by K, S
Relief flooding Marcus face as he sent her genuine smile. "Yeah. Just come and get me when you're done."
Chuckling at his eagerness, Aleesha raised her lips to his for a kiss. "Poor baby. Thank you for indulging me. I promise to show you how grateful I am tonight," she whispered.
After giving him a seductive wink and wiggling her fingers as she left, she giggled as Marcus pulled sunglasses off and stood watching her walk away, no doubt going through a list of ways he planned on making her do just that.
"Mmph," Marcus said to himself as he watched the rear view of his wife's retreat. "Yes indeed."
Still smiling, he slipped his sunglasses back on and decided to get a cool drink while he waited. As he stood in line, he glanced around, taking note of how crowded it was. The shopping area wasn’t far from the sea port, and a lot of people were from the cruise ships that docked a little distance away.
As he moved up in the line, he took out his cell phone to check his emails. A lady trying to grab her little girl with one hand while balancing two drinks in the other jostled into him. Marcus waved aside her profuse apologies and smiled to let her know it was okay. Just as he was getting ready to look back down at his phone, a woman in the distance suddenly caught his attention. He could only see part of her profile because her face was turned away from him as she talked and held hands with her male companion, but something about the way she walked made him pause. She seemed...familiar. Marcus was very good with faces, but he doubted very seriously if he would run into anyone he knew. Still, his eyes followed her as she made her way towards the exit to leave. There was an elegance and grace about her carriage that was usually associated with models gliding…down… the runway...
The direction of his thought pattern slowed to a rolling halt as he remembered a classy woman from a long time ago who had been a model in her younger days and had a walk that modern day models still tried to copy. Unaware of doing so, he slowly shook his head. Nah. Couldn't be. Marcus reached up and snatched his shades off to get a better look. Of course it was someone who just favored her because there was no way...
But then she threw her head back and laughed at something the man beside her said, giving him a better view of her face. He blinked his eyes several times, and when he focused in on her again, his world tilted on its axis. His lips parted as his chest rose and fell rapidly and his heart beat quickened. It couldn’t be her – she was dead.
His felt as if his feet were rooted to the spot. The man behind him politely told him the line was moving but Marcus paid him no mind, and when the woman began to walk towards the exit, he took a step in her direction. He’d just taken another when she turned and looked directly at him. He saw her mutter the words 'Oh God'. The words repeated themselves in his head as well.
It was her.
"Roni...?!" Her name came out a hoarse, strangled whisper. Marcus saw her mouth drop open seconds before she bolted.
"Roni! RONI...!!"
Marcus took off running after her, but the crowd was suddenly more congested. Several people yelled in outrage as he pushed them out of his way in his haste. He sent half-hearted apologies over his shoulder but his eyes never left the exit. He made it outside just in time to see her hop into the back of a luxury car that quickly pulled into traffic amid furious honks of horns from the other drivers.
"Roni!"
Marcus took off in a dead sprint, but the driver floored the gas, weaving in and out of traffic. Still Marcus ran, only stopping when he lost sight of the car. He stood in the middle of the busy sidewalk, chest heaving, looking in the distance and replaying the events of the last few seconds. His common sense tried to intervene and convince him he'd been mistaken. Veronica Winston had died almost eight years ago. He, Darrell, and Bryan had been in the room when she flat lined.
But he knew what he’d just seen. She hadn’t been a figment of his imagination. Marcus’ mind went back to that day at the hospital. He frowned in remembrance then closed his eyes and placed his laced fingers on top of his head as the truth suddenly hit him with the force of a five ton weight dropped from the sky. He could vividly see every detail of that morning; it was burned into his memory. He had ushered Darrell out of the room because Darrell had come completely undone when they heard the nurse tell the doctor they'd lost Roni.
He and Darrell had left the room...but Bryan had stayed.
"Damn," Marcus whispered. "She didn’t die. Roni's still alive."
Chapter 31
Jerra glanced at the clock again as she lay in the bed flipping through a magazine. It was now after 1:00 a.m. She'd fed DJ hours ago, bathed him, and put him to bed. He kept asking for his daddy because it was their routine for Darrell to read him a bedtime story almost every night. Finally, he'd fallen asleep and hours later, Darrell still hadn’t come home. She'd called his cell phone numerous times, but her calls were sent directly to voicemail. If Marcus had been in town, Jerra knew that's most likely where he would be, but Marcus and Aleesha were in Aruba and weren’t scheduled to come back until tomorrow.
Speaking of which, she thought about the phone call she’d received from Marcus earlier. After reassuring Jerra that everything was okay, he asked her to have Darrell call him as soon as he got in. Maybe it had been her imagination, but it sounded as if there was an underlying urgency in his tone. Again, though, Marcus told her everything was fine.
Flipping on her back, Jerra covered her face with her arm. Where was he?? This wasn’t like him at all and now she was starting to worry. What if something had happened to him? What if he'd gotten into an accident and was lying in a hospital somewhere - or worse.
She threw the covers back and swung her legs to the floor. Maybe Dominick knew something. She picked up the phone, but before she could dial the number, she heard the sound of Darrell’s truck pulling into the driveway. Jerra closed her eyes and exhaled in relief. With heart racing, she hurried out the bedroom and down the stairs, entering the kitchen in time to see Darrell closing the door that led to the garage. Now that she saw him physically standing in front of her, safe and in one piece, Jerra was able to swallow the lump of fear that had taken up residence in her throat.
Darrell looked up with a slight frown. He sighed heavily and shook his head as he brushed past her. "Can we not do this right now, Jerra? I'm tired and I don't feel like arguing."
Jerra's concern instantly turned to anger at his nonchalant attitude. Here she'd been worried sick, thinking something had happened to him and he strolled in as if it were nothing out of the ordinary for him to have been gone for hours upon hours without calling her.
She followed behind him trying to stay calm, but the moment she opened her mouth, that plan was shot to hell. "Why didn’t you call me? And why did you send my calls to voicemail?"
Darrell remained silent as he climbed the stairs. Still ignoring Jerra, he went straight to DJ's room and gave his son a tender kiss on the forehead before pulling the covers up and tucking them under his chin. Jerra threw a furious glare at him and continued on to their room. She stood by the bed, arms folded and tapping her foot as she stared at the doorway until Darrell walked in.
He paused mid-step and released an impatient breath when he saw her waiting for him. "I told you not now, a'ight. We'll talk tomorrow."
"It is tomorrow in case you haven’t noticed," Jerra snapped.
Darrell stood with his back to her and started unbuttoning his shirt. Every single one of her instincts told Jerra to let it go, but she dismissed them and forged ahead. "So is this what we do now when we have a disagreement? Run off, don’t call or answer calls?" Jerra ignored the way he silently cut his eyes towards her in warning. "How do you know something wasn’t wrong with DJ?"
"Was it?" His flippant tone was meant to provoke and piss her off even more, and it did just that.
"No, but that's not the point!"
Darrell pulled his shirt off and tossed it into the chair a few feet away before looking at her. "If something was wrong with DJ, I'm sure you wou
ld’ve said so in the messages you left or sent me a text. And I didn’t 'run off' as you put it. I left because I needed time to process some things and wanted to be alone."
He ignored the hurt in her eyes. He'd already told her to let it be for tonight but she kept pushing until he responded. "This shit was more than just a 'disagreement'. A disagreement is when we have a squabble or difference of opinion. What happened today was more like a breakdown in our relationship.”
Jerra slowly unfolded her arms. "And what is that supposed to mean?"
Darrell stopped on his way to the bathroom to take a shower and stared at Jerra. "Tell me somethin’. How do I trust you again? Huh?"
Jerra stared at him through watery eyes. "Darrell..."
He hesitated as if choosing his words carefully. "Look, I don't wanna ruin what should be a happy time for you and your daughter. But don't ask me questions you don't want to know the answers to. Right now, I can't tell you what you need to hear." Darrell's voice softened a bit. "We'll get over this but don't push me. I just need a li'l time. Alright?"
Jerra bit down hard on her lower lip to stop the trembling and nodded. Darrell stared at her a moment longer. A part of him wanted to pull her into his arms and tell her everything would be okay, but the other part kept reminding him of her secrets, especially how she'd flown out of town and back without missing a beat. He honestly wondered what else she was keeping from him.
That’s what the breaking of trust did. When it started to unravel, it was hard to tie it back up as tight as it had once been. For him, deceit was not an easy thing to forgive – or forget. He wasn’t saying it was right because he was nowhere near perfect, but that’s how he was. Take it or leave it. Maybe the experiences they’d gone through had fucked them both up more than they realized. He'd always thought that particular commonality gave them a strong, unbreakable bond. Guess not.
With his heart suddenly aching from the loss of the closeness they'd always shared, Darrell was turning to go to the bathroom when his cell phone rang. Wondering who the hell would be calling him this late and why, he reached in his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. Surprise replaced the frown on his face when he saw it was Marcus.
"Hey, what's up, bruh? You ain't got nothin' better to do than call me on the last night of your vacation?"
"Did Jerra tell you I called earlier?"
Darrell frowned at the brusque question. "No," he slowly answered, swinging his eyes back to Jerra. "Then again, I just got in so..."
"I've been blowin’ your phone up. Your voicemail was full so I couldn't leave a message. Never mind. We need to talk."
"Marcus, what's wrong? Somethin’ happened? Is Aleesha okay?" Worried, Jerra hurried over to him.
"No, no it's nothing like that, but..."
"Just say it." Concern made Darrell's voice razor sharp.
"D, there's no easy way to tell you this, but...I...I saw Roni. Darrell...she's alive."
Darrell’s expression of disbelief was swift. He walked back a few steps until he thankfully came in contact with the wall behind him. He couldn’t have heard Marcus right.
"What?" His voice was surprisingly calm.
"I know how it sounds crazy, but Darrell I saw her with my own eyes. I saw her!"
"What?!" This time the incredulity in Darrell's voice was unmistakable. Darrell shook his head. "Marcus, come on. That's impossible. What are you talkin’ about?? Roni...Roni's dead," he whispered hoarsely.
Jerra brought her hand up to cover her mouth as she kept her attention on Darrell.
"Darrell, listen..."
"Hell no! I'm not listenin' to no bullshit like that, Marcus! We were there! We were there when she died! Have you forgotten that?!"
"Were we?! Think about it, Darrell! Everything happened so fast. You were...you were out of it. Yes, she flat lined, but they were still working on her when we left out of the room...!"
That day was burned in Marcus’ memory. He remembered glancing over his shoulder. Bryan was standing off to the side with his hands on top of his head, his face reflecting disbelief at losing his cousin right in front of his eyes. Darrell fought to stay in the room and it had taken every ounce of Marcus' strength to wrestle him out. Seconds before he did, he saw Bryan stalk over to the doctor and grab the lapels of his coat.
'Mr. Jefferson, I'm sorry. She's gone.'
'Try again.' The words had been stiff and Bryan's face crazed. Almost threatening. Marcus had never seen him look that way. "Her dying is not an option." Marcus hadn’t heard the rest of what was said, but whatever it was had been enough to spur the doctor into turning back to Roni.
Marcus relayed this information to Darrell then told him about seeing her at the shopping mall in Aruba. "D, you know I wouldn’t have called you and opened up old wounds because of some bullshit. Man, she looked at me. We made eye contact; she was as shocked as I was. That's when she hurried out. By the time I got outside, the car she hopped into took off like a bat out of hell. I tried to chase it down, but..."
Marcus stood on the balcony of his hotel room. When Aleesha slid the glass door open, his eyes met hers. He'd already told her everything he was telling Darrell. He knew she was worried about Darrell - but she was also wondering how this would affect Jerra.
Darrell was silent for endless seconds as his mind tried to absorb and process what Marcus just told him. If it had been anybody else coming to him with something like this...
Jerra took a hesitant stepped closer. "Darrell...?"
He glanced up when he heard Jerra call his name; he'd been so caught up in reliving the day Roni died, he'd forgotten she was standing there. He pushed away from the wall.
"So...you sayin'...Bryan knew?" It still didn't even seem real that they were having this conversation.
"He had to have known, D! He had to! Roni was incapacitated. You, me, and Bryan were the only ones allowed in her room other than the staff. I mean...I didn’t think until now. If you'd seen the way he looked at that doctor..."
"It doesn’t make any sense." Darrell was mystified, still not able to completely believe any of it was true. "Why would he do somethin' like that? And if Roni’s alive, why didn’t she contact me when she eventually got better? She had to have known what I was going through. She had to have known that if I'd been aware she was still alive..."
A cry of pain reminded him that Jerra was listening to everything he was saying. He turned to her and felt his gut twist into a thousand knots when he saw the look of devastation drawn on her face.
"Aleesha and I have rescheduled our flight for a couple of days until you get here." There was no question in either of their minds that Darrell would fly to Aruba as soon as he could.
With his eyes still on Jerra, Darrell answered in a quiet tone. "I'm calling the airport when we hang up." His voice turned freezing cold. "But first, I need to see Bryan. One way or the other, he's gonna tell me exactly what the fuck is goin' on."
Chapter 32
After he and Marcus got off the phone, Jerra and Darrell stared at one another as the quietness in the room enveloped them like a tight fist. Two hearts thumped violently, struggling to stop from shattering into broken pieces for completely different reasons.
"Roni's alive?" Jerra asked.
Darrell still couldn't believe it himself. "Apparently so. Marcus saw her in Aruba."
Jerra's mind grasped wildly for an explanation, anything that would make her life, which was quickly turning into a nightmare, only a bad dream. "How can he be sure? He has to be mistaken. You...you scattered her ashes yourself."
"If it had been someone who just looked like Roni, Marcus wouldn't have even brought that to me. He couldn't have made a mistake like that. If he's this sure - it's her."
"But...but...why would Bryan fake her death? And if he did and now Roni's apparently alive and well enough to be living it up on a tropical island somewhere, why would she have carried on this charade all this time and not gotten in contact with you?"
Darrell stared at
her for the longest time. "I don't know, Jerra. Why would a person do something so out of character when they know the impact it would have on somebody they professed to love unconditionally? You tell me."
Jerra's eyes faltered then slid away from his when she heard the innuendo laced like cyanide in his words. She silently listened as he called the airport and booked a flight out of Vegas to Aruba for in the morning.
After Darrell, paid for the reservation with his credit card, he went to the closet and pulled out a duffel bag. Jerra watched him stuff a couple of pairs of jeans and t-shirts in it along with socks and underwear.
"I'm going to see Bryan then heading straight to the airport."
"What?" Jerra looked up with a start as she realized he was leaving - as in now. She followed Darrell into the bathroom where he threw a few toiletries into his shaving kit.
Darrell's eyes met hers in the mirror. "I'll call you when I get there."
"Wait, are you serious?? You’re just gonna leave?? Just like that." When he picked up the shaving kit and went back into the bedroom, Jerra was right on his heels. "Darrell. Darrell!" Seeing he had no intention of answering her, Jerra grabbed his arm and forced him to turn around.
Exasperated, Darrell shifted his weight to one leg in a deliberate pose that told her his patience was wearing thin.
Well that was just too damned bad! Jerra cocked an eyebrow and defiantly folded her arms. "You can't mean you're leaving now."
"It’s exactly what I mean. Bryan needs to answer some questions, and if I don't go to jail tonight after I'm done with him, then I'm heading straight to the airport."
"And...you don't see anything wrong with just dropping everything at a moment's notice because you've found out your ex-lover could possibly be alive? You have a family now. A wife. A son. Where do we fit into this little reunion you're running off to have?"
"My son is always going to be a part of my life. Always, so don't trip."