Doves for Sale

by Lila Felix

I look up at her brightened green eyes. “How about we go see my sister?”

  “Look at us, all about the sister visits. Nice.” She bends down and kisses me on the lips. Hers taste like powdered sugar and caramel coffee.

  I get dressed while she showers and make the bed.

  Yeah, I make the bed now.

  I’m cleaning up the kitchen when she comes back in, dressed in a pair of jeans that fit her like a second skin and a white shirt that adds the sweet to the sexy.

  “Ready?” I ask her.

  “Is she home? She doesn’t work?”

  “No. She’s a stay at home mom. Let’s go.”

  Aysa

  We climb into the truck and drive to the most suburban-looking neighborhood I’ve ever seen in Mansfield.

  Ezra pulls into the driveway of one of the plainer looking houses, yellow with white trim. There are toys and bikes strewn in the yard, the mark of a family home.

  “What’s her name again?”

  “Helena.”

  Ezra knocks on the door and after a few minutes, an older, female version of Ezra opens the door with a dishtowel draped over her shoulder and a toddler on her hip—not to mention the phone hooked between her ear and her other shoulder and the yapping dog in the background.

  “Here.” Ezra takes the toddler without asking and the woman hands him over and makes her excuses to whoever is on the phone.

  “Ez, you should call, especially if you’re going to bring perfect looking girls with you.”

  It takes me a second to register that his sister is talking about me.

  I don’t dare look at Ezra for a while, holding that toddler. I just know my uterus will implode at the sight.

  Until a chubby little hand tangles in my hair and forces me to look.

  “Helena, this is Aysa. Aysa, this is my sister Helena and Macon, her youngest.”

  The woman rolls her eyes and nearly gags on a sip of what I assume is cold coffee. “I figured. The red hair gave you away.”

  “It’s nice to meet you.”

  “To what do I owe the pleasure?” She addresses Ezra, still not pleased with our dropping in unannounced. There is a yellow, pasty, hand-print stain on her black yoga pants’ outer thigh, but I don’t have the heart to tell her. She probably knows anyway, or doesn’t care.

  “Aysa is going to be in my life for a while. I thought you would like to meet her. She knows all about Mara, so feel free to ream me again if you need to.”

  Between the two siblings, a war is brewing. Even the little guy on Ezra’s hip knows what’s up and reaches for me.

  “I said what I needed to say a long time ago, Ez. How many times do I have to repeat it?”

  He chuckles, but I find nothing funny. “Until you stop looking at me like I ruined your life.”

  He has dragged me into this for a reason. Everything Ezra does is for a reason—there’s not a flippant bone in his body.

  “Would someone just tell me what the—what’s going on?”

  The little guy now in my arms laughs at me. He smells like vanilla wafers and grape juice.

  “Ugh, don’t I have enough, Ezra? Must I be a part of your psycho-semantic crap?”

  “Yes. Because you’re holding me back from fully forgiving myself.”

  That shuts her up quickly.

  It even shuts her kid up.

  “Fine. I’m doing this one more time. After this, it’s all on you.”

  “Hit me.” His posture grows rigid, steeling himself for the impact of whatever she has to say.

  “You had this perfect scenario for someone twice your age. You had a cute girl, pregnant with your baby.”

  “But I wasn’t twice that age. I was just eighteen.”

  “Eighteen is the stupidest age known to man.”

  “No argument. Continue.”

  These two could’ve been twins.

  “You know I can’t have children. You knew it then. Yet, not one time did the notion of asking me if I wanted a child that was as close to biologically mine as I could get come into your head. Not once. You were just going to hand it over to some strangers because they paid the right money and signed the right papers.”

  Somewhere in Helena’s rage-fueled spatter, the boy in my hands had lays his head on my shoulder. I look down and see no resemblance to Helena. This baby has a milky-white skin, blue eyes and the finest white hair.

  A stark contrast to their creamed-caramel skin, gray eyes and black hair.

  “I was a selfish bastard. I was trying to figure out how to keep the kid.”

  “We all know how well that turned out.”

  Helena is pissing me off to such a degree that I regret the minute I agreed to meet more of Ezra’s family.

  He doesn’t deserve this.

  “But you have a family now, right? You obviously have several children. Are you saying you’d trade this life for one that you don’t even know could come to fruition? What if Mara’s parents didn’t agree to the adoption? What if Mara decided to have an abortion? What if Mara’s parents decided to raise the child themselves? It wasn’t a two-option only situation. There’s no guarantee that if the accident hadn’t happened, you would’ve gotten the child.”

  Knox is right. There’s a demon inside me.

  Who has diarrhea of the mouth.

  Demon dysentery of the mouth is a bitch.

  My mouth spew has Helena dumbstruck and speechless.

  But she’s not looking at me. She’s looking at Ezra as tears bubble to the surface. She blinks them away.

  “I’m sorry, Ez. I wouldn’t trade my life now for anything—even the chance at that child. I just got angry and it was easier to hold on to that anger than it is to let it go. You didn’t do anything wrong. You can let it go now. I swear, I won’t bring it up again. Consider it forgotten.”

  Feeling out of place, though my mouth would disagree, I rock-walked the child through the house into the hallway, letting him, in a broken tongue, tell me all the people he recognized in the pictures while the fighting wonder twins made amends.

  There were none of Ezra.

  There were no pictures of Ariel at my house either.

  We all had work to be done in the sibling department.

  After a few minutes, Ezra comes into the hallway. “You okay?” I ask though I know he is. I can see in his eyes the level of guilt has receded a little.

  He nods. “You look good like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “Holding him.”

  The hallway family reunion is exercise in the eyes of the chunk I have on my hip because his head is slumped on my shoulder and he is out cold.

  “I think he weighs more than me.”

  “I think he does too. But you’ve lost some weight since before.”

  “Soup. All the daggum soup.”

  Ezra gets closer and allows me to put some of both of our weight against him. “You can cuss. He’s asleep.”

  I laugh. “I don’t need to around you. You are happy with just me.”

  “Just you makes me happiest of all.”

  “I got a good cry in and he’s asleep. It’s a good day after all.” Helena takes the boy from me and kisses my cheek, which I take as some form of approval. Ezra and I help her clean up her house which she claims is a pigsty, but for a woman with four kids, I think it’s immaculate.

  “Do you guys want to stay for lunch?” She asks and then blanches. “Never mind. I was supposed to go to the grocery store today. Another time. I will have to run there after Macon wakes up.”

  “Thanks, Helena.” There’s a bloated pause. Ezra hesitates. I can see it on his face. And then he approaches his sister like a feral animal and cages her in his arms. She reciprocates, hugging him back like she’s missed him.

  She probably has.

  I know the feeling.

  They will be okay one day.

  This is just the beginning.

  After a drive-thru lunch at which time I found out that sweet potato fries make sounds
come from Ezra’s mouth that should be outlawed, we go back to his apartment.

  I don’t say anything about what’s really needling me about the whole sister thing. The situation washed over me like the old Ezra, saturated in sorrow and self-punishment.

  Like he was purposefully trying to show me that he was still not okay completely.

  Studying him throughout the day, I don’t notice anything else, so I blow it off.

  “Are we meeting Knox or is he coming here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I plug in a text and wait for the answer. “He’s meeting us there.”

  “We have time to spare.”

  “What are you suggesting?”

  “An epic make-out session.”

  “You read my mind.”

  “She did not.”

  Ten minutes at the bowling alley and I have Knox blushing like a virgin.

  He probably is.

  We don’t really talk about that issue.

  One day I’ll ask him or I’ll get Neil to. Two beers and Neil has the balls of the Hulk.

  “She did. I didn’t get extra cheese with my nachos. It was the cheesiest flirting I’ve ever seen.”

  Knox bends over to granny bowl and flips me off while he’s bent over.

  “Hey, your people don’t do that. I’m telling the Pope.”

  Ezra is way too quiet. Knox is laughing so hard he slips and slides all the way back to his seat.

  “What’s up with you?” I ask Ezra.

  “I’m just listening to you. Observing.”

  “And what do you see?”

  “I fall in love with you a little bit more by the minute.”

  Knox flails dramatically and makes a gagging noise. “Come on you too. Ezra, it’s your turn.”

  Ezra finally joins the party and he and Knox make some not so friendly wagers over Chinese about the next bowling trip.

  “I have to get back. We have a big party tomorrow night at the senior center. I’m in charge of decorating.”

  “Nice. Streamers rock.”

  “Keep it up, missy. I’ll wrangle you into helping.”

  Knox bends over to kiss me on the forehead and leaves after he and Ezra have another semi-argument over the sport of bowling.

  “Are you coming home with me or do we need to get your stuff and bring you home?”

  “What are you up to tomorrow?”

  He groans. “I really need to work on a paper for English Lit.”

  “How about I stay and then leave in the morning so you can work. Then you can pick me up at seven for the fundraiser thingy.”

  This is the point where I see the goofiest grin planted on his face. His eyes are shining silver and he’s stopped eating.

  “What’s that smile about?”

  “You, making plans for us. It’s been a while.”

  “Too long.”

  Like we’ve never been apart, we fall into a natural flow. I sit on the side of the tub brushing my teeth while he makes faces at me in the mirror. We slide past each other doing menial things like we’ve practiced for years.

  “Everyone will be at the fundraiser tomorrow.” I say, brushing my hair out while he ticks on his laptop in bed.

  “Okay.”

  “Everyone. They invited everyone on the list who has visited the museum.”

  He doesn’t look pleased, but I would rather him know it now than to be surprised by it in front of everyone.

  “I’ll behave if that’s what you’re warning me about.”

  “That wasn’t what I was saying. I’m just forewarning you.”

  “Thank you. Just for the record, I’m not planning on letting you out of my sight.”

  “Good.”

  Ezra is sitting in the middle of the bed, so when I finish my hair, I slip in behind him and rub his shoulders and neck. I move to the rest of his back, kneading the muscles, wanting to feel his skin under my bare hands.

  “Shirt off.”

  Strong hands reach behind his back, over his shoulders, and pull his shirt off. I don’t know what it is about guys who take their shirts off like that, but it’s mesmerizing. Like taking their shirts off from the bottom hem just is too easy for them—they make it extra difficult which inadvertently shows off their biceps and makes the roped muscles of their backs curl.

  A shiver slides down my back. He’s got more than one new tattoo. I use my nails to outline each and every one. He’s stilled beneath my stare.

  “How many? It’s only been seven months.”

  “Four? Five? A cage—to remember that I was once trapped in my own prison. I added some birds—doves. Do you know why the Christmas song has two turtledoves?”

  “No.”

  “They come in pairs. They mate for life. When they sing, the male starts the chorus and if the female doesn’t join in, he will start over and over again until she sings alongside him. They make their nests together and raise their young together. That’s this one—here. A turtledove. For you. I’ll keep on singing until you join me.”

  Every word throbs in my ears and in my heart. I believe every syllable. Tears, free and wild, river down my face, some landing on his bare back. This moment with him is the culmination of everything I’ve cried over—everything I thought would never happen.

  “Hey, why are you crying?”

  He can’t turn around as I have him in a hold so tight, I surprise myself with the strength of it. I want to feel this—him breathing in and out against my chest. Listening to his heartbeat faster than mine, but stronger, with purpose.

  “I just love you.”

  “Just? That’s the best three words I’ve ever heard.”

  “It seems like it’s not enough.”

  “It’s everything.”

  I must be more tired than I realize because I fall asleep with my face pressed against his back, my grip never failing as I hoped it never would. Sometime later, I can hear whispers of Ezra telling me he loves me, gently straightening my body and laying me in bed, covering me with the blankets and his arms.

  I wake before him and start the coffee pot and then inspect the place for actual food. To my surprise, he’s got a full refrigerator. By the time I flip the fourth pancake, his arms snake around my waist as he takes his time saying good morning to my neck with his mouth.

  “How long do I have with you this morning?”

  “Just through breakfast. You have to do your paper and I need to do girl stuff.”

  “Girl stuff. Okay. I’ll get the plates and set the table.”

  We eat breakfast and I get dressed while he cleans up. I text Ariel to see if she can fix my hair and do my make-up for the night and she texts back yes with an obscene amount of exclamation points.

  “So, I’ll pick you up at seven, right?”

  “Yes. In a suit.”

  I’m packing up my stuff, getting ready to go while he leans against the doorframe with his arms crossed over his chest.

  “In a suit. Right.”

  “What’s the matter?” I see him watching me with a look that I don’t like.

  “Nothing. There’s just a little fear still left in here.” He points to his chest.

  “Fear of what?”

  “You not coming back. You changing your mind. You realizing that this is never going to be easy with me. I’ve still got a long way to go.”

  I drop my bag and walk over to him, flattening my palms out on his pecs. “As long as you don’t let go, we’ll be fine. We can do this together.” He didn’t meet my eyes. His jaw ground together, churning on whatever he needs to say but cant. “Just say whatever it is, Ezra. Whatever it is, we will deal with it.”

  He looks down at the floor and it’s the second time I’ve seen him do that in the short period of time we’ve been together.

  I don’t like it.

  It reminds me of who I used to be.

  “I wasn’t the one who gave up on us last time.”

  I step back from him and grab my stuff.

  “Y
ou’re still harboring some anger, I see.”

  “Not anger.”

  “Distrust?”

  Distrust would be worse than anger.

  “Shit. No. I trust you more than anyone else.”

  “We can’t move forward if you’re going to keep throwing the past in my face. You know that lesson better than anyone else. Figure out your shit and let me know.”

  I don’t realize how upset the whole thing was making me until those words come out of my mouth.

  The honeymoon phase lasted all of two weeks.

  But he is wrong on all fronts.

  If anyone was giving up on us, it is him.

  Ariel is fixing my makeup. I don’t tell her about my little misunderstanding with Ezra. That’s what I’m naming it, the misunderstanding.

  “So, I tell him that if he can’t even have the balls to meet my father then he doesn’t have the balls to date me.”

  “Did you say balls? When you say that word, it looks like the Queen of England saying sewage.”

  She stops and uses the mascara wand to be her pointer. “You should talk foul-mouthed princess.”

  It’s only in the last few months that all of the ugly and other opinions about myself were self-inflicted. Ariel has never thought I was ugly or less than. That was just me making shit up.

  I do that a lot.

  Make shit up that doesn’t exist.

  Mostly about myself.

  “I’m not a princess.”

  “Most of the time I wouldn’t argue, but take a look and see if I’ve gotten close enough.”

  The girl knew how to dress me up like a damned Barbie, I’d give her that. The dress was strapless with a sweetheart neckline, the perfect shade of teal that made my eyes look almost the same color. Against my red hair, it was genius.

  “Maybe we should just auction you off to save the college.”

  “Ugh. Then it would be a bidding war between Roman and Ezra. Gross.”

  “Other than the knee in the groin, what did you say to him?”

  “I told him that he didn’t have a shot in hell to be anything to me other than a friend. I really hurt his feelings this time. But I’d told him so many other times before in a nice way and look how that worked out for me.”

  “Maybe I could date him. Dad loves him.”

  “Have at it. We can drive over there right now.”

  She met my eyes in the reflection. “Is he gonna show?”