East Five #2
Then a warmth flowed through me, knowing my father had prayed for me.
Hoped for a better future for me. He had failed.
My life had been hard for the last few years, but damnit, man.
I hadn’t been some kid he visited only when time permitted.
He was actually working toward my happiness.
“Wait, you said wasting your time. On what?” What had they been up to?
Time almost standing still, I watched Styx walk away from me and to the center of the room.
Ever so slowly, he turned to face me. “He wanted you to know the truth. He wished I had told him sooner than I did.” His chest heaved for a couple of seconds before he told me, “He was going to tell you…” His voice cracked, “On your tenth birthday.”
Oh my God.
“That’s why we were headed here.” He pointed to the workstation on sawhorses. “Do me a favor?”
Numbly, I walked over there, in shock that the last day my dad spent on earth was the one he was going to reveal all this. How I wasn’t, nor ever would be, a normal ten-year-old boy. And he believed I should know it.
The pride on every uncle’s face that day now went so much deeper than I had thought.
Styx asked, “See that remote?”
Numbly, I picked up the white medium-sized remote.
He instructed, “Push the numbers zero-four-nine-nine.”
The way he said nine-nine made me pause. Gramps was trying to tell Silly Rabbit something.
As my door code’s true meaning revealed itself, my jaw unhinged. “You knew of Tallulah.”
Styx delivered one chin dip and spoke as if having limitless sympathy. “And that you would never be hers.”
Zero for the beautiful girl who called me Nine.
Even though I knew, irrevocably, this to be true, I couldn’t help but feel for the brilliant-minded young woman who never had a chance with me. I had thought there was hope, but she knew the truth all along. “If you ever looked at me like you do water—”
“Press the numbers, Maddox Gentry.”
Stunned, I did as told. Then, my thoughts—my brain’s functions—all came to a standstill as Styx began to move. No, not him. The floor under his feet started to move. Any tool, item, or piece of furniture on top of the huge plate of concrete moved with him.
Not trusting my eyes, I practically stumbled forward.
Like I would stop at the seawall outside, I stopped at the edge of a huge empty concrete crater. Barely able to catch my breath seeing this miracle, I gazed at my grandpa, wordlessly.
He smiled. “You were his world, kid. He wanted your impossible… possible.”
In the center of this incredibly spacious room was a hidden Olympic-sized pool.
Styx was proud. “Lennox called it The Lagoon. Happy late Life Date, Baby Boy.”
Noma…
Overwhelmed by so many things, I covered my face with my hands. “I’ve been cursing you for days now, yet you’ve been fighting for me. You all have. Noma did so much, too. U-Uncles died. Dad is gone, yet right here with me. And I’ve hated my birthday for so long—”
Styx teased, “Oh, that’s just what Sinners do.”
Removing my hands, I opened my eyes when I heard him jogging.
He was off the Lagoon’s top and running around the edge. “There’s more!” He trotted down wide steps that compared to a resort’s pool-step lounging area. “We planned on finishing the sides and steps with river rock, but your dad wanted you to pick them out. Come on!”
Without question, I darted down the stairs to follow him across the bottom, toward a side section of the pool.
I jerked to a stop when I saw a very long underground tunnel, about four feet wide and tall.
It pointed directly under my room, yet I couldn’t see the end of it.
“Wait a minute. Does this lead to the ocean?”
Styx’s smile was so big it was contagious. “Ya didn’t think we would cage her in, did ya? A bunch of freedom riders?”
My jaw hung half-crooked with a smile. “She can come and go as she pleases?”
His head bobbed. “Well, not yet. You and I have to finish—”
I had him in an embrace that screamed gratitude.
No, the tunnel wasn’t complete, and the Lagoon needed some finishing touches, and some tunnel security issues worked out, but now I had a chance at this crazy life.
Now, there was a possibility that I could be happy, seeing my girl whenever she wanted me.
I whispered through incredible emotions, “Thank you.”
Grandfatherly arms held me as if this embrace was long overdue. “You’re welcome.”
Sitting at the bottom of the pool, backs leaning against a wall, legs lying straight in front of us, each with a beer in hand, we faced the tunnel, sighing. So much pain brought us to this point, but also an immense amount of love—the immeasurable kind.
Styx, starting to sound tired, kept filling me in.
“We’ll design a way for her to control her entering and exiting.
We had thrown around ideas to make sure no one, or nothing, else could enter.
Technology keeps advancing, so we could even have some sort of eye scanner or some crazy shit for club and Saleeni security. ”
The fact that he considered a separate entity spoke volumes to me.
The trust I now had in him, unbelievably, kept growing.
“Yeah, I’m confident you will figure it out.
” Feeling peaceful, something foreign to me, I asked, “If you have the energy, can you tell me about seeing Saleeni for the first time?”
His head resting back against the wall, he studied me. “You have the strength to stay calm?”
Oh. I wasn’t sure. Do I? “Is she safe?”
“I promised not to lie to you. So, that answer is I don’t know for sure how, but she has stayed alive for all these years you were gone.” He dared a grin. “And from what I’ve seen since you’ve been back, you are the one in danger.”
Proudly, I admitted, “Kind of a badass, ain’t she?”
“For sure.” Styx’s phone vibrated. After reading it, he happily proclaimed, “Pie is here!”
As he left the bare Lagoon, I harassed him, “Should we truly be letting people know we’ve returned by having pizza delivered?”
His voice echoed throughout the room as he reminded me, “Nothing is as it seems.”
Too buzzed from guzzled beers, I let the old coot handle security and went back to staring into the dark tunnel.
Imagining her swimming toward me, I had a smile plastered to my face.
I love you, Saleeni. Within seconds, I heard a distant high-pitched note that was beautiful music to my soul. “Hi, baby.”
Styx was coming back down the stairs with a pizza box in hand, saying, “Hello to you, too, big fellow.”
“Asshole.” Laughing, I rolled an empty bottle in his direction. “Not you. Just answering her back.” He may not have heard River sing, but the same didn’t apply to me with Saleeni.
He stepped over the beer and continued returning to me. “Gotta say, that is some freaky shit.” He plopped back down with a couple of grandpa groans. “Kinda jealous. I wanna be psychic with someone.”
Thinking of all the times in the last hours he’d already been there for me, I complimented, “You tend to read me like a book, librarian.”
He stopped opening the box that was between us. “Librarian.” His jaw muscle tightened. “Dear God, I miss her.”
“For real.” After opening a To-Go container of anchovies, I scooted it closer to him and grumbled, “Gross,” then grabbed a piece of pizza.
“I dare you to tell me you two didn’t have a freaky connection.
” I took a bite and talked around it. “Now I know when she wa’ dancin’ to Morrison, it wa’ all for you. ”
“Mmm, her dancing.” Styx grabbed a slice and then laid a single piece of disgusting fish on top of it. “Those hips of hers used to rock my—”
“Aaand this conversation is over.”
Laughter had him choking on the food in his mouth. “Not sorry. She was the hottest grandma ever!”
I threw a napkin at him. “Shut up!” I took another huge bite. “Back to Saleeni.” Then something occurred to me. “Hey, she doesn’t speak English. How did she tell you her name?”
“She didn’t.” He chewed until he noticed I had stopped, completely. His chin jutted. “Now what?”
“How do you know her name?” I shrieked.
He snarled, “Rude,” before explaining, “As I was saying,” he rolled his eyes, “after being sure you and Noma had no one tailing your car, I rushed back here. It was dark and rainy.”
Re-seeing the raindrops on the windows of the car I was hiding in, I nodded. “I remember that.”
“Maybe because I had just lost you two, I was half-terrified of what I would or wouldn’t see when I forced myself to walk to the seawall.
” He stared off, as if reliving that night.
“The water was dark. No magical beings.” His head drooped.
“It broke my heart so deeply that my body caved. I sat down, letting my feet hang over the edge… and cried.” He peered up at the ceiling, fighting tears.
“I cried out loud for my son, whom I had lost. For the woman I loved, who was racing away. For the grandson I may never see again… I cried for a failed dream.” He took a deep breath, then exhaled, now staring at the pizza in his hand.
“That’s when I saw the prettiest little glowing green eyes in the night. ”
I covered my mouth so that I wouldn’t scream pure joy. She was there. All along.
He nodded, wiping under his own eyes. “Yeah.” He blew out more air. “From under the water, she stared up at me, seafoam hair dancing around her little pixie face.”
Not uncovering my mouth, I only nodded. I remembered that light hair, now much darker.
I released my mouth when Styx ruffled my own hair. “Like you. First white hair to this dark mop.” He pushed my head away, playfully.
I loved hearing anything and everything about her. Small or major.
Styx continued, “Sitting on that wall, now crying even harder at the answered prayer, all I could do was wave and say ‘Hi’ like a bozo.” He chuckled. “Can you imagine? Seeing such beauty, such an unexplainable being, and waving like an idiot?”
Er… Kind of. “It is actually polite.”
Styx studied me, then leaned to the side. “Ya don’t say? You did it, too?”
I shoved pizza in my mouth. “Not a big deal.”