Chapter 28
SOLOMON STUPIDLY thought she’d just gone to the bathroom to compose herself, shake out some nerves. But when she didn’t come back after his sister read through a few more cards, he’d gone after her but couldn’t find her.
The reception continued, so he waited to see if he could find Robert Bluestone to salvage something for her, but he’d left early.
“Eh, what are you doing, Solomon?” His father leveled a stern look his way. “Of all the women you can choose, why be with someone who seems to have no education, no ambition?”
They were only adding insult to injury.
Solomon shook his head. “How could you meet her, talk to her, and think she has no drive? She is one of the most passionate people I know. Just because she doesn’t possess every degree known to man doesn’t mean what she does isn’t respectable. Ambition and education are not everything.”
His father scoffed. “But it is something. Something very important to us and our culture. Need we remind you all that we sacrificed to make sure you and your siblings had the best education money could buy? Especially you.”
No, of course there was no need to remind him.
He felt the weight of their sacrifice every day, like a dumbbell on his heart.
The responsibilities of the first son of Nigerian parents were never far from him.
Even when those parents were successful, the expectations didn’t ease.
They increased, the box around him only getting tighter.
“And what about your studies?” his mother chimed in. “Has she been helping you or hindering your progress? There is much to prepare for as we approach the end of this fiscal year.”
“It’s impossible to forget because you won’t let me!”
His mother leaned back, her gaze widening behind her glasses.
His father stood, his face pinched in warning, although his body seemed deflated. “Sit, son.”
Solomon looked down. When had he stood up? And like his family must be thinking, when had he gathered enough stupidity to talk to his parents like that?
He slumped into his chair, closing his eyes against the disappointment in their faces. He wished he could rewind the last two hours, or perhaps about two months, before he decided to blurt out that he had a girlfriend and bring Kenya along on this frustrating ride.
Muscles flexed and unflexed. He willed his breath to release until he could regain the words pulsing in his throat.
“Forgive me.” Resignation and breath mingled. He opened his eyes, averting his gaze. “You are right. I have something to finish. I have no time for foolishness like a relationship.”
“Solomon.” His father’s voice held command and a note that compelled him to want to turn, but it was time to make his exit, to gird himself for another day.
Because he couldn’t deal with the truth that it wasn’t about a relationship. They would have had him married off yesterday with five grandchildren bouncing across their knees if he was marrying a woman that checked all their boxes.
There was no protocol for someone who broke out of everyone’s expectations, and even his own.
He strode out of the room. He needed to find her.
To comfort her, especially if the stricken look that had crossed her face when she left was any indication.
He needed to try to understand what had happened and reassure her.
Or was it to reassure himself that the love he’d been feeling for her all this time wasn’t a fluke and that her flub of the cards was just a one-time mistake?
She had just discovered some significant news about him.
And as much as he was tempted to brush it off, it mattered.
Because if it didn’t, he wouldn’t have been so hesitant to tell her the full truth.
KENYA PRESSED her fists against her eyes, her newly shaped nails biting into her hands. She pressed until the words banged incessantly in her head. Why can’t you see, stupid? Why can’t you see like everyone else? Why are you so stupid?
“Kenya?” The drumming in her head had been so loud, she hadn’t heard Solomon’s soft approach.
She sucked in a ragged breath, willing him not to be there, for this to be just a figment of her imagination, because didn’t the drumming have a certain Afro beat to it?
The background music from the reception set the tone for her embarrassment.
She allowed one fist to slide partway down her cheek.
Nope, no imagination here. Just shameful reality. If he didn’t think her stupid before, he must be sure she was now. He could add that to his medical diagnosis.
She stayed seated in the corner spot where he’d almost kissed her earlier.
“Go away.”
He stepped forward despite her words.
“Come again?” His voice chipped away at some of her resolve to hide, as if questioning with his tone what kind of audacity she had to expect him to leave.
That’s what she expected, wasn’t it? That he would see her for who she truly was, not worthy to be anywhere near his magnificent presence, much less around his accomplished family.
But here he was, annoyingly smelling like that delicious jollof rice with the caramelized scent of fried plantain on the side.
His presence filled the alcove and somehow tamped down the beat of the drum of her shame.
She peered up at him under damp lashes, expecting confusion, annoyance, or frustration, but not pain.
Not him looking like her issues pierced his heart too.
“Solomon, why didn’t you tell me who you are?”
“If you had known everything about me, would it have mattered?”
“It matters to build something real.” Couldn’t he see that they were forming something real?
“But we didn’t make promises to each other, Kenya. This was the deal. And as much as you wanna think it was just about me getting what I want, you said yes because you had a plan in place too. There was a huge benefit for you as well.”
She shuddered. He was making it sound like a business transaction. But maybe all along, that was exactly what it was. She stood, using the wall to help her up, crossing her arms over her chest.
“A benefit that I failed at. I didn’t know what I would be asked to do. And I—I just don’t know how to explain that I was put in probably the worst scenario I could be in.”
“Kenya, if I had known . . .”
“But you did, and you would have known more if you paid attention. Don’t you remember the library?
You told me to be me, and that was all I needed to prepare for.
But being me also comes with not being able to read as fast or adequately as everyone else.
Being me means that I have to pause and lift my hand up like this”—she formed an L with her left hand—“just to remind myself which side is left and which is right. Being me means I need alarms to remind me of what to do. I need lists because I can’t capture everything all at once.
I fly off the seat of my pants because that’s how my brain is wired, that’s how I can flow.
Time slows down in those instances, but when everything is set and rigid and structured—” Two people passed by them and turned their heads in their direction.
She lowered her voice. “I need to leave.”
“Make me understand why and what happened,” Solomon said, stopping her with a hand on her shoulder.
She closed her eyes, relishing his touch, but that only reminded her of what could not be.
“Yes, this was an opportunity to redeem the mistakes I made at work because of my dyslexia. But it’s never been this bad. I struggled so much in school, but somehow I’ve been able to work through it in a way that hasn’t hindered me.” She shrugged.
“But I haven’t been able to move. I haven’t been able to run.
I haven’t been able to do all the things that help my mind, and so when I found out that you weren’t just an amazing physical therapist but the heir to something much more than an Etsy shop .
. .” She waved her hand. “How ignorant of me to assume. You have international offices. You design couture for celebrities and royalty, Solomon—royalty! And here I was thinking I was actually doing something special by taking you to the soccer game to see Messi!”
Solomon moved closer. “That was special. And don’t you know that that’s not where we started?
And that’s part of why my parents are here, because they want to introduce what they do to places like Hope Springs.
And don’t you understand that the reason why I wanted to do all this anyway and to just get them off my back is because I don’t want that life, Kenya?
I mean, I’m not saying I am against my parents’ business, but the pressure and the drive and even the product, I’m not passionate about. ”
Kenya stepped closer, tentatively, not wanting to enter his orb and get pulled in.
“Then tell me why this means so much to you, being this doctor of physical therapy, and why it’s just not some other game or front or a mask that you’re wearing.
Or are you just some business lackey playing the part of a public servant?
Why does it feel like you’re not being honest with yourself, even now?
Because your desires don’t change who you are and who you should be with.
I don’t have words for everything, Solomon.
I never did, but I think we should just let it be.
Why would I have another chance after the disaster that I caused?
Sprained ankles, missed appointments, broken deals, childhood embarrassment—I’m just done trying to fit in other people’s boxes and still ruining things. ”
“Kenya, if I had known more, maybe I could’ve helped.”
“Maybe I didn’t have a sign saying I have dyslexia and sometimes get things backwards and sometimes the way I dance is off, or I put together LEGO sets in mirror image.
How could I say that I love to talk and I love words, but reading makes me struggle, and sometimes I’ll hear a word in my mind and will replace it before I’m ready?
Especially when I’m stressed, especially when I’m nervous, especially when I’m trying to impress a guy that I’ve grown to really, really care about. ”
She despised herself then for the way her voice caught and the way the tears rose despite her efforts to blink them away.
“I don’t always know how it’s gonna trip me up because I don’t always know what’s coming.
But I thought,” she said, “I just thought that I had finally found a safe place, a shelter from the storm of me. When all of it was just another box for me to fit in. And how can I continue to be the vow-renewal planner after all of this? It’s just—” She shook her head, her posture rigid. “It’s all just so embarrassing.”
She wished they could go back just a few weeks, sitting in the corner of the waiting room, comfortable in their conversation with each other. Instead of right now, where it was like they were at a standoff.
He sighed. “Do you want me to take you home?”
She shook her head, holding up her skirt with one hand. “You don’t have to rescue me again, Doctor.”
“I know,” he whispered, but he still walked with her from the room.