Yes, our mother really did still fix us Easter baskets. They just no longer held toys inside. She was one of those moms that actually decorated for every holiday and gave us some type of trinket to commemorate it. That was one of the things I always loved about her. And even though we were both full grown now, though I think Millie was born grown sometimes, she didn’t stop. She would say just because we knew who the Bunny, Cupid, Santa and all the rest were didn’t mean they couldn’t still come around; her love didn’t stop, why should the fun parts of the holiday?
“Hey!” I shouted at her once I had my prize in hand and looked inside, “Why is my bunny missing an ear?”
“What can I say? I like easy prey.”
“You can be such a bitch.”
“Randy, you have no idea how right you are.” Millie said with a smirk and mischievous gleam in her eyes.
3
After going a few more rounds with Mildred, and Mom threatening both of us to stop, I grabbed a snack tray from the kitchen like she told me to. When I went back to grab some cans of pop she said to me, “Make sure you get your boyfriend some milk. I’m sure he’d like some.”
“Mom. Will you can it with the cat talk?”
“Don’t roll your eyes at me young lady!” she said as I made my escape from the kitchen.
I don’t know what I was in such a hurry for. When I stepped back into the living room the tension in there was so palpable I thought I was going to have to go back in the kitchen and get a butcher knife to cut through it.
Millie sat over in the corner where she conveniently pretended to watch the tv, but in actuality she just watched Dad and Antonio do their level best to not look at each other. Upon closer inspection I saw that Dad was watching tv, and also glancing at Antonio out the corner of his eye. And I think he was growling at him; it was so low in his throat that I could have been mistaken. I don’t know if Antonio even payed any attention to what was on the screen, but his left leg shook so bad his entire body seemed to vibrate.
They jumped a little and looked guilty as sin of something when I dropped the tray down onto the table. None of them had even noticed me walk in, “Don’t everybody speak at once.” When I went to sit down on the couch closer to Antonio than Dad, Antonio put his arm around my shoulder, and yes, Dad growled, “Daddy, is there some reason you’re growling at my boyfriend? And what is that smell?” I hadn’t gotten a whiff of anything until just then. But there was an almost visible aroma coming from my dad that reminded me of my old medicine cabinet that my parents kept stocked year-round.
“I was not growling, must just have something caught in my throat.” Was Dad’s throaty, baritone reply. His was the kind of voice that sent chills up a kid’s spine and put fear in their heart when caught doing something bad growing up, trust me. “Hope it wasn’t a hairball.” Antonio choked out a small laugh at that. “That smell is all the Vick’s I got rubbed all in and around my nostrils and upper lip. I’m hoping that and all the pills your mother just shoved down my throat can curtail whatever has my allergies afflux.”
“And what on earth are you watching?” I finally looked up at the flatscreen hanging up over the fireplace mantle to see a bunch of tigers running in the wild. Since Dad was the one holding the remote at that point he must have been the one to pick out the show. But I don’t remember ever seeing him even glance at the Discovery Channel before. “Oh my God, what did he just do to that reindeer?”
“Oh, sweetie, we were just discussing how aggressive tigers are, so I decided to pull this up to prove my point.” Came Dad’s reply.
Which Antonio countered with, “We were also talking about the fact that a pack of wolves could be considered even more aggressive and unpredictable. Just so happened that this episode featured tigers and not wolves.”
Mildred bust out laughing in her chair. Before I could ask her what she found so funny, she jumped out of her seat saying, “I’ma go see if Mom needs any help with dinner.”
“What is it with you and Mom? I finally bring someone home for y’all to meet, and you act like I brought home a stray cat.” I got back up off the sofa and grabbed Antonio’s hand, grateful he didn’t need things spelled out to him when he got up too. “We’re going out back until dinner’s ready. I really hope that when we come back in the two of you have stopped acting like crazy cat people. This is just getting nuts.”
We stormed out – well more precisely I stormed, Antonio just followed behind me – through the kitchen and right out of the back door. I don’t know if Mom or Millie said anything to us, but their gazes burrowed into the back of my head. I refused to give either one the satisfaction of acknowledging them by turning around, Dad would either relay my message or not.
It was way too cold out to swim in the pool – which was still covered from the winter anyway – so we kept on past it. We went farther back to the bench placed next to the two-car garage; that didn’t hold any cars. It was more of a storage unit than anything with old furniture, bikes, yard stuff, outdoor holiday decorations, and tons of other miscellaneous crap.
Antonio wisely said nothing as we walked, just allowed me to seethe. I had no idea what had gotten into my parents, but I didn’t like it one bit. I had expected embarrassment of some sort, but the way they were acting was just plain bizarre.
When we sat down on the bench and some of my ire had drained out of my system, I remembered just how cold it was and regretted not grabbing my jacket on the way out. As if reading my thoughts, or more likely seeing the goosebumps pop up on my arms since the black maxi dress I wore was sleeveless, Antonio shrugged out of his suit jacket and put it over my shoulders.
I reached up and grabbed his hand before it left my shoulder, staring at all of the differences and wondering if my family was truly that bigoted. It was the last thing I had anticipated. “Do you think my parents are like so many other idiots that can’t see past our physical differences? I mean, this neighborhood never had a race issue; it’s the true definition of a melting pot. And race was never a household topic.”
Antonio affectively stopped me from rambling by bending his head down and taking my mouth with his. Just a gentle brush of lips, but that was enough to send flames throughout my body to heat my very core. All my worries melted away when he parted my lips seeking entrance, which I eagerly gave him. As our tongues became entangled Antonio pulled me closer to him.
The kiss ended a lot quicker than I wanted it to when Antonio whispered against my lips, “I love you, Miranda.” He sat back a tad bit so that our lips no longer touched and looked me directly in the eyes. “As long as you can accept me, that’s all that matters. But, I honestly don’t think it has anything to do with my race. There’s something about me that I haven’t had a chance to tell you about yet, but I have been meaning to. I’m thinking there’s a few things your family hasn’t told you either.”
“What’re you talking about?”
The words had barely left my lips before Antonio had stood and held his hand out to me, he asked, “May I have this dance?”
Even though there was no music to be heard I couldn’t possibly resist that debonair smile of his. So I gave him the only answer I could, “Yes, you may.”
I took the hand that was offered to me and he pulled me off the bench and into his arms. His jacket fell away from my shoulders, discarded like a distant memory. I couldn’t help but laugh a little as the gesture of dancing with no music was both insane, and completely romantic. As he twirled me around and we moved together over the grass covered ground, everything else seemed to just disappear; all my worries, my parents’ erratic behavior, all of it. Right then there was only me and him.
“Now that’s the beautiful smile I was looking for.” He said as he looked down at me with that wicked grin of his that drove me mad. With the light from the sunset shining against his hair, it looked several different shades of blond, and made him seem even more handsome. His eyes like a pair of hazel colored gemstones that I could get lost in for days. “Do
me a favor.” At my nod he continued, “Whatever happens from here on out, just remember that my love for you is endless. There is no future I want without you in it, right by my side. And as long as you love me too, we can get through anything.”
I didn’t have time to respond to that since Mom called out the back door, “Y’all come on back in here. Dinners just about ready.”
4
By the time we walked in dinner was already on the table and everything had been set. Marcus must have arrived while we were outside because he was already seated at the dining room table. When Marcus looked up at our arrival as we walked through the doorway, he choked on whatever he had been drinking. Millie started pounding him on the back, Mom shook her head while Dad just rolled his eyes.
“Et tu brute?” I said under my breath while cutting my eyes at Mildred’s boyfriend. Had Antonio been a weaker man I probably would have pulled his arm out of its socket I yanked it so hard. I just wanted to sit down and get dinner over with at that point. I sat down in my chair that Antonio pulled out for me like the perfect gentleman he was.
Once he sat in his own seat he said, “Everything smells delicious, Mrs. Hatcher.”
Mom replied with a, “Thank you,” that was so dry I almost asked her if she needed a glass of water.
Then Dad just had to make matters worse by mumbling under his breath, “Must be nice being able to smell it. All I get to smell is all this damn Vick’s burning my nose hairs.”
Before I could add my own two cents in Mildred chimed in, “Dad, that turkey is not gonna carve itself. Are you cutting it, or you plan on letting me do the honors this year?”
There was an uncomfortable silence for a while as everyone stockpiled their plates, then went about eating. Well, we mostly just moved the food around on our plates. The tension seemed to sour our appetites. Out of nowhere Marcus just bust out laughing. So, I had to ask, “What’s so funny, Marcus?”
“I was just thinking about this really old joke someone once told me,” he replied between guffaws, “There was a vampire, a werewolf and a tiger- Ouch.” His lame attempt at humor was cut off when Millie kicked him under the table. “Sorry, couldn’t help it.”
When Dad started grumbling something else under his breath I stood from my chair, “That’s it, I’ve had it! What is it with everybody?” I gestured towards Millie and Marcus then, “Neither of you acted all funky when Millie brought Marcus home. Even though he looks like he just started college last week. No jokes were cracked about Millie being a cradle robber, or him looking for a sugah momma.”
“Hey!” they both protested.
“Shut your pie holes ’cause I’m sure as shit not finished yet. Is it because he’s white?” Antonio tugged at my hand, probably trying to get me to sit down. I nice and politely ignored him.
“Oh, trust me,” Millie chimed in, “him being white has absolutely nothing to do with it.”
I turned all of my attention to her and asked, “If you know what their deal is, you mind filling me in? Or, let me guess, cat got your tongue?”
Once again Antonio tried to get me to sit back down, “Just let it go.”
And I might have, had my sister not come back with, “Nope, but he sure has had yours.”
“What the heck is that supposed to mean? And can it with all the cat barbs!”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have brought a cat in the house forcing Dad to make the house smell like your damned medicine cabinet.” As if on cue, Dad started sneezing, again. “Why don’t you tell loverboy there to pin his hair back up before Dad’s nose falls off.”
“What in the world are you talking about?” I looked over at Antonio, and some of his hair had indeed fallen from his bun and into his face. “Oh, ha ha. Let me guess, since his hair is blonde you’re calling it cat hair?” she just rolled her eyes to the top of her head at that.
Antonio stood from his chair then, “Maybe it’d be best if I left.”
“If you leave, I leave. The way my parents are acting is uncalled for, and not the way I would have expected them to behave in a million years.”
“Me and you have something we really need to talk about. But your family needs to talk to you first. A conversation they probably should have had with you a long time ago.” He looked at me with an expression that seemed to be pleading for understanding and interlaced his fingers with mine, “Honey, I think your Dad is allergic to…” I had one of those out of body moments right then, knowing that what he did couldn’t have possibly been real. But yet at the same time realizing that it was. It was like blinders I hadn’t even known I’d been wearing for the entirety of my life had been snatched off my face only to be replaced with crystal clarity. I had heard my parents and sister protesting, practically begging Antonio to not do what he did next. But it all became nothing more than just background noise, almost less than a buzzing sound in my ear. My eyes were transfixed on him as he rotated his head on his shoulders and as he did so his head changed. One second I was looking at the man I had been seeing for more than half a year, a man that I had felt an instant connection with, a man that I couldn’t even imagine spending my life without. The next, I looked into those same golden eyes staring back at me from that of a tiger’s head, atop of that same man’s body. After another rotation of that head he was Antonio once more as he said, “me.”
With the blinders finally off, or the spell broken, whatever the case, I gazed around that table in a brand-new light. My parents seemed a lot younger than they should have, but I somehow knew that this was the real them that I was seeing. They went from a couple in their sixties to one in their twenties; they looked more like older siblings than parents of two fully grown women. Though one of those women now appeared even younger than me, more like Marcus’ age. And Marcus? His mouth was hanging open from the shock of Antonio’s big reveal, and I saw fangs in his mouth.
The only words I could form were, “What the fuck?” Before I promptly passed out.
5
I woke up in my old room, in my old bed, with my head banging like it was a basketball being dribbled down the court. I still hadn’t opened my eyes yet though, it was easier to process the dreams I’d just had that way. Dreams. Yeah, not really the right word, they were more like memories, under a new light. It was as if certain memories had all been clouded over and Antonio’s big reveal had lifted the shade and haze away from them. I must have passed out from an information overload; my brain had temporarily crashed from trying to accept too much information at once.
That was actually the second time I woke up. The first time I had just shot up-right screaming at the top of my lungs. My brain had fought itself, not wanting to accept the truth, it had tried to reject the merging of recollections I had only thought I knew with actuality. Being smacked in the face by a bulldozer probably would have hurt less. So, I had only lasted about ten seconds before I had blacked back out again.
The second time I had just decided to accept it all. Everything was just fitting like a puzzle putting itself to rights. First it was the things that should have been painfully obvious to me. The fact that the only medicine cabinet in the entire house with three full bathrooms with actual medicine in it was my own. No one else ever got sick, not even when I caught the flu that put out more than half of the school. Never having seen Mildred’s school, ever. Even at ten years older than me I should have been able to recall something, I would have been eight at the time she should have graduated.
Then there were the memories that had been changed, like parts were cut out of my head. The one family reunion we went to at Belle Isle where almost everybody brought puppies with them, that looked more like wolves than dogs. A portion of that event had been hazed over; one of those puppies had turned into a toddler while rolling around in the dirt, then back again. Nothing compared to the last time I got into my sister’s bed in the middle of the night and woke up next to a wolf. All I had remembered about that night was being told I was too old to be climbing in anyone else’s bed, after
that memory had been deleted. There were plenty more than just those, I just wasn’t in the mood to psychoanalyze each and every one of them.
“How long have you been sitting there?” I asked my mother without even bothering to open my eyes. I wasn’t ready to look directly at her just yet, I was still too pissed.
“Since the first time you woke up screaming like a banshee.”
“Let me guess, those are real too. We probably even live next door to one.” When she made no reply to that I just kept it going, “Is Antonio still here, or did one of you eat him for dinner?”
“That’s a little uncalled for young lady.”
“Oh really. I think learning at Easter dinner, in front of a boyfriend who also lied to me, that I was raised by a pack of wolves is what’s uncalled for. No wonder you hated the Jungle Book, too close to real life.” That image brought on a disturbing thought and made me sit straight up grasping the sheet. I turned and looked at where my mom sat in the chair by my window with my eyes wide open, “Please tell me you didn’t find me laying in the woods somewhere.”
She had the audacity to roll her eyes to the top of her head at that, like she was hoping to find some patience up there or something. “What happened to the good ol’ days when humans were scared of the big bad wolf?”
“I’m pretty sure they weren’t raised by said wolf in sheep’s clothing.” I meant that literally, she was sitting there wearing a pale peach cashmere sweater with a pair of ripped up jeans. She must have taken the time to wash the fake gray from her hair too. No more Mom bun either, her dark brown hair was now in natural tight curls around her dark chocolate, heart shaped face. When I looked down further, half expecting to see her wearing a pair of heels, I was shocked to see that she was barefoot. And her toenails were a lot longer and thicker than I had ever seen them. “Besides, no reason to run scared now. If any of you were going to eat me, I’m pretty sure it would’ve happened long before now.” She laughed at that, this conversation seemed to be going upside down. “That’s not funny. None of this is funny.”
A Paranormal Easter: 14 Paranormal & Fantasy Romance Novellas Page 10