All I Want Is Forever

by Lynn Emery

  Barron started to walk out ahead of him but stopped. He turned to Derrick. “Anybody who believes a word Monette Victor says is either incredibly stupid or naive. She’s a pathological liar.”

  Larry and Barron went out together, exchanging small talk. Derrick sat deep in thought, going over his observations of the man. Winn Barron held no surprises. He was the pompous, quick-tempered autocrat he appeared to be from a distance. Although he respected Larry, Derrick found he had a distinct dislike for Barron. Another curious thing was his reaction to the mention of Monette’s name. His animosity seemed to border on being personal. Larry’s voice broke into his thoughts.

  “Winn hasn’t changed one bit. Same old bulldog.” Larry walked around his desk and sat down in the leather captain’s chair.

  “Yeah, bad-tempered bulldog,” Derrick said evenly.

  “Don’t take it personally,” Larry said with a wave of one hand. “Winn is a little touchy. He’s taken a lot of heat for years.”

  “Like his family position got him where he is?” Derrick looked at his boss.

  Larry nodded. “His opponents always bring that up. Winn didn’t get this far just because of family connections.”

  Derrick bit back a rejoinder about how his family’s money and connections helped him. “Right.”

  “Let’s talk about this Terrio rape case.” Larry flipped open a folder on his desk.

  While he talked Derrick continued to turn over his view of Barron and Monette’s case in his mind.

  Hours later he was at his mother’s small garden home. Derrick rang the doorbell twice, then opened the door with his key. Ruthann Guillory sat in a wheelchair in a small living room staring at a color television set. Her expression was flat, as though her thoughts were miles away. Derrick sighed, then put on a cheerful face.

  “Hello, my favorite woman in the world.” Derrick leaned down and kissed her forehead.

  “Hi, baby.” She patted his face with a bony hand. A light came on in her eyes when she smiled at him.

  “Stop watching that trash. Look at those fools.” Derrick waved at the television screen. A couple engaged in hand-to-hand combat while a stocky man tried to break it up.

  “What? Oh yeah, she just confessed she had an affair with a nephew or uncle, maybe both.” Ruthann laughed. “These things are educational, son.”

  “Yeah,” Derrick said with a grunt. “You look gorgeous.” He sat down in the chair that matched her small floral sofa.

  “Oh stop, you.” She waved a hand at him. “I’ll show you my latest trick.” She grabbed a metal cane with a rubber tip on its three-pronged end.

  “Hey, don’t do that!” Derrick started to get up.

  “Sit down. My physical therapist is like a drill sergeant. I’ve got to walk at least three times a day now. She’ll know if I’m not doing it, too.”

  With great effort, Ruthann rose from the wheelchair by balancing her weight on the cane. Once she was up, she straightened with a soft gasp. Derrick had to restrain himself from rushing to her.

  “Mama, that’s fantastic. Now you rest.” He watched her with a wary expression.

  “You want a glass of sweet tea? I made a pitcher at lunch.” She walked slowly toward the small kitchen adjacent to her living room.

  “I’ll get it.” Derrick jumped up. “You rest.”

  “Stop babying me, son. I’ve done this twice today already.” Ruthann spoke as she made slow but steady progress.

  Derrick walked beside her, feeling like a bundle of nerves. “That’s wonderful, babe. But really I don’t need a glass of tea.”

  “Nobody needs sweet tea, sugar. It’s a treat. My next goal is to bake one of my pound cakes.”

  “Now don’t do too much.” Derrick couldn’t resist. He went to the refrigerator. He found the yellow plastic pitcher, then took two tumblers from a cabinet.

  Ruthann got a tray and placed it on the countertop. “Put them on here. My new home health aide brought me some of her special muffins. Low in sugar and fat. Ah, here they are!” She found napkins and placed several on the tray.

  “Mama, you sit at the table and let me get those.” Derrick put down the tray.

  “Nonsense, I feel better when I move around. Might as well since I’m stuck in here all day.” She took two muffins out of a plastic container with daisies all over it.

  “You need your rest.” Derrick tried to keep the insistent edge from his voice.

  “Let’s go back in the living room, have our treat, and talk.” Ruthann put the muffins on the tray and walked ahead of him.

  Derrick followed her. He put the tray on a cocktail table in front of the sofa. Ruthann sat next to him. She sighed as she got settled against a large pillow.

  “See? You’ve tired yourself out.” Derrick poured tea in the two glasses and handed her one.

  “Quit fretting over me.”

  “I just don’t want you to do too much,” Derrick said. He smiled as he patted her hand.

  “The Lord will take care of me, sugar. Plus I’ve got a nurse and that nice Keitha coming over.”

  “I know.”

  “I had a surprise visitor the other day. Your father dropped by,” she said.

  Derrick froze in the act of taking another sip from his glass. “What did he want?”

  “He’s changed, sugar.”

  “If I had a dime for every time you said that.” Derrick clenched a fist.

  “Yes, I stayed with him much longer than I should have. It hurt you, and I take the blame for it.”

  “You did the best you could. I sure don’t blame you.”

  “Forgive him, Derrick. I have. It’s time.” Ruthann spoke in a gentle voice, the same way she’d coaxed him to take cough medicine as a child.

  “I have. But he should stay away from you.”

  “I don’t want you calling him up and telling him not to visit me.” Ruthann wore a stern expression. “I’m grown. This is my house and I say who can come see me.”

  “But Mama—”

  “Don’t ‘but Mama’ me, son!” Her frown melted away. “Baby, you can’t rush around fixing everything. I know you had to be strong as a boy. But just like this thing with Monette, you gotta be careful.”

  He glanced at her sharply. “How do you know about that?”

  “I still read the papers. She’s up for parole, and they mentioned something about the District Attorney’s Office. Miss Rose tells me Talia is back in town. I may be weak in the body, but ain’t a thing wrong with my mind.” Ruthann tapped her temple.

  “I don’t want you worrying about that kind of stuff.”

  “I’m worried about how you take so much on your shoulders. You feel like you gotta right every wrong.” Nell closed her gnarled hand around his. “You can’t. Besides, you take some crazy risks.”

  Derrick glanced away. Talia had given him the same lecture. “I’m just doing my job.”

  “I’m proud of you, baby. Don’t get me wrong. But you can’t do it all yourself,” Nell said.

  “I’m always careful, sweetheart. You sure were right, this is good sweet tea!” Derrick chattered on about relatives to distract her and himself from worrisome thoughts.

  Chapter 9

  Talia sat on the floor of Mama Rose’s living room with the large pink photo album in her lap. She’d come across it while cleaning out a hall closet. Her hand shook as she opened it. Tears welled up in her eyes at the first photo. A small, grim child gripped a black baby doll with a frown at the camera.

  The Life Book had been put together for her by foster care social workers. Pictures of her as a toddler with captions saying how old she was filled the first few pages. Like all foster mothers, Mama Rose had maintained the Life Book and added to it so that Talia would have some sense of a past. Often kids bounced around the system didn’t have the simple mementos of baby pictures or school pictures. What seemed a normal part of growing up for most kids had to be a special project for children in foster care. Years had passed since she’d looked a
t the album. Determined never to cry again, Talia had refused to even touch it once she turned twelve. Just as determined, Mama Rose had snapped away with her little camera. The result was a history of her childhood right up until she graduated from college.

  Talia smiled through tears at her fifth-grade picture. She remembered that plaid jumper. It had been her favorite. Monette and her second foster mother had fought with her not to wear it to school every day. Then her chest grew tight with emotion at the photo two pages later. A young, lovely Monette dressed to kill stood proudly next to Talia dressed in a little cap and gown. The caption said “Sixth Grade Grad, Straight A Student! A proud day for us all!” in Mama Rose’s handwriting. This was the mother she’d longed for, prayed for at Mama Rose’s urging. Yet Monette had slid back into a sordid, dangerous world only a few days later. Gone for two months, she showed up one day dirty and looking years older. Talia leaned her head back against the sofa cushion and let the tears fall.

  Evening shadows lengthened across the carpeted floor until the room was dark. The only light came from a single small lamp near the window. Talia started at the musical sound of the doorbell.

  “Baby? Are you okay?” Derrick called out, worry making his voice deeper. His tall frame appeared in the window next to the front door. He peered through the sheer curtain.

  “I’m fine. Just a minute.”

  Talia hastily wiped her face with the back of one hand. She stood and tossed the album on the sofa. In quick order she turned on the large floor lamp, smoothed down her oversize sweatshirt, and wiped her eyes once more. Derrick stared at her hard when she opened the door to let him in.

  “You look—”

  “I fell asleep. Now you know how puffy my eyes get. I’m a fright in the morning when I first wake up. Let me fix my face or you’ll think I’m wearing a Halloween mask,” she joked, the words coming out fast as she strained to sound buoyant.

  “Okay,” he said. His tone indicated he wasn’t quite convinced.

  “Be right back.”

  Talia headed for the bathroom in her bedroom. She splashed cool water on her face then put on more face powder and freshened her lip gloss. With three deep breaths, she smiled at her reflection in the mirror.

  “God, you still look awful,” she muttered. It was the best she could do.

  Derrick stood holding the open Life Book in his large hands. “You were a beautiful little girl,” he said quietly. “I remember the first time I saw you at Lanier Elementary. You had those two thick braids hanging down to your shoulders on either side. I stopped dead in my tracks.”

  “Good old Lanier. Or as I liked to call it the Halls of Hell,” Talia wisecracked. “Some girl told everybody I was a ‘welfare kid’ and my mama was a jailbird.”

  “The next time we met was in the principal’s office.”

  “She deserved a good shove and more. Besides, she pushed me first. Even my teacher said so.” Talia smiled wickedly. “She hit that floor right on her butt.”

  “Such a bad girl.”

  Talia crossed her arms and eyed him. “And just what were you doing in the principal’s office? Hmmm, I seem to recall something about setting ten white mice loose, one of which climbed up the math teacher’s skirt.”

  “They never proved a thing. I was railroaded,” Derrick said with a mock look of outrage.

  “Sure you were.”

  “Circumstantial evidence.”

  “Mr. Browning didn’t care about legal technicalities as I recall.” Talia wore a slight smile. “He burned us both.”

  “You stood right up to him and said Marla was lucky she still had her teeth.” Derrick chuckled. “You were one tough character.”

  “Yeah, I handled my business.” Talia sat next to him on the sofa.

  Derrick’s expression grew serious. “That hard shell protected a soft heart. Such beautiful deep eyes.” He looked at the album again.

  Talia snatched it from his hands. “I should burn the damn thing. I don’t need these memories.”

  He took it back. “It won’t work, Talia. Besides, these are Mama Rose’s memories, too. Look at the love she put into making it special.”

  Her throat closed as she fought not to cry again, not with him here at least. Derrick turned the pages slowly. Mama Rose had put pretty decals of flowers and baby animals to decorate the pages. Photos of her as a teen included some of Talia’s favorite poems printed beside them. Even though she’d refused to work on the book, Mama Rose had gone on without her.

  “She used to say everyone deserves sweet childhood memories,” Talia said in a quiet voice. “She became a foster mother to make that happen for at least a few kids.”

  “Hard to believe you could smile, but you did.” Derrick held it out so that she could see another photo. In this one Talia squinted in sunshine with a wide grin, a softball in one hand.

  “Mama Rose did her best. One day Monette came over with this toy set of little people and a town. I was eleven I think. I remember we were laughing at some corny joke I’d told. Then Monette just started bawling like a baby.”

  “She was hurting, too.”

  “She kept saying ‘I’m sorry, Talia, baby. I’m so sorry.’” Talia stared at a high school photo of Monette. She looked fresh and hopeful. “God, what happened to you?”

  “Ask her,” Derrick said softly. His hand closed over one of hers. “I think she needs to tell you as much as you need to hear it.”

  “No matter what she went through, it doesn’t excuse everything she’s done.”

  “Has she ever tried to make excuses?” Derrick rested his head against Talia’s.

  She frowned. “Lies and elaborate stories to explain why she would just disappear, yes.”

  “I found out a lot of things about my father’s upbringing that helped me understand. I don’t excuse the way he treated us though.” Derrick rubbed her arm. “At some point after you become an adult you make choices, you know?”

  “Exactly,” Talia said firmly.

  “I even understood why my mother stayed with him. I think she always saw the hurt little boy inside him.” Derrick’s voice dropped. “And she loved him as a man.”

  “But she got over him.”

  “I suppose.” Derrick sat back and gazed at Talia. “Back to you and Monette. No matter what has happened she’s your mother. I don’t think you can make peace with your childhood until you try to understand her.”

  “Have you?”

  Derrick’s jaw clenched before he spoke again. “I’m still working on it.”

  “Monette hasn’t changed one bit either. All I’ll get is more heartache.” Talia stared straight ahead with a determined expression. “No thanks.”

  “Maybe Monette is the same. But you’ll never know unless you go see her.” Derrick brushed a lock of her hair from where it had fallen across her forehead.

  Talia took a deep breath and let it out. She’d thought her most pressing problem would be making sure Mama Rose had the best of care. Mama Rose seemed to be blooming. So were complications for Talia. Her plan to get in and out quick had been a fantasy. Her past, as thick as swamp mud, pulled her in inch by inch each day.

  “Coming home just couldn’t be simple, could it?” Talia pressed against Derrick for warmth. His solid body offered a measure of reassurance.

  Chapter 10

  Derrick watched her bustle around Mama Rose’s kitchen. She seemed a bit nervous in a domestic role, yet had insisted she wanted to prepare him at least one meal. He stretched his legs out beneath the table. The cozy feeling of a simple dinner at home felt so good. Talia wasn’t the homemaker type, and he didn’t want her to be. Yet he had a brief fantasy of coming home to her each night.

  “Honey, your shrimp Creole was delicious.” Derrick traced a furrow in the cotton tablecloth with his fingers.

  “Not enough red pepper.” Talia’s shapely eyebrows drew together. “And the French bread was too brown around the edges.”

  “Everything was fine. Guess you’ll
be in good practice by the time you get back to D.C.” Derrick stared at the dainty yellow flowers as he continued to draw invisible lines on the table.

  “Mama Rose will have a fit when she sees how I’ve rearranged things.” Talia put the last dish into the dishwasher. “I just can’t keep up with her system.”

  “Hmm. Yeah, I suppose the kitchen stuff in your apartment is pretty simple. You’ll be glad to get back to it, huh?”

  Talia hung the yellow dish towel on a white enamel rack over the sink. “Okay, come out with it.” She sat down at the table next to him.

  “What?” Derrick didn’t look at her.

  She put her hand on his and rubbed the back of it. “You’re wondering when I’m leaving.”

  His heart thumped. For the last week he’d imagined the torture of watching her get on an airplane. Mama Rose would come home soon. Talia had prepared her report on the mandatory-sentencing bill and appeared at the legislature. There was no reason for her to stay. A month ago he’d lied to himself and to her. He hadn’t come close just to living in the moment. Derrick kept thinking about a sweet future in her arms every night, of being beside her when she woke up each morning.

  “I know you’ll be gone soon,” he said, forcing the words out.

  “Well, I don’t know.” Talia chewed her bottom lip.

  A tickle of hope traveled up his arm from her touch. “What do you mean?”

  “For one thing she’s got a gentleman friend, and I don’t think she wants to leave him just yet.” Talia wore a slight smile.

  “She loves this house. I don’t see Mama Rose giving it up.” Derrick shook his head.

  “I don’t know. She’s been saying it’s real lonesome out here and getting harder for her to keep up the place.” Talia pointed to the scenery outside. “Takes a lot to manage those pecan groves and the timber.”

  “She’s lived here a long time since her husband died.”

  “Papa George was the only man I trusted and felt close to,” Talia said, her voice pitched deep with affection. “Besides you.”