by lesley,allyn
“Mother Clarke, you know this man?” the gentleman wonders.
Her hand flutters to her throat. “This is Mother Tennyson’s boy.”
He eyes me suspiciously, probably wondering how an African-American woman who was past her child-bearing stage could birth a white son.
MeMaw’s old friend doesn’t let him get bogged with the particulars. She waves him—and his growing interest—off. “It was before your time, Deacon.” She backs off her hat then looks me up and down. “Where in Heavens you been, boy?”
“I see you both need to catch up,” the Deacon says. “But I need to lock up the church.” His hint is clear. We need to leave, and soon.
Chels chooses this moment to speak up, since words have escaped me again. “We can drive you home.”
The look on her face is priceless. I’d just told Chels all about MeMaw’s best friend, and here she stands, in flesh and blood, before us.
Never taking her eyes off me, Ms. Clarke jumps at the chance. “That’ll be just fine, baby girl.”
The car ride from Harlem back to the Bronx is a short one, with most of the drivers and pedestrians at home with their families, enjoying their Christmas meals. Between laughing and talking, she lets us in on snippets of her memories about MeMaw.
As we near her home, she jumps to another topic, which is pretty much what she’s done the entire trip. “When I gots word about Helen, it was already too late. All I saw was tha back of tha Medical Examiner’s van driving away. I wasn’t family, so there wasn’t much I couda done. She didn’t have any family, but thank God, she had herself a will. Gave most of ever’thang that was to our church, and then left some thangs for you and me.”
I forgot that Ms. Clarke was born and raised in the South. I give her my full attention, so I don’t miss any of what she shares.
“Me?” Surprise raises the pitch of my voice. I park carefully behind a car, though my hands feel like they’re about to rattle the wheel off. I turn to the woman I haven’t seen in years.
Her wrinkled, brown hands capture one of mine. “That woman, may her soul rest in peace, she loved you something fierce.”
A nervous chuckle leaves my lips. I’m shy all of a sudden under the gravity I hear in Ms. Clarke’s statement. “I know she did,” I confirm, allowing MeMaw’s forgotten love to surround me.
The squeeze of my hand brings my attention to her. “No, she really loved you. Yous was all she wrote in them diaries of hers.” Her voice catches in her throat before she continues. “I have ‘em.” Her head falls, and I swear she’s hiding the fact she’s about to tear up over her friend’s nineteen-year-old death.
My cell rings, ending my words of comfort. I pull my hand away and fish out my phone. Seeing the name on the screen, my heart skyrockets. “Ma, what’s happening?”
Beside me, Ms. Clarke draws in a quick breath, but I don’t have time to wonder the reason as Ma’s jumbled-up message comes through and ends with her demand for my return to the hospital. A sigh of regret leaves me.
“Sure. Right away. I’m just dropping someone home then I’ll come back.” The call ends. “I have to leave, Ms. Clarke. My Ma—”
“Your mother is back? She healthy—”
Just as she cut me off, I do the same. “No. No, she isn’t. That’s my adoptive mother.” It doesn’t feel right to add that title to Ma. “She’s my mother, Ms. Clarke.” With that, I exit my car, opening the passenger door for Ms. Clarke. When Chels switches back to the front seat, I whisper, “Hang tight. I won’t be long. Lock the doors.” Even though some would consider me a neighborhood kid, I’m still not from this particular area, so certain courtesy doesn’t extend to me and my car.
Once we leave the elevator and I help Ms. Clarke into her apartment, I mention just to fill the air, “You have a nice home.”
She grins, leaving her hat on a table nearby. “Small is whacha mean, but it’s right for me. Bend down, son, so I can feel ya face again.” I do as she asks. “These eyes of mine ain’t what they use to been, but I am telling ya, yous a sight fa sore eyes.” She pats my cheek then makes a slow path away from me. I stand in her foyer, not sure what to do. “Don’t ya go nowhere, son.”
Son. It reminds me of the one I have in the hospital. It’s a new word, but when I test it out again, it doesn’t revolt or scare me. “Son.” This time I mouth the word, a giggle startles me, because it comes from me. Then, because I’m in love with it, I say it again. “Son.”
“Ya talks to yaself too?” she wonders.
When I face her, Ms. Clarke’s brows are knitted together. However, I can’t answer her, because I’m too concerned she’s about to topple from all the different sized books in her hands.
I rush toward her. “Let me help you. Where do you want these?” I look around the small space, and there’s not an empty shelf I can see over her knick-knacks, figurines, and the like. I look back at Ms. Clarke, waiting for her instruction.
“Shuga, Honey, Ice Tea, ain’t no place for ‘em here.” She cackles a little, and then I remember that’s her way of cursing that MeMaw would always pull her to the carpet about. I guess she remembers too, because her eyes mist again. “I still miss her. Not a day passes when I don’t think of ma friend, Dyllan.” She pats her chest near her heart. “I know Helen woulda been proud to see how her son done turned out.” She doesn’t hide the flow of her tears this time. “I don’t know why the good Lord had us meet again, today of all days, but when ya done reading her words, I’ll be here waiting fa ya.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I reply solemnly, not knowing what else to say.
The good-byes are quick as she tells me she’s waiting for a family member to pick her up for dinner. Jogging down the steps, saying a silent thanksgiving to the God MeMaw believed in, I put the books in the trunk. Back inside the car, I feel Chels inquisitive gaze on my profile.
“I’ll tell you later,” is all I say as I make my way back to see my son.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“He’s beautiful,” Chels whispers. “We should let him rest.”
I know I should.
I know I should leave the NICU, but I can’t find it in me to. All his doctors and nurses assure me a miracle took place. No one—as tiny as he is and born prematurely—should’ve survived his harrowing experiences.
But, he has.
He’s still here.
My very own fighter.
He’s still hooked to machines, but I can see his spirit. He won’t go down without a fight. Chels’s calming touch on my arm reminds she said we should leave. Ma and the family left about thirty minutes ago, and we’re meeting them at her house for a late Christmas dinner. I look at the small body with this and that sticking out of him, all helping him to keep death at bay, and I can’t help the proud feeling that puffs my chest.
“That’s my son in there.”
“That’s your son,” she agrees with me.
There’s no bitterness in either of our voices.
Moving away, I quietly tap on the top of his glassine crib. “I’ll see you later, Tennyson.” Then, I grab the woman who’s spent the pretty part of her day with me, and we walk through the door.
“Your mother can really cook.” Chels groans out beside me. “I think I overate,” she admits, adjusting the seat belt inside my SUV.
“Yeah, but Chuck is better. He just doesn’t like to cook too much,” I tell her. We both wave to Ma and Chuck, who stand by their front door, before putting my car in reverse. “Not for nothing, today started off shitty, but it sure ended well.” And that’s an understatement, I think to myself, getting in the lane to jump on the highway that’ll take me to Mt. Vernon.
“Where are you going?” she inquires.
“I can take the Hutch, and I should have you at your parents’ home in thirty minutes. Sit back and take a nap. I know you’re tired.” I tap on the wheel in time with the low music playing from the radio. She’s over there too quiet, making me believe I’m wrong. “Do you want me to drop you at y
our sister’s place instead?” My head swivels in her direction. I hadn’t thought she’d stay with Emma during her winter break.
“I’m not going to any of those places.” She gives me a look, as if her destination is plain as day.
So I tell her what I’m thinking. “You’re speaking in codes. It’s late, and I’m too tired. Just tell me if I’m jumping off exit twenty-five or twelve.” I don’t have the patience to play any guessing games with her. I just want to head home, take a shower, and sleep.
“You’re so...” She blows out a breath that sends the bangs she’s now sporting flying from her face. She looks out her window as my car rolls forward.
“So what? Speak up, Chels. Where am I taking you?”
Head straight ahead, she reveals, “Take me to your condo.”
At a stoplight, I can finally face her and give her side profile a ‘what the fuck’ look, and I say it out loud, which draws her attention from wherever it is and onto me.
“I’m going with you.” Determination colors her words and curls her lips. Not a second passes before she’s asking rather unsurely, “Unless you’d rather me not, um, be there?”
This woman continues confusing me.
As always, she blurs the lines between confidence and shyness so easily that it makes my head spin. Not offering an answer, I head straight. We’re about ten minutes from my condo. I shave the trip down to five minutes, anxiety making me break all the speed laws. After I park, we head up on the elevator; all the while, I’m telling myself to relax, even as my heart gallops away with her being so near me. I’m not sure if she senses my nervousness, but I feel better when she steps in front of me, her back to my front, and takes my arms to wrap around her waist. With no control over myself, I sink my nose into her hair that smells part fruity and all her.
When the elevator opens, my blood pressure spikes.
When she pulls me with her, I figure Confident Chels is back. That’s how we walk into my condo: with her back pressed intimately against my body. Entering my home together makes my imagination run wild, and I immediately tamp it down. My hands slip from her waist to her hips then, finally, off her body. When she turns to me with questions in her eyes, I deflect by dropping the keys on my foyer’s table and checking my mail. Still with my head down, I hear her walk away and ask me where the light switches are.
“To your right.”
The knots of confusion twist my insides.
From inside the kitchen, I ask, “Do you want a glass of water or juice?”
“Do you have anything stronger?” She sits on the couch, looking comfortable and natural doing it, while she hugs a decorative pillow Ma got for me a few weeks back.
“Look at you. All grown up,” I mutter. “I probably corrupted you, giving you beer the first night you came here.” Fixing us both stiffer drinks, I amble toward her. Our fingers touch when she takes hers from me, and I’m confused by the slight shivering of her body.
With her drink in hand, she settles back into the oversized couch. “I’ll have you know I was already corrupted. Em and I used to sneak sips from our father’s beers by the time she was ten and I was six.” She smirks then proceeds to take a taste of the content inside her glass, as if to prove to me she’s no lightweight when it comes to alcohol.
I enjoy the silence and my brandy, reflecting on the start of this day.
“What am I to do with you, Dyllan?”
“Huh?” I ask once her sentence registers.
She sits her drink she’s barely touched on the ottoman then looks directly at me. “I said what am I to do with you?”
My drink joins hers then I twist to face her. “I don’t get what you mean.”
“We met—”
“August 2011,” I jump in, unsure where she’s going with this.
“And it’s over two years later, and I’m just trying to get a sense of what’s going on here.” She flickers at the space between our bodies. “If there’s anything at all.”
I barely open my lips before she’s talking again.
“I know the last we spoke it didn’t end well.” She swallows. “Hell, I’ve been trying to get you out of my system since the night before I went to Albany.”
Even at this late hour, with a lethargic tongue, the smart-ass in me can’t let that go. “How’s that going for you?” When she doesn’t respond, I answer for her. “Seems you’re doing just fine to me.” Just fine, I repeat silently. “Going on dates and shit.”
She tucks a leg under her then turns toward me.
“Like I said, seems you’re doing A-okay from where I’m sitting.”
Chels leans her upper body toward me. I think she’s about to tell me to fuck off or that she’s leaving. When next she speaks, her tone is soft but clear. “I have absolutely no idea where you get that I’m ‘doing A-okay’. I’m not. I’ve barely existed since we met.”
I lean toward her as well. I’m tired. I’m tired to my bones of this back-and-forth bullshit between us. “Well, how’d you explain your Houdini disappearing act after our first time together?”
At her hasty glance to my floor, I know I’ve hit a nerve.
“I didn’t disappear. I went away to college. You knew I was leaving the following morning when I came over.” But even she’s not convinced by what she reveals, because her voice stays low.
As if she never spoke, I move on, using my fingers to help me track her transgressions. “Then there was Mohawk Dude, who was feeling you up when I brought your sister up for a surprise visit.”
She holds up her hand, stopping me. “Mohawk Dude? Feeling me up? I’m the one who wears the glasses, Dyllan, but you seriously need to get your eyes checked.” She uses my ticking system with one finger up in the air. “He’s a friend.” My heart lurches and almost leaps from my chest at her revelation. Then she clucks her tongue as if I don’t get it.
“Am I a mind reader?” I point to my chest. “I came to your school with my heart in my throat, not sure what the fuck I wanted to do, but I knew I wanted to do something.” Like ask you to be mine, the request you never gave me a chance to say, because you slipped from my bed like a thief in the night.
Her shoulders shake. It’s not until her gaze settles on mine that I recognize she’s not laughing. “You did ‘something’ all right.” She air quotes. “You stuck your dick inside my roommate.” Her brown eyes are on fire, and their flames burn through my conscience.
I can see, for the first time, her jealousy and hurt about that incident. Still.
“We weren’t together,” I mumble, feeling like shit about it even after all this time. “We still aren’t.”
“And why aren’t we?”
When she scoots closer to me, I can see the dotting freckles along the bridge of her nose, which is now wrinkling as if something’s distasteful.
She pushes at my chest as she tells me, “We aren’t together, because you’ve made it clear you don’t want me, Dyllan.”
Her words jolt me, rocking me to the core. I stare at her like she’s just sprouted two heads.
Then I laugh. Like really hard. Tears fall, because that’s the single most stupid shit I’ve ever heard. When the fuck have I never wanted her? I want Chels so bad I can taste her, even when she’s on a fucking island thousands of miles away. I want her so bad that I wish I could bottle up her scent, so when I’m missing her, which is every-damn-time she’s not near me, I could sniff her smell as a consolation. Hell, I’ll take her anyway she comes to me. Like being locked into the motherfucking friendzone.
I decide to get out of my head and lay it out for my beautiful yet misguided ‘friend’. “Are you shitting me here?”
“What are you doing?”
I spin back to her. “Looking for the hidden camera.” I tug her to me. “When the fuck did I tell you I don’t want you?”
She shrugs then drops her gaze from mine. “I ju-just know. You’ve not said it in words, but a woman knows when she’s not... not wanted.” Her hand flutters to her ch
est. “I feel it here.”
“Look at me.”
She shakes her head. “I-I can’t.” Her eyes are glued to my carpeted floor.
“Chels, please. Look at me.”
Maybe she hears my brokenness or desperation. I’m not sure why her head lifts, but I’m damned happy it does. Her eyes are glossy with unshed tears and her lower lip hitches between her teeth.
That’s when I decide to come clean. Obviously, she has no idea what she means to me.
“Chels.” That’s all I can say. I will my lips to move, to share what’s been lodged in my heart since our first meeting. I haul her to me, uncaring if the move makes me look too aggressive. I cup one side of her face. How could I not want her? “Chelsea Juliet Robinson, I’ve always wanted you. Always.” Doubt, plain as day, shrouds her beautiful eyes. “It’s true. Since the very first time you gave yourself to me—”
“Even though I ran?” Her gaze lowers as she fingers the buttons on my shirt.
“Went away to college,” I offer as an alternate wording. “And way after that. Still do. Always will.” I pull her closer to me. “I will always want you.” My lips graze her forehead as she winds her arms more firmly around me. I might as well be totally honest. “I’m not going to lie. At first, I used to think, you know, maybe it was the sex.” Her head lifts and peers at me, probably wondering where this is going. “But, I want more than sex. I’ve always wanted more from you.”
A tear runs down her cheek.
“But the issue is you don’t want me. Not in the way I want you. You want a friend, and if that’s what you need, or how you can only see me, then I guess it’s just friends for us. And you can go on as many dates as you like, and know that I won’t trip about it.” That’s total bullshit, but she doesn’t need to know it’ll tear me apart to see her with another man, but if someone else who deserves her can make her happy, then I’m all for that.
“I go on one date, and now you’re pushing me to go on more?” she wonders with a bit of an attitude, but is still folding herself into me just the way I hoped one day she would. “Do you understand the concept of one?”
