by Ey Wade
"Tin," his mother sat on the sofa looking up at him in barely disguised amusement. She patted the palm of her hand on the cushion next to her
"Honey, sit. You’re hurting my neck. What with me looking up at the ceiling and swinging my head to follow you as you wear out the carpet with your incessant pacing; I may never be able to use my neck again." She laughed and patted the spot again when he scowled. "Honey, if you cared that much for this girl, why in the world did you break up with her? She sounded like a dream to me."
"What are you talking about, Mom? Didn't you hear what I said? This woman believed that she owned me. Every time I turned around, she was there."
"You mean she stalked you," his mother stated, tongue-in-cheek, almost laughing when he threw his hands in the air.
"No." He stood back up. "No, I mean it was like we were never apart. She was just always there. When I got off work, I went to her apartment or she came to mine. When we could, we ate lunch together. She was just always there, washing dishes, clothes, cleaning the apartment, cooking, relaxing...Mom. Mom, stop laughing this isn’t funny. I just felt… I don't know."
"Loved? Wanted?"
"No, trapped." he sighed in disgust. "Mom you think this is funny but it isn't. No matter what I did she never trusted me. She was always thinking that I am messing around with someone else."
"Was she seeing anyone else?"
"No. As a matter of fact I'm the only one she ever...why am I having this conversation with you? I'm going to Dallas' house. He and Houston are watching the game on television."
"Yeah, you do that. Your brothers could probably help you a lot better than I can. I think that sometimes you forget that I am a woman. And as such I can understand how this girl feels. If I caught your drift, you're the only person this girl has ever slept with, right?" She continued when he put his head down and studied the circle he was making with the toe of his shoe and didn't answer. "Just that fact would make the girl very emotional. She.... Uhm, what's her name?" His mother stopped in mid sentence.
"It doesn't matter. I won't be seeing her again."
"Right," She scoffed in disbelief. "If it doesn't matter, tell me her name. Would I like her? How old is she? Where does she live? How long have you been seeing her? Who are her parents? And she doesn't sleep around, huh? She sounds like a winner to me."
Austin looked at his mother dubiously.
"Mom, don't worry about it. I'll be fine."
"If you answer a few of the questions I would be able to give you an answer.”
"That's okay Mom. Let it pass. I'll be back." He walked backwards to the door.
"Fine, go talk to your brothers. Just don't let those chauvinistic macho older brothers make you feel or do something you'll regret later in life. Let them make you wimp out of your true feelings. Make you believe you are whipped or anything. I know how men get when they’re together. You know I always tell you guys you can tell me anything. This time I think you may have to do this on your own. Maybe even think with your heart and not your head."
He opened the screen and stepped onto the porch. "Yes, Ma’me I will." He turned and almost ran to his car. Laughing to himself as he got behind the wheel.
Old habits die hard. His could mother always make him admit more than he wanted. Just by sitting and listening. She had never made judgment on them for whatever they had done. She had let them do it to themselves. Using subtle questions, knowing smiles, and well-placed remarks, they had always known how she felt about an incident and what their responsibilities were.
During the many more conversations he and his mother had while he was visiting, he never told her how much he missed seeing Catrine's smile and hearing her tell the corniest jokes. Nor did he tell her how he missed the conversations he and Catrine would have after making love.
And she, as his mother, never dug too deep. She just fed him delicious home cooked meals and sat near him when he was at his lowest. For the two weeks he lived in her house, moped around, and welcomed her comforting words until she had booted him out and ordered him to go back to work with the promise that his heart would heal and he would live. Austin hadn't believed his mother's words just like he hadn't believed that the last night with Catrine would really be the last.
Three days before that final confrontation they'd had an argument and he had slammed out of her apartment vowing never to return. A vow he had stated many times previously, but had never kept. He had always returned. For some reason they had begun to argue frequently. Especially during the last two months together.
On this particular night, Catrine called him and invited him over for what she called a 'last get together'. She said she wanted to end the relationship on good terms and so he had gone. The candlelight meal had been delicious as was their 'get together'. He had been lying next to her with his eye closed, enjoying the fragrance of her perfume, wishing they didn't really have to break-up, and basking in her closeness and the way she was slowly caressing his chest when her words abruptly scattered the mist of self-satisfaction clouding his brain.
"Austin, don't you think it would be nice if we could be like this every night?" she asked softly.
"Oh, Damn."
Jumping from the bed, he grabbed his clothes from the floor and virtually ran from the room. Standing before the sofa in the living room, he made two futile attempts at pulling on his pants before succeeding.
Shaking his head in an attempt release some of the anger that was about to explode through his pores, Austin returned to the present and reached for the bar of soap, lathered his towel and scrubbed vigorously at his body with exasperation. No matter how he tried he could not by pass his memories. He remembered how Catrine looked when she entered into the living room from the bedroom. She had been securing the belt on her robe and as she tossed back her beautiful shoulder length hair with one hand, her small breast had swelled against the silk of the robe, practically begging for his touch. Giving in to the enticement, Austin stepped towards her and stopped short at the fury bursting from her lips.
"What the hell is wrong with you, Austin?" She put her hand on her hips and removed them just as quickly when the lapel of the robe gaped open to expose her nakedness. Closing the gap, she pulled the belt tighter.
Smiling at her belated sense of modesty, Austin pulled on his shirt. "I'm not the one with a problem."
"Well, it sure as hell isn't me." Her voice rose as did the anger in her face."I'm not the one that jumped out of bed and ran out of the room. You act like I'm trying to take away your freedom. Like you thing I'm going to chain you to a wall or something." She sat on the sofa and angrily tapped her foot.
"Or 'something' is right. You want to tie me to you."
Austin paced the living room angrily and when he got near the sofa, he picked up a small pillow and threw it against the furthest wall in frustration.
"What in God's name do you want from me?" He asked. "You know I work constantly."
"Damn it." Catrine picked up the pillow and took her time replacing it on the sofa. He watched her as she bent and plumped up the pillow. The delightful shape of her bottom embossed on the silk of the gown.
Smiling to himself, he remembered how Catrine had turned and saw the look on his face and had stiffened, looking at him with a slight sneer from feet to head. She stood in front of him as if she believed she could knock him down to her size and then had the nerve to blatantly prod him in his chest in her anger.
"Austin I want you to be faithful to me and if you can't be faithful at least be honest."
"I am honest with you. Is it my fault you think so much of me that you believe every woman that sees me, wants me?"
Catrine scoffed in amusement."You are so full of yourself, Austin. Do you honestly think you mean so much to me that I have a need to tie you to my side?"
"Hell, yes. Girl you know you love me and you'll love me forever."
"I can get over it."
"Yeah right, I believe that as much as I believe there’s a man in the
moon. I don't know how I can be more honest. I tell you my job schedule. You know where I am all of the time. My life is not my own. When would I have time to run around on you? When I am not at work, I am with you. It's up to you whether or not you believe me. I think the best solution for us is to be apart."
"Austin, I can love you for the rest of my life, but that doesn't mean I have to be a fool for you. You can't give me a clear reason why you won't live here with me and that keeps me from believing you. We don't even have to live here. If you worry because the townhouse is mine, I could move in with you even though this place is larger. Or we can buy something else. We don't have to live here."
"Damn."
The argument became much more heated with each one saying hurtful things until he stormed out of the apartment and never heard from her again.
"And now I find out I have a son and the boy is nearly four years old. I could just beat her." he said aloud.
Reaching for a bottle of shampoo and pouring it in his hair, Austin rubbed the thick liquid into frothy foam with vigorous motions. He could almost feel the many questions banging around in his head. I wonder if he looks like me. Does he have my eyes? Is his smile anything like mine? Does the child have Catrine's dimples? And what about the things he knows? I've missed his first smile, his first step, everything. I wonder if he thinks about me. I bet the poor little guy probably thinks that I hate him. A boy needs a father. I would have loved to be part of his life. I just don't understand how Catrine felt justified in keeping something like that to herself? How could she have purposely kept me from my child? We could have discussed the possibility of an imminent child, or maybe not. True, our relationship may not have been at its greatest," he mused out loud. "But she could have told me something."
Moving back under the spray to rinse the soap from his hair, he cursed loudly and irritably opened his eyes to try and wash the stinging foam from their crevices. Thinking about Catrine always threw him into a cyclone of emotions. He would fly from longing, to anger, to tenderness and then to frustration because he could never figure her out. Reminiscing about their earlier days was a lure he had done his best not to fall into. Sometimes, as he was doing now, he failed miserably. They had mostly dated and after a month or two, sex had just slipped in. No strings, no ties. Sure, she had been a virgin, but she had taken everything in stride and had not tried to push the status of their relationship into anything more serious until that last month.
Maybe Catrine had known that she was pregnant and having me move in would have been her way of telling me. She should not have let me walk out without telling me that she was pregnant. I could have been with her. I could have taken care of her. I would have loved to see her as my baby grew in her stomach. To have been able to rub her stomach, to feel the child as it kicked joyfully at its surroundings and to run to the store in the middle of the night. She should have told me about the baby instead of ending our relationship by throwing me out of her house and her life.
Stepping from the shower and wrapping one of the two towels hanging from the rack around his waist, he used the other to dry his hair. Rubbing the excess from his face, Austin stared at himself in the mirror.
"Well, she will not be throwing me out this time. I'll be there until my son comes home and for whatever time I feel necessary." He promised his reflection."You need to calm down fellow," he advised his mirrored image. "Maybe I should cut off the beard." He studied one side of his face and then the other. "Catrine has never seen me with it and I might scare the hell out of her. What the hell?" He shrugged. “It will be better than beating it out of her, which would still be better than what I will do to the person who took my son."
*****
“Mona Boots”
Mona Boots untangled the ragged shoestring tip from the two-inch nail of her pointer finger. She examined the surface of the nail for any nicks or rough edges and thanked God that the nail had not broken. Some people would probably think she was a bit manic when it came to the condition of her fingernails, after all there were things of more importance in life. It had taken months to get her nails to grow to the desired length and she freaked at the idea of them breaking. No one knew more than she that there had been nothing and no one in her life that she could lavish such care, until today.
Returning her attention to her shoes, Mona studied their dirty ragged tips in disgust. The toes of the once dazzling white Nikes were looking worn. They were peeling, wrinkled, and almost useless. Just like her body, her face, and damn near all of her life. She yanked the strings of the bow tight and sat back to admire her success. Success, that will be my motto from this day on, she vowed to her image in the mirror. In everything I attempt from this day forward, I will succeed or die trying.
Straightening the edges of the turtleneck she was wearing she frowned at the way it made her look. Maybe the shirt was too dark. She looked like some kind of formidable espionage agent. Black jeans, black shirt, black stocking cap.
"I guess I can do without this." Mona said out loud, yanking the cap from her head and letting the expensive braid job escape from its confines and fall heavily across her shoulders to her mid back. "I would hate to scare the boy; he's never seen me like this." She tossed the cap onto the desk.
Today would be the day her son would finally be coming home. All of her days of loneliness would be over. Covering her stomach with the palm of her hand, Mona tried to rub away the tight knot of anxiety that had taken permanent residence. She was nervous, terrified. What if she wasn't able to be the perfect mother? What if something went wrong? What if she wasn't able to pull it off?
Pulling a crumpled, well-studied photograph from her pocket, Mona smiled at the little boy in the picture. She loved looking at the picture and remembering the day it was taken. The sun had been shining as they sat inside the fenced in play yard of the restaurant. She had sat across the yard a few tables from him because he wanted to sit alone like a 'big boy'. In the picture he was sitting at a small table with various McDonald's paraphernalia scattered about. The joy radiating from him made the desire to have him with her burn in her spirit more than ever. He loved McDonald's, almost as much as she loved him. She would do and say anything in order to hold her son. Nothing would stand in her way. He would never be without her in his life again. He would be home soon and she would be with him forever.
Mona slipped her arms into the sleeves of her 'Cowboys' starter jacket and walked to the rear of the house. She passed her bedroom and one of the bathrooms to get to the second bedroom in the house. This would be his room. Standing in the doorway, she checked that everything was in order. Toys on the shelves, comforter on the bed, gift waiting in its place for him to open. Everything was perfect. "Yes, he is going to love it here." She assured herself. She felt she had now made one giant step towards her life's plan of success. Actually, success had begun when she had driven into Beaumont four months previously and had taken the Washington Avenue exit from the highway.
Washington was the perfect street for a newcomer. There were plenty of convenient stores, gas stations, Laundromats, and fast food restaurants on either side of the street.
The one thing Mona hated above being alone was having to scrounge strange cities for minor things and prayed to find a house somewhere on the perfect Washington Avenue. And BAM, just like that, she spied a house with a 'for rent' sign tacked to a tree in its front yard.
Once she had contacted the owner and made arrangements to move in, it had only taken a few hours. From then on everything in her life had been perfect. Nothing would spoil this day for her.
Looking at her watch, and patting the pockets of her jacket, she decides she has everything she needs and hurries out of the front door. Once outside she looks nervously at the houses surrounding hers. No one was outside. The nosey woman living in the house to the right hadn't come out to water her plants.
"Stupid woman", Mona mumbled to herself. "Why does she only come out when I step out on the porch? And why water plants in the mi
ddle of the winter? And why is it every time I look over there she is waving and smiling like an idiot? Damn, there she is."
Turning her head and pretending not to see the little wave the woman gave, Mona stepped quickly to the curb and slide into her car, she only had time for her son.
*****
“Brhin-Kristoffer Teddi”
Three-year-old Brhin-Kristoffer Teddi sat on the edge of the tiny green cot that the daycare provided for napping. He yawned, stretched and tried to accustom his tired eyes to the harsh bright lights. When the lights were turned back on, whether they liked it or not, every child knew that naptime was over. A few of the toddlers hated being awakened and showed their feelings so well, no one would have a doubt. The heartbreaking crying and the gleeful screaming combined to make the noise in the room deafening.
Looking around to see where the screaming was coming from, Brhin saw three little girls enthusiastically jumping up and down on their cots. While some of the other children were already moving about pulling out toys, a few toddlers were walking around the room aimlessly, thumb or finger in their mouths and tears on their cheeks. Many of the older children were painstakingly trying to straighten the too short sheets on their cots.
Searching around for the teacher, Brhin finally spotted her standing with her back to the room and blindly missing the fact that parents were coming in and leaving out with their children. Not one of the parents acknowledged Ms. Franklin, the substitute teacher, as she stood facing the dressing table and changing a screaming toddler's wet clothing.