“Did you see the little black Wonder Woman?” Meena asked, scratching at her scalp between the voluminous Afro wig. “I can’t wait to dress my little girl up as something cute for Halloween.”
“Are you pregnant?” Neema asked, looking very 70s in her colorful silk scarf and dramatic eye makeup.
“No. Are you?” Meena asked, pointing her long red press on nails at her sister.
“No, but I was more open to kids than you,” she explained.
Meena set the bowl of candy on the table by the door. “I’ve changed my mind about a lot of things when it comes to my future with Mann-Mann,” she said as they walked into the open den where the entire male Strong brood and in-laws were eating snacks and watching corny scary movies while Nana Lisha and the mothers of the group took the kids trick-or-treating, leaving the twins on door duty.
“Where’s Armstrong?” Kael asked, opening a miniature candy bar to pop into his mouth.
“He’s coming,” she said, pulling her iPhone from the back pocket of her bell-bottom jeans to check the time. “He should’ve been here by now.”
She text him.
MEENA: Where are u?
“Did Nana make her seafood stew?” she asked as she tapped her phone against her palm
Dane nodded. “With biscuits,” he said, pulling Neema down onto his lap where he sat in one of the recliners. They shared a kiss and all the fellas groaned before tossing popcorn in their direction.
Ding.
MANNMANN: Outside.
Making a confused face, she left the den and crossed the house to open the front door. Armstrong was standing by his truck with his hands pressed into the front pocket of his jeans. “It's chilly. Come inside,” she said, pointing her finger over her shoulder towards the interior of the house.
He shook his head.
“What’s wrong?” she asked as she crossed the wide porch and came down the stairs. The closer she got to him the more the square definition of his tight jawline became clear to her.
“My Mama always said a lie wasn’t nothing to tell,” he said, his voice cold.
She stopped dead in her tracks. Instantly she knew his memory was back. “What’s going on, baby?” she said, wrapping her arms around herself to help fight the chill of the late October night winds.
“How many times did I ask you why I was in Greenville? How many times did I ask for the truth?” he said, closing the distance between them with long strides.
“Many...many times,” she admitted, her eyes taking in how handsome he looked under the moonlight in a navy skull cap with his beard and bright eyes.
“Well all you had to do is admit you broke my damn heart by turning down my marriage proposal and then I tucked my tail between my damn legs and got the hell from around here because I couldn’t take living near you and not being with you,” he said, his voice rising with every syllable.
Meena reached for him. “Mann-Mann—”
He snatched away from her touch. “I guess I look like the damn fool. I had to damn near die for you to want to be with me?” he asked, his voice clearly etched with his pain.
“Everything okay out here?”
Meena looked over her shoulder to find Kael, all her uncles, and Dane standing in a line across the porch. “Everything’s fine,” she assured them.
Neema made a move to come down the porch but both Dane and Kaleb stopped her.
“I don’t mean any disrespect, sir,” Armstrong called to Kael. “Its just really hard to discover the woman you love has been lying to you.”
Meena looked at him with wide eyes, feeling desperate to explain and make things better. “I didn’t lie. I regretted the moment that I turned you down and I saw this as my second chance to erase a stupid mistake. I love you so much.”
He fell silent and looked down at his boot covered feet before looking up at her. “Then why didn’t you look for me?” he asked, his voice soft and strained.
“Y’all come inside and talk about this,” Kael said, his voice brooking no room for argument.
“No thank you, sir,” Armstrong said.
“Mann-Mann, I thought you were done with me. I thought you didn’t want me. You never called—”
“After a week? Fine. After a month? No. That’s what you think of me that I would just disappear out of your life forever and never answer your call or never see you again. You think my love was that weak, Meena?” he asked. “Something in you should have known something was wrong.”
“Mann-Mann,” she said, reaching for him again.
He shook his head, denying her. “You broke my heart that you wouldn’t marry me. I’m man enough to admit that. And now I gotta relive it. I wish I never remembered,” he said, his voice broken with his hurt.
He quickly turned and climbed into his truck to crank it.
“So, you’re leaving me again?” she asked, her own voice hollow as she rushed to his window.
He said nothing as he reversed the truck into an arc and then sped forward down the tree-lined driveway.
Meena let her head fall back as she released a whimper. Neema was the first to race down the stairs to reach her, pulling her sister into her arms. And soon all of the men of the Strong family joined them creating a circle around the twins and offering up all the love and strength they had for one of their own.
∞
One week later
Armstrong stepped out of the shower, careful not to rub up against the rubber shower curtain. He wasn’t quite sure the housekeepers gave a damn out keeping the house, so to speak. The motel was worth no more than the forty bucks a night it charged. The first thing he did when he entered the room was the check the bed for bedbugs. It wasn’t the best Greenville had to offer but the rest of the new crew he was working with already had their room at a motel down the street and it was booked to capacity. He was stuck at this for the week.
Quickly drying off with a towel that was in desperate need of a fabric softener he rushed into jogging pants, a T-shirt, socks and athletic slides. He eyed his cell phone sitting on the desk charging. Curiosity about missed calls while he was in the shower sent him across the small space to touch the screen.
None.
It had been a week since their break-up and not once had Meena reached out to him.
Pain raced across his chest like a heart attack and he gripped the phone in disappointment in her and himself for still missing her. Wanting her. Loving her.
He wondered if she even knew he had quit his job and joined a ragtag crew of contractors for a job in Greenville.
Did she know? Hell, did she care? That’s the better question.
His stomach grumbled and he eyed the small microwave, debating whether to walk across the highway to the restaurant or down the street to the gas station to grab something to throw in the microwave.
He chose the latter. With his free hand he grabbed the cash he emptied from his pockets earlier.
As soon as Armstrong left the room and the door slammed shut behind him he realized he’d left his key card and wallet inside. “Store first. Then I’ll hit the front desk for another card,” he said as he made his way down the hall to the side entrance and walked outside.
As he crossed the parking lot he looked over at the busy traffic speeding up and down the highway next to the motel. He had no regrets about not attempting to cross the street and risk getting—.
The loud squeal of brakes echoed around him. Armstrong turned and his eyes widened at the green car barreling across the lot towards him. The lights of the vehicle reflected in his eyes in the seconds just before it crashed into his body.
He grunted at the intense pain as he felt his body flying through the air. The impact knocked the phone from his hand and he hollered out as he landed with a thud against something hard and immovable. In the seconds before darkness consumed her he heard the squeal of tires as the driver who hit him fled the scene.
Armstrong hated reliving it. Hated remembering it.
But in the
blink of an eye that door in his brain locking away his life from him opened. He awakened one morning last week and it all came back to him. All of it. The good and the bad of his entire life. In particular, the foolish mistakes he’d made in the wake of ending his relationship with Meena.
Quitting his good job with the Jamisons that offered better pay and insurance to work a short-term job with a local contractor that probably wasn’t bonded and only paid under the table to avoid taxes. Running away to Greenville. Not driving his pickup truck to the store. Leaving the room without identification.
He wasn’t making those mistakes again.
This time his heartache didn’t impel him to run.
As he learned with the return of his memories, that week in Greenville had still been hell. Still filled with thoughts of Meena and regrets about their breakup. So many times, he had held the phone in his hand and started to call her, but his ego won out. He wanted to win.
He wanted to be married and have the family he dreamt of since childhood. He wanted her to see things his way. Even though she made it clear from the beginning that she wasn’t looking for marriage. He gambled on his own dreams and lost...
“I don’t want to be married. I don’t want to ruin what we have. I don’t need a license to love you.”
But the license—the institution—mattered to him.
More than Meena?
His return from amnesia land had brought him no clarity on their relationship. None at all.
Knock-knock.
Taking a swig of the beer he was nursing as he failed at watching a football game, Armstrong wondered if it was Zora again. The thought of that made him frown. She hadn’t called him since that night she confessed her feelings to him and he was okay with that. The majority of their time together he had been in a coma. She didn’t love him. She didn’t even know him. Now she just had to figure that out for herself.
He opened the door, his relief showing to find Dane standing there.
“I didn’t think you’d be that happy to see me,” he said.
“More like happy to not see somebody,” Armstrong said, stepping back to open the door wide.
“Meena?” Dane asked, dropping down onto the sofa.
“Actually no,” Armstrong admitted, retrieving a beer from the kitchen.
“The nurse?”
Armstrong handed him the drink. “I forget you Strongs can’t hold water.”
“I’m a Jackson.” Dane insisted, twisting open the beer and taking a huge gulp of the cold brew.
“Who married a Strong and thus making you a Strong,” he explained, very matter-of-fact.
Dane frowned. “Yes, but Neema isn’t really a Strong,” he insisted.
Armstrong snorted in derision. “Act up and see just how many “real” Strongs you gone have to deal with.”
“I ain’t scared,” Dane joked, puffing up his chest.
“Yeah me either when y’all squared up like a defensive line on me Halloween night,” Armstrong said with a chuckle.
Dane just laughed. “They’re a good and solid hard-working family though,” he said.
“No question,” Armstrong readily agreed.
“So, you don’t want to join the squad anymore?”
Armstrong looked across the room at the man who had married the twin of the woman he loved. “The issue is she doesn’t want to marry me,” he reminded him.
“Doesn’t or didn’t?”
Armstrong frowned.
“I know you’re playing catch up for the last four or five months but things aren’t how they used to be. Leave the past in the past and focus on your future,” Dane said, finishing his beer.
Armstrong finished his drink as well before walking into the kitchen to retrieve two more. “I just can’t imagine loving someone and not wanting to spend the rest of your life with them,” he said.
The sounds of beer being opened echoed in the air as the crowd roared on the television for a touchdown.
“Did she say that or did she say she didn’t want to be married?” Dane asked. “That’s two different things, bruh.”
“I don’t want to be married. I don’t want to ruin what we have. I don’t need a license to love you.”
Armstrong shrugged. “I just always wanted to be married and have a family.”
Dane extended his legs and crossed his ankles, pointing at Armstrong with his bottle of beer. “Hell, there’s plenty of nice southern gals that will marry you and have a bunch of babies. Do you want that or do you want Meena—however that looks.”
Armstrong fell silent, lost in his thoughts.
Even Halloween night as he stood there before her cloaked by his hurt and anger he had to keep his hands in his pockets to stop himself from reaching out and pulling her into his arms. Meena Ali was his weakness.
His headache.
His joy.
His love.
Whatever that looked like.
Armstrong cut Dane a side eye. “I thought you sold books not relationship counseling,” he drawled.
“I do it all,” he said, smiling broadly. “Plus, Quinton and I need another ally. There’s more of them than us.”
Armstrong chuckled. “One more man isn’t gonna help a thang,” he said.
“But eventually all the girls will grow up and get married and the scales will balance.”
“And then what?” Armstrong asked.
“Then we’ll have one helluva family football game at Thanksgiving.”
The men just laughed.
∞
Two weeks later
The ring of the school bell signaling the end of the day was a welcome sound to Meena’s ears. She was distracted and irritated. All she wanted to do was go home, take a bath and climb on her bed to binge on Netflix while sipping wine.
Dane had returned from his talk with Armstrong two weeks ago assuring her and Neema that all was well. Reconciliation was imminent.
Each day that Armstrong didn’t reappear in her life was a blow to her sanity. Her only solace? Every evening she text him and he did respond.
MEENA: Just making sure you’re ok.
MANNMANN: I’m ok.
That was it. That was all.
Any other question or comment received no response.
“Meena.”
She was sitting at her desk and looked up to find Monty standing in the open doorway to her classroom. She gave him a smile. “Hey. What’s up?”
“Just stopping by to hello,” he said. “Hello.”
She laughed. “Hello, Monty.”
They shared a few dates but things had never progressed beyond the level of friendship. As nice and handsome as he was, he was no Armstrong. And once the love of her life returned she had quickly ended things with a nice and tidy “It’s me, not you” speech that left them in a comfortable space to work together without any awkwardness.
“And things with Armstrong?” he asked, entering the room to sit on the edge of her large wooden desk.
“That a very good question, Teach.”
Meena gasped in surprise at Armstrong strolling into the classroom. “Mann-Mann,” she said, rising to come around the desk.
Monty stood as well.
“Meena, the man asked you a question and we’re both awaiting an answer,” he said, looking past her to the other man in the room.
Meena ate him up with her eyes, loving every bit of him, but unsure of what his sudden appearance there meant. “Whatever there is between Armstrong and me is between Armstrong and me and no one else,” she said, looking at him but answering Monty.
“And whatever that may be is not done, I see,” Monty said, his footsteps against the tiled flood echoing as he came up to them. He paused and extended his hand to Armstrong. “The better man won.”
Meena looked unsure as Armstrong looked down at his hand for a few moments before shaking it.
With that done, Monty left the room whistling a happy tune.
Meena followed behind him and securely closed
the door. “I love you, Mann-Mann,” she confessed, closing her eyes as she leaned her forehead against the cool frosted glass of the pane in the center of the wood. “I love you so much.”
“And I love you, Meena,” he replied.
She opened her eyes and looked at him before she turned and pressed her back against the wood. “Then ask me again. Ask me to marry you,” she pled.
“No.”
She closed her eyes. “You have to forgive me for not coming to Greenville. If I knew you were laying in a hospital I would have walked there to be at your side. I didn’t know. I didn’t know,” she said.
Her body felt electrified and she knew before she opened her eyes that he stood before. She was not wrong. He pressed his hands to her face and tilted her head upward to press kisses—a dozen or more of them—to her face and then her lips. It felt like a sweet relief. “Please ask me again,” she whispered into the heat as he pressed his lips to her throat.
She shivered.
“No.”
Meena looked bewildered. “Why not?” she asked.
“I shouldn’t have made you feel like you had to conform to my way to be with me,” he said, looking down at her. “I’m sorry that I tried to change you and put a price on my love for you.”
“Wait a minute,” she said, shaking her head and holding up her hands to break his hold on her face. “If I go left you go to the right. You say marriage. I say no. I say marriage now you say no. What the hell?” she asked, her voice incredulous.
Armstrong chuckled. “Must everything be a fight with you?” he asked, his brown eyes dancing.
“You started the fight by changing your mind,” she insisted. “So now you don’t want to marry me?”
“No, I don’t want you to marry me just to make me happy.”
Meena pressed her fingers to her temples. “I want to marry you. I want to be your wife. I want to have your big fat brown babies and cook you all the lima beans you want. This is what I want and ...and...if you won’t propose then I will do like my twin and I will do it,” she said, lowering herself to her knee.
Armstrong grasped her upper arms and pulled her back to her feet. “No, you won’t,” he said.
Meena looked frustrated. She opened her mouth to continue her protest, but he effectively silenced her with a kiss, not relenting his passion until the strength and fight from her body were weakened and she softened against him. “Mann-Mann,” she sighed, looking up at him with dazed eyes.
Welcome Back, My Love Page 10