CHAPTER 8
Gabrielle
“Are you okay to walk?” Tyson asks as we roll up to Dilvan’s house.
“Yes. I can walk. It-it doesn’t hurt.”
“Okay. Instead of worrying about packing tonight, I’m going to let you rest. We can start packing in the morning.”
I reach for the door handle. He says, “No. I’ll come around and get the door.”
Come around and get the door…
I frown. This is foreign to me. Dilvan never opened a door for me. If anything, he’d let doors slam in my face.
“Why?”
“Because it’s the proper thing to do for a lady.”
“Oh.”
He gets out, walks around the front of the car, and opens the door for me.
Then he reaches for my hand. I accept, feeling the strength in his strong hand that gives me pause initially because I never knew strength could be presented as this gentle.
This nurturing. I step out, and even though I told him I could walk just fine, he throws his arm around me and helps me up the stairs, anyway.
Dilvan has never given me a key to the house because he said I didn’t belong here and thus, I shouldn’t have access to come and go as I pleased. So, Tyson rings the doorbell. Beatrice opens the door moments later. She has tears in her eyes.
“Are you okay, sugar?” she asks, then pulls me into her embrace.
“Yes, I’m okay, Ms. Bea. Why are you crying?”
“Honey, I was so worried ‘bout you.”
“Well, you don’t have to worry anymore,” Tyson says. “Tonight is her last night here. Tomorrow, Gabrielle is leaving this place for good.”
“Thank goodness!” Beatrice exclaims. “I hate that I won’t be able to see you, but I don’t hate that you’d be away from mister.”
“You know I don’t want to leave you,” I say, pinching tears from my eyes.
“I know, but don’t you worry ‘bout me. I just want you to be okay.”
I continue walking toward the stairs because I’m in desperate need of meaningful rest. Instead of letting me ascend the stairs, Tyson takes my hand and leads me to his guest bedroom downstairs.
“You can sleep here,” he says. “I’m sure there are a lot of bad memories in your room.”
He was right about that. I had plenty of bad memories there – like Tuesday morning, for instance, when my dictator snatched all the covers from the bed while I was sleeping and forced himself on me.
Standing at Tyson’s bedroom door, Beatrice says, “Gabrielle, are you hungry, dear?”
“A little.”
“Good! Ms. Bea done made some clam chowder and a few other things. Let me fix you both a tray. I’ll be right back.”
I made myself comfortable on the bed while Tyson adjusted the pillows behind my back and head.
“Is that good?” he asks.
I nod, and then just sit there, staring straight ahead at the TV.
It wasn’t turned on, but my eyes migrated to it.
Why? Because I didn’t want to look at him – this man who was caring for me like I’ve never been cared for.
And it felt weird being in his room. Even though he was helping me, sent here by Padma Alexander herself, he was still a man who wasn’t my husband.
“Are you okay?” he asks, placing his hand on my forearm.
I tremble beneath his touch and move my arm away from his hand slowly so it doesn’t offend him in any way. I’m not comfortable being touched. I don’t know if I’ll ever be comfortable with it again.
“Here you are, shug,” Beatrice says. She has a tray filled with food, a bowl of chowder, sesame chicken, fruit, as well as crackers and rolls. “Enjoy, my dear. Tyson, I’ll be right back wit’ your tray.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he says.
As she walks away, I pick up a spoon and begin eating. Beatrice makes the best clam chowder. I heard it was better than all the restaurants around here.
“How is it?” Tyson inquires.
“It’s very good. She’s a really good cook.”
Beatrice comes back into the room with Tyson’s food tray, an identical one to mine.
“Looks good. I appreciate it, Beatrice.”
“You’re welcome. Y’all eat up. I’ll be back to check on ya.” She smiles and closes the door behind her.
I resume eating, and as I dip a roll in my soup, I hear Tyson say, “My goodness. This is delicious.”
“Beatrice makes the best clam chowder in town. If she had her own restaurant, she’d sell out of this stuff on a daily basis, I think.”
“I agree. This is some of the best clam chowder I’ve ever had. I’m going to have to get her recipe.”
My brows raised. “Why? Do you cook?”
“I dabble here and there.”
“Oh.”
“You seem surprised by that.”
“It’s just that I thought men didn’t cook. They were supposed to get wives and then have them cook.”
He smirks. “That’s an old-fashioned way of looking at things. I wouldn’t make my wife cook if she didn’t want to.”
“Well, she’s lucky to have you.”
“Who?”
“Your wife.”
“I’m not married, Gabrielle.”
“Oh, thought–”
“I was speaking hypothetically.”
“Oh,” I say and concentrate on eating before I end up putting my foot in my mouth.
For the next few minutes, we’re quietly eating. Tyson, I see, is not ashamed to straight tear up a good home cooked meal. He’s almost finished with everything on his tray while I’m just finishing up the soup and starting on the chicken.
“That was delicious,” he says, dropping the spoon into the empty ceramic bowl.
“I’m sure she has more if you’re still hungry.”
“Nah, I’m not hungry, but I’ll make room for another bowl of that soup!”
I smile and bite into a strawberry.
“So, tell me something, Gabrielle. How does a girl like you end up on an arranged marriage website?”
“Um, well, when I graduated high school, I didn’t have money for college, so—”
“So, you decided to marry somebody instead?”
“No, not quite like that. It was a way to get my family out of a bad situation, so after my father talked it over with me–”
“He decided to pimp you out to a website?”
His remarks could be taken as insults, but I laugh because it is funny, and a little sad, how I ended up on the website.
So I tell him, “They say desperate times call for desperate measures, and if giving me away in marriage would ensure my family lived in sanitary conditions, then I was willing to do it.”
“Explain.”
I bite into a piece of chicken and ask, “Do you really want to know, or is this just small talk?”
“Yes, I want to know.”
“Okay.” After I finish chewing, I say, “Well, I was very poor. In many ways, I still am. But, anyway, growing up, it was me, my dad, and my two younger sisters. We lived in this very old, rundown house that probably should’ve been deemed unlivable, but thank God it wasn’t because that’s all we could afford.
There was no insulation. No bathroom. No running water. ”
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah. Really. We were dirt poor. So, my father found the website, and he thought the man I was being placed with was a gentleman. Thought I was being taken care of. He doesn’t know how badly Dilvan treats me.
I never told him. Actually, Dilvan doesn’t allow me to call them.
I can only talk to my family when I visit Padma or whenever Beatrice can slide me her phone. ”
“You don’t have a phone?”
“No.”
Tyson shakes his head. “That’s a shame.”
I feel him looking at me – staring – while I eat, and suddenly, I no longer want to chew.
“What else has Dilvan done to you?”
“Um–” I hesitate. I don’t want to sit here and spill my guts to this man, and quite honestly, I don’t want to relive the things I’ve been through. It’s a lot easier to pretend they never happened and take this way out that Tyson is giving me.
“Y’all good in here?” Beatrice asks as she opens the door, barging into the room and our conversation.
“Yes, we’re good, Ms. Bea.”
“Would you like more chowder, honey?”
“No. I’m struggling trying to finish this chicken, but I’ma finish it, though.”
“What about you, Tyson? More chowder?”
“Yes, ma’am. Your cooking skills are top tier.”
Beatrice smiles big. “Oh, don’t you flatter me, Tyson. Mrs. Padma say you make a mean stew yourself.”
“Yeah, I do a lil’ sum sum’.”
She chuckles and leaves again, but is back quickly with a refill of chowder for Tyson.
Tyson thanks her again and he talks more.
I listen as he goes on and on about the work he was involved in.
He said he helped Padma with her charities and assisted with other things she needed help with, but the details, I’m unsure of.
After dinner, I’m so sleepy, I can no longer keep my eyes open.
I nod off, though I’m not fully asleep. I’ve practiced the art of not sleeping soundly as a defense mechanism.
Tyson adjusts the covers and says, “You can rest easy tonight, Gabrielle. I won’t hurt you. I promise.”
He smiles. I don’t know him that well, but I feel like I can trust him when he says he won’t hurt me. He’s here to help. That’s all he’s been doing since he arrived.
Helping me.
So, I breathe easy. Dilvan is away. I will sleep well tonight. Tyson will protect me. Padma sent him here to make sure I would be.
And tomorrow…
Tomorrow, I don’t have to worry about waking up in his house, hopefully never again.