by Eden Fortae
“This is bullshit!” Egypt screamed, handing the baby over to Eve. “How old is this?”
“A year,” Samuel answered, walking around the table with an envelope in hand. “Daryl left this for you, as well. I suggest you open it in private.”
“And what’s that? Something else you don’t deserve?”
“Egypt,” Eve stood, holding her hands over the crying baby’s ears, “you need to calm down. You’re angry at Eden for no reason.”
“I have every reason to be angry, Evie! If you weren’t so ditzy and desperate to be friendly with her, you would, too. She’s been ruining this family since the day she was born.”
“That’s enough, Egypt.” Samuel finally interjected.
“How dare you tell me what’s enough when you were the one out there with him and those whores! It wasn’t enough before this mess? Of course not because you were the one who pulled all the strings when one of those whores had a baby that my father forced my mother to accept!”
The entire room went silent, with Eden sitting stock-still. Those words echoed in her mind. The meaning hit her like a ton of bricks. Unshed tears were pushed over her lashes by a steady stream she lost control of. Too afraid to look Donny’s way, she looked at Samuel and saw guilt written all over his face but heard her sister instead.
“Oops. I forgot we weren’t supposed to let that cat out of the bag. Should I apologize, or do you guys want to have a family discussion–minus daddy–about the next lie we’re going to sell to little miss not-actually-adopted to save face?”
“Wh–what are you saying?” Eve stammered, bouncing the baby in her arms, looking bewildered. Joe was intent on taking the baby from his wife, but things were spiraling far too quickly. Egypt was advancing on Eden. She moved around the table, fists balled, and both Joe and Kenneth hot on her trail. The only thing genuinely stopping her from reaching her target was Donny. He positioned himself between them, shoulders squared. Egypt stepped to the side to see Eden, but that was as close as he’d allow.
“Two weeks after you were born, Evie, daddy came home with Sam. He told me to go to my room, but I stayed on the stairs and heard them tell mom that another woman was pregnant. Due in a few months. I heard mom cry, screaming as she held you and all they could offer her was a solution to ensure the secret never got out. Months later, they came home with a white baby, telling me this was my new, adopted sister. I saw mom crying every time she looked at her, and when I was old enough to ask why, she told me the truth.”
She sneered, moving to get closer to Eden. Kenneth was trying to hold her back. She shrugged him off harshly, killing Donny with her eyes, then turned to Eden.
“You and your whore of a mother ruined my family. My mother was happy before you. She smiled. She played with me. My parents were happy before you. We were happy! Then here you come with your light skin and good hair as if it made you better than us. That’s why you thought you could have my man, right? Because being a mutt with loose curls makes you the standard of beauty? Well, aside from your fat ass.”
“Let’s go, Egypt.” Kenneth tried to pull her away, and she brushed him off again.
“No! She lied on you because she was jealous of me. She took my family away from me and thought she could take you, too.”
The hand on Eden’s cheeks broke her from her daze. Only then did she tune back into reality. The pain in her chest was unmatched. The truth hurt more than anything she’d ever experienced. Donny pulled her into his arms. As he had with the rain, he was trying to shelter her from hurricane Egypt. The wind was chasing them, howling louder than a freight train.
“What did you do to make this man care, huh? Did you do the same thing you did to make daddy send you to Kenneth? Pretend you were so broken you needed help? You feed him some sob story about how poorly we treated you, although you got everything you deserved?!”
Eden stopped and turned slowly. Egypt was so close, she barely had time to stop. Face to face, Eden looked directly into Egypt’s eyes. Without word or warning, she drew back and slapped Egypt so hard the sound echoed in the lobby.
Someone gasped. Someone cursed. Eden lunged.
Rage came out with every swing. Someone touched her, and she heard Donny’s voice bellow with a threat. Before she knew it, Egypt was lying on her side, balled up with her arms covering her face. A hand full of hair and another curled into a fist, she got a good enough view of Egypt’s face to see blood and still threw another punch.
“You want to talk about what’s deserved?! This,” she punched her, “is deserved!” The second punch to the face was blocked. “This is deserved.” As someone looped their arms under hers and pulled her backward, she delivered a kick that narrowly missed Egypt’s ribs.
On her feet, she realized Donny was holding her because Joe and Kenneth were peeling Egypt off the floor.
“Fuck you and this family, you rotten bitch! There’s nothing in heaven, hell, or on Earth that would ever make me jealous of you. Want to know why? Because before you had your man, I did. Me, the sixteen-year-old mutt with good hair and a fat ass. That grown-ass man was messing with my mind and selling me promises of marriage so he could secretly fuck me in his office at daddy’s church. That’s your prize?! You can have him! I’d rather die alone and in a piss-soaked cardboard box than to call that man my husband or let him father my children. If any of you had half of a functioning brain cell, you would have questioned why he insisted on seeing me privately and so often, and you would have gotten an abortion like I did.” She turned to leave and spun back around three steps later, “If I wasn’t clear before, fuck you, your mother, and everything you love.”
She pushed out the door and into the rain, thinking nothing of her light purple dress, drenched to her underwear before she reached Donny’s truck. He pressed the button to unlock it while trying to catch up to her. Eden was already inside when he climbed into the driver’s seat. He learned to put her purse on the seat behind her and kept his hand on its back. She felt him looking at her and saw it like her soul was outside of her body.
“My question is stupid because I know you’re not ok, but baby, I need you to say something.”
There were no words to express what she felt. Nothing she could say would assure him that she was ok because she wasn’t. Lifting, Eden climbed over the center console. She rushed Donny with what was more of a mashing of teeth than a kiss. She nipped and sucked everything she could get to while trying to free him from his jeans.
“Eden,” he wasn’t trying to stop her, but he wasn’t helping her undress him either. His hand rested on her hips, and she managed to get his pants open. Straddling him, she pulled her panties to the side. “Baby, wait—”
She came down on him slowly, drowning out his plea. When he tried again, she kissed him, working her hips fast and rough. He was so hard it hurt. The head of his penis slammed against her cervix, and it was her own doing. Each time she came down, she moved harder and harder, needing the pain and needing to feel it somewhere other than her heart.
Donny’s fingers dug into her hips. She felt him trying to pull her off him, but she locked in, switching up to full circles as she grabbed his hands and interlocked their fingers.
“I’m close,” he growled into her neck, but she kept going.
Lies.
Truth.
Exposure.
Each propelled her forward, kept her bouncing in his lap as he let his head fall back, and he groaned so loudly Eden felt the sound vibrate within her. Donny recovered slowly, swearing under his breath. Raising his head and opening his eyes, they were nose to nose. The dam broke. The sky fell. The rain poured. She choked on a sob and burst into tears. Her head fell to his shoulder, and while she wailed into his neck, he wrapped her in his arms.
TWENTY-NINE
Donny never truly considered Eden’s strength until it was gone.
The woman who’d found her own way through childhood and teenage trauma could barely get out of bed. She didn’t speak and spent mos
t of her time sleeping. The one time he got her to sit at the table with him, she did so with tears in her eyes and never touched her food. Thinking she’d eat in her own time, Donny left her meals on the nightstand. When he returned, they were untouched.
Everyone was so sure they’d see the old Eden sooner than later. He wasn’t. In the two weeks since the fallout, there were noticeable physical changes. Her eyes were puffy and red, with dark shadows beneath them. Her cheeks lacked color, and her shirts were looser. His parents told him not to worry too much, but it was too late.
Since that day, Eden hadn’t cried in front of him. After her visitors left, he could tell she was fighting it. She was still trying to be strong, still internalizing her pain. He knew depression when he saw it and could only take but so much before feeling like he needed to do something.
Throughout his phone conference with his staff, Donny leaned back on his sofa, watching the bedroom door with a million thoughts and ideas distracting him. As soon as the meeting ended, he made the necessary calls and headed out. She would smile again. He wouldn’t give up until she did.
Eden opened her eyes as the door closed. She heard Donny moving along the other side of the bed then felt him behind her. It was the first time he’d done that in weeks. The first time his touch was meant for something other than to nurse her. The voice once silenced by his efforts screamed that the reason was her fault. He knew another secret, now. Thanks to her sister, she lost her grip and showed him the last card in her fucked up hand.
Sister. Not adopted, but half. Blood connected them. Not a piece of paper. Blood, lies, and bitterness. The few times she bothered to look in the mirror, she saw similarities she’d never noticed before. She didn’t have Daryl’s brown skin, but from the side, her nose was his. So were her full lips. She felt stupid. She felt hatred swelling the longer she looked at her skin and dared to touch her hair. More than she wanted to slap fire out of Egypt again, Eden wanted to see something other than her reflection. Dragging herself back to bed and avoiding the mirror helped with that but not with Donny.
His front covered her back. His hand caressed her shoulder and slid into her hair. The lump forming in her throat made it hard to swallow when he pulled her hair back and kissed her neck.
“Can I see your face, hermosa?”
She hesitated, turning reluctantly. He laid his head on her pillow, returning one hand to her hip.
“Thank you.”
“For?” Her voice cracked.
“Making my day.”
If she had the energy, she would have laughed. “I look like the shit of shit.”
“You look like my smart mouth, soft ass, hermosa to me.”
“I’m not her anymore, Donovan.”
“Then, who are you?”
Again, she hesitated, feeling that familiar sting. “I thought I was an unloved adoptee. That I had parents out there who gave me up because they wanted the best for me. Now I know I’m a mistake. My father was a part of my life all along and never loved me.” She vowed never to cry in front of him ever again. To shut off her emotions and never speak on them. The power that was the man currently holding her knew how to work the switch. All he did was catch a tear with his thumb, and she was bawling. “I always wondered why he never spoke up when Sandra and Egypt were cruel to me and why he let them treat me like that. I don’t understand. I didn’t choose to be his. I didn’t choose them. Why did he let that happen to me? How could they hate me?”
Donny pulled her to him, placing her head against his chest. “I hate that I can’t answer these questions for you and that I can’t take this pain away, but I can listen. Whatever you need to say or do, I’ll be here for you.”
“Even after what I did?”
“You’re talking about how you beat the shit out of your sister? If so, hell yes. You took her to the moon with that first slap. Everything she eats from now on will probably taste like styrofoam. Turned me on.”
She almost smiled. “No, I mean the abortion.”
He grew quiet again, but his hand continued moving along her back. “Why didn’t you tell me about that before?”
“Embarrassment. Shame. I endured so much agony living in that house. No pain will ever compare to what I felt when I left that clinic without the little life I walked in with. I felt stupid and angry. No child deserves a mother like me.” She paused to regain her composure and found herself crying again. “Every time I looked at myself, I wondered if my baby would have my eyes or his, my lips, or his smile. I knew I wouldn’t have been a good mom. I ran away from my life and emptied my womb, vowing to be alone so no one could hurt me ever again. Then, there was you.”
“I punched a hole through your plans like you punched the shit out of your sister.”
Finally, she laughed, sniffling through her answer. “Yeah, you did.”
“You know why?” She propped herself up on her elbow. He placed her right hand over his heart. “You feel that? You did that to me the first time I saw you and then again every time after.” He laced their fingers, “We’re two misshapen pieces of a puzzle that fit each other perfectly. I fell in love with you. I love you.”
Eden closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Her mouth opened and closed. She nodded slowly. New tears raced to her chin. “I–I’m–” she breathed in and out once more, opening her eyes, “I–”
“I know,” he pulled her to him for a kiss. “You’ll tell me when you’re ready. I know a way you could show me now.” He beamed at her apparent confusion. “Put something on and meet me in the living room.”
One more kiss and he left her. She dropped her head, upset with her inability to tell him that he filled her with hope and so much light. He deserved to hear it and so much more.
The dragged the entire time she dressed in a pair of his basketball shorts and one of her plain white t-shirts. She pulled her hair into a messy bun and left her haven. Donny was standing in front of the sofa. On both end tables was a vase of red roses. Within each bouquet, pure white feathers and strings of pearls. Above them were bunches of balloons. She could smell the spiciness of her favorite Caribbean dish through the takeaway containers. The cake next to it had one fancy candle on it. Donny held out a hand to her, and as she took it, she noticed what was on the TV screen.
Each household was together, kids included. In the first recorded clip, Hae and Fredo had the same setup with a cake, decorations, and one lit candle. Their birthday wishes touched her to the point of needing to sit. Naturally, they argued, laughed, and then kissed like nothing happened. Julie and Anthony were next. As Julie signed, Anthony sang the entire birthday song. In the end, he went off-script with eager details about a new game he wanted to teach her and Kya to play. Eden noticed Jermaine in the background with them and shot Donny a surprised look. He shrugged but said nothing.
Javier and Elia were with Chris, Rina, and Cj. Kya’s family came after Chace. Unlike everyone else, his background was a set, but he had a cupcake and one candle, too. Since they weren’t there, it made sense to light one candle for her. Or so she thought. While Antonio held Amara, who was determined to get the cake from her mother’s hands, Kya answered most of the unspoken questions.
“We wanted to celebrate with you, but we didn’t want to keep smothering you.”
“Like they have been,” Antonio added, and Kya bumped his shoulder.
“Don’t act like you weren’t asking a million questions when I got home. Edy, he was so worried I had to console him while we cuddled.”
“I was trying to get a piece, and she fell for it.”
“Liar.”
“Snitch.”
“Anyway,” she bumped him again, “Happy birthday, Edy. We’re all wishing you many more years filled with everything your heart desires. No matter what happens and where we end up, you will always have us.”
Antonio laughed as Amara slyly pulled herself up to stand on his lap and grabbed a handful of cake. After trying to put some in her mouth, she reached over in an attempt to
feed Kya. They told Amara to say bye. She opened and closed the same hand, then went back to trying to eat the frosting on it.
As the screen reverted to the first clip, Eden continued to stare at it. When she awakened, she had no intention of celebrating her birthday. Now knowing her truth, she wasn’t going to acknowledge it ever again. This family prompted a change of heart.
“Was this your idea?” She asked meekly. “It was. I know it was.”
“I can’t go too long without that smile. Besides, it’s not just your birthday. On this day, three years ago, I saw you for the first time in an ugly bridesmaid dress. It was the best day of my life.”
She hugged him, not knowing what else to do to prove that she wasn’t dreaming. Pulling back, she had to ask. “What’s up with the one candle? No one wanted to make me feel bad about aging?”
“No, my dad thought we should celebrate your first official year as a member of this family. Chace suggested everyone get one candle. You know, when he’s not risking his life eyeing Kya, he’s not all that bad.”
“I’m glad you think so. I’m sure he eyes Antonio, too. Can we video call them now? I’m a mess, but I’d like to thank everyone.”
“I can make that happen.”
“Ok. I’ll just go change.”
Swapping his shorts for a pair of her own and a better shirt felt like the best she could do. Although she wanted this moment with them, merely existing right now was still hard. She’d try to smile genuinely, but she wouldn’t pretend. Not anymore. At the last second, she decided to make her bun a little neater. While retrieving her comb from her purse, she saw the envelope Sam gave her. Suddenly, his words felt like a warning.
Eden held the envelope and looked toward the door. Out there, she’d find people who cared. In her hands, something from a man who never did. Forever a glutton for punishment, she opened it, surprised to see the letter was handwritten. She licked her dry lips, sitting down slowly.
Eden,
