Chapter 17
Angel
CHRISTMAS EVE
“Baby, cheer up. It’s Christmas Eve, and it’s Belle’s first Christmas. Do you want her to remember her first Christmas as the one where her mother was sad?”
“Mommy, why does everyone keep doing that?”
“Doing what?”
“Using Belle to get me to behave the way they think that I should. Belle doesn’t even know what Christmas is. And she won’t remember this Christmas any more than she’ll remember whether I fought my battles with a positive attitude or chose the coward’s way out this year.”
“What?” she asked, looking up from stuffing Belle’s wrapping paper in a trash bag.
“Nothing, Mommy.” Her argument reminded me of the same one Sawyer posed about how I should handle going to the ball knowing that Jeremiah would be there. We see how that turned out.
“I just want you to cheer up and enjoy your time with your daughter. I don’t know what’s going on with you and Chris, but you can’t let that impact this baby’s Christmas.
And while she may not remember this Christmas as she grows older, she will feel your energy right now and respond to that.
” Mommy chastised me, removing a squirming, whiny Belle from my arms.
She patted my baby on the back tenderly and rocked her in her arms as she sat on the couch and grabbed a cookie that she’d baked earlier from the platter on the table.
“Keep acting up, and I’ll be taking my baby on that cruise with me.
Yes, I will. I’ll pack your little sweet cheeks into the suitcase, sugar mama.
” She cooed to Belle, who gurgled happily.
“Angelina, I’ve told you a hundred times, sometimes these young kids have to learn the hard way. Lord knows you did,” my grandmother Helen stated, walking from the kitchen into the living room where we were.
“I know, Mama. I’m just trying to teach her from my mistakes.”
“And that’s the problem. Sometimes you have to let them make their own mistakes so they will learn. Sometimes, it’s the only way to learn,” Grandma declared.
“Thank you, Grandma,” I replied, resting my head on her shoulder.
“It’s okay, sweetums. Now let’s finish watching Miracle on 34th Street.
” Grandma patted my leg and pressed play on the remote control to resume watching TV.
Just as Belle was my mom’s baby, I was my grandmother’s baby.
She protected me and showered me with love and affection.
I prayed that my daughter and mother had a close relationship when Belle got older the way my grandmother and I did.
I had a close relationship with my mother, too, but my grandmother spoiled me.
We had watched just over half the movie when my grandmother declared, “Lord, someone’s house must be on fire.”
“Why do you say that, Grandma?” I asked.
“Look at all them red lights, sweetums,” she stated, pointing out the window.
My mother shifted Belle in her arms and stood to walk to the window. She pulled the curtains back. “Mm. What’s going on? They’re in front of our house, but I don’t see a fire anywhere. Lord, I don’t think our kitchen or any other room is on fire. We would’ve smelled it.”
She shoved Belle into my arms and rushed to the kitchen to see if there was any smoke coming from there. I stood to go to the window just as Mommy rushed back from the kitchen. “Nothing is going on there.”
She rushed to the door with my grandmother, Belle, and me right behind her.
When she pulled the door open, she stopped in her tracks, and my mouth dropped open at the sight of Big Red, fire engine number eighteen, and Ginger, Christian’s ambulance, all decked out in colorful, twinkling Christmas lights.
On our lawn stood Mr. and Mrs. Holly, Nicholas, Joshua, and Christian, and they were singing “Silent Night.” My mother clapped her hands in delight, and my grandmother gasped and then laughed.
I stared at them as my heart pitter-pattered in my chest and then began to ache.
I had not spoken to Christian in two days.
I had refused every text message and phone call that he made to me since leaving the conference center that night.
My heart was broken about the conversation that I overheard.
There was nothing that he could say that would alleviate the pain that I felt.
I told him about how I was reticent about giving my heart to someone else, only to have it broken after the way Jeremiah treated me.
Just to learn that I had been nothing more than a joke between friends, and someone he used to get back at his ex, broke me more than Jeremiah ever had.
It also made me realize why Erica had behaved the way she had when she saw me at his house.
She knew that he wasn’t serious about me, and it made me wonder if he had been trying to get back with her all along. That thought gutted me even more.
Just as I was about to turn around and walk back into the house, Christian stepped forward with a guitar in his hand as he sang Brian McKnight and Vince Gill’s “Christmas You and Me.” His family stepped back while he stepped forward. I was amazed at how well he could sing.
I had heard Christian sing on a few occasions, but not very loud. He was usually humming a tune or singing low under his breath, and that had only been since we reconnected. I could never recall a time when I heard him sing when I was with Jeremiah. I was amazed at how lovely his voice was.
I knew that he played the guitar though. I recalled him fooling around with it back in the day, when Jeremiah and I were together.
Tears filled my eyes as I listened to the lyrics.
My heart yearned for him, but I wanted to bolt and run.
Christian walked up the steps, still singing, and it felt like my feet were rooted on the porch, unable to move.
Belle threw her arms up in the air as she babbled something and then reached for him.
Christian set his guitar down and looked at me with a question in his eyes. My mother and grandmother walked down the steps to speak with his family, and although I wanted to go in the house, I couldn’t be cruel to him or Belle. I nodded and handed her over to him.
“Hey, gorgeous.” He greeted Belle and kissed her forehead. She blew spit bubbles as she grinned up at him and became a babbling mess. Girls. She had it just as bad as I did for this man. Poor baby.
“I didn’t know you could sing like that.”
“I seldom sing. Mama made us boys join the choir from the time we turned five until we turned eighteen. She said that we wouldn’t be using our voices for sinning. We hated it. Guess we seldom do it because it reminds us of that time.”
“Well, you have a beautiful voice.”
“Thanks.”
“I’ve got to go, Chris. I’m not even sure why you came.”
“Listen,” he stated, turning his gaze back to me. “I want you to hear me out. If you’re not feeling a brother after my explanation, then send me on my way, and you never have to speak to me again. Fair?”
I nodded, crossed my arms over my chest, but I didn’t utter a word.
“You walked up on the tail end of the conversation. I know that you didn’t hear everything, because if you had, you wouldn’t have run out the way that you did.
But I think you heard just enough to get the wrong impression.
When you left to use the restroom, Jeremiah came over to me and asked if he could holler at me for a second.
I’m sure you know he ragged my ass about being with you, but I wasn’t going for that.
“He told me how Erica couldn’t wait to tell him about us when she ran into him at the mall.
I told him how Erica thought that I was using you to get back at her, which is what we were arguing about the day you came over, and she was there.
Jeremiah told me that she said the same thing to him.
And she was convinced that was the only reason that I was with you.
He said he told her that wasn’t true, that he had always known I was feeling you.
So even though he was surprised we were together, he shouldn’t have been.
“I told him that if I was on some shit like that, I could see how she might believe that I wanted her to think that I was settling down, figuring that shit might hurt her ass. I told him that you would be the perfect person to make a nigga look settled. But trust me, baby, I never used you to hurt Erica. I don’t give a shit about what she’s got going on.
I don’t want her back, and I never have plans on going back to her, even if there were no you and me. ”
“Jeremiah always did accuse me of having a thing for you,” I whispered.
A sad smile drifted over Christian’s face. “Angel, please forgive me, baby.”
“That hurt so badly, Chris. All I could think about was how you promised you’d never hurt me.”
“And I didn’t intentionally hurt you. I cannot forget the impact you and Belle have on my life.
I can never go back to the way life was before y’all came into it.
I mean, yeah, I should’ve told you that he was in town.
For that, I was wrong, and I apologize. But the rest of it was a misunderstanding. I’m sorry that it hurt you though.”
“I forgive you, baby. But what really happened between you and Erica? When Jeremiah left me, it seemed like you two were still in love.”
“We were living a lie. We broke up about a year after you and Jeremiah did. I couldn’t keep her happy for nothing.
Erica left me because she said that she wasn’t happy anymore.
I wasn’t trying to get her back, because I knew that with all I did for her, if she weren’t happy, I would never make her happy. ”
“There just seems to be bad blood between you two now.”
“There was for a while, but I’m learning how to forgive and forget. Angel . . .” He looked into my eyes with a somber expression, and I knew something was on his heart.
“What, Chris? You can tell me anything.” I had already made up my mind to forgive him.
“Erica aborted my child and never even told me. I know she has a right and all, but she didn’t even have the decency to tell me that she had done that shit.
My cousin had gone to pick up a female friend of his who was at the clinic.
He saw his friend saying bye to Erica in the parking lot, and he asked her what that girl was doing there, since he knew who Erica was.
“His friend said that she and Erica had started chatting about their procedures while they were waiting. She told my cousin’s friend that she didn’t want to be a single baby mama, but someone’s wife and mother someday.
She said that she had recently broken up with her boyfriend, so she saw no reason to keep the kid. ”
I could hear the brokenness in his tone, and that hurt my heart. I took a step forward and grasped his face in my hands. “You are a good man, Chris. Don’t let that break you. Someday, you’ll be an excellent father to a lucky child.”
He glanced at Belle and then back at me. “I’m hoping that someday could start tonight.”
“Do you know what you’re asking for, Chris?” I asked just as Nicholas, Joshua, and Mr. Holly started chanting, “Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!”
I looked up and pointed at the mistletoe above us and laughed. “Sir, if you don’t want a week’s worth of dishes and washing Big Red, you’d better kiss me.”
“Hell yeah, I know what I’m asking for,” he replied, answering my previous question. “A lifetime of this,” he declared, and leaned down and kissed me to a squirming, babbling Belle’s delight.