Chapter 21 Maurice
Maurice stood in the garden doorway watching the elevator doors close on Monique. The party continued behind him. Music. Dancing. Tommie and Lanie laughing with family.
He wanted to rush through the rest of the reception and allow himself to be pulled, to close the gap between him and Monique.
How could he dare to embrace her? Him with his history of violence, of rejection and rejecting, of hardness of heart and contrariness. Yeah, he was a hypocrite of the first order.
God, he wanted to love her out loud and in the open. Secrets and shadows were never meant for Monique, and he couldn’t bear to drag her toward the abyss that he’d found solace within.
He was in it now—in this in-between space of emerging from water, heart pounding, nose burning, body heavy, ready to fall back but needing to leap or at the very least find the strength to pull himself up and out of the heaviness of his past.
But watching her leave—really leave—felt like someone had reached into his chest and squeezed. And they refused to let up.
“Mo?” Tommie appeared at his elbow. “You good, B?”
“She’s leaving.”
“Figured she would.”
Tommie looked at the party, then back at Maurice. “So what you gonna do about it?”
He was a hypocrite. “I don’t know.”
Tommie jabbed a thumb behind him. “The photographer wants more pictures. Come on. You can figure it out inside.”
They weaved through the small crowd, past the attempts to stall them and heap praises and congratulations on their shoulders. None of that mattered.
The winding path to the door brought him to an alcove where Lanie was posing for photos. The photographer was directing her. “Hold up,” Tommie said, “we’re back.” Maurice and the photographer stopped moving.
Maurice looked around before stepping closer to where Tommie now stood beside his bride, their bright white garments a contrast against the variegated backdrop of greenery.
“Congratulations,” Maurice said, wrapping the couple in his arms, “but I gotta go…” How would he explain that he was dippin’ out of their wedding to chase Tommie’s cousin halfway across the country? It sounded crazy in his own head. But it felt right in his heart.
“Of course, you do,” Lanie said, pulling away but still holding his hand.
“Yeah, if you didn’t go, we’d kick you out anyway.” Tommie didn’t drop his arm from Maurice’s shoulders.
Bewildered, he shifted his attention from Tommie to Lanie and back again, and again, and again.
“Lord, you are so gifted in so many things, but inferences have never been one of them,” Lanie said. She laughed and pulled him to her again. “Go to her. Be what she needs. Don’t question things too much,” she said, resting her cheek against his.
Tommie clapped him on the back. “When Monie’s having a hard time, she pulls away.”
Yeah. He learned that right away. But Maurice only understood just now that he liked the chase.
“We didn’t take care of our Monie like we should have,” Tommie said, tears glistening in his eyes. “It’s hard to see her carry so much—”
“So much that isn’t hers,” Lanie said quietly.
Tommie nodded, his jaw working. “We’re gonna do better. Starting now.” He pinned Maurice with a rare, serious look. “And you’ll be there too.”
He smiled at his best friends and then nodded. He was down.
“Let’s put that smile to use,” the photographer they’d forgotten was there said. “Mr. and Mrs. Lane, please stand on either side of the reverend.” He moved them into several other poses, circling them as he snapped pictures. Each click of the shutter renewed his longing for Monique.
“Let’s get the parents with the bride and groom,” the photographer said, and Tommie trotted off to gather the Turners. The Aunties were already nearby.
The only people from his past who hadn’t forgotten about him surrounded Maurice now. And he had just stood in front of them preaching about loving without reservation.
He almost laughed.
The thousands of hours of counsel that he’d given and taken.
Being an encourager, a leader, a lover of man, of life, of the Word of God, but somehow he’d spent most of his life treating the people who loved him like creditors.
He called it debt. They called it family.
Swooping in wearing a cape like some neo-Christian Batman, martyring himself, denying himself, while Tommie and Don and Deb had been there the whole time.
He hadn’t been a hypocrite. He’d been unseeing.
He was still a convicted killer—remorseless and unrepentant. That hadn’t changed. But maybe that wasn’t the only thing true about him.
Until her… Maurice stood there staring at the ceiling, as if he could somehow see her.
Throat clearing snapped him back to the here and now. “You better follow your own advice,” Deb said, patting Maurice on the shoulder and bringing him into awareness.
He pulled her into his arms and kissed her on the cheek.
“I will do my best, Auntie.” He squeezed her tighter, making her groan and squeak as he lifted her off her feet and gave her a spin.
Aunt Deb looked like she’d been on a roller coaster when Maurice set her on her feet.
And he was sure he looked insane. “I gotta go!” he said, planting another kiss on her cheek before turning on his heel.
Maurice got to the gate at 11:47 p.m. Her plane had already taken off.
Now what? It was December 31. New Year’s Eve. The island was celebrating. Even in the airport, people were passing out noisemakers and little cups of champagne.
His flight wasn’t until tomorrow afternoon. He sighed and walked to the airline counter to ask for help.
“I need to go to Chicago,” he said, without preamble.
“Are you trying to change your flight?”
He nodded. “This’ll be my second flight ever. I don’t know what I’m doing.”
The clerk smiled and nodded. “Don’t worry. I’ll get you to Chicago. Let me get your confirmation number.”
After about ten minutes of typing and Maurice putting almost five hundred dollars on his credit card, he had a direct flight from San Juan to Chicago that would leave in two hours.
Outside, the sky exploded with fireworks. Happy New Year greetings echoed through the airport and over the PA system. He tapped out a text to Deb with the details. And another to the wedding group chat wishing everyone a Happy New Year.
His phone rang almost immediately.
“I’m sending you the hotel I usually stay at when I’m in town.” Deb was matter-of-fact. Boss Lady mode. Maurice smiled.
“I’ll let the twins know you’ll be around, and I’ll give them your number.”
“Okay. Yes, ma’am.”
“You have your jacket, right?” Her voice was watery. He’d known her to be the silent party of the relationship, but she always showed up and said all the right things. “I feel like you’re leaving the nest.” She sniffed. “We love you, Maurice. And we’re so damn proud of the man you’ve become.”
She sounded like she was sending him off into the world to find his fortunes and his bride.
Am I? “Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.” That was the thing about Deborah Fairbanks. Maurice had never known her to hesitate with him.
“Why me?”
“Why you what?”
“Why do you care so much? Is this Chicago merger about me?”
There was silence. “Yes,” she finally said. “It was always about you. I saw how your mother struggled with sobriety and all the hell that brought. And when I met you… I just knew that I had to look out for you. There was nobody else who could or would.”
Maurice struggled to fill his lungs. He pressed the phone to his ear and tried to drown out the revelry around him.
“It broke my heart when you went away. I didn’t do enough to stop it from getting that bad.”
She talked like she had been involved with his mother’s mess. Could his life have been different?
“Then they said you couldn’t get parole. We knew that whatever came next for you would be a thousand times harder. You know where we’re from. Not many men come out and stay out after a long sentence.”
She was right. PADOC had the distinction of having the most fathers and sons incarcerated at the same time.
It was never confirmed, but Maurice had always suspected his father was among them.
Just an abstraction of numbers somewhere in the same system.
The link was there if you knew how to read it. Maurice had never wanted to.
“My brother and I fought for years to set up a construction trade program. Had to find all the loopholes to get you boys access to the tools and training you needed to build a life.”
“And now you’ve got hundreds of graduates. You should be proud.”
“I am, but I’m most proud of you, Maurice. I promised your mama that I’d look after you, and that’s what I intend to do. I couldn’t help the move to Jersey. I had to follow my family. But it all worked out in the end.”
When Tommie’s family had left Philly, Maurice thought he might die in prison from the isolation, from the abandonment. A year later, the visits started again, and Maurice could breathe.
“What happened was never your fault, Mo. I hope you believe that.”
He nodded. “Believing ain’t easy. I try, but that black spot follows you. It can’t be erased. You’re right. It makes everything harder.”
“But you can go to Illinois and start over. They have different laws, and this program is identical to what we’re doing in the Tri-State Area.”
Deb told him about the returning citizens’ job skills program and the retired cabinetmakers who started it.
How they responsibly demolished and restored old homes but hadn’t adopted the full remodeling that Maurice’s crew had become known for.
When the Chicago group approached Deb, they had more demand than they had capacity and were looking for a partnership.
“They actually called me first. Can you believe it?”
Maurice’s chest puffed a little bit. “Of course! We’re dope!”
“We are. Then I came to visit and was really impressed. And came again. That second time, I looked in on Monie but couldn’t stop thinking about you.”
There it was. Monique was hurt and offended. But Maurice had confidence that the whole scheme had been innocent.
He would never tell her how to feel, though.
“I should have said something sooner, but Monie got sick and needed so much that she wasn’t saying.
Getting you two in the same room got trickier and trickier.
And you had just worked up the courage to join us in Jersey.
I couldn’t send you to Chicago right away.
I needed time with you. I was being greedy.
” Her laugh was husky and real. “But the Lord works in mysterious ways! TJ and Elaine finally got their shit together and set a wedding date. The rest, as they say, is water under the bridge.”
“Everybody wins, huh?”
“Not quite. Monie’s angry with us.”
“Yeah, she is.”
“But she’ll come around. She’s hurt, but she’s not heartless.” Deb sighed as if suddenly exhausted. “Stand your ground but let her make her own decisions. Use all that good book learning you’ve got on your own damn self,” she growled in his ear, leaving no room for conjecture or misinterpretation.
Maurice laughed despite everything. “Yes, ma’am. I hear you.”
“Good. Now get on that plane and text me when you land.”
“I will. And thank you, Auntie. For everything.”
“Love you, baby. Happy New Year.”
“Happy New Year.”
The call ended, and Maurice checked the departures. Ninety minutes and he’d be on his way.
He found a seat near the windows and watched fireworks explode all around him. A new year. New opportunities. New choices. He pulled out his phone and typed out a message.
MAURICE
Happy New Year, Monique.
He wanted to say more. He wanted to tell her he loved her again, that he would wait for her. But he deleted all the rest and hit Send. His phone sat still and silent as he leaned back in the uncomfortable airport chair and waited.