Chapter 36 #2
His soft, gravelly voice soothes the burning in my throat, and I hear Rich in the bluntness of his words.
“What you in here crying for, sweet pea?”
I exhale, and my shoulders drop because “sweet pea” sounds as comforting as “Slim” does.
I open my mouth and my brain tries to make sense of the jumble of words floating around it—all the ones about Rich and love and women and the men who hold the missing pieces to our broken selves.
“I’m…I’m trying to get home,” I croak. “I’ve been trying to get there since Sunday, but…”
“But what?”
“But there’s something stopping me from getting there.”
“And you think I can help with that?”
I nod.
He groans softly. “You know I’m too sick and old to be playing the middleman between you and Pup, right?”
My heart beats faster, and I scoot the chair closer to his bed. “He talked to you about me?”
He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, then opens them back up. He pushes himself up on his trembling forearms and tries to scoot his body over but stops midway.
I reach out to grab him, but he shakes his head when my fingers brush his thin arm.
“Don’t,” he mumbles.
He tries again. The three-inch journey is arduous, but he makes it. By the time he’s satisfied with his new position, I’m as breathless as he is.
He pats the empty spot that’s next to him now. “Go mark that day on the calendar for Pup, then c’mon here. I think me and you need to have a talk.”
I swipe my wet face and get up, and for the first time since I sat at his bedside, my mind isn’t racing with a million thoughts. I take long strides toward the Harley-Davidson calendar and stop in front of it.
November is as bare as October was, with an occasional doctor’s appointment, a visit with a friend here and there, and Thanksgiving, but there’s nothing that stands out.
I grab the marker from the console table, uncap it, then draw a line through November third.
Drawing the line feels like a false accomplishment because I still haven’t gotten back to Rich.
I put the cap back on the marker and sit it back on the table, then turn around. I stare at the spot Senior made for me, and that rush of tears tries to come back, but I hold them in this time.
“Come on,” he urges. “Come stretch your legs out.”
I toe my shoes off and walk towards the bed, climbing into the spot he designated for me. I lay back, stretching my legs out like he said, and even in his fragile, weakened state, I’m still less than half his size.
He stares at my pink socks before his eyes roam toward the ceiling. I follow them, and we study the new, flat white texture that was probably Rich’s doing.
“What are we looking for?” I ask.
“When Arnez was a girl, this was the only way she’d feel comfortable enough to talk to me about some things.
She’d scoot over in her bed and make a spot just for me.
She’d say, ‘Come on, Daddy. Come lay with me for a while.’ It’s how she broke the news to me that she had started her period.
I was the last one in the house to find out. ”
I smile to myself, even though my time with Arnez was tumultuous. But that part of Rich that lives inside me tells me I can’t hate a woman who’s just as broken as I am.
“I think I get it,” I reply. “I’m sure telling you this way felt less intimidating than facing you head on.”
“Am I that scary?”
“No. You’re just a dad. I imagine it’s hard for little girls to talk to their dads about such sensitive topics.”
He chuckles. “I was only twenty-one when she came along. I ain’t know shit about raising no girl. As far as I knew, Lovelaces didn’t make girls.”
I smile bigger. “She was the anomaly.”
“And the troublemaker too.”
We huff out laughs together.
“The first time she looked at me in that hospital room, I fell in love. She taught me about a world that was foreign to me—hormones, periods, bras, punk-ass boys, and the complicated nature of love.”
“I thought you didn’t believe love was complicated?”
“I never said that.” He laughs. “I know love is complicated. I’m the old man here. I’ve got almost thirty years on you, no matter how many lives Faye-baby thinks you’ve lived.”
“You remember that conversation?”
“The doctor says I’ve got a neurological disorder—not dementia.”
I sputter out a laugh, blinking at the white on the ceiling. “Understood.”
I try to picture Rich in his paint-splattered Dickies, standing on a ladder with a paintbrush in his hand, painting smooth white strokes and leaving his energy behind. Butterflies swarm in my stomach, tickling the edges of that light feeling inside it.
Senior sighs. “Raising Arnez made me understand how unconditional a woman’s love is.
It was something I never saw growing up because Lovelaces didn’t keep women—because to keep a woman meant you’d eventually have to break her heart.
My daddy raised me by himself, and his daddy raised him by himself.
There was always nothing but testosterone around and then here comes this itty bitty baby girl that cried if I stayed out too late, cleaned my wounds when I came home from Lucky’s, got jealous anytime she thought a woman loved me more than she did.
She was hard…and soft, and still is. I’m fifty-two years old and still raising a daddy’s girl. ”
“And your son?”
“What about him?”
“How’d you feel the first time you saw him?”
Another round of thunder quakes outside, and neither of us moves.
“This white ceiling is a safe space,” I say. “I won’t judge whatever it is you’re holding in over there.”
I turn and stare at the side of his face, studying his chiseled cheeks and that raised scar in case I never get the chance to be so close to him again.
“I felt relieved at first,” he mutters.
“And then?”
“Proud.” His Adam’s apple jumps as he swallows.
“I didn’t need another anomaly. I needed a boy to mold into a man, a boy that could take care of this baby girl I made by mistake until she was old enough to take care of herself, a boy that could hold his own in that pit as soon as possible because something in me was changing.
The morning he was born, I couldn’t even smell the Johnson’s I put on Arnez before we went to the hospital.
And that was my favorite smell. Shit, she was my favorite smell. ”
My stomach twists into knots. “You knew you were sick back then, didn’t you?”
He nods.
“Before or after you got LaTanya pregnant?”
“Before,” he mutters. “I ain’t need a doctor to tell me the ending to my story.”
“So you knew when you and Aunt Faye—”
“Fell in love?”
“Yeah…”
“I…I did.” He swallows again.
“You let her fall in love with you knowing that you were sick all along.”
His eyes flutter shut. “I know I’m just a sel—”
“Selfish, stupid man. I know.” I reach down, clutching his warm hand and threading our fingers together. “But sometimes love makes us stupid and selfish.”
“I had never met a woman like Faye before, and believe me, I’d met plenty.
But her heart was so pure. She gave me something I never had before in the five years we spent together.
She gave me a taste of the kind of life I only ever saw on TV—the kind I’d have if I wasn’t born a Lovelace—the kind of life I’d have if I hadn’t already ruined it.
She makes me feel like I can conquer the world when I’m with her, and then when I’m alone with my thoughts, I feel like I’m just not enough for her. It’s crazy.”
“Love is powerful and complicated, remember?”
“I remember.”
“Love is scary too…” I drag my thumb over his soft skin, swallowing a choke.
“But Rich says you told him that the only way to face his fears is to run straight at the things that scare him the most. So you’re telling me you’re gonna let a soft emotion like love scare you more than the pit at Lucky’s?
You’re gonna let your son tuck his tail and run away from real love just because it scares him? Just because I scare him?”
He opens his eyes and turns toward me with a soft smile. “Sweet pea…”
“Can I please have your son?” I whisper, squeezing his hand.
“He took care of your baby girl, he holds his own down at Lucky’s, and he’s a man—a good one.
He’s even a good friend. He did everything you asked of him.
So, can I have him now? He might be too scared to run to me, but I’m not too scared to—”
“Lovie…listen—”
“I already know.” I squeeze his hand tighter. “And Melo Barnes doesn’t put any fear in my heart. No man does—not anymore. Your son taught me that.”
“But what you gonna do with a man like Pup? Men like us ain’t easy.”
“I know…but there’s a little Lovie inside me that’s been neglected, and Rich knows that.
So he holds her, nurtures her, wipes her tears, protects her, and teaches her all the things the men in her life didn’t.
So, in return, that little Lovie is gonna give him the unconditional love you talked about. That’s what I’m gonna do with him.”
A lone tear trails from his right eye.
“Let me have him,” I murmur. “Let me give him the life and love he deserves.”
“What about what he did?”
“What about it?”
“You telling me you can love a man like him?”
“Well, I loved a man like Jamari. And he taught me a lot of life lessons, but they were intertwined with pain. Your son’s lessons are different, though. I don’t have to fall and bump my head to learn with him. He holds my hand and guides me with patience.”
His low eyes flicker with a tenderness that I never saw in Uncle Kenny’s—not even when I first came to live with him and Aunt Faye after Mama died.
“So you saying you love a fighter?”
“Unconditionally.”
“And the debt he owes?” he asks. “That’s gonna be y’all’s debt now. You know that, right?”
“I’ll take care of it.”
“How the hell you gonna take care of that?”
“There’s somebody out there who owes me…”
“Two million dollars?” he mutters to himself. “Somebody out there owes you two million dollars, sweet pea? What the hell you got yourself into? You already worrying me to death, and we just getting acquainted.”
I lift my cheek, staring back at the ceiling.
“I told you I’ve lived a lot of lives…but I think this is the best one because I think I finally found the one my mama’s been trying to get me to.
I can’t even remember how many days it’s been since I came home because I finally stopped counting silly things. Can you believe that?”
I turn to look at him and find him sound asleep.