Dare to Love (33 page)

She went to the beach to say goodbye to her friends.

‘You get up so early?’

‘Would be rude to leave without saying goodbye.’

I nuzzle her neck, absorb her scent, close my eyes and try to stamp in my mind the way she fit in my arms. I’m going to need this over the next weeks, months. I’ve said many goodbyes but none of them feel like this.

I help her squeeze all the things into her case so she can zip it up. Watch over her shoulder as she check in online, book her seat by the window so she can catch up on sleep on the eight hour flight. She’s in her travelling clothes. Jeans and a tight vest the colour of hibiscus. It’s the first time I see her in jeans. They hug her hips and legs like a jealous man.

‘Nice outfit.’ I stroke her arms, run my hand down the curve of her waist.

‘People at home are going to need shades to look at me when I walk through customs,’ she laugh.

I watch her prepare to leave me and try not to think about where she going. It feel like she slipping away already, talking about home, about somewhere I don’t belong.

‘I’m going to miss you so bad.’

‘Me too.’ She fold the boarding pass she just print off and put it into the envelope with all her other papers.

‘Was Mel mad when you got home?’

‘I don’t want to talk about Mel now. I only have minutes left with you.’

‘I’d be mad if you came back to me at that time.’

‘If you were waiting for me at home I wouldn’t be out till that time.’

‘You say that now, but what about when you get fed up of me too?’

‘Josi, please, don’t do this. Let’s just enjoy these precious minutes.’ Is she trying to pick a fight so she have an excuse not to call me?

‘Grant, after last night I don’t want to think about you with her.’

‘And I don’t want to think about you with your husband, with Richard. You know when I’m with Mel I think about you. Why don’t you do the same? Why don’t you think about me when you’re with him? That way we’ll always be together.’

When Celia come it’s time for me to leave. She say to drop by any time, we exchange numbers. Josi walk me to my car, stroke it, say, ‘Goodbye car. I had some of my best times in you. Look after her.’ She smile at me. I kiss her. A small ordinary kiss that don’t show what I’m feeling. She wave till I’m out of sight. As I drive back home, I feel like someone drop anchor on my heart.

The next few days feel unreal. I watch the phone all the time, even when I know it’s night and there’s no chance she will phone. The first day is the worst, I travel every step with her. Checking in, fastening her seat belt, going to sleep. She promise to let me know when she get home, how things are with Richard. I wait for her call. Nothing. Maybe something happen to the plane. I check the Virgin site. Her flight land safely. I call her. It goes to voicemail. I send a text, email her. Nothing. The thought I’m trying to push down keep bubbling up like a drowning man gasping for air. She forget about you, Grant. She back in her reality and you just a memory.

Without her here, without her liveliness and the sex, I think about what I have to offer her. What would she leave her husband and her life in England for? For a man without a job, living off his girlfriend and sister, running jobs on the wrong side of the law just to pay for a ticket to see his sick child, three children with mothers who don’t want to talk to him anymore. It’s no wonder she didn’t want to introduce me to her friends.

When she call I feel like that drowning man coming up for air. I try to play it cool, try to joke it out that I think she forget about me.

‘Babes, I was so worried.’

She whispering. ‘I fell asleep when I got home.’

‘I hardly sleep a wink since you left. Don’t know how I’m going to get through next week.’

She say she’s missing me too, but I don’t hear it in her voice. She say it’s late and Richard sleeping, she don’t want to wake him. She’ll ring me tomorrow. Hearing that is like somebody push a knife through my heart. I thought I could handle this, now I know what she was feeling every time I come home to Mel.

‘What time?’ I don’t want to be watching my phone all the time like some mad man.

She don’t know yet.

‘But you
will
call?’ I can’t take this uncertainty.

‘Of course.’

‘Love me?’ I want her to say ‘I love you Grant’ but she say ‘I do.’ She with her husband now, she have to be careful, so I tell her I love her.

‘Don’t forget to call.’

Why couldn’t she stay a bit longer? I could prove to her that I’m more than a match for her husband. So long as she still talking to me I have a chance I just have to make sure she don’t forget me. I send her a text.

I don’t want to lose u. I love u.

You won’t. I love u 2.

I’m still in with a chance.

‘Daddy! Daddy!’ Marcie throw her arms round my neck as I pick her up and swing her round and round.

‘How’s my Princess?’

‘Daddy, you come home. Daddy! Daddy!’ Her arms tighten round my neck.

‘You going to make her dizzy.’

I look up at Jeanette leaning against the door, her arms folded across her chest, and I’m glad to see she smiling. It will make things easier. I swing Marcie on my hips and she straddle me the way women carry children.

‘Let’s go and say hello to your mom.’

As I walk toward Jeanette, I remember what attract me to her. She loose some weight but she still curve in all the right places. She change her hairstyle, its short, the sides almost shaved. It makes her look a little mannish but her lips still as full and kissable as I remember. Her smile show her even white teeth, she was always careful about her teeth. ‘There’s no substitute for a good smile,’ she’s always saying.

‘You look good Jeanette. I see you drop a few pounds. It suit you.’ I don’t mention that she look tired.

‘It’s stress.’

‘Every cloud have a silver lining.’ Trying to keep it light.

‘I’d prefer to not have the cloud.’ She turn and lead off into the house.

Everything in the house look tired, like Jeanette inject the furniture, the walls, the pictures with fatigue, or maybe she absorbed the tiredness from the house.

‘You want a drink?’

‘Just water.’

‘Daddy, have some Cool Aid. Mommy, can Daddy have Cool Aid?’

‘Daddy can have whatever he wants.’

‘OK, give me Cool Aid. Happy now?’ I lift Marcie up in the air.

‘Yes Daddy.’

Watching Jeanette move round the small kitchen take me right back. I used to love the way she bend and stretch as she reached for things, she have easy movements, like water, moulding herself over everything she touch. Including me. But she like those creeping plants that climb around trees, till eventually you can’t see the tree anymore. It’s so slow you don’t notice till one day the tree disappear and all people see is the new plant.

There was a time I would do almost anything for her. The only thing I refuse to do was send Darron back to his mother. That’s when I see a change in her.

‘You love that boy more than you love me and Marcie.’

‘You know that’s not true,’ I’d try to convince her.

‘He comes before any of us. Darron need this, Darron need that. You and Darron play football. You and Darron go to the beach.’

‘I go to the beach with all of you.’

‘You never take Marcie by herself.’

‘Because I only have so much time when I’m not working. Anyway, when I go with the two of them, Darron can help with Marcie.’

‘That’s what I mean. You don’t have any time for Marcie without Darron.’

I’d tried to reason with her. Tried to show her that there’s only so many hours in the day; that she want a nice house, a nice car, nice clothes; that I was happy to put in the hours to give her all those things. But it was never enough. She pick at me every day, pick at Darron, like a vulture. I could deal with it because when we went to bed at night she was like a she cat, could make me forget everything. That was till things started going bad at work.

I see the signs long before it happen and try to warn her. Little by little they stop replacing workers. I tell her we need to cut down on our spending but she don’t believe me. I have to take on more and more at work, spend more and more time there, coming home at night to arguments. She complaining that she not seeing me and there’s no overtime pay to show. She don’t understand that I’m fighting to keep my job, that I have to show willing so I don’t get laid off. Then one night I couldn’t get it up, don’t matter what I do, what she do I couldn’t get an erection. After that she start turning her back on me at night, every time I approach her she say she can’t deal with the frustration if I can’t get it up.

One evening I come home and Darron in the house by himself watching TV. She leave a note on the table.
Taken Marcie to the movies. Pick up a takeaway for dinner for you and Darron.
I’m angry as hell. After the day I had. One of my close colleagues get laid off. We lose a big contract and I can see if we don’t get another one to replace it that my job is next, six months at the most.

‘When did Jeanette leave?’ I ask Darron.

‘Just when I get home from school.’

‘What did she say to you?’

‘She say she have to take Marcie somewhere, that you would get dinner for us, to have a drink till you come home.’

I read the note again. Why didn’t she take the two of them? Couldn’t she cook and leave the dinner even if she want to take Marcie to the movies?

I ring her cell phone. It goes to voicemail.

‘Jeanette what the fuck you playing at leaving Darron on his own with no food?’ I forget Darron listening. ‘Call me as soon as you get this message.’

I read the note again, like I’m hoping it will say something different.

‘You want we eat at Cheffette tonight?’ I ask Darron, knowing the answer’s going to be yes. It’s his favourite place. I want to give him a treat, make up for him being left out.

When we get back, Jeanette and Marcie watching TV.

‘You get my message?’ I ask as soon as I see her.

‘Yes,’ she answer without taking her eyes off the TV.

‘Then why you don’t ring me back?’

‘Because I’m not going to speak to anybody who talk to me like that. Who you think I am, your housemaid?’

‘If you was my housemaid at least there’d be dinner when I come home and my son wouldn’t be hungry.’

‘That’s the problem, isn’t it? Your son. What about the fact I was out with your daughter?’

‘Jeanette, I’m not taking this anymore. I don’t know what you playing at. If you don’t want me treat you like a housemaid then behave like a wife.’

I must have hit a raw nerve because she leap up from the sofa, spin round to face me, hands on hips, eyes that could slice me in two and hiss, ‘I would behave like a wife if I had a husband. A man who could make me feel like a wife.’

I don’t know if it was the look on her face, the words, the fact she said it in front of the children, but I feel my hands travel from my side swing round and slap her face. I’ll never forget the look of disbelief in her eyes as she fall over onto the sofa. I regret it instantly. I’m by her side, kneeling in front of the sofa trying to help her up.

‘I’m sorry babes. Are you all right babes? I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t touch me!’ she scream, curling herself up in a ball, making herself small.

‘I’m sorry babes.’ I put my hand on her shoulder. That’s when the force of her foot propel me backward. From a kneeling position I’m flat on my back. I feel her fists and tears on my face. Hot and stinging. I grab her hands but the tears don’t stop.

Every day I’m alive I wish I could go back and rub out that day.

She leave that night with Marcie to stay with a friend. She never moved back in. I paid for their flights home for a break and she stayed. I came home twice to see Marcie and to ask her if we could try again but she said she couldn’t trust me. I didn’t know if I could trust me either. I stayed away from women in case at the appointed time I let them down. Three months later I was laid off and had to downsize, me and Darron alone again.

‘Did you talk to the specialist about the bone marrow transplant?’

‘He said it’s too early to know how the condition is going to develop and whether she’ll need a transplant. Apparently it’s a long process. Marcie, come and take the Cool Aid to your daddy.’

She holds the glass out in front of her, total concentration on her face till she hands it over.

‘Thanks Princess.’

She bounces up on the sofa next to me.

‘Don’t you think we should be looking now at whether any of us is a match?’

‘The doctor say it’s too early. We might be wasting our time and money if she don’t need it.’

‘She looks so happy. I can’t imagine her in the kind of pain you describe.’

‘Believe me, you wouldn’t want to see it.’

She don’t realise how much of an outsider that makes me feel. Something big like that in my daughter’s life and she thinks I wouldn’t want to see it. That whole side of her that I don’t know.’