Chapter 24 Monique #2
“You don’t need to know what I’ve done and who I’ve done it with.”
“But with everything that’s happened and with Jasmine away at school and me—” Justin paused and pulled his lips tightly closed.
“You what?” Monique asked. “What are you not telling me?”
Jasmine let out a long-suffering sigh. “Just say it, Jay. The Aunties told you not to wait.”
“The Aunties… what? Wait a minute. Y’all having all these conversations behind my back?”
Jasmine held her hands up to stop the fresh tirade on Monique’s tongue. “We’re adults, Ma. They’re our family too. I know you feel the need to run everything, but we can’t hold ourselves back for your comfort—especially not Jay.”
“I…” Monique hadn’t thought she was being controlling or codependent. She never imagined that the fun-sucking hall monitor was her and not cancer. “Wow.”
“A scout from an international soccer league approached me last year,” Justin admitted, hanging his head.
“Say what? Why didn’t you tell me?” She took his chin in her hand. “That’s incredible. What happened?”
“You were sick,” Jasmine answered for her brother. “Recovering from another surgery, infusions, something. You were angry. You were sad. We were scared, Ma, just like you.”
Tears spilled over Justin’s thick, enviable lashes. “I couldn’t leave you alone or make Jazz defer. There would be another scout for me.”
“Oh no, baby. I shouldn’t have left you to make that choice on your own.”
“I don’t regret it, Ma. I promise you I don’t.”
The months that it had been just the two of them, Justin quietly held things together, reliable as a Swiss timepiece.
“And I told everybody you weren’t ready to step out there. God, how did I miss all this? But the Aunties know?”
They nodded. “Mostly Auntie Deb,” Justin said, his words punctuating the unspoken understanding of Deb’s steadiness and secret keeping.
How could she be mad at the Aunties for making these efforts with her kids, for being so much of what they needed when she couldn’t give even minimal effort? Hadn’t she raged about no one being there for her back then? She should be doing a praise dance right now. So why was she paralyzed?
The doorbell chimed, breaking the spell.
Justin unfolded himself from the chaise and made his way to the front door. “DDT!” he said in enthusiastic greeting to Monique’s therapist as he opened the door.
“Jay-ley, my man! How’s the city’s best forward doing today?”
“Good, Doc. Real good.” They did that handshake-hug greeting that men do before Dr. Tedrow entered Monique’s home. “Taking it easy today.”
She excused herself to get dressed. One thing Monique could admit that she appreciated about Dr. Tedrow was how immense and personal his care was.
He adopted everyone. Having come to the house for a couple of family sessions, he got to know the twins—well, Justin mostly—and had helped them find a new rhythm.
If she could respect what her counselor was doing, then why couldn’t she have a better response to her family’s involvement in her and her kids’ lives? She reentered the room several minutes later, smoothing her mourning dress over her hips. “I’m ready.”
“I think you should wear your wool trench,” Jasmine said, handing Monique a coat, hat, scarf, and gloves.
“That’s a good choice, Jazz,” Dr. Tedrow responded. “We’ll be on the lake, and the city is living up to its name this morning.”
Jasmine huffed a laugh at the dad-like joke and helped her mother into her coat.
“We’d better get going, Eleanor is in the car.” Dr Tedrow moved toward the door.
“No one else is coming?” Monique tensed. They were a support group. They were supposed to show up and support.
“Yeah, they’re coming. They just chose to make their way on their own. Eleanor is already in the car. With both of us in University Village, it just kinda made more sense for me to pick you up too.”
“But Hailey’s in Chinatown.”
“Hailey’s not feeling well and sends her regards.”
That not feeling well was like a punch in the gut. Monique tried not to let it show.
“Hey…” Tedrow took her hand. “There’s nothing to worry about. She’s just got the sniffles.”
Telling her not to worry was like telling the stars not to twinkle. Sometimes light pollution made the stars hard to see, but they were always there.
“Y’all better get going,” Jasmine said, herding Monique and Dr. Tedrow to the front door.
“Hold on, the ladies were saying something about seeing pictures. Do you have those?” Dr. Tedrow asked Monique.
A funeral wasn’t the place to pass around vacation post cards, but Chickie had made her promise. Monique worked hard to keep her promises.
“My camera…” She hadn’t even thought about it since the island.
Justin had already bounded up the stairs to her bedroom, retrieved the camera from her suitcase, and rejoined them. “Here you go, Ma.”
She squinted her eyes at his always helpful self. “Thanks,” she replied flatly.
In the back seat of Tedrow’s Subaru on their way to Montrose Beach, Monique thumbed through photographs.
Sunrise reflection, Tedrow had said. A chance to honor Chickie before the temple service. Monique had agreed because what else could she say? But the thought of standing on a frozen beach at dawn, pretending to find meaning in ritual, made her want to scream.
“Who’s that?” Eleanor asked, leaning over before Monique could whip past all the photos of Maurice. “He’s handsome.”
There were too many photos of him. She hadn’t realized until now. His profile against the ocean. His hands on the boat railing. His face in the bioluminescent water, lit from below like something holy.
“Handsome, you say?” Tedrow’s eyes found hers in the rearview mirror.
“Very.” Eleanor’s reconstruction scars gave her an exaggerated lisp as she shoulder-checked Monique, chuckling. “But Mo’s being all mysterious.”
“Do tell,” Dr. Tedrow said.
“There’s nothing to tell,” Monique said, trying to pull her camera from Eleanor’s hands.
“Then why are there”—Eleanor turned her body away from Monique in a game of back seat keep away—“like a hundred pictures of this nothing?”
Tedrow chuckled. “Sounds like something to me.”
“Can we not?” Monique’s voice came out harsher than intended. “We have to bury our friend today, and I don’t really wanna talk about a man I barely know who lives a thousand miles away and will forget me in a week.”
Silence filled the car.
The retreat came immediately, and she hated it.
“I’m sorry,” Monique said quietly. “I shouldn’t have snapped.” She turned to the window and Chicago’s gray, early morning sky. “This is hard, but I’m glad we’re together.”
“It’s okay.” Eleanor handed back the camera and squeezed her hand.
Nobody said anything else.
The beach was brutal. Wind came off the lake like knives, cutting through her wool trench like it was tissue paper. The group gathered in a small cluster—Dr. T, Eleanor, James, Patricia, David. Hailey had texted she couldn’t make it, like Dr. T had mentioned. Too sick.
Monique’s skin prickled. She told herself it was just the cold.
They stood in a circle. Tedrow said words about Chickie. About her joy, her fight, her refusal to let cancer dim her light. Everyone shared memories. Eleanor cried. James held her. Monique stayed silent.
What was there to say? That Chickie had been twenty-eight and shouldn’t be dead? That she’d fought her whole life and it hadn’t mattered? That all their positive thinking and medical advances and support groups couldn’t stop cells from multiplying in the wrong direction? That love wasn’t enough?
“Monique?” Tedrow’s voice was gentle. “Anything you want to share?”
She looked at the gray water, the gray sky, the gray faces around her.
Everything was grayed in a way that felt artificial.
“She made me promise to be happy,” Monique heard herself say.
“In Puerto Rico. She called and told me not to come home early. To stay. To be happy.” Her voice cracked. “I tried. I really did try.”
Nobody said anything. The sun and the wind rose over the lake. They all just stood there. Together.