Chapter 17 Pretty Wings - Eva
A Few Weeks Later
“Do you realize if this thing works between us, as a unit we have five kids?” I asked Zeke with my face nestled into his tattoo-covered ribs, enjoying the natural aroma of our lovemaking session.
Me pointing out the obvious had everything to do with Zeke asking me to have his baby mid deep stroke and my silly ass telling him yes. The last time I agreed to such a proposition, I got pregnant
“Yes, I thought about that,” he confirmed. “All we need is one more to have an even number.” Touching my stomach as if something was there, I quickly shooed his hand away because I didn’t need that kind of voodoo in my life.
“Boy, move your hand.”
“What do you mean if this thing works between us?” Zeke asked popping up from the bed, physically forcing me out of my comfort zone
“I’ve already told you where I stood regarding whatever it is that we’re doing, Zeke. I don’t want to be an emotional rebound for you,” I confessed, allowing myself to be fully vulnerable with him, which was something I could do effortlessly.
“Eva, I’ll never get over losing my mother.
When it comes to her passing, the only thing I can really do is learn to live with the pain,” he admitted.
“With that, the feelings I have for you don’t have anything to do with the loss I experienced.
I’m a grown man, and I know I was feeling you before everything happened. ”
“Zeke, I come with two sons, and while they have a very present father, I don’t want to bring anyone around them who isn’t here to stay.”
“Eva, you just did the math, so you know I have three daughters. I’m never going to play the game to where they have a revolving door of illegitimate stepmothers, and if I felt like you were going to be a temporary part of my life, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
” Nodding my head in understanding, he laid back down, allowing me to cuddle in between his arm and his side.
“So, you really want me, huh?” I asked, breaking the silence, causing Zeke to release a chuckle which I felt the vibration of because I was wrapped around him like he was a tree, and I was an eager climber ready for a challenge.
“Yes, I really want you, Eva Monroe.”
“Okay, we can do this for real. I know you think that I have my doubts about you, but honestly, I know you’re a good man, and I feel like you’re someone who my sons could learn from as young men.”
“What are your reservations then?”
“I’m just afraid to fall harder for you than I already have.”
“Oh, so you like me like me? I knew you wanted me just as bad as I wanted you,” he teased.
“You don’t have to be afraid to fall for me because I’m right here to catch you, and as cheesy as that makes me sound, I mean it.
I’m falling for you hard, which is why I want to make sure you’re in the same head space as I am.
I’m not trying to fall by myself either. ”
“So, we’re doing this?”
“Yes, we’re doing this.”
Slightly turning over, he leaned his head toward mine and covered my lips with his.
Just as he deepened the kiss and moved his body on top of me, my cell phone sounded from across the room.
A quick glance at the clock on the wall, and I saw it rested on a few minutes after midnight.
I instantly thought the worst and feared it had something to do with Egypt, Tyger, my mama, or my sisters.
“Let me get that,” I stated, rolling from underneath him, rushing to where my purse sat on his dresser, with my phone right beside it.
Quickly grabbing my phone, I saw my sister Alexa’s name flashing across my screen and hurried to answer it.
“Alexa, are you okay?” I asked and she sniffled in response. “Talk to me. What’s wrong?” I questioned, feeling my heartbeat well beyond its normal rhythm.
“It’s Daddy. He was in an accident,” she stated between sniffles. “Me and Mama are on our way to the hospital now.”
“Oh, thank God it’s not serious,” I stated, failing to use the barrier I had put in place a long time ago when it came to Alexa and our dad. I hated to admit it, but her confession made me release a breath of relief, which seemed to be stuck at the bottom of my lungs.
“Eva, are you kidding me? I’m telling you Daddy was in an accident and we are rushing to the hospital and you’re saying, oh thank God it’s not serious. You can’t be for real right now. I know you and Daddy have a strained relationship, but he’s still our Daddy.”
“You’re right,” I conceded. “Everett Monroe is our Daddy, and unfortunately, I can’t change that. I’ll say a prayer for him and stop by in the morning. Let me know if you need anything.”
Beating me to the punch, Alexa ended the call, and her abruptness had me staring at a blank screen.
“Is everything okay?” Zeke asked, pulling my attention away from replaying the conversation in my head and turning me to face him.
“Yeah, everything is fine.”
“So, who called you?”
“It wasn’t about anything important.”
“Somebody called you after midnight, it has to be important,” he reasoned, walking backwards in the direction of his bed, pulling me with him, and onto his lap.
“It was my little sister, Alexa, calling.”
“And what did she say?” he queried, and I felt as if he was knowingly leading me down a trail I had no intentions of voyaging.
“She said that our dad was in an accident, and they were rushing to meet him at the hospital.”
“Okay,” he stated, pausing, sitting in a moment of silence, and I could tell he was engaged in an internal battle, going back and forth, trying to decide the right words to say in the unknown moment where we were charting unknown territory.
Zeke and I had known each other since high school, but we only knew each other on the superficial front, and while we had no problem sexually testing each other’s limits, emotional walls were something completely different.
“Why aren’t you rushing to meet them at the hospital?”
“My daddy and I aren’t exactly on the same page in life, and honestly, our relationship isn’t the best. It never has been.” I confessed, staring at nothing in particular as I thought about possibly losing the man who made up half of my genetic makeup.
At the thought of having to bury him, I didn’t feel a single tear forming, and that in itself hurt me. People assumed just because my daddy was physically present in the home while I was growing up, it made me better off, when in all honesty his presence was nothing but traumatizing to me.
Growing up, the only thing I could count on my daddy for was to show up to my school functions reeking of alcohol while verbally abusing any and everyone who asked him about showing up to a school obviously inebriated.
I could also count on him to be unemployed.
Oh, I dare not forget how I could count on him to act like my sisters and I didn’t exist. Truthfully, it was mainly Janet and I who got the worst of him, while Alexa somehow got the bits and pieces of him that were laced in small morsels of decency.
He was still a drunk, but he managed to stay sober enough to be the loudest and proudest dad clapping at all her ballet recitals and choir concerts.
“What’s the deal with the relationship the two of you have?”
“I guess you could say I resent him for the way he treated my mama while I was growing up. He never kept a job. He stayed with a pack of beer in his hand. On top of all of that, he verbally abused my mama in front of us, and after he broke her down enough, he turned the emotional abuse from her to us.”
“You gotta heal from that, Eva. You need to heal before you don’t have the opportunity to get the closure you need.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Why isn’t it that simple?” he questioned in response, not letting it go like I wanted him to. “To me, it sounds like you’re making excuses.”
“Zeke, it’s complicated.”
“Only because you want it to be complicated. My dad died while my mom was pregnant with me, and if I had a chance to sit down and have a conversation with him, I would do it in a heartbeat.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you never had the opportunity to meet your dad.”
“And I didn’t know you weren’t on good terms with yours. We’re learning each other on a deeper level,” he articulated, shrugging his shoulders before placing a gentle kiss on mine. “I’m going to let you in on something I learned a long time ago. Before our parents were our parents, they were them.”
“Of course, they were them,” I responded, looking at him upside his head because I didn’t have a clue what he was trying to say.
“I’m saying that before your dad was your dad, he was just a man.
More than likely he was a man who dealt with his own fair share of trauma and pain.
Unfortunately, most people don’t work through their own mess before they have kids, a lot of people unpack their baggage in the midst of raising their children.
For instance, I didn’t realize how not having a father in my life affected me until Chasity was born,” he admitted, shaking his head, wearing a faint smile as if he was going down memory lane.
“There I was with a tiny ass baby in my hand and not a clue how to show her how much I loved her. I knew how to go out and provide for her because to me it was common sense. I knew what everybody was telling me, as far as to make sure she never wants for anything and to make sure she knows I’m always there, but I didn’t have a play by play on how to do that, especially the last part.
I’m not making excuses for your dad, but just consider that before he was your dad, he was a man. ”
“I’ve never sat back to see him for anything except for who he wasn’t and who I wanted him to be.”
“It sounds like it’s time to change the narrative.”
“But how?”
“The first step is us putting on clothes and going to meet your sister at the hospital. You need to check on your dad. Take it from a man with three daughters. He needs you just as much as you need him whether you know it or not.”
Sealing our impromptu therapy session with a kiss, I stood from his lap, we both got dressed, and made our way to NBP Memorial.