“Your friend you went to see,” she begins carefully. “Was it … I thought that maybe because I mentioned her name, you might have thought of her. You were close at one time, so I wondered …”
Ibrahim looks confused now. “Baby, I don’t who you’re …”
“Breonna. I mentioned her on Saturday morning, and then the next thing I knew you were calling me from some ‘old friend’s’ house. So, I wondered.”
Ibrahim’s head drops and he runs both hands over his face, downward until only his mouth is covered.
“I mean, I’m not accusing you of …”
“Breonna’s dead, Jada. She’s been dead for well over twenty years now. She was gone before we even got married.” He looks down as he says this.
Jada sits up, more alert now.
“What?”
She doesn’t know why this news takes her aback. She never even knew the girl, really. But there has always been a sense of her having once been important, significant in ways that Jada couldn’t quite put her finger on.
“Yeah. I was with my dude from way back. Raj. He went to Stanford.” Ibrahim grins. “And I guess he was … my higher education.”
“What does that mean, your higher …?” Jada shakes her head. “I don’t remember you mentioning him.”
The oblique reference, and the implication of an inside joke she isn’t privy to irritates her.
“Maybe I didn’t. He moved. Went to MIT before you could meet him. We didn’t really stay in touch too much while he was there.” Ibrahim shrugged. “Should have. But we didn’t.”
“And all of a sudden you got in touch now? How?”
“I was running with Kaleem and I remembered, just out of nowhere that his neighborhood is the same one where I used to clean. One of the ones where I used to clean, anyway.
“Raj worked in one of the buildings. We had some pretty deep conversations. He helped me. I like to think I might have helped him, too, with some things.”
“What kinds of things?”
“He’s from an Indian immigrant family … Has a strong sense of duty, interesting ideas about love and marriage and women … He was conflicted, I think. About what kind of life he wanted. An Americanized life, or something more, I don’t know, traditional according to his background, or ...”
Narrowing her eyes, Jada puts down her mug.
“And you helped him decide?”
“Nah. I don’t think so. I listened while he talked through his decision and decided for himself.”
“And which did he choose?”
“The traditional life. Married a girl his family arranged for him. Had two kids.”
Sagging back into her seat, Jada looks at him. “You never breathed a word about any of this while it was happening. This friend. Nothing.”
“Maybe because he was helping me, too.”
“With …?”
“You.”
“Me?” Jada says. “You needed … help with … me?”
“Same help as I gave him. Someone to talk things through with while I decided.”
“What did you need to decide, Ibrahim?”
She feels betrayed. She never needed help deciding about him. He was always a certainty. From the moment she saw him, she was sure. She didn’t wonder ‘if’, she wondered only ‘how’ and ‘when’. Even though her parents were ambivalent, she never was.
“I don’t know, Jada. If it would be … selfish to allow myself to love you. The way I always knew you loved me. Something like that.”
Jada expels a sharp breath. She doesn’t know what to say.
“I knew you loved me,” he continues. “Long before I could make myself admit that I loved you too, I knew you loved me. And I wanted you … I wanted you so, so bad. But I didn’t know if I deserved you. Or that I could give you what you deserved.”
Jada shuts her eyes and shakes her head.
“When you say that … it just drives me insane. I don’t know what you …”
“Marrakesh,” he says.
“What?”
“You were the girl who wanted to go to Marrakesh. And to Paris. You wanted to be a nurse. You probably could have married a doctor. You …”
“Will you stop!” Jada gets up from the sofa, hands on top of her head. “I don’t care about any of that. I never did! Not once I had you. What I wanted most was you!”
Ibrahim falls silent. He allows her an outburst without telling her, as he often does, ‘That isn’t how we speak to each other, sweetheart. That’s not us.’ Often did. Not does. They don’t have outbursts now so there is no need for him to chide her. They are quiet and careful.
Until now. Until this weekend.
She had loved the vision he had for them. The image in his head of the perfect Black family. Husband at the head, wife and children following. Upright, respectful, gracious and dignified. Everything in order. But soon it seemed the only place he allowed for passion and improvisation was in their bedroom. In all other things, Ibrahim could never stand disorder. And he had never forgiven himself for being the one who—in his mind at least—made a mess, of their family life.
“I have to tell you something,” Jada says, taking a deep breath. “And it may make you angry with me that I never told you before.”
“Then why are you telling me now?”
“Because I think you’re walking around with this idea that you screwed up. Got us off plan or something. I guess I just want you to know that …”
“Then just tell me.”
She can see the dread in his eyes. She knows what he thinks she is about to say. But it isn’t that.
“I got pregnant on purpose. With Kaleem. That wasn’t an accident.”
Ibrahim looks dazed for a moment like the words are incomprehensible. And once comprehension enters his eyes, he seems puzzled.
“When I said I didn’t know what happened? That maybe I missed a pill? I lied. I’d missed more than one. More than two or three. I missed months’ worth of pills. I was throwing them away and pretending to take them.”
They had been married only a year when she started talking to him about babies. She had been patient though she ached for them almost right away. Not just to have an infant of her own, but she wanted his babies. The love they made had been everything she imagined it would be, it had been more than she imagined it would be. And she wanted it to be fruitful.
She remembers thinking those precise words. She wanted their lovemaking to bear fruit, and it felt awful to prevent that from happening, like she was subverting the course of nature.
But Ibrahim wouldn’t even entertain the conversation.
We’re not there yet, sweetheart, he’d say. The time isn’t right. Not right now.
The right time for him might have meant a house with a large yard first, a new job for them both where together they were bringing in six figures to the household. It would have meant waiting maybe until she was thirty and he was thirty-one. She didn’t want to wait.
So, she stopped taking her pills but pretended she did. She actively deceived him, and told herself that because he was her husband, it wasn’t as though she was trapping him.
And when she finally got pregnant, after nearly six months of trying, she pretended to be as surprised as he was.
“You lied to me?” Ibrahim’s voice is a croak.
“Yes.”
“All this time?”
“Yes.”
“Jada.” His voice breaks. “Why?”
She opens her mouth to speak but he holds up a hand. He shakes his head and his expression is one of anguish.
“You wanted it … that bad?”
Jada hears herself issue a cry. Of relief. Of release.
“Yes,” she says yet again. “I wanted it that bad, Ibrahim. Badly enough to lie to you. I wanted a family with you.”
“But we would have had one.”
“Eventually. Yes. But you were the head of our house. You were my husband and I wanted to follow where you led, and you didn’
t want …”
“When you got pregnant you had to drop out of nursing school. Go into medical billing and coding. Because you didn’t follow. You decided to lead. On this, you led. You just let me think I was leading.”
Nodding, Jada goes to sit once again. “Yes,” she said. “You’re right. And I’m sorry.”
Ibrahim exhales. He looks at the ceiling. “I guess it doesn’t matter anymore.” He sounds resigned. “You were my wife. You wanted children. I should have …”
“Oh my God, that’s not why I told you!” Jada explodes. “Not so you can add it to your running list of imagined failures. Ibrahim, you’re not hearing me!”
“What don’t I hear?”
“That you were the man of my dreams. And that I wanted to bring a baby into our home and make it even happier than it was. I didn’t care what you did for a living, or what I did for a living. I wanted my husband’s children! You were so busy chasing perfection that you didn’t realize we already had it. We already had it.”
Ibrahim says nothing, but when he looks at her, Jada sees that his nostrils are slightly flared, his eyes wet.
“Everything I ever wanted, I had it with you,” Jada continues. “I loved our life together. And I wanted your children,” she says again. “It was just that simple.”
“And when I got locked up …”
Jada shook her head. “When you got locked up, I was even more certain I’d done the right thing. Because you were gone, but I had Kaleem. I had a part of you with me. And that kept me going until you came back.”
“And that’s all you needed? Was our son?”
Hesitating, Jada takes a deep breath. “No, that wasn’t all I needed.”
She prepares to tell him the rest.
When she does, there will be nothing more to tell. She will have released every one of her secrets, and maybe after that … Well, she doesn’t know what will happen after that.
“Isaac started coming by,” she says with a deep breath. “Starting the night you got sent up, your brother started coming by. And he kept coming. For a long time.”
Ibrahim stands. The shock is in his eyes. They go dark, and he squares his shoulders.
“Tell me.”
44
Now
“He came the first night. After Kaleem was asleep and everyone else left, I was alone. I think I sat there and realized for the first time what it was going to be like, not having you home. And then …” Jada pauses to shrug. “Isaac was there.”
“What do you mean he was there?” Ibrahim asks. He feels his shoulders and neck grow tense, telltale signs of mounting anger.
“He came over, Ibrahim. That’s what I mean.”
“And then?”
She shrugs again.
“Jada. And then?”
“Then nothing. He sat with me. He sat with me and we didn’t even really talk. I cried, and he let me cry.”
“And then what?”
“He just touched my hand, and said he was sorry, and left.”
“But he came back you said.”
“I know you were closer to Manny, but Isaac is more like you. I always thought that. He’s quieter. More reserved …”
“How many times?” Ibrahim asks.
Jada is sitting now, but he is not so he looms over her. With that question, she looks up.
“You realize we’re just talking about visits, right? That all he did was come over and sit with me.”
“How many times?”
“He came a few times a week for the first … For almost a year.”
“A year.” Ibrahim sits next to her and exhales sharply. “Where was my son when Isaac was coming to our home?”
“Usually asleep. He came late, usually after Kaleem was already in bed. I think he knew your feelings about … about what he did. Him and your father. And he wanted to respect that. He knew you didn’t want him as a role model for our son.”
Ibrahim laughs and shakes his head. “He wanted to respect that? So he moved in on my wife.”
“He didn’t … move in on me.”
“So, if it was all innocent, why’d he stop coming?”
“I asked him to.”
“Why?”
“Because I …” At this Jada looks at him, and her next words are halting. “I was getting … attached. Dependent.”
“You started to have feelings for him?”
“No. Not like … Yes, but …”
“Yes?”
“Let me finish!”
He wants to stand again, feels the almost irrepressible urge to get up and move around but forces himself to remain still and to let his hands rest on his thighs. He forces them to unclench.
“Isaac reminded me of you. He has the same calm; you look more like him than you did Manny. He listened. Sometimes, just knowing that he was there, sitting in the next room watching television was like having you back. He’s smart like you are. Not impulsive. He … calmed me. It was like having you.”
“How much of me did you have through Zac?”
“I told you, it wasn’t like that.”
“Then why’d you ask him to stop coming? Something had to have happened.”
“One night we were sitting next to each other. Kind of like you and me are sitting right now. But we were watching a movie. And I fell asleep.
“I guess my head wound up on his shoulder. I was sleeping. I was … I thought for a … It felt like you. I turned my head and I was about to … He put a hand on my shoulder. He said my name, and I opened my eyes. And realized it wasn’t you.”
Jada stops and gives a deep sigh.
“I almost kissed your brother. Because for a second, he felt and smelled like you. And it scared me because for those few seconds it felt so good to have you back. I knew if he kept coming by, it would only be a matter of time before I reached for him while awake. And maybe that time, or sooner or later, he wouldn’t push me away. So, I told him not to come back.”
Leaning forward, Ibrahim rests his elbows on his knees, hands clasped between them, and looks down at the carpet.
“I didn’t want him, Ibrahim. I wanted you. I hurt … I missed … I ached for you. And Isaac helped me through the roughest part, in those earliest days. But by the time I sent him away, I knew I could be strong enough to do it on my own.”
He feels her hand on his back, it moves upward, and rests at his nape.
That soft hand at his nape was one of the things he missed most when he went inside. He and Jada didn’t sleep spoon-fashion. Or hardly ever. They slept facing each other, limbs intertwined and faces close together.
In the earliest days of their marriage, almost disbelieving that they were together, they sometimes fell asleep staring at each other wordless in the dark. And Jada’s soft hand, reached across and rested at his nape, occasionally stroking but mostly just … there, as soft as a whisper.
It was a long time before he was able to make himself fall asleep without it.
“He just left? He never tried to come back, or talk you into …”
“No,” Jada says. “He never did. He respected you, Prophet. And he respected what we had. I’m sure he respects you still.”
Ibrahim turns to look at her. Her hand is still at his nape. She hasn’t called him ‘Prophet’ in God knows how long. He wonders what has summoned the moniker now.
“Sometimes,” Jada lowered her voice, so she was almost whispering. “Sometimes, I think … I think you don’t even fully realize the man you are.”
“And sometimes I think you think too much of the man I am.”
“I don’t,” his wife says with certainty, shaking her head.
“You know, when you brought up Breonna?”
He sees her go still for a nanosecond before speaking again.
“I want to … I want to tell you something about her. About her and me. And about how she died.”
“Okay,” Jada says, but she sounds reticent.
Still, he cuts no corners in describing who Breonna h
ad been to him, and who she had almost been. Or in telling her about how it was when he came back from jail that first time and realized how he had wronged her.
Nor does he shirk from explaining how he wronged her again, abandoned her to a violent boyfriend because he was seeing a different, more sanitized life in the horizon and falling for the pretty private-school girl who had written him beautiful letters that first gave him a glimpse of what might be possible.
And finally, he tells her how he failed Breonna one last time, letting her lie dead in a drug house for hours, allowing his brother the time to clear out all traces of their family’s wrongdoing.
“Even when she was dead, she had no one to look out for her. Even when she was dead, I …”
“Prophet,” Jada says. It is the first time she has spoken since he began telling his story. “What could you have done differently?”
He shakes his head.
“Called the police?” she asks. “Turned your father in? Gotten Manny arrested? Could you have done that?”
He shakes his head again.
“Then what?”
“That wasn’t the only way I failed her. You don’t understand. I got a gun …”
Jada pulls back slightly, in surprise.
“I got it and all I could think about was her boyfriend, Kwame. He did it. Everyone knew he did. I was heading over there. And Nasim stopped me …”
He describes the trip to Nasim’s grandmother’s house. The pie, the meal, the hug she gave him as he left. How he wanted to disappear into that warm hug because it was the hug of mother.
“And then Nasim dropped me off at home. So I was free to go again. I could even have gotten Manny to come with me. He knew what I wanted to do. Hell, he even would’ve done it for me. Manny was like that.” Briefly, Ibrahim’s eyes sting.
Jada waits for him to continue, and he feels that she is almost holding her breath.
“I went to my car where I’d stashed the gun. I got in. I had the keys in my hand. And then …” He stops.
“What?” The word comes out on a puff of her breath. “And then what Ibrahim?”
“You paged me.” He looked at her.
“I did?”
“I was about to put the keys in the ignition and my pager went off. I was two seconds from leaving and you paged me. I ignored it because I was going to do this thing, and I needed to be in the right headspace to do it because I’d never done anything like that before, but Bree deserved that. She at least deserved that much.
Courtship: A 'Snowflake' Novel Page 33