30. Mr. & Mrs. King #2
“Damn, can’t an uncle just be a little emotional?”
Genesis wasn’t finished. “Uncle Zay cried, too.”
“It better have been tears of joy and not jealousy cause I’m not having any more damn kids.”
We all laughed at YaYa’s outburst. Now everybody looked at Zay. My brother stared at my daughter in betrayal.
“Baby, that’s not nice to tell everyone’s business,” Chanel chimed in.
“Was I lying?”
The table dissolved into chaos with everyone cracking jokes on how Jared Jr. was making everyone soft. I leaned back in my chair and watched it all unfold.
The laughter.
The teasing.
The love.
The normalcy.
I felt a sense of tranquility wash over me.
The kind we spent years fighting for. The kind I once thought we’d never get.
Across the table, Chanel laughed so hard she nearly knocked over her drink.
The ocean breeze played through her curls.
The sunset painted her skin gold, and watching her glow like this healed something in me.
Every year we’d lost didn’t hurt quite as much, because tomorrow we got to choose each other again, but this time it would be publicly and permanently.
As the sun disappeared beneath the horizon and our family filled the night with laughter, I found myself counting the hours.
When it was time to return to our separate villas, I barely slept.
I wouldn’t say I was nervous, a Nigga had dreamed of this day every day for eighteen years when I used to write Channy from the deepest parts of me.
I was excited, but I was also anxious. The sun was taking too long to rise, and the stupid superstition that kept us from being together the night before the wedding had me fiending for her touch.
Since we rekindled, I hadn’t spent a night outside of her presence, so no matter how hard I tried to sleep, I couldn’t.
I got up and went to sit on the balcony. Outside, waves rolled onto the shore in a steady rhythm. Palm trees swayed in the darkness while warm island air drifted through the open balcony doors. In the next villa over, I prayed my Angel was sleeping peacefully.
The entire operation began at noon. The kids were somehow even more excited than the adults.
Genesis kept asking every ten minutes if it was time. Aniyah and Amara had become unofficial assistant wedding coordinators. Demir was pretending not to care while secretly caring a lot. AJ and JoJo spent most of the afternoon roasting me.
“Unc nervous.”
“I ain’t nervous.”
“You’re definitely nervous,” AJ taunted.
“I’ll throw both of y’all into the ocean.”
Neither one of them seemed remotely concerned.
The disrespect was generational at this point.
Eventually, Jared found me standing alone near the beach.
The ceremony site stretched before us. White chairs lined either side of the aisle.
Thousands of white and pink lilies framed the altar.
The ocean sparkled beyond it all. Everything looked exactly like the photographs Chanel saved years ago.
I must’ve been staring too long into space because Jared smiled.
“You did good.”
The words landed heavily. Because he knew what Chanel and I fought and overcame to get here. My ruthless ass brother, Zay, even shed a thug tear. He clapped me on the shoulder.
“I’m proud of you, baby bro. This shit didn’t come easy for you, but you were determined to be with your forever, even when stubborn Niggas like YaYa and me got in your way. You deserve this happiness. I love you, man.”
Zay’s words choked me up. I just prayed that Ma Dukes was in heaven, smiling down. I hope she saw that her baby boy finally got it right. I swallowed hard.
I stood to the left of my father-in-law, who was the officiant, next to my brothers, Zay and Jared, and my nephews, who looked dapper as hell in their tuxedos.
“You think she’ll like it?” I asked my groomsmen.
Jared laughed. Then wrapped an arm around my shoulder. “That woman would’ve married you in a Walmart parking lot.”
I laughed despite myself. He wasn’t wrong. But that wasn’t the point. My Angel deserved beautiful things. We stood in the aisle for what seemed like an eternity, wondering why the bridesmaids hadn’t started their descent down the aisle.
Kenya ran down the aisle frantically, and the sight of her made our guests gasp. My heart began to leap out of my chest in worry at the sight of her in her gown without any of the other bridesmaids behind her.
“What happened?” Zayden called out.
“Nothing bad.”
An immediate relief washed over me.
“Baby Bear won’t stop crying. We have to redo her makeup. She’s so damn happy.”
I closed my eyes and smiled. My Angel was so emotional.
“Fuck the makeup, tell her to come to me however she is.”
“Absolutely the fuck not, X. She will not cuss me out because I let the photographer get pictures of her less than perfect. I asked for a few servers to pass out hors d’oeuvres and margs while y’all wait.”
Jared laughed. “ My dramatic ass sisters, man.”
Relief settled over me. No problem, I would wait as long as Chanel needed me to, because after everything life had taken from her, I loved that my Angel was finally overwhelmed by happiness.
The ceremony began about an hour later. Every person I loved sat beneath the Tobagan sky. Every branch of our family tree gathered together whole and healthy.
Genny was the flower girl, and my nieces, Amara and Aniyah, were junior bridesmaids. Jazzy, Kenya, and Camilla looked lovely as bridesmaids.
Everyone rose as the violinist played Keyshia Cole’s Sent From Heaven. By the time the second verse of the song began and Chanel appeared at the top of the aisle, everyone else disappeared.
I’ve seen my Angel thousands of times.
She was gorgeous the day I met her at that party.
She was beautiful even while she was spiraling and fighting addiction in college.
She was a radiant mother to our children, both living and deceased, but none of them prepared me for this one.
Angel took my breath away. The dress flowed around her like water. The ocean breeze blew her veil back, giving me glimpses of her smiling face.
Tears filled her eyes immediately, and mine weren’t much better. A Nigga had been taught to never show weakness, but Chanel was my weakness, the one I would move heaven and earth for, the one I would fight a million wars for if it meant she was safe in every lifetime.
The walk down the aisle felt both endless and impossibly short. I wanted to run and snatch her ass from the aisle, but YaYa kept staring at my ass, sending me warning glances to keep it demure.
When Chanel reached me, her hand slipped into mine.
“I can’t believe you did all of this?” Her voice trembled.
I smiled. “Anything for my Angel.”
My father-in-law began speaking and greeting everyone in attendance. The ocean rolled behind us. And for the first time in our lives, there was nowhere else we needed to be. We weren’t rushing to make up for lost time; we were only here together.
I knew Andre was speaking, but because Chanel’s hand was in mine and she was standing in front of me, I couldn’t make out anything he was saying. I just recognized his nod toward me, alerting me that it was my turn to say my vows.
The words I’d spent months writing and rewriting. The words that somehow still didn’t feel big enough. I looked down at the paper in my hand, then at Chanel. I put the paper back in my pocket and decided to just speak from the heart.
“You forgot your speech?”
“No.” I smiled. “I just realized I’d rather talk to you.”
The family chuckled softly.