20. CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 20
Gray
S he looked beautiful, sitting at the end of the table, close to the kitchen door, just like she did at home. She was in her element—serving an amazing meal and doing it with such grace.
The Indian couple and Jude immediately got along. Dev was doing a master's in mechanical engineering at Georgia Tech while his girlfriend Geeta was doing her master's in astrophysics. They were smart young kids, a few years older than Jude.
The other couple was older, in their late fifties. They didn't have children, so they came to Angel's Rest B I had some relatives who'd suffered. I knew that chemo messed with the body's ability to control internal temperature.
"Are you cold?"
She nodded. "But give it a minute; I'll be hot."
I pulled up an armchair that was by the fireplace close to her bed.
"Rose insisted on giving me a room with a fireplace," she murmured.
"She likes fireplaces."
Malou chuckled. "When we were growing up, there were winters when the temperature dropped like a stone. You know how it goes in Atlanta. Neither her trailer nor mine had any insulation. Her mother would go God knows where, and my parents would be in a drunken stupor. We'd be so cold. We'd huddle in bed together, wearing all our clothes to stay warm."
I nodded. "Yeah, I know. She told me."
"She tell you how one time a man her mother was fucking tried to assault me?"
I shook my head.
"Yeah. Our Rose beat the crap out of him with a saucepan."
"How old were y'all?"
"Twelve." Malou's breath was slightly ragged.
I couldn't fathom the things Rose had gone through as a child. She'd shared some stories with me, but clearly, she hadn't told me everything. Once upon a time, we'd been close and managed to reconnect sporadically throughout our marriage. But we married young—I was still in school, and she had the twins. We never really had the chance to get to know each other like other couples did. Instead, we were thrust into being an instant family.
Living in my parents' house added to the strain. Rose was never comfortable there, and honestly, I wasn't ready to set up a separate home before I earned my degree.
Once I started working at Rutherford Architects, we had moved. Mama had been furious but relented when I told her that I needed the space. She'd never have agreed if I told her Rose was miserable. But my wife had been, and I'd finally seen it. It took me a while, though, because, just like now, I needed a hell of a whole lot of time to see my wife.
"She'd been thinkin' about dyin'," Malou suddenly spoke after a long moment of silence.
Tears choked me up. How had I let things slide so far that my wife had been so fucking depressed that she contemplated suicide? This was my fucking fault. If she didn't forgive me, and I couldn't win her back, it was what I deserved.
"But she looks at me, and she feels guilty 'cause I'm dyin', and I don't have a fuckin' choice." Malou looked at me with her dark eyes, which were sunken now. Once upon a time, I was certain she'd been a beauty; you could still see it on her face. But chemo was cruel medicine.
"I know. I read some of her emails." I explained to Malou how I'd come upon them and waited for her to rip me a new one for invading Rose's privacy the way I had.
But Malou surprised me. "Good. I want you to keep checkin' up on her however you do it."
"Will she talk to me?" I asked.
"If you have an honest conversation with her, yes. But she isn't going to let you walk all over her any longer," she warned me. "That Rose is gone. Between therapy and antidepressants, she's getting stronger by the day."
She was on antidepressants? How the fuck did I not even know that? God, I was a shit husband.
"I have seen glimpses of that."
"And you still want her?"
I smiled. " Yes ."
"She's not goin' to be your doormat any longer, Gray."
That got my back up. "She's not. I—"
Malou raised a hand to silence me. I did so.
She chuckled. "This I'm dyin' card is awesome. I pull it out, and everyone gives me a wide berth. She was your doormat, let's not sugarcoat that shit. Now, it's not just your fault; though, you fucked up plenty—Rose has never understood her own value. Sure, to protect those she loves, she'll bash someone's head in with a saucepan, but when it comes to herself, she believes that good things don't happen to her."
I listened.
Malou was like the Rose whisperer, and it behooved me to gain as much knowledge as possible so I could get my wife back.
"When she got pregnant, she was certain you'd not have anything to do with her. She was gonna come to Savannah, and we were gonna raise the baby together. We didn't know then y'all were having twins."
I clenched my jaw and kept my mouth shut. Since Rose had left, I'd gone through a variety of stages of grief. The anger part of the program was all directed inward toward me.
"Then you married her, and she was grateful. I was grateful. Your mother, bless her heart, was a cunt."
I let out a laugh. I couldn't help it. Mama Rutherford could be the C word, for sure.
"She threatened Rose all the time."
I closed my eyes; it tore at me to hear those words, to be told that. I hadn’t seen it or heard it firsthand, but I had known. I had let Rose handle it alone, as a good wife should, and kept it from becoming my problem.
"You didn't protect her."
"I didn't." Those words were like acid in my mouth because they were utterly true.
"Why?"
I had thought about this a lot as well and found some perspective that I was happy to share with Malou, even if it made me look really bad.
"When I was a kid, I was scared of my parents. After growing up, I just didn't want to deal with them. I decided that Rose managed them fine," I said, and then added, "I was a fuckin' coward, Malou, and a lazy one to boot. I just didn't want the conflict. I had ways of making it work with Rose; I had nothing to fix shit with my parents when it hit the fan."
"She didn’t have parents, but you did, and yet you're both damaged because neither of you received the love you should have while growing up from the people who were supposed to love you the most." Malou wiggled her eyebrows in amusement. "I went to therapy for a short bit, so I got the lingo down."
I liked this woman's sense of humor. There was something courageous about someone who was dying, still being able to crack a joke and not wallow in self-pity.
"I had security, but I didn't have love growing up." Not like my children had, not like I had…all because of Rose.
"She was happy with you. I mean, all couples have shit that happens. My husband used to beat me. Unfortunately, Rose wasn't there to bash his head in. But the police did it for me, so that wasn't too bad. But…." Malou closed her eyes and stopped speaking.
She was exhausted, and I gathered that she dozed off mid-sentence.
I was about to get up when I heard her, "But once the kids left home—they turned into douchebags who treated their mama like she was stupid, and you checked out."
I didn't have much to say to that except, “ Yes, ma'am .” Everything she was saying to me was true, and I had no defense beyond what I'd already given her.
"It started earlier on but became more intense after the kids left. She was happy, for the most part, with you. I want her to be happy again. But the kids are gone, Gray, so you have to step up."
"I will. I am…steppin' up, I mean. I left my company in the hands of someone else. I'm here for at least six months," and then, because I knew it to be true, I added, "longer, if that's what it takes."
Malou nodded with her eyes closed. "I've left her the B&B."
I should've guessed. Malou had no other family.
"She won't take money from you, and this is all I have. I want her to be financially secure."
Tears filled my eyes and rolled down my cheeks. I had millions, and my wife was being financially supported by her friend who she grew up in the trailer park with. If being rich meant the size of your heart, Malou here was the wealthiest person I knew.
"But you make sure she doesn't lose her family," she continued, her voice dropping. "Okay?"
"I promise, Malou." I leaned and brushed my lips against her forehead.
She smiled and then fell asleep. I sat by her bedside, watching her, and thinking about what she’d told me about herself and my wife. After a half hour of keeping vigil, I dimmed the lights and left my wife's indomitable friend to rest.