Rhythms of Grace (27 page)

Carmel lay still as I moved around: to the shower, to my closet, to the kitchen to warm a bottle. She was stirring slightly, moving the covers a bit, so I finished quickly, not wanting her to wake. If she woke up, she would say something and I didn’t want her to. Maybe the space heater I’d gotten up to buy at the all-night Meijer was warm enough for her to stay put. I should have been freezing myself, but I wasn’t.

I’d forgotten what it felt like to be beside Carmel. Inside her.

Even now, with Monique’s mess and Carmel’s doctor boyfriend out there somewhere, I felt like we could win. We could be a family again, even if it wasn’t the family we’d planned on. Then I’d heard it. So soft that I almost didn’t make it out.

”Jerry . . .”

I knew that tone and I didn’t like the sound of it. I’d do everything I could to quiet it so that my dream could last a little longer. I walked over to where she was sitting at the edge of the couch and leaned over. My cheek, freshly shaven, slid across hers. I felt like my old self, back from a long trip. “Want some breakfast?”

“No thanks.”

That didn’t deter me either. I kissed her neck, put one arm around her waist. I mumbled something about her being my breakfast, starting with a kiss.

“About that.”

“What?” I closed my eyes and kissed her shoulder. Right on her birthmark, I knew from the way she sighed. It sounded so good it hurt. Her words would hurt too. I never should have asked her to stay.

She covered her face in her hands. “Last night. I shouldn’t have— we shouldn’t have—”

Hurt burned my eyes. “So what are you saying?”

“I think you know.”

I got up. I knew it would go down like this, but I’d wanted to believe that somehow I’d gotten through to her. I guess that other man had left a mark on her I couldn’t undo. I’d tried not to think of it last night, like I’d thought about it so many other nights, but in the end that’s what it came down to. She didn’t want me. She never would. “ ‘I don’t bite,’ you said. I should have known better. This is how it always is between us.”

It was definitely how it would be from now on. Carmel held a finger to her lips, motioning for me to be quiet so the girls wouldn’t hear. What did it matter if they heard? It was their lives in this too.

She pulled the sheet around her shoulders. “You’re right. We make good love and bad spouses for each other. We did it for a long time. Only, I’m not a cheerleader anymore, Jerry. And you’re not a running back. There has to be more to us.”

My head dropped back. “Get up so I can close the couch.”

“That’s all you have to say?”

“Does it matter what I have to say? You’ve got the keys to the kingdom. You lock the bank to me anyway.”

“Jerry.”

I got up, pulling the sheets with me. I closed the couch, slamming each cushion in place. “Don’t Jerry me. I’ve given up everything to make this family work. Everything.”

Carmel gave me a look of pity, one that made me want to be anywhere but here. I’d seen it before and hated it then. It was like she knew some secret, something about me that I couldn’t figure out.

“What!”

She closed her eyes, folded her hands in her lap like she was trying to cover something. Like I was. “You haven’t given up everything for this family, Jerry. You haven’t given her up. You never will.”

“What? Who?” Now I was totally confused.

“Are you really going to make me say it?”

All the warmth seemed to go out of the room. I paused for a second before I spoke, wondering if my breath would fog up in front of me. I almost hoped it would. We were going to a bad place. “Zeely? I haven’t been near her. Outside work, we hardly even talk—”

“You called her name last night.”

There it was, bleeding and ugly, but out in the air. There’d been a whisper of it when I woke this morning, echoing in the room like a ghost. I’d drowned it out with my eggs and aftershave, my joy. And yet, here it was. I stumbled to the recliner and dropped like a rock. It crunched under the impact. The footrest flipped out. I felt like my heart was going to come out too.

“I didn’t.”

“You did.”

“I didn’t mean to. I wasn’t thinking of her. Really. I don’t know why I—” Well, I did know why, or at least I had an idea. I was alone again, a grown man living like a teenager or a college student. In my adolescence, Zeely was the only name on my lips, the only name I knew. Maybe some nights while I tossed and turned knowing Carmel was in Dr. Rick’s bed, I’d unwittingly invited Zeely into mine. How it’d come out when I least expected it, I’d never know. “Honey, please—”

She shook her head. “We had something beautiful last night. Something that made me remember all that was good between us. And yet, in the best of it, Zeely was there, as always. She is your dream. She always has been. I was just the flesh you practiced on. It’s taken me all this time to accept it, really accept it, but I give. I thought at the beginning that I’d beat her, but the victory is hollow. Meaningless.”

“No, baby, no. It’s not like that. It was never like that. Please . . .” I was begging like crazy now, up out of the recliner and back on the couch next to her.

She gave me a smile that broke my heart. “I won’t keep waiting to see if you can really love me—and just me. After last night, I accept the truth. I cut in on a God thing and this—” she nodded to the bedroom where the girls slept—“all of this has been the price.”

“Honey . . .” I held her face in my hands, letting her tears mix with mine. “No. Please don’t do this.” Her eyes answered, giving me a look that meant the end, that honey was only good for catching flies.

“It’s her you want. It’s time for us both to accept it.” She got up and dressed quietly before knocking on the door to my room. Monique was a light sleeper and had probably heard us, but right now I didn’t care. My heart was breaking all over again.

I stared at the wall while Carmel talked to Monique and Justice . . . my granddaughter. I was going to have to learn how to say that out loud. Everyone here, including the people at the day care, thought she was my child. Maybe Carmel and I had convinced ourselves of it too. Well, she wasn’t mine. Ours. Not like that. It was time to stop playing house on all fronts.

“Girls? You dressed? Come and eat,” I said, adding that they should give Mom a kiss, but I couldn’t look at her just then. Even after the divorce, I’d always seen Carmel as my wife. Now I knew that she’d really never felt like I was her husband. In her mind, I’d belonged to someone else all along.

38

Brian

The buzz of the metal detector and the shuffle of students’ feet sounded like music to me—even the complaints. After the mess with Lottie, I’d decided to focus on what I was here for, to teach. Anything else that was going to happen, good or bad, was out of my control. It was hard to admit, but freeing somehow. There was just now. Today. And this morning I was manning the new media-finding machine. This would be fun.

A sophomore leaned across the table as I tossed her pearled Nokia into the pile: six phones, two handhelds, and a music player. Not bad for the first morning.

This girl wasn’t going down without a fight though. “You can’t take that. My boyfriend bought it—”

I chuckled. “I hope your man has a good job or your mom comes to get it quickly. Talk to Principal Rogers. Next!” I motioned for the next person to step through the machine.

“So no phones? Since when? This is outrageous.”

“Isn’t it? You have to listen up to those announcements. You got the new policy in homeroom a few days ago. Everyone signed them. Parents too. Just have your mom pick it up. It’ll be here.” I hoped so anyway. Personally, I thought the policy a little silly and totally unenforceable, but it provided just the distraction I needed today.

As phone girl walked away, I caught a whiff of her. Plumeria. Though I loved it on Grace, it smelled horrible on that kid. Her boyfriend should pick up some new perfume with that next phone.

“Good morning.” Head shaved and wearing clothes clean and pressed, Jerry made me do a double take. A tall girl holding a baby stood behind him. I smiled at her as the pieces came together in my head. She had her father’s big bones with Carmel’s hourglass proportions. Her hair curved just below her chin, then hung in layers past her shoulders. I didn’t envy Jerry the job of trying to look out for her in this place.

She’d been a toddler the last time I’d seen her. The baby news had definitely been left out.

“Is that Monique?”

Jerry nodded reluctantly as though prying the last layers off their secret. “She’s grown up, hasn’t she?”

That was one way of putting it. There was no sense beating around the bush. I lowered my voice. “They’re going to be all over her.”

“I know.”

Monique pulled a chair from the hall and sat down with the baby asleep on her shoulder. No wonder bruh had been looking so rough. Life was sure something. “Your girls. Do you need to drop the baby off somewhere? I can cover.” Joyce had laid a plan for an in-school nursery, but so far the funding and licensing hadn’t come through. I wished now that I’d shaken the town trees a little harder to hustle up the funds.

“They’re both staying here. Thelma is going to watch Justice and Monique is transferring from Rose Hill—”

My head snapped then. “Rose Hill Preparatory?
The
Rose Hill?” Jerry nodded. “The one and only.”

It was my turn to sit down. I’d sent plenty of kids over there to smooth their way into the Ivy League. Even Quinn. Not one of them made it through the interviews. And the money? More than most colleges. “That place has to be twenty grand a year. How on earth did you manage—”

“We didn’t manage it. That’s why she’s here.”

Monique looked away, patting the baby’s back.

Realizing that I’d stepped into a place reserved for family only, I reached into my wallet and held out a twenty to Monique and her baby. “Go to the cafeteria, honey. Miss Thelma is in there. Your dad and I can take your books up.”

She looked to her father for approval, and when he nodded, she left looking glad to get away.

When she was out of earshot, I could hardly remain calm. “Are you really going to enroll her here? We have a few honors classes, but Miami Valley would be ideal. I went to grad school with a guy over there. I could give him a call.” I felt desperate to help, to keep Monique’s time at Rose Hill from going to waste. I didn’t know what her best subjects were, but if she had Jerry’s knack for math, she’d have a free ride anywhere.

And where will the baby go?

It was a question that I didn’t know how to answer. Evidently, Jerry didn’t either. He seemed to feel good about this choice. As much as I loved Imani, I wasn’t so sure. Some of these young cats were just . . . trouble.

“We’re going to make this work for now. Sometimes you have to make the best of things. Even bad things. You know?” Jerry’s eyes narrowed.

I did know. I stared at the floor, wishing I had something to offer besides another problem. The hall cleared momentarily, leaving the two of us alone. What he said next rocked me back on my heels.

“I heard what happened.”

I tried not to act as shocked as I was. Had there been a feature on the six o’clock news or what? “Who hasn’t heard?”

Jerry gave me a look from his football days. “What were you thinking, man? You were the one who warned me to skip the drama, remember? Grace is really special. Don’t let Lottie confuse you. You’ll . . . regret it.” His voice faltered.

“There’s nothing between me and Grace. I barely know her.”

Jerry’s whole body shook with silent laughter. “Please. You’ve talked more in the last week than you have in the past year—and every word of it was about her.”

Was I that obvious?

“I’m praying for you. Just be careful.”

Now I was a little offended. “I didn’t touch her. Have a little faith, will you?” I wanted to gobble the words back into my mouth as quickly as I’d said them. Faith was the last thing I wanted to get this guy going on. He’d never shut up.

Jerry waved to the security guard outside the front door. “I believe you, but it’s going to be a tough ride. I’ll be praying.”

“You do that, O.J.”

As if energized by his nickname, Jerry headed for the cafeteria.

Before he disappeared around the corner, I called to him. “Hey!”

“Yeah?”

“I know you and Ron talk. Would you mind not telling him about this? I’d like to tell him myself.”

Jerry flinched. “That’ll be hard. He told me.”

It shouldn’t have bothered me so much that Ron had known and said nothing, but it did. It was hard to make out now with all the pictures of my former students crowding my desk, but a picture from my own graduation sat there too, jammed up against the wall. The snapshot was mostly tired smiles, mortarboards, and tassels, but in the midst of it all was one white face, one pair of questioning eyes. The lawyer-eyed picture, Eva had called it. I searched for it now and took a swing at the wrought iron frame. It tumbled to the floor, cracked across the middle. I picked it up with regret.

It wasn’t Ron’s fault that he’d known, but he should have said something. And worse yet, who had told him? Zeely? Not exactly her style, but possible. Joyce. It had to be.