A Taste of Honey (18 page)

“I don’t know what to say,” she said in a whisper as a tear formed in her eye.

“Baby you make me whole. I’ve walked around all of these years not knowing what it feels like to have someone understand me, and love me. I don’t ever want to lose you.”

“You won’t, baby. I’m here for you. I always will be. As long as you let me.”

I reached into my pocket. “Honey.”

“Yes, baby.”

I took one knee in front of her and pulled the black box from my pocket. She covered her mouth. “Will you…”

Before I could even open the box or get the words out she was in tears as she answered, “Yes. I thought you’d never ask.”

When I flipped the box open she screamed out a playful “Hell-o.”

“Can I slip this on your finger?”

“On one condition,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“Don’t make me wait too long to marry me.”

“We can be on a flight to anywhere in the world by midweek.”

She nodded yes. “Then please, Khalil, slip it on.”

C
heron rode with me to Richmond and waited in the car with me for two and a half hours after we arrived. She said she didn’t want me to get into another altercation with Rorrie, not while I was pregnant. I had been on cloud nine since Khalil had proposed to me a week earlier. It didn’t really faze me when he broke the news to me about Rorrie telling him that she was pregnant. It happened before he and I were together and to be honest, I wasn’t convinced that she actually was. I didn’t want to bring it up to my man, but I, of all people, knew that women ran some serious games when the fear of losing their man came into play.

Cold, hard proof was what I came for. I had gotten her address off of the Internet and her schedule from the hospital that she was doing her residency at. She must have been doing overtime, because it was eight o’clock and she was supposed to get off at five. I didn’t mind waiting, since I had Cheron in the car with me; we actually joked and laughed our way through the wait. Because of my newfound cravings, we had a cooler full of Yoo-Hoo
and Sprite and a bag of snickerdoodles that I had been devouring, when I saw a car pull up. My heart began to beat faster when I saw the door open. A second later Rorrie climbed out.

Without a care in the world she made her way toward the apartment and Cheron and I exited the silver Taurus rental slowly. By the time she reached her door and pulled her keys out she hadn’t even noticed we were behind her. When she finally looked over her shoulder I thought that she was about to use the bathroom on herself.

“What do you want?” she yelled.

“Calm down,” I said. “I just want to talk. I don’t want to fight. I can’t fight…I’m pregnant.”

She looked timid as she tried to place Cheron’s face. “Talk about what?”

“Khalil told me that you said you were pregnant.”

“I am.”

“Are you planning to keep it?”

“I’m not sure. Why is it your business?”

I held out my ring finger. I might as well have thrown a brick in her face. “He and I are getting married next week. I just want to know for sure that you’re pregnant and that it’s his.”

“Where do you get off? Of course it’s his. He and I have been together for…”

“Were together,” I cut her off. “You
were
together. Look, I’m gonna need you to use this,” I said as I pulled the EPT box out of my purse.

She covered her face and exhaled. “What’s that going to prove?”

“If you have to ask, then maybe you’re not really pregnant.”

She turned her keys and tried to enter her apartment quickly
but Cheron blew past me and grabbed the door. “Are you trying to pull some shit?”

“You cannot force your way into my place.”

“Rorrie, we can handle this like adults or we can get ignorant up in here. You might not recognize her face, but this is Cheron, Manny’s ex-girlfriend. The Manny you got killed because of your little plot to steal Tank from me. I’m sure she would love the chance to tear you apart, but I’ve been trying to keep her calm the whole three hours that we’ve been waiting for you to get off work. Now if you want me to back out of it and let things pop off however they do, I can do that.” I paused and watched Cheron give Rorrie a stare-down that Mike Tyson would have been proud of. Clearly Rorrie was shaken. “Just take the test and we’re out of here.”

“Okay, I’m not pregnant,” Rorrie cried out. “I’m not. I told him that to try to keep him.”

“Screw that. She needs to take the test. We gotta be sure,” Cheron said.

I extended my hand and the test. “It’ll take a few minutes.”

She looked at me and then at Cheron, who seemed like she was fuming. I followed her to the bathroom, where she peed on the stick. Four minutes later and I had a negative result in my hand. Rorrie collapsed on the couch and erupted into tears as we headed out the door. I looked back and took what I was sure would be my last look at her, only to see her staring at me.

“Hailey,” she whispered. My eyes and hers were locked together as if we were peering into each other’s soul. “I’m sorry.”

There were so many things that she had to be sorry about but I knew that those words were for my mother. I turned and headed out the door, finally confident that the book was closed on her in both mine and Khalil’s life, forever.

W
e rode in silence, listening to Beyoncé’s
B’day
for the first hour. Finally Cheron broke the silence. “So how do you feel?”

“I feel great.”

“That’s good. I’m happy for you.”

Twenty minutes passed before I realized that Cheron had something more she wanted to discuss. “Hailey, I don’t know how to say this…”

“Just spit it out.”

“Okay, I will.” She paused and turned the volume down a notch. “You’re doing really well. New house and driving a car that cost a fortune. A husband and a baby…” She took a deep breath. “I think that if the shoe was on the other foot and it was me who had run into all of this good fortune, I would have looked out for you.”

I was a little shocked at what she’d said. “Say what?”

“I would have broken you off. It’s obvious that you’re rich and I still live in my little apartment in Southeast. I’m just saying. You know things aren’t easy.”

“Cheron, you have a lot of nerve. I’ve always looked out for you and I always will. But what do you expect me to do? Buy you a house, a car? I’ve always given you money. Hell, I paid for Madison’s tuition last year. What do you expect?”

Her feelings were hurt but she didn’t come off like a victim. Instead she told me: “I’d like some money. I’d like a couple hundred thousand dollars. If it hadn’t been for you, Manny and I would have been together and he would’ve had me living like a queen, but I didn’t get that chance.”

I shook my head. “Cheron, Manny had a wife and a baby on
the way. He was fucking me on the side and who knows who else. On top of that, he probably would have been locked up by now.”

“You don’t know that…”

“This is ridiculous. But you know what, I’m glad I see where you’re coming from. You should know that I have your daughter in my will. I love you both and I’ll always look out. She’ll never go without, but I’m the one who was on her fucking back for all these years not you. You made your choices and I made mine. You think this shit was easy. You don’t know the half of it. I’m ashamed and I’m just beginning to forgive myself for what I did to me, for what happened to my mother. My life has been torture for years. Yeah, I’ve had money and material things but absolutely no peace and surely no real happiness. Until now. Until Khalil.

“And yeah, I do have plenty of money. But if you think I’m going to give it away you’re crazy. What you can do is run this boutique that I’m about to open. I’ve had you in mind ever since the opportunity came for me to open it in Manhattan. I was planning to set you up in a nice place and have you…”

“I’m not moving to New York,” she said, cutting me off.

“You really should…”

“Hailey, forget I said anything. Forget it. You do you.”

Her voice was cold and chilling. I decided to drop it and we rode in silence the rest of the way home.

I
needed to do it alone. If I was going to move on and bury my demons once and for all, this was the first stop and hopefully the last. I didn’t call before I came back here on Honey’s advice. No need to give a warning or time to prepare an excuse; I simply walked up to the door.

“Khalil,” she said, shocked to see me.

“Can I come in? I’d like to talk to you.”

Frannie took the lock off of the screen and said, “Of course.” She opened the door and when our eyes met she seemed a little misty. “I’m so glad you came back. I haven’t stopped thinking about you since you left.”

She led me into the living room where I took a seat and then she immediately began trying to offer me food and drink. I accepted a Sprite. I’d been craving them lately. She came back with the soda, a cup of ice, and an envelope. “Here’s the money you left here. I was going to keep it until I saw you again.”

“What made you think you’d see me again?”

“I prayed on it. I prayed really hard on it.” I nodded my head
for lack of a response. “So, Khalil, what made you come today?”

“I don’t know why today. I just wanted to share something with you. There’s something that I need to say in order to move on before I get married.”

“You’re getting married?” she asked with a huge smile appearing on her face coupled with the misty eyes again. “God is good.”

“Yes. Honey and I are going to Hawaii next week to be married.”

“I’ve been once. Which island?”

“Oahu.”

“That’s going to be beautiful. Are her parents going?”

“Her mother is deceased and she doesn’t know her father.” Her face showed a quick hint of regret for asking. “She and I have a lot in common when it comes to bad parental backgrounds.”

She held her head down. “I’m sorry,” Frannie said. I looked into her eyes and saw the same woman I loved so much when I was a child. The only differences in her now were the beginnings of crow’s-feet in the corners of her eyes and the gray strands in her thick, black hair.

“Frannie, I came here today to let you know that I forgive you. I’ve been to therapy to overcome the things that happened to me when I was growing up. I blocked so many things out but it wasn’t until recently that I remembered what you did…” I cleared my throat. “I remembered what you did to me.”

She tilted her head to the side, looking puzzled. “You went to therapy?”

“Yes. And it took me a long time to get to this point, but I accept that it happened and I forgive you. I forgive you.”

“Khalil, you don’t know how long I waited to hear you say that to me. I haven’t ever forgiven myself. I don’t know why I
did it.” She broke down and began to sob. “I’m soooo sorry,” she cried out as her chest began to heave.

I sat there unsure of what to say. The best I came up with was “Did you ever think about getting some help?”

“Help? What can I do about it now? I knew that I shouldn’t have left you, that I should have stayed or taken you with me. I should have protected you.”

“Say what?”

“I should have taken you with me. I shouldn’t have left you. It has haunted me all these years, the image of you and the look on your face when I took you back to the home.”

“Frannie, is that what you are apologizing for?”

“Yes, and I don’t know how to let you know how much…”

I cut her off. “That’s not what I’m talking about. Yeah, that hurt too, but I’m not talking about that when I say I forgive you.”

She stopped crying and wiped her eyes and simply stared at me. “Then what?”

“I’m talking about you…” I clenched my teeth as the anger seethed. “I’m talking about you molesting me. In my room.”

She jumped out of her seat as if her ass had been set afire. “Khalil, I did no such thing. Is that what you remember?” Her tone was so strong without being defensive. She went on. “Is that what you think I did?”

“Yes.”

She shook her head and said, “Lord Jesus, help us. Help this child. Khalil, I never did anything to harm you. I would never have done anything like that to you.”

“But…I remember…”

“No, Khalil. You don’t remember that. Think back to that
night when I came home late from work and I was looking for your father, the night I walked into your room and caught him…” Now it was her turn to lose control. Her hands began to tremble. “Your father molested you. I caught him and we fought all night. He was drunk and he did that to you.”

She might as well have driven a sword into my chest as the words she spoke cut deeply into my soul. I looked into her eyes and as she gazed back at me I knew she was telling the truth. I remembered.

“Khalil, there are some things I need to tell you.”

I sat on her couch and listened for the next twenty minutes as my life unraveled right before me.

E
ven though it was pouring down raining, I made it from Philadelphia to the George Washington Bridge in record time. Frannie had tried to calm me as I thanked her and stormed out of her house. She knew where I was headed. I didn’t call Honey until I reached my old building.

“Baby, I love you,” I said as I cried.

“What’s wrong, Khalil?” she asked in a panic. “I knew I should have come. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“Honey, I’m sorry. But I have to do this. He has to die.”

“Who has to die? What are you talking about?”

I was crying. “It wasn’t Frannie who did that to me first. It was my father, or let me say the man who I thought was my father. Kevin Graves was not my father. My father and mother were killed in a car accident. Kevin was my uncle and it was his wife that was a drug addict, not my mother. He lied to me, Honey.” I was rocking back and forth like Dustin Hoffman did in
Rain Man
. “I have to go.”

“Khalil…” I heard her calling my name as I hung the phone up. I stepped out of the truck into the rain. In my mind I visualized the murder. I was going to drag him from the house and toss him down the steps, or I’d strangle him. I knew that Rikers was in my near future, but as much as I loved Honey, I couldn’t control the anger that had become my entire spirit.

I banged on the door like the NYPD. Perhaps I could get a temporary insanity. I banged some more until a “Who is it?” came from the other side.

“It’s Khalil.”

“Khalil who?”

I banged again and a woman opened up. “Where is Kevin?”

The woman looked familiar but I couldn’t place her. She said, “I know you. You Kevin’s boy. I recognize you. I used to live up the hall. Daaaamn, baby. The last time I saw you, you was a little thing. Look at you now all grown up and shit.”

My recollection became clear. It was Tenille’s lover from up the hall. I felt sick on my stomach. “I’m looking for Kevin.”

“Are you serious? You ain’t on no drugs or nothing, are you?”

“Do I look like I’m on drugs?”

“Hell no. You look fine as hell, but looks can be deceiving.”

“Well, no. I’m not on anything. I just want to see Kevin.” My tone was low and I’m sure threatening.

“Sugar, I don’t know how to say this, but you about three months too late. Kevin passed away in June. I took over this apartment and he didn’t leave much of anything.”

I backed away from the door, wanting to punch a hole in the wall, but as mad as I was, I knew that I would have broken every bone in my hand.

She began to speak but I turned and walked away. With the
knowledge that I had escaped a twenty-year sentence, my rage melted as I walked slowly through the pouring rain back to my vehicle.

I drove home, listening to an oldies CD as I tried to digest everything that had happened to me during the course of the day. By the time I got off of the turnpike I’d all but figured out that my life had been cursed. I had so many questions but no strength to seek the answers.

I crossed the Delaware Memorial Bridge and cruised back into Maryland before I even decided to call Honey and let her know that I was okay. When I picked my phone up, there were thirty missed calls from her phone and Frannie’s number.

When I called her phone she answered, “Baby, please tell me you’re okay.”

“Yes, I’m okay. I’m headed home.” Then I heard a voice in the background. “Who is that?”

“Baby, I’m at Frannie’s house. She and I were headed to New York. I called her and she told me what happened. I raced up here. I was so scared you were going to do something that…”

“Well, I guess God beat me to it. Kevin died a few months ago.”

“Oh my goodness,” she cried out.

“The whole thing is like a sick joke.”

“I’m coming home. I’m going to get in the car and I’ll meet you at the house. Are you okay?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t know if I can take much more. I just want to go bury my head under a pillow. Can we talk about it when you get home?”

“Yes, we can. I’ll see you in a little while. I love you. Drive safe.”

“I will. You too.”

I needed a drink and fast, so I slammed on the pedal in an attempt to bend time and make it home in a matter of minutes.

T
he last forty minutes were the longest but finally I pulled up to the gate and hit the remote. I prepared to turn into the driveway, only to be cut off by a strange vehicle. The car had come from thirty yards down the street. I wasn’t scared, only curious as to why the car pulled slowly up to me. We were adjacent to the drive, so I couldn’t pull around them and into the gate. I stood still and waited; our windows both now down as we locked eyes.

“I know we haven’t met formally, but I feel like I already know you. Khalil, there are some things that you need to know about Honey. After you hear them, trust me, brother, marriage will be the last thing you’ll want to do with her.”