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A SMALL RAINBOW PEEKED over the edge of the crest, reminding both Zeke and Tameka of God’s promise to never flood the earth again. However, the constant onslaught of rain made them both start to wonder if there was any human life left in the valley at the base of the mountain. The downpour had finally stopped, but the constant drizzle maintained the outside dampness and slushy red clay walkways. If the weather was not so ugly the surroundings would have been serene.
“Tameka, I made some grits and eggs for breakfast,” Zeke told her, doling out a large serving of white ground corn.
“I hate grits,” she said, coming to the kitchen and looking at the plate with a frown.
“It’s the fastest way to pack on the pounds. Two bowls a day and by the end of the week, we can have a few more pounds on that thin frame,” he said.
“Zeke, I wasn’t really that big before. You also have to remember, I ran barefoot through woods in a torrential downpour while in labor,” she said as his facial expression registered an ah-ha moment. “I never really eat much, which is why his attempt to control me with food and water didn’t work,” she added as a point of interest.
“Control you?”
“Yeah, men like that are all about control. I took his away by never reacting or responding to him,” she said flatly, sitting at the table, frowning at the meal before her.
Zeke’s eyes went to the baby sleeping peacefully, quietly wondering, but afraid to ask. At some point he must have had some kind of control. There is evidence by way of that child. She knew what he was thinking.
“I was not conscious when she was made.”
“Michelle, her name is Michelle,” he emphasized, touching her hand. Tameka didn’t pull away from his touch.
“He drugged me at least three times. Twice there was residual evidence of what he’d done. Honestly, if it wasn’t for the deposits, I wouldn’t have known he’d been there,” she said, spooning in a mouthful of grits. “It really makes me wonder how men with such tiny penises regard themselves and their manhood.”
He didn’t want to react, but he let her hand go. “Tiny?”
She looked up at him. “Yeah, like a hardened Vienna Sausage. He had the nerve to show it to me that first day of my captivity and I actually laughed at him before I kicked his tiny little wiener,” she said.
“We don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want, Tameka.”
“It’s fine, Zeke. He touched my body, but he never touched me. I kind of hid in my own head whenever he would come around. Sometimes he would be gone for an entire week, but when he noticed the changes in my body, he tried to bring me better food. I didn’t trust him. I ate very little, but enough to sustain...Michelle’s life,” she said.
“I...I’m so sorry this happened to you,” Zeke said, looking at her with an open-heart filling with all sorts of emotions.
“Don’t be. Everything comes in due time and you showed up on just in the nick of it. I’m married to you now. Michelle will have a father who adores her and somewhere along the line we will find our way to love,” she said as comfortably as if she had lost her dog who had a chip in its neck. Tameka spoke with an optimism which was refreshing as if the chip would bring the dog safely home, yet inside, he felt she was overcompensating to cover a tragedy.
“I’m worried that you are taking this all very lightly, considering what happened to you,” he said.
“No, you are taking it too heavily. He was a dumb man with a dumb plan and he will suffer in the end for what he did to me. It will not be by my hand, but I believe in a higher power,” she told him.
His faith had been shaken years ago as well as his brother’s, who was an ordained minister, but spent more time thumping loose women than thumping a Bible. The doubt on his face she didn’t miss. This time she reached over and touched his arm, running her fingers over the smooth hairs.
“Zeke, I never had any doubts that I and that child would not be saved. Yes, it took nearly a year, but in that time, I spoke every day with her, read her stories from memory, and even made up a few. In my darkest hours that child was my companion. You don’t have to worry about me not loving her because I do. She kept me sane and she is what brought me to you,” she said.
The conviction in her voice touched him.
“Understood; however, my lovely wife, it is important to keep a healthy perspective on all of it. If not, it will sneak up on you like a thief in the night and rob you of your sanity,” he said to her.
“My perspective on Jimmy Don is that he is no different from any other slug of men I have encountered in my life. That weasel is no different than my Aunt’s pedophilic husband whom I had to threaten with a knife to get him to back off and put his dick away. He was no different than the two assholes he raised, one who snuck down the stairs to the damp basement where they made me sleep for nearly a year, trying his luck at fingering me. Do I need to mention his pimply faced little brother who got a mouthful of my shit when he walked in the bathroom on me for the third time?” she said, looking at him with a straight face.
“Perspective is relative. My life has been filled with overly eager men who believe just because I have a slit between my thighs, it is there for them to take. The jerks in high school, the professors in college who wanted to help me better my grades, the frat boys who always had a ready drink for me, and I could keep going,” she said, spooning in another mouthful of grits.
“Is that why you asked me what would be the price of my rescue?”
“Yes. There is always a price and I am waiting to see how much yours is going to cost me. I am not getting all of this out of the goodness of your heart. You are taking me on and a child, marrying me with no questions or reservations. So, I know there is a price. You say you are broken, but how broken? Does that mean you have blackouts and are going to beat the shit out of me, or are you kinky and enjoy running objects up my bunghole? Either way, I am going to have to deal with the other version of you when he shows up,” she said, finishing her grits.
His mouth hung open as he stared at her in disbelief. A life so dark. A heart so optimistic yet willing to face the lesser evil than to stand toe to toe with a devil. He closed his mouth to stare at his hands.
“I lost her and my child to a man who beat her to death. I promised to protect them and failed, which is why I joined the Secret Service. I took a bullet to the shoulder and several to my left leg, which is full of pins to hold the shattered bones together. If I go back to my job, I am on desk duty, chasing down counterfeiters, money launderers, and people trying to subvert our government,” he told her.
She looked at him with no expression on her face.
Zeke said calmly, “That’s not the life I want. I came here at the insistence of my brothers and some force that guided me down that road. When you showed up, I took it as a second chance to make a difference, to be the father to that child I lost, and marrying you meant I didn’t have to try to date and get to know someone, then pop the question after a drawn-out courtship. It was easy. This is easy. You needed me and so did Michelle, and God knows I needed you to give me a reason to get up every day and go about my life.”
Tameka didn’t respond. Zeke didn’t need her to, but he would say what he had to say and leave it with her to process. What she did with the information he gave next was up to her. He did however, need her to understand that the man in front of her was all that he was, not a representative pretending to be a good guy,
“I have no sexual deviances or odd desires. I like sex, I enjoy it, I’m pretty good at it when I get warmed up, and no, I don’t have a Vienna Sausage,” he said, standing to take her plate. “There is enough in my savings account to sustain us for a while until we get things moving, but with all the additions you want to do to the cabin, we will need a budget.”
Tameka’s mouth was now open, shocked at his words. “After everything I just told you, that is all you have to add?”
“Ain’t nothing left to say. As I said before, I’m broken, and you are damaged. We heal together and neither one of us is alone to finish the shitty journey we call life,” he said. “We need to get you to working out to build some muscle tone so you look healthy.”
Her response was halted by the ringing of his cell phone. He looked at it oddly, recognizing the number and glaring at the device. If he didn’t answer it, there would be hell to pay.
“Hey Dad,” he said into the phone.
“I hear from Gabriel that you are married to some buck naked black woman that showed up on the doorstep last week and gave birth to a baby on your Mama’s favorite rug?” Josiah Neary said.
“True,” Zeke replied.
“And the child?”
“Michelle Marie Neary is her name, so congrats, you two are now officially grandparents,” he said calmly, waiting for the other boot to come crashing through the phone, but instead there was silence. He heard his father say something to his mother who squealed at the top of her soprano lungs.
“Let me see that baby,” his mother yelled. “Let me see my little darling granddaughter. Hang up Joe and call him back with the picture in picture video thingymabobba so I can see her!”
“Son, I’m hanging up so we can call you back and meet our daughter-in-law and say hi to our grandchild,” Josiah said, hanging up the phone.
“Tameka, brush your hair and slap on some lipstick, please,” Zeke said, holding the phone low as it rang again. She didn’t argue but rushed to the bathroom, checked her teeth, and ran the brush across her hair. Adding a touch of lipstick, she returned, holding up her hands in askance if she looked okay.
Zeke nodded as he answered the phone. His parent’s faces were squeezed together in the small window of the cellular phone. “Hello!” they both yelled simultaneously.
“Well, where are they?” Mary Neary wanted to know.
“Right here, Ma,” Zeke said, turning the phone to include Tameka in the shot.
He heard his mother gasp. “Aren’t you just adorable. Hi, I’m Mary, but I want you to call me Mom. This is Josiah, we call him Joe, but if you are comfortable, just call him Pops,” she said.
“Hey there, Mom and Pops,” Tameka said, adding a smile to the corners of her lips. They appeared to be genuinely lovely people with warm demeanors.
“Welcome to the family, young lady,” Josiah said. “Not to be rude, but where is our grandchild?”
Zeke turned the phone back to his face, looking at his eager parents. God bless their souls, they were possibly the most liberal people in Virginia, and he could not be prouder to have them as parents. Tameka returned with Michelle, who seemed a bit upset at being roused from her nap in front of the fireplace.
Zeke turned the phone around to show the baby, who yawned, passed gas, and gave them a crooked, toothless smile. Mary started to cry and Josiah inhaled deeply.
“She is beautiful, son. She has all ten fingers and ten toes?”
“Yes sir, by all accounts she is well, but we have to get her off this mountain once the road opens and the rain stops. She’s only a week old, but we are trying to fatten her, well both of them, up in a hurry,” he said.
“You two can talk shop on your own time, I want to look at that cuddly little pookiekins. Oh my goodness, I can’t wait to kiss her little toes,” Mary said. “Ooh, I need to go shopping. What does she need?”
“Mom,” Tameka said reluctantly. “Based on my current circumstance, she has nothing, so anything you decide to get would be a blessing to me and Zeke.”
“Speaking of circumstance, I do expect you to be a good wife to my boy,” Mary said.
“I will take care of him with every essence of my being. He will want for nothing and I will be a good wife to him,” Tameka said to Mary. Butterflies hit her stomach as she realized she spoken the words with such ease. Fuck me. I actually meant what I said.
“Good. Good. I know he was brought down there for a reason and if you are it, then God is in control,” Mary said.
“Of that, I have doubt,” Tameka responded with a wry smile.
“Ezekiel Neary!” Mary yelled, startling the baby. “You will let us know the moment they start working on those roads.”
“Sure thing, Ma, but we think we want to live here permanently. Dad, can we talk about that later? I will need to add on a master suite and another bedroom, if possible,” he said.
Josiah raised his bushy eyebrows, moving his face closer to the screen as if he were whispering a secret clubhouse password. “You want to live up there in the cabin?”
“Yes sir, there is nothing left for me in the District,” he said. “I have gotten some help from Nathaniel Mann, you know basic essential stuff, for my wife and Michelle.”
“Nathaniel. Is that Sheriff Mann’s boy?”
“One and the same. He’s been a lifesaver for us both,” Zeke told his father.
“Let me make some calls and we will revisit this in the morning. Love you, son,” Josiah said.
“Love you both and thanks,” Zeke said, hanging up. Tameka stood there looking at him as she rocked Michelle in her arms, trying to get her back to sleep.
“I have never met more accepting people than your family. Honestly, that was kind of weird. They are just going to take this child as their grandchild, no questions asked. Come on, Zeke, that is weird,” she said.
“Honey, I’m 40 years old, and they ain’t getting no younger. They want grandchildren so badly they were willing to kidnap a few to get them. My brothers are in no hurry to marry, and they consider Michelle to be a Godsend, so just go with it,” Zeke said. “It makes them happy.”
“You don’t seem happy, though,” she said, observing the tension in his lower jaw as he clenched his teeth.
“Nope. Soon as they get word the roads are open, you can expect to see them on this doorstep, and my dad is going to bring the full arm of the FBI down on the Macklemore’s heads,” he told her.
“I thought you said your Dad was a cop?”
“He is. He is a Federal one who is still pissed that Jedidiah Macklemore nearly shot him twenty years ago. He only needed an excuse to come in full force and go after them. You just gave him one − a grandchild in danger,” he said.