Absolution (Mr. Black Series)

by Marshall,Penelope

  He was still holding my hand when Catherine walked up. “Cole Almen, let that woman go.”

  Cole loosened his grip, and I hurried to my room and shut the door behind me. I pressed my forehead against the door, taking hold of my rampaging breath, slowing it to a normal pace.

  I was startled by a slight knock at my door.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s me, Catherine,” her voice filtered through the wood.

  “I can’t right now. I have to go to work,” I said, resting my palm on the door.

  “Work? You can’t go to work today.”

  “I need to get my mind off of things.”

  “Okay, honey.” She paused for a few seconds. “I’m here if you need me.”

  I didn’t reply. I knew she meant well, but I was tired of well-meaning friends. I wanted Ezra. That’s all I wanted.

  I walked to my closet, looking for my uniform, when I caught sight of his clothes hanging toward the back of the closet…untouched. I pulled a gray knit cardigan off the hanger, squeezing it between my fingers, caressing the material between my thumbs.

  “What do I do, Ezra? Please tell me there’s something to live for,” I asked in a tight voice.

  I paused, my eyes shining with tears as I waited for his reply which, of course, didn’t come. I fell to the ground in tears, placing the sweater against my face, breathing him in as hard as I could.

  “Life shouldn’t be this hard,” I sobbed into the sweater. Obviously the vow I made in the car to never cry again didn't mean much.

  COLE

  I walked straight to my room, removing my uniform as I walked. I felt so constrained. I just wanted to rip the damn thing off and never see it again.

  Catherine entered the room.

  “Did you talk to her?” I asked.

  “She doesn’t want to talk about it. I don’t blame her. If you’re so concerned, then why don’t you fuckin’ open your mouth and go talk to her?”

  “I can’t even look at her.”

  “Well, you better get over it. She lives here.”

  “What should I say?”

  “I don’t know, figure it out,” she replied with a twinge of an attitude.

  “What the fuck is your problem?”

  “Oh, sorry I’m not catering to you. You signed up for that shit. I told you to quit a long time ago. Maybe if you had, then Ezra would be alive today.”

  “Are you blaming me for Ezra?”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “Would you rather I have taken the bullet?”

  She didn’t reply. I threw my uniform on the bed and walked to the closet, where the first thing I saw was the uniform I was wearing the day Ezra died.

  “What is this doing here?” I asked.

  “I had it cleaned.”

  “Do you really think I’m gonna wear this fuckin’ thing again?”

  “How am I supposed to know?” she asked. “You talk to me even less than Adeline does. All these fuckin’ deployments. I told you I wasn’t going to stay, and the only reason I did was because of Ezra passing. If he hadn’t died, then I would be gone already,” she said, walking out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

  I stood there for a while with the added guilt she had just planted in my head, replaying the day Ezra died. It was my fault. I should have seen that fucking sniper.

  Nothing had been the same since I got back. I felt like a zombie, walking through my own hell. I often wondered if it would have been better if I had taken the bullet that day, rather than Ezra. I threw on a pair of jeans and a shirt, then left. I had to get out of this fucking house.

  ADELINE

  I made my way to the bathroom and was startled by the front door slamming shut. I wondered who had left.

  I leaned into the mirror, still a little sleepy from crying so much, so I slapped my face a few times to get the blood flowing. I groaned to myself, realizing that no amount of physical abuse was going to wake me up any faster. As I waited for the shower to warm up, I observed myself in the mirror until the steam slowly fogged up my image, leaving it an indiscernible blur.

  Lazily I stepped in, where the heat engulfed my weary body and calmed my anxious mind. I sat down and began to cry quietly to myself. Eyeing my bare ring finger under the stream of warm water, I wished there were a diamond sparkling back at me. Alas, my Prince Charming wouldn’t be riding in on his valiant white horse to sweep me away from my daily drudgery, as he had died atop a cliff and would never come back.

  Out of the shower, I dried off, and then quickly slipped on my simple beige uniform. It was about as flattering as a potato sack. I took one last look in the mirror before heading off to work.

  I parked my car and grabbed a cup of coffee from a vendor, making my way down the street to the crosswalk, where the blue walk signal started to blink, signaling that it was okay to proceed.

  There was a loud honk as I took my first step onto the pavement. A speeding cab damn near ran over my foot.

  “Hey, I’m walking here,” I hollered, lifting my arms into the air.

  Unfortunately, I was also holding the uncovered cup of coffee, which splashed all over my uniform and the ends of my hair. Thankfully, none of the scalding liquid made contact with my skin.

  Trying to avoid another hit and run scenario, I quickly made my way across the street, my purse tucked under one arm, my heels clicking against the asphalt as I tried to wring out the excess coffee from my hair.

  “It’s not working,” I murmured under my breath as I twisted it up into an unattractive side bun in an effort to look presentable.

  Running through the main entrance of the diner, Rob, my manager, stopped me. A funny older gentleman, Rob took his work very seriously, almost as if he owned the restaurant himself. Every day, he wore a buttoned up pinstriped shirt with a tie that never matched. His receding hairline mimicked a gray-haired tutu that decorated the back of his scalp from ear to ear, and his glasses were thicker than the glass coasters that were displayed on the coffee table.

  Eyeing the coffee stain on my uniform, he shook his head and asked, “Can you at least come to work looking like you wanna be here?”

  “Yes, sir,” I replied as I tried sopping up the stain with a rag from the bar.

  Unfortunately for me, I had grabbed a rag from the used pile, which added remnants of syrup and spilled ketchup from the sticky counter tops.

  “Sweet baby Jesus, why me?” I muttered.

  Already running ten minutes late, I caught a glimpse of Rob angrily pointing at his watch. I nodded. I’m sure if he had known I had just lost Ezra, he would have been a little more sympathetic, but I didn’t want to tell anyone at work. I couldn’t stand the attention or the questions. I just wanted some distraction from real life.

  Right at that moment it hit me. I needed one of Ezra’s good jokes to get me through my shift.

  I threw on a full length apron to cover the mess, but it was pointless―the stain was too big. I sighed when I realized I would have to spend the rest of the day trying to cover it.

  Other than the dramatics of my near death experience with the cabbie, and my ruined uniform, the day rolled on pretty slowly. Customers trickled in like drips from a leaky faucet. I could count on one hand how many customers I had waited on during my shift to this point, and it didn’t look like there was going to be a flood anytime soon.

  Finishing my day with a whopping $14.79 and a stick of gum in tips, I stared at the heaping wad of cash, wondering what my life had come to. My prospects for the future were looking pretty bleak. I stuffed the money into my purse, and dropped the gum into the greeter’s tip jar.

  “Might as well pay it forward.”

  Stepping out to the curb, I paused to inhale the crisp air and then hurried toward the dreaded crosswalk. The blue walk light started to blink, indicating it was safe to proceed…but I knew better. Looking both ways for oncoming traffic, I sprinted across the black asphalt. Arriving safely on the other side, I walked the ten or so steps to rou
nd the corner onto Furman Avenue where I was parked so I could head back home.

  COLE

  After a few hours of driving around town, I found myself at Silver Strand beach, just watching the sunset, digging my toes into the warm, gritty sand. I saw a couple sitting on the shoreline, watching as their two children played in the water in front of them.

  I wanted that someday. I also wanted to stay in the Navy. How could I ever have that with a woman who always had one foot out of the door, even during the most trying time in my life? How did I know she would be waiting after the next deployment, or the next? I didn’t.

  I just lost my best friend, my brother in arms, and she had the nerve to…I shook my head. The audacity. Why was I trying so hard to keep a woman who would never understand me or my career?

  I didn’t want to go home to see her or Adeline, but for two very different reasons. Catherine, for obvious reasons, and Adeline, because I just felt so damn guilty. I didn’t know what to say to her that could even begin to convey how sorry I was about Ezra. I just wanted to wrap my arms around her and tell her everything would be okay, but that would be a lie.

  Deciding to take care of one of my problems tonight, I got into my car and headed home. I ended up following a car that looked pretty familiar, and when it parked right in front of the curb of the house, I realized it was Adeline.

  “Shit,” I said, shaking my head.

  I waited until she entered the house before I followed. Heading for the kitchen, I prayed she wasn’t in there making dinner or something. I just wasn’t ready for the conversation we needed to have.

  I walked into the kitchen to find Catherine making herself a sandwich.

  I sat at the table and said, “I want to talk to you about what you said earlier.”

  “And what is that?” she asked.

  “The part when you said that you would be gone if Ezra hadn’t passed.”

  “Yeah, and?” she asked, throwing pieces of deli meat onto a slice of wheat bread.

  “I’d like you to leave,” I said matter-of-factly.

  She stopped what she was doing and looked at me. “You want me to what?”

  “I want your ungrateful ass to pack your shit up and leave.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” she said as she continued to pile meat on her sandwich.

  “It wasn’t a request.”

  “I don’t give a fuck what it was. This is my house too.”

  “One, this is not your house, it’s mine, and why do you wanna stay? You constantly remind me how much you would love to leave. So why don’t you just do us both a favor, and get the fuck out?”

  She took a bite of her sandwich and smiled. “You aren’t thinking with your right mind. You shouldn’t make big decisions like this when you’re upset.”

  “That’s the thing. I’m not upset about this decision. I think it has been a long time coming. But today really showed me who you really are.”

  “Why? Because I was worried about Adeline more than you?”

  “No. Adeline needed that, and that makes you a great friend. That has nothing to do with what kind of wife you will make…which, in my honest opinion, would be a shitty one.”

  She stopped chewing, her eyes turning red with anger as she flung her sandwich at my face. I stood up, kicking the dining room chair with my heel toward the wall.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?” I yelled, trying to pull pieces of meat and bread off my shirt.

  The yelling had drawn Adeline, who was wrapped in a towel, from the bathroom. “What’s going on?” she asked, her long brown hair dripping water all over the floor.

  “This asshole is breaking up with me,” Catherine said, pointing at me.

  Adeline looked at me, the hurt apparent in her big blue eyes as she clutched tightly onto the white terry material that covered her wet body. I looked at her, defeated. I couldn’t win. I shook my head, brushing by her as I walked toward the hallway and up to my room.

  ADELINE

  “What happened?” I asked, sitting at table.

  “That asshole thinks I’m going to be a shitty wife,” she said, her face flushed from yelling.

  “Well, what does he know?” I asked timidly, my elbows resting on the table.

  “He doesn’t know shit,” she yelled, pieces of bread and meat still flying out of her mouth.

  I covered my mouth as she walked over to me and sat down. “Maybe you can talk to him, Adeline. Tell him what a mistake he’s making. Would you do that for me?”

  My mind raced. I didn’t want to talk to Cole. I didn’t even want to be in the same room with him. He reminded me too much of Ezra…but as I looked into Catherine’s sad eyes, and as I thought back to all the kindness she had shown me in the last few weeks, I knew I owed her to at least try.

  I nodded as I stood and walked down the hall. I glanced over my shoulder to see her still sitting at the table, shooing me with her hands. I stopped at the bottom of the stairs and stared up the twenty or so steps which led to Cole’s bedroom. I took a deep breath and trudged up them intently. Once I reached the top, I knocked on the door wildly. If I were going to do this, I was going to give it my best shot.

  The door flung open. “What!” he yelled before he realized it was me.

  His blue eyes softened. “Adeline…” he said, backing away.

  I walked in, clutching onto my towel, panning the room. I had never been in their room. It was clean and simple; it didn’t look like he shared this room with a woman at all. The uniform he had worn to the funeral was lying on the bed, which caused a lump to form in my throat. I turned away from it. I think he realized the uniform caused me some distress, because he promptly picked it up and threw it into the closet and closed the door.

  “What can I do for you, Adeline?”

  I stuttered for a moment, trying to gather my thoughts. “Why…”

  He interjected. “Why am I breaking up with Catherine?”

  I nodded as I looked around the room, anywhere but right at him.

  “She’s not the one,” he said.

  “I…I…” I continued to stutter.

  “She’s been a great friend to you during this time, but in the same token, she has been an awful girlfriend. Blaming me at every turn for what happened. This is already hard enough without someone adding salt to the wound.”

  I looked at my bare feet. I didn’t want to tell him that a little part of me blamed him too.

  “Don’t worry, I know what you’re thinking, but I have enough guilt and blame for the both of us.”

  I stepped toward him. “No. I―” I stopped myself; I didn’t want to insult him by lying.

  He looked at me, then back down to the floor. Any resolution we could have gained from this conversation was just lost.

  My wet hair had created a puddle on his floor, so when I stepped away, I slipped, falling back. I shut my eyes…almost instantly, I felt a set of strong arms catch my body midair. I opened my eyes to see Cole staring straight at me. It was the first time he had really looked at me since it happened, and the intensity of his gaze reeled me in and wouldn’t let go. I couldn’t tell you how long he held me, or how long I let him hold me. Twenty seconds…twenty minutes…twenty years…it could have all been the same to me at that point. All my aches melted away as we gazed into each other’s eyes.

  “Adeline!” I heard Catherine hollering from downstairs, which knocked me from my trance.

  He lifted me upright and backed away. “Please, tell her it’s over. She can sleep on the couch tonight, but she needs to be gone tomorrow.”

  I heard what he had said, but I was still lost in the fog from what just happened between us. I stood there for a moment, paralyzed, unable to move.

  “Adeline!” Catherine yelled again.

  He shook his head as he plopped down on the bed and removed his shoes. I backed out, closing the door behind me. I walked slowly down the stairs. Catherine was standing at the bottom, waiting for my news.

  Her eyes
were set on me, and all I could do was shake my head.

  “Fuck you, Cole!” she yelled up the stairs as I made my way past her. “What did he say?”

  “He said he wants you out by tomorrow. You can sleep on the couch tonight, but that’s it,” I said quietly.

  “Well, did you stick up for me?” she asked, grabbing my arms tightly.

  I nodded.

  She squeezed my arms so hard I knew I would have bruises in the morning. Her eyes burned red with fury, and her lips tightened. “What the fuck did you say, you bitch? I’ve been here for you all this time. Make him let me stay!”

  I had never seen her this way. “Let me go, Catherine!” I yelled, trying to yank my arm away from her grip.

  Cole’s door swung open and he made it down the stairs within seconds, ripping Catherine off of me.

  “Get the fuck out now!” he yelled, pulling me behind him.

  “Fuck you, Cole. You’re gonna be fuckin’ sorry!” she yelled, grabbing her purse and keys.

  “I’ll leave your shit outside tomorrow. Don’t you dare come back in here. In fact, give me the key,” he said, holding out his hand.

  She hid the keys behind her back. “Come get ’em, baby.” She smiled wildly.

  I slowly backed down the hallway toward my room. I couldn’t take it. Not today. Not the day of Ezra’s funeral.

  “Where the fuck are you going, Adeline?” Catherine screamed.

  It’s like she was a totally different person. I had never seen her this way, and maybe this is what Cole was talking about. She acted like a rabid animal backed into a corner. I reached the door to my room, rushed in, and shut it behind me. I fell to the ground, my body pressed against the door, sobbing uncontrollably.

  I could hear the back and forth screaming between the two. I laid my head on the ground, pressing my ear to the floor, listening for the subtle vibrations of footsteps. The front door slammed shut, which startled me, and then there was the heavy creaking of the hardwood slats of the staircase.

  My tears had begun to puddle around my cheek as I slowly drifted off to sleep.