Epilogue
Riding a Cloud
I was pouring coffee when Darius came in the back door with
a stack of donut boxes from LaMars.
“Well, don’t mind if I do!” his Uncle Samuel said, leaning
back on his stool at the island and patting his big belly.
“Lord Jesus. He ate a whole sweet potato pie at Dorothea’s
yesterday, and he’s eyeing those donut boxes like he hasn’t had food in
months,” Samuel’s wife, Miss Regina, sitting next to him, said.
“Donuts! Awesome!” Liam exclaimed, strolling in with
Scrapper where Scrapper often spent his time. Tooling around on Liam’s wide
shoulders.
I didn’t know how those two did it. How Scrapper stayed
balanced while Liam did whatever Liam was going to do. But they worked it.
Yes, my kid stole my cat.
It took him two seconds after he got home from his date.
They took one look at each other and both of them were gone. If Liam was home,
they were inseparable.
The good news about this was that Darius wasn’t annoyed at
Tex anymore for springing a cat on us.
There was no bad news.
Except I wanted to be a good momma and think it was cute my
kid stole my cat.
But I was peeved.
I saw him first!
Darius put the boxes down, spread them out on the island and
flipped up the lids.
After he did that, he said to his son, “Round up the
cousins, son. Breakfast is served.”
And what did Liam do?
He walked two steps to the doorway to the living room and
shouted, “Richie! Jacqueline! Donuts are here!”
I looked to Darius.
He was fighting a smile.
I fought grabbing a donut and throwing it at him.
Mister Sam leaned long and nabbed himself a cinnamon twist.
“One, Sam,” Miss Regina warned. “Thanksgiving is over. You
heard what your doctor said.”
“Thanksgiving lasts four days, woman,” he retorted then
munched into the donut and spoke through cinnamon and dough. “No doctor worth
his salt would deny me this donut.”
She turned beleaguered eyes to me.
I stretched my lips out to say I couldn’t help her.
Anyway, I agreed with Mister Sam.
Liam sat by his father’s uncle, his grandfather’s brother,
and reached for his own donut, and I reveled in watching them so close, soaking
in the similarities.
Soaking in the fact not only Darius had the full force of
his family around him, we were now able to give it to our son.
Scrapper sat down on Liam’s shoulder, and with interest,
studied my boy as Liam bit into a custard-filled, chocolate covered.
Liam tore of a tiny bite and offered it to his cat, who
investigated it with his teeny black nose, then turned that nose up from it.
“More for me then, bud,” Liam said to his furry friend.
Darius got close to me where I was leaning on the back
counter, dipped his head and whispered in my ear. “Better get what you want.
Richie’s worse than his dad. And Jacqueline will hoover through a box on her
own. She may be skinny as a meth head, but the bitch can put it away.”
I’d noticed that yesterday at Dorothea’s.
I stifled a giggle then hid my smile behind my coffee mug.
“Did someone say donuts?” Richie, Sam and Regina’s son,
asked, strolling in, eyes homing in on the boxes.
Darius’s hand darted out and he stacked up a lemon filled, a
cinnamon roll and a Boston cream.
He leaned back, set the cinnamon and Boston cream on the
counter by his side and handed me the lemon.
My man.
Always taking care of me.
Jacqueline swanned her tiny behind in, body swathed in a
short robe, face perfection, hair still in curlers.
Her gaze went to Darius. “Bad timing, cuz.
You don’t interrupt a girl in the midst of her daily preparations.”
“You didn’t have to come down,” Darius pointed out.
“And let Richie and Dad eat them all?” she asked.
She leaned over the boxes delicately, perusing the selection
like her decision would take hours, then snatched a jelly from right under
Richie’s fingers.
“Hey!” he snapped.
“Snoozers are losers,” she said before making a show of
biting into it, not taking her eyes from her brother.
“No wonder Tyler didn’t want to come to Denver with you for
Thanksgiving,” Richie verbally slapped back.
“Oh, Lord,” Miss Regina called to the ceiling.
Jacqueline swallowed her bite of donut and sniped, “My man
is tight with his family.”
“He’d reach for a turkey leg, and you’d gnaw off the poor
brother’s arm,” Richie returned.
She smiled sweetly, and with experience from the last two
days, I knew Richie was in for it.
“At least he doesn’t break up with me before every holiday
because I’m too chickenshit to commit, even after six years together.” She
lifted her hand and wriggled the big diamond on it in his face. Unexpectedly,
her expression turned horrified, and she whirled on Darius and me. “I’m sorry.
No offense. You all had extenuating circumstances.”
“No offense taken,” I told her.
“Kimberly understands a man needs to be ready,” Richie
huffed.
Jacqueline whirled back to him. “Kimberly right now is
checking out Chester because he’s a man who can commit.”
“Yeah, he’s proved that, with two divorces, and the
brother’s my age, thirty-two fuckin’ years old.”
“Richard! Language!” Miss Regina shouted.
The front door opened.
“Yoo hoo!” Miss Dorothea called.
“In here, Ma!” Darius yelled.
Gah!
The shouting.
I blew out a breath.
She showed in the doorway, balancing a baking pan in one
hand, holding her handbag at her shoulder with her other, and her mother,
Grandmoms Beverly, who was up from Phoenix, was at her side.
“Well, look at you. You got donuts. And here, I woke up
early and whipped up a batch of my cinnamon rolls.”
Whipped up a batch.
It took three hours to make her cinnamon rolls.
She held them forward and Liam and Jacqueline ran into each
other in nabbing them.
But Scrapper, being the scrapper he was, held on.
“I love my life,” I said.
Darius grabbed my hand, and I started to smile at him, but
he lifted it in a weird way as he shoved his other hand in his jeans pocket.
He then slid a cushion-cut diamond, surrounded by more
diamonds, with even more diamonds embedded in the band, on my ring finger.
And the main diamond was way bigger than Jacqueline’s (she
was sweet, and I liked her, but, as Toni would put it…huh).
Miss Dorothea gasped.
So did Miss Regina, Grandmoms Beverly and Jacqueline.
“Well, all right,” Mister Sam crowed.
“And I love my soon-to-be wife,” Darius whispered, staring
into my eyes.
Oh well.
Fuck it.
I wasn’t holding these back.
I threw myself in his arm and burst into tears.
Two hours later, after a bunch of other calls, and a
bunch of other family showed, I called Tod.
“Heya, girlie,” he answered. “What’s shakin’?”
“All systems go,” I replied.
I giggled when I had to take the phone from my ear because
he hollered so loud.
I walked in the back door, put my coat on the hook,
looped my purse and the strap of my attaché on top, then went through the
laundry room to the kitchen.
I’d already smelled the fact that someone had lit my
evergreen candles.
It smelled like Christmas.
And my kitchen was dripping in it (that was something from
the old place we definitely used, my Christmas decorations).
My man was at a cutting board, cutting vegetables. My son
was at a tray of yeast rolls, brushing melted butter on the top. Scrapper was
where Scrapper was not allowed to be, batting the lid of a water bottle around
the island about two feet away from the rolls.
“Son, your cat,” I said.
“He’s so tiny, I can’t see him when he’s on the floor, and I
don’t wanna step on him,” Liam replied.
I looked to Darius.
“I don’t want to step on him either.”
These two.
Someone. Kill me.
No one was going to kill me, so I did the next best thing.
I went to the wine and poured.
“Woman, mouth,” Darius ordered.
I went to my man and gave him my mouth.
He didn’t take his time, but he still did it right.
My wine and I moved to a stool and
asked them, “Wanna know what happened at work today?”
“Sure,” Liam replied at the same time his dad urged,
“Shoot.”
“Jeffrey’s office was cleaned out before anyone got in this
morning. Nothing in there. Just his desk and other furniture, which the firm
owns.”
“Whoa,” Liam said, turning to the oven to set the
temperature for the rolls.
“And Carrie was canned. I guess we have a
no-fucking-named-partners policy.” I took a sip of my wine. “I must have missed
that when I read our employee handbook.”
Liam looked to Darius, grinning. “Mom said fuck.”
Darius grinned back.
“Boys!” I called. “This is big news.”
“I know. You never say fuck. Or you don’t say it very
often,” Liam replied.
Scrapper batted the cap my way.
I caught it, flicked it with my finger, and he scuttled
after it, booty up in the air, tail swaying, front legs reached out, paws
slapping the stainless steel, head jerking side to side, totally missing the
danged thing.
Adorable little rascal.
Liam put the bowl he’d melted the butter in in the sink and
then grabbed Scrapper and put him on his shoulder.
Scrapper instantly draped himself over the curve, close to
Liam’s neck, front paws dangling forward, back paws dangling down his back,
apparently deciding chasing caps was hard work, and it was time for a nap.
It totally sucked my kid stole my cat.
“Can you dump a named partner that easily?” my son asked.
“No. Unless he did something very, very wrong.”
My gaze went to Darius.
His eyes were alight.
“Is Ally that good?” I asked.
“What do you think?” he asked back.
I didn’t have to think.
I knew.
I smiled at him.
He winked at me and then turned with the cutting board to
dump the veggies in a pot of boiling water on the stove.
We sat in the four armchairs in the Reserve, Toni
across from me, Tony across from Darius.
The table between the chairs had a board covered with
cheeses and cured meats and olives and nuts and fruit.
I held a glass of an exceptional red in my hand.
Toni decided tonight, like many nights, was a martini night.
Tony and Darius were talking about something. Sports.
Current events. I didn’t know.
I didn’t care.