The Closer I Get to You (Cochran/Deveraux Series Book 8)

by Melanie Schuster

  She was sitting next to Titus on a comfortable sofa while his parents faced them from the matching loveseat. Nona and Nicole were also present and everyone was wearing an expression of happy curiosity, except Titus, who was looking right addled. Unconsciously she moved a little closer to Titus, reaching for his hand as she did so. The gesture wasn’t missed by anyone, especially Nicole; the sister Paris decided was the most outspoken. She was very pretty; too; she was plump with chocolate brown skin and a head of thick black hair that came well past her shoulders. She had big eyes that were fringed with long lashes and a baby doll mouth, which she never seemed to shut. She was chattering away even now.

  “We saw pictures of you in that red dress at the Oscars and you looked good in it, honey. You were working that dress, girl. Who did you say made that dress and can I get one like it?” she asked without pausing for breath. Paris laughed at her eagerness.

  “You’ll have to talk to Perry Turner about that. He lives in Flint, Michigan and he’s the designer. I don’t know how he feels about making duplicates of dresses,” she cautioned Nicole.

  “It won’t be the same dress because I want mine in champagne. With gold beading,” she said thoughtfully. “Let me go get that InStyle magazine, you know you were in it,” she informed Paris.

  Nona clicked her tongue as her younger sister left the room. “Nicole needs to let it go. Nobody’s making that dress for her and if they did where would she wear it?” Nona looked amused even as she fussed at her sister’s foolishness. Like Nicole, Nona was a striking woman with black hair, although hers was cut stylishly short. She was also shared the deep rich cocoa color of her sister, it was in fact, the color of their parents, too. Both Sarah and Clifton were brown skinned, Clifton was a deep bronze and Sarah was regally ebony in hue. Paris held Titus’s hand and thought to herself what attractive people they were, although she also noticed that Titus didn’t resemble a single one of them. Her thoughts were interrupted by a question put to her by Mrs. Argonne. “So tell us, dear, how did you meet our Titus?”

  Paris ignored a groan from Titus and beamed at his mother. “A few years ago I was interning at The Deveraux Group complex in Atlanta. One morning I was in the cafeteria having breakfast with my friend Aidan and I looked up and saw Titus with my cousin Martin and that was it for me,” Paris admitted.

  Titus looked embarrassed but pleased at her revelation. “Don’t believe a word of that,” he said while smiling down at Paris. “It wasn’t like that at all; she gave me a hard time. It was terrible, as a matter of fact. She wouldn’t speak to me half the time. She used to ignore me,” he said in a hurt tone of voice that fooled no one. Paris made a face and tried to poke him the side but he was too fast for her. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and told her to behave or he’d sic Nicole on her. Nicole returned to the living room with several magazines in time to hear his last words.

  “Paris, girl, we can work something out. You get me that dress in champagne, and he’s on his own,” she promised.

  Everyone laughed except Titus and Paris who were smiling at each other as though they were alone in the room. Mrs. Argonne asked if they had eaten and Titus assured her they hadn’t. She insisted on feeding them and she and Nona went to the kitchen to prepare something, leaving the couple alone with Nicole and Mr. Argonne. He was reserved, compared to his effervescent daughters, but warm and friendly. Paris enjoyed their conversation as she looked around the beautifully furnished room. There were tall multipaned windows with heavy matter satin draperies in persimmon. Mrs. Argonne had chosen an unusual color scheme of gray, citron and persimmon with chocolate brown and gold accents, but everything worked together to create a subtly harmonious environment. The highly polished antique furniture was mated with African sculpture and contemporary paintings on the walls and the total effect was a welcome haven from a busy world.

  Paris commented on the attractive décor and Nicole happily accepted the credit. “Thank you! Mama was a little hesitant about these colors, but she finally had to admit I know what I’m doing. She even painted the pictures help marry the colors. That’s when I knew she really liked it,” she said with satisfaction.

  “I am in absolute awe of you, Nicole. How long have you been a designer?”

  Mr. Argonne and Titus both laughed. “Since she was four,” Mr. Argonne said. “The day she made the mural in the hallway with her crayons we knew she was destined to be an artist. No room was safe from her, she used to rearrange furniture like there was no tomorrow.”

  Paris had to smile at the image of an energetic little girl creating her own environment. Without thinking, she made a comment about Nicole inheriting her talent from her mother. “I can see Mrs. Argonne is a wonderful artist,” she said warmly.

  “Yes, she is,” Nicole agreed. “She’s the one who encouraged me to go to design school. A lot of parents try to discourage artistic endeavor, but my parents always let us choose our own path. Which makes sense since they chose us,” she added cryptically.

  Paris looked blank for a moment and Nicole elaborated. “They chose us, Titus and me. We’re adopted.”

  At that moment Nona strolled into the living room and announced it was time to eat. She showed Paris to a powder room to freshen up and Paris was grateful for the brief solitude. Even for Paris, this was a lot to take in for one afternoon.

  ***

  There were more revelations in store that day. After a delicious meal of she crab soup, cheese straws, shrimp Creole and jasmine rice with a delicious green salad made from lettuce, tomatoes and cucumbers grown in Mr. Argonne’s garden, Paris and Mrs. Argonne lingered in the kitchen while Titus and his father finished rearranging the room that would be occupied by Mama Sweet during her convalescence. The two women had taken the measure of each other and each was satisfied. Mrs. Argonne smiled gently at Paris. “Forgive me for staring at you, but you’re so lovely I can’t help it. You’re the first woman Titus has brought to this house in twenty years. I know you’re very special to him and I can see that he means the world to you. At least I hope that’s what I’m seeing,” she said frankly.

  Paris didn’t flinch under the older woman’s calm scrutiny, meeting her gaze levelly. “I was never very good at hiding my feelings,” she admitted.

  “I’m going to ask your forgiveness again, but I want to know what made you fall in love with my son,” Mrs. Argonne asked quietly. “Was it because he’s so handsome and sexy?”

  An embarrassed laugh escaped Paris before she could stop it. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Argonne, that was just a little unexpected.”

  “Please, call me Sarah. And don’t be offended, I know it’s unusual for a mother to admit that her child has sex appeal, but come on now, I’m not blind,” she chuckled.

  “Yes, he is very handsome, I agree, but that’s not why I fell in love with him. It was because he’s so kind,” Paris said thoughtfully. “I used to be utterly tongue-tied around him. Me, the woman who never shuts her mouth, couldn’t say one word when I was around him. And he was always so nice to me, no matter how much I was stammering and stuttering. He was always courteous and polite and so sweet to me. And my little cousins just adore him, they think he hung the moon, they really do. They have a ton of uncles and they’re all blessed with very loving fathers so they don’t really have that much to do with people outside the family unit. But Titus they absolutely love, they think he’s part of the family. My cousin Martin is his best friend and Martin doesn’t hang out with anyone other than his brothers. Titus is like a brother to Martin and that doesn’t happen by chance, not with my cousin. Martin doesn’t get close to anyone outside the family so I knew that Titus had to be someone really unique, someone I could trust. And I do, Sarah, I trust him with my life,” she said earnestly, touching Sarah’s arm as if to underscore her sincerity.

  “I always knew he was a good person, because of how he behaved with my family and with me. And when I really got to know him, when we started talking to each other and going on dates, I knew,” s
he said simply. “I have four brothers and a very protective father. They always taught me to respect myself and to demand respect from any man with whom I was involved. And with Titus, I never had to demand respect; he always gave it to me freely. Once I stopped being a tomboy and the bully of the bayou, I found out I enjoy being treated like a lady and Titus treats me like one. He shows me the kind of care and consideration I get from my daddy and my brothers. They act like I’m someone really special and Titus does, too. He’s a wonderful man, Sarah. He’s just…wonderful,” she sighed. Her eyes got big and she blushed hot red as she realized how revealing her words had been.

  “Oh honey, don’t do that,” Sarah said comfortingly. “He truly is a very special person and I’ve always hoped he’d find someone who could recognize how loving he is. He started out in a hard place, Paris, and there were times I thought he’d never get over it, but look at him now.” She put her finger to the corner of her eye. “I still get all watery when I think about what he’s been through. He was an abandoned baby, you see. He was found here in Charleston when he was just days old. There wasn’t even a note; just Titus bundled up in a box on the front steps of a church.” She shook her head, remembering the anger she’d felt when she read about it in the newspaper.

  “He was such an adorable little baby. I saw pictures of him from when he was found and he was so pretty, with big blue eyes and curly blond hair. He looked like an ad for baby food or something he was so cute. A couple came forward to adopt him and it seemed like everything would be fine for him,” she said with a faraway look in her eyes. “They were a well-to-do couple and they had the means to give him a wonderful life. He was about nine months old when they took him.” Suddenly her eyes turned cold and flinty. “And he was almost three when they brought him back.”

  Paris gasped and covered her mouth with her hands. Tears sprang to her eyes, which were wide with shock. It was Sarah’s turn to offer comfort, and she did, holding her hand out to Paris, who took it and held onto to it tightly. “I can see you’re imagining what it must have been like for him. They were the only family he’d ever known and he was old enough to know what was happening to him.” She sat silently for a moment with her eyes damp from emotion. “Maybe he didn’t know exactly what was going on, but he was old enough to know that one day he had parents and the next day he didn’t.”

  “But why, Sarah? Why on earth did they do that?” Paris could barely breathe because she was so upset.

  Sarah pursed her lips and made a face. “I’ve learned over the years to not bear them any ill will because after all, they gave me a great gift when they brought him back to Child Welfare. If they hadn’t I’d have missed out on the love of a lifetime, my beautiful son. So I don’t harbor evil thoughts about them, although I did at one time,” she admitted. “They brought him back because they thought they were getting a white child. They were a white couple and they didn’t want a biracial baby. When Titus was an infant it was impossible to tell what he was, especially with that blonde hair and those blue eyes. Nobody was trying to put anything over on the couple; Child Welfare just didn’t know what he was.

  “As he got older his hair stopped being curly and blonde. It turned coarse and it darkened. His skin became more olive than porcelain and his eyes became the grey-blue color they are now. His features changed and it became obvious that he was mixed. Whatever he was, he wasn’t one hundred percent Caucasian and the couple couldn’t deal with it. They had no desire to raise a child of a different race,” she said in a quiet voice that was still tinged with a bit of scorn for the couple.

  Now tears were running freely down Paris’s face, tears she didn’t bother to remove. Her heart felt like it was being twisted in a wringer and her stomach felt like it was full of hot rocks. What a terrible thing to happen to an innocent child. She tried to speak several times before she could get the words out. “How…how did you…”

  Sarah smiled and handed Paris a big soft cloth napkin from the drawer nearest her. “How did we get Titus? Oh, that part is wonderful, Paris. It proved to me that there really are miracles in the world. Before I met Titus, I was on the verge of suicide. I really was, and that’s no exaggeration,” she said as she watched the expression on Paris’s face grow alarmed.

  “Clifton and I had been married for about seven years. We had a beautiful family with our two girls, Nona and Natalie, the one you haven’t met yet. We were all so excited when I was blessed with another baby, especially when it turned out to be a boy. The girls were thrilled with their little brother; they treated him like a doll baby. We named him Clifton and the day he was born was one of the happiest of my life. So you can understand that the day he died was the worst day I’ve ever known.”

  The tears started rolling again and Paris really couldn’t speak this time. Sarah could see her distress and hastened to finish the story. “It was Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, and it was heartbreaking. I think my heart really broke, Paris, because I went into a depression I just couldn’t shake. Clifton tried to console me, and the girls did too, but I couldn’t seem to break free of the despair. I was truly contemplating suicide; I simply didn’t want to live anymore. I was the one who found him, you see, and I just couldn’t get rid of the guilt, the idea that I was a terrible mother, that it was my fault. I didn’t feel like I deserved my husband and my girls because I wasn’t fit to take care of them. Oh, honey, my mind just went off in a billion different directions, all of them just awful. But my mother, bless her heart, was and is the smartest woman I’ll ever meet.”

  Paris took her hand back and wiped her face thoroughly with the napkin. “What happened, Sarah? What did Mama Sweet do?”

  “She was a registered nurse and she volunteered at the children’s home. Titus was now a ward of the state and he was the saddest, angriest little boy anyone had ever seen. He was so miserable and confused he just struck out at anyone who came near him. His beautiful little face never smiled, and he couldn’t tolerate contact with anyone, he couldn’t stand to be touched. My mother knew in her heart that somehow he and I could heal each other. So she had me come down there to teach a crafts class. It took her a while to persuade me to do it, but I did. And that’s where Titus and I found each other.”

  “I was teaching the little ones how to make some kind of Halloween craft and this adorable boy made his way over to me and wouldn’t leave my side all afternoon. I made him my helper and we had such a good time! I found out later it was the first time he’d smiled since he came to the home. I couldn’t stop thinking about him, so sweet and solemn,” she said thoughtfully. “I didn’t plan to but I came back the next day, and the next. I brought Clifton with me on the third day. The girls came with me, too. By now we were so familiar with one another, Titus and I, it was like we’d been together forever. It was relatively easy to begin the process to adopt him and by Christmas he was our little boy. It took some adjusting for all of us because he was still very shy of strangers and he needed constant reassurance. He would cling to me so fiercely sometimes all I could do was hold him, all day. I’d wash clothes, make dinner, vacuum and everything else holding him on one hip.

  “He also took to Clifton, too. When Clifton was at home, Titus would follow him everywhere like his shadow. Clifton would talk to him like he was talking to another adult, but Titus loved it. The sun rose and set just for Clifton as far as Titus was concerned,” she said fondly. “He would only sleep with Clifton and me at first, and sometimes he wouldn’t sleep at all, he’d lay there and look at us in turn to make sure we weren’t going to leave him in the middle of the night.”

  Sarah looked at Paris’s face, which was now mottled with red from sobbing. “Sweetie, you should go put some cold water on your face! Titus will think I’ve been giving you the third degree or something,” she joked. She patted Paris’s shoulder and insisted she go freshen up. Paris did as she was told and managed to come out of the powder room looking a lot less woebegone. She was still shaking her head at what had happened to Titus.r />
  “I can’t believe people could be that cruel. How on earth could they do that to a little baby, a baby they were supposed to love,” Paris said with anger suffusing each word.

  “Honey, try not to judge them so harshly. This is still the south, after all and it was quite a while ago. These people came from a very segregated world and in their own way they were doing what they thought was best for the child. I’ve come to believe they did love Titus, enough to give him back so he could have a life with a family who wouldn’t have issues with his heritage.” She paused and got a distant look in her eyes before she resumed speaking. ”A few weeks after he came to us we got a package in the mail. It was an album with all kinds of pictures of Titus from the time they adopted him until the time they brought him back. There was also a list of his favorite foods and the things he liked and didn’t like. I really believe they loved him; they just couldn’t handle the racial situation. And I can’t condemn them for that. It was over thirty-five years ago and times were very, very different, very harsh. I can’t judge them, I can only thank them. If they hadn’t brought him back, I wouldn’t have him now. He’s been one of the biggest joys of our lives. And the girls loved him at once, they really did. Not to mention Mama Sweet! That's how she got that name, you know. Titus called her that when he came to live with us because she was so sweet to him. He fell in love with her and vice versa. They’ve been utter fools for each other for years and years.” A noise from the back porch made both women look that way, just in time to see Titus and Clifton back from an errand.

  Paris didn’t stop to think about what she did next. She didn’t consider or hesitate; she just went right to Titus and put her arms around his waist. He returned the embrace and kissed her forehead and her cheek before asked to what he owed this pleasure.

  She couldn’t answer him, her only response was to nestle even closer and hold on tighter. He stroked her hair and returned the embrace. They stayed like that for a long time, long after his parents discreetly left the room.