Another Chance to Love

by Cheris Hodges

  Brian wanted to pull his wife into his arms and make love to her now. It had been months since she had allowed him to touch or taste her and release his love inside her.

  “Brian, there’s no easy way to say this. I want out of this marriage.” Her voice showed no emotion. She could’ve been asking for an extra blanket, but Brian felt sucker-punched. He had hoped that they’d at least seek counseling first.

  Divorce meant failure and Brian didn’t fail at much. He’d never thought he would fail at marriage.

  “Why don’t we think about this before we make a rash decision? We can go to a—”

  Olivia interrupted him. “I’m moving to Atlanta. You know, I’ve always wanted to get into fashion and I have chance to do that. Tonight I almost broke my wedding vows and I don’t want to do that. So instead of cheating on you, why don’t we just end this farce?”

  Brian tried to wrap his mind around what she was saying. Moving to Atlanta? Nearly breaking their wedding vows? Getting into fashion? He went from shock to anger in under three seconds. “Wait a damned minute,” Brian bellowed. “How can you just say you want to walk out of this marriage and move to Atlanta? What about our son?”

  Easing down the hall, Olivia exhaled loudly. “I can’t take Mickey with me right now. I don’t have a set place to live or anything and day care is expensive. I’m going to leave him with my mother and—”

  Throwing his hand up and cutting her off, Brian glared at her. “Stop right there. Just because you want to walk out on this marriage does not mean that my son is going suffer and lose both of us. You can go out and sleep with whomever you want to sleep with and move to California for all I care. I’m not going anywhere.”

  Olivia snorted. “How are you going to take care of him, Detective Jackson? What about your stakeouts, your weeks of working undercover, traveling across the state chasing drug dealers? How are you going to raise him and do that? Mickey’s five. You can’t neglect him the way you’ve neglected me.”

  “I don’t neglect you.”

  Olivia’s eyes stretched to the size of silver dollars. “Oh no? When’s the last time you came home and had dinner with us? I might as well be a single mother, not to mention that every night I wait for that knock on the door telling me that you’re dead. I won’t do that anymore.”

  Crossing the room, Brian reached out to her, trying to draw her into his embrace. She pushed away from him and leaned against the wall.

  “Olivia, we can work this out. Mickey needs both of us to raise him.”

  “Are you willing to leave the force?” She stormed into the bedroom.

  Brian looked at her as if she were a stranger. If anyone knew how much being a police officer meant to him, it was Olivia. When they were growing up, he’d spent hours telling her about his dream to become a police officer.

  Brian was the commander of the Elmore Police Department’s vice and narcotics unit. Thirty years ago, a small town like Elmore, South Carolina, hadn’t had a drug problem or a need for officers like Brian and the three guys who worked under him. But in the 1980s crack hit the town and stung it like a swarm of killer bees. Brian had watched his uncle, Morton Jackson, became strung out on the drug. The former high school football player went from 250 pounds of muscle to a gaunt shell of himself. Brian knew he had to do something. Watching his uncle’s decline made him want to become a police officer. Olivia had been supportive then. The woman asking him to give up his career dream had to be a clone or something.

  “You know I can’t do that,” he said quietly.

  “I didn’t think Superman would take off his cape to save our marriage.” She slammed into the bedroom with Brian hot on her heels.

  “How long have you been planning this?”

  Whirling around, she snorted in his face. “You can spot a drug dealer from fifty blocks, but you couldn’t look right in front of you and see I was dying in this marriage. I want more than you and Elmore have to offer.”

  Brian seethed with anger. Several times in their ten-year marriage, they’d had the chance to leave Elmore. Brian had been offered jobs with the Atlanta Police Department, the Detroit Police Department, and the Miami-Dade County Police Department. But Olivia hadn’t wanted to leave her mother. She was the reason they’d stayed in Elmore all of these years and now Elmore wasn’t enough for Olivia. “You have some gall,” he snapped. “We could have been living in Atlanta. We could have been anywhere but you wanted to stay here. I turned down big job offers for you and you’re just going to walk out of here like a thief in the night. If you want to leave, then go—but my son will not suffer because you want to go off and live some fantasy.”

  “And just how are you going to take care of Mickey? You can’t ignore him the way you’ve ignored me,” she said before grabbing the doorknob. “I’ll be gone in the morning.” Olivia walked out of the bedroom and Brian fell back on the bed. This wasn’t happening to him.

  The next morning, Olivia was out of the house before Mickey and Brian were out of bed. Trying to keep to their normal routine, Brian got up and cooked pancakes with chocolate chips, eggs, and bacon— all Mickey’s favorites. The little boy ambled into the kitchen, carrying his favorite action figure. Brian looked at his namesake and smiled. Brian Jr., also known as Mickey because he loved the Disney character so much as a toddler, was a bundle of energy once he got started in the mornings. He had his mother’s doe-like brown eyes and chocolate complexion and his dad’s inquisitive mind. That meant Brian wasn’t going to be able to hide the divorce from him.

  “Good morning, son,” Brian said as Mickey took a seat at the table in the middle of the kitchen.

  “Morning,” he replied sleepily. “Where’s Mommy?”

  Brian cleared his throat nervously. He didn’t want to lie to his son; honesty was one of the main things he taught Mickey. Then again, he couldn’t break his son’s heart. Mickey and his mother were extremely close. She spent the majority of her time with him because Brian worked a lot.

  “Uh, Mommy had to go away for her new job.” That wasn’t totally a lie, he reasoned.

  Mickey scratched his nose and looked at his father. “When’s she coming back? Where did she go? What’s a divorce?”

  Brian’s ears burned at the sound of the word divorce, a word he had been working so hard for his son to never hear. He’d subjected himself to a loveless marriage so that Mickey would not know the pain of watching one of his parents walk out of the house and never return.

  “Where did you hear that word?” he asked.

  Mickey bit his bottom lip and looked up at his father. “I was listening to Mommy on the phone.”

  How long has she been planning this? Brian wondered. “A divorce is when a mommy and a daddy stop living with each other.”

  “Why?”

  Brian shrugged his shoulders. “Things like that just happen. Eat your breakfast,” he said as he set a plate of pancakes, bacon, and eggs in front of his son. Brian couldn’t explain it. Everything was all too raw. And though he didn’t want to admit it, he’d seen this coming like a beacon in the night. If Olivia hadn’t walked out, Brian knew that he probably would have eventually.

  Mickey cut into his pancakes and then looked up at his father. “Are you and Mommy getting a divorce?”

  “Eat,” Brian said, not ready to tell his son the entire truth about his mother. Sitting across from Mickey, Brian forced down eggs and bacon. He was going to need energy for the rest of his day. Brian was going to have to talk to Chief Whitt about leaving the vice/narcotics unit, which was the last thing he wanted to do. That unit was his baby. Brian had earned a reputation as a keen drug cop who knew every place in a car where drugs could be hidden. He’d created a drug task force that worked closely with the sheriff’s office and other area police agencies. The task force had won the state’s highest law enforcement award and had taken more than $30,000,000 in drugs off the streets.

  Now he was going to have to leave all of that behind. “How would you like to spend the da
y with your auntie?”

  “Yeah!” Clearly Mickey was excited about spending the day with Gabrielle Jackson, Brian’s sister. Gabrielle was three years younger than Brian and a free spirit. She worked at a nightclub in a neighboring town as a bartender, even though she’d earned a degree in business administration from the University of South Carolina. Brian often thought his sister was wasting her life, but it was her life and having a sister that worked at night did mean a baby sister during the day. He pulled out his cell phone and called his sister.

  “What?” she snapped groggily when she answered.

  “Good morning, Gabby,” he said cheerfully. “How are you doing this wonderful morning?”

  She sighed into the phone. “Brian, why in the hell are you calling me this early in the morning?”

  “I need a favor,” he said, lowering his voice and turning his back to Mickey. “Can you watch Mick for a few days?”

  Brian could hear his sister’s sheets rustle. “What’s going on? I mean you know I’ll do it.”

  “Good, I’ll bring him over in a couple of hours,” he said.

  “Where’s your wife?” Contempt peppered her tone. There was no love lost between Olivia and Gabrielle. Even when Brian and Olivia were dating in high school, the two women didn’t get along.

  “I can’t get into that right now,” Brian whispered. “Mickey is finishing up breakfast and I’ve got to pack his bag, so see you at ten-thirty?” She grunted, but Brian knew she would be up and ready to spend time with her only nephew.

  A few hours later, Brian was pulling into the driveway of his parents’ old house. Gabrielle had moved into the house after Alice and Marvin Jackson died. The death of their parents had brought them closer together. Gabrielle would do anything for Brian and the same was true for him. His sister was the most important woman in his life—especially now that his wife was gone. He looked up at his sister, who was standing on the porch. Every day she was starting to look more like their mother. She had dark hair that was cut in a Chinese bob and skin the color of cinnamon. About five-foot-eleven-inches, Gabrielle looked as if she could be a model. She’d received her height from their father and her looks from their mother.

  “Hey,” she called out as Mickey and Brian got out of the car. Mickey ran to the front porch and wrapped his arms around his aunt’s long legs.

  “Aunt Gabby,” he said as she reached down and hugged him. Brian walked up the steps of the antebellum styled house carrying Mickey’s bags.

  “Hey champ, why don’t you take this in the house so I can talk to your auntie,” Brian commanded softly.

  Mickey disappeared inside the house and Gabrielle and Brian took a seat in the rocking chairs on the front porch. Gabrielle looked at her brother with questions dancing in her eyes.

  “What’s really going on?”

  Brian sighed and rocked back and forth. “Olivia left me,” he said in a voice barely above a whisper.

  “She did what?”

  “Took off in the middle of the night and wanted to take Mickey to live with her mother.”

  “That scandalous b—” Gabrielle stopped short when she saw the wounded look on her brother’s face. He loved Olivia. Gabrielle, on the other hand, couldn’t stand her. She’d always thought Brian could have done better in the romance department than that stuck-up, wannabe diva.

  “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  Brian shrugged his shoulders as he stroked the arms of the wooden chair, deciding that they needed to be stained again. “All I know is, she’s not taking my son from me when she’s the one who wants out of this marriage. I put up with a lot these last few years and I did it all for Mickey. If she’s content with giving up on letting him have a two-parent home, fine.”

  “I’ll help you any way I can,” Gabrielle pledged. “She can’t take my nephew from you. Mickey needs a strong male role model and they don’t get any stronger than you. Maybe she did you a favor. Kids are smart and it was only a matter of time before Mickey figured out his parents couldn’t stand each other. I hope the stupid bitch doesn’t come back. You deserve so much better.”

  Brian smiled at his sister and thanked her, then rocked back and forth. “I’m going to have to make some major changes in my life,” he said, more to himself than to Gabrielle.

  “But Brian, police work is a part of you. How are you going to give that up? I wish I could just slap the sh—”

  “Gabrielle,” Brian said in a warning tone. “She’s Mickey’s mother and I don’t want you talking bad about her, especially around my son.” Gabrielle flashed her brother a fake smile. “You know how I love my sister-in-law.”

  Brian rolled his eyes. “If I could arrest you for lying, I would.” He stood up and walked over to the screen door. “Champ.”

  Mickey came running to the door. “Yes, sir?”

  Brian opened the door then reached down and hugged his son. “Listen to your auntie, all right? And try to eat something other than ice cream.”

  Mickey nodded, but Brian knew as soon as he left, his son and his sister were going to dive into a huge bowl of ice cream. As Brian drove to the police station, he thought about what he was giving up— the excitement of being out on the street, the all-night stakeouts, taking down drug dealers who thought they were ten feet above the law. Police work made him feel alive, important, as if he were making a difference. Brian pulled into the parking lot of the Elmore Police Department, parking his Ford F-150 next to the unmarked vice/narcotics car he usually drove to do surveillance in. Any other day, he would get in this car and head out on the streets to fight the war. But those days were over. Now he had to tell that to the chief.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Brian lay in the bed staring up at the ceiling. In less than a week, his life had change dramatically. His wife had walked out on him, leaving him alone with his son, and to top it off, his new assignment meant he would be a glorified baby-sitter. He closed his eyes and thought about the conversation he’d had with Chief Whitt.

  “Detective Jackson,” the old man said when he spotted Brian standing at the door. “Come in and have a seat.”

  Chief Whitt was an old-time police chief. He still smoked fat cigars in his office, in spite of the big no smoking sign on the outside of his door and he had a bottle of bourbon in his desk drawer, along with a package of pork skins. When Brian sat down, Whitt pulled out a cigar and offered one to his favorite officer. Brian shook his head.

  “What’s wrong?” Whitt asked.

  “I need out of the vice/narcotics unit,” Brian said slowly.

  Whitt nearly choked on a mouthful of smoke. “What? Jackson, no way. You’re the best I have and. . . What’s bringing this on? You built that unit. Hell, if it weren’t for you we’d still have traffickers setting up shops on Main Street. You get a rush out of bringing dealers down. What’s really going on?”

  “It’s personal, sir,” Brian said, hoping to avoid telling his boss about the collapse of his marriage.

  Whitt took a drag of the cigar and exhaled. Smoke circled above his head like a cloud. “You’re going to have to do better than that. You leaving the squad is basically like dismantling it,” he said. Disappointment and anger peppered his tone. “What’s going on, Jackson?”

  “Olivia and I are getting a divorce and I have to do what’s best for my son,” Brian said through clinched teeth.

  Whitt tapped his cigar against the oval-shaped ashtray on the corner of his desk. “I didn’t know this was happening to you. Shit like this is common in our line of work.”

  Brian stared at him blankly. Was he supposed to tell his chief that for the last five years he’d been living with a woman who had turned into someone he didn’t like?

  Olivia had a lot of dreams and fashion design was one of them. But instead of following her heart after high school, she’d let her mother talk her into staying in Elmore. Brian had tried to push her into doing what she wanted to do. He didn’t think it fair for him to live his dream and Olivia to a
bandon hers. One day, he knew, even though it wasn’t really his fault, she’d end up resenting him.

  Three years into their marriage, Olivia had applied to the Atlanta School of Design and Fashion. She had been accepted and Brian was ready to move to Georgia. He’d applied for a job with the Atlanta Police Department and gotten hired.

  But the moment they told Davina, Olivia’s mom, about their move, Davina suddenly became ill. Brian knew there was nothing wrong with that battle-ax. He’d joked privately with his sister that Davina would outlive the roaches.

  Olivia, on the other hand, feared that her mother was deathly ill and put off her plans — again. She told Brian that the school would hold her place for a year and once she knew her mother’s condition, they would go to Atlanta.

  It never happened, at least not the way Brian wanted it to happen. He would’ve packed up and moved to Georgia, taken the job with APD just to make Olivia happy.

  “I hope you can understand that my son is more important than anything to me right now. If I don’t do something, I could lose him. As much as I love my work, I love my son more.”

  Whitt put his feet up on the desk and looked thoughtfully at Brian. “Well, I understand your family is important and I’ll be happy to work with you.” Whitt reached into his desk drawer, pulling out his half empty bottle of bourbon and two shot glasses. He poured the liquor into the glasses and pushed one to Brian. “As a matter of fact, we’re starting a new program at the high school. The mayor and the school board seem to think that there’s a gang of delinquents over there. Two weeks ago, a teacher was accosted in the parking lot. They’ve had a student bring a gun to school and fights break out every other week. So, they’ve asked us to step in as school resource officers. I was thinking of putting one of the rookies in there, but given your situation, this seems like a great opportunity for you.”