“Is there a question in there?” she asked with a laugh.
“Why didn’t you buy me a new bike?”
“And what would you have learned from that?”
“I didn’t learn anything.”
“Did the second bike get stolen?” she asked.
“No, I bought three locks for that thing. I only took it out once a week. I still have that bike.”
She tilted her head and raised her eyebrows; her point having been made.
"So, every time you asked us if we had McDonald's money, you and Dad could've bought a whole McDonald's?" I raised an eyebrow, and Mom threw her head back, laughing, and clapped her hands together.
“So, when we flew to Italy that year when you and Dad flew first class and Kimmy, RJ, and I sat in coach—”
“Cole…” She touched my arm and smiled. “I didn’t show you that number so you could relive your perceived childhood traumas.”
I placed my hand on top of the hand on my forearm and laughed.
“I showed you that number because I wanted you to know that your father and I can end our careers with one phone call, retire and never have to worry about money again, with enough to leave to our children so they would never have to work a day in their lives, but we don’t. Do you know why?”
“Because you really like working?”
She laughed again.
"Did your father tell you why he became a judge?" she asked, and I nodded. "Do you want to know why I became a psychiatrist?" She raised an eyebrow, and I nodded again.
"I didn't grow up with much, and I wasn't always considered pretty—"
“Seriously?” I asked.
My mom was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen. Some of my earliest memories of her were the stares and compliments she would receive from strangers. Her office walls were decorated with her many degrees, but also magazine covers and ad campaigns she'd been featured in when she was still modeling.
"Yes." She laughed. "Seriously. My hair was too wild. I was too skinny, too tall, too dark… Then I turned sixteen, and my body changed. I was working at a department store in Baltimore when a modeling scout convinced me to move to New York City. My mother agreed as long as I got my GED. The first two years were hard, but I got a lucky break when another Black model, who was very well known, demanded that there be more Black models on the campaign she was being pitched for. Can you guess who happened to be there at the time dropping off photos to update her portfolio?" My mom beamed a giant smile.
"After that, my career took off, and it was supposed to be easier, but it just got a lot harder. I dealt with racism and sexism. I knew I was getting paid less than my white friends. I suffered abuses and traumas that I didn't fully understand until years later. I was suffering from depression and anxiety. I started having panic attacks.
"One of my friends suggested I try therapy, and I laughed. Black women don't go to therapy, I told her. Because that's how I was raised. You don't tell strangers your problems, much less pay them to listen. I was expected to fix them or live with them. I thought I had it all figured out. I was taking pills to keep me awake, pills to help me sleep, and ones to keep me thin, and I had prescriptions for all of them. I also developed an eating disorder, which landed me in the hospital.
"Fortunately for me, I'd recently married a very supportive and understanding man who adored me, and with him by my side, I got help. A huge part of that help was therapy."
“Oh, Mom, I had no idea.” I reached out and clasped her hand.
"You weren't supposed to." She patted my hand. "But that's not why I became a therapist. When I was in the treatment center, my mother came to visit me. After my father died, that woman worked two full-time jobs to make sure my brother and I had enough to eat, and I had to explain to her that I was intentionally starving myself. I was so ashamed." Her voice broke, and her eyes filled with tears. I crossed her office and grabbed a box of tissues and handed it to her.
"Thank you, baby." She plucked two tissues out of the box and dabbed her eyes. "I thought she'd be angry with me or disappointed, but she wasn't. She told me that she was sorry I was in so much pain. She was glad I was getting the help I needed, and she was thankful for Reggie. Then, she said something I'd never forget." She paused and dabbed her eyes again. "She opened up to me. She told me that she had a hard time dealing with my father's death and the stress of raising two children alone. She used to cry herself to sleep for years. She never dated because she wanted to protect my brother and me, but also because my mother didn't think she was strong enough to love someone again only to lose them. I never knew any of these things about her. She was the strongest person I knew, and she suffered in silence for years.
"She asked me if I thought therapy would work for her or if she was too old." Mom started crying, and it took her a minute to regain her composure. My eyes began to sting, and I dabbed at them with a corner of my sleeve.
"Boy, use a tissue." Mom shoved the tissue box at me, sniffled, blew her nose, and continued. "Of course, I told her no, it wasn't too late and at forty-seven years old—which we can agree is not too old to do most things—she started therapy. Then she convinced some of her friends to go. It changed her life. She began to travel. She fell in love and remarried."
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Granny is awesome, and Pop-pop Hank would’ve bought me that bike.” I joked to ease the tension. Mom cut her eyes at me, and her shoulders shook when she gave me a small chuckle.
"So, at the ripe old age of twenty-two, I retired from modeling and went to school to become a psychiatrist. It was hard work, and it took a long time, but it's not a job for me. It's a calling. I have the power to help erase the stigmas of mental illness in my community. My beautiful daughter doesn't have to be ashamed of having an anxiety disorder. My brilliant autistic son is sought after for his multitude of talents, and I don't think we would have made it through your teenage years without Dr. Moore." She raised an eyebrow at me.
“I wasn’t that bad.” I grinned. I wasn’t. I was worse.
She smiled again and patted my hand.
“And there is so much more work to be done.”
I nodded my head in understanding.
"Cole," she said, and I looked at her, "how did it feel volunteering at the legal clinic in Puerto Rico?"
“Amazing. It was like all those years of lectures, exams, and internships were worth it just to be able to help one person keep her house. I felt like a superhero.”
“Now, you understand.” She smiled and dabbed at her eyes with the tissue again.
“Ma, what do you think about Lisa?”
She sniffled again and wiped her nose. “I couldn’t love that girl more if I tried. But I will try.” She laughed. “What are you going to do with Crystal?” She motioned to the red urn on her shelf.
"I have an idea for that, too, but I need you and Dad to watch CJ for a couple of days for us."
* * *
"Babe, you know I love your surprises, but why are we in the middle of the woods in the mountains, and why couldn't we bring CJ?"
“Hold on, we’re almost there. Do you hear that?”
Lisa craned her neck and listened quietly before nodding. "Is that a waterfall?" she asked.
“Yeah, we’re close.” Our rental truck crawled along the mountain road through the trees until we came to a clearing and a gate. “This is it.”
I helped her climb down from the cab and grabbed our bags from the bed in the back.
“Cole, that sign says Private Property.”
"Then we won't be disturbed, and it's a good thing I own the property."
She grinned at me, and my heart melted. "Do you want me to hold on to something?"
“Sure.” I slung both bags onto one shoulder and held out my hand.
"Not what I meant, but I'll take it." She slipped her hand into mine, and we walked through the gate.
The sound of rushing water got louder, and we came to a waterfall that emptied into a small lake.
>
“This is beautiful. What is this place?”
“This is where CJ’s and my parents got married.”
“What?”
"It wasn't a legal marriage, just a promise to love each other forever." I led her around the lake, examining every tree until I found what I was looking for. "Then they made love under this tree and made me."
“How do you know it was this tree?” She put her hand on the trunk. I took her hand and placed it on the bald patch of the tree where the letters “CW” and “DW” were carved into the trunk with the year 1994.
"Then, over twenty years later, they came back to this spot, renewed their ‘vows' and made CJ." I pointed to the spot where the numbers 2016 were carved.
I wrapped her in my arms and kissed her. “Welcome to Lincoln Falls.”
“Wow, thank you for sharing this with me. Wait, so you’re named after the place you were conceived?” She raised her eyebrows.
"It's kind of a family tradition."
“Did you want to start…” She motioned towards the small duffle bag.
“Do you mind if we wait for a bit?”
“Sure. I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to rush you.”
I slipped an arm around her waist, pulled her into me, and kissed the top of her head. After a few long moments of holding her and absorbing the sights and sounds of this isolated haven, she looked up at me. Her gaze was heated. My cock started to fill with blood and was pressing into my zipper.
“Lisa?” I turned to face her and squeezed her hips, my erection pressing into her belly. “What’s going on?”
"I was just thinking. Your parents conceived two children, twenty-two years apart under this tree." She reached up and grabbed ahold of my collar, and walked backward, pulling me with her until she was backed against the trunk.
“I mean. We can’t prove we were actually conceived under this tree. It could’ve been a coincidence.” She glared at me before pulling me down into a kiss. “But I guess we could try. Wait.” I pulled away from her. “You want to try for a baby?”
"Well, Doctor Douglas said it's a possibility, and everything in our lives feels so perfect. And we're here…" She tucked her bottom lip between her teeth and cast her eyes down. "I'm sorry. I just assumed. We should've talked about this."
"Lisa, I want a baby with you. I want to give CJ a hundred nieces and nephews. I wasn't sure you wanted to try to get pregnant after, you know, everything."
“I would love to have your baby, but if we can’t—”
“I want you. If CJ is all we get, I would be the happiest man in the world if I had you.”
“So, are we actually gonna have sex under this tree?” She giggled.
“It kinda feels like we have to now.”
“What if we didn’t have sex under this particular tree?” She bit her lip and grinned at me.
"I'm so glad you said something." I pressed our foreheads together, and we shared a laugh. "I mean, I definitely could have rallied, but I'd feel better if we found our own tree."
I grabbed the biggest bag, and we spent the next twenty minutes looking for our own lucky sex tree when Lisa found one she liked.
"This looks like a good tree." She rubbed her palm on the bark, petting it like it was a horse.
“Why?” I unzipped the bag and pulled out a blanket.
“It reminds me of you.” She grabbed one end of the blanket and helped me spread it out.
"How's that?" I sat down and leaned against the tree, lacing my fingers behind my head.
"It's big and strong." She lowered herself onto my waist to straddle me. "It's dependable." I unzipped her jacket and pushed it over her shoulders. Lisa was wearing a cream-colored sweater dress. It hugged her body in all the right places, but it was too cold out here for her to take it off. "And it makes me feel safe."
“I like being a tree.” I wrapped my arms around her waist and pulled her closer.
“You are such a goofball.” She mumbled against my lips.
“Hey.” I shrugged out of my jacket. “You’re the one calling people trees.”
She laughed again and started to undo my belt buckle.
“Cole.” She freed me from my boxers and stroked my length. “I need you to promise me something.”
"Lisa, even if you didn't have my dick in your hand, I would give you anything you asked for."
"I'm serious." She laughed. I leaned forward and kissed her, trying to shift my focus from what her hand was doing to whatever she was about to tell me. "Promise we'll always be like this with each other."
“What do you mean?” I slid two fingers beneath the lace of her panties. She was so wet. I wanted to plunge into her, but I settled for using two fingers with my thumb pressing onto her clit as she continued to stroke me.
"I mean," she gasped between moans. "We got this money from terrible people, and I don't want it to make us terrible people."
I really didn't want to think about her ex-husband or my biological grandfather, but she was making good points, or maybe I wasn't thinking clearly because there was no blood in my brain.
"I promise, baby. I will love you like this forever. This money came from terrible people who were wealthy, but we both came from amazing people who were wealthy, and we turned out okay." I kissed her, and she giggled, nodding in agreement.
"But, my love, if we feel like this money is turning us into assholes, we'll just give it away…"
Lisa was beginning to shudder and ripple around my fingers. My need was growing, and I needed to feel her slick heat wrapped around me. My fingertips smoothed over her swollen bud as I withdrew my hand, causing her to spasm again. I sucked my fingers into my mouth, savoring the delicious taste of her need for me. She leaned forward, pressed our lips together, and forced her tongue into my mouth. My fingers skated up her thighs and curled around the elastic of her panties. "Lisa, I need to rip these off of you."
“Do it.” She moaned and yelped as I tore the two small triangles of lace away from her hips. With my hands bracketing her waist, I lifted her onto my cock. I let out a long slow hiss as she lowered herself onto me until she was full.
"Oh my God, Cole." She leaned forward and captured my mouth with hers. I pulled her hair tie from her hair, so her long glossy locks tumbled down her back and over her shoulders and bounced as she rode me. I felt so full, so free and unencumbered. Losing my mother, getting CJ, finding Lisa and everything that happened in the last six months was a crazy roller coaster of pain and discovery. They brought me to this moment, this place where my story began, my journey to finding myself ends, and my new life begins. The woman in my arms was there for it all, guiding me every step of the way. I couldn’t have survived without her. Lisa and her baseball bat came into my life and made everything better.
"Cole, I need you… More… Harder…" She panted. I laid her on her back and drove into her the way she liked it. She wrapped her legs around my waist and pushed me deeper into her with the heel of her boot. "I'm gonna come. Oh my God."
I was right behind her. She tightened her grip on my back and the squeeze of her legs around my waist. She wanted to take everything my body had to give her without spilling a drop.
“Fuck.” I planted tiny kisses along her jaw, feeling our bodies still pressed together through our layers of clothes. I blanketed her body with mine, shielding her from the chill in the air until I went soft inside her. After giving her a final kiss, I sat up, dug into the bag until I found a linen napkin then squirted water on it. I cleaned her, then myself before pulling down her dress and covering her with my jacket.
“Hey, neighbor.” She smiled lazily at me as we lay facing each other on the blanket.
"Hey, neighbor," I replied before I pulled a Tupperware container from the bag and offered her some almonds.
She popped a couple in her mouth and looked up at the sky.
"He wanted me," I whispered to Lisa. "Deacon Welles," I added. Her face softened, and she gave me a small smile.
"Of course, he
did." She scooted next to me, rested her cheek on my heart, and wrapped her arm around my chest. I repositioned my jacket to cover her.
“When Crystal told him about me, he wanted to meet me right away, but she asked him to wait until I was ready. It was in her letters. He knew all about Harvard and law school. She said he was proud of me.” A tear slipped out of my eye.
“Are you okay, baby?” she asked.
"Yeah." I didn't hesitate. "It would have been nice to meet him, but I can't change that now, and who knows, if things had gone any differently, maybe I wouldn't have you." I kissed the top of her head. Her arm tightened around my chest, and we lay in silence for a few moments.
“I need you to promise me something else.” She dug another handful of nuts out of the bowl.
“Anything.” I chugged some water from the bottle before offering it to her.
"If we try to have a baby, we can't get our hopes up. We just practice as much as we can and just see what happens. No expectations."
“I think I can manage that.”
"I mean it." She reached up and stroked my face. "No hoping for a little boy with your lopsided grin."
I smiled at her. "And no hoping for a little girl with your button nose." I bopped that nose with my finger.
“And definitely no picking out names.”
“Definitely not.”
“Like Ana if it’s a girl.”
“Or Deacon if it’s a boy.”
She placed a hand on my chest before rolling onto her back with our bodies still connected. I put a hand over her soft belly, and we looked up at the cold Missouri sky where we continued to not imagine what kind of life we'd have with CJ and a baby that was half her and half me.
After a while, we went back to my parents’ favorite spot and buried Crystal and Deacon's ashes together beneath their tree. Lisa and I said a small prayer hoping that they'd somehow find the peace in death they could never find in life.
As I lifted her into the truck, I knew something was different like the world shifted, and the air changed. I didn't understand why I was so sure, but I knew. Lincoln Falls was a sacred and magical place, and Lisa and I managed to create our own miracle that day.
Broken and Beautiful Page 150