Monique’s weathered hands, still sporting the diamond from husband number two, stroked Tori’s. “Sweetie, you have to listen to me. It’s not about the money. I don’t think it ever was. Your father mentally tortured Honey for years. Somehow, he always knew exactly what kind of cash she could get her hands on. Always with a laugh and a thinly veiled, ‘We could always go to court.’ Or when you were older, ‘Maybe I’ll drop by and see my baby girl.’ This is about control. He needs a puppet.”
Tori felt her muscles tighten, even with Antoine kneading her shoulders and back. She leaned back, her head resting on Antoine’s stomach. “So now it’s me.” Monique whispered, her eyes watering, “Now it’s you.”
“But at least he won’t hurt Luke,” Tori offered, fear still digging its nails into her consciousness. “I’ll write him a check. If that will keep him out of our lives, I’ll write whatever.”
“That’s what your mother said,” Monique countered, “and those damn checks kept him in your lives. He needs control like he needs oxygen. I heard a couple of conversations. That damned amused tone in his voice while she’s physically shaking, as if he thought it funny how he mind-fucked her.”
“Well, what am I supposed to do?” Tori cried. “How do I save my son?”
Monique and Antoine didn’t respond. Monique rose and went to the kitchen cabinet to pour a shot of Woodford Reserve whiskey.
“There are a lot of ways to cause pain. Some marks are visible. Hell, those are probably the easiest to heal.” Monique shrugged. “It’s the marks we carry on our soul that really fuck us up. And baby, your dad whipped your mom’s soul until it looked like a slave’s back.”
Monique tossed back her shot. Antoine nodded at her to pour him a shot. Tori massaged her temples, wishing she could have one, too. But more than alcohol, she needed a clear head.
“I survived him. Luke will, too,” Tori declared, praying her son inherited her strength.
Tori saw Monique’s eyes soften, and as she handed Antoine a glass, he commented, “Yeah, but surviving Richard takes one hell of a toll. What will Luke have to pay?”
Chapter 5
Although the television still blasted upstairs, Christian and the twins appeared at the door. Even in the dimming light of dusk, anyone could see how the Aubert genes ran strong. Christian’s tawny brown complexion mirrored Antoine’s. His coffee bean colored eyes and lean build cemented him as one of them. The Auberts couldn’t gain a pound on a diet of pork rinds dipped in sugar.
Suzie and Sheri were Tori’s chocolate cherubs. Though they were fraternal twins, they shared bright blue eyes that caused people on the street to stop and stare at such an unusual combination. They were already the tallest in their third-grade class. Antoine joked about how they were bound for the WNBA. The girls didn’t take to sports, preferring to create an unauthorized fashion club at school. Creating and charging other students a dollar to join. That was an interesting parent/ teacher conference.
Christian sidled up to his grandmother and gave her a half hug. The twins held back; curiosity etched in the crease of their foreheads. Tori opened her arms and they ran to her, giving her the tightest hugs. She didn’t want to let go.
“Suzi and Sheri are hungry,” Christian explained.
Sheri piped up. “Luke didn’t make our afternoon snack. We want Ramen noodles.”
Luke had taken to cooking with Honey, who fancied herself an undiscovered Food Network sensation. However, the only “meal” she allowed him to make unsupervised was those popular noodles.
Suzi looked at Monique, frowning. “Why’s Nanny here? Nanny never comes here.”
Her daughter spoke facts. Tori had been trying for years to keep Monique and her only son Antoine at a distance, not wanting to burden them with the weight of her life or her decisions. However, Honey and Monique were a package deal when Honey was alive. So, they all called Honey Gran and called Monique Nanny. Tori might as well have tried to stop lava from flowing with a water hose than keep them all apart.
“Well, it’s been a while, so Nanny has come to visit,” Tori conceded, rocking her darlings from left to right.
Suzi’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Does she have glitter?”
Monique grabbed her purse from the table and smiled. “Don’t I always?”
The girls shook their shoulders in their happy dance, excited over the prospect of having something they weren’t allowed to play with in the house. Unfortunately, this didn’t detract them from their one main goal. “Where’s Luke?”
Tori’s heart pounded like Mike Tyson’s fists during a fight, until Antoine whisked Sheri away from Tori and lifted her over his head. “He’s spending the night at a friend’s.” The lie fell from his lips as smooth as a sunrise. Tori wished that easy explanation was true.
The twins turned and pointed those Caribbean ocean eyes at Tori, as if she had sprouted three heads and wings, before saying in unison, “On a school night?”
Christian stepped forward, distracting the twins while Monique used her foot to ease Luke’s book bag into the living room. “I’ll make your noodles.”
Suzi crossed her arms, whining, “You make our cereal for breakfast. Luke makes our snack.”
Antoine stood up. “What about me? I’ll stand in for your big brother. But you’ll have to tell me what to do.”
The twins frowned, but they accepted his offer. How could they not? They were getting their two favorite things: food and Antoine, whom they’d follow through a ring of fire in a car made of straw.
“With hot sauce,” piped Sheri, gesturing to the cabinet next to the sink.
Antoine caressed the top of her head. “I got it.”
Tori eased herself out of her seat and trudged up the stairs the moment they preoccupied themselves with finding pots and bowls. She hadn’t bothered to make eye contact with the kids before exiting. She couldn’t even smile to reassure them. She didn’t know the words to say because every thought seemed to be an empty lie.
At the top of the stairs, Tori first turned right, going into the twins’ room to lower the volume on the television, and then moved to the other side of the hall to the bathroom. Living with four kids, the bathroom was her only haven. Even then, she’d occasionally see little fingers wiggling under the door while a voice inquired, “Mommy, what’s taking you so long?”
She reached into the back of the linen closet under a towel she never used and found a small box. She eased onto the floor with her back to the door and flipped through her most prized possessions.
She traced the contours of Antoine’s face on a photo of them with all the children, laughing at the park. She hadn’t even known Honey had taken it until it appeared in a text with a message, “Count your blessings, my dear.”
Next came the ring. It wasn’t expensive, but it was real gold. She had planned on proposing to Antoine. Last March, the flowers bloomed in the yard. The sun shone. She had this photo. And she was ready.
She didn’t tell anyone her plans. She wanted Antoine to be the first to know; and the only one, if he laughed in her face. Monique watched the kids that night because Honey had to run an errand.
She and Antoine strolled along the Riverwalk. “Antoine, you’ve been the very best friend I could ask for.”
Antoine laughed. “Friend, huh? I thought you were going to say how sexy I look in this t-shirt.”
“Well,” Tori added. “You’re always there for the kids.”
“Despite your best-laid plans,” Antoine teased.
“It’s not that I have a problem with you hanging around the kids. I’ve just wanted …”
“You’ve wanted me to be free to live my own life.” Antoine’s high-pitched mimic of her voice made her giggle.
“But you haven’t,” she chided, bumping her shoulder against his.
Antoine laughed. “Of course, I have. You and I just have different opinions on what makes me happy. That’s all.”
Tori conceded, “Maybe.”
Her palms
perspired. Her body temperature increased. She concentrated on the five words that she’d been practicing for weeks in front of the mirror. I love you. Marry me. She should close her eyes and say it.
Antoine leaned in.
“I know it’s warm, but should you be sweating like this?” he swiped her brow. “You know you’ve been acting weird for the past few weeks. Are you sick? Is that why you brought me here? To tell me that you’re sick?”
“I’m not sick. I’m fine. I brought you here because …” Tori paused. Why couldn’t she ever get the important words out? I love you. Marry me.
“You should sit down,” he guided her to a bench. “I’m going to get you some water.”
Tori sighed, a reprieve. “Water would be great. Thank you.”
She slowed her breathing, calmed her heart, and kept whispering the words repeatedly. When he came back, she’d just blurt it out. However, when he came back, he wasn’t alone.
“Look who I ran into,” he exclaimed. Tori’s eyes rose to meet Saundra’s. She was one of Antoine’s exes—the gorgeous, rich, doctor bitch. And she wasn’t even a bitch. She was actually nice. But she was career-obsessed and didn’t want kids; hence, the breakup. Out of all his exes, Saundra made Tori feel most inadequate just by breathing the same air.
“I … I …I,” Tori couldn’t say it in front of the doc. Saundra just solidified the kind of woman Antoine could have—smart, successful, unencumbered.
“See,” Antoine’s voice cracked with concern. “Something’s not right.”
Tori forced a laugh. “I thought he was bringing me back water, not a house call.”
Saundra touched her forehead. “You are a bit warm, maybe …”
Tori pulled back. “I’ll be fine. I’m going to go home and lie down.” She scurried away, while Antoine said good-bye to Saundra and ran to catch her. They walked home in silence. At her doorstep, he paused, “Should you be alone tonight?”
“I’ll be fine.” She touched his cheek. “Thanks.”
That night, Honey died. And Tori had to deal with the funeral and bills she didn’t even know Honey had.
The ring stayed hidden next to the photo for a good reason. They represented the worst kind of dreams. Dreams that were so close, yet to reaching them required a leap off a cliff with no net at the bottom. If she failed at a relationship with Antoine, she’d be all alone, and her kids may never recover. She’d already lost Honey. That funeral drained her spirit and courage like dishwater down the sink. She couldn’t risk losing anyone else.
Life is funny sometimes. She couldn’t risk losing anyone else, and yet Richard had Luke. As careful as she’d been, life showed her once again who was really top dog.
Tori put her mementos back and walked down the hall to the second bedroom, where twin beds with nightstands flanked each end of the boys’ room. She collapsed onto Luke’s bed, inhaling his scent from the pillow and curled into the fetal position.
The room was at the back of the house. So, the only ambient noise came from the cracked window where nature sang the sun a lullaby as it settled down for the night.
Footsteps signaled someone had entered the room with a determined stride.
“My God,” she whined. “Can’t I fall apart in peace?”
Monique perched on Christian’s bed. “So, this is it. This is your plan: no police, no FBI, the fetal position?”
Chapter 6
Tori drew in a breath and let it out slowly at the other woman. “My mom never involved them. I don’t know what you want from me.”
Monique’s eyes flashed with a fire that could have burned down both houses. “I want you to fight.”
Luke was the fighter, the protector, the oldest. Tori thought back to Luke and his father, and the secret she had kept tucked away in the bottom of her heart for years. If she was ever going to unveil it, now was the time.
“You know, I might not like how Teddy worked, but I can’t blame him,” Tori confessed, sitting up so her back rested against the forest green headboard. “He used me, but I used him, too.”
Monique repositioned, waiting for Tori to continue.
“When I met him, I thought, this man could stand up to Richard. He was taller, more muscular, intelligent, and rich, with just enough asshole in him to make people shudder when his name was mentioned. Yet he was kind to me. I thought…I thought I’d be safe with him.”
Monique didn’t respond. Silence spread throughout the room, only broken by the sound of the twins demanding glue.
Glitter in the house was the least of her worries today. “I was so distracted by being safe from Richard that it never occurred to me that Teddy could hurt me too.”
Monique’s expression changed from shock to concern.
“The way he ignores Luke’s very existence is like a thousand mental cuts showered with peroxide,” Tori explained.
That abandonment is probably what gave Luke his fight. For instance, Luke ignored every girlfriend Antoine had. He considered their presence a temporary inconvenience. He refused to be separated from his brother or the man he considered family.
The darkness continued to creep its way into the room, forcing Monique to turn on the lamp on the bedside table. Monique stood against the wall. “Honey left in the dead of night with no evidence of how much Richard tortured her. Who would the police believe—this strong, upstanding citizen who put his life on the line for peace, justice, and the American way, or Honey?”
Angry tears welled in Monique’s eyes. “To the courts, your mother was in the wrong. She might’ve lost you to him forever. She couldn’t call in the cavalry. You can. You can do more than rock in a corner. You can throw punches like Drago in the Rocky movie. You get to take action.”
Tori snorted at the idea. She was the reigning queen of bad decisions.
“The night I became pregnant with the twins, I ruined five lives in one fell swoop—five. Antoine and I were so happy. I loved him so much. He wanted me to trust him, trust him by telling him what happened when Richard took me.” Tori cleared her throat, forcing down the bubble of terror expanding in the back of her throat.
“He didn’t understand,” she clarified. “I couldn’t tell him. It didn’t have anything to do with trust. The words lodged in my brain so tightly a bulldozer couldn’t pull them out. So, I ran.”
Tori had taken a cab to a bar where she met Darius, a man with a charming smile and a comforting lack of curiosity. They danced. He bought drink after drink. Most of all, he didn’t ask questions she didn’t want to answer, not even her last name.
Then he drove her home, which was the first bad decision. He was still intoxicated when he left her house, which was bad decision number two.
Darius crashed and died before he made it home. So now she had two beautiful daughters by a man she barely knew. The pain she caused sliced her relationship with Antoine in half.
“I have daughters that’ll never know their father because of foolish decisions that were made that night,” she said. “According to his mother, he had been a paragon of virtue, a paragon.”
A mirthless chuckle escaped Tori’s lips before she caught herself. The truth was, Darius had a suspended license for having not one, but two, drunk-driving convictions. Living off public aid in his mother’s basement, he still drank. He still drove. And he died.
“Darius, the girls, me, Antoine—all our lives changed in one night.” Tori sat up and stared at the photo of her children and Antoine sitting on the nightstand. “Am I less culpable than Richard? He’s as crazy as two starving pit bulls with one piece of kibble. But I know better.”
“Yes, you do,” Monique whispered emphatically. “You made a mistake. No one can fault you for that mistake. Forgive yourself.”
“I can fault me,” she shot back. “If Antoine hadn’t set up those security cameras for the block club and hadn’t caught the license on Darius’s car, I might not have even known the man’s name.”
Tori walked over to a laundry basket in the corner and s
tarted folding clothes. “And I prayed to God in Heaven above to make them Antoine’s babies. I prayed so hard. But they were born with that gorgeous unapologetically chocolate complexion. They didn’t favor Christian or Antoine in any way.”
She gave up on any attempt to fold the shirt in her hands and tossed it back in the basket. Her mind filled with all the things she should have done differently.
“Now, you’re asking me to make another decision that could change the script.”
Monique stood and grasped Tori’s hand to keep it still. “Yes. Let’s call someone.”
Tori yanked her hand away. “See, my mom may not have kicked down any door with guns blazing, but she kept us alive. She played his game, and we lived.” Tori held up her hands conceding, “Not the way you preferred, but we still lived. And laughed. And loved.”
Monique countered, “Yes, but your mom jumped every time the phone rang and constantly kept an eye on the rearview mirror. Each laugh was tainted with the fear that it all could be snatched away.”
“His game sucks,” Tori acknowledged. “But if I take away the bit of control he thinks he has, then he changes. I don’t know if that change will free us or send us all on the express train to hell.”
Monique opened her mouth to counter the argument, but Tori didn’t stop. “I can’t trust my decisions. I sure as shit don’t trust his. I must trust my mom’s.” Tori continued, “So, I might just sit here in the fetal position. And fuck you for judging either of us! Until you’ve survived Richard Hall, you don’t have shit to say to me.”
Never one to back down, Monique stated, “I do have one thing to say. Richard enjoyed the way he manipulated your mother. You all played his game. Luke is different. You do remember he was born a triplet, right?”
Tori glared. “Of course.”
She knew exactly how many children she carried. Her hyper-ovulation condition increased the odds of her carrying multiples. So, after the twins, Tori quit sex cold turkey. She was already one pregnancy from being the old woman who lived in a shoe.
Sugar Page 22