked, “What are you doing here?”
“Um…” he stuttered, caught unawares, “I’d like to see Zain.”
“What do you mean you’d like to see Zain?” Rosemary’s eyes narrowed. “Isn’t she with you in…Halake Ford! What did you do to my daughter?”
Lucky had never seen a woman’s mood change as fast as Rosemary’s did – well apart from Zain’s. One minute Rosemary was smiling with him, the next she’d picked up one of the paperbacks that sat on top of the coffee table and hit him on the head.
“It was just a little argument—” he tried to defend himself.
“Boy, don’t talk smack to me.” She stood up, sparks practically shooting from her eyes, as she warned Lucky, “If I find out that you’ve hurt my baby…”
She left the room, leaving the ominous words hanging behind her. When he heard her stomp up the stairs, he was half afraid she’d come back down wielding a Glock. However, the only weapon she returned with was her phone. It rang a few times without an answer.
While she held the phone to her ear, she continued to shoot daggers at Lucky and muttered what he assumed were death threats. He was relieved when someone finally picked up the phone.
“Hey honey,” Rosemary said. “Are you okay?”
So Zain had her phone but wasn’t picking up his calls? What a load of bullshit! Rosemary and Zain talked for a while before Rosemary asked, “Where are you?” A couple of minutes later she ended the phone call and turned to Lucky. “She’s at Chryssa’s.”
“Okay,” He was relieved that Zain was fine but angry that she’d made him come all this way only to find that she was still in New York – and even worse – with Crazy Chryssa. He stood up. “I’ll go get her.”
“Boy, you’re crazy if you think I’m not coming with you.”
It was one of the worst flights he’d ever flown.
* * *
When Zain opened the door, she wasn’t expecting to see her mother standing on the opposite side. She certainly wasn’t expecting Lucky to be in the hallway behind Rosemary.
“Ooh my baby!” Rosemary embraced her so tightly she was afraid she’d suffocate. “What did they do to you? Are there any scars?”
“Mama, what are you doing here?” Zain huffed as she tried to extricate herself from Rosemary’s arms. She tried to slap her mother’s roving hands away from her body to no avail. Rosemary wasn’t having it. She was a woman on a mission. Finally, Zain gave up and just let her do her thing.
Rosemary checked Zain over for injuries as she muttered about how they were treating her baby. She stated her intense dislike of them treating her like she’d been brought up in the forest like Mowgli. She twirled Zain around, turned her face right and left to check for slap marks, checked her neck for signs of strangulation, pulled her black tank top out of the oversized sweat pants Chryssa had lent her just to make sure Zain had no whip marks.
With her mother occupied, Zain finally checked out Lucky. He just stared at her, no expression in his eyes with his arms crossed over his chest. She returned his stare with a glare of her own. What?
“Zain!” Chryssa yelled, effectively interrupting their staring match. “Who’s at the door? If it’s Mrs. Casey complaining about my yelling again, tell her I don’t say anything when her ugly mutt—”
“It’s my mother,” Zain interrupted, “and Lucky,” she added under her breath.
“Rosemarie ?” Chryssa called. She exited her bedroom, having changed into black shorts and a green tank top after asking for a day off. Chryssa’s voice was enough to distract Rosemary from her injury assessment.
“Christina!” The two of them yelled ridiculously as they hugged and asked after each other. Rosemary considered Chryssa her first-born daughter so it came as no surprise.
“Can we talk?” Lucky asked Zain amid all their chattering.
“Hell no!” Chryssa finally noticed Lucky. “Rosemarie, I know you didn’t bring this nigga into my house!”
“He was my ride here,” Rosemary defended herself as she gave Lucky the eye. “To think I defended him when she told me about his prostitute.”
Chryssa gave him the once over before she turned back to Rosemary, “Tell me you at least slapped his big head around on your way over.”
“Oh, I did more than that!” They were talking about Lucky like he wasn’t in the room. He shuffled around, keeping his gaze to the ground. Zain really didn’t want to talk to him, but she felt sorry for him knowing how uncomfortable he had to be. He’d flown all the way to Baltimore to get her back, been forced to share a ride with her mother, and compelled to stand just outside the door while a group of women raked him over the coals. Another man would’ve already left. His persistence deserved a break. Zain gave it to him.
“Let’s go talk.” She waved for him to enter the house and follow her.
Rosemary grasped her arm to stop her, her eyes mired in worry. “Honey, are you sure?”
“Yeah,” Zain smiled. “I am.”
Lucky followed her to the balcony. Zain pulled the sliding doors shut because she knew her mother and Chryssa. Those two wouldn’t be able to keep themselves from eavesdropping or inputting.
They sat on opposite sides of the small, round table, neither speaking. They stared at the streets that teemed with people going on about their lives below them, being happy.
It was Lucky who broke the silence. “Let’s just talk about it on the way.”
“On the way where?” She asked, eyes wide in confusion.
“Home.” He stood up like the conversation was over. “You’ve had your little show. It’s time to come back to your family.”
Zain stayed seated and just to demonstrate how comfortable she was going to get, she crossed one leg over the other. The pose wasn’t quite as effective as it should’ve been – the sweat pants’ legs were so long they covered her heels – but the message was sent and Luck received it.
“Fine.” He reached for the silver handle on the sliding door. “I’m sorry. Can we go now?”
“Fine, I’m sorry. Can we go now?” She mimicked then laughed. The sound came out more bitter than amused. “That’s what you flew to Baltimore to tell me?”
“What else do you want to hear?” His hand dropped from the handle.
“What else do I-” Zain took a deep breath. When she was finally calm again, she asked, “You don’t even know what the problem is, do you?”
“I know you’re tripping over a small argument with my mom.” He shrugged.
He really didn’t get it, did he? Zain stood up and leaned against the balcony railing, her back to it and her arms crossed over her chest to match his stance.
“Let me break down our little argument for you real slow so it can seep into your thick skull,” she said slowly. “Your mother treats me like crap and now it’s gotten worse with your baby on the way.”
“That’s our baby.”
“No Halake..” She shook her head. “…that’s your baby.”
Lucky’s obstinate indifferent expression changed and he narrowed his eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, but she raised her palm to stop him, “If you want me to come home these are the conditions…”
“So now we’re making conditions?” he interrupted.
“Yes ,we are!” Zain nodded. “First I want Sonia out of my house.”
“Where’s she supposed to go?”
“I don’t know.” Zain shrugged. “You’re the big man so figure it out. Move her in with your mother for all I care. They seem to get along fabulously.”
