Hard Redemption: A Second Chance Romantic Comedy

by Emily J. Wright

  That slap had no medicinal use. It was a brutal one that made my head spin. It not only gave me an instant headache but a possible facial trauma. It was unnecessary—but I was glad that Amber found it amusing.

  Mary-Louise was worried about me and thought that Amber might have ruptured my eardrum. “Are you feeling all right, Duke?”

  “I am fine now, Mrs. McCarran—all thanks to your daughter and her expertise in the field of slapology. She even took the time to even out my face. How gracious of her! You should be proud of her.”

  I was talking to Mary-Louise but was actually taking a jab at Amber via her for slapping me the second time for no reason whatsoever. But apparently—she didn’t seem to care.

  Casey finally arrived in the room skipping rope. She was happy as always. Is that how a normal childhood looks like or is it something in her diet? I honestly wanted to know how she managed to be happy all the time so that I could be more like her.

  Mary-Louise—not proud of Amber’s work—patted Casey’s head and asked, “Why don’t you take your father to your room? He is not feeling well—”

  “Daddy, what happened to you?” Casey dropped her skipping rope and came running to me—and I sat her down on my lap. She began caressing my burning cheeks to comfort me. “Did you get in a fight, Daddy?”

  I was so confused about what to tell Casey about my swelled cheeks. I certainly couldn’t tell her that her mother had beat the shit out of me.

  I looked at Mary-Louise for some advice; she was the wisest woman I knew. Although, she usually had answers to anything and everything—but not at that time. She shrugged her shoulders to express her inability to help.

  I was still indecisive, but then I just blurted, “It was a cat.”

  “A cat?” Casey was surprised—and so was Amber and Mary-Louise.

  “Yes, a cat—a beautiful one. Mesmerizing, actually.” I tried to fabricate a story with a little bit of truth in it. “She was right here in this room. I tried to pat her, but she attacked me. She looked so innocent but was actually quite feisty. I was lucky that she didn’t bite me.”

  Mary-Louise had her mouth covered with her hand, suppressing her laughter the whole time I was telling Casey my partially true story. But Amber didn’t like my story a bit. She just wanted to stab my face; I could see it in her eyes.

  Casey jumped down from my lap and said, “Where did that cat go? I’ll kill her—”

  “Casey, no . . . bad girl . . . ,” Amber interjected.

  And Casey furiously replied, “But she hurt Daddy. . . .”

  “Casey—maybe let’s hold off the killing. That cat might have a kitten of her own—possibly a husband waiting for her to come back home,” I said while looking at Amber and then stood up. “I think I am feeling hot; that cat probably gave me fever. . . . Let’s go to your room, Casey. My head is spinning.”

  “Come on, Daddy.” Casey put my arm around her scrawny neck and tried to give me her support which left Mary-Louise and me in awe and almost in tears.

  On the way out of the room, I asked Mary-Louise, “Is she really my daughter or you exchanged her with an angel when I was not around?”

  “All yours,” she said with her hands joined as if she was thanking me for bringing Casey into this world and brightening our lives.

  I was laying on Casey’s bed with an ice pack on my head and was still feeling the effects of Amber’s slaps. I couldn’t let go of the image of Amber in the wedding dress out of my mind. It was the best thing I ever saw, except newborn Casey, of course.

  I was consumed with the thought of marrying Amber again at a proper ceremony. I removed the ice pack from my head and applied it on my swollen cheeks—completely lost in my imagination. What a beautiful wedding that would be?

  My imagination was running wild, but everything went back to square one when Amber barged into Casey’s room.

  Amber made an excuse to send Casey out by saying, “Casey, why don’t you go help Grandma in preparing soup for your daddy?”

  Casey was too smart for her age. She knew that we needed a moment to our self and didn’t waste any time to leave. “All right,” she said and quickly jumped out of bed to get to Mary-Louise.

  I wished I would be that smart as my daughter in understanding cues. Because I thought Amber might be concerned for me and came to see how I was doing.

  But—I couldn’t have been more wrong.

  With a deep exhale of her breath, she looked at me and shook her head in disappointment. She was probably not happy with me for comparing her to a cat—even though the comparison was reasonably accurate.

  She sat down on Casey’s tea party chair and asked, “What do you want?”

  She was obviously referring to all the teasing, flirting, and collecting her personal belongings like a psychopath. She was either portraying herself as a dumb blonde by playing the stereotypical card—or she genuinely didn’t understand the more than subtle hints that I had been dropping since the day I arrived there.

  It was indeed ‘the time’ to express my love and feelings for Amber. And I told her what I wanted—everything I ever wanted to say to her but couldn’t dare to do so. It couldn’t get any clearer than that.

  “I want you—always had and always will. I want to build you a shrine, place you in there, and worship you forever.”

  I got out of the bed and kneeled before her. I looked straight in her eyes and began sharing what I felt.

  “I want to wrap my arms around you ever so tightly and hide you from the wandering eyes. I want you to be the last person I see before going to sleep at night and the first one when I woke up in the morning. . . . I am tired, Amber—so tired from running from myself, from the life itself. I want to put my head in the heaven of your lap and take a breather—”

  I tried to put my head in her lap, but she pushed herself back along with the chair and denied me that privilege.

  She stood up in a fit of fury and yelled, “What will it take to get through your thick head that we were over a long time ago? I don’t need a piece of paper to confirm that—maybe you do. . . . Just sign the damn papers and leave. And I promise, apart from the supervised visitation, I’ll let you meet Casey on all major holidays.”

  I poured my heart out to her that could even have melted a stone-hearted individual.

  But not her—she had gone heartless.

  “Amber, I love you. I don’t know who I am or what I am without you in my life? But I know one thing for sure. My life is not worth living without you in it.”

  “But I don’t love you, Duke—maybe I never did. I am marrying Walter whether you like it or not, and there is nothing you can do about it.”

  “Do you even love him?”

  “Of course, I do. He is nice, stable, and good with Casey.”

  “All I heard is that he earns well, can give you a decent life and is ready to take care of Casey. That’s not love—it’s a compromise.”

  “Oh, shut up! Like you have all the things worked out.”

  Amber got agitated by the word ‘compromise’ which could only mean one thing: there was some shred of truth in it. She might not be in love with Walter—which revived my dying hopes back again. And then I played the biggest gamble of my life.

  “You want to marry Walter, right?”

  “Do you have wax in your ears? Of course, I do. That’s what I have been saying all along.”

  “Then come on a date with me.”

  “What?”

  “You heard it!” I said unwrapping my fake bandage. “Go on a date with me tonight. If by the end of the night, you still want to marry Walter—I’ll sign the divorce papers and be out of your hair by morning.”

  Amber was speechless at my proposition. She probably thought what Walter or Frank would think of her if she would agree to go on a date with me.

  I snapped my finger right in front of her face and said, “What happened? What do you have to worry about? It’s not like you will forget all about Walter and fell for me on a sin
gle date. You love him, remember?”

  “Oh, shut up!” Amber was still thinking about my proposition and hadn’t made up her mind yet.

  “Think about it, Amber. You don’t even have to touch me, kiss me—or even look at me. Just one date—in the clothes of my pick, at the restaurant of my choice—and you will wake up a free woman the next morning. No lawyer in the world can offer you a deal better than this.”

  “All right, fine. I can bear you for a few hours.” She was initially hesitant, but the reward was too big to say no.

  I extended my hand to make the deal official. “Good. So we have a deal?”

  “Get your filthy paws away from me!” She gave me a disgusted look and walked out of the room.

  She was taking the ‘no touching’ condition of our deal very seriously—starting then. But at least I got a chance to be alone with her on the neutral ground. And more importantly, away from the spying eyes of her father.

  I knew it was my only chance—and probably the last one as well—to remind Amber that once we were very happy together. I wanted to churn out her love for me that she had locked deep in her heart. So, I put aside my frugal attitude for that night and went all out.

  Chapter 11

  It was five in the evening. I was almost ready and waiting downstairs for Amber to grace me with her presence. Casey was standing by my side; she had already given me inside information that her mother liked the dress I bought for her.

  Mary-Louise was tying a bow tie around my neck as I didn’t know how to do it—not many moments had come in my life that required me to wear a tux. “How do you feel?” she asked while giving the final touch to the bow tie.

  I was excited. Anxious. Scared.

  But at that time, I could only think of one thing: my itchy tux. It was probably a blessing in disguise; it diverted my attention from overthinking and overstressing about the date.

  “It’s a little bit itchy,” I replied while heavily scratching my armpit.

  “You should have bought the tux instead of renting it. Do you have any idea how many people must have sweated in this thing?”

  “It seemed like a waste of money to buy a new one—which I am probably going to wear just once.”

  Casey then asked me to bend down; she wanted to pin a lapel flower on my tux. She also knew what was at stake and wasn’t in any way behind in trying to make me look good.

  “Wow!”

  I heard Mary-Louise’s voice as I bent down to get the lapel flower pinned. I jerked my head—still standing bent—and saw Amber coming down from the staircase.

  It’s hard to tell whether the dress was made for her or she was made for that dress. She was looking astonishing and ravishing like an angel descending from her abode in the sky.

  “All done, Daddy,” Casey said when she was finished pinning the lapel flower and gave me a kiss afterward.

  “Thank you,” I said with my eyes fixated on her mother like she was my prey and I was a predator—except I wanted to feast on her love.

  Mary-Louise might have seen the effect of Amber’s magnificent beauty on me—it was but obvious actually. And she asked, “Isn’t she look wonderful?”

  “Yeah, she does,” I said with a deep breath and shiver.

  “I know it’s hard for you to take your eyes off her but maybe try to blink a little. Otherwise, she would get another opportunity to slap you in the name of giving you a shock therapy.”

  “Good idea.” I blinked a couple of times in a row furiously. I couldn’t afford to get slapped just before my date. Amber’s handprints from that afternoon’s shock treatment were still fresh on my cheeks, and I didn’t want to add a new set of prints there.

  As soon as Amber came downstairs, to my dismay, she began downgrading the dress I bought for her. “What kind of dress is this? Does it come with someone to carry its train?”

  She didn’t stop there and continued to belittle my choice of heels and jewelry. “How uncomfortable these heels are? My feet are hurting badly. And this necklace—where did you get this? You couldn’t find anything else to choke me, huh? And don’t even get me started on these earrings—they are so heavy.”

  What Amber didn’t realize that I couldn’t choose poorly. After all, I had chosen her seven years ago. She was looking like a real mermaid in that mermaid dress, and there was nobody in the world who could say otherwise to spoil my moment—not even her.

  But I forgot. There was always him.

  Frank arrived after dropping a nuke bomb in the downstairs bathroom and then it was his turn to belittle my choice of the dress. “What is this? Are you taking her on a date or Met Gala?”

  “Exactly! You took the words right out of my mouth, Dad.” Amber was cheerful when her dad took her side because no one else was willing to—not after seeing how drop dead gorgeous she was looking.

  Meanwhile, Casey was repeatedly tugging my hand while I was still under the spell of Amber’s beauty.

  “Yeah . . . ,” I said without looking at Casey.

  “Flowers . . . ,” she mumbled and reminded me of giving flowers to her mother.

  Casey handed me a bouquet of white roses—her mother’s favorite. I bent down and kissed her forehead. “Thank you, Casey. I don’t know what I would do without you.”

  I reminisced about the past as I walked towards Amber to give her white roses—the symbol of purity and innocence. I still remembered how I showered her with white roses in the hospital room after she gave birth to Casey.

  I cleared my throat due to nervousness and extended her the bouquet with a big smile on my face. “Amber, that’s for you—”

  “Ugh! I absolutely hate them. Take them away from my sight.”

  I thought she would be impressed that I still remembered about her favorite flower and at least gave me a smile back. But Amber was repulsed by their mere sight.

  Frank took the bouquet right out of my hand and was very eager to get rid of them. “I’ll throw them in a bin.”

  “No, you won’t.” Mary-Louise didn’t like Frank’s intentions and assertively said while looking straight into his eyes, “Casey, take the flowers from your grandpa and put them in water. They are not going to die today. Not on my watch!”

  Frank had, of course, no option but to oblige to her wish.

  I was still stunned why Amber hated such a beautiful creation of nature and asked, “Since when . . . ? Why?”

  “Because when I see white roses, it reminds me of a young woman with a newborn the size of a peanut in her hands left all alone to take care of herself and her daughter. . . . They are supposed to represent new beginnings, but for me—they are a reminder of the end.”

  She put me to shame with the truth. Her words cracked my soul a little. I was feeling guilty. Embarrassed. Ashamed. I was trying to see the things from her perspective—and I didn’t like what I saw.

  A few hours back, I couldn’t hold on to my excitement of going out with Amber, but then it felt like someone had stabbed me with thousand needles and sucked the fun right out of me. I was thinking of canceling the date, but there was a knock on the door which made me stick to the original plan.

  Frank answered the door, and his ever so grumpy face lit up seeing his golden goose. “Walter—come on in.”

  “There is a red carpet outside your house,” Walter informed and ruined my surprise for Amber.

  “Do you have something do with this?” Frank asked grumpily.

  “Yeah . . . ,” I replied and then whispered to Amber, “I needed something to go with your dress.”

  “Jesus fucking Christ!” Frank shouted at me for trying to soil his reputation. “One look at this and neighbors would think I was a dirty cop now living the life of Royalty after the retirement.”

  Amber was not impressed at the way I was blowing that date out of proportion and gave me a stern warning in her whispers. “If I find a personal paparazzi waiting for me out there—consider this date canceled.”

  “I’ll cancel their services right now,�
�� I said while texting on my phone.

  “Walter—hi.” Amber’s expressions suddenly changed similar to her father as she greeted her fiancé. She even gave him a kiss which sent a stabbing pain up my spine.

  I felt like a cuckold when I saw Walter enjoying my wife in the dress that I bought for her. He was eyeballing her—and there was nothing I could do about it.

  “Wow—you look wonderful in this dress.”

  “Thank you . . . ,” Amber said blushing.

  It was not long before when she was cursing my choice as if I had made her wear a shroud. And then—she was behaving all giggly around him. I couldn’t bear her getting flirty with him anymore and rained on their parade.

  “It was me. I bought this dress. It was nothing much—just $1,200 for the dress, $600 for the heels, $1,000 for the earring, $2,000 for the necklace, and some incidental.”

  Walter was confused—like genuinely confused. It was difficult to tell when he was not; he looked lost all the time to me.

  I wondered how he even got successful in the real estate business with that face. It had to be with Amber’s luck. What else it could be?

  “What’s going on, Amber?”

  “I am going on a date,” Amber said with an awkward chuckle.

  “What?” Walter was confused and shocked—both at the same time. It was not a good combination on his face; he looked constipated.

  Amber tried to explain him the predicament she was in. “It’s not what you are thinking. It’s just a friendly date with Duke—like an expedition fee. After this date, I will officially be a divorcee in the morning.”

  “What the hell, man? You are taking my fiancé on a date?”

  “She is the mother of my daughter—my legal wife. I can take her wherever I want, whenever I want—with her permission, of course.”

  I couldn’t believe the audacity of that man. He took offense on me taking my wife on a date. Since when it became a crime for a man to manipulate his wife into forgiving him?

  Walter couldn’t win an argument with me; so, he started throwing tantrums. “I can’t believe this, Amber. He is blackmailing you into going on a date with you,” he said while weirdly moving his hand in disappointment.