Cabin Fever

by Shani Greene-Dowdell et al.

  “What? What are you talking about, Xander?”

  “Mom. You killed her.”

  He gasped loudly. The last thing he expected was for me to talk about my mother. She had been a taboo topic in his house. It was time for that to change. I needed answers.

  “I— didn’t mean to do it.”

  “But you did. You took her from me.”

  “Xander, now hold on a second. It’s not what you think.”

  “She deserved better than that, and so did I.”

  “I will admit that your mother deserved more than me. She did. I was a junkie who yelled at her, mistreated her, and was not a good head of his family. I spent money that should have been used to put food on the table to pay for my habit. I made seventy thousand dollars a year and smoked half of it. I was a bomb, a grifter, a selfish asshole, but…” A sob left my father’s mouth, almost as if it escaped without him knowing it. He sucked it back in as he said, “I am not a killer.”

  “The night she died, I came into the room and saw you standing over her. I heard you hit her. You had to have done it.” I knew my mind hadn’t played tricks on me. I knew what I saw.

  “Xander, you were a little boy, only four years old.”

  “That doesn’t matter. I know what happened, and I have dreamed about it for years.”

  “Can I sit down?” he asked, visibly shaken.

  “Have a seat,” I pointed to the couch in the living room.

  His tall, slender frame slid down into the seat, and he stared at the blank screen on the TV. “That night, I had been out scoring some meth. When I got home, your mother was upset about me taking the money she had put aside for the light bill. When I came into the room and started rolling a bowl, she screamed at me. ‘Riley, no! What are you doing? Please, why are you doing this?’

  I yelled at her, ‘Shut your loud mouth, Cici. You’re always nagging me, and if you wake my son up, I’m going to whip your ass until it bleeds!’ I was rough with your mother at times, but that night I was ready to get high and wanted to get her off my back. I didn’t touch her.

  “She said she was sick of me threatening her. Then, she smacked me on the back of my head. When I stood up to confront her, she started backing away from me. I mimicked her as I walked away from her and back to the bed. Then, she started running toward me and pushed me in the back. We both fell, but I landed on the bed, and she landed on the floor, having struck her head on the sharp edge of the nightstand on her way down.”

  By the time my father finished telling what happened that night, his weathered face was wet with tears. “I hit your mother more than I should, but I never touched her that night.” He started to sob, and I could see in his eyes that he remembered the many times he mistreated her.

  But his account of things didn’t match up to what I thought happened that fateful night. “Dad, when I came into the room, you apologized and told me that you lost control. I thought you struck her and made her fall because of what you said.”

  “I said that because I knew I was responsible for her death, even if I didn’t do anything to hurt her physically. Your mother was struggling to keep our house afloat, and I selfishly took the light bill money to smoke it up. If I wasn’t so damn stoned back then, I could have appreciated what she was trying to do for our family. She was a good woman, and if I weren’t an addict, she would still be here.”

  More sobs raked through my father, so I walked over and reached a hand out to him. When he stood, we embraced.

  “All this time, I thought you pushed her down.”

  “I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I had done that. The only thing that gets me through is knowing that her death was an accident. I hold myself responsible for enough already.”

  “I’m glad we had this talk.”

  “Me too. I didn’t know you had these thoughts about me all this time. I should have talked to you sooner, but I guess, I just thought you were too young to remember.”

  “No, I remember a lot from when we lived in the trailer. You used to hit her all the time, but I never would let myself believe that you killed her. Recently, I had a flashback of everything that was said that night. It came to me in a dream,” I admitted.

  “Dreams…” my father said sullenly. “They are relentless.”

  “I guess we have that in common. The things I remembered from that night hurt me so bad. I was upset with you. So upset that I couldn’t put it in words.”

  “As you should be, son. My drug addiction ruined our family.”

  “Yes, it did,” I agreed. And right then, I decided I wouldn’t let alcohol addiction ever be a part of my norm again. I had used alcohol to soothe the pain that was brought on by my father’s drug addiction—what a vicious cycle.

  Someone started tapping lightly on the front door. I was expecting Jayne, so I went to open the door for her.

  “Hey, baby,” I greeted.

  Jayne pecked me on the cheek and walked inside. “This weather is so crazy. It’s January, and one minute it’s cold and the next I’m stripping out of my clothes. I don’t know what to wear. I left home in these pants with thermals underneath, but by the time I got off work, I had taken the thermals off,” she said as she walked into the living room. “Oh, hey.” She stopped when she saw my father and looked back at me.

  “Jayne, this is my father. Dad, this is Jayne, my girlfriend.”

  For the first time since he arrived, a bright smile spread across my father’s face. “Nice to meet you, Jayne,” he said and stared at her as if he couldn’t look away if he wanted to. I was sure he was admiring her resemblance to my mother.

  “Nice to meet you too, Mr. Macon.”

  “Call me, Riley.”

  “Oh, okay, Riley.” Jayne smiled.

  “Well, I was just leaving.” My father winked at me with that big smile still plastered across his face. “I like her. She’s beautiful,” he said as he walked past me. “Maybe we can talk more about you coming back to the company?”

  I went to stand beside Jayne. “Maybe so, Dad.”

  “Good enough for me,” my father said. “Great meeting you, Jayne. I hope to see more of you.”

  “Same here, Riley.”

  He walked out the door, looking happy. After the heavy conversation we had, we both needed the most beautiful girl in Lafayette to brighten up our day.

  “Xander, would you like to talk about it?” she asked, knowing I had been anticipating this talk with my father.

  “Yes.” I explained to Jayne what my father revealed to me and how some of the events I thought happened that night were skewed. My memory was that of someone who wasn’t in the room when the accident occurred. I pieced what happened together based on what I knew about my father. “If you had seen the look on his face, you would have believed him too. He admitted his faults over the way he treated her, but the night she died was an accident.”

  “Xander, your father’s character is what made you see him in that negative light. Because you saw him mistreat your mother multiple times, it was easy for you to conclude that night wasn’t any different.”

  “I’m just relieved to know that he didn’t hurt her. It’s been hell living with a secret that my father caused my mother’s death. Now that I believe he didn’t intentionally harm her, I can move forward.”

  “That’s all you can do, Xander. Move forward.”

  Jayne sat on the sofa and directed me to sit with her. She wrapped her arms around my waist, quieting the storm brewing inside of me. She made me feel closer to the first woman to protect me. She inspired me to fix myself. She showed me that I was more than the life of the party. I was a party to my own life. And passion. She made me feel the deepest passion a man can feel. I was never letting Jayne go, not even if she tried to leave me, kicking and screaming.

  Chapter 8

  Jayne

  What’s Cooking?

  Saturday morning, I awakened with Xander’s leg wrapped around mine. He was possessively holding me in place in bed.
I couldn't move. I laid there trapped by a man who I was sure pulled my soul out of my body through my vagina last night. I needed to send an SOS to Alise, Tamika, Kemara—somebody—to let them know, if my soul was snatched, Xander was the culprit.

  Now, he held my body in place underneath his as if he were going to snatch it next. Nudging him, I said, “Xander, I have to go to the bathroom.”

  He moved his leg, releasing me. “Hurry back. I need you right here so I can finish sleeping.”

  Ha, I chuckled. I was not getting back in that bed today. If the past few weeks taught me anything, it taught me that Xander saying we were going to sleep was a big, fat lie. When I walk out of the bathroom, he was sitting up in bed, casting spells on me with his eyes.

  “Come back to bed, Jayne. It’s too early to wake up.”

  “No, we’re going to visit my mother today.” I went over to his dresser to get my bag. I pulled out my toiletries and put them on the dresser.

  “That’s right. We are going to see your mom.” He came over to stand behind me, towering over me. “I just wanted to see if I could get a little more of that body heat before we left. You know being next to you helps me sleep.”

  “Xander, it’s already ten o’clock.”

  “We have plenty of time.” He dragged me by the hand to the bed. Standing beside it, he began sprinkling my face with soft kisses. Trailing those kisses down to my neck, he moaned as he hugged me close. Xander pulled back to smile at me, and his doorbell rang.

  Xander, wearing only lounger pants, went to answer it, while I slipped on a t-shirt and some pants.

  “Hey, man. Not a good time,” I heard him say.

  “Make it a good time, Xan. I brought the wife with me.”

  “Oh, hey, Alise. I didn’t see you behind the big guy,” Xander said as I entered the living room.

  Alise hugged me. “Hey, girl. You look beautiful.”

  “Thanks. I’ve wanted to call you so we could hook up for lunch before now, but I’ve been a little busy.” I glanced at Xander.

  “I know you have. That’s why me and Bruiser came over to see you. We figured bum-rushing you guys would be the best way to catch up with you.”

  I looked at Xander, and what we were doing before they arrived was written all over his face, so I knew it was on mine too.

  “We’re glad you stopped by,” I said, walking over to stand by Xander. “We were—”

  “Just about to get ready to go visit Jayne’s mother,” he finished my sentence.

  “You’re going to meet her mother?” Alise asked him then turned to me. “You’re taking him to meet Momma Joe?”

  “Yes, why is that a problem?”

  “No, it’s just that you don’t take anyone to meet your mother.”

  She was right. I hadn’t taken anyone home to meet my mother since Ned. I don’t do the revolving door thing. When I take someone to meet my mother, she could depend on them being around for a while. Lord knew I tried to make it work with Ned, but that was a mistake. Looking at Xander, I prayed he would live up to everything I thought he was—dedicated, faithful, and worthy of meeting my mother.

  “She’s right. I don’t take just anyone to meet my mother. There have only been a select few,” I said to Xander.

  “Right, Xander. I wouldn’t have set you up with my friend if I didn’t think you were the best of the best. I saw the changes in you when you two started hanging out. I’m just surprised to see how well everything turned out,” Alise said, looking at us as if we were a class project, and she’d gotten an A-plus.

  “About that setup. Thank you,” I said, walking over to hug my pregnant friend again. She had just given me the news about her pregnancy after Xander, and I came back from Pine Mountains.

  “You are so welcome. I just want you to be happy.”

  I nodded. “I am. And I can’t wait to throw you the biggest baby shower. It’s going to be off the chain, friend.”

  “Jayne, girl, we have so much to plan—the wedding, the baby shower, our lives!”

  “Hey, hold on. I just got her, and you’re trying to take her away from me. When will you have time to do all of that?” Xander sent a curious glance in Alise’s direction then cut his eyes at me. “I have to have you with me like ninety percent of the time when you're not at work.”

  Bruiser spoke up. “Xan, you need a job so you can give the lady a break. Come by and see me in the morning so I can talk to you about some gigs I have coming up.”

  “Nah, I’m not interested in being Dimir’s do-boy. I’m going back to work with my father.”

  “Really,” I asked. That was news to me.

  “Yes, I’ve been thinking about it, but the thought of being Dimir’s do-boy sped my decision along. I don’t like sales, but my father and I are going to find something that fits my personality, maybe marketing since I have a knack for making people enjoy themselves. I could add some pop to marketing.”

  Bruiser shook his head. “You’re always so extra.”

  “That’s what I told him,” I said.

  “Come on now. Alise, am I extra?”

  “Just a little,” she said, and we all burst into laughter.

  An hour later, our friends were gone, and Xander and I were dressed to go see my mother. She lived in a white cottage style home. It was small, but a neatly kept heir property she got from my grandparents.

  Xander got out, rushed around to the passenger side, and opened my door for me. “You ready?” he asked as he helped me out of the car.

  “Yes. Are you?”

  “I am.”

  “Good, she’s going to love you.”

  My mother opened the door before we made it to the steps. “Is that my Jaynie?”

  I ran into her arms and embraced her. “It’s me, Mama.”

  Once we broke from the hug, she started in on me. “Jayne Alexander, we live in the same damn city, and you won’t come and see me. You would think I was away in a nursing home in New Jersey the way you treat me. And, I just gave up on trying to come by to see you. You are never at home.” By the time she finished her rant, she was wagging her finger at me.

  “Mama, that’s not true. I came over here last month.”

  “Last month! Girl, you are my only child. I could be cold in my bed in a month. You should drop by here every day to make sure I’m okay.”

  With the passionate way my mother was fussing at me, I was sure that she was okay. She only wanted to see me more, and I couldn’t be mad at her for that.

  “You’re right, Mama. I’ll come by more.”

  “You better. Now, who is this that you have with you?”

  “This is my boyfriend, Xander.”

  “Well, well, well. Are you the reason I can’t get my daughter to stop by and see me?” Mama asked.

  I palmed my forehead. This was not the way I envisioned this going. “Mama…”

  “It’s a fair question, Jayne.” Xander stepped up and addressed my mother. “Mrs. Alexander, I might have something to do with Jayne’s schedule over the past month. We’ve been busy.” He glanced at me. “But I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll make sure she visits you more often.”

  “Deal, but what do you want in exchange for that kind offer?”

  “Just your blessing to be with her.”

  “Oh, from the looks on your faces, you’re happy together. And that’s all I want for my daughter.” My mother turned to me and whispered, “I like him. Much better than that Ned character. I can tell you that much right now.”

  “I like him a lot, too.” I winked at Xander, whose smile was as big as a crescent moon.

  “I like both of you,” Xander whispered in my ear as we entered the house.

  After that grilling on the front steps, my mother invited us into her kitchen for what looked to be a Thanksgiving spread. “Come on in. I cooked a little something.”

  “Wow, Mama! You didn’t have to do all of this.”

  And she wondered why I didn’t come by more often. Well, for one, I w
ould be fifty pounds heavier. How she managed to keep her small size and cook all of this food every day was a mystery. She couldn’t be eating what she cooked. If I came over every day, I would definitely eat more than one helping of it.

  “I knew you were coming with an appetite, so I just cooked up a little something.”

  We sat around my mother’s table and talked for hours. My mother asked Xander a lot of questions about his family, his work, and what he liked about me. Satisfied with his answers, she said, “You two are going to be alright. You just have to always be honest with each other. No secrets. Share your fears. Discuss them. Overcome them. And daughter, it is your job to make him feel safe enough to share his burdens with you. Xander, it is your job to protect her.”

  “I’m on the job,” Xander said, smiling at my mother. When he looked at me, my heart fluttered from the intensity in his eyes. “I will always protect her. And I know about what happened in the past, but I want you to know that I will always put her first. So if you’re worried about me being like anyone from her past, let me put that to bed right now.”

  “Time will tell,” she said simply.

  “It will. I’m going to show you. I will treat your daughter with love and respect. That’s the easy part. What will be hard is convincing her to marry me and start our family.”

  Oh, that won’t be hard at all, baby, I thought. I didn’t even want to think about how wide the blush was on my face. If it was anything like my mother’s, we were both smitten over Xander.

  I was cautiously optimistic about our future. I planned to take it one day at a time. I didn’t want to rush things. When he was ready for me to be his wife, and I was ready to accept his proposal, we would start planning for our future.

  “I don’t think it’s going to be as hard as you think,” my mother said before scooping a bite of her sweet potatoes into her mouth.

  “Mrs. Alexander, the sweet potatoes are delicious,” he said.

  My mother smiled and patted herself on the back. “They’re the best in Lafayette.”

  Showoff.

  After today, I would have to keep my mother and Xander separated. The way he tore into her sweet potatoes would have him requesting that I cook some soon. For Xander, I’d don an apron and take lessons from my mother. They both would love that.