Loves Redemption (23 page)

From the beginning, he hadn’t shied away from expressing his feelings toward her, yet

she continued to hold some small piece of herself back from him.

He knew she cared about him, but he wasn’t sure to what level, because she never told

him. Her lack of expression in turn prevented him from telling her out right he loved her. Which he did.

Irrevocably. Completely. Overwhelmingly. Loved her.

He never knew he was capable of feeling the way he did for a woman, as he did with

Maya. They hadn’t been together for two months, yet he was couldn’t imagine not being with

her, not to have met her. His only wish was to have her express her feelings for him more openly.

A slight sigh emitted from his lips as he kissed the side of her neck before he moved his

head back to get a better look at her face.

“I didn’t mean to offend you, make light of your feelings, or to suggest I don’t believe

you. I do Mark, and that makes it special to me. That’s all I meant.”

He watched as she caught her lower lip with her top teeth and released it, only to pull it

back in, repeating the process several times. He caught the slightly full lip with his mouth and gently sucked on it, running his tongue along the inseam.

After he’d released it he looked at the edge made reddened from his ministrations. “I can

always tell when you feel uncertain about something or if you’re thinking deeply about a

subject.”

“Oh really? And how is that?”

“You start to pull at your lip. It drives me insane when we’re not in a place where I can

kiss you, because it’s really sexy.”

“When I was growing up it would drive my foster mother insane also, but not in the same

way as it does you,” she admitted with a short laugh.

“That had to be the fastest trip in recorded history,” he muttered with a sardonic lift to his lip. “Why did it drive the lovely Melissa insane?” He welcomed every bit of information he

could get about Maya. However, it wasn’t easy to listen to the cruel and senseless things her foster mother had subjected her to, and he usually forced himself not to cringe when Maya

mentioned her name.

“I remember sitting at the kitchen table, and I would
feel
Melissa’s glares. I knew better than to look at her, if I did, there was no telling what she’d say or do to me.”

Although it was hard to hear Maya speak about the hateful woman who raised her, Mark

forced himself to listen, soaking up everything he could to learn more about her.

“She made fun of everything about me. My hair, my body. When I first began to develop

she accused me of trying to seduce her lover Danny.”

“Jealous bitch,” he couldn’t refrain from mumbling under his breath in disgust of the

woman.

“Melissa didn’t like any of my mannerisms, that was one which particularly ticked her

off. I wasn’t even aware I was doing it until Danny made a comment about it, and Melissa lost it.

She ranted and screamed at me for hours. Finally left me alone and all I remember after that is laying my head down on the beat up kitchen table and crying. I have no idea how long I lay like that when I felt Ally pat my back. I looked up and there she was standing in front of me in her favorite Garfield pajamas, tears falling down her little face.”

“I found out years later where I inherited that particularly mannerism from,” Maya said,

returning the conversation to his original question. Although she was looking at him, he had the feeling that she wasn’t really seeing him as she began to speak about her grandmother …

“…Maya, I so dearly wished I could have gotten to know you. Your mother and I sent

letters to one another and she sent me pictures of my beautiful grandbaby but it wasn’t the same.

I honestly thought we’d be able to come back together as a family. I suppose I was just kidding
myself. Or just being plain old scared and foolish.” Elizabeth Rutherford pulled her lower lip
into her mouth with her front teeth and stopped herself with a small laugh.

“Your grandfather constantly teased me for that little habit after all of these years. In one
of the letters your mama sent me she told me that you and I share that little idiosyncrasy so I
suppose it can’t be all that bad if my grandbaby does it too.

“Maya I know that
nothing can erase the past. There’s nothing I can say or do to
exonerate my role in not supporting your mother and father better. All I can say is I’m sorry and
my life has been devoid of real happiness for a long time.

“My prayer is you have been safe. Had I known you were all alone in this world, there is
nothing or no one who would have prevented me from bringing you home. If it meant you and I
would have created our own home than so be it. I swear to you, Maya, I would not have left you
alone. I’ve been alone for a long time and it’s not a good feeling.

“I’ve left you everything, Maya. It’s the least I can do. Mr. Callahan has been my private
solicitor for many years and he knows how important this is for me and he assures me he will
find you, darling.

“Along with all of my worldly goods I send you this videotape and all of the contents of
this small package.”

She held up a container filled with pictures and cards and directed the contents toward
the camera.

“These are the correspondences your mother and I exchanged, along with the pictures

Lizzy would send to me of you her and your father.

“I love you very much, darling, and please find it in your heart to forgive not only me but
your grandfather as well. I love you, Maya…”

* * * *

“Maya you’ve had a lot of challenges thrown in your path from early in your life and yet

you’ve persevered to become this incredible woman. I can’t even imagine having had to do

without family like you had to at an early age. I know you had Ally with you, but it’s not the same as having loving parents to care for you. I don’t want you to think I’m being judgmental, it seems as though life has thrown you as many curve balls as they have for some of the women at Imani House, yet you were able to maneuver around them. I think it shows a lot about your will and determination,” he said as he listened to her speak of her deceased grandmother.

Silently acknowledging his words, Maya remained quiet and settled her body closer

against his. She thought of the residents of Imani House, the majority women, and how she

shared a similar background with many of them.

Mark had led a life of privilege and would never really be able to understand what it was

like to be poor and have to struggle to make ends meet. He would never be able to fully

understand what it was like for her, as a black woman, who’d grown up in a poverty stricken world, unloved and discarded, to rise above her circumstances and forge a better life for herself than those around her had.

“You’re right when you say life has thrown me a lot of curves, more than some, and

thankfully a lot less than others. But I’m not sure I can dismiss the will or lack of will of others who’ve had to deal with adversity as well. I think everyone deals with adversity as well as prosperity in their own unique way. I really believe there’s a thin line separating all of us from one another. Accident, fate, or genetics--we all have a story that’s brought us to become the person we are as an adult,” she began.

“And life is full of coincidences. There’s a thin line of coincidence and luck, affecting

everything from our DNA to who parents us. Based on that, anyone at anytime, could have a

different outcome in life.”

“That’s true. I guess I don’t understand why two people can come from similar

backgrounds, with the same opportunities presented to them, and one can end up overcoming

their life obstacles and the other doesn’t. I’m probably not saying it in a real politically correct kind of way, but I really don’t understand.”

“I don’t think anyone else does. At the same time what’s the definition of success? You

don’t always know what’s going on inside the ‘successful’ person’s head. You may think that person has it all together. But on the inside, they are a literal mess. Some people are better able to hide the mess than others,” she finished with a half smile.

“What about you, baby? Are you ‘hiding the mess’?”

“Oh yeah,” she laughed. “Some of it still lingers. I’ve worked hard, and continue to work

hard at cleaning up most of mine. It’s a lifelong process for all of us. Some have a head start over others. You wanted to know how my race has affected me in life? How it’s altered my

perception?” she asked him.

“Yes. You never really bring up the issue. Jordan and I once talked about it, and I

realized then, you’ve never shared with me that part of your life.”

Maya could hear the question in his voice. “It’s not that I don’t want to share my life with you. Being black is who I am, Mark. I can’t hide that from anyone, and neither would I want to.

I’m proud of my heritage, the good and the bad. Being a black woman in a white male-

dominated society has taught me one thing,” she said with a humorless laugh.

“What’s that?”

“Ultimately, it’s up to me to determine my success. I grew up in a poverty stricken area.

There were blacks, Hispanics, and whites in my community. I saw the good and bad in each one of them, no matter what race they were. When you’re poor and disenfranchised, race will
always
take a back seat to survival. Like I said, we all have mess,” she laughed somberly. “What about you? Do you have any mess to hide?”

Mark always considered himself blessed not to have had to deal with most of the crap he

came across on a near daily basis in his duty of police officer. He’d come from a ‘good’ family, had never lacked for anything. He’d gone to private schools and gone to college and law school without worrying about how it was going to be financed.

He’d never had to work while in school like some of his classmates, and had interned at

his dad’s law firm as his first job. He supposed some would say he’d been born with the

proverbial silver spoon in his mouth.

The disappointment of not joining the law firm had caused a separation between him and

his dad and brothers. Only his mother understood his need and love to do police work. His

grandfather had started his career as a beat cop and had worked his way up to chief of police.

Mark had admired his grandfather, and knew police work and investigation were in his

blood. It was all he ever wanted to do.

“Mess, huh?” he mused aloud to her. “Yeah I guess I do. You know my dad and brothers

are in practice together.” At her nod, he absentmindedly rubbed his hands over her hair before answering.

“Even though I went to law school I never really saw myself in the role of criminal

lawyer. I wanted to experience what it was like to actually get both my hands and mind engaged in solving the crime instead of defending the criminal. I respect what my brothers and father do. I don’t think that I could separate myself in the same way they do. Needless to say, that didn’t go over to well with my dad. He said it said a lot about my character. He thought I lacked follow through skills. I didn’t have what it took to be a good criminal defense attorney like my

brothers.”

“You could if you had to. And besides it wasn’t
your
chosen profession, it was your father’s.”

“You’re right it was never my chosen field and I know had I wanted to, I could have gone

into practice with my family. I didn’t want to. I wanted to be a cop.”

“Your father probably knew it as well. His desire for you to join them fueled his more

hurtful words.”

“Thank you, sweetheart.” He pulled her pliant body closer and rested his chin against

hers.

His father’s disappointment paled in Mark’s eyes to insignificant crap when he thought of

the obstacles Maya had been forced to overcome to achieve her success. As he closed his eyes and listened to Maya drift into asleep, his mind raced, as the issue of racism and poverty took on new meaning for him.

“How did it go with the family,
Sesute
?”

It was Sunday morning, and Dalia had come to Imani House with Maya. Maya had called

her on Saturday morning to nervously ask her what she should wear to a family cookout.

“It went well, surprisingly well.”

“Surprisingly?” she repeated questioningly.

“I wasn’t sure what to expect, and it went a lot differently than I had imagined, pleasantly so,” she answered her with a reminiscent smile.

She’d wakened to Mark’s kisses and fully turned her body into his as he began to make

love to her in the early morning hour. After they’d made love, he had reminded her of his

mother’s invitation, and asked her if she would come with him. Reading the hesitation in her eyes, he’d begged her to meet them with such a puppy dog expression that Maya nearly gave in on the spot.

After showering together, they dressed and went into the kitchen. As he made his way

around her kitchen, pulling out pans, and taking food from the refrigerator, wearing nothing but an apron barely protecting his essentials from the flying grease from the pan of bacon, Maya couldn’t deny her feelings for him.

She knew he was frustrated with her because she’d never expressed her feelings for him.

She’d had to bite her tongue lately as they made love, not to shout out her feelings in the heat of the moment.

Never having told a man she loved him was only one of the reasons for keeping her

feelings to herself. Another reason was fear. Fear that he wouldn’t return the sentiment. Either way she would feel stupid and exposed and that was
not
a feeling she looked forward to experiencing.