Chapter Two #2
Damon shrugs as though this isn’t an issue. As if bringing me to meet his parents is second nature. “Why not? Do you prefer to spend the holiday alone? I assure you my father’s chef is the best on this side of the Mississippi. ”
No, I’ve spent enough alone. Too many. I don’t say that. But also, “his chef?”
Damon chuckles again, “My father is the Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery there. He doesn’t always have the time to cook for himself.”
Of course not. But learning about Damon feels…
good. Like he’s finally letting me in after months of knowing him.
I feel… acceptance . But it could be a trick.
Right? Tricking me into knowing him, feeling accepted and wanted so I don’t talk to Detective Arlo.
There’s only one way to find out. “I’ll need to collect my passport. ”
He nods once. “Jonas drove your car back. It’s in the driveway. Your keys are hanging by the front door.”
“Why are you being kind to me?”
“Because she loves you, Harrington, and, you’ll find I have very little tolerance for anyone or anything else that doesn’t involve her.” He replies, walking away.
Because she loves me.
Simple as that.
_________
Damon’s father lives in an older, gorgeous, meticulously kept two-story colonial home with a picture-perfect manicured lawn.
The interior is adorned with modern lighting, light oak hardwood flooring.
It feels like walking into a museum. It makes me sick how much it resembles my own home; how much it screams of loneliness.
But the older gentleman that looks like Damon’s much older twin, except for the eyes that are green instead of silver.
(He must get those from his mother.) He welcomes his son (and me) with open arms. He’s exceptionally in shape for an older man, lean with broad shoulders, muscular arms and lean hands. Hands that save lives.
“I’ve had your rooms made. ”
“Thanks, dad.” Damon says, embraced in his father’s arms and when he pulls back, Dr. Archer shakes my hand but still peeks over at his son from above my shoulder.
“Tabitha is finishing up dinner so we just have to reheat tomorrow.”
“Her family doing well?”
“I hope so. Her son just graduated and started his rotations at my hospital. Antionette got into-”
“Damon Beau Archer!” the holler comes from the archway at the end of the foyer from a petite black woman with an afro wearing a Chef’s coat and black pants.
Her smile is radiant and her arms are set wide apart and he goes to her, collecting her into his arms and when he stands, she levitates a good foot off the ground.
“Tabi!”
“My boy, you have grown!” it’s now I can hear her Cajun accent.
Damon laughs as he settles her on the ground. “Tabi, it’s only been two months. And I stopped growing over a decade ago.”
She responds in French and I watch the exchange, feeling my lips turn up at the corners when she smacks his arm and then pulls hers up and flexes beneath the sleeve of her Chef’s coat. The exchange is odd but warm.
I hear the click of the door shut behind me and the older Doctor Archer stands beside me.
“Thank you for having me.” I say, nervously holding out a bottle of wine I picked up yesterday and had it chilling in my refrigerator until Damon picked me up this morning.
He grins. “No one should be alone on the holidays.” Oh, he has a British cadence in his words.
I must’ve not heard it during my rush of anxiety when he opened the door but all in all, the home is comfortable even though it lacks…
familiarity. He holds out his hand to take the wine. “I’m Henry Archer. Come.”
The next day around noon, we begin to eat Tabitha’s food; a grand Turkey, dressing, cranberry sauce, mac-and-cheese, mashed potatoes, gravy, a green bean casserole, and finish off with her pumpkin-pecan pie, which reminds me of home. To say I devoured an extra slice would be an understatement.
“So, off to see your mother then?”
“Come with us.” Damon pleads.
“Son… I-“
“Dad, I have news to tell you and when I tell maman, you’ll want to be there. For her. Plus, I want you to meet my girlfriend. Our girlfriend.”
“I don’t think I need to be there when you tell your mother you’re bisexual, son. Also, this is an awkward way for me to meet your boyfriend, had I known-“
“What? Dad, no.” Damon lets out an exasperated laugh. “She’s our girlfriend but we’re not together. She’s with her other boyfriend, Jonas, in London with his family. She wanted to be here to meet you but it was his mother’s birthday.”
“She has three of you?”
“It’s more common than you think, polyamorous relationships-“
“What’s her name, son?”
Now Damon thumbs the condensation from his wine glass, avoiding his father’s gaze. “Raven Monroe.”
Henry’s eyes widen then narrow. “Son, if the medical board finds out you’re dating your patient-“
“ Former patient. She’s no longer under my care. And it was a month or so after.” He lies. “I also no longer work at Lorne Wood. I work at Rayne-Moore.”
“What business do you have there?”
“I’m the psych counselor there.”
Henry drops his fork, not hiding his displeasure from his son. Shaking his head at Damon, the light in his eyes dimming. “So you took a pay-cut, a severe one, to follow her out there, didn’t you? And if the school board finds out?”
“They knew I was a doctor on her team but she doesn’t fall under my care.”
“You were the sole doctor on her team, Damon. I knew your obsession with her was borderline possessive but I didn’t think it was this bad, son. You could jeopardize your entire future. You worked hard to be where you were.”
Watching Damon get reamed by his father pleases me. What doesn’t please me is the way Damon’s demeanor sags.
“What’s the news then?”
Damon’s eyes darken to the color of a faded, forgotten tombstone. “I… found Maddie’s murderer…”
“What?” I decide I can’t watch Henry’s eyes well with tears, although unshed at his son’s revelation.
“And I took care of him.”
Henry deadpans at me.
“He knows.”
“Tell me everything, son.”
“First of all, you’ll love Raven. She’s the one that found the information that lead me to finding her killer.
” And then, Damon begins his story. I latch on to every word, every syllable, not missing anything.
He clues me in, telling me how his mother decided to stay in Paris, advocating not only for Maddie’s murder but those that went missing as well, pouring so much of her money and her energy into it, it tore their marriage apart.
When he’s done, and Damon reveals he has a ticket for his father already, Henry leaves to reschedule his patient’s surgeries and pack a bag that’s a little too full, as if he doesn’t plan on coming back.
_______
On the flight to Paris that evening, Henry is riddled with anxiety. “Twenty years since I’ve seen her.” he says, fiddling with a brochure in his bouncing lap.
“It’ll be okay, dad.”
“And if it’s not?” He snarls but Damon takes no offense.
“Then we still have each other and you can finally move on.”
“Nobody simply moves on from Amelia Bordeaux.” The nervous Englishman replies softly.
He remains fidgeting and quiet. Nervous to see the love of his life once more.
Anxious, and possibly hopeful, that she still loves him – the way he loves her.
Has always loved her. From the moment he saw tears in her eyes, pleading and praying over her little girl with a sick heart, to a silent god that often let those pleas go unanswered.
“She didn’t pray to God to heal Maddie,” he tells me, looking out the circular window as we sailed over the clouds.
“ Mia prayed for me and for time. For her God to steadily guide my hands. To cut and sew and stitch everything properly so Maddie would have a chance to live. Whether it be two days, two years or twenty. All she wanted was more time with her daughter.” He sighs, fogging the window.
“I had asked her to wait for me. To not go to Paris until I could get a week or two off…” he shakes his head as he trails off, obviously shaking away the memories that plagued his mind every day.
“I had gained a wife and a daughter the day my Mia married me. I was the happiest man alive. Then Damon was born and no one could tell me I wasn’t the king of the world.
They were my life. Coming home to a woman that seeks to be in your arms, that loathes being away from you, that brings peace when the rest of the world is full of chaos, and let me tell you, there were some nights after a hospital shift, or a surgery gone wrong – I wanted nothing but to melt into the ground and hide from the world, I melted into my Mia instead. ”
He chuckles when he continues. “Although, with all that passion in her soul, there were times she was the chaos, all three of us vying for her attention, or the three of them vying for mine. But I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
I never thought I wanted children, to be a father, and yet, I couldn’t imagine my life without Amelia.
Maddie was a bonus, another little heart I held in my hands, literally and figuratively.
When Damon came along, I felt complete.”
I don’t know if he realizes how close he’s hitting to home with me.
“But then I lost my wife and my little girl the same day. I may not have raised her from the day she was born, but she was mine nonetheless… I have been incomplete for twenty years. ”