He reached out for her left hand. “I know we have gone through some tough things but we came through it together and I just believe that we were meant for each other. And not just you and me, but Kimani and the new baby too. We were meant to be family and be there for each other. Thick and thin.”
Guilt and love had her sandwiched.
“I couldn’t imagine my life without you and I don’t want to.” Corey slid the ring onto her finger. “Will you marry me?” he asked.
Her shoulders slumped because this should have been a perfect moment. It should have been but it wasn’t. Not with the weight of her secret overshadowing it all.
“Keesha?” he asked.
He was the only good thing in her life besides her child. She recognized that much too late. I can’t lose him. I can’t.
“Yes, yes,” she told him, leaning forward to taste his mouth.
He held her face and deepened the kiss, their tongues circling each other before he drew hers into his mouth.
Keesha closed her eyes and gave in to the way he made her feel.
Lord, please let this be Corey’s baby. Please.
Keesha and Corey were lounging on the sofa and Kimani was stretched out on the floor as they all watched Coming to America for the millionth time.
Brrrnnnggg . . .
She picked up the cordless where it sat on the back of the chair. She answered when she recognized their neighbor’s cell phone number. “Hey, Jeremiah. What’s up?”
“Walk over here when you get a chance and come by yourself.”
Click.
Keesha frowned but she dropped the phone and stood up, sliding her bare feet into her slippers.
“Where you going, Bay?” Corey asked, his eyes barely shifting from the flat screen over the fireplace.
“Jeremiah’s. He didn’t say what’s wrong but it must be something with him and his boo,” she said, already easing around the couch and heading for the front door. “I’ll be right back.”
The sun was just starting to set and the sweater she wore barely did a thing to keep the fall night winds from biting against her. Before she could make it down her steps and across the drive, Jeremiah was already standing on his porch with a big red box in his hand.
“Is that an engagement gift for me?” she asked. “I didn’t even get to tell you about it yet.”
“Damn, so Corey proposed. Congratulations,” he said with a smile that deepened his dimples. He came down the steps to hand it to her. “But we’ll talk about that later. Let’s get into this box that is for you. The deliveryman said to only give it to you when you were alone.”
Keesha arched a brow as she eyed the red box and gold bow. “Who’s it from?” she asked.
“They didn’t say.”
She turned and dropped down on Jeremiah’s porch to undo the lid. She removed the card taped to the wax paper and then lifted the paper. “It’s chocolate,” she said, reaching for one.
Jeremiah politely reached out and took it from her hand to toss into the bushes lining his front yard. “An unsealed box that you were not expecting and have no clue who it’s from, Ms. Everything-I-Eat-My-Baby-Eats.”
“True,” she agreed, opening the card.
“So I’m never keeping secrets, and I’m never telling lies . . .”
“Okay somebody likes Babyface,” Jeremiah drawled sarcastically.
Keesha read the card to herself and then read it again.
I’m bored with you. Meet me at the Elizabeth Ballroom of the Hilton at Newark Airport at eight o’clock. Friday. Show up or I have another package to send Corey.
She honestly thought the e-mails she had been getting were spam and she ignored them all but here was a package with the same bullshit, delivered to her at her address and they clearly knew about Corey.
Was this some of Shawn’s mess, she wondered, turning the lid over to pull the card from beneath the gold bow.
CANDY IS SWEET, REVENGE IS SWEETER.
“Who’s it from?” Jeremiah asked.
“Some fool,” she lied, tearing up both cards.
Friday night she was going to fuck Shawn all the way up.
Oh shit just got real.
Chapter 19
Danielle
“Danielle you went MIA on me. Give me a call when you get a chance. ”
Beep.
“Sorry, Omari,” she said. She hadn’t really spoken to him since she left the hospital.
“Missing you on TV this week, boo-boo. Enjoy your vacay.”
Beep.
“Miss you too, Nora,” she said with a smile. Nora was the makeup artist from the show.
“Danielle, this is Ming. I’ve been checking your mail at your condo like you asked and I have everything but a big red package with a gold bow they would only deliver straight to you. See you Monday. Bye.”
Beep.
“Thank God for you, Ming.”
“Hey, Dani, this is Kent. I’m missing my cohost. These correspondents cannot compete. Quote me on it.”
Danielle smiled as she logged out of her voice mail.
Kent’s use of his on-camera catchphrase tickled her and she could use a laugh as she tried to make decisions that would affect the rest of her life. Whatever is left of it.
Mind over matter, Danielle, she told herself.
She reached for her bottle of water as she rested on a lounge chair in a cabana on the beach. Over the last month she had been to see more doctors and specialists. She had learned so much about the disorder and she did take some peace in knowing that although the disorder could cause cysts in many organs of the body so far she only had complications with her kidneys. She was in the early stages and although there were treatments and lifestyles changes to extend the life of her kidneys there was no cure.
One day her kidneys would fail.
One day she would need dialysis.
One day she would die from it.
Danielle took a deep breath and pressed a hand to her forehead. Everyone lived to die one day but she hadn’t even hit thirty yet and facing that was hard.
So far she had returned to work and had not disclosed her disorder to the producers but the first chance she got to take a full week off, she took it, because besides her physical state, she had to worry about her mental health, and that meant being in the company of someone she loved who also loved her.
She shifted her eyes out to the turquoise waters of Ocho Rios, Jamaica, and smiled at the sight of Mohammed emerging from the water. Her heart swelled with love for him and then filled with sadness that when she left Jamaica in the morning he might not see her again until she was in her casket.
Mohammed rung the water from the ends of his dreads as he made his way back to her. “You should swim. The water feels good,” he said, his Jamaican accent even heavier since he moved back.
“Just enjoying watching you,” she said, handing him a towel.
“You’re in Jamaica,” he said with a smile. “You need to get wet.”
He chuckled as he stretched out on the lounge chair beside her and pulled her clothes, dampening the sheer cover-up she wore over a three-hundred-dollar bathing suit that she had absolutely no plans to swim in.
“Stop, Mohammed,” she said.
He leaned up to look down at her with a playful glint in the brown depths of his eyes. “Stop what? Stop this?” he asked, playfully biting her cheek.
The bites turned to kisses as he settled back and then pulled her body slightly atop his. “I thank you for spending your vacation with me,” he said, his voice serious.
Danielle tucked her hand between his side and his arm as she closed her eyes and listened to the rumble of his words inside his chest. “Thank you for making time for me last minute,” she said softly.
“I thought I would never see you again, I thought you had forgotten all about me,” he said, his hands massaging her leg in that intimate way that wasn’t sexual. It was the touch of a man toward a woman he loved.
“Never,” sh
e promised.
His hold on her tightened.
She pressed a kiss to his chest.
“All week I’ve been wanting to ask you what made you come here. And since you’re leaving me tomorrow, now is as good a time as any,” he said.
She hadn’t told him about her illness. She didn’t want to burden him with her illness. She selfishly had just wanted to spend time again with the one man she ever loved while she was up and healthy enough to enjoy it.
“Just missing you and decided to take a chance you weren’t loving someone else,” she lied.
Mohammed shook his head and leaned up a bit to free his dreads to hang over the back of the lounge. “I’m not gone lie. I’ve had women in all these years. You know that,” he said.
“Oh, I know,” she told him with mock attitude, lifting her head from his chest to look up at him.
“And I’ve even loved a couple . . . but never the way I loved you, Dani,” he said. “Never.”
She believed him.
Danielle forced herself to look out at the beautiful landscape of the ocean and the skies blending together in the distance as she blinked to keep tears from wetting his chest.
“I gone miss ya,” he said, his accent so thick.
Thick and sexy.
“I love ya, Danielle,” he promised.
She leaned up, bracing her hand on his chest for support, as she looked him in the eye. “And I love you, Mohammed. Please don’t forget that. Ever,” she said with a sappy smile as a tear she couldn’t deny raced down her cheek.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, pressing a kiss to his thumb before he swiped the tear away.
And the dam broke.
Danielle pressed her face back to his chest as the tears fell, racking her body, stuffing her nose, and tightening her throat.
Several people walking by their cabana on the beach eyed them as Mohammed pulled her body up and then twisted onto his side to make room to lay her on her back. He held her chin as Danielle tried to tuck her face against him. “No, no, no. Don’t cry. Don’t cry,” he whispered down to her as he pressed his lips to her cheeks.
His affection made her cry harder but Danielle fought for control because she always thought she looked a complete mess after a snot-inducing cry. Puffy eyes. Red face. Running nose.
It was not the image she wanted to leave the man with.
She took the dry hand towel he offered her and wiped her face but she drew the line at blowing her nose.
“Better?” he asked.
“Hungry,” she told him, trying to lighten the mood. “Let’s hit the buffet at the hotel.”
Mohammed stood up and then held her hand to help pull her up to her feet. “Nah, my mama is cooking dinner.”
Danielle pulled out her pair of jean cutoffs and pulled them over her bikini bottoms. She tied the ends of the sheer cover-up into a knot at her waist. “I don’t feel like changing. This cool?” she asked.
Mohammed eyed her. “No, it’s hot . . . but it’s cool.”
She playfully slapped his thigh with a towel before she stuffed the towels into the large straw tote and slid her oversized shades onto her face.
They left the beach and made their way to Mohammed’s Jeep parked at the hotel where Danielle was staying. She smiled at how much it resembled the beat-down Jeep he drove back in Jersey.
She climbed into the passenger seat and pulled her foot up onto the seat, looking out the window as they left the luxury resort. Danielle had barely spent any time at the resort, Mohammed had become her tour guide, showing her his Jamaica. She almost felt like she knew the way to drive to his home on her own.
During the fifteen-minute drive she just enjoyed being in Mohammed’s company and for many of those minutes she had no worries in the world. “What’s your mama cooking?” she asked, glancing over at him.
“Jerk chicken, rice and peas and fried dumplings.”
Danielle’s stomach growled.
Mohammed laughed as he turned down a street crowded with homes painted in bright colors and parked in the driveway between a turquoise house and a red one. When Mohammed moved back to St. Ann’s Bay he purchased the house next to his childhood home, where his mother still resided.
As soon as they climbed from the Jeep the bright white door of his mother’s home opened. Danielle smiled when Mohammed’s three-year-old son, Adric, came running toward them at full speed. He sprang up and Mohammed caught him easily before settling him on his lap.
Danielle’s insides turned to mush when Adric reached out his arms to hug her around the neck as well.
“I missed y’all,” he said.
“Yes, he did,” Oni, Mohammed’s mother, said, still standing on the porch.
During the majority of Danielle’s week, everywhere they went Adric—and sometimes Oni—was right there with them and in the short time Danielle had fallen for them both. She had been so pleased to know that Mohammed had spoken of her to his mother and the woman hugged and welcomed her like an old friend.
Or a daughter-in-law.
As they entered the two-bedroom home, the smell of the food made Danielle weak at the knees. Oni already had the round table in the bright blue dining room laid out with food and a big glass jug of punch.
Danielle’s stomach growled again. Her new nutritionist had her on a strict diet low in protein and sodium and high in fiber to try to ensure she didn’t grow any more cysts, but Danielle knew she was going to set it aside and enjoy the feast his mother fixed for her last night.
Mohammed set Adric on the floor and he came right over to Danielle to stand between her legs and lean back against her chest. She pressed a kiss to his cheek, his shoulder-length braids smelling of the coconut and oil herbs Oni used. “I know a little boy whose name is Adric. I know a little boy whose name is Adric,” she sang in a chant. “Hey little boy?”
Adric turned with a giggle and placed both of his hands on her cheeks. “Yes?” he asked, still laughing.
“What’s your name?”
“Adric,” he said loudly with a jump.
They played the little game often over the last week and Danielle would cherish how Mohammed’s son had instantly gravitated to her. His own mother had died during labor and he never knew her. For one week of her life she knew how it felt to play the role of mother and that meant everything to her because her illness prevented her from ever having children of her own.
She smiled through the tears that threatened to rise.
“Come help me, Dani,” Oni said, reverting to Mohammed’s nickname for her.
Danielle winked at Mohammed and walked through the dining room and into the bright yellow kitchen. She washed her hands at the sink. “I am starving, Mama Oni,” she said.
“Tell him.”
Danielle turned and nearly jumped up onto the sink to find Oni standing so closely behind her. She was a short and thin woman with beautiful dark skin that was still tight and smooth for her age. Her bright eyes seemed to gleam beneath the colorful headwrap she wore around her braided hair. “Ma’am?” she said, looking down at her.
“You no well, child. Oni see all, you know. And you no well,” the old woman said, pointing her finger up at Danielle as she chastised her.
Danielle felt a cold breeze rush over body. She opened her mouth to lie, but the words wouldn’t rise.
“Tell him,” Oni stressed again with one last long look before she left the kitchen.
Danielle turned back to the deep white sink and turned on the faucet, bending down to splash her face with the cool water before drinking a handful. As she stood up straight, she felt a twinge across her back and massaged it deeply even though she knew it couldn’t fix what caused the ache.
Tell him.
Chapter 20
Latoya
Latoya pressed another piece of gum into her mouth as she climbed back into her car from dropping Tiffany at school and Taquan Jr. at daycare. Once she came from under that cloud of pill popping, things became clearer and one thing
that was vividly lucid was freeing herself up by getting both of her kids out of the house during the day.
Taquan was against it until Latoya got sick of his mess and dropped the baby right off at the church to spend the day with him while she ran errands. That was the end of that debate.
She still craved the pills but she was doing better.
Thank God.
She steered her car toward the church as she hummed along to “Never Would Have Made It.” “Ain’t that the truth,” she said aloud, tapping her fingers against the steering wheel.
When she pulled into the parking lot of the church she was surprised there weren’t a lot of work trucks already there. Taquan told her he had to be at the church all day to oversee the new repair of the heating system. She grabbed the breakfast she purchased for him from his favorite diner and left the car to enter the church. She paused at the doors to the sanctuary.
It really is a beautiful church.
Latoya felt overcome by it and everything it stood for. For her His spirit was just as strong now as when the choir sang and her husband preached. It was in the quietest of moments that she felt her connection to her faith. Peace be still.
The path of her faith had taken so many detours and pitfalls along the way. But even when she faltered she knew the Lord had never left her side. He had never left her behind. Never forsaken her.
“Thank you, Lord,” she whispered, coming down the aisle.
She set Taquan’s breakfast on one of the pews and moved to lift the hem of the red wrap dress she wore as she knelt at the altar. She prayed for her husband to not let ambition pull him any further from his devotion to God. She prayed for the well being of her children and her family. She prayed for the Lord to strengthen her youngest sister to make better decisions than she had in the past. She prayed for each of the childhood friends she missed so much sometimes that she wept. And she prayed for herself most of all.
Her tears wet her folded hands.
“I am not happy, Lord,” she admitted. “Please show me the way. Please.”
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