Chapter 19 Maurice
Although it was a holiday afternoon, the hotel was silent. Staff moved about in a choreography that seemed more like interpretive dance, prepping for Tommie and Lanie’s sunset wedding and New Year’s Eve reception.
Life moved forward while he stood still, and it wasn’t anything new.
Maurice paced the hall near the elevators, his heart and attention leaping at every ping.
But Monique still hadn’t shown. He wrestled with going back up and checking on her.
Maybe she had changed her mind and was leaving now?
She was grown, and nobody else seemed worried. So why was he going out of his mind?
He wanted to see her in her dress and the way the skirt flowed over her hips when she moved.
Tommie rounded the corner, looking dapper in his tux. “You good, B?”
“Yeah.”
“You look terrible.”
Maurice checked his phone. No messages.
“She’ll be here,” Tommie said.
“You don’t know that.”
“She’s a lot like you—consistent, steady. Keeps her promises even when they’re hard.”
The hotel wedding planner walked up. “Senor, these orchids have blossomed more over here. And with the size of your group, if we rearrange the dais with this area as a backdrop, the pictures will be lovely.”
Maurice could only visualize how Monique would look with those big, waxy green leaves dotted with bright flowers, her skin resplendent in the setting sun.
Tommie nudged him, causing the image of Monique to blink away. “He asked you a question.”
But why were they asking him? “It’s your wedding.”
“But what do you think?”
“Why does it matter what I think? I am just reading some words that you all are gonna repeat. Then I’m going to sit down. Ask the photographer.”
“Ooh, I like this version of Maurice,” Tommie said. “Not so buttoned up. So, things do bother you. Noted.” He followed the wedding planner back into the venue.
More guests arrived, some who weren’t a part of the original twelve, Tommie and Lanie’s closest group. Some people he recognized from gatherings back in Jersey or church. Maurice greeted them all with a practiced smile. He hid his disappointment that none of them was Monique.
A hand came to rest on his forearm. His gaze drifted from the empty hallway down to the aged fingers that wrapped around his.
“She’s fine. Don’t fret, baby,” Auntie Don said. “Circumstances have made our Monie think she has to face the world on her own.”
Circumstances? What was going on, and why did it feel like she was talking around something? “But she said she’d be here.” His words sounded whiny even to his ears.
Don pulled him into her, and somehow her petite frame supported his much larger one as she wrapped her arms around him.
“She promised…” The words dissolved in Maurice’s mouth before he could finish the thought. He had made a promise too, and he broke his first.
“I know, baby, but try not to worry.” She hummed in his ear, one hand rubbing up and down his back. He was hurt but not blameless. This week, he’d given her everything he had. Almost.
He loved her. The thought arrived without warning, and he let it rest.
Don patted his head. “Be patient.”
He pulled back and was met with the same tender eyes that had greeted him forty years ago. “What if she doesn’t come because of me?”
Don didn’t release her grip on his hand. “She’ll show up.”
“You sure?”
“I know my niece.” She pulled in a long breath and squared her shoulders.
“Now you listen to me, Maurice Ramon Martin, I’m only gonna tell you one time.
” Her expression left no room for dissent.
He didn’t dare look toward the new elevator ping.
“Monie has shoveled more than her fair share of other people’s bullshit, my own included.
Don’t you go piling on more when she is just now seeing the floor. You hear me?”
He heard her but didn’t understand.
Auntie Don brought her free hand to his cheek.
“You’ve always been such a sweet, kindhearted boy.
I know this is all new—for both of you—but, baby, you got to grow up and get your shit together.
Monique needs a partner in this. She’s raised her children and keeps taking care of everybody else.
” She sucked her teeth and rolled her eyes as if responding to some fresh information. “Never thinking about what she needs.”
There was a heaviness in her words and a shadow across her usually bright and open face that Maurice had rarely witnessed. It riled up his worry all over again.
“Now, you’re gonna give her some space, but not too much, okay?” She patted his cheek once, then twice, and a third time, adding a little force each time, jarring him.
His eyes locked with the woman who’d mothered him from the moment they met. The playfulness that usually twirled in her irises quieted. Aldonia Lane-Fairbanks was dead serious.
She continued, “Monie needs care, care that she’ll struggle to accept.”
Caring for himself was still new to him.
“I know you understand my meaning. You probably know best of all.”
Care, to him, had always meant control. Keeping an iron grip on what he could control in this world.
Accepting help had never been his way. Maurice supposed that if he had, he wouldn’t have spent most of his life in prison. Help had always been there—he could see that now in the way Auntie Don stood before him, still trying to nurture and teach him.
“Don’t let her be too proud, ya hear?” Her attention broke from his as Aunt Deb slid beside her, easing an arm around her waist. The subtle way Don’s posture softened as she almost imperceptibly leaned into Deborah seemed to Maurice like a divination, like he needed to see care at work.
“Sometimes,” she continued, smiling softly at him, eyes full of warmth and compassion now, before turning to Deb, “we need to be taught what true safety is. It’s hard to let go of the past because it makes us who we are today.
But, baby, God don’t make mistakes. And besides, both of y’all’re about due for some happiness. ”
“What… How…” Maurice struggled with what he wanted to ask. “But Auntie Don?” He sighed and tried again. “Yes, ma’am.”
“We’re on the same page then?”
Maurice nodded.
“Good.” The music started in the chapel, and the hotel event coordinator popped their head out into the hall, waving them forward. “Now, escort us inside,” Don said, sliding her hand up to hook into his elbow. He extended his other arm to Deborah.
“Mo,” Aunt Deb whispered, “you need persistence and patience in equal measure. It’s so worth it.”
Maurice glanced toward the elevators again before nodding in agreement. He sometimes trusted these women more than himself. If they said Monique would come around and that he shouldn’t worry, then he would do his best to be patient.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said again and stepped through the doorway.
He deposited the Aunties in their seats in the front row and kissed them on the cheeks before stepping onto the dais and settling to Tommie’s right. His sightline was unobstructed as he watched and waited for Monique’s arrival.