by Gary Sapp
audacity to pitch a fit and argue at the old man, even after the poor grades he’d posted his first full year off at school. He had to really buckle down the last six weeks of the semester to pass and advance or he could have kissed his academic scholarship goodbye.
Well, the entire first year at Duke wasn’t a total failure.
And when Pam Toliver, Antoinette Burner, Clint Sessions and Sam Casey arrived on his parent’s front porch, especially with their boating gear in hand, he knew they were in for a very special weekend, one he didn’t plan on forgetting.
The storm rolled in on top of them about four hours later. The weather man had predicted the system would wash up further south nearer to St Simons Island close to the Florida border. When Seth had heard the report, he made an executive decision that the seas would we calm enough for them to sail, especially if they left now. He remembered the wind tossing a twisting the 20 footer and for a brief time Seth wondered if the boat would be cut in half by the gust. In the never ending cloud bank above them he imagined the dark clouds being his father’s frowning face and the rain being his mother’s tears for her only child.
Antoinette went overboard somewhere in their fifth hour out to sea. The others called for her and looked over the side, Clint nearly spilling over in the Atlantic trying to find his friend. But Sam had great eyes and spotted her not too far out from the boat.
Seth didn’t hesitate. He dove in and reached her in a short time. And with the help of his other three friends, the finest people he’d ever known, they got her hauled back into the boat. They pulled Seth back in immediately thereafter.
Antoinette’s skin was clammy and she wasn’t breathing. Seth looked to his friends for answers. They looked to him for the same. No one knew CPR although Seth had taken some classes…that he had missed some days…and didn’t pay attention in others, when he had secured his boating license.
They tried to make it up as they went along…these four soon to be law students trying to emulate a medical procedure, but Antoinette wasn’t playing the role of a cooperative practice dummy very well…and died soon after.
“You didn’t answer my question, Doctor?” Denise Prince asked him. How long had he been out of it? You’ve been gone long enough for her to slip out of her work clothes and into a pink housecoat with a neat bow tied her waist. Seth noted that she’d showered, as her light skin had that same clammy appearance that Antoinette’s did before she…before you killed her, you moron.
The aroma of meatloaf still hovered in the room. He retreated to the relative safety of food conversation. “The meatloaf and everything else was excellent, thank you, Denise.” He raised his empty coffee cup towards where she was standing. “My compliments to the chef,” And it was a true compliment at that. Angel cooked meals on a semiannual basis back home.
“You should eat in more,” Denise said to him with a smile on her face. Her teeth were perfectly straight and white.
The first night together they had ordered pizza. The 12 and 16 hour days had taken their toll on him. Seth wasn’t much on fast food, even when he had been that foolish age when the boating accident happened. So the prospect of yet another meal of burger and fries was massively unappealing to him. Last night she had offered to grill him some chicken breast on one of those name branded grills. Tonight, it had been classic meatloaf and mashed potatoes. But I can tell by your slim enough waistline that it’s not about the food, it’s about the company…or the lack thereof.
She had been an engaging and thoughtful host. He was being selfish. What harm could come from listening to her. The woman’s only child still hadn’t been found.
“If you need to talk,” He touched his ears to signal to her that he was listening.
Denise sat in the chair across from him and put one leg underneath the other. He tried not to look at the gap that had wedged between her legs. “I guess I probably should, shouldn’t I?” She lifted one of the pictures of Erica off of the coffee table and stroked it with two fingers with affection. “I don’t quite know what I should or can say. I’m not sure where to begin?”
“I understand.” Seth sat next to her to break any further barriers that may have been blocking her from expressing what she felt. Two things happened that disturbed him: He got a clear look at Erica thanks to the LED lighting flowing from the kitchen…my God; I would say that that was a young man if I didn’t know better. The second thing got his heart pumping more blood. He got a whiff of her baby oil, and he would have sworn that she smelled even better than Angel did after her showers. Cool it, Seth, the Gray man scolded himself. You just miss your wife is all…but Denise was a beautiful woman as well.
“Tonight must have been especially difficult. I know it was for me. Even with all of our training, we’re human first, and I don’t think anything can prepare you for what we saw coming through into the triage center. My God, all of those young people, all of their lives thrown away like yesterday’s garbage.”
Denise nodded slowly. “During the 411 attacks, I kept waiting for my ex-husband to be wheeled in. I thought because of his profession, because of his bloodlines, I just knew that he’d been injured…or worse.”
Seth locked his fingers with hers. It was an instant reaction and an unplanned one. “The important thing is that he survived. He is a survivor.” And now Dr. Seth Dupree truly knew he was lost…at least in knowing what he wanted to happen to Agent Chris Prince.
He had to admit that a wave of disappointment washed over him when Denise told him the news that her ex-husband had indeed escaped the Fox Theatre alive and mostly unharmed. He’d come to Atlanta hell bent on what…seeing the man suffer for his profession pulling his wife away from him. Was I that simpleminded? Didn’t I learn anything from the boating accident all of those years ago?
And for a time, albeit a brief one, he even thought about trying to hurt Agent Prince himself. Now I don’t know what to do about any of this?
“And then today,” Denise was saying. “Today, I thought it would be Erica brought in on a gurney. Doctor Dupree, I kept seeing her face on all of the bodies of those headless victims…all of them. Roxanne Sanchez, the private investigator I told you about, she told Chris and he told me that Eric’s trail seemed to end at Carver Housing Projects.”
“Again, the worse scenario didn’t play out, Denise.” Seth said, and squeezed her soft hand tighter. “And I think it’s time that you start calling me Seth.”
“Alright, I would like that…Seth.”
“I want you to hold on to hope. I want you to take a leap of faith that everything is going to turn out okay.”
“I do, Seth.” She moved closer to him. “Sometimes hope and faith is all a mother has left to cling to during trying times like this one, especially when you are alone.”
Seth looked away.
“What?” Denise asked him. She scooted her butt so that the rest of her body was on the edge of her chair and so that their knees now touched. “I see a question forming on your face, Seth. Ask me anything you might want to know. I don’t mind?”
“Your ex-husband is one of the most qualified people in this state to be finding your daughter.” Seth said with an edge, the Gray Man getting to his feet, circled the living room, and reserved a spot standing in front of her. “He shouldn’t be relying on a stranger to lead this investigation. He should be out there pounding the streets looking for her. She’s family.”
Denise reached up and patted the knuckles of his balled up fist in reassurance. “He is, Doctor, in his own way. Chris is searching for her.”
She warmed up his coffee over his moderate objections and both of them sat back down. Seth picked up Erica’s picture and ran his fingers along the smooth wooden frame trying to push how the young woman looked to the back of his mind. Her sexual preferences were irrelevant to the fact that she was missing…or worse. “Angel told me a long time ago that you and Chris met when Erica was a little girl.”
Denise cheeks flushed with the warmth of a pleasant memory. “Erica mu
st have been two or three years old. Chris adored her. He took my little girl everywhere he went.”
“Erica must have fallen in love with him about the same time you did?”
“No,” All of that warmth in Denise’s face washed away. She put her back to Seth and stood next to the fireplace. The symbolism was not lost on the Gray Man. “I wish to God that what you just said was the truth but I know that it wasn’t. You see, Doctor—Seth, Erica resented Chris presence in our lives almost from the very beginning.”
“She resented him,” Seth asked. “Why would Erica resent someone who, at least on the surface, made her life better?”
Denise peered over her shoulder just enough for Seth to see one of her hazel eyes. “Understand that up into that point of Erica’s life, it had just been the two of us. We struggled financially. I was trying to finish getting my nursing degree, keep food on the table, and raise her alone. But in part, because of those struggles, we developed a very tight bond.”
“So in her two year old mind, Chris intruded on that bond.”
Denise whipped around, facing him. “In her eyes he severed it beyond repair.”
Set sat his cup in the saucer and rubbed his face. “She eventually got used to the idea though? Things between Chris and Erica had to get better with the simple passing of time right?”
“Yea, maybe, for a short time, maybe it did.” Denise shook her head in agreement. “I would say that for about four years things went pretty well.
“And then,”
“And then…life happened, Seth. As Erica grew older she began to question me more and more about her biological father. You know how cruel children that age could be. Her classmates teased her about not having a real daddy.”
Seth swallowed any potential thought on that, but the look in his gray eyes must have betrayed him.
“Don’t be embarrassed, Seth. You were probably going to say something along the lines that most black children don‘t have their fathers in their day to day lives, or that many Black children don’t know who their father is.”
“It’s not my place to—“
“You may have even gone further and say that many fathers of Black children are in jail…despite what Xavier Prince and a House in Chains has been able to accomplish.” She said with some anger…and Seth noticed her eyes tearing up for the first time.
“Tell me about Erica’s father. Are you two still one speaking terms?” Seth’s mind was racing to find a positive point somewhere to end this conversation on. He hopped out of the chair and handed Erica his cell. “Does the man even know that she’s missing? You should call him. Perhaps he could help in the search somehow—“
“I don’t know who Erica’s father is.”
Denise’s words struck Seth with a fierceness of finality that he hadn’t expected. He felt himself slouch in his stance. This conversation wouldn’t end on a positive note after all. “I’m sorry, Denise. I shouldn’t have pride in your private affairs.” Shit, Seth thought. That wasn’t your greatest use of the English language either you moron.
Denise squeezed his wrist and then his hand, her touch wasn’t unpleasant and yet he shrank from it all the same. “I was a wild child. It was the spring time back home in Knoxville. I had a spectacular shape that had been hidden under all those heavy coats and sweaters all winter.” She laughed then, and Seth wondered how much humor was really in it. He found out quickly as her face became one with frowns. She tried to hide her shame and her tears and failed miserably with both. “It’s my fault, Seth. All of this is my fault.”
“Don’t do this disservice to yourself, Denise.” Seth used his free hand to pull her into his embrace. Her breast pushed through the housecoat onto his chest. “We all make mistakes when we are young.” You brought a life into the world, Denise, while I took one out.
He tried to apologize for her…for what, Seth Dupree was unsure and she wasn’t hearing it anyway. She pulled her head back far enough for him to resume eye contact with him. “Did you and Angel ever want to have kids?”
Seth’s smile held very little warmth to it. Despite the mistakes in his past, he always thought he would have made a good father. “We never seemed to get around to it.”
Denise grinned at him “Maybe your wife knows what I do: Mother’s love their children almost to a fault.” She hesitated and added: “I know that we Black women do. Many of us raise our children alone with little or no help from their fathers. We’re tired. We’re discouraged most of the time. We’re angry all of the time. So we focus all of the love that we have inside of us onto them.”
A tear chased another down her cheeks.
“Denise don’t do this,”
She held him tighter, and he felt a stirring in his slacks. He could feel her warmth. All of the oxygen went out of the room,
She said: “We’re so angry at the world for not loving our children the way we do: So, when it comes to our kid’s faults and shortcomings, we refuse to see them. Even the ones they inherited from us.”
“What are you talking about, Denise?” Seth got another full whiff of her baby oil and whatever she used in her hair. “What did Erica inherit from you?”
Denise pulled him to her with amazing strength and kissed him once softly on the lips. “She has my anger.” She parted his lips with her tongue. “She has my aggression.”
She must have felt his manhood and rubbed her body up against it. Dr. Seth Dupree had ventured to Atlanta with the goal of retrieving his wife and possibly hurting Chris Prince as a bonus. Angel claims not to love you…she sleeps with other men, you know this, Seth. Why shouldn’t he take this moment…and this woman for himself?
Seth found that he was kissing her back, seeing her brown skin against his pale skin hardens him further. He had never experienced—
Finally, he pushed her back, using his height advantage, and her shoulders for leverage. Both marriages still had a chance to be reconciled. This was a…romantic interlude trying to introduce itself where it could only do harm. He won’t hurt anyone’s chances by not being able to take back what he and Denise may have been engaged in minutes from now.
“I’ve overstayed my welcome, Denise. I’m sorry.”
Denise Prince spun him around, pinning him face forward against the wall. Her housecoat is unbuckled, how and when it got that way he could not say for certain. She caught the slightest glimpse of her clad in a beige bra and matching panties. “Don’t be sorry, Seth. Stay as long as you like. Your room is already paid for and will be waiting on you when you return.”
“I know that,” Denise whirled him back around with the same precision as before. The housecoat was completely gone and her bra straps were falling from over her shoulders. “Denise, we really shouldn’t do this.”
“We should,” She put his hands on her large breast, which felt magnificent absent the bulky housecoat. “Your hands, you have wondrous hands, Doctor, touch me all over.”
“I’m a surgeon,” He said unnecessarily, when she wasn’t drowning him in kisses. “Steady hands are the key to being successful at my profession. They could mean the difference between life and death.”
“You’re right. They may make the difference tonight.”
When she tried to reach for…it he halted her advance with his right hand. He tried to be both soothing but stern all at once. The memories still flashed in his brain of how quickly things spiraled out of control with Angel, especially during the few quite times he’d experienced since he’d been in Atlanta.
“Denise, I’m still a married man.” He said. “Despite our difficulties, I want things to work out with Angel. For better or worse, I still love my wife.”
“And I still love Christopher Prince.” She backed away a half an inch with the admission. Something in her eyes told Seth that it was the first time since their dissolution that she’d told anyone this. Yet, it didn’t stop her from using her free hand to break through his defenses…and squeeze him until it hurt…until it felt so right. “It doesn’t
stop me from having a woman’s needs. Please…don’t make me beg for it.” Denise’s tears began to flow again. “That’s why I asked you to come over last night…so we could wait for Roxanne’s call together.”
“Huh? What are you talk—“
She kissed him again on the mouth…and worked her way around his neck and started whispering, barely coherently in his ear. “Is it too much to ask for a little pleasure from you, sir? It’s been too long. My little girl may never come home again. A little pleasure that we take from time to time may be all that I have left if you won’t come back to me for good.”
“Denise…who are you talking to—“
She looked mesmerized. As if she was under the influence of hypnosis or something even stronger. “I still love you…Chris.”
“Denise,” He used some of his strength reserves to push her to a safe distance but luckily, not to the floor.”
She lunged at him—and bit his lip.
He cried out in pain.
But it was her who was enraged as if she’d been attacked and not him.
“Goddamn you,” She yelled almost in a masculine tone, and it took all of his remaining strength and determination to restrain her. “Goddamn you, sir. You’re so fucking selfish. I’ll ask you again, Chris, do I have to beg for it?”
And then she collapsed to her knees as if she had truly been slapped back into this time, this reality. Seth made himself out to be a statue. He truly wished he’d had his wife’s expertise on case file like the woman who was kneeling before him.
He snatched a paper towel from the roll of out of the kitchen and dampened it with warm water. It stung when he wiped his bleeding lips, but he would heal in a day or so. But will you heal, Denise? She needed far more than a warmed wet paper towel to heal all of her wounds.
She cried for a long time until she had finally cried out. She was still only dressed in the matching bra and panty so Seth picked up her robe off of the floor and covered her shoulders against the night’s chill.
“You’ve been under a lot of stress, Denise.” He spoke to the top of her head, his one hand on her shoulder. “Give yourself some time. I’ll see you tomorrow if you show for work. If not, call me…we’ll talk. I don’t take any of this personally. I promise you that I’ll help see you through this.”
Denise looked up at Seth and he wiped the last of her tears away. When she stood he tightened the belt around her housecoat. “Take a leap of faith with me, Denise.”
And then there was an urgent knocking on her front door. Alarm graced her face, and the Gray Man was sure that he wore a similar look that matched his host.
“Denise…it’s me, Chris.” The voice on the far side of the door that belonged to Special Agent Christopher Prince said. “I have…I need to speak