It was from the day Anson and she were at lunch and he got an emergency call to one of the construction sites. She went along for the ride, and one of the workers thought the sight of her—in a construction hat that dwarfed her head while dressed in a full satin skirt, T-shirt, and heels and riding on Anson’s back—was photo worthy. She agreed and had him forward the photo to her phone, which she later printed off.
She smiled sadly. We will have these fun times again. Question is when?
Car lights flashed into her room and Mona looked out her bedroom window to see Anson’s BMW just as it stopped in front of her house. Her heart pounded as she raced from the room and across the living room to peek out the curtains.
His car was now double-parked in front of her home. Shielded by darkness, she looked on as he climbed from the car and then leaned against it as he gazed thoughtfully at her house.
Mona froze. What’s he doing? Is he going to knock? Why is he standing there?
She caught her breath as he pushed up off the car where he had been leaning and walked down the drive. Her pulse was racing and she felt lightheaded. Every bit of anger she had about his date earlier was fading fast as she became hopeful that he would be returning to her life.
Finally.
He stopped. Beneath the yard light she could see the struggle in his face.
“Still, Anson? Really? You’re still conflicted?” she whispered.
Mona moved to the door and reached for the handle, feeling the cool metal in her hand. She didn’t turn it. She refused to beg him. He had to come on his own. He had to set things straight.
With a swoop in her shoulders she released the handle and stepped back from the door. She moved back over to the window. Disappointment slumped her shoulders lower. He was gone.
One week later
Anson picked up the floral wedding bouquet from where it hung off the corner of his drafting table. After he and Mona had argued and he dropped her off at home, she left it behind. When he found it on the floor of his car the next morning, he hadn’t had the urge to throw it away nor the courage to return it to her.
For him it was a reminder of the day they were their happiest and their saddest. He smiled, remembering the look on her face after she’d caught it at the reception.
“I wonder if this many people will come to our wedding. . . . I meant, you know, if we work it out and if . . . you know, if we . . . if we get married.”
“What’s up, bro?”
Anson looked over his shoulder to find his brother standing in the doorway.
“I really need to get that key back from you,” Anson joked.
“No haps,” Hunter said, walking into the office to claim a seat on the lone sofa. “And why do you have that?”
Anson shrugged and hung the bouquet by the wide white ribbon back on the edge of the table. It swung and hit the leg, and several dried leaves and roses dropped off to land on the floor. “Just a reminder of what was,” he said.
“You mean of what could have been . . . with Mona,” Hunter added.
Anson glanced at his brother before rising to grab two beers from the small fridge near his desk. He tossed one to his brother. “I don’t want to talk about her,” he said, the sound of him opening the beer echoing in the air.
Hunter held his beer, but did not drink as he looked down at the unopened can. “Do you ever think about them?” he asked.
Anson took a deep sip of the ice cold beer. The serious tone of Hunter’s voice was a clear clue of whom he spoke. “No,” he lied, hating that familiar ache at the mere mention or thought of their parents.
“Well, I do.”
Anson dropped down on the opposite end of the sofa. “And what do you think?” he asked, letting his brother’s desire to dwell in the past outweigh his desire to leave it be. It was the very last conversation he wanted to have at the moment.
“That we’re lucky they didn’t really mess us up,” Hunter said, setting the beer can on the floor by his foot. “There’s a lot worse things we could turn out to be than commitment-phobes.”
Anson looked pensive.
“I’m greedy about women. I see—and want—them all,” Hunter admitted with a charming grin.
Anson gave him a half smile.
“And you are loyal to one at a time, but you find a way to keep them from getting too close.”
Anson’s smile disappeared. “And we’re back to Mona, huh?” he asked, his voice dry.
“You don’t think it’s odd that you were engaged to a woman you admit you weren’t in love with, but the one woman who made you happier than you have ever been is the one you end up running away from?” Hunter asked.
“Who said I loved Mona?”
“Are you saying you don’t?”
Anson looked down at his can of beer. No other woman had ever been close to piercing the barrier he put around his heart. “So I’m wrong to want to make sure she loves me for me and not just because of some stupid vision?” he asked, confused by the tightness in his throat as he spoke his fear.
“But wasn’t she feeling you before the vision?” Hunter asked. “Didn’t the vision cause conflict in her because she wanted you?”
“But she admitted that if she believed the vision had continued to mean that she would be with you, then she would have left me alone,” he said, swallowing over a lump in his throat.
“And you don’t want that to happen again?” Hunter said in a low voice that Anson barely heard. “Do you?”
Anson looked confused. “What are you talking about?”
Hunter just locked eyes with him and said nothing.
The silence was profound.
“Look, Hunter, I’m not in the mood for amateur psychiatry,” he said.
“They were our parents and they chose drugs over us,” Hunter said. “They left us a long time before the state took us.”
Anson closed his eyes at the memory of walking in on their mother getting high. He shook his head to clear it. He took a breath to free the pain that rose in a rush. “Leave that shit off, man,” he said, rising to reclaim his seat at his drafting table.
“I think we’ve left it off for too long,” Hunter said, rising to his feet.
“Enough, Hunter,” Anson said, his voice sharp and tight with anger as he snapped the drawing pencil he held in his hand.
“You can’t let what they did mess you up so bad that you’re afraid—”
Anson turned in the chair and jumped to his feet to snatch at the front of Hunter’s shirt. “Enough!” he roared.
Hunter locked eyes with him. “No. I love you and I appreciate you giving up so much to raise me because they wasn’t shit, Anson. But I’m all grown, and the truth is the truth and I can speak it if I want.”
Anson released his shirt and smoothed the wrinkles he’d created with his hand. Hunter swiped his hand away and pulled his brother close to embrace him. “I love you, bro,” he said.
Anson lifted his arm to break the hold.
Hunter held him tighter. “That shit was about them, not you. Not me. Them. They didn’t know how to love, but it doesn’t mean that we don’t deserve to be loved, bro.”
Anson bit his bottom lip hard as myriad emotions flooded him while locked in his brother’s embrace. He held his body stiff and shook his head as he fought to remain stoic.
It was hard. It was hard as hell.
Every child deserved to be loved and to feel that he was loved. He didn’t get that growing up. Not at all.
His parents made him feel like he was a hindrance to their drug activity, and his various foster care mothers had made him feel like he was just in their lives for a check. He couldn’t remember once being held. Not once being told he was worthy. Not once feeling loved. Not once.
Pain, anger, disappointment, grief, and frustration punched him in the gut and then radiated out across his body. Was he wrong to protect himself from the pain of rejection all over again? He felt the tears well up, but he swallowed them back as he finall
y twisted free of his brother’s embrace. He closed his eyes as he sought and found control.
“Mona loves you. Mona wants you. And Mona is the one you should be with,” Hunter said.
Anson shook his head. “I just want to be loved for me and no other reason,” he said with conviction, revealing it all to his brother. “And I’m not sure that’s the case with Mona. And until then? No, I won’t risk my heart if she’s decided to be with me based on superstitions and such. I can’t.”
Hunter reached out his fist to his brother for a dap. “Then I respect how you feel, big brother. I got your back. Always.”
With a smile that was more sad than happy, Anson dapped his brother.
Mona strolled out on to the porch of her little cottage before she called her sister.
“Hey there.”
Mona laughed at her sister imitating their aunts. “Well, hey there to you, Shara,” she said. “Did I wake you?”
“No, I’ve been up. It’s a little after ten here in Australia.”
“Good, good,” she said, her eyes shifting up to look at the towering pine trees surrounding her little house. The early July southern heat was thick and pressing even at night.
“Sooo . . . any sign of Anson yet?” Shara asked.
“Not yet,” Mona said lightly, pulling her foot up onto the swing. “But I was thinking maybe I should be inspired by my baby sister and see some of the world before I settle down. . . .”
“And avoid seeing Anson?” Shara asked gently.
Mona rested the side of her face against her knees. “That too,” she admitted softly, with a small smile.
“My hotel suite is big enough for two,” Shara said.
“That’s just what I wanted to hear.”
Millie and Winnie sat on the swing under the huge oak tree, each with a pot on her lap. One peeled potatoes and the other shucked corn for the night’s dinner.
Millie paused with her knife in the air as she closed her eyes briefly. When she looked over to her sister, she saw Winnie was doing the same. “So we gon’ have some company soon, hey?” she asked with a side-eye look to her sister.
“Looks that way, sis. Looks that way,” Winnie agreed with a wink.
The twins went on swinging, humming, peeling, and shucking.
Chapter 15
Mona sat on the covered balcony of their hotel suite in Perth and looked out at the rain pouring down on the large city. “No harm, sis,” she called over her shoulder. “But this looks like Detroit to me.”
Shara laughed as she stepped out onto the balcony and handed her a glass of champagne. “Well, I’m sorry you didn’t join my expedition when I was in the Outback. There are no koalas in the city.”
Mona accepted the drink and took a sip. “Who knew it was the middle of winter in Australia?” she said. “You could have told me. All of those bikinis and summer clothes are a waste.”
“I’m glad you’re here even if you’re not,” Shara said.
Mona felt bad. “I’m sorry, RaRa. I bombarded your trip and now I’m whining just one day in,” she said, reaching over to playfully tweak her sister’s nose.
The sisters fell into a comfortable silence as they listened to the rain beat against the building.
“You’ve been seeing the world since Daddy died,” Mona began. “When are you going to settle back down again?”
Shara shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I’ll be like Forrest Gump, who kept running ’til he just didn’t want to run anymore.”
“Are you running?” Mona asked, looking over at her above the rim of the glass.
Shara shook her head. “I’m just having fun. Daddy left us a good bit of money and I just decided to spend it doing what I want most in the world. Am I wrong for that?”
Mona shook her head. “No. I put a big chunk of it into moving my business back home. So, no, it’s yours to do as you see fit,” she said with honesty.
“Well, Reeba thinks I’m wasting it.”
“Sometimes I think Reeba disagrees for the sake of—”
“Disagreeing,” they said in unison before touching glasses in a toast.
“She needs to get some,” Shara said.
“She ain’t the only one,” Mona said into her glass before she took another sip.
Shara made a mocking sad face. “Well, I’m getting enough for you both. While I’m seeing the world I am seeing all of the world,” she said.
Mona looked shocked. “Don’t wear it out, girl.”
“And if y’all don’t use it you’ll dry it out,” she countered.
Mona looked off at the skyline. “Anson and I had the best sex ever,” she said, releasing a breath that she wished released some of the pressure built up in her. “It was just like amazing on a whole ’nother level. You know?”
Shara raised her glass in a toast. “To great sex,” she said.
“But it was more than that,” Mona said, feeling a shimmy of electricity chase over her body at the memory of what she shared with him. “I don’t know how I could ever think that he wasn’t the one for me. I didn’t need a vision to know that. It was already in my heart and my soul.”
“Isn’t that what you told me he wanted to hear?” Shara asked. “Is that what Anson wanted you to say?”
Mona looked over at her. “Huh?”
Shara rolled her eyes. “You have to respect that he doesn’t believe in our gift. And you know what? To me that’s cool. He can’t see what you see, and he wasn’t brought up and spoon fed to understand the way it goes, Mona,” she said.
“But I am the one patiently waiting—”
“For him to come around to your point of view,” Shara interrupted with ease.
“So what was I supposed to do?” Mona asked, feeling her annoyance rise. “He ended it. Should I chase him?”
“No, but just a little fight for your love wouldn’t hurt either.”
Mona waved her empty glass in the air.
Shara playfully snatched it from her as she rose to walk back inside their luxury suite to refill it. “Have you ever told him you love him?”
“No,” Mona begrudgingly admitted, taking the glass offered.
“Hmph.”
Mona took a sip. A deep one.
“This ain’t all on Anson, and maybe a part of your fate is fighting for your man instead of sitting around on your ass waiting for him to see it your way,” Shara said. “There are two sides to a street for a reason, sis.”
Mona eyed her sister as the rain continued to pour. “When you’d get to be so smart?” she asked.
Shara pretended to smoke a cigarette and flicked the imaginary ashes. “I’ve seen the world, darling. I’ve lived,” she said in a false haughty tone.
Mona playfully rolled her eyes and they laughed.
Anson used his hand to wipe some of the sweat that soaked the neck of his tee as he and Hunter walked up Bourbon Street in the heart of the historic French Quarter in New Orleans. “I don’t know how I let you talk me into this,” he said.
“The Essence Music Festival is just what you need,” Hunter said, turning to look at a bevy of big-boned beauties stroll by them. “Good food. Good music. Good people. Damn good time.”
“If you say so,” Anson grumbled, reaching in his pocket for his cell phone.
“She ain’t called you, man. Put that phone up,” Hunter said, taking it from him to power off. “Let’s soak up the sights, eat some good food, and then rest up for the concert tonight.”
Anson gave Hunter a long stare and held out his hand without saying a word.
Hunter wordlessly slid the phone back into his brother’s hand.
They continued along the street infamous for its all-night partying. The area was flooded with people, so they had to bob and weave and twist their bodies to make their way down the street. The brothers laughed at some of the drunken high jinks as they went in and out of clubs and burlesque shows, intent on soaking up the scenery.
“Palm reads for five dollars.”
She grabbed his elbow.
Anson turned to stare down at her.
“Your happiness lies with the woman still waiting on you,” she said.
Anson’s heart pounded and he felt like everything around him went still for a second. Shaking himself free of the fugue created by her cryptic message, he stepped back from her. “No, thank you,” he said again, even as his heart continued to pound.
Hunter reached in his wallet and pulled out a crisp twenty-dollar bill to hand to her. She snatched it quicker than a swift pickpocket and licked at her thin lips as she glanced up at him with eyes as silver as her hair.
“You know she’s right,” he said to his brother.
“She could have guessed that,” Anson said.
“Maybe,” Hunter said. “Or maybe not.”
Anson thought of Mona and how beautiful she looked when she flung her hair back and laughed like she didn’t have a care in the world. Longing for her stung him like a deep ache.
He stopped and turned there in the middle of the bustle of Bourbon Street and his eyes searched the crowd for her. She was gone.
As the soft refrains of Robin Thicke’s “4 the Rest of My Life” began to play, Anson planted kisses along Mona’s jawline as he pushed the red satin gown she wore from her shoulders. She sighed and tilted her head back to gasp hotly as he dragged his fingers up the front of her thigh and then across her belly before going back to softly cup her buttocks and draw her body close to his.
“Anson,” she whispered as she lifted her head to lightly lick at his lips before she blew a cool stream against them.
His entire body shivered as he captured her mouth.
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