Commitment (100 page)

“She won’t kn
ow who I am probably,” he said.
“Sometimes she does, but you never know.”

“Okay.
I’m just happy to meet her finally.”

“Ju
st . . . don’t expect too much.
She might not even speak.”

Riley nodded.
Her heart rate slowed to
an
almost normal pace when she realized how nervous he
was
. For the first time, she
took note of
what he was wearing.
A plain white button-down with white t-shirt, tucked into khakis a
nd a pair of brown dress shoes.
The kind of outfit all good grandsons might choose to visit their grandmother on a Sunday morning.

Shawn had barely knocked before his c
ousin Shonda answered the door.
She was a tall, thin woman, with the same burnished
gold complexion and
chestnut
eyes.
Her hair, almost auburn in color
,
was pulled back at the nape of her neck, and she wore a dark blue shirtdress and low-heeled black pumps.

“Kendall,” she sa
id, hugging Shawn with feeling.
“You got here just in time.
We just made it back from church.”

Shawn hugged her back and let her hold him for a few moments before gently extricating himself and turning to Riley.

“This is my wife,” h
e said. “Riley.
Riley, this is my cousin, Shonda.”

Shonda turned her attention to Riley and took her in for a moment before breaking out into a wide, warm smile and opening her arms.

“You are so much prettier in person,” she said.

“Thank you,” Riley lean
ed in to receive the embrace.
Shonda smelled like an old scent Riley reme
mbered from her teenage years.

“I ha
ve been just dying to meet you, Shonda continued.
“Kendall married? I almost didn’t believe it
.”

“C’mon now,” Shawn said good-
naturedly.
“I
was just waiting for the right woman, that’s all.”

“Well, I’m glad you found her.
I was worried about you being alone as an old man flying around the world with a bunch of hooc
hies that wanted your money
.”

“Shonda, where’s Grandma?” Shawn interrupted.

“Oh! Come in!
That’s triflin’,
having y’all standing on the doorstep like this.”

The interior was impeccably kept, with the foyer and sitting room decorated
,
with museum-like precision
,
with furniture that was period-appropriate for the
house.
On the mantel over the fireplace were five trophies that it took Riley only a moment to recognize
—
Shawn’s
Grammys and other music awards.
Displayed on the walls along the stairwell were
framed album covers and various clippings of his professional accomplishments.

“I don’t have any kids,” Shonda explained, no
ticing as Riley took it all in.
“So Kendall’s my
baby.” She touched his
face
.
“Even though we just fifteen years apart.”

Shawn was already on his way up the stairs and Riley waited uncertainly at the bottom until halfway up he tur
ned and extended a hand to her.
She followed and took his hand on the ascent.

“I just got her changed into her housedress,
” Shonda called up after them.
“She’s lying
down but should still be awake.
I’ll be up right quick with her tea.”

Apart from a slightly vacant and preoccupied expression, Shawn’s grandmot
her did not look at all infirm.
As they entered the room, the first thing Riley noticed was how well-groomed she was.
She’d been expecting the slightly disheveled and addled look that people were accustomed to expecting from Alzheimer’s sufferers but unless you were told, you might have believed you were looking at someone who had simply taken a moment to recline on her bed, daydreaming. 

Like Shonda, she was slender,
with a narrow face.
Her skin looked as soft
and powdery
as tissue-paper.
She was wear
ing a light yellow cotton dress
and a bed-jacket
,
and her bare feet were
smooth
and appeared to
have been recently pedicured.
Almost completely white, her hair was natural, and styled with two French braids on either side of her head. 

“Her na
me’s Alma,” Shawn said quietly.
“Sometimes she responds to that more than to anything else.” 

He released Riley’s hand and approached his grandmother, slowly as though concerned tha
t she might make a dash for it.
A flicker in her eyes said that she was aware of not being alone, but there was no other immediate acknowledgment of their presence.

“Grandma,” Shawn said.
“It’s Kendall.”

She didn’t immediately turn toward him, so Shawn sat on the edge of the bed and with such tenderness it brought tears to Riley’s eyes, leaned forward and
pressed his cheek against hers.
Alma’s eyes closed in response, a
nd she leaned into the contact.
Shawn smiled and raised a hand to st
r
oke
her other cheek.
They were still sitting like that about five minutes later when Shonda appeared with a tray carrying a teacup
and a plate of butter cookies.
She
set the tray on the bedside table and looked to Riley, barely glancing at Shawn and his grandmother.

“You hungry, sweetie?
I have a f
ull breakfast ready downstairs.
I know y’all
must’ve left at the butt-crack of dawn to get here.”

Riley smiled at the expression but was still mesmerized by Shawn
and his grandmother’s embrace.
Shonda
,
for her part, seemed not to notice it at all until she followed Riley’s gaze.

“Th
e
y don’t
always
talk much,” she explained.
“’Cause we’re
not sure what she understands. In words anyway.
But she knows when Kendall’s here that someone who loves her to pieces is wi
th her.
That’s the important thing.”

Riley nodded her agreement.

“And sometimes I think she
gets
more than we
understand
.
Like when he was having all that trouble, one time I made the mistake of putting on the television with that on, and
boy did Miss
Alma
cr
y
that day . . .” S
he shook her head.

Shawn turned and held out a hand to Riley who joined him sitting on the edge of the bed at Alma’s feet.

“Grandma,
this is
Riley,” Shawn said.
“I told you about
her, remember? We got married.
Riley’s my wife.”

Riley smiled a
nd reached out for Alma’s hand. It was cool and limp.
She held it for a moment, waiting for some sign that she recogni
zed she was being touched.
T
here was none.
But after a moment, she turned her head ever so slightly in the direction of the tea tray that Shonda had placed nearby. 

“Let me feed her.
Y’all go down and get something to eat,” Shonda said with a shooing motion.

Shawn ate with gusto, having come back to life after his contact with his grandmother, almost as though rejuvenated. It was difficult to describe
.
T
he change in him was both subtle and dramatic. 

“You think she knows you’re here?” Riley asked,
cutting
her Canadian bacon.

Shawn nodded. “Yeah.”

“I wish I could have known her.
Before.”

“She was full of beans, as they l
ike to say down here.
A firecracker.”

“I bet she was.
Does this make you
sad
?
The way she is now?
”

Shawn chewed thoughtfully. “It used to.
Now I’m just happy she’s still here.”

“She’s your touchstone, I can tell.”

“What does that mean?”

“You know.
Th
e person who centers you.
Sets the standards you try to emulate.”

“That’s true.”

“
Thank you for bringing
me
.”

They spent three hours
more
in Baltimore.
Alma
fel
l asleep shortly after her tea and cookies, and so t
hey visited with Shonda awhile.
Riley listened eagerly to her stories of Shawn’s teen years, when they still lived in DC
and he was uncertain about the f
uture he wanted, or could have.
He sounded like most young men
—
unfocused
and overly libidinous
—
which shouldn’t have been a surprise to Ril
ey but was.
Because he was so remarkable to her, she almost expected to hear something incredible about his youth that made it clear he was dest
ined to be a cut above average.
But he’d just been a kid who, through a combination of good luck, talent and being in the right place at the right time, had shot into the public eye and
been placed on a path that would collide and finally unite with her own. 

After Alma awoke from her nap, Shawn went to spend some time alone with her, and from downstairs, Riley could
hear the low hum of his voice.
She helped Shonda cut the vegetables that would go into the Sunday dinner she was preparing and waited patiently until he finally descended the stairs and announ
ced that it was time to leave.
They hugged and kissed their goodbyes and Shonda waved at them from the
front door as they pulled away.
They would be home in time for their own dinner,
would get to bed at a decent hour
and
have more than enough time to do the thin
gs they always did on a Sunday.
T
he trip would seem like scarcel
y
more than a blip on the radar, but Riley knew better. For her, it meant that her husband had finally let her all the way in.

g

Promoting a CD was no joke.
The only close second to the travel schedule was a presidential campaign as far as S
hawn could tell.
Twenty-six
cities in
just over thirty
d
ays, and very little down
-
time.
And then as
summer
approached, the
re would be a full-blown tour.
Skipping the Music Awards was one thing, but passing on a summer tour was out of the question, even if it meant not seein
g your wife for a month or two.
For Memorial Day this
coming
weekend, he was performing in DC
, so
Riley was meeting him there
and they would have a couple of days togethe
r before he hit the road again.

She was as busy as he was, having finally given her notice at
Power to the People
and begun exploration meetings to see whether she could
get her journal off the ground.
Hip-hop publications had gotten wind of it, and were starting to refer to them as a
“power couple” which she hated.
She still liked to think of herself as a starving artist,
which Shawn found amusing since the average daily balance in her checking account now exceeded what she used to make in a
year;
not to mention the other account that had caused her so much anxiety when they first got married.

Shawn turned to gaze out the window at the tarmac as the jet made its
smooth
, barely perceptible landing.
Across from him Brenda
n gripped the arms of his seat.
He hated flying on small aircraft, even if
it was outfitted like this one—
to look and feel as comfortable as a living ro
om in a Park Avenue apartment.