Real Love

by Alexandria House

  I frowned a little. I’d never heard those words coming from him before, at least not in reference to me. “Uh, yeah. Same here. Pop, this is Denise Buhari, my fiancée.”

  Pop pulled her into a hug, too, and I kind of just stood there. What the hell was going on?

  “Denise! Rafiq told us you were pretty, and he didn’t lie!”

  “Thank you!” Denise gushed.

  By then, Rafiq was sitting on the sofa staring at the TV.

  “Hasaan!” My mother had stepped into the living room. She was a short lady, maybe only an inch taller than Denise’s five-feet-even, and she was dark-skinned and very thin. She was a pretty woman, but you could tell she’d aged more than my father had.

  When she grabbed me and hugged me, I knew something was up for sure. Plus, she was smiling at me. My mom hadn’t smiled at me in years.

  “Um...hey, Ma. Uh, this is Denise. My fiancée. Baby, this is—”

  “I’m Bettina, and this is my husband, William. We are so glad to meet the woman who tamed our Hasaan!”

  As my mom hugged her, Denise said, “Oh, no, ma’am. I think maybe he tamed me. Your son is a wonderful man, one of the best I’ve ever met.”

  With raised eyebrows, my mother said, “Oh, really? Well, come on, everyone. Let’s go eat.”

  Shit just got weirder at the table.

  Dinner was some kind of chicken casserole (my mama wasn’t no Ms. Jenny), and when the dining room wasn’t filled with silence as everyone ate, my parents were chatting with Denise about her business and our wedding plans.

  “Oh, we’re just gonna do something small,” Denise informed them. “We’re really considering just heading to the courthouse one day and exchanging vows there.”

  “Nothing wrong with that. That’s what Bettina and I did. You got yourself a level-headed woman here, son,” my father said.

  I nodded. “Yeah, I know.”

  “So, how’s your business going, sweet boy?” my mother asked me, using a nickname I hadn’t heard since before Rafiq was born.

  I set my fork down. “Okay, what’s going on?”

  My father frowned. Rafiq finally looked up from his plate. My mom asked, “What do you mean, Hasaan?”

  “I mean, is this some act you all are putting on for Denise, because you haven’t called me ‘sweet boy’ in like twenty-something years, not since Rafiq was born. I actually thought y’all forgot I existed, because y’all just shoved me in a corner after he got here. And you always hated that I became a tattoo artist. You even went off on me because Rafiq wanted to learn the trade from me. I mean, even ’Fiq is sitting over there acting like he’s got sense. What’s going on?”

  Denise looked at me but didn’t speak. I knew that had to be hard for her, because she loved to talk.

  “Hasaan, you’re our son, and we’ve barely seen you in years. You call and let us know you’re bringing Rafiq home, and that’s it. No conversation, no visits. And we just accepted it. But over the past few months, we haven’t seen you at all. It’s like you’re not even our son anymore, and that hurts,” my mother said.

  “That’s not my fault, and you know it isn’t. I didn’t feel welcome here,” I said, my eyes on my plate. Denise reached over and grasped my hand under the table.

  “We know that, and we’re sorry,” my father said. “We weren’t perfect parents, but we love you, Hasaan. Look, you’re getting married, starting a family. We want to be a part of your life.”

  “Wow, um...well, I’m glad you guys feel that way now. Never felt like you wanted anything to do with me after Rafiq was born.”

  My mother locked eyes with me. “I know...I’m sorry about that. We both are. It wasn’t right to neglect you the way we did.”

  “We’re sorry, Hasaan. We just want you back in our lives, son,” my father said.

  “This little reunion is cute, but I gotta go,” Rafiq said, hopping up from his chair and leaving the table. Evidently, he was still mad at me. I had kind of wished that me and him could fix things between us, but hearing my parents’ apologies was definitely worth the effort of reaching out to them. I had Denise to thank for that.

  “See,” Denise said once we were in my truck on the way to her apartment. “I told you it would be okay.”

  “Yeah, baby. You did.”

  “Hey, H?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Your daddy is kinda fine for an old man. I see where you got it from, because damn! Daddy Peterson is hot!”

  “Denise, don’t get my daddy jumped on.”

  “If I ain’t jumping on my hot-ass mama, you can’t jump on your daddy. Besides, I was just making an observation. You know I’m all yours, baby.”

  “You better be.”

  34

  We finally found a house and made an offer on it in November. The offer was accepted, so we made plans to get married in December and to move into the house shortly before that. Hasaan and Rafiq were still on the outs, but other than that, things were going really well for us. I was truly happy with Hasaan.

  We both left my place early that Saturday morning. I was headed out to get some boxes so we could both start packing for the move. Hasaan was headed to the gym with plans to go to his shop that afternoon to handle any walk-ins, since he didn’t have any clients scheduled.

  Before I headed to Home Depot to buy some boxes, I decided to stop by Starbucks. It wasn’t like I was a big coffee drinker, although I did indulge from time to time, but I don’t even know what made me crave it that morning. Nevertheless, I did. It was still pretty early, but I thought that maybe Hasaan would cut his workout short and join me, so I texted him.

  Me: Hey. What u doing?

  Him (about a minute later): Still working out. U?

  Me: Nothing. Missing u. When will u be done?

  Him: Why? U want some of my magic stick? Damn, I gave u some just before I left. U greedy as hell!

  I actually laughed out loud before replying.

  Me: U know I want it. It’s like crack. I was gonna go to Starbucks to grab a coffee right now though. I thought maybe u were done and could meet me.

  Him: Aw, baby. I can’t. But I’m almost done. See u at home in a little bit? I’m gonna skip out on work.

  Me: My place or urs?

  Him: Urs. U got more food.

  Me: LOL, k. Love u.

  Him: Love u 2.

  I had pulled up at Starbucks when I changed my mind. There was a little local café across town that had much better coffee, and their donuts were the bomb. I knew it would take me like thirty minutes to get there, but I also knew the trip would be worth it.

  It actually took forty minutes, so after I pulled into a parking spot, I texted Hasaan again, still hoping he could meet me.

  Me: U still at the gym?

  Him: Yeah. About to hit the shower in a few. Why? U miss me that much?

  I sighed as I shifted my eyes from my phone to the parking lot. I frowned when I noticed a truck that was identical to Hasaan’s. Then I told myself I was tripping. This was Texas, there were probably a thousand of those trucks rolling around town, and besides, he was at the gym. Still...

  Him: I tell u what. Give me 20 and I’ll meet u at home and we can watch Luke Cage all day…naked.

  I climbed out of my vehicle and walked over to the truck, peering inside. When I spotted my little pink water bottle in the cup holder, my insides began to boil and my hands started shaking.

  Him: Take it easy on me, though. I’m kinda sore from working out.

  Cell phone in hand, I marched into the coffee shop to see my fiancé sitting at a table with another woman.

  When I saw the look in Denise’s eyes, I knew I had fucked up by not telling her the truth, but I couldn’t. I just wasn’t ready to yet. As she approached our table, I opened my mouth to explain to her what was going on, but her honey skin was damn near purple, her eyes had narrowed, and her nostrils were flaring. So instead of trying to reason with Denise, I slid my phone into my pocket, looked at the woman sitting across
from me, and said, “Run.”

  Her forehead crinkled in confusion. “Hasaan...what?”

  “Get up and go, now!” I said through my teeth. When she still didn’t move, I grabbed the small purse she’d placed on the table and threw it at her. “Leave!” I boomed. “That way!” There were two entrances to the café. I directed her to the one Denise had not entered through.

  With a look of confusion still on her face, she scrambled to her feet and hurried out the door.

  By then, Denise had reached the table and was standing over me. “You told her to leave? Huh? You don’t want me to whoop her little scrawny, dried-up ass?”

  I held up my hands. “Baby—”

  “I thought you were going to the gym, Hasaan! Well, this don’t look like a damn gym to me!” She took her hand and raked everything on the table—both cups of coffee and the little rack that held the cream and sugar packets—onto my lap.

  I hopped up, my clothes splattered with lukewarm coffee. “Denise! Listen!”

  “No, fuck listening!” she screamed, as she knocked the table over and picked up the chair opposite mine.

  “Baby, shit! Don’t throw that chair!”

  The people nearest to us were grabbing their stuff and leaving. There were disturbed murmurs filling the place. A couple of people had their cell phones out, recording the entire scene.

  “Denise, put the chair down. Let’s go somewhere and talk. I can explain—”

  She swung the chair at me, and I ducked. “Fuck you, H! You lied to me and I pull up and see you talking to some pasty-pale-skinny-ass white bitch?! FUCK YOU!” Tears were rolling down her face as she threw the chair at me.

  I ducked again, and it sailed over me, hitting another table and knocking it down. “Denise!” I shouted.

  She snatched her engagement ring off, and as an employee approached us with a bewildered look on his face, she threw it at me, hitting me in the face. As I bent over to pick it up, she said to the employee, “Don’t worry, his sorry ass will pay for everything.” Then as she turned to leave, she spun around and looked at me. “Don’t forget I have the keys to your place. I’m about to go fuck it up!” Then she left.

  I threw a couple of hundred-dollar bills at the employee, apologized, and hurried out the door behind her. She was already pulling out of the parking lot by the time I made it outside.

  35

  Denise must have broken all of the speed limit laws, because by the time I made it to my apartment complex, she was already inside my apartment. She didn’t even bother closing the door, so I could hear stuff breaking all the way from the parking lot. When I made it to my door, a couple of neighbors were standing in the breezeway with concerned looks on their faces. “We had a fight,” I murmured.

  “Oh,” they both said. They were both men, so I guess they understood what was going on.

  I entered my place, shutting and locking the door behind me. I stood there for a moment watching her snatch plates from the cabinet and throw them on the floor while mumbling under her breath. The crazy thing was, those were plates she’d bought for me.

  “Denise,” I said.

  She held a plate in her hand, turned to look at me, then opened her hand and let it fall to the floor with a crash. “What?”

  I moved closer to her. “Will you please let me explain?”

  She picked up a glass and threw it at me. I ducked, and it hit the door behind me. “Explain what, bitch?”

  I raised my eyebrows. “I know you’re upset, but ain’t gon’ be too many more bitches up in here. You need to calm your little short ass down and listen to me.”

  “Listen to what? How you pretended to be at the gym so you could meet that old nursing home-looking bitch? Naw, I ain’t listening to shit!”

  She opened the silverware drawer, dumped it, and started stomping on my silverware. “I can’t believe this shit! I can’t believe you’d do this to me!”

  “Denise, damn! Would you just calm down and listen! I’m not fucking that woman! Shit!”

  She fell against the refrigerator, slid to the floor, and began to cry.

  “Denise...baby, please don’t cry. I can’t stand that. I’d rather you break shit. Stop crying.”

  “I’ma kick your ass, H. I’ma fuck you up as soon as I get myself together,” she wailed.

  “Okay...you can do that. You can beat the shit outta me. Just let me explain.”

  “You so damn muscled up, you probably won’t even feel it. Damn, I need one of my mother’s pies!”

  “Denise,” I said, as I moved closer to her, “will you let me explain what’s going on? I was talking to her about Rafiq.”

  She stopped crying and looked up at me as I crouched right in front of her. Before I knew it, she’d punched me in the nose. “I know you’re not going to tell me Rafiq is screwing that old-ass woman! Try again!”

  “Damn! You hit me! And you hit harder than a motherfucker for a woman! The hell is wrong with you?!”

  “You said I could beat your ass!”

  “Shit! I didn’t mean it!”

  “Then you shouldn’t have said it!”

  I stood and backed away from her crazy ass. “Denise, I’m tryna explain this shit, but don’t put your damn hands on me again. I’m not playing.”

  “Or what?!” she asked, as she got to her feet and stepped closer to me. “You gon’ hit me?”

  “No, I’d never hit you. But I’ll leave you. And as mad as you are right now, you don’t want that. I know you don’t.”

  “I don’t give a shit about your lying ass leaving me! Go!”

  “Denise, I know you still love me. That didn’t change because I fucked up. Just listen to me.”

  She grabbed a box of cereal and threw it at me, hitting me in the chest. “No!”

  “Damn-it! I was talking to her, because she’s Rafiq’s mother!”

  36

  I frowned. “What?”

  “She’s Rafiq’s mother, baby.”

  I stood there for a minute and realized that actually made sense. It explained how Rafiq looked like Hasaan and their father but was so much lighter skinned than their parents. It also explained why he was so different from Hasaan. No matter how many times Hasaan told me he was like Rafiq in his younger days, I knew that wasn’t totally true. It couldn’t have been.

  “Your mother raised another woman’s child?”

  “Yes...”

  “But he’s a Peterson, right?”

  He nodded. “Through and through.”

  “What-how? Shit, your mom is a damn saint!”

  He reached for my hand. “Come sit down, and I’ll explain everything. I’ll tell you why I lied about where I was going this morning.”

  With a furrowed brow, I nodded and followed him to the sofa where we both sat down. I stared at him in silence as he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and fixing his eyes on the floor.

  “It’s a family secret. Rafiq doesn’t even know she’s his mother. As far as he knows, Bettina Peterson is.”

  “What?”

  He continued without acknowledging me. “Her name is Katherine Wycliffe, and she was my seventh-grade teacher.”

  “What?!” Mr. Peterson slept with Hasaan’s teacher and got her pregnant? His wife was the real MVP, because I would’ve kicked his ass and left. I definitely wouldn’t have raised the baby.

  “She was my favorite teacher, too. She was really nice to me, said I was smart. Her class was the first class I got straight A’s in, you know?” He turned his head to look at me and then refocused on the floor. “I was always tall for my age, big, too. I was already like five-eight by then, and I was wide like I am now. I remember this one day, I went to turn my paper in and my shit was hard. Well, she noticed. I saw her looking at it and I was so damn embarrassed, but I’d just turned thirteen like a few days before that, and at that age, I couldn’t control it. It would just happen, and it was so big, I didn’t know how to hide it.”

  “Wait a minute, H. What—” />
  “She asked me to stay after class that day and she talked to me about it, told me it was normal and nothing to be ashamed of. I really appreciated that. My father had already had the sex talk with me, but he didn’t really explain everything too well.”

  “H, are you—”

  “So, I kind of became her little pet after that. I’d stay after class and help her straighten the room up. She’d drive me home after school. Sometimes she’d stop and get me something from McDonald’s on the way. Shit, I thought I was something special.”

  “H, baby...”

  “The first time we had sex, it was in that classroom. She...she was my first.” He shook his head. “After that, we did it like every day. She was thirty-six years old at the time. And it wasn’t like I even liked her that way. I’ve never been attracted to white women. Always had a thing for big asses. It was just that I was a kid going through puberty with a randomly hard dick, and all I thought about was sex, and she was throwing it at me.” He glanced at me. “Stupid, huh?”

  “No, she shouldn’t have done that. You were just a child, H.”

  He nodded as he stood from the sofa and walked over to the TV mounted on the wall. “Two months after we started having sex, she told me she was pregnant. She said she knew it wasn’t her husband’s—oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you she was married—because she’d been with him for fifteen years and had never gotten pregnant. She told me she loved me and that she wanted to be with me. My dumb ass said, ‘Okay, great.’ What else was I supposed to say?”

  He walked back over to the couch and sat beside me again. “She started sneaking me into her house when her husband would go out of town for business. I’d sneak out of my room, and she’d pick me up around the corner and drive me to her place and I’d spend the night. Everything was cool until her husband came home early one time and caught us. Shit just exploded after that. He called the police, and they actually arrested me because he said he caught me raping his wife. Shit, I looked grown, so they took me in. She tried to speak up for me, but they wouldn’t listen. It was Mississippi, and as far as they knew, I was a big black dude in bed with a pale-ass white woman.”