As they exited the double back doors and began walking down the path, Autumn still seemed pleased by everything she was seeing.
“Before I forget to tell you, Danni is creating a paper invite and an e-vite. As soon as we heard this venue was available, she sent a save-the-date email blast. We will mail the paper invites tomorrow and send the e-vites tomorrow, as well. We have a little under three weeks, so we have to move fast.”
“Are we disclosing the location of the event?”
“Yes, we are, since some people need to make travel plans and we don’t want commuters who utilize public transportation in Chicago to assume this is a place they can get to easily. Danni will still keep most of the plans a mystery. She’s only including necessary information, and we plan on working with the models this Friday so that they understand their role in the event.”
“Sounds good to me.” The sound of Autumn saying the word Friday made him think about the request from his father.
“Ajay, what’s wrong? And don’t tell me nothing because I can tell it’s not nothing.” He could hear the concern in her voice.
“You’re persistent.”
“Only when it comes to finding out something I want to know.”
“I thought Taheim told me you were a woman of few words and only spoke when you felt as though you had something to say. That you’d never pressure anyone to talk.”
She raised an eyebrow before her mouth curled into a smile. “People have described me that way my entire life and usually it’s true.”
“So what has changed?”
“You’re not boring,” she said matter-of-factly.
“Thank you, I think.”
“What I mean is, usually I’m never interested enough to want to find out more about someone.”
Ajay raised an eyebrow at her. She must have realized how it sounded because she immediately tried to retract her statement. She looked so cute when she was nervous and flustered.
As the path got narrower, it pushed them closer together. Autumn was looking straight ahead, yet he was looking at her. Studying her. Watching her. It had been so long since he’d confided in a woman or even felt a need to. He watched her mouth curl into a smile once again.
“It’s so beautiful.”
He turned his head to see what she was looking at and had to agree. It was beautiful. The stone path ended and they had to walk down a small hill that had a gravel path leading through a tall grass and flower field. Nestled in the middle of the expansive field were two large cherry blossom trees and a river that seemed to follow along the path.
Since it was so cold in Chicago most of the time, Ajay forgot how beautiful certain parts of Illinois were in the summer and fall. Even the springtime, if they were lucky enough to get a short winter season.
He followed Autumn along the path to a concrete bench on one end of the river that opened into a small pond with vibrant green lily pads. He sat down beside her and minutes passed before either of them spoke.
“Did you know that I was adopted?”
Autumn slowly turned to face him. “I had no idea that Mr. and Mrs. Reed weren’t your biological parents.”
“In every way that it counts, they are my parents. But we don’t share the same bloodlines.”
“What about Taheim and Kaya?”
“They are biologically their children.”
“Were you adopted when you were a baby?”
“I wish,” he said with a forced laugh. “They didn’t legally adopt me until I was thirteen.” He glanced at her to see if she was surprised by what he had said, but she appeared only to be listening intently.
“From the time I was seven years old, I had enjoyed going to one of the Boys & Girls Clubs on the south side of Chicago. I grew up in an area of the south side that back in the day, we called the wild hundreds. So any excuse to have fun with other kids in the neighborhood was better than being in the streets. I knew that even at seven.”
“Pretty intelligent for a seven-year-old.”
“I may not be book smart like you, but I definitely have a good business sense and street smarts. Especially back then. One day, I made friends with this five-year-old kid who used to follow me around. I didn’t know why this kid was so drawn to me, but I couldn’t get rid of him no matter how hard I tried.”
“Let me guess. Was that little boy Taheim?”
“You know it,” he said with a smile as a memory of five-year-old Taheim flashed in his mind. “My parents are really active in the community and even though they didn’t live in the city anymore, they gave back to the community that they grew up in. One day, Taheim had asked our dad if I could spend the night. I could tell at first he was hesitant. He asked the director of the club about my parents and I couldn’t hear what the director was saying, but I’m sure he was telling him that my grandmother was my caregiver. So he walked me to my house, which was only a couple blocks away, so that he could personally ask my grandma.”
“Did you used to walk to the club by yourself or did your grandmother walk you?”
“My grandma used to walk me, but then she started having health problems, so one of her friends and neighbors would take me when she could. When Dad met my grandmother, they immediately got along. My grandmother was a saint in more ways than one while my birth mother was the complete opposite. She wasn’t ready to be a parent.”
“I take it you don’t have a good relationship with your biological parents.”
“To this day, I don’t know who my father is and I don’t give a damn to ever find out. And my birth mom died almost ten years ago. She was in and out of jail most of my childhood and was in jail when I had met the Reeds.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Autumn said as she lightly touched his arm. “That must have been terrible.”
“It was. I was conflicted because on one hand, I wanted her there. But on the other hand, her absence gave me the chance to get closer to the Reeds. As months turned into years, I was at the Reed family home more than I was at my own home. At the time, I felt as though I had the perfect life. A friend who, although younger than me, was like a brother. Parents who weren’t mine, but cared about me as if I was their own. I was even at the hospital when Kaya was born, so she’s only known her life with me in it.” His thoughts drifted to the moment when things had changed.
Autumn scooted closer to him on the bench. “Judging from the look on your face, I’m assuming things took a turn for the worse.”
“They sure did.” He shook his head and let out a laugh that was filled with hurt. “My grandma passed away when I was ten years old and my world fell apart. The reason I was able to spend so much time with the Reeds was because my grandma allowed it. When my mother got out of jail a few months before my grandmother passed, she was rarely home. She always preferred to roam the streets doing God knows what. After my grandma died, my birth mom suddenly wanted to start acting like a mother. She moved into my grandmother’s house, and when the Reeds showed up a few weeks after the funeral to ask if I could come over, she told them that I wouldn’t be seeing them anymore.”
“That’s awful.”
“It really was.” He watched one of the lily pads lightly spin in the pond. “A couple months later, we moved to Detroit to live with some drug dealer she was dating. The dude and I actually got along okay, but I went from learning basketball and fishing with the Reeds to learning how to roll a blunt. I would spend most of my nights in the basement with some guys who worked for him, counting the money he made.”
In his peripheral vision, he could see her shaking her head. He couldn’t blame her. Jaleen and a few others knew his story, but for the most part, no one knew about his past, and he liked to keep it that way.
“I witnessed things I wish I hadn’t. Did things I wish I could take back.”
“Everybody has regrets.” She leaned her head against his shoulder, and the movement caught him by surprise. “So how in the world did you end up getting adopted by the Reeds?”
He smiled. “From ten to twelve, my life was anything but normal. The one thing my birth mother’s boyfriend let me do was buy anything I wanted for the monthly party he planned for his right-hand men, their girlfriends or wives, and their kids. For me, I guess it symbolized family time. I enjoyed the parties because it was the only time that I felt normal. As if I was part of a regular family. One party they decided to have it in a public park with a nice-size pool. I was playing with the other kids in the pool but I was closest to the daughter of my mom’s closest friend out there. The two of us had decided that we wanted ice cream from the truck right outside the pool area. The last person I expected to see when I got there was Taheim buying a cone.”
“What are the odds? It was meant for you to see him that day.”
“I had thought the same thing. I’m not much of a hugger, but that day, we’d hugged so tight and I swear, I had felt so much emotion in that moment it had been hard to breathe. I had known I missed him, but I hadn’t expected to feel so much. Kids around us getting ice cream laughed, but we knew how rare it was that we would run into each other on a random Saturday in a Detroit park.”
Even reminiscing about that moment almost choked him up. So long ago, yet the memory remained as if it were yesterday.
* * *
As she continued to lean her head on his shoulder, she felt him begin to relax, considering most of the time, he’d been extremely tense.
“Taheim and I talked for about an hour that day and I made my friend stay close by because I knew that as long as we both were together, my mom and her boyfriend wouldn’t look for us. That was the year the Reeds opened a soul food restaurant in Detroit. It was right down the street from the park. I didn’t mean to, but I told Taheim everything that day and made him promise not to tell his parents he saw me until they were back in Chicago. I had been desperate for him to understand that my birth mom’s boyfriend was not the type of man to mess with. He kept his word, but my mom found out anyway. I guess my friend had told her mom about me seeing Taheim, and my mom put the pieces together. Things got bad really quickly, and not just between my mom and me, but also between her and her boyfriend. She started getting hooked on the stuff he sold and before long, he stopped trying to reason by yelling and resorted to full-blown hitting. Anytime I stepped in, I caught the wrath instead. Even knocked me unconscious a couple times.”
“Oh, my goodness, I’m so sorry.”
“I appreciate that. I had hoped that my mom would come to her senses and get us out of that situation, but she didn’t. It hadn’t mattered anyway. I was smart enough to finally call Child Protection Services. Within a month, I was removed from the house and placed in foster care. Within a year after that, the Reeds legally adopted me and as soon as I could, I took their last name.”
She lifted her head from his shoulder and glanced at Ajay. “Well, I’d say that is a very happy ending, and you know how I love a happy ending,” she said, trying to lighten the mood. It worked, and he let out a hearty laugh, finally releasing the remaining tension in his body.
“Yeah, we all know how much you love happy endings.” She joined in his laughter briefly, noting that he hadn’t told her how his birth mother had passed away.
“Seriously, though, I can’t say that I’ve been through exactly what you have. But I understand having a mother who probably should have never had children in the first place.”
“It’s a crazy thing, isn’t it? Had they not had kids, we wouldn’t be here. But it’s hard to shake the disappointment and hurt that you experience when you grew up with a parent who cared more about themselves than your well-being.”
“Exactly. My father is a good man. And my aunt and uncle who live in Arkansas are a great example of what a loving marriage should be. My aunt and my mom may share the same blood, but they are nothing alike.”
“I know what you mean. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about how different my life would have been if it wasn’t for the Reed family.”
“My mom up and left us and my dad when I was a teenager, and when she did, it was a huge relief. My dad was heartbroken when she filed for divorce. He’d spent most of their marriage trying to make her happy. But my mom is one of the most disrespectful people you could ever meet, so the day she walked out that door, it wasn’t ‘see you later.’ It was ‘good riddance.’”
“Wow, she must really be a piece of work.”
“She is. Definitely a conversation for another time.” She didn’t really talk about her mom much because she didn’t want to waste thoughts on people who didn’t matter. However, after what Ajay had just shared, she knew that one day she would share something with him, as well. It wasn’t that she felt she owed him her life story, but after spending her entire life never feeling inclined to share anything about herself to anyone, she finally wanted to share a piece of herself that she usually didn’t. And that was a feeling she was enjoying a little too much.