Dream Keeper

by Gail McFarland

  AJ’s finger touched Marlea’s photo again—for luck.

  Warming to the gossip, Dench dropped into the chair across from AJ’s desk, one long leg draped over the chair’s arm. “What’s Bianca up to these days, and are you keeping track of her?”

  “Man, I value my life and my wife is fast—you don’t play around on a woman who can run like she can.” AJ laughed. “Of course, she knows everything I know about Bianca. I learned that lesson the first time around—don’t play with Marlea and secrets.”

  “So what is she up to these days? Still trying to slide into somebody’s pocket?”

  “You know Bianca.” AJ shrugged. “Same old, same old. I don’t want to look up and find her finagling her way into my bank account again.”

  “But where there’s a will…”

  “She’ll try to make a way. She’s still trying to build a name for herself as a designer, but I hear she’s given up on football players. Trying to get with some music folks.”

  Dench swallowed laughter. “Looking for the next Russell Simmons?”

  “Something like that, and as long as she’s not looking in Atlanta, and keeps her distance from me and my family, whatever she does is her business.”

  “I just pity the fool she gets her hooks into, because you know she won’t quit.”

  “No, she won’t quit. She wants what she wants and only knows one way to get it. I’m just glad that Marlea came into my life and stayed.” AJ watched Dench nod and they settled into companionable silence. Dench’s eyes went deep and thoughtful as he turned his face back to the window. They’d been friends long enough for AJ to guess at what was going through the other man’s mind.

  “So what are you going to do?” he finally asked.

  “You mean besides pray?” Dench sighed and shifted his leg from the chair. Standing, he looked like a man wishing he was heading anywhere but where he had to go. “I guess I’m going to head home and check on the roses like I promised Rissa.” He shrugged. “Then I’m going to sit down and talk to my wife.”

  “Ultimatums don’t work with her. They never have.”

  Pushing up from his chair, Dench held AJ’s eyes. “I know. That’s why I’ll be working with a hope and a prayer.”

  “But you’ve got no net, so if you fall…”

  Looking back from the door, Dench grinned. “That’s what the prayer is for, dude. Wish me luck.”

  “You got it.” Watching his friend leave, AJ nodded and hoped. Talking helped, but if it was going to work, then Rissa was going to have to listen. Dench was going to need that hope and prayer.

  Walking into his home, Dench paused in the kitchen. He could feel Rissa in the house, listening, almost dreading his need to talk to her. In the distance, he could hear the muted sounds of the television, and he wondered if she was really watching it. She said she was going back to work on Monday. She’ll do it to prove her strength, he guessed. The thought of her returning to a space scented with stale chocolate still made his stomach tighten.

  At least that won’t happen. The cleaning crew he’d called this morning would see to it. But still, there was the thought of her going back and maybe winding up under the desk again.

  Tempted to walk down the hall just to look in on her, Dench stopped when the phone rang. Reaching quickly, he grabbed the handset. “Hello?”

  “Hello, Dennis Charles. How are you today?” His mother-in-law’s lilting magnolia-drenched voice poured into his ear and Dench pictured Sandra Yarborough sitting in her sunroom enjoying her usual mint-spiked iced tea and a stack of travel brochures.

  “I’m fine, how about you?”

  “I’m just fine, darlin’. I just wanted to touch base with you all before I leave tonight. I’ll miss you all, especially my grands, but I can’t wait to get on that plane. This will be my first trip to Kenya.” Her soft laughter bubbled over the phone. “I’ll be doing a photo safari, so you know I’ll be using some of the film you gave me for Christmas.”

  Dench smiled, recognizing the flirty tone Rissa had inherited. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather take the digital camera?”

  “You shouldn’t tease your elders, son. Everybody doesn’t share my pleasant disposition,” Sandra drawled. “I’ll take it, though it probably won’t see much use. But now the film and flashbulbs, they will come in handy. I’m going to take lots of pictures and bring back lots of souvenirs.”

  And she will. Like mother, like daughter, Dench thought—Rissa always enjoyed practical gifts, and she enjoyed giving them as much as getting them. Sobering, his eyes went to the hall and he imagined her sitting in the middle of their bed, pretending to watch television. She lost her chance to give me the gift she thought I would cherish most…

  “Dennis Charles Traylor, do you hear me talking to you?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” His attention snapped back to his mother-in-law and he tried to stay tuned to her words. He’d known the woman for years and had sat at her table for more meals than he cared to count. She was as much mother as mother-in-law, and as mother-in-laws went, Sandra Yarborough was a pretty good one, but she was also intuitive and smart.

  “Why are you so distant today, Dennis Charles? You seem to have something on your mind. Is everything all right with the team?”

  “Me?” Her radar’s up and on full blast. “No, I’m not distant. The team is good, especially since we’re looking healthy and strong in the off-season. Everything is fine.”

  “You said that too fast.” Weighing his response, her tone changed slightly. “How is Rissa? Is she treating you right? Are you treating her right?”

  “Oh, yes, ma’am.”

  “I see. It’s about the baby, then? She hasn’t come to terms with the loss yet, has she?” Sandra’s sigh was deep and heartfelt. “That’s an odd expression isn’t it? ‘Come to terms.’ There are just some situations that have no acceptable terms, and yet, if one is to carry on, there is nothing else to do.”

  Ain’t that the truth? Rissa can’t seem to come to terms with the loss of the one thing she wanted most. Sandra’s easy philosophy made sense, but left him cold and he said nothing.

  “I thought about canceling my trip…”

  “Please don’t.” Holding the phone, Dench suddenly realized he was also holding his head and wondered when the headache began. “It’s not that we don’t love you, but this is something we have to work through on our own.” The headache took a turn for the worse.

  “She always did take everything personally, even as a child. That was one of the things I worried about when she decided on law school, that she would bring every case home with her. But I can honestly say that I’ve never once worried about her with you.” Sandra was silent for a beat and then she sighed heavily. “Put my baby on the phone, would you, please?”

  Dench opened his mouth to speak, then thought better of it. “She’s, uh, in the bedroom. I’ll get her for you.”

  He decided against just calling out her name. It would have been too easy for her to pretend not to hear. Putting the phone on hold, he walked carefully into the bedroom where Rissa lay curled on her side vaguely watching the figures moving across the television’s flat panel. Trying to keep his voice light, he forced a smile and watched her mirror it. At the bedside, he picked up the phone and pressed the button. “It’s your mom. She wants to speak to you.”

  Rissa’s back curved gracefully as she curled more tightly in on herself. Cheek pressed against the pillow she held close to her body, she looked up at Dench and shook her head.

  Watching her, he opened his mouth, but on the other end of the line, Sandra beat him to it. “I’m sure she just said that she didn’t want to talk, didn’t she? You tell that girl I said to get on this phone, and be quick about it.”

  Caught in the middle, Dench looked at his wife, but before he could repeat the words, Rissa closed her eyes and held her hand out for the phone. Must be one of those mother/daughter things. He handed the phone to her and left the room.

  Holding the p
hone, Rissa listened to the pad of her husband’s steps retreating across the hardwood floor before opening her eyes. “Hi, Mom.” She heard her mother inhale. Prelude to harangue, she thought. “Before you start, do I get to at least say that I don’t want to talk to you about it?”

  Sucking her teeth, Sandra Yarborough counted to ten. “If you don’t want to talk, you don’t have to, but that means you’ll be listening while I talk.”

  Holding the phone, Rissa mumbled something and pulled her knees up to her chest. Her mother took the ensuing silence as agreement. “I thought you told me that you loved Dench.”

  Rissa blinked at the phone. “You just called him Dench. You usually call him Dennis Charles. Why the sudden name change?”

  “Answer the question, Marissa.”

  Flinching at the use of her given name, Rissa’s eyes went to the door. He was gone, probably back to his office. “I do,” she said. “To tell the truth, I always will.”

  “Then why are you stealing yourself from him?”

  “I’m not…Things are just hard right now.”

  “Going to school was hard. Convincing your father that law school was right for you was hard. Managing AJ was hard. Starting the agency was hard. Learning to work with your partner was hard. This is not the first hard thing you’ve ever done, Marissa.”

  “Losing a baby is not the easiest thing I’ve ever done, either.”

  Both women drew long breaths. “Of all the hard things you’ve accomplished, you’ve never done any of them alone. You’re not alone now, or at least you wouldn’t be if you didn’t push him away.”

  “I never meant to push him away.” Furrowing her brow, Rissa was swept with more need than a five-year-old. For a moment, she wished her mother was in the room, that she could climb into her lap, stick her thumb in her mouth and be comforted. “I don’t know if we’ll ever have our own child, but I do know how much he wants one. He wants a family, Mom, and apparently I can’t give that to him.”

  “Marissa, there are a lot of ways to build a family.”

  “I know…”

  “And for heaven’s sake, do you realize what a crap shoot pregnancy is? How many billions of chances there are for things to go wrong before just one baby comes into this life?”

  “Doesn’t seem like it’s that hard for the people on Jerry Springer,” Rissa grunted.

  “Don’t be smart with your mother.” Brief laughter edged Sandra’s voice. “You’ve been happy with Dench for years without a child of your own. You just told me that you loved him…”

  Standing, Rissa walked to the window that looked out over her budding rose garden. Bless his heart, Dench had taken to tending the roses when she’d abandoned them. She watched him pull a wagonload of tools into the garden. When he stopped, he looked around, surveying the work to be done. Afraid to be caught watching, she stepped back from the window.

  “I do. I love him,” she whispered into the phone, “and those three words are my life.”

  “Then I think it’s time you did something to save your life, Marissa. I want you to see someone and work this out.”

  Rissa sucked her teeth and rolled her eyes. “I’m supposed to go sit in somebody’s office and tell them all about what a sucky childhood I had and that will make everything better?” She sucked at her teeth again. “I don’t think so—you and Daddy didn’t abuse me enough to make that work.”

  “Keep making jokes, Marissa. Maybe it will, and maybe it won’t. But at least you’ll have tried and given yourself a chance to get rid of some of the anger and guilt you’re carrying.”

  Rissa’s hand slashed at the air before she could stop it and she cursed her mother’s intuitive hit. “Who said I felt guilt or anger?”

  “I did. I’m your mother and I know you—you can’t go on the way you are, not for much longer. Dennis Charles needs for you to see someone, if only to keep you from losing him. You need to find a way to smile again, a way to help him smile again. Whether or not you two ever add to the list of my grandchildren is not what’s important now.”

  So you say…

  Her mother caught more than a hint of petulance in Rissa’s sigh. “Do what you have to do to save your life, Marissa.”

  Her mother’s words felt like prayer in her ear. “I can try.”

  “Nothing beats a failure but a try.”

  “I’ll try,” Rissa promised.

  “Then I can travel knowing that I’m leaving you in good hands? That you’ll see someone?”

  “Yes, Mom. Be safe.”

  “You, too, sweetheart, and I’ll see you when I get back.”

  “Love you,” Rissa whispered, disconnecting the call. Standing back from the window, looking out at Dench as he labored in the garden, she felt her promise take root in her heart. She watched him move the Falcons cap farther back on his bald head and look to the sky, exposing all that he was: just Dench. A man with big hands, big feet, long limbs, sheets of muscle, warm lips, and a heartbeat like music.

  Her own heart stumbled when she watched him. Backing up until the backs of her legs bumped the bed, she sat and watched him. On his knees, he tended her rosebushes under the hot Georgia sun. He worked steadily, taking as much care with the plant roots as he did with the tender blushing pink blossoms. She watched him use a small hand rake to fertilize the plant and thought her heart would burst.

  He always knows the right thing to do. Pulling her heels to the edge of the bed, Rissa hugged her knees to her chest and rested her cheek against them. From the corner of her eye, she could see their framed wedding photos.

  I stood on a cliff in Jamaica and married him, and I felt like a queen. I married him and knew that I’d gotten a gift—a perfect man in paradise.

  And it almost didn’t happen. Sad as she felt, the memory made her smile. All we had to do was be at Tensing Penn in Negril in time to get the marriage license, and I missed the plane. The government required couples to be at the resort at least forty-eight hours in advance. Dench left from Florida, but everyone else left from Atlanta. And everybody was on the plane except me. I got to the airport in time to see my plane leave without me.

  She smiled when she thought of the people she’d called and the favors she’d called in, determined to get to Dench. There was no way I was going to settle for not marrying him. In the garden, she saw him organizing something in the wheelbarrow and her smile broadened. I would have walked on water all the way to Negril to marry him.

  Thank God I didn’t have to. When I’d done everything I could, I called him, frantic and afraid, and all he said was, ‘I can fix that.’ Then he made a call and I got a private jet. When we landed…Her tongue traced her lips. I can still taste his kiss…

  The thought of his kiss brought a sweet surge of memory. Every time I’ve ever needed him, ever wanted him, he’s been there and his kisses…Unsubtle lust rushed and rambled through her body. Mom’s right. I’m a fool and I’ve punished him for all the wrong reasons. We both want a baby and if we’re ever going to have one, I need to make the next step…

  The picture she always referred to as their wedding photo sat in the center of the array on the small table across from where she sat. It was her favorite, one of more than two hundred pictures taken the day they were married, and now it captured her eye and her imagination. In the photo, they stood together at sunset, looking into each other’s eyes. Framed by a perfect Caribbean sky, standing on a Jamaican cliff, an ocean breeze flirting with her gown and veil, they appeared to be perched on the edge of eternity and it was the way she wanted to be with him forever.

  And if I don’t move now, forever could become a lost wish…

  Her eyes and throat filled with tears and she knew what she had to do. Picking up the phone, she pressed in the numbers and listened to the ring. The second she heard the answering voice, her lips parted.

  “Marlea, I need a favor…”

  * * *

  “And we both know that I’m pretty much the only one you could ask,” Marlea muttere
d. “Seriously though, I’m glad that you decided to take this step.” She turned the business card in her hand and read the therapist’s name. “Chris Gordon—is this a woman?”

  “Yes.” Rissa turned the wheel and steered her car around a truck stalled in the middle of the intersection. “Connie gave me the card a while back and I figured that it couldn’t hurt to go in and talk with her.” Her eyes moved from traffic to Marlea and back again.

  “You know, I would argue with you if this wasn’t such a good idea.” Marlea flicked the card with her thumbnail as she studied Rissa’s intent profile. “But just for the record, I know this wasn’t your idea.”

  “It is my idea, and I know what you think you’re doing.” Rissa passed Pharr Road and slowed a little, ignoring the shift in the Peachtree Street traffic. Squinting, she read the addresses, then picked up speed. “You’re trying to distract me.” She slowed and squinted again. Changing lanes, she kept her eyes straight ahead. “Thank you.”

  Along for the ride, Marlea kept her mouth closed. If I say one word, it will be one too many, and I don’t want to give her any excuses for avoiding this session—she needs it too much, even if only to have the chance to hear herself say things out loud. Lowering her lashes, Marlea studied her sister-in-law, looking for a clue.

  Rissa looked neat and pretty—normal, in fact. Dressed in creamy white slacks and a sleeveless coral sweater, she wore minimal makeup, and her longer hair curling at her cheek made her seem softer. Only her fingers, tight on the steering wheel, gave her nerves away. Marlea didn’t blame her for a minute.

  When I think of everything she must be holding inside…I don’t think I could stand it if something had happened while I carried Jabari or Nia. Unconsciously, her hands folded across her stomach and her unseeing gaze veered toward people on the sidewalks. And AJ would never have blamed me, just like I know that Dench will never blame Rissa. But how do you forgive yourself? Careful not to let Rissa catch her, Marlea studied her face and saw the tightness around her mouth. This is hard for her…so hard…

  “Here’s the building.” Timing the traffic, Rissa turned and drove through the iron gate fronting what appeared to be an elegant home. Parking in the small lot behind the building, she collected her purse and jacket without so much as glancing at Marlea.