Choose Me

by Xenia Ruiz

  “Everything’s going to be fine,” she said. “When you wake up, your family’s going to be there. And I’ll be there. Si Dios quiere.”

  “If God wants?” I translated, turning to face her.

  “God willing.”

  “I thought ‘quiere’ meant ‘want,’ or ‘love.’”

  “It depends on the context …” she said, her voice fading as she turned to look up at the house. I knew Tony’s room was up there, in the attic, still untouched since his death. I wanted to absorb her pain, just for a little while, hold her in my arms all night, and tell her that everything would be alright for her also. Staring at her stretched neck and her protruding chin, I remembered how soft her skin was in that spot, remembered what it was like kissing her there, like falling into a deep sleep. When she turned back around, a faraway look shrouded her face and she reached out to me. I closed my eyes, waiting for her touch. Her hand hovered over my head, then down to my eyebrows, a stroke of a finger and then, nothing. When I opened my eyes, she was looking away, into the blackness of the yard, her hands safely cradled in her lap.

  CHAPTER 27

  EVA

  “WHO SO FINDETH a wife findeth a good thing and obtaineth favour of the Lord.” As Akil read the passage from Proverbs 18:22, many of the wedding guests, the women mostly, whooped and clapped. I had heard the passage recited at other weddings and it always elicited the same response. I used to think the passage meant that a wife was “a good thing” for a man because he was getting the convenience of a housekeeper, sexual partner, and cook all in one. Now, I acknowledged its meaning in the spiritual context, that a man who got married was making a covenant with the Lord, because it was assumed he was forsaking all other women.

  The passage was part of the wedding vows Akil had chosen from different scriptures of the Bible, excerpts from Corinthians and Proverbs 31. When it was Jade’s turn, she began with selections from Genesis, Ecclesiastes, and ended with Ephesians. Before she could finish, she started weeping and Akil had to complete the last few verses before he, too, choked up.

  I glanced over at Adam who was standing with the other groomsmen after walking Jade down the aisle, beaming like a proud brother. His eyes were closed but he was smiling since it was his suggestion to use scriptures in lieu of the traditional wedding vows. The fluttering in the pit of my stomach that usually occurred whenever I looked at him or he was near me resurfaced. He looked so noble in his black Nehru tux, which hugged him like a custom-made suit. A black-and-white mud-cloth-patterned bow tie completed his outfit. His hair had grown quite a bit so that he was sporting a modest, updated Afro, a combination of twists and finger-combed locks.

  Over the last couple of months Adam and I had grown closer, like very good friends. Watching him recover from his major surgery was difficult, but because I had seen post-op pictures on the Internet, I was prepared when I visited him in the hospital. Through his recovery, I learned to cope with my own grief. My pain was still palpable; I felt it in the numbness in my chest, the lump in my throat, the knot in my stomach, but I was slowly recovering. I gained strength from watching his positive outlook and silent determination. Even though he was in pain for several weeks, and was still taking drugs for occasional discomfort, his attitude remained upbeat. When his mother or Jade couldn’t tend to him, I stepped in to help with meals and make sure he didn’t exert himself. The one thing I didn’t do was change his dressing, not only because I felt a nurse was better equipped, but it seemed inappropriate for me to see him shirtless, given our past. Not that I didn’t trust myself around him, but I knew my weaknesses and I didn’t feel the need to test myself anymore. I found I was falling for him all over again, but I kept these feelings suppressed.

  The week before the wedding, I accompanied Adam to the tuxedo shop for his final fitting. Since his first fitting, he had gained some weight and had to have the tuxedo altered a little. I walked over to where he stood in front of the three-way mirror as the tailor stuck pins around the shoulder area.

  “What do you think, ma’am? Your groom looks good, huh?” the tailor asked.

  “Oh, no, he’s not—” I answered automatically, blushing slightly.

  “We’re not—” Adam said almost as quickly.

  The tailor realized he was mistaken and smiled sheepishly. “Well, you make a nice couple anyway.”

  As the pastor blessed the new couple, I felt someone watching me. It was Luciano, who had been assigned as my partner, something Adam claimed was not his doing. But since he was no longer involved with Maya, it didn’t bother me much. He seemed to have matured a little since his wife filed for divorce, despite recently renewing their vows. We were even able to have a civil conversation about our respective jobs. Only once did he ask how Maya was doing. When I told him that she was “still married,” he took the cue and changed the subject.

  I turned my attention back to Jade and Akil. Ordinarily, when I attended weddings, I had a tendency to look beyond the pretty dress-up clothes, the elaborate decorations, and the sentimental words and tears. As a marriage veteran, and a realist, I knew marriage was a job, a career in itself that involved a lot of compromising and a lot of taking for granted. Because I had been married so briefly and divorced so young, because I had spent half of my life raising my children alone, I didn’t have a romantic view of marriage. I didn’t believe in the fantasy of it, the knight in shining armor on a white horse riding me off into the sunset to live happily-ever-after. After the clothes were stored away, the decorations discarded, and the words and tears were spent, reality was waiting like a bucket of freezing water.

  For the moment, however, I set aside my cynical thoughts and concentrated on the lovely aesthetics around me. Jade looked radiant in her gold African-inspired dress and headwrap; Akil, elegant in his coat and tails. The bridesmaids’ dresses were in gold-and-black mud-cloth crepe de chine, styled according to each bridesmaid’s preference. Of course, I had mine designed in the style of a sari and had received many compliments. Jade had commented that I was stealing her spotlight, and I apologized before realizing she was joking. Nothing could spoil her day.

  My eyes drifted back toward Adam. He looked at me like when we first met, strangers across a room, smiling tentatively. I returned the smile and for the first time, I began to imagine what it would be like to be married to him. Not in the wedding-day-fantasy-honeymoon scenario, but in the day-to-day marital setting. I could see Adam watching ESPN as I cooked dinner and cleaned the house; Adam and I arguing over the toilet seat being left up, or the tube of toothpaste being squeezed in the middle; Adam coming home late at night while I lay in bed wondering where he’d been. Then I realized I was reliving my marriage with Anthony. It would be different with Adam, wouldn’t it? I was not the same woman I was at nineteen, naive and headstrong, and Adam was not Anthony. We were older, more responsible, committed to our relationships with God, with a friendship that was stronger than it had been in the beginning. There was something about marriage, about living under the same roof, that ruined all that. Then it dawned on me that Adam and I had never really discussed marriage, at least not in depth, except to say that neither one of us wanted it. So why was I even thinking about him in that context?

  Just as the pastor was about to present the new Mr. and Mrs. McClaren to the guests, a loud yawn was heard. Everyone laughed as all eyes turned toward Daelen, the ring bearer, who was stretching his body in his miniature tux. Kia, the flower girl, put her gloved finger to her lips. “Shush, boy!” she scolded him loudly. This was followed by more laughter.

  The wedding ceremony was followed by a long session of photography and videotaping. The photographer was a petite older woman of about sixty, an independent, never-married aunt of Adam and Jade’s on their father’s side who had owned her own photography studio for thirty-five years. She had a salt-and-pepper mini Afro and was dressed in a cream-colored fitted pantsuit that accentuated her extra-small figure. The two cameras she alternately used looked like they weighed more
than she did.

  “The ceremony was nice,” I told Adam when we had a sit-down break between poses. “The vows, especially.” My gold-dyed shoes were killing me, so I slipped them off and lifted my feet onto the pew.

  Adam shook his head. “They should’ve memorized them. They didn’t sound natural.”

  “They sounded alright. It’s the words that count, not the presentation. We can’t all be poets.”

  “It would’ve sounded more ro … dramatic, if they had recited the words, instead of reading them,” he said critically, but not harshly. Then he began reciting the words in his lyrical voice, “Love is kind and patient, never jealous or boastful, proud, or rude … It doesn’t keep a record of wrongs that others do …” His voice dwindled as he momentarily closed his eyes and massaged his torso underneath his tux. Although he was officially recovered from the surgery and was in remission, I knew he still had pain management issues and was seeing a specialist who kept trying different medications. Some of the drugs sapped his energy, and there were times when he would doze off when we were together, other times when he seemed preoccupied.

  “Show-off,” I said. “When you get married, you can say it the way you want.”

  He opened his eyes and looked at me with mock scorn and I held his gaze as a camera went off, startling us.

  “I just love your dress, honey,” Mattie, the photographer, cried. “An Indian sari out of African print. I love it, absolutely love it.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Let me get a picture of you two.”

  “You just did, Aunt Mattie,” Adam protested.

  “Don’t argue with me, boy. I want another one over there.” She gestured toward the rostrum where two columns were decorated with an arrangement of lilies, foliage, and baby’s breath.

  “Did she just call me ‘boy’?” Adam asked loudly of no one.

  Adam pulled himself up with effort, pulling me with him as I struggled to step back into my shoes. We posed in a classical bridesmaid-groomsman pose: turned slightly toward each other, holding on to the bouquet.

  “I don’t like that. You look staged,” Mattie said, shaking her head. “Put your hands down. Look at each other like you were looking at each other a little while ago.”

  With everyone looking at us, I felt self-conscious and hesitantly looked up at Adam as he looked down at me. The flash went off and I rubbed my eyes, pretending the bulb had blinded me.

  As we walked off the lectern, Mattie held my arm and pulled me back. “What did you say your name was, sweetheart?” she asked in a low voice.

  “Eva.”

  “Um-hmm. I’ve been watching you two eyeing each other all afternoon.”

  Before I could tell her that Adam and I were just friends, she called up the rest of the wedding party for final pictures. We were directed to gather around Jade and Akil, joining hands in what Mattie called “a circle of love and blessings.” Adam leaned over to me.

  “I’m ready to go,” he whispered in my ear.

  “You can’t leave your sister’s wedding,” I whispered back.

  “Watch me.”

  He looked at me in that way he had been lately, like there was something on his mind, something he wanted to say but didn’t know if he should. This confused me because I thought we had reached a point where we could tell each other anything.

  The reception was held in Akil’s parents’ home, a Victorian three-story mansion with a wrap-around porch. It sat on a double lot in Hyde Park. A beautiful rose garden and gazebo in the backyard created a ready-made decorated effect. The band, comprised of college students from the nearby University of Chicago, played a variety of neo-soul and R & B love songs from the eighties and nineties. Adam and I danced to a couple of ballads during which we held each other like junior high kids who were forced to dance together at their first dance. Several times, his lips brushed my forehead, but whenever I looked up, his eyes were closed as if it had been unintentional. We also participated in the usual group dances: the bus stop, the electric slide, the cha-cha slide, dances I was familiar with, and which I infused with my own salsa moves. Adam ran out of steam after the first two numbers and after I finally sat down, he commented that he didn’t know I could move “like a sistah.” It dawned on me that we had never gone dancing.

  The food was supplied by Jade’s catering business and included many of her family’s traditional Creole dishes, and an orange-wine wedding cake. Jade took my advice and served sparkling white grape juice, which when slightly frozen tasted like bubbly champagne. I noticed that Adam wasn’t eating much of anything, just drinking water and juice. When I questioned him, he claimed to have an upset stomach.

  As the afternoon wore on, I was a little overwhelmed by Adam’s and Akil’s extended families, even though I had gotten to know many of them during the rehearsals and on the dance floor. Whenever I got the chance, I stole away for some quiet time, exploring the mansion or some corner of the expansive yard. My solitude was interrupted every time by Adam, who would come hunting for me, wondering why I kept disappearing. He still didn’t understand that sometimes I just wanted to be alone for the sake of being alone. It didn’t necessarily have to mean anything. When the band started calling for a conga line to the tune of “Feeling Hot, Hot, Hot,” I disappeared from the reception once again. I had noticed the small greenhouse at the far end of the yard, and finding the door unlocked, I went in. Akil’s mother had a variety of breathtaking orchids and tropical plants. My first thought was of my mother, how she had always dreamed of having a greenhouse. Then I remembered that I had never gotten around to building my own.

  From inside the greenhouse, I could hear the band begin to play the Chicken Dance, and despite being alone, I rolled my eyes as I imagined the antics of the guests.

  Just before Eli’s birthday party, I had taken Pastor Zeke’s advice and continued praying, rising early and doing my daily devotion, falling to my knees at night, things I hadn’t done in a long time. Slowly but surely, I was beginning to feel God’s presence in my life again, to participate fully in church once again, and in the Youth Ministry. I was beginning to let go of the anger at the man who had murdered my child, let go of the helplessness I felt when I tried to make sense of Tony’s death. Although no explanation was plausible, I was beginning to accept it, in spite of my efforts not to. When his birthday rolled around, I was busy helping Adam convalesce, which kept me from getting depressed. It was still a horrible time, but somehow I got through it. Next year, it would be easier, I told myself, a promising, yet somber thought.

  The night after the party, after everyone was gone and I was finally alone, I sat in the backyard glider for what seemed like hours, listening to the night sounds: the crickets chirping, the wind whispering through the leaves.

  For some people, there was usually some event that triggered their reconnection with God. For some, it was a specific song they heard, for others, a particular sermon that touched them. For me, it was being alone, in the middle of my backyard, the night of my son’s birthday. That night, surrounded by God’s nature, I began my nightly prayer, waiting for His guidance. I could have easily continued being complacent, letting the days slip by, going through the motions of life. But Eli, although grown, still needed not only me, but God. I realized that even though my relationship with my father was far from ideal, it was better than it had been. And I had finally begun to forgive and love myself, my life, once again. I was at peace in my solitude, only this time I wasn’t wanting for anything, or anyone.

  Even when Adam came back into my life and started making his way into the crevices of my mind, I remained steadfast and blocked him out. When we were together, I didn’t allow him in my personal space and anything I felt, I kept to myself. In our e-mails and phone calls, we shared so much more than we ever had before, about our deepest fears, our relationships with our fathers. We were able to talk about anything—except the way we were, what we had meant to each other, and what, if anything, we would be in the future. H
e respected my boundaries, never attempting anything. Had I been as strong in the beginning, that first time I let him into my house, the kiss in the bathroom never would have happened, nor would’ve any of the events that followed. Our attraction to each other was still quite obvious, at times tangible in the air between us, but because of other important issues—his surgery and recovery, my ambivalent relationship with God, his rededication—we didn’t cross the line. And always in the back of my mind was the promise I had made to God, when I feared my children would be taken from me: I will never let another man come before You …

  In the distance, I heard someone at the microphone announcing the throwing of the bouquet and garter. Although I had no intention of participating, I always enjoyed watching the unmarried guests clamoring for the trinkets that promised future matrimony. As I strolled back to the reception, Adam headed toward me.

  “I’ve been looking all over for you,” he said impatiently, taking my hand. He steered me in the opposite direction, away from the party. “Let’s go for a drive.”

  “What? Now? They’re getting ready—”

  “Come on.”

  Adam headed straight for the lakefront, past Montrose Harbor, which was already under construction and fenced off, and on to the next beach—Wilson. The lakefront was crowded and people turned and stared at our wedding attire like we were wearing spacesuits. All around us, blankets were flying up, and picnic gear and garbage were being tossed about. He led me by my hand as an impatient adult pulled a tired child, my heels sinking into the sand. Finally, he stopped at an unoccupied spot and faced the water, his eyes closed tightly. He released me and I waited for him to speak, but he didn’t.