Chapter 14
Things were coming together at the church the following week.
I flew in the day before for rehearsal. There were coordinators who walked around and set up flowers. A few others put together folding chairs. The wedding party lingered near the altar; some looked focused, and others looked restless.
Kennedy stood at the front with her veil over her face. I guess she did it for placement. I didn’t know much about weddings or what went on at one. She looked excited and nervous at the same time, as if everything that ever mattered to her had come together in one room.
“Okay!” the woman I’d been introduced to as the wedding coordinator boomed through the chaos of the room. “Let’s do one full walk-through.”
The room got quiet as everyone shuffled to their places.
I stood from where I was seated in the back of the room and watched as Kennedy walked down the aisle toward me.
When she reached me, she slipped her arm through mine and guided me to the front of the doors of the church. “You good?” she whispered.
“I got you.” I smirked. “Are you good?”
She smiled the sweetest smile I’d ever seen her give.
When we were growing up, smiling was seldom in our house, with my abusive stepfather stomping around and shouting our names as if they were bullets firing from a gun.
It was nice to see her so calm and controlled.
I was happy that she’d chosen to share her life with a man who was the total opposite of the only role model we’d ever known as a man.
Kennedy’s soon-to-be husband, Tyler, was a man she’d met during her short time in college.
I was upset when I learned she’d dropped out when he got her pregnant, especially when I was the one who paid the tuition.
But he ended up doing the right thing and supporting her throughout the years.
They opened their own restaurant there in Detroit and, soon enough, went on to acquire others throughout the country to help their business grow and prosper.
He was okay in my book, and I was so proud of the woman she’d become.
Everyone took their places. Kennedy squeezed my arm tighter, just as the music began.
The bridesmaids walked down the aisle in their blush-pink dresses with their arms locked with the groomsmen dressed in gray to “Ribbon in The Sky” by Stevie Wonder.
Tyler stood at the front with his arms folded and eyes focused on Kennedy.
I glanced between them and noticed the looks they shared with one another.
It was as if the space between them was nothing but an inch the moment their eyes locked.
They looked as if the wedding was just a memory they shared when returning home at the sweetest moment.
It was one I hadn’t felt, at least not since I was a teenager.
It was one I wished I knew as well as Kennedy had.
When all of the wedding party made their way to the front of the altar, the coordinator signaled that it was our turn to walk down.
Kennedy’s grip around my arm was tight as we took our places.
Stevie Wonder’s song stopped, and the room went quiet.
Then the strings to a melody I didn’t immediately recognize began to play.
After the first few seconds, I realized it was a track I had written years ago for Kennedy.
My eyes lit up, and I snapped my neck toward her.
She was already smiling at me when we met each other’s gaze.
“Surprise!” she whispered.
The wedding coordinator waved her hands at us as if to hurry us. I had no time to react. I fought back the tears in my eyes as I took a step forward with my sister by my side when, suddenly, the doors to the church opened behind us.
Even through the music that played through the speakers, I recognized the way the steps scraped against the floor. That same sound used to terrorize my nervous system, and the memory made me feel like I was a sixteen-year-old boy again.
Kennedy and I both turned around and stopped in our tracks.
Standing in front of me was a black man in a wrinkled suit and crooked tie.
His eyes were glossy in a way nobody had to explain; they were a deep red and so low that everyone knew.
When he looked at Kennedy and then back at me, he smiled as if he thought he’d made it just in time.
“Hey,” he said. “I ain’t miss it, did I?”
I felt Kennedy’s body stiffen beside me. The music cut.
“This is rehearsal, Daddy,” she said carefully.
He blinked and looked around at the empty pews. “Oh.” He chuckled. “Yeah. I knew that.”
Nobody corrected him. I heard whispers behind me, the wedding party speaking among each other. My eyes never left him.
That was the first time I’d been in the same room with the man who’d abused me after my mother passed.
He was the same one who bruised my ribs over dirty dishes in the sink and blacked my eyes because I was a reminder of the woman who broke his heart by dying.
I felt rage and anger all over my body. My body stiffened then, and Kennedy’s grip on my arm grew tighter.
The coordinator opened her mouth to suggest a break, but Kennedy shook her head. “It’s okay. Let’s just go ahead.”
We turned together and went back to our places. My stepfather sat quietly in an empty chair in the back. The music started again. Kennedy held onto my arm tighter than before, and we walked.
I wasn’t sure whether it was the heat from the anger that welled inside of me or what I felt from him watching the whole time, watching me do what he was supposed to do.
When it was over, the coordinator clapped softly. “Perfect. Everyone knows where they’ll be tomorrow.”
Murmurs filled the room. Some people sighed in relief. I didn’t.
I couldn’t. My body didn’t know how. Even with the rehearsal ending and Kennedy stepping away to laugh and talk to her party, my jaw stayed locked. It was as if my entire nervous system didn’t get the memo that it wasn’t the same house, same hallway, . . . the same nights.
As if he could read my thoughts, I saw him stand up slowly. He didn’t sway. He didn’t yell. He didn’t even break anything that time, yet somehow, I stood frozen. I didn’t know what to do with a version of him that wasn’t monstrous. He walked up to me.
“Hey,” he said, smiling as if nothing was wrong. “Look at you.” He reached his hand out, but I didn’t take it. I just looked at it. He dropped his hand awkwardly. “You always been funny like that.”
I felt my eyebrows scrunch at that remark. “I learned,” I said flatly.
He nodded toward the aisle. “You did good up there.”
I didn’t respond.
“I been . . .” He continued, his voice low. “I, um, been tellin’ everybody how proud I am. My son out here doing his thing with the music.”
“Your son?” I snapped. I felt something stir in the pit of my stomach.
He frowned. “Yeah.”
I laughed. “Are you fuckin’ with me?”
“What?” he asked. He looked around the room as my voice grew louder. It looked as if he was genuinely confused, as if the drugs fogged his memory of all the times he slapped me while he reminded me that I wasn’t his real son.
“You callin’ me your son now,” I said. “You used to make it real clear I wasn’t.”
He stiffened and let out a nervous chuckle. “What you talking about?”
“I’m talking about you having my body pressed up against the washing machine while you gave me body shots,” I said, “bruising my ribs so nobody could see.”
His jaw tightened, but I didn’t stop.
“I’m talking about black eyes because I left a plate in the sink,” I continued. “My mama had just died, nigga.”
He scoffed. “You exaggerating.”
“You ain’t never even like me,” I said. “You wanna know why I never came back to this muthafucka?”
He crossed his arms. “Why you so loud, cussin’ up in this church?”
“Every time I thought about this city,” I said, voice louder, “I thought about that house. And every time I thought about that house, I thought about you and the shit you put me through.” People had stopped talking then.
Everyone was watching. I saw Kennedy quickly walk up to meet where we stood.
“And every time I thought about you,” I continued, “I thought about why I’m fucked up and can’t fix it. ”
He shook his head. “You was just soft.”
“Soft?” I snapped. “I was a fuckin’ kid!”
“You was emotional,” he said dismissively. “I was just trying to toughen you up.”
I stepped close to him with my fists balled up, just as Kennedy reached us. She stood in between us and placed her hand on my chest. “Toughen me up? You used to whup my ass till I knocked your ass out in the front yard. You wasn’t tough then, nigga!”
Kennedy pushed me back, but I kept yelling. For a moment, I couldn’t even feel her hands on my chest. All I felt was heat. The way he called me soft, as if I deserved what he did, or I imagined it, like I had been the issue.
I felt like I was standing in the kitchen, trying to explain myself while he twisted every word into weakness.
I felt like that little boy who never processed his mother’s death because crying about it would make it worse.
Crying only brought another reason to get hit.
I wasn’t upset because he called me soft. I was angry that he still believed it.
After all the years that passed between us, after the grind, the success, and the rebuilding, he still reduced me to that scared little boy he used to corner. That dismissal cut me deeper than I realized.
I laughed, but tears burned in my eyes. “I slept in my car. That car got towed with all my shit in it. I slept on buses. Walked miles in the snow.” His face didn’t move. “I ain’t have a home!” I yelled. “My mama died, and you made sure my spirit died with her!”
Kennedy, who was pushing me backward, out of the doors and into the lobby, stopped and covered her mouth. I saw her eyes get glossy, but I kept going.
“That ain’t love!” I continued. “Tough love ain’t shit like what you taught me.”
He rolled his eyes. “You have some kids, and you tell me how hard that shit is, doing it by yourself. Bills and shit. You don’t got all the answers either, nigga!”
“I know that I would never do that shit. I would never slap a kid because he cried when his mama died three days before. I was scared I’d be just like you, scared I’d lose my temper and hurt some innocent kid, give them body shots, bruise their ribs, make them afraid in their own home.
” My chest heaved. “But that ain’t me,” I said. “That was never me.”
When Kennedy and I reached the doors and stepped into the lobby, I gestured around the church. “You stumble into a church, high and drunk, thinking you missed your daughter’s wedding.”
His mouth opened, then closed.
“I’m a father now,” I said, calmer. “And fear ain’t gonna stop me from being there.”
Tyler stepped out into the lobby with us and closed the doors. He placed a hand on my shoulder. “Zay—”
I nodded, but I wasn’t finished. I no longer had an audience, but I continued to speak to the two of them. It felt like I had too much to get off my chest.
I looked at him. “I show up for my sister. I show up for my daughter. And I’m gonna show up for my family.
” I stepped back. “I ain’t never gonna be him,” I said quietly.
“Ever.” Then I turned and walked out into the city.
The driver was sitting in the car when I walked out.
I walked to the car and opened the back door before he had time to even see me.
“Oh, boss,” he stuttered. He blew smoke from his mouth and threw the cigarette he held between his fingers out of the open car window. “I didn’t think you’d be done right now. My apologies.”
“It’s cool. Let’s just go to the room. I’m through for today.”
We pulled away from the curb. I leaned my head back against the seat and closed my eyes. I felt the car move forward, but part of me was left in that church that day—the part of me that buried a childhood that refused to stay quiet.
I had finally faced the man who was the monster under my bed for so many years, even into adulthood. But I hadn’t thought about how I would learn to live the rest of my life without carrying him.