Chapter 14 Maurice
The restaurant was positioned high above the boat landing, carved into stone against streaks of blossoms of every color, sandwiched between an onyx sky and sapphire sea. It wasn’t ornate, but it was grand.
New Jerusalem. The book of Revelation, chapter twenty-one, sprang to Maurice’s mind.
They’d docked and departed the boat on a string of blessings from their guide.
Then they hosed themselves off. The water rushed between the planks beneath their feet, those planktons still broadcasting proof of their existence: silent yet persistent.
Bright. Undeniable. Kind of like how he felt right now.
Maurice’s steps bounced on the wood, like he was still in the water. He was buoyant. His heart was light. Lifted.
“I’m wobbly,” Monique chuckled beside him, leaning into his arm.
He was wobbly too. They swayed and rocked as if still on the sea. Could it be the intense feeling of touching this woman, being close to her, that tilted his equilibrium?
“Do you need to sit down?” He scanned the area for seating and secured his hold on her.
He’d seen her falter a few times already.
Now knowing about her cancer validated his close watch.
The word didn’t scare him. She said she was recovering.
He’d learned early that there were greater things to fear, like sudden silences and the sharp wood-on-wood crack of a gavel.
Those struck like a whip against his flesh.
With her, he was not afraid. The warm, salty seawater had startled him at first, but then he’d kissed her. And there was nothing left to fear.
“I’ve never been great on boats, but I love the water.” She let out a long sigh. “The meds make the vertigo worse. Right now, I feel good. Real good.”
He slowed their pace, and she looked up at him with confusion. The sudden desire to kiss her rocked him.
“Cousin!” Tommie shouted from nearby, interrupting them.
“Y’all get in here.” Everyone had gathered by a group of trees and flowers, cell phones in hand.
They arranged themselves and snapped a few selfies before Monique stepped back and took control of the photo shoot, capturing pictures of the couples with her camera.
She asked the men to pose together, and Tommie leaned into Maurice. “Monie is dope, right?”
Maurice hummed in response. She was better than that, more than that. Dope was too small a word. It couldn’t hold all that she was.
“She’s smart and funny. Crazy talented. And she’s kind. Just good. I don’t know how she manages to show up for everybody with everything she’s got going on. But she does.”
He hummed again, not taking his eyes off the focus of Tommie’s praises. Correction burned on his tongue, but he swallowed the fire. Maurice saw a woman who was weary and wary, but duty-bound. Tommie saw what he wanted to see.
Monique wasn’t just smart, kind, and beautiful. She was unlike anyone Maurice had ever encountered before.
“Look at me,” she said, but he had never taken his eyes off her and the way her white skirt dripped over her hips and then fluttered down toward the shimmering brown flesh of her calves as she gave directions. A flash of silver at her ankle teased him.
Her eyes met his and held him in her soft, playful grasp.
Tommie shoulder-checked him. “You gonna say anything? You’re feeling her, right?”
Monique’s earlier statement about Tommie and the Aunties plotting barreled at him, a speeding train of a reality check.
“You all worked it out so we’d meet.” Maurice was unsure if the words were in his mouth or in his head.
Lanie looked away. At least she pretended to be a little shamefaced. Nothing changed in Tommie. “Is it wrong for me to want my best friend and my best cousin to be happy? You could be good for each other.”
Maurice shook his head. Tommie had a way of pulling strings, but their scheme might be a bridge too far. But it was Tommie and Lanie’s wedding week. He wouldn’t ruin it. “Why go through all of this?”
“Why not?” Tommie looked defiant. “But you need to talk to Moms, she’s the real mastermind.”
Deb. “What are you talking about?”
Lanie pulled Maurice’s head down and pecked his cheek. “Sweetie, you are so slow sometimes. We got tired of waiting on you to do something.”
She released him and pirouetted to her groom. “Let’s go eat and dance, y’all!”
“Lanie…” Maurice called after her. “Elaine!” Tommie and Lanie laughed and continued up to the restaurant.
When Maurice turned around, his eyes found Monique scanning through her photos. He stepped toward her, taking her bag from her shoulder. The look on her face stopped him. So beautiful.
For so many years, he’d been locked away.
And it hadn’t just been when he was in the penitentiary.
As a kid, he’d been angry and afraid. Afraid for his mother.
Furious over the situation that they couldn’t seem to get out of.
Afraid of the anger that roiled just under his skin, making his flesh prickly and itchy.
He could never ease up on his diligence, on his self-control.
Prison hadn’t been the only thing that took from Maurice.
He’d done a lot of this to himself. Withholding himself, keeping joy in sight yet inaccessible.
Now all these firsts came parading at him, pelting him like a sandstorm, peeling away all his protective barriers. And he’d created a lot of barriers.
Until he met Monique, there had never been a reason to interrogate if all his needs were met. He had work that he enjoyed and people he cared for, a home of his own—a quiet, empty home.
At fifty-one, and with his freedom entering adolescence, he wasn’t so sure of anything anymore.
Maurice gathered himself before extending his hand. “Shall we?”
She slid her hand into his and let him lead her toward the party that was ascending the stone steps.
By the time they made it up to the dining room, the family had already made themselves comfortable at the long table that overlooked the water.
Their group was set apart from the other diners, but not isolated like they were yesterday.
Tommie waved them over, grinning as if he’d personally arranged for the moon to rise full and bright over the bay.
String lights crisscrossed overhead, casting everything in warm amber. Below them, through gaps in the floorboards, that same bioluminescent bay pulsed with light—proof that the magic they’d just experienced was real and ongoing.
Monique moved toward the table. Maurice followed, her camera bag still on his shoulder because he wasn’t quite ready to stop carrying something for her.
She chose a seat, and he stood there like an idiot until she patted the chair beside her, where there would be no buffer between him and the overwhelming reality of her.
He sat.
Her shoulder brushed his as she settled in. Bare skin against the linen of his shirt. That small touch traveled through his entire body like a current through water.
The server appeared. Menus materialized along with water glasses and a fresh basket of yeast bread.
Focusing on anything other than cataloging every move Monique made was next to impossible. He needed to remember everything.
“You okay?” Monique asked, voice pitched low enough that only he could hear.
“Yeah.” The word came out rough. He cleared his throat. “Just… thinking.”
She made a sound. Not quite a laugh, not quite a sigh. “You’re always thinking.”
True. But tonight his thoughts moved slow and thick, caught in the space between what had happened in the water and what could happen next. More of her mouth on his and her hands on his body. More of her opening to him, like he was someone who deserved that kind of trust.
He groaned and shifted in his seat. The urge to touch her warred with the urge to run away.
She smiled, small and knowing, as if she could see straight through every barrier that he’d spent his life erecting, like what she saw there didn’t bother her at all.
Leaning on her elbow and leveling him with a look that was part teasing and part inspection, she asked, “Are you gonna say anything?”
Maurice twisted his hands in his lap. “I don’t mean to be… silent.”
“Then what is it you mean to be, Mo?”
He stared at his hands and whispered, “Careful.”
Before she could respond, servers arrived in a procession with plates piled high and steaming in the humid night.
The table erupted in laughter. Something Tommie said, probably. Maurice missed it, unable to track the conversation when his entire awareness centered on the woman beside him and the weight of her presence pulling at him like gravity.
Monique didn’t hesitate. She speared a piece of crispy fish, brought it to her mouth, and closed her eyes as she chewed. A small sound of satisfaction escaped her throat. Her tongue darted out to catch a crumb at the corner of her mouth.
Thy lips, O my spouse, drop as the honeycomb: honey and milk are under thy tongue…
The line came unbidden, as scripture sometimes did, recalled like literature or a dope verse when your own words were insufficient.
Song of Songs, chapter four, verse eleven.
In all the years of SCI Bible study, that book made the brothers the most uncomfortable.
It was too vibrant, too lush and physical for a place made of steel and concrete.
Debates over whether it was divine love wrapped in a romantic metaphor or a raw, visceral account of love and desire were sometimes too powerful for the study room doors to contain.
In the yard, metaphor was the safest. Metaphor kept the body from the spiritual and the heart at a manageable distance.
Maurice had always agreed.
Until now.
Watching her, there was no posturing, no defense. He was simply a man observing the woman he desired, trying to put into words how the simple act of watching her eat had altered him.
“You sure you’re okay?” Monique asked, quieter this time.
Heat crawled up his neck. He looked around. They all had been watching him. Laughter, full of knowing warmth and affection, rippled around the table.