Scarlett Sinner (The Scarletts

by Brenda Barrett

  He wished that they could grow up together. Having siblings was a blessing. At least for him it had been. He and Chelsea had wanted to have at least three. Chelsea had insisted that she wanted them all in her twenties and get the whole thing over and done with.

  That had been a noble thought. He couldn't escape the bitterness that came with that thought. After having Dahlia she had gone back on her plans to have a life filled with domesticity and had started insisting on going back to work.

  She had wanted stuff that his salary couldn't afford. She said she was going stir crazy not talking to adults her own age.

  She had started to blame him for their isolation. When he gently reminded her that staying home to take care of Dahlia was her idea, it had not gone down well with her at all.

  With Chelsea he could never win. When it was good between them, it was good. When it was bad it became ugly. He wondered now if he should be thankful that she wasn't in his life anymore.

  He felt more at peace, calmer in his spirit and bored beyond belief. He missed her fireworks. He even missed her temper.

  He needed his head checked. Maybe he should have one of his colleagues at the Psych Center sort him out.

  "Dad," he felt a tap on his leg. He looked down it was Todd. He belatedly realized that he had stopped and was scowling off into space.

  "Yes, Todd." He stooped down to the boy’s level and stared into his wide hazel eyes.

  "Why does Dahlia have to go home today?"

  Troy sighed. "Because she lives with her mommy. We can only have her on some weekends."

  Todd nodded solemnly. "I would like her to stay with us."

  "Me too," Troy said, patting his head. His springy curls needed to be cut or pretty soon they would be calling him a girl.

  "Maybe her mommy can come to stay with us too," Todd said innocently. "We could all stay together."

  "I wish." Troy expelled a sigh. "Dahlia's mom is mad with me. It would probably take a miracle for her to stay with us."

  "If my mommy was alive maybe she could have stayed with us," Todd said. To him it was simple logic. Their family needed a mommy.

  "You remember your mom, Todd?"

  Todd shook his head. "No. Not like Dahlia."

  "If she were around, you would be staying with her too, just like Dahlia stays with her mom. Your mommy loved you Todd," Troy said it with certainty. "That was a given."

  Todd nodded like he understood.

  Troy smiled. It was a messed up situation. He was almost sure that Todd didn't really understand but he ran off to play with Dahlia, who was busy stepping on the touch-me-not-plants that were closing up when she stepped on them. She squealed with glee.

  They had a whole hillside of it to subdue. Troy watched as they both got into the action, stepping on the plant and watching as it closed, laughing in that unfettered way that only children seemed to do with innocent joy.

  Neighbors passed him by. They were a fit looking couple who were returning from their morning walk.

  "I used to love doing that as a child," the lady said, grinning.

  "Me too." Troy nodded to her and her husband. He forgot their names; the lady worked in admissions at the prep school where he had recently enrolled Todd. She had asked him why Todd's name was Irving and not Scarlett. He had told her that he was in the process of sorting that out.

  Her husband worked over at Mount Faith University as a lecturer. They had three children, a little girl about Dahlia's age and twin boys near Todd's age. He figured that if Chelsea was here with him, she would insist on them being friends. She looked like Chelsea's type, fashionable and extroverted.

  They walked on after more pleasantries and he inhaled the crisp air.

  "See, you need Chelsea to balance out the cracks in your personality," he said out loud.

  "That's right. Where is Chelsea Padmore Scarlett?"

  He jumped and looked behind him and saw a chubby lady in a tight track outfit.

  "Don't tell me you've forgotten me already, Troy Scarlett. It's just six years, not sixty. I may have put on like a million pounds but at least you can still recognize me."

  Troy smiled. He would know her voice anywhere. Keira was part Haitian, part Dominican and could switch between French and Spanish easily.

  "Keira!" It was not only the weight but she had changed her hair too. She was practically bald.

  "Yes, me." Keira hugged him and then stepped back. "Where is your better fashionable half?"

  "She's in Treasure Beach." Troy smiled. "Long story."

  "I can see that." Keira looked over at the two children. "Last I checked, you guys had one child together. And Erin had one child for you."

  "You knew about that?" Troy looked at Keira in shock.

  "Yup, kept in touch with Erin when we left school. I knew that she was pregnant at graduation."

  "For a list of candidates." Troy sighed.

  Keira shook her head. "Not true, Troy. You were the only candidate. I know she wrote that stupid list, who knows why, maybe to punish the men on there. They were probably past lovers, but Erin was so in love with you it was not funny. You were her great love.

  "But then you went back to Chelsea and then there was the pastor thing and you guys got married pretty soon after graduation. She was about eight months along. She swore me to secrecy about it."

  Troy was staring at Keira as if she had two heads.

  Keira sighed. "She knew you didn't love her and she didn't want to mess up your career as a minister. So she kept her secrets. Besides, her reputation in the past was murky."

  "I wish she hadn't kept her secrets," Troy murmured. "She kept him from me for five years, why didn't she tell me?"

  "Because Chelsea would have found her, hunted her down and killed her," Keira said mock seriously. "You were obviously in the dark about the feelings that ran deep between those two."

  "I know Chelsea didn't like her," Troy said, "but just how deep the dislike ran, I had no idea until this whole DNA thing came up."

  Keira looked at him in amazement. "Men are always so clueless when it comes to women and territory. You and I are going to have to talk some more. I am working over at the Medical Center as a nurse. I live on Mount Faith Drive, just got married a couple of months ago to Leo. You remember him?"

  "Yes." Troy nodded. "Of course, Leo Josephs. He was a fun guy."

  "And he loves big girls," Keira said in exasperation. "Can you imagine that in the space of a year my husband, the chubby lover, had me going from 140 lbs to 210 lbs?"

  Troy grinned. "And now you are trying to walk off the weight."

  "Yup." Keira nodded, "and it is working. I shed ten pounds so far. Pretty soon when my hair grows back and I have at least gotten rid of my excess fat, I'll look like the Keira of old."

  Troy smiled. "It was nice seeing you again, Keira."

  "Wait! Your number." Keira took out her phone. He told her the number and she entered it swiftly. "We must have a meet up, all four of us."

  "We'll see." Troy nodded, walking slowly toward the hillside where his children were slowly and meticulously stepping on the unfortunate plants.

  Long after Dahlia had gone and he had read Todd a bedtime story and put him to bed, he was sitting up and thinking about Erin. To him she had been just a one-time fling, a sexual encounter he had been ashamed of and tried to forget.

  To her that encounter in the parking lot was probably vastly different.

  He forced himself to think about it. He had tried to squelch the thoughts for nearly a year. It was time to face what really happened in that period of his life...

  April 2007

  Final year. Final exams. Troy was fuming. Chelsea had chosen the eve of his Greek finals to break up with him. He had taken the course once before and had done poorly on it because he had not been prepared. This time he feared that he would fail the course again because Chelsea had been on the rampage, accusing him of relationship crimes that he was innocent of committing.

  He didn't even
know what he had supposedly done this time. She had been going on and on about Erin Irving and something about roses. He hardly ever saw Erin. She was his neighbor; she was pretty, smooth cocoa butter skin, pillow lips and catlike eyes. She was probably the fantasy girl for quite a few guys on the dorm but she had never been his fantasy girl. Chelsea held that dubious distinction.

  A few days ago she had been handing out red roses. Where she lived had quite a few of them and she had come next door and handed them out to everybody. "Spreading good cheer," she had said. "Wishing everybody success in their exams."

  In Chelsea's mind the innocent rose offering had meant something more and that had created almost two hours of arguments and resulted in one of their infamous break-ups. He was getting tired of all the angst and the wrangling with Chelsea. She short-circuited whenever Erin's name was even mentioned.

  He trudged across the parking lot to the Business Center and almost bumped into Erin, as if he had conjured her out of his mind.

  She was dressed in a thick green sweater and jogging pants.

  "Hey Troy."

  "Erin," he said almost nervously. He expected Chelsea to come out from a hiding place and yell, See I told you you were cheating with Erin!

  "Heading to the library?" Erin pointed to his books.

  "Yes." Troy nodded. "I am going to pull an all-nighter…Greek exams."

  "Me too—well, not Greek." Erin reached into the car for her books. "I was putting off Statistics till now. Maybe we can study together."

  "Sure," Troy said stubbornly, remembering Chelsea's impassioned shout from earlier, "I never want to see you again." Why not study with Erin? He was now a free agent without a girlfriend.

  Maybe in talking to Erin he could find out what was so objectionable about her.

  She smiled sweetly at him after he said sure. Her eyes lit up as if he had handed her a gift.

  They studied all night together. They went to their separate exams and then they met up at the business center during lunchtime.

  Unfortunately, Chelsea was also there. She had glared at him as he went to one of the food kiosks. She didn't speak to him either. He concluded that she was still mad at him for whatever it was she was mad at him for.

  He had wanted to ask her to go with him to an off-campus party at Leo Joseph's house. He was dubbing it an After Exam party. Where Leo lived had a heated pool. Troy had been looking forward to going there for weeks now.

  He asked Erin to go instead, and they had a blast. And then they had gone to a charity car wash and then he had followed her to her car in the parking lot. She was going to drop them home.

  He had to admit by that time Erin had grown on him somewhat. She was the opposite of Chelsea in temperament and when she was around him she seemed totally focused on him.

  He had followed her to her car and she had opened the trunk, stacking her car wash supplies in the back.

  She was still dressed in her khaki shorts and a still-damp t-shirt that hugged her significantly generous breasts. She looked lush and rumpled and attractive.

  "What do you think, Troy?" She smiled at him.

  "Huh?" She had caught him staring at her breasts.

  She laughed and then walked over to him and placed his unresisting hand on one of the big globes.

  "Feel."

  He did. And they kissed. It was hungry, almost brutal. They had sex in the back of Erin's car in the Business Center parking lot without him coming to his senses.

  Erin had looked at him after, a satisfied look on her face. "Now we are officially together, aren't we, Troy?"

  Troy, shorn of his sexual daze, had been horrified.

  What had he done?

  He didn't even remember what he had said. He had babbled like an idiot with remorse almost choking him, pulling up his pants in a hurry and straightening his shirt. The very same night it had rained. He refused a lift from Erin.

  He had preferred to walk home in the rain, with the cold drops running like rivulets down his shivering body and the heat of sorrow coursing through his body, unable to counteract the cold.

  He had avoided Erin like she had the plague after that. He couldn't meet her eyes.

  She had even written him a long letter. He didn't bother to read it. He had taken it out of the envelope, seen the six pages of notes and had dropped it in his waste paper basket after tearing it into fine pieces.

  Shortly after getting the letter, the same day actually, Chelsea had come to his house and apologized with tears streaming down her face. And of course he had forgiven her. He loved her, even though she was half crazy, breaking up with him at every whim. He couldn't tell her about what he had dubbed The Erin Incident.

  He had seen Erin two weeks after that. She was at his gate. Maybe she had been waiting for him.

  Maybe not. She certainly acted nonchalant when he walked through.

  She had greeted him casually. "Heard you were back with Chelsea."

  "Yes." Troy had sighed. "She can't know about what we did, Erin, please."

  Erin had inhaled raggedly and then nodded. "Fine. You were just one of many anyway."

  She had flounced away and then turned and looked at him with tears in her eyes.

  He had wanted to say something to her then. Something told him that she was being defensive. Something told him that she wasn't being honest about her sexual conquests.

  He had been almost sure in the days that they had spent together that Erin was not the person that people portrayed her to be. He had gotten a glimpse of the real Erin, the girl who laughed easily, who was docile and sweet-natured, who studied hard and was serious about her grades.

  But he didn't say anything. He had his future all mapped out in his head. He was supposed to be a minister in training. He was back with the woman he loved, so he just walked away.

  He proposed to Chelsea the very same day.

  *****

  Troy left Todd's room and closed the door softly; he leaned on the wall of the landing. Keira had confirmed what his gut had told him about Erin. Maybe the two of them would have stood a chance if there had been no Chelsea.

  He sighed. Regrets about the way he handled the situation were choking him. Maybe if he had done something differently, like not giving in to his lust in the parking lot... Because that was what it had been. Pure, unadulterated lust. Chelsea was right. He was a sinner. The way that he treated Erin after was also another cause for regret.

  But how could he regret Todd? Now that he had met him, he fit right into his life.

  His cell phone rang and he headed for his room to answer it. The master bedroom was twice the size of the one they had shared in Pedro. He found his phone as it made a buzzing sound in the dark chocolate shag carpet at the bedside; it must have fallen out of his pocket. He bent to pick it up.

  "You are a hard man to reach," Yuri said when he finally answered.

  "Busy weekend." Troy turned on the lamp at the bedside. "I had both children over."

  Yuri chuckled. "A five-year-old and a four-year-old alone? How was it?"

  "Not bad." Troy settled onto the bed with a sigh. The sheets were cold to the touch.

  He shivered a bit. "It is chilly up here."

  "Stop bragging." Yuri snorted dismissively. "You are taunting me, aren't you?"

  "No, just an observation." Troy smirked. "How are the wife and kid?"

  "Good," Yuri said, a satisfied note in his voice. "Malik is the most well-behaved baby on the planet."

  Troy laughed. "He has not been on the planet long enough to prove otherwise."

  Yuri paused. "I spoke to Mom today. She said she was on her way to pick up Dahlia and she told me that Chelsea was working for Ricky."

  "Yes," Troy sighed. "I thought I told you."

  "No, you did not," Yuri growled. "I am quite sure I would remember something like that."

  "I told her not to take the job." Troy turned down the lamp and laid down with his eyes closed. Whenever he thought about Chelsea and their impossible stalemate, his
energy waned. "She refused, said she wasn't going to be a Scarlett for much longer, yada yada yada."

  "Ricky is up to something," Yuri said urgently, "I don't think he would just hire her just like that unless he was. He vowed to destroy our family. He wants to hurt me. Do you think he has forgotten that already and magnanimously wants to hire Chelsea?"

  "It's eight weeks already. Mom said she is happy with the job. Do you think he is going to physically hurt her or something?"

  "No, not physical. I don't know. Maybe he'll marry her like he did Marla."

  Troy grimaced. "Ricky and Chelsea. I don't see it. Chelsea is too high-strung for Ricky; she would drive him crazy in a day. She needs a calming influence in her life."

  She needed him. Nobody got Chelsea like he did. She didn't even realize that, Troy thought silently. And yes, he could even understand her pain over the current situation.

  "He hasn't struck yet." Yuri's voice became solemn. "Troy, warn her about him."

  "I did already," Troy murmured. "She said we Scarletts had a penchant for drama and that Ricky was a godsend."

  Yuri kissed his teeth. "Maybe I should call her then?"

  "You do that. She’ll take your calls. I am the only Scarlett she does not want to hear from."

  "I'll call her," Yuri said, wishing him goodnight and then hanging up.

  "Good luck with that," Troy said quietly in the dark.

  He hugged his pillow closer to him and prayed the prayer he had been praying nonstop for the past couple of months.

  Dear God, please soften Chelsea's heart and allow her to forgive me. I want my wife back home. Please God, I want us to be a family again.

  Chapter Nine

  Chelsea wondered if it was normal motherly behavior to want to escape one’s own child. She dropped Dahlia at the prep school on Monday morning in relief. She could not take one more Daddy said, Daddy did, Todd said, Todd did conversation. Her father and brother… Chelsea winced; that was all that Dahlia spoke about in the last couple of hours since she had been home.