The Fight Within (71 page)

“I wonder sometimes, would they have had my green eyes and Natasha’s smile? What would their personality have been like? Would they have been a little shy like their beautiful, Cuban mother, or quick tempered and silly like their Irish American father? It hurt, man…it hurt really bad for a long ass time. I’m not gonna even sit here and lie to ya. I’d go a year or two and be okay, and then something would jar the memory for me, make it fresh all over again. My child would have been nineteen this year, Brian. Nineteen…”

“I… I don’t even know what to say. Thanks for tellin’ me this, though. I hate you went through that, but at least you know, you
understand
what I’m feelin’ right now.”

“Yeah, I know exactly how you feel right now, Brian.” He patted his shoulder. “For some people, what Natasha and I did would be the best solution. For others, it would not be the best choice. Only you and Shanice can decide that, Brian. First, get it confirmed by a doctor that she’s pregnant. If she is, let’s talk—but talk to
her
first. Try to be calm. Tell her how you feel, your concerns, and listen to her. Make her feel like what she says and thinks about everything regarding this is important to you. She is the one that would have to carry that baby to term. She’s the one people would be looking at…because she’s young and eventually it will be obvious that she’s pregnant. She’s the one that’s going to be getting sick, growing a baby and needing care. So, just be sensitive to that fact. No one will look at you and see you are going to be a father. Just be thoughtful to her is all I’m saying.”

They were quiet for quite some time until Sean leaned forward and started up his car. He pulled out the parking space, and gradually navigated out of the park, making their way home. The atmosphere drew darker, and soon, stars sparkled in the midnight blue sky. They didn’t speak another word along the entire journey. He leaned over and turned on his sound system, wanting to soothe his and his son’s nerves. Quirke’s ‘Acid Beth’ began to play… He knew the boy was torn up inside, distorted with worry and deliberations. Nineteen years ago, he had been in Brian’s same shoes, sinking to an all time low in a pit filled with quicksand.

What he didn’t tell Brian was that while he stood on that bustling sidewalk next to Natasha, a hot Starbucks coffee in one hand and his new leather briefcase in the other, he’d thought about Treasure and her children. It was the damndest thing. He thought about how excited he had been to finally meet her, Brian and Asia after how she’d talked the two up and all the photos he’d seen of the two of them. It presented an opportunity like the woman could never understand—gave him a second chance to right the wrongs of history, and script a brand new version of things. All of this gave him the ability to help nurture a seed, but not be fully rewarded by having one of his own. It gave him a second chance from a distance, and he greedily accepted it, promising to do right by Brian and Asia. He felt he owed it to that nineteen year old that never got a chance to enter the world. And though he wasn’t convinced he’d necessarily made the wrong choice, he knew he had too many questions and doubts to be one hundred percent certain, and that had been what haunted him the most, year after year.

Brian and Asia were
his
. The two people he’d come to quickly love, he’d shield and encourage. Should that young man be a father soon, they’d handle it
together
. They were a family now, looking out for one another. Sometimes things just don’t go as planned. Sean knew this all too well. Life is, more times than not, unscripted. The heart cannot be choreographed, drawn out on architectural paper, and rehearsed beforehand like a Broadway production. No…the heart does things on the spur of the moment, impulsive, looking for pleasure and love, looking for acceptance and a gentle soul to slide next to, integrate and wrap around as tight as possible in the effort to become
one
.

The heart could be broken…like Natasha’s, after she took her pregnancy test and the aftermath. Or like Treasure’s, once she discovered her ex-husband’s infidelity and the realization her marriage had ended. Or like Sean’s, after being told, once again, that he simply wasn’t good enough.

But the heart could also be mended. It bends, twists and accepts the glue offered by a well-intended passerby or potential suitor. It relies on the opportunity to be repaired and healed. And healing comes, oh yes; it comes if you allow it. It navigates and finds you, and rectifies your broken self by lifting you high in love, and gifting you with additional time…

The heart always wants to mend. We simply have to let it…

*

The following day…

“You want to
explain this to me?” Treasure crossed her legs, causing her robe to sway open, expose her silky panties. On this Saturday afternoon, the breakfast nook table was covered in scattered open mail, glossy magazine subscriptions, and a pair of tiny, navy blue reading glasses she’d purchased but refused to wear despite seeing double on occasion.

Sean casually picked up his yellow cup of coffee with the picture of a boy peeing in a pile of leaves, took a leisurely sip, and turned the page of her interior decoration magazines, as if he were truly interested. She rolled her eyes at the man, sitting there putting on airs.

“You ever wonder about zombies falling in love?” he asked, his tone serious as another lustrous page fell casually open in his grip, exposing a sepia and wine colored comforter set.

“Sean.” Treasure slumped in her chair and looked at him woefully. The man was certifiable. Of this, she had no doubt. “I’ve fallen in love and married a lunatic. Answer my question about this bank notice.” She tapped the thing with her fingertip, scooting the ‘Paid in Full’ notice a bit closer to the man.

“What happens if they break up? Does he threaten to eat her? I guess that would be like sex to them though, right? But their demise, too…What if it were reversed? The girl zombie was mad? She’d eat him but would he enjoy it if she nibbled on his privates? Maybe he’d sacrifice himself for sex, for the thrill of it, like a widow spider’s mate.”

“Sean!”

“Back to the zombie boy for a minute.” He raised his hand in the air as if he were discussing deep philosophical situations that begged for answers. “If she breaks his heart, does he tell her in a fit of rage, ‘You’re dead to me!’?”

She burst out laughing and slapped her hand against the table, causing her coffee cup to rattle.

“Stop it!” she said, pointing at him. “I’m serious, stop bein’ silly and answer me.”

“I paid off your mortgage. So what?” He turned another page of the magazine, this time glancing at a set of silver wicker baskets.

“These look like something Wonder Woman would have in her house if she knitted…She’d put all her super-powered yarn in them. Waaaaanda Waaaaa-muuuuuun! She’s knit-tin lasss-ohs, to catch tha bad guuuuys! Waaaaanda Waaaaa-muuuuuun!”

“Sean!” She refused to laugh though it was damn hard! “And what do you mean so what? I mean, I appreciate it, but you could have said something. You didn’t have to do—”

“I know I didn’t have to do it.” He looked at her sternly. Placing the magazine face down, he positioned his hand over it as if he were being sworn in. “I
wanted
to do it. You’re my wife now. This is
our
house. This is for our family. You said you didn’t want to move into a new house, disrupt the children’s lives.” He shrugged. “Cool. I made up my mind at that time that I was going to do it. I don’t need your ex-husband’s money, nor do you. His name will be off here, and then we’re in the clear. Besides, it wasn’t that much.”

“…It was more than a little bit.”

“It wasn’t a whole lot. Anyway, answer me about this zombie love.”

“I refuse to acknowledge that silliness with a response.”

“You just did.”

“You’re dead to me,” she quipped.

“I’ll eat you alive…”

“The kids aren’t here. You ready to put your money where your mouth is?” she goaded.

“Braaaaaiinnns! Braaaiiinnns!” He rose from his chair, extended his arms like a zombie and dropped his jaw in a parody of the horror movie character.

“Get away from me!” she squealed as she popped up from her seat, tossing a napkin in his direction.

“Puuussssy! Pussssssy! I’m going to eeeaaaaaat tha pussy!”

“Oh My God!” She cackled and raced out of the kitchen down the hall, then waited for the slow poke at the bottom of the stairs that led to their bedroom.

“Assss! I need asssss!” he yelled, stomping toward her like some Frankenstein monster, legs stiff, void of working kneecaps.

“You’re too slow, zombie boy! If this were a real game of cat and mouse, I would have been on a plane to Peru by now and you’d just be making your way out the kitchen,” she mocked as she took her first trek up the steps.

“Peru sounds too much like pussy…” he said matter-of-factly. “Don’t tease me this way.”

“No, it doesn’t. The only similarity is they both begin with the letter, ‘P’.”

“Try saying Peruvian Pussy Placed Perfectly Perpendicular real fast!
Then
tell me it doesn’t sound similar!” he protested with a silly grin.

“…I want you drug tested.” Smirking, she swung the bedroom door open and rushed inside as he was now hot on her heels.

“Now I’ve got cha!” he screamed before beating his chest.

“You went from a zombie to Dr. Seuss to Tarzan! Pick a struggle!”

The maniac chased her around the bed, disrobing simultaneously. He tossed a shirt here, a sock there, until his cock saluted her, saying a ‘How do ya mothafuckin’ do?’

“I’d prefer to pick you up off the ground, slam you down on this bed, and fuck you good ’nd hard, Jane of the Jungle!”

“Oh, hold up now!” Treasure grabbed a pillow off the bed, covering her body as if needing protection from the ravenous beast.

“How about a little Horton Hears a Who? ‘I’ll find the pussy!’ cried Horton! ‘I’ll find it and bust. I shall find her sweet spot, with my big dick and consuming lust!’”

“Ahhhhh!!!!” Treasure screamed, laughing all the way.

The fiend continued to chase her around and around, his cock bouncing about with each step he took.

…And with that, he paused, slammed the door behind them and took her like a thief in the night…

‡