Chapter 13 #2
“Hey, Tea, baby.” I looked down at her intricately carved headstone.
It was ornate. Her parents had insisted on having a rendering of her carved into the stone.
It was a picture of her from our honeymoon.
Her full name, date of birth, and date of death were there.
The words, “God’s Greatest Gift Returned to Him.
Loved Beyond Words. Missed Beyond Measure.
Beloved Daughter. Cherished Wife,” had been inscribed underneath her dates.
I ran my hand across the cool marble. “I love you, and I miss you. Since you’ve been gone, I’ve been chilling.
Kept to myself. Didn’t do too much.” I took a deep breath.
“But I met somebody. Yo, I didn’t meet them.
They actually came back into my life after a long absence.
It’s KD’s sister, Eastley. You met her a couple of times.
She was at the wedding. You definitely heard KD talk about her.
He never shut up about her. He was so proud when she earned her nursing degree.
” I cleared my throat. I was rambling. “She’s back in town, and she’s been staying at the house.
All that’s only important because having her at the house helped me come back to life.
I’m not saying that I died with you, Tea.
But parts of me did. There’s parts of me that you took with you when you left.
And I didn’t give a shit about letting them go.
If you weren’t here on Earth, I didn’t even feel like I needed them.
“But she makes me want them back. She makes me feel like I need some of the stuff I put down when I let you go. I need my heart back, Tea. I’m keeping you in it, but I wanna make room in there for her.
” It was an overcast day, but I was sweating my ass off.
I wiped sweat from my forehead. “Shit. This ain’t a conversation I ever expected to have with you.
I was a zombie when you left me, girl. For three years, I’ve been a zombie. But I feel myself coming back to life.
“We’ve been going to church together. Since I come here after church, I’m gonna change the day I come through.
I’mma come through on Wednesdays. I love you, and I miss you.
Continue to rest in peace, sweetheart. See you on Wednesday.
” I kissed my fingers, touched the top of her headstone, then walked back to my truck.
My father was coming out of his front door just as I pulled into his driveway.
“Perfect timing,” I joked as I rounded the truck and headed for the front stairs to join him on the porch.
“I was waiting on you.”
“Why? Janey telling my business again?”
He eyed me but chuckled at the same time as he took a seat in one of the two rocking chairs that were situated on his porch. “Don’t get mad at Janey because you were being mannish outside the house of the Lord.”
I waved him off. “Wasn’t nobody being mannish,” I semi-lied.
“Yeah, you were. I can tell, because you still got that Method Man look on your face.”
“Method Man look on my face? What you talking about?”
“That she’s all I need to get by look. And I know it’s about the Davenport girl. She got your nose open so wide, I could drive my pickup truck in one of your nostrils.” He laughed at his own joke.
I looked up at the sky. “You corny, old man.”
“And you’re whipped, young fella. That’s okay, though.
For one thing, you deserve the softness and peace that a woman can bring.
For another, I’m ready for you to give me some grands.
I’m the only one of my fishing buddies that don’t got no grandchildren.
I’m lookin’ forward to having some to spoil. ”
That reminded me that I’d spent the entire night before shooting up the club with Eastley. We didn’t even discuss birth control. We definitely needed to talk.
“Stop thinking about your love life and tell me why you stopped by?” He jokingly snapped his fingers under my nose.
I laughed and gently pushed his hand away. “Pops, cool out.”
“Stop daydreaming about your . . . romantic time, in my face.”
“Pops.”
“Stop calling my name.”
We both laughed.
“I made the decision to stop fighting my feelings for Eastley. Stop pushing the narrative that I should feel guilty about wanting her in my own head. I decided to let myself feel what I feel and let things between us be what they’re gonna be.”
“And where did that leave you?”
“I don’t know.” I shrugged.
“Well, what do you know?”
“That I like how I feel when I’m with E.
She has a . . . I don’t know, softness about her.
She brings peace. I definitely don’t want to get into comparing her to Teagan.
I’ll just say that the energy is different.
Teagan was love and warmth. Laughter and familiarity.
E is peace and light. She’s softness and calm. ”
“Wasn’t a lot of peace and calm when it came to Teagan and her asthma, huh?”
“Man.” I sighed. “It was so damn stressful. Living and loving a person with a serious chronic illness is a special kind of trauma. I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Always waiting for the cues that I needed to take her to the emergency room. It was hard to relax without making sure that there was a rescue inhaler in every room, or that her allergens weren’t gonna act up in the middle of the night.
There was always a level of stress.” I shook my head.
“I never thought it would take her away from me, though. I knew there would always be anxiety around her illness, but I thought we would manage it. I thought we were finally getting it under control. Little did I know . . .” I let my thoughts trail off.
“So, you’re putting yourself out there again?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I stopped by the cemetery today. Talked to Teagan. Told her about E.”
“How’d she take it?”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “You swear you’re a comedian. Everything isn’t a joke.”
“It was getting too heavy, son. You deciding to make space in your heart for new opportunities doesn’t have to be so heavy.
Keep praying about it. Keep doing what feels right.
And keep an open mind and heart. God is moving stuff around.
Putting things in place so I can finally get me some grandbabies. ”
I screwed up my face. “A grown ass man sitting on the porch crying about grandbabies? Tell Janey to give you your nuts back, old man.”
“Fuck you, Son.”
We laughed together.