by Tina Martin
“Padma, you can’t think that way, okay? Dilvan needs us right now.”
Colin rubbed his hands down the length of her silky strands and said, “Let me go in and see him, okay?”
She sniffled and dabbed her eyes. “Okay.”
“You look exhausted. Why don’t you go get some coffee or something? Take a break. I don’t want you stressing—”
“I can’t help but be stressed. He’s my baby, Colin.”
“I know,” Colin said, placing his hands against his wife’s damp face. “I just need you to take a break right now. Go get some water or something from the cafeteria.”
“Okay...uh...okay. I’ll be right back.”
When Padma walked off, Colin stepped in Dilvan’s room. The sight of his son lying there motionless instantly made him weak.
“What did you do, son?” he said throaty. He realized Dilvan’s eyes were closed and that he was probably sleeping, completely unaware of what was going on, but still, he felt the need to express his worry and frustration aloud. Maybe his son could hear him. “Why would you do this, Dilvan?” Colin pinched his eyes shut. Then he leaned down next to him. “Why?”
“Fa-ther,” Dilvan said, below a whisper.
Colin snapped his head up quick. “Dilvan?”
Dilvan’s eyes remained closed and Colin gripped his hand.
“Dilvan, I’m here, son.”
Dilvan smiled. It was a barely noticeable, lazy one, but Colin could see it.
“Dilvan, I love you, son. I need you to pull through this. We can work through everything else. I just need you to fight, son.”
When Colin felt Dilvan squeeze his hand, that was all the assurance he needed that Dilvan had heard him and that he was going to make it through this ordeal. He had to for the sake of their family.
Chapter 26
Tyson sat in the cafeteria, too upset to drink the bottle of Dasani he’d purchased. He just stared blankly, not even aware of his surroundings. He hadn’t even seen Padma walk in.
Padma saw him, sitting there, so after getting a cup of coffee, she walked over to his table, pulled out the chair across from him and sat down.
“Tyson.”
It wasn’t until she said his name that he looked at her. “Yes?”
“I’m sorry about everything.”
“No need to apologize, Padma,” he said, screwing off the top of his water bottle and taking a sip. “You have other things to worry about.”
“I know, but I feel that I need to apologize to you. You have done a lot for me and for the Food House and I’m sincerely sorry. Had I told you about what happened when Lalita first told me about it—”
“When did she tell you about it?”
“A few days before the baby shower. She was in tears, you know, because she’d been holding it in for so long.”
Tyson took a sip of water.
“I just didn’t think Dilvan would do something like that to Gabrielle.”
Tyson frowned. “How could you not when he has a history of abusing her, Padma. She had to endure his torture for months before you stepped in. Remember?”
“You’re right. I just—”
“You don’t remember how bad Dilvan treated her, because I remember having to scoop her up off of the floor after he pushed her there. I can’t get that image out of my head. No matter how hard I try, I can’t get that image out of my head.”
Padma shook her head silently. She was in a tough position, because she loved Gabrielle dearly, but her son was suffering, and she loved him deeply. “Tyson, I know Dilvan has committed a lot of wrongs, even against himself, but if he pulls through this, I will do everything in my power to make things right again.”
Tyson remained quiet. He had nothing to say about Dilvan to Padma. Her son was already suffering.
“I hope Gabrielle is okay,” he heard her say, interrupting his thoughts.
“She’s alright. She’s resting. The baby is healthy.”
Padma smiled. “I stopped by there briefly. Your son is a handsome little fellow already.”
Tyson smirked. “He gets it from his father.”
“I see a little bit of Gabrielle in him, too.”
Tyson smiled. “Yeah. I see it too.”
“How are you guys doing?”
“Well, Gabrielle won’t talk to me, and it’s my fault for accusing her of something she didn’t do. I can’t believe how crazy I was.”
“Everybody makes mistakes, Tyson.”
Tyson nodded. “I know, but I made a huge mistake. I can’t believe I just blanked like that.”
“I don’t think any of us really realize the scope of everything that has occurred within the last few days. Give Gabrielle some time. She’ll come around.”
Tyson wasn’t confident that she would this time. Still, he gave Padma a half-smile and said, “I hope so.”
Chapter 27
Two Months Later
Gabrielle didn’t want to go home with Tyson, but she did because, quite frankly, she was tired of being a coward and running away from a situation when things got rough. Running away was easy. Staying when times were tough, that was the true test of a marriage – of any relationship. No more running. Besides, their home wasn’t large, but it was big enough for her to keep her distance from Tyson.
Per her request, Tyson set up T.J,’s crib in the guest bedroom since that’s where Gabrielle wanted to sleep. Coincidentally enough, it was the same room where she’d slept when he’d rescued her from his crazy cousin. Now she was back there, not because she was seeking shelter from an obsessed psychopath, but because she was needing distance away from the man who was supposed to love her and protect her. Who was supposed to believe her.
She’d been sleeping there for two months, and had no intentions on moving back where she belonged – in the master bedroom with her husband. She just wanted to be left alone, which is why she was seriously considering leasing an apartment. It wouldn’t be running away. It would be moving on.
A few taps on the door broke her trance with T.J. She’d been up, admiring her baby boy after breastfeeding him.
“Yes?”
“May I come in?” Tyson asked. His voice sounded calm, a lot calmer than she remembered him that day he nearly lost his common sense.
“Yeah. Sure.” She watched her husband walk in the room shirtless, showing a perfect body, wearing her favorite pair of black boxers. He was carrying a tray of food. He had cooked breakfast, as he normally did, and brought it up to the bedroom for her. This was the Tyson she was accustomed to – not the rowdy, irrational, gun-toting Tyson.
“I made breakfast for you,” he said, clearing a space on the nightstand for the tray.
“Thanks.”
“Uh...Padma wanted to know if we would be able to make it tonight,” he said. Padma had been trying to get the family together since Dilvan’s suicide attempt. Suddenly, she felt a need for family togetherness amidst all that had happened.
“I told her I would bring the baby, so yes.”
He stood there, just staring at her and his son together. T.J. slept a lot during the day, he noticed, and he looked content with his little head against her shoulder.
“Gabrielle, you’ve been sleeping in this room for two months now.”
“Yeah, this is where I told you I would be sleeping until you make up your mind if you want this marriage to work, Tyson.”
“Of course I want this marriage to work,” he said, raising his voice.
“Please keep it down. T.J. didn’t sleep much last night and—”
“I told you to let me know when he’s not sleeping well so I can give you a break. I told you that.”
Gabrielle sighed. Why was this turning into an argument? She stood up, slowly walked to the crib and laid the baby there. Then she looked at Tyson and said, “I don’t want to wake him, so let’s talk downstairs, please.”
Tyson took the food tray from the nightstand and headed back for the kitchen.
Gabrielle tr
ailed him, taking in his scent. Gosh he smelled good. He must’ve just taken a shower after his 4:00 a.m. run.
Tyson set the tray on the dining room table.
Gabrielle took the chair closest to where he’d positioned the tray, then looked over the food. He’d made egg, cheese, ham and spinach breakfast pastries with a side of fruit – mangoes and strawberries.
Since he’d already eaten, he sat across from her with just a cup of coffee and figured he’d start over. “Good morning.”
“Mornin’,” she said flippantly.
“I don’t remember the last time I said that to you...don’t remember the last time we sat at this table to have a meal together,” Tyson said.
“Me either.” Gabrielle took a bite from the pastry.
“I hate to keep bringing this up, but we’ve never had an open, honest, in-depth conversation about what happened.”
“What is there left to say?” Gabrielle asked him after she’d just stuffed her mouth with a strawberry.
Tyson frowned. He didn’t like her blasé attitude concerning their marriage problems. He seemed to be the only one who wanted to work things out. “There’s plenty to say, Gabrielle, but only if you don’t get up and walk away this time.”
Get up and walk away...
What else was she supposed to do? She definitely had nothing nice to say, so she chose to say nothing. Every time he tried to have the conversation with her about “what happened” she said nothing. Besides, forcing her to talk about it would bring all those thoughts to the forefront of her mind. She could only imagine what Dilvan did to her when she was knocked out on the bed in a hotel. And to add insult to injury, Tyson didn’t believe her when she told him she didn’t have an affair with Dilvan. She begged and pleaded for him to listen, but her cries went unheard. Once Tyson was to the point of no return, there was no rationalizing with him. None, whatsoever.
Deciding to hear what he had to say this time, she said, “Okay, I’m sitting here. I’m not going anywhere. Talk.”
Tyson watched her take a swig of orange juice and said, “I hurt you, Gabrielle. I know that and I’m sorry. Instead of accepting that, you’re intent on holding this grudge when you know I love you.”
“It’s not a grudge...that’s what you don’t understand. And where was the love when you were basically calling me a liar to my face?” she said, tear droplets falling from her eyes. “Tyson, you are the most loving, understanding, patient man I know. But when you get upset, all of that goes out the window. When you’re mad, it’s like you don’t love me—”
“Not true.”
“I’m telling you what I feel. You wanted to talk, right? Please let me finish.”
With a clenched jaw, Tyson said, “Okay. Finish.”
“When you’re mad, it’s like you become a different person altogether. I don’t know who you are when you’re that angry.” She dabbed her eyes and said, “I was eight months pregnant, feeling faint of heart at the way you yelled at me and accused me of doing something I knew I didn’t do.”
“It was from a reliable source so—”
“So my word mean nothing to you? The fact that I told you I didn’t do it didn’t hold any weight with you?”
“It’s—”
“You accused me of cheating on you, Tyson,” she said, staring him in the eyes. “Why on earth do you think I would ever do that to you?”
“Gabrielle—”
“And while you’re storming through the house on a rampage telling me what I did and I knew I didn’t do anything, I’m looking at you like you’re a stranger. Actually, you were a stranger. I didn’t know you at the point. And I was so caught off guard by the fact that you think I would actually cheat on you. You are the most perfect man on the planet for me and you think I could actually cheat on you? Who could be better than you for me? Who could ever love me like you love me, Tyson? That’s what I was thinking. Then you stormed out of the house like Hurricane Hugo and came back only to grab a gun. A gun, Tyson?”
“Yes, I took the gun.”
“I didn’t even know you had a gun in the house. I didn’t know you owned a gun.”
“I have it for protection, and you’re right, Gabrielle. I wasn’t myself and I wasn’t thinking rationally.”
“How’s that behavior going to work around our child? He does something you don’t like, you’re going to fly off the handle—”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Gabrielle. I would never harm you or our son.”
Gabrielle shook her head.
“Why are you shaking your head? You think I would, because I’ve never done anything to hurt you. Not once have I ever laid a finger on you for the purpose of causing you harm. I just can’t handle being lied to.”
“I didn’t lie to you!”
“Let me finish, Gabrielle. Jeez. I’ve been in what was supposed to be a committed relationship before and the woman lied to me. I thought she was down for me, but then found out she was busy being down for everybody else. And when I first heard what happened with you, I thought—”
“You thought I went to Chicago and had an affair with Dilvan and it was all too familiar because your ex-fiancée, Desiree, had an affair with your best friend in Chicago. Right?”
Tyson leaned back in his chair. Gabrielle was right. The circumstances were all too familiar. When he first heard about Gabrielle and Dilvan, his mind instantly went to Desiree and Dennis. He feared that the betrayal was happening all over again. “That night I stormed out of the house, so you say, I asked you if you were alone with Dilvan at any point while you guys were in Chicago. You said yes.”
“That’s because I was alone with him. I was telling you the truth.”
“And why were you alone with him?”
“It wasn’t intentional and it was no fault of mine. I went down to the pool and he must’ve followed me down there. I was the only one in the pool and then he showed up.”
“And then what?”
“He was talking a bunch of nonsense—”
“What kind of nonsense?”
“That doesn’t matter now, okay.”
“It matters to me. I want to know.”
Gabrielle sighed, not seeing the relevance. “He asked me if I still loved him, and I said no, of course. I told him I loved you. Trust me…Dilvan is not a threat to us. Now, let’s get back to my issue with you.”
“Which is?”
“Your lack of trust. It’s not a good feeling to be accused of something you know you didn’t do, and that’s what you did to me.”
“Gabrielle, you have to understand my position. I was happy, expecting my first child and then it gets dropped on me that the baby might not be mine? Put yourself in my shoes. How would you have reacted?”
“I would have believed you!” Gabrielle shook her head again and closed her eyes. “I love you, Tyson. But a relationship without trust isn’t a relationship.”
“I do trust you, Gabrielle.”
Gabrielle shook her head again. “The messed up part about all if this is, I would never do that to you. Never. And I will always believe you over any rumor and over what anyone says about you. I don’t care if your own mother told me something about you that you’ve done. I would believe you because you’re my husband,” she said in tears. She dabbed her eyes. “I thought we would be together forever, Tyson, but—”
“But what, Gabrielle?” Tyson asked. Sadness filled his eyes as he felt his heart fall around his feet.
“I can’t be with you anymore. I can’t. It’s time I start being the woman I need to be and stop allowing myself to be a victim of people who are supposed to love me.”
She stood, her eyes flooded with tears and walked away from him.
Tyson remained sitting at the table, speechless. After two months of very little communication with her, it all came down to this – his wife leaving the room in tears, telling him that it was over. With his elbows on the table, he buried his face in his hands, trying to think of something that could prevent th
is down spiral of his marriage. He couldn’t allow this to happen. He loved his family too much to let it fall apart.
Chapter 28
Padma and Colin seemed to be in good spirits. Colin made an effort to be home more so he could visit Dilvan at the psychiatric hospital in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. His son needed him to be home, so he offloaded his duties on employees whom he knew could handle difficult tasks in his absence until he could manage his business locally. He was never supposed to be spending so much time in New York to begin with. Maybe if he’d been home, he could’ve been there for Dilvan.
* * *
For the family dinner, Padma went all-out. As usual, she’d hired chefs to prepare their food. The main course would be medium-well steaks served on a bed of creamy mashed potatoes with various sides, including shrimp fettuccini, fried rice and greens. For an appetizer, they were eating a fresh spinach salad, with chopped garden tomatoes and mozzarella cheese, served with a homemade Italian dressing.
For a while, all you could hear was forks clanking against ceramic plates. Then Beatrice, blew a breath and said, “Sho feels good to have somebody else cook.”
Padma smiled. “Yes, it does. That’s why I hire chefs.”
“You don’t do a lot of cooking anymore, do you, Beatrice?” Lalita asked.
“Well, you know I cook for the Food House now.”
“Oh, yeah. That’s right.”
“And I still have to cook for myself, too,” Beatrice added.
“I’ll have to find you some good frozen entrée’s you can buy, Beatrice,” Gabrielle said. “Then you can just pop it in the microwave and eat.”
“Oh, no, honey. I came up on collard greens, black-eyed peas and cone-bread fulla sugar. Ain’t got time for no plastic, frozen food. No ma’am.”
The family laughed together, well everyone except for Tyson and Heshan.
Heshan sat next to Tyson, and even though they were sitting side-by-side, Tyson hadn’t said a word to him since they arrived. He blamed Heshan for the way things had played out, when really, Heshan wasn’t the one to blame. He was just another victim of hearing an incomplete story completely wrong and trying to find out the truth. Well, he could take part of the blame, but at the time, he thought he was doing what was right for Tyson. He had no idea Tyson had been listening to him, the same way Lalita didn’t know Heshan was listening to her when she first relayed the story to Padma.