The Sordid Promise (12 page)

Her hand went cold. Her chest ceased its rise and fall.

She was gone.

The pit in my stomach became a sinkhole. It hit me hard.

My mother was gone. I had no one. I didn’t have her. I didn’t have the one person who understood me and was at my side through everything. The one who saw my darkness firsthand, looked at me, and said, “It’s okay. Don’t worry. Your mother will handle this.”

Drawn to my bed, I went there and stayed there, ignoring Maisha’s pleas to take her out. I couldn’t sleep, the tears wouldn’t stop flowing. I couldn’t fight the notion to be with her. I couldn’t be in this world all alone without her. I felt horrible for leaving her when she finally let it be known that she always loved me. I never should’ve run away to Washington State. I ached for the overprotective mother I gained shortly after I became seventeen. She didn’t know it, but she was the reason I kept going when I didn’t want to.

“Nik, it’s me,” Eric whispered through the dark. “Your door was left open.”

Without moving, I looked at the time on my night table. It was nearly five o’clock in the morning. I contemplated Eric as he stood in the doorway to my bedroom. I nodded to him and slid across my queen bed to give him space. He slipped out of his shoes and crawled on the bed. He lay beside me and pushed his forearm across my torso, pulling me closer. With his firm body pressed against my back, he leaned in my ear. “Do you feel that, Nik? You’re not alone. You have me.”

I didn’t know any of the people at my mother’s funeral. I just knew that none of them were family. I remembered the things she said about her friends and coworkers. She lamented that they supported her when she was well, but couldn’t be at her side when she was ill. She said that if they couldn’t see her near to her death, they didn’t deserve to see her after.

I was offered many condolences during the service. Eventually, I tuned everyone out. I felt more isolated than ever as I sat alone inside the cathedral. I’d never been bothered by it—or I thought I was never bothered by it. I thought I didn’t want to deal with people, but in reality, my mother was my social outlet. The realization came a little too late.

The people around me whispered amongst themselves and looked at me with pity. I heard a few of them reference my father, and state the obvious; I had no one.

I didn’t need the reminder. Knowing what to expect, I took two lithium capsules before I came to her funeral; I couldn’t endure it any other way.

I looked at the closed casket, recalling what she looked like at the funeral home. Thinking of her vanity, I knew she would’ve been highly unsatisfied with the way her dress was tailored. With the inability to take her measurements, her tailor could only do so much. At five-nine, she barely weighed a hundred pounds.

I dug my heels into the grass as the pastor spoke for far too long. It was hypocritical, being that my mother never spent a day of her life inside a church after her mother died. She was to be buried next to her mother; a grandmother who died before I was old enough to remember her.

We were protected from the torrential downpour by a waterproof tent, but it didn’t prevent the ground underneath our feet from turning soft. The rain nearly drowned out the pastor’s words of comfort. It didn’t matter if I could hear him, there was no comfort to be had.

I looked around at the people surrounding the gravesite. Everyone seemed to have someone at their side to pull them through. I bowed my head as I began to feel the anxiety.

A strong, steady hand slipped into my grip. Eric stood beside me in a black on black suit. Through my dark shades, I looked up at the rush of sudden support. Thankful. Although I couldn't express it, with the way he looked down at me, I think he knew.

I forgot the world around us and remembered the ache. I turned to him, sinking into him as I wrapped my arms around his waist. He held me tightly and kissed the top of my head, giving me what I needed in the moment.

The sight of the food at the repass made me sick to my stomach. It was held at my mother’s favorite place for wooing her clients. The owner allowed the use of his restaurant as the venue gratis. There were so many people inside the restaurant, I could barely breathe.

The countless financial advisement books. The news show circuit for consulting gigs. The sheer magnitude of all my mother accomplished in her career never hit me more than when I looked around at the number of people who supported her when she was well. It was a side to her life I’d never been exposed to. In the thick of her sickness, she bemoaned her success. She said it took her away from raising me. At one point, she claimed it took her away from her husband. She told me that if she could do it all again, she would’ve taken more pleasure in being a mother and a wife.

I thought the love my mother had for my father was odd. Despite my father’s disloyal ways, she still loved him. She blamed herself for the decline of their marriage, when it was really my father’s fault.

“We don’t have to be here,” Eric said gently of my tears.

“I don’t want to be. I want to be home, walking Maisha, or doing something that’s less…this.” I looked around. “None of these people visited her in the hospital. They only cared about her when she could do something for them. And now, they’re being nice to me, because they think they’ll get a piece of what she left me. Reminds me of why I prefer animals over humans. I…I…” I lost my breath for a moment and had trouble finding it. I looked at the crowd, thinking it strangely increased in size.

Eric stood quickly to his feet and grabbed my hand, leading me out of the restaurant before a panic attack could take hold.

“Diouana?”

Alerted, I looked behind me. On the sidewalk, a tall woman in a navy blue pinstripe suit gave me a small smile. I knew her face, the eyes, and the chin. My maternal grandfather had similar features.

“Aunt Angie?”

“It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”

I gave her a short nod. She shifted, like she expected something more from me. I could barely regard the woman who disappeared from my life the day after my father died. For a while, she stopped existing. If she was here, it was because he wanted a piece of my mother.

“I was someplace remote, building schoolhouses for children in the Horn. I came when I could. I wanted to be close to you. I’m back in the country for the duration. My husband and I are staying at a hotel until we find a place to live. I know with you having no one—here’s my number. Give me a call so we can catch up.” She handed me her business card. “You look like your mother,” she added in an ungainly manner. “Well…” She looked at Eric, who remained still while scowling at her. “Call me when you can,” she said to me and went on her way.

“And so it fucking begins,” Eric snarled while his narrowed eyes followed my aunt’s path.

“Last I remembered, she got drunk at my father’s funeral and claimed his death was foul play.”

Eric glanced back at me with question. “Wasn’t it an accident?”

“Not if you believe what she believes.”

“Which would be?”

“That someone murdered him.”

Eric took me home, because I didn’t want to continue to posture in the limousine.

“I’m not good at this,” I whispered as I toyed with my hands while sitting in his car, staring at the front door to my mother’s home. “But…” I looked at him. “Thank you. I’m really glad you’re around.”

He gave me a modest smile. “I want to come inside, but I’m due at the hospital in an hour. I will, however, find the time to call you on the hour every hour to check up on you.”

I nodded as I placed my hand on the door handle.

Reaching across my lap, he grabbed my hand to halt me from leaving. Cupping my face, he placed a short, ardent kiss on my lips. “Every hour, Nik. Answer my calls.” I nodded again and ran through the rain to the front door.

Maisha greeted me at the front door, as if she’d been waiting for me all day long. With her tongue hanging out in the middle of her muzzle, it looked like she was smiling at me. She stirred when she saw me and shook her coat. While wagging her tail, she performed her ‘happy’ stomp.

I collapsed in the foyer and embraced her neck.

She let out a slight whine and a short bark. Grabbing her leash, I took her for the walk she demanded we have.