STRINGS of COLOR (13 page)

"Mr. Creek, your wife suffered pretty severe bruises to the head but she is going to be okay."

His tears were already there.

"What about the baby?"

Jonathan watched as her smile faded. He grabbed hold of the edge of the counter and braced himself.

"I'm so sorry Mr. Creek, we did everything we could but we couldn't save them both."

"No!"

The trembling in his legs was felt throughout his entire body. The tears streamed down his face with a swift fierceness as his cane hit the floor.

Dr. Banner fought to control her own tears as she reached out to hold him up. A police officer stepped in to assist and they both managed to get him to a chair.

She watched him. She could see his mother in him and it pained her even more. She searched for comforting words but found none. Finally, she began to open her mouth when a loud beeping sound was heard at the nurses' station.

"Who is it?" Jonathan asked almost in a whisper.

The nurse was afraid to say it out loud as she watched Jonathan's face.

"It's Felicia Creek's room, Dr. Banner."

Jonathan scrambled to his feet and struggled to follow Dr. Banner to his wife's room.

Just as he reached the door a nurse came out and grabbed hold of him.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Creek, but you can't go in there right now."

"What do you mean, I can't go in there? That's my wife!"

"Yes sir, I understand."

"No, clearly you don't. That's my wife! You hear me, that's my wife in there! You let me in that room right now!"

The nurse didn't let him go. He was pushing her back but she braced her feet and held on to him.

"Jonathan!"

He turned around and released his grip on the nurse when he saw her.

"Mother," he exclaimed in shock.

Naya reached out and grabbed hold of her son. She wrapped her arms around him and whispered in his ear, "I know it's hard son, but you've got to let the doctors do what they need to do. She is strong. She will fight. She will win, I promise you but you've got to let them do their job. She will be okay."

He began to sob.

"I can't lose her, mother. I can't lose her."

"I know son. I know. You won't."

The nurse was relieved. She knew she wouldn't have been able to hold him much longer.

As Naya stepped back, Jonathan's eyes rested upon JK.

"What are you doing here?!"

Jonathan moved toward him.

Naya stepped in between the two.

JK knew not to answer but he held on to his cane tightly.

"JK, can you do me a favor and wait for us in the waiting area?"

JK nodded his head as the two men glared at each other.

Naya turned her attention toward the nurse.

"Miss, do you mind helping him find it?"

"No, ma'am."

The nurse moved quickly around Jonathan toward JK. She wasn't prepared to witness world war three this evening.

Naya waited for JK to disappear around the corner.

"Did they say what happened?"

Jonathan leaned up against the wall.

"No. No one has said much, but I plan to find out who is responsible for this!"

Naya moved closer to her son. She chose her words carefully.

"Has there been any news about the baby?"

When she saw the tears and the way his legs began to shake, she knew. She stopped him before he could answer.

"This is my fault, entirely. I have caused so much pain to everyone close to me including my wife and now my child."

His sobbing became uncontrollable.

Naya didn't know how to respond. It took everything that she had, but she reached out for him again. She held him tight as she felt his tears soak through the crevices of her silk blouse. She understood his pain.

"You've got to save your strength for her. She will need you."

It took a few minutes, but finally Jonathan began to listen.

"Mother, I am so sorry about what I said about Chris. I really didn't mean it. I really do hope that he gets better. I'm so sorry."

Naya looked away. The thought never crossed her mind that he didn't know.

"My Chris is gone, Jonathan. My Chris is gone." She whispered.

It was Naya's turn to brace herself against the wall as he stared at her in disbelief.

The pain of a mother met the regret of a son.

Slowly they headed toward the waiting area.

Jonathan sat on the opposite side, trying hard to imagine JK not being there. He kept his thoughts focused on his wife.

JK watched him. Naya had whispered in his ear about the baby. He wanted so much to say how sorry he was, but he knew it was not the right time.

In the waiting room, tears fell down cheeks. Hearts searched for hope and memories of smiles filled minds.

Two hours later, Jonathan once again found himself searching the face of Dr. Banner.

Naya spoke first.

"Did you save my daughter-in-law?"

Dr. Banner's heart began to beat at a rapid pace.

"Yes ma'am, she is resting now."

Dr. Banner could feel her glaring eyes searching through her. She placed her hands in her pocket as if that would give her some sort of strength.

"What is going on with my wife?"

"There was an allergic reaction to the pain medication that was given to her, but now that it has been changed, I expect a full, but slow, recovery."

"Can I see her now?"

Naya watched her. She saw the hesitation.

"Yes, Mr. Creek, you can see your wife now, but I have to warn you that she is not fully aware of her situation."

Naya moved directly in front of Dr. Banner. The two women stood eye-to-eye.

"You mean you didn't tell her about the loss of the baby?"

Jonathan didn't understand what was going on, but he did understand that he would have to be strong for his wife. He was the one who would have to break the news to her. He took a deep breath and headed toward her room.

Naya waited until she could no longer see him.

Dr. Banner spoke up.

"I'm so sorry, I know I should have been the one to call and tell you about Chris."

Dr. Banner barely had time to step back as Naya's hand came in full contact with her left cheek.

"How dare you! How dare you not tell me that my Chris was gone! How could you do that to me? You said he was going to be okay. What happened? What happened to my husband?"

"I know I should have been the one. I just couldn't. It was too hard. I allowed myself to get too close. You have to know that I did everything I could to try to save him; the cancer had spread too far. It had…" She couldn't finish. The tears came gushing out.

When Naya saw the sincerity of her tears, she immediately wished she could take it all back. It was too late. Her words and actions were like feathers in the wind. Once let loose, they were impossible to retrieve.

Yet, she couldn't find the strength to say— I'm sorry. She went back to her chair and placed her face in her hands.

Dr. Banner reached in her pocket for a tissue. As she turned to walk away she was sure of one thing—Felicia Creek would be her last patient.

JK stared at his daughter as she stared out the window. He admired her in so many ways. He saw strength in her that Chris, in his opinion, had always missed. Naya was capable of dealing with pain, even the pain of losing a husband. He only hoped her strength was deep enough to finally fully forgive.

Naya slumped down into her chair. The tears glided softly down her cheeks. She thought about the last time she was here. Her Chris had lain just a few doors down from Felicia's room.

How am I supposed to go on without him?

J
onathan stood outside his wife's room. He wiped the tears away before opening the door. Chris had always tried to take away the pain when it came to his mother. He had never understood how that was even possible, until now.

As he walked toward her, she reached out her hand.

"I think we lost the baby," she whispered.

He bent over and began to place tiny kisses upon her cheek. She squeezed his hand tight and when the tears began to fall, he whispered in her ear….

"I'm here, baby. I'm here. Give me your pain. Give me your tears."

"Go back to writing your column, Jake. One day, you will understand what it means to be a
real
journalist. You ask the questions to get the story, but you have yet to learn how to leave your heart out of it."

M
onà heard the sound of the tape recorder being turned on again. She cleared her throat and sat up straight.

"Up until I was thirteen, I watched my father lose himself completely. The pain inside of him was something fierce, but it didn't excuse what he did.

"Honestly, I thought I deserved what happened to me. It wasn't until I held my baby girl Simone, in my arms that I realized that I had never deserved any of it. Well, maybe some of it. Life was more than crazy back then. It was down-right madness; you hear me? Down-right madness for me and him."

"Here is my story, Jake, my life. I've never told anyone before today; not a soul. Don't think you're special; you're not. I'm doing this for the reasons I told you before, to bring together what I pulled apart. Breaking apart children seems to be a common theme in my family.

"The day my mother died was the day his heart stopped working. She gave me life and I took hers. That is how he saw it. No one could tell me any different. She was only twenty years old when she died giving birth to me."

Jake leaned over and put the tape recorder on pause.

"Did you know that Jazzmyne thought that was how you died—giving birth to her?"

"Yes, I knew." She looked away for a moment.

Jake watched her; he waited for her to speak again.

"Look, let me tell this story while I still have the guts to do so."

He started the tape recorder again and leaned back into his chair.

She cleared her throat and when she opened her mouth again, it was as if she had traveled back into time.

"I was thirteen years old when I ran away from home. It wasn't because of what he had done to me; that hadn't occurred at the time. No, I ran away because I couldn't take the pain anymore.

"We lived in Chicago, in a run-down and barely standing apartment building. I guess you could say that I had to raise myself. JK barely spoke to me. He put what he could on the table and most nights he never came home, except for Sundays.

"On Sunday, he would put down the bottle, go into his room and take out my mother's picture. He would sit in that room for hours, staring at her. I would sit in front of the door and listen to him cry. Sometimes he would play his guitar.

"Man, I loved to listen to him play. He was so darn good.

"Well one day, I just couldn't stand the silence that existed between us, so I went in his room and tried to look at her pictures with him. He threw me out and started screaming and cussing like I had never heard him do before. He called me things that no man should ever call his daughter, ever.

"That's when I knew that there would never be any love between a daughter and her father.

"After I wiped the tears from my eyes and emptied my heart of him, I decided to leave.

"I caught me a bus and ran straight into the streets of New York. It took almost every dime I had saved. You see, I had this crazy notion that I was going to be a singer. Thought I was grown, when actually I was nothing more than a child living in a fairy-tale of a bubble that would soon be popped open by one man.

"I remember the day my feet hit the pavement. The rush of excitement filled my bones and I felt like I could sing right there on the very corner that I stood on. I knew my grandparents lived in New York and, like a fool, I figured they wouldn't turn me away.

"Not only did she—the woman that was supposed to be my grandmother––turn me away, She acted as if she didn't even know I had ever existed."

"There I was alone. I had nowhere to go. Thirteen and I barely had a thousand dollars in my pocket."