Alexa,
It’s clear that Sullivan is more than a client and it was further highlighted by you going after him.
Although I think we have something worth pursuing, I don’t believe you feel the same.
Goodbye, Alexa. Maybe next lifetime.
- Julian.
I sank into my chair as I read the note a second time. Then I released it, letting it flutter down to the desk top. Once again, I was left with my thoughts, thoughts that were not dominated by my father, but by the two men who had now turned their backs on me. I rested my forehead on interlaced fingers. I was no different from Malachi. Even though I told myself I was just dating, I was serious with both men. Unlike Malachi, I didn’t choose, I didn’t want to choose. Did that make me worse than Malachi?
“God, what a mess,” I said to the empty office. I looked at the paperwork on my desk and knew I wasn’t going to touch them.
I placed them in their appropriate places so I could deal with them in the morning, then picked up my bag and closed my office.
On the walk home, I tried to see the bright side in all of this. I laughed bitterly as I acknowledged that I now won the bet, but the laughter soon died when I saw that the true mission of the bet had materialized. I was not in a relationship with anyone.
For the first time in a long time, I was single and not in the market for a new man. It was a bright, shiny side, it was a side worth exploring.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
“What is it?” My father’s question was unexpected.
We were in the living room sitting over a chess board as the afternoon sun cast shadows on the black and white board. It was my turn to move and when I looked up, Dad was staring at the board. If I didn’t know better, I would say he was assessing the board. His keen eye thinking of all the possible moves I would make and the moves he would then make, but he had already done that. He was waiting for me to make one of the anticipated moves.
I returned my gaze to the board, picking up a piece and moving it, “Have you ever made a mistake?”
“Are you talking about in this game or in life?” Without hesitation, he moved his piece and scooped up mine.
“In life,” I replied, it was clear that my focus was not on the game.
He looked up at me, “We all mistakes, Alexa. What’s important is that we are aware that they are mistakes. In that way we can address them and ensure they never happen again. Your move.”
I began to pick up a piece, but I saw an opportunity so I picked up another piece and moved it, “What if you recognize the mistake but if given the chance, you would make it again?”
“Then you haven’t learned the lesson,” Dad replied. “Life has a way of presenting the same problem with different faces until you learn to overcome it. What lesson have you yet to learn, Alexa?”
I watched him move his piece. My father once said that a good chess player could orchestrate the entire game. Through a series of moves they could make their opponents make certain moves but if they were playing with another great player, it became a dance. A conversation with both moving and trying to illicit a response. From the start , my father dominated this game.
“I suppose I didn’t learn the lesson,” I said at last.
“Maybe you haven’t admitted it to yourself,” he said. “You know it but you won’t own it.”
His hand moved gracefully over the board and I saw my mistake. “Checkmate,” he chuckled and sat back in his chair.
“Two out of three,”I said already setting the pieces back in their places.
“Will your mind be in the game this time?” he asked, his eyes studying me. “Is this about Malachi?”
My hands stilled, it was the first time my father had mentioned my ex since the breakup. “No,” I said, then, “I don’t think so.”
“Do you regret breaking up with him?”
“No,” I said. “I stand behind that decision.”
“Why did you break up with him?”
I looked up, but I didn’t see my father. “He was perfect,” I whispered. “But I couldn’t see myself with him. I couldn’t imagine the happily ever after.” I tried to laugh, “I guess I’m not one of those women who dream of the big beautiful wedding.”
“Sounds like you don’t want to be married,” Dad pointed out.
“What does it really mean to be married?” I focused on the face in front of me.
A smile slid across his face, “It’s different for different people, But I think the constant is when two people can’t live without the other person.”
“You can’t live without Mom,” I cocked my head to the side and looked up at him.
His smile became a grin, “She’s a handful, that woman, but she’s my handful.”
The smile melted away and my dad wore a mask of wisdom, “If it was easy for you to walk away from Malachi, then he wasn’t for you, but when you find that person, you’ll know.”
My mind went to Clark, then Julian. It had been too early for me to say if either of them was that, but I did feel the void of their absence. There were times, I was worried that the loss was due to someone being gone, but then I would reach for my phone, their number keyed in before I canceled the call.
“There is a contender isn’t there?” Dad asked, taking the last of the pieces and putting them in place.
I shook my head, “No, not anymore.”
At that moment, the front door opened and the quiet was broken with Jada and Mom talking and the children pouring into the house. Soon they would come into the living room and I would be pulled away to help Mom with some task or another.
It was all part of our days. The afternoons were ours, my father’s and mine, but it didn’t mean I wasn’t disappointed when they came to an end. But there was always tomorrow.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
As the days passed, we all fell into a routine. A routine that revolved around my father, but when the person you were caring for spends a great deal of time sleeping you have to find something to fill those hours.
Although there was a truce between my mother and me, it was still fragile. I worked hard to hold my tongue when a barb slipped and grazed against my ego. To keep my sanity, I would take walks around the neighborhood.
It had changed since I lived there, new faces occupied old houses. People I knew growing up now had more lines in their faces, slower paces despite sharp minds. Despite the changes, my memories still lurked in the corners and crevices. They would unfurl like a flower in the sun as though waiting for me to simply gaze upon a crack in the sidewalk or look at the facade of a neighbor's house.
These memories became my history and I didn’t resist the wandering road that led me to who I was. One evening, as I walked to the park a few blocks away, my mind went to the men of my life.
They varied in shape, color and size. They varied in profession, philosophy and status. The one thing that united them was the fact that they were good men. My father would say you could tell the quality of a man by the way he treated his woman. And each man treated me well, in each relationship, I was respected, loved and encouraged.
Walking into the park, I cringed as I remembered how I treated them. I tried to find their faults and what petty things I did find, I would amplify. Adam was Republican, Quentin smoked occasionally, Victor had no ambition. Craig loved me too much that I felt smothered and Malachi? Malachi was sleeping with Naomi.
I sighed as I took to a foot path I knew well, leaving me to follow it without much thought. I wish I could say I knew of Malachi’s shortcoming, but I only found out about it after the fact. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to accept his ring, his love.
I wondered what would have happened if I had said yes. Would he have turned Naomi away? Would I have ever found out? Would Naomi and I still have been friends? I shook my head, that friendship was dying, it only took the knowledge of the betrayal to pierce its heart and render it unable to come back to life.
Then there was Julian and Clark. I snor
ted at the idea that they were a united in my consciousness, yet they were so dissimilar. I sobered at the fact that I had hurt them. I was selfish, I wanted to see what was beyond the horizon with both men, not willing to let any of them go.
The trail came to an end and I found myself on the other side of the park. The last rays of sunlight fought against the dark. The street lights blinked on, taking on their nightly duty. I chose to take the long way around the park, preferring the light cast by the streetlights than the shadows of the park.
As my shadow grew and shrank in the street light, I faced my truth. I came to accept that I didn't play fair when it came to love. Each man gave so freely to me, but I was waiting for something to go wrong, for our relationships to crumble and if they didn't, I brought them down with the deft of a demolitions expert.
There was no going back, no late night confessions and requests for forgiveness. All that was left was the burden of the knowledge that I had done wrong. It was a bitter knowledge, it weighed down my steps, only the promise that I would do better, be better, propelled me forward.
As I approached my parents’ house, I noted the cars parked outside. Family had come to visit, cooing words of condolences while scoping out information that they would use as the base of their opinions. Two cars, washed and polished gleamed under the street light.
I didn’t want to go in, but I didn’t want to sit outside, the chill nipping at my nose. Opening the door, I told myself that I would make small talk, then make the excuse that I was tired or some other lie that would go unnoticed by those who sat inside.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
They sat in the living room, something akin to a smile on their faces as I stepped in. Their eyes assessing and judging.
“Hi Auntie Ruth, Uncle Raymond, Aunt Lucille and Uncle Maurice,” I hugged them in turn. The aunts hugs were robust and weak respectively, while their husbands were cautious at best under the watchful eyes of their spouses.
I walked over to where my mother sat across from her sisters and stood behind her chair more like a sentry than a hostess during this visit.
“So how long are you here for?” Auntie Ruth started the interrogation.
“For the holidays, into the new year,” I had learned years ago to use my knowledge of preparing witnesses for questioning in speaking with my family. I kept my answers brief, vague and in the hearing of others so they wouldn’t be misconstrued in later retelling.
“It must be tough seeing your dad like this,” Aunt Lucille said, shaking her head. “You two were always so close.”
“I wouldn’t say it is easy,” I replied, resting my hand on my mother’s shoulder. “I’m just happy I can be here for him.”
The uncles nodded their heads and the aunts scrutinized my person as well as my answers. Behind their eyes, I could see a slew of questions positioning themselves to be launched, but I looked down at my mother and squeezed her shoulder.
“I’m a bit tired, I’m going up to get some rest and look in on Dad,” I made my lie sincere. Looking up at the visitors, I said, “It was nice seeing you, if you will excuse me.”
Although the uncles excused me with “Of course” and “Yes, yes”, the aunts pouted ever so slightly and made promises of seeing me at another time. Promises to which I didn't utter a response.
When I left my mother to her sisters, I didn’t go very far. My curiosity had me standing in the shadows of the hallway outside the living room. I listened to a conversation that was not new, just updated with new facts.
“I see she’s still single,” Auntie Ruth mused.
“Mmhmm,” I imagined my mother shrugging. “It didn’t work out with the man she was seeing.”
“It’s probably for the best,” Aunt Lucille said. “You know how men are nowadays.” Nowadays was a continuous stream of time that sprung up from the day she was born.
“Now Lucy,” Uncle Maurice would develop a backbone every now and then. More then than now, but when he did, Aunt Lucille would brush aside his admonishment with the flutter of a small hand.
One can only take so much of the veiled words that were the currency of my mother’s side of the family. I soon went up the stairs, finding solace in the guest room after looking in on my sleeping father.
Laying back in bed, I recalled the many conversations I’ve listened to between the sisters. If they weren’t married, one would wonder if my aunts even liked men.
“Raymond is such a lazy man,” Auntie Ruth would start up. “Do you know how many times I’ve asked him to…” name a chore, any chore.
Aunt Lucille would add her lamentations, “Maurice, God bless the man, knows nothing of putting things in their place. And guess who would be asked where things are?”
My mother would listen, not a word uttered against my father, but it never seemed to be noticed by my aunts. They would go on to speak ill of the men their precious daughters daned to wed. The poor men who held my cousins up on pedestals were never worthy of them according to their mothers.
In the quiet of my room, I tried to count the amount of times I’ve listened to these women. How many times I’ve listened to my cousins who spoke no different from their mothers? The room was warm but I shivered at the realization that their words had leached into my mind, my philosophy, my relationships.
I never spoke with venom of the men I’ve dated but my words held the shadows of their words. My actions were infected with their words. When did I become like them? I sat up and pulled out my phone.
So many revelations, so many epiphanies, I could barely contain them. I needed someone to share them with.
“Hi Alexa,” Music played in the background. A woman laughed as Toya asked, “What’s up?”
“Can you talk?” I asked, hoping she would say yes.
“Yeah, give me a second,” Toya replied, before everything became muted. Then she asked, “Is everything okay? How’s your dad?”
“It’s as okay as it can be, and Dad, well he’s getting worse but not not as quickly as we thought he would,” I responded. Then I launched in, “I got it.” My thoughts rushed forward, tumbling over each other to the point that I wondered if I even made sense. When all was said, a silence followed, it was unsettling and I asked if my friend was still there.
“It’s about damn time,” she chuckled. “It took long enough for you to figure it out. Alexa. It wasn’t for me to tell you what was wrong, it was for you to figure it out.”
“I know,” I said. I had been pacing by now and I had worked myself up into a tizzy, but now I felt empty. I sank down onto the edge of my bed. “I wish this had come to light years before.”
“Better now than never,” Toya said with sincerity. “Are you coming to the city for New Year’s Eve?”
Before I could answer, the music got louder in the background and I heard a vaguely familiar voice say, “There you are.”
A muffled Toya responded with, “Hey, yeah, I’ll be back in in a minute.”
When I heard the music go down, I said with a smile, “Fre- Meredith?”
I could hear the smile as Toya responded, “Yes, that was Meredith, we’re checking out a club with her friends.”
“Her… friends?” I enunciated the question as I was sure Toya never met the friends of the women she dated.
“Come on, Alexa,” she pleaded. “Don’t make a big deal about this. We’re just having a good time.”
“With her friends,” I pointed out. “So when are your friends going to hang out with Meredith?”
“I’ve told you already, New Year’s Eve,” she replied. “So are you coming to the city or will you be staying with your family?”
“Oh, I’m coming,” I said. “I want to officially meet the woman who’s got Toya Eliza Randall hooked.”
“Whatever,” Toya grumbled, then said, “So you’re going to be okay with your new revelations and epiphanies?”
“Yeah, go ahead and get back to Meredith and her friends,” I answered. “And thanks for listening.”
<
br /> “You know I’m here for you,” she replied. “Talk to you later.”
Hearing the silence, I sighed. We were always there for each other, but sometimes it felt like Luisa, Toni and I were the ones always relying on Toya’s strength and wisdom. I now wondered how she was adapting to this new way of dating. Then again, maybe she had it all figured out, maybe she had accepted that she was changing.
As for me, I had accepted that I had to do some changing. I guessed the first step was accepting that there was a issue with the way I looked at men, and relationships I had with them.
Chapter Forty
The holiday season was a blur of people and food, but in that blur I saw history play out over and over. The characters may have aged, some may have been replaced by their children. The conversations were the same even though the decade had changed.
The themes of the inefficiencies of men, their ineptitudes, why they were no good was visited by aged aunts and embittered cousins. I never took part in the conversations, I just listened.
“Jada, how’s Tequan’s daddy doing?” Leslie asked as we sat in the living room. Leslie was Aunt Lucille’s daughter and was known for having an opinion on everything but her own drama.
“Oh, you know, he does the best he can,” Jada didn’t meet her gaze.
“He still doesn’t have a job?” Leslie continued in her questioning.
My sister shifted in her seat. She gripped the handle of her mug as she took a slow sip of hot chocolate. These questions were no different from the ones I would have asked, but this time I saw the discomfort in my sister. My heart ached because I didn’t see her as the woman who kept making bad choices but the woman trying to live with those choices.
Lifting her chin a fraction higher, she stated, “He started a new job a few weeks back.” Although my sister spoke with confidence there was a lie embedded in her statement.
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