Wingless Book Series (book 1) (35 page)

“
It’s not horrible. I wish I
hadn’t had to go to Marcus’ funeral. I think I would have been
better off.” He stood up, taking something out of his pocket. It
was some paper of sort.

“
What is that?” I asked him. He
stared down at me, looking at the paper with a grin.

“
Gray?” I asked again.

“
I was waiting for you to come
home so I could fill you in on what’s been going on here,” he said,
handing me what was in his hands.

I stared at the image, not
understanding what I was looking at.

“
What is it?” I said, handing it
back to him.

“
It’s Devan’s ultrasound picture,”
he said with an even bigger grin on his face.

“
What!” I asked in
shock.

My brother was having a baby. That
was the craziest thing I thought I could ever hear. Gray, the son
that could do no wrong, who was still in college, who said he would
never let anything get in his way, was having a child.

“
Yeah, I’m having a baby. A boy as
a matter of fact,” he said with a look of pure
happiness.

“
Wow, Gray. I never would have
thought,” I said, taking the picture to look it over again. Maybe
this time I would see my nephew to be.

“
Lyric Marcus is what we are going
to name him,” he offered, getting a little uneasy.

“
That’s awesome,” I said, hugging
him again. It was all too much. But I was happy with it.

My dad
came in patting Gray on the back and looking at me with a
smile.

“
I see he broke the news,” he
said, laughing a loud laugh.

“
Yeah, I was just telling him how
happy I was for him,” I smiled.

“Where’s everyone at?” my mother’s
voice came echoing down the hall.

We looked at each other with looks
of shock. We hadn’t expected her so early. She came in, stopping in
her tracks when she saw me. This made me feel a little
nervous.

“
Hey, hon. We
were all just checking out this ultrasound with Eve,” my dad
told her, trying to reel her
in.

“
I’m going to start dinner,” she
said, heading back out of the room.

“
Kay, you come in here right now.
Eve is back and I think she would like to talk to us. Give her that
much,” he said rather sternly.

My mother appeared in the
door again, not making eye contact with me for more than a split
second. My dad
motioned us all to sit
down.

“
I’m sure you’re
here for a reason. I wanted to wait until your mom got here until
we all sat to talk,” my dad
said.

“
Yeah, I came by just to get some
things off my chest. Things that have been bothering me. I don’t
know what this will change, but I’m hoping something,” I said
looking at them all.

My mother still would not look at
me, and it hurt. This woman once was the ear I always told
everything to. And I couldn’t understand what I did that was so
wrong that she didn’t want to talk to me anymore.

I thought about how to tell my
family I wanted their acceptance. So I did the only thing that
seemed right.

“
Gray, I knew that when I came
here I was going to make a point to tell you that I am sorry for
anything I ever did to you, and I was going to tell you how you
made me feel for all these years. But I think we came to an
understanding now, and I just want to say, I love you. And I hope
we can put all of this in the past and move on,” I said, tears
falling down my cheeks.

Gray and dad both looked
moved.

“
Dad, you’re my dad. And I just
hope that I can be everything to you that you are to me. No matter
what I do, I just want your acceptance. And I never have felt like
I truly got that, and I’m here to just ask you to please just
accept me for me. Please let me be me,” I said, barely able to get
it all out.

My Dad
hugged me tight.

“
I will accept you for whatever
you want, and I have always felt that way. I just want you to be
around. I love you, Eve,” he said, wiping my tears.

That’s all I’d wanted to hear for
years, and now I was finally hearing it.

I stared at my mother as she
looked past me as if I didn’t exist. I knew this was going to be
tough. I knew it had to be said, though. There were only so many
chances you got in life to say what you truly meant.

“
Mom, I know you may not want to
talk to me, but I have something to say and I just hope you want to
listen.” I kept my eyes on her. She crossed her arms, looking at
the side of my dad’s head. “Acceptance is all I am after. I don’t
need an apology. I don’t need you to explain anything to me about
why you feel the way you do. I just want you to accept me for me
and let’s just move on.”

We all stared at my mother as she
finally brought her hazel eyes to mine. She stared at me long and
hard. It felt like minutes later before she spoke.

“
You’re my daughter and I know you
expect something out of me because I’m your mom, but I don’t want
to. I don’t want to accept what you have done,” she said, throwing
her hands up.

“
Kay, what kind
of answer is that?” my dad
asked, looking
appalled.

“
I don’t have a choice, Ray? I
have a choice. Just because you have a kid doesn’t mean you have to
stick by and watch them make mistakes. I lost one kid and I’m
choosing to lose another. It hurts too much and I won’t do it
again.” She got up.

I got up too.

“
No, Mom!” I yelled at her. She
wasn’t going to walk out. “What did I ever do to you?” I
yelled.

She kept shaking her head trying
not to be part of the situation. It was the same way she was with
my dad when they got into huge blowups. “You tell me. I don’t care
if you don’t want anything to do with me. I came here for an answer
one way or another, so it doesn’t matter. But tell me what I did. I
just want to know what I did wrong.” I held my breath to keep from
crying again.

“
I told you I can’t do this. I
lost one child, I won’t lose another. You go be who you want to be,
but I’m saying goodbye. I’ve already said goodbye months ago,” she
said, clutching her hands to her chest.

“
Is it Evan?” I asked.

“
It’s more than just Evan. It’s
you, it’s always been in you to drive a nail into your coffin one
by one, and I just can’t do it. Marcus was the same way and he’s
gone. I can see it all over again,” she said, trying to walk out,
but stopping. “You’re my daughter, but you’re not how I
wanted.”

My dad
jumped up.

“
Okay, okay,” I said, tossing my
hands in the air and heading out onto the porch.

I exhaled, finally breathing.
Looking out into the driveway, I saw Evan heading up to the house.
This was a surprise because I hadn’t even called him.

I ran down the steps to him,
jumping into his arms. He lifted me off the ground hugging me
tightly. I felt so secure and loved and comforted. It was the best
feeling I could feel at that moment. And I wasn’t mad at all that
he was there, because it was a moment that I truly needed him near
me.

“
Is everything alright? Are you
okay?” he asked me, wiping my tears as he surveyed my
face.

“
I’m good. It went better than I
expected,” I said, looking back at the house, seeing Gray in the
doorway. “It’s hard to explain. Gray come here,” I
shouted.

“
Eve, I might have made up with
you, but I didn’t think he was part of that,” Gray said as he made
his way down the steps.

Evan looked at Gray with a look of
agitation, but by the time Gray cracked a smile, it was
gone.

“
I really appreciate it. That’s
all I ever wanted, man,” Evan said to Gray.

Gray nodded shaking Evan’s
hand.

“
And I see that now. That’s why I
know you’re a good man, a good person. Anyone who would stand up
for my sister is alright with me.”

We said our goodbyes. I promised
that despite my mother and her opinion of me, I wasn’t going to let
that spoil how I felt about them.

You couldn’t win them all, and I
had tried. I just had to come to the realization that, although
someone is your family, it doesn’t always mean that you are going
to like them or want to be a part of their life. I didn’t hate her
for that. I didn’t know what you were supposed to feel. All I felt
was sadness for her, because she was choosing to miss out on a
piece of herself. Some things change, others stay the same. And I
believed that my mother would always be that hurt and broken woman
who found a way to get you down those stairs swearing you would
never come back again.

Chapter 35

Peace

“
I think it looks better in the
red,” I told Evan, looking at the shirt he was trying
on.

“
What, you don’t like me in blue?”
he said, holding onto the dressing room door, smiling at
me.

“
I like you in everything, you
know that. I just really don’t like that blue,” I said sitting
down.

He was as bad as a girl was when
it came to shopping.

“
Fine. I’ll get the red,” he said,
tossing the blue over the door.

“
Great,” I said,
yawning.

“
After this, I got a surprise for
you. Well, sort of,” he said, coming out in the red.

“
Oh really?” I asked.

“
Yeah, I think you will like it.”
He looked at himself in the mirror, ever so chirpy.

“
Well, tell me already. I hate
waiting,” I said in anticipation.

It had been a couple days since I
saw my family. It was a closure that made me feel healthier
mentally.

“
We are going to meet your dad and
Gray for dinner and I will tell you there,” he said as we headed
out of the store.

I got in the truck wondering what
he had up his sleeve that would involve my family. I knew it didn’t
involve my mother, but that was to be expected.

Evan took my hand as we made our
way in the parking lot. Even he was happier since I had worked
things out with them.

As we all sat in the
restaurant,
Chuble,
I was pleased that I was there with at least two of my family
members. My dad
and Gray started to
realize that they liked Evan once they let their guard down and got
to know him.

“
This is amazing,” I said through
bites of my fajitas.

“
I’m glad,” Evan said, giving me a
weird look at my enthusiasm to the food.

“
What? It is,” I said
laughing.

“
I believe ya,” he
said.

Evan cleared his throat and began
talking to us all.

“
I sort of had a
surprise for all of you, and I hope you like the idea,” he said. My
brother and dad
were all
ears.

“
Well, let us be the judge of that
spit it out,” Gray said playfully.

“
Eve has told me dozens of times
how fond she is of Jamaica. Said that you guys had gone there years
ago when they were just kids. So I made all the arrangements for
you all to take the trip again,” he said.

I was completely shocked,
and my dad
and Gray equally so. This was
the most generous thing anyone could do, and for all the right
reasons.

“
Well, I don’t
know what to say. That can be really expensive, Evan,” my
dad
said, trying to be
polite.

“
It’s no problem. I really want
Eve to get some time with her family, and I know it means a lot to
her. So price doesn’t make a difference. It’s her happiness that
matters to me.” He grabbed my hand under the table, squeezing
it.

“
What about Mom?” Gray asked,
puzzled.

“
She can come. There’s a ticket
for her if she wants to, everyone is invited. I think you all will
have a good time,” he said.

“
What about you?” I asked,
suddenly feeling like he wasn’t coming.

“
I said I want you to have time
with your family. I live with you, I can survive a couple days
without you. Take the time to have fun with them,” he said very
stern.

“
Uh, okay,” I said, looking
away.

As nice as it sounded, it would
have been equally nice to be there with Evan as well. I tried to
put it out of my head as we finished up the nice dinner.

“
Well, I am all
for it as long as Kay is okay with us going. She probably wouldn’t
be willing to take the trip,” my dad
said,
looking a little irritated at the thought.

“
I don’t want to
be rude, but who cares if she doesn’t want to go. Maybe you will
have more fun without her. I think it will be good for all of you,”
Evan said, eyeing my dad
after his bold
statement.