CHAPTER 18
Cleaning House—Kara
I attacked the counters with all the vigor I could muster, as if the few crumbs and invisible microorganisms personally insulted me. I started my war against germs at six a.m. Raina had stumbled down the steps, taken in my cleaning frenzy, crossed herself as if warding off bad spirits, and hurried back upstairs.
I stopped midwipe when my cell buzzed against the table. I looked at the screen and picked up the phone. “Hey, Dad.”
“Hey, sweet pea.” His voice was light, soft, and slurred.
He’s drunk. “Dad.” My voice broke. A stoic man, my father usually kept it all inside, but on anniversaries and birthdays, a crack appeared in his steel armor.
“Ya know what today is?”
“Yeah,” I whispered. “Mom’s birthday.” I tossed the dish cloth in the sink and settled on the barstool by the counter.
“I got a rum cake, her favorite. Even put the candles on the damn thing, all fifty-seven of ’em. But I couldn’t . . . I can’t blow them out.” His voice shook. “If I do, she’ll go away.”
“Daddy. She’s already gone.”
“I feel her, Kara. I know she’s with me.”
“No, Dad. She’s gone.” I said it more firmly, not only for him but for myself. Daddy grieved, like I’d been doing for the past few weeks before I had my awakening. He was living half a life since the heartbeat of our family died.
The phone beeped. I glanced down at my screen. Darren.
“Decline.” I hit the button. I knew that he wanted to comfort me, but I needed to focus on Daddy.
“What’s that, sweet pea?”
“Why don’t I come over?” I asked, changing the subject. “I can cook us something nice. Chicken, yellow rice, and plantains? Mama loved—”
“No.”
“No?”
“No. I don’t want you to come over. No, I don’t want you cooking nothing your mama ain’t around to eat.”
Ain’t around? I shook my head at Dad’s denial, that is, until I remembered that Darren had suggested the very thing last year and I pushed him off. I couldn’t bear doing something Mama enjoyed without her here.
“Okay. Are you going to visit her gra—I mean, visit her?”
“I already did this morning. Talked to Father Frank, too.” He dropped his despondent tone and switched to authoritative, though he was still slurring his words. “Said he saw you a few months ago.”
I stopped swiveling on the barstool. “We spoke.” My voice was clipped. “Is Father Frank sticking around today?”
The church was located just down the road from the cemetery. Father Frank often floated around caring for the grounds, although the church paid someone to do it.
But he shouldn’t be. It was a Tuesday, which meant volunteer day at the halfway house downtown. At least that was his schedule a few years ago, when I used to go down and volunteer with him. Although I was getting better, I still wasn’t ready to add God to the mix.
“No, he said he had some errands to run. He told me to tell you and Tracey hello. Are you going to say hello to your mother?”
“Of course I am.”
“Right,” he whispered. “Gotta go.”
“Daddy?” I cleared the croak from my voice.
“Yes, Kara.”
“Blow out the candles. Mama wouldn’t want you to linger. She’d want you to heal, or at least try.”
“I’m trying, baby. Every day I’m trying.”
“I know, Daddy. Me, too. I’ll give you today. But maybe I can come over this weekend? I’ll see if Tracey can swing by, too. We don’t have to eat Mama’s favorite foods, but maybe we can just talk.”
“We never talk about it.” His voice wasn’t negative, but contemplative.
“Not talking about it doesn’t seem to help, does it?”
“You and Tracey are doing okay.” His voice grew stubborn. “And don’t worry about me, I’m just a brokenhearted old man.”
“You’re not old, Dad, and we all have broken hearts.” I spun in my chair, now facing the window. “Tracey is hopping from man to man, looking for love in all the wrong places. Darren and I are separated . . . when Mama died, we all became a little lost. But I’ve been trying hard lately, and I swear I’m getting better. That’s why I think we should talk.”
“And talking about your mama being gone makes you feel better?”
“I’m not saying I have the answers, but Mama would want us to try.”
Dad sighed over the phone. “When did you get so wise?”
“I hit rock bottom, Dad. All I could do was look up and think.”
The phone receiver rattled as if Dad were going through a wind tunnel.
“Dad? What’s going on?”
“I blew out the candles.”
I parked the car in the church parking lot. Today was beautiful, a perfect tribute to Mama’s born day. Though it was cold, the sun kissed my skin, dashing away the chilly weather.
The grass hadn’t taken on the dull brown tint that other yards had done. No shoots of weeds or unsightly plants marred the manicured grounds. I wasn’t surprised, Father Frank was faithful in making sure the grounds were well-kept.
I walked along the winding path, flowers in hand, so lost in thought I didn’t see Darren until I was nearly at Mama’s grave. Darren was seated, a blanket and picnic basket on the side of Mama’s headstone.
Darren had arranged food on top of the blanket. He watched me, his expression relaxed save for the intensity in his eyes. My skin blazed under his scrutiny.
“What are you doing here?”
“Care Bear.” His deep voice reached out and soothed the fiery path his gaze had caused.
I battled my lungs to pull in air. “How long have you been here?”
He shrugged. “Few hours.” His voice was nonchalant, as if it were perfectly normal to stalk your almost-ex-wife at her mother’s grave.
“You’re a determined man.”
“I made us some sandwiches.” He waved to the brown wicker basket without addressing my comment.
“You made us a picnic . . . at Mama’s grave?” I wanted to laugh at the absurdity.
“You always cry when you come. It’s never cleansing, never healing. I wanted to make a good memory. We can eat, think of good things. Make it beautiful.”
“Things like?” I asked, not quite sure I was committed to leave my melancholy behind.
“Like how your mama would say everything was her jam. Remember how she hopped from her seat and then started swaying her hips to the beat, doing that wiggle thing with her shoulders?”
I giggled and then mimicked the dance. Mama was from the islands, but she had zero rhythm. “Aww, shoot. This. Is. My. Jam!”
“And remember when we first moved in together? Your mama dragged you to Mass, and after church, pushed you to the front of the line to talk to Father Frank?”
The melancholy vanished, replaced by hysterical laughter. Mama’s Caribbean accent would grow thick when she was riled up. “Father Frank, please pray for my firstborn’s eternal soul. She’ll be waiting for you at confession next week.”
I bent over from laughter. “I looked Father Frank straight in the eye and said that I’d been living in sin and enjoyed every minute of it, and asked if he wanted to hear all about it.”
“His face was beet-red!” Darren shook his head. “He told you to go in peace, and then ran away from your poor mother.”
Our laughter continued until we looked at each other. He was doing that looking-into-my-soul thing again. Something hot and potent blanketed the air, and then I felt it. An invisible string, a tether tugged at my heart. I shook my head, literally shook it, as if to signal this thing called love to cool it.
Darren raised his eyebrow, a smirk forming along his lips. He patted the blanket. “Want to sit down? Join me in my creepy picnic?”
The tether tugged not-so-gently again. “Yeah, you can’t be the only weirdo eating PB and J sandwiches in a graveyard.” I lowered myself to the ground.
He passed me a sandwich wrapped in plastic. “For you.”
“Thank you, good sir.” I took the proffered food.
After unwrapping the sandwich, I looked down at my lap, avoiding Darren’s eyes. Heat zipped through my bones. I could feel his stare on my face, my breasts. I wondered if he could see how hard my heart pounded beneath my chest.
I took a bite, swallowed, then found the courage to look up. Like magnets, my eyes found his.
“Kara . . .” He sighed, reverent. Worshiping.
“Yes?”
“Are you okay?”
“Why do you ask?” I wondered if he could read the confusion on my face.
“Today is your mother’s birthday. I need to make sure you’re okay.”
“I am.” I nodded. “Really, I am. And I talked to Dad today. He’s still taking everything hard, but he, Tracey, and I are going to talk more.”
“Really?” A small smile formed on his lips.
He’d always encouraged me to talk to my family, but I wrapped my grief around me like a cocoon and was too engrossed in my pain to see anything else. To see him. To see his pain. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“About what?” He dropped the smile.
“About your past and what happened to you as a child.”
He sighed, shook his head. “I was ashamed. Men, we don’t talk about stuff like that. If you have sex with an older woman, it’s like a rite of passage.”
“Not when you’re a kid. How old were you?”
“Ten.”
“Ten.” I shook my head. “That’s rape.” The word was foreign and tasted sour on my tongue.
“I know that. I always knew, but I was confused. She was the only person to show me affection and touch me, though inappropriately.”
He bit into his sandwich. “Then I found Dr. Caine, and I’ve been talking to Father Frank, too. He helps me with the spiritual aspect. Made me realize the Big Guy upstairs actually cares for me.”
“Good, I’m glad. I’m happy for you.”
His eyes sought mine again. “Kara, I love you.”
I looked away and twisted the plastic in my hand. Does he?
Even after our counseling, I was still unsure, still thoroughly confused. But despite my dark thoughts, my heart leaped just a bit, as if it wanted to be closer to Darren.
“I know you’ve been working on yourself, and that’s great. But you said it before . . . you don’t know what love is.”
“I do.”
“You don’t. Or maybe you do? But I can’t afford to be your experiment. I need a man who loves me. Scratch that, loves me and knows it.”
“I’m your man and I love you. So much that it hurts looking at you, knowing the pain I caused by my actions, or rather inaction. Let me prove myself.”
“Fine.” I waved at him. “But, first, tell me what love is?”
He frowned, but not in irritation, as if thinking through his answers. “I can’t give you a definition. It’s complicated.”
“I need you to try,” I whispered, looking at Mama’s grave. “Help me understand why you didn’t love me.”
“It’s not that I didn’t love you. I just . . . my heart wasn’t turned on all the way. Back then, I loved you in a limited way. I was just bumping along in life. I didn’t believe in God, but you went to church and I wanted to make you happy. I didn’t love my job, but I was good at it and made good money. I didn’t have any passion. Not real passion, like you do for wine. I saw your light and it shined brightly. And I was drawn to it like a moth to a flame because everything around me was dark. You are my firefly. You guided me out of my darkness. Back then I drained your light. And when your mother died, your light dimmed. I saw it, recognized it, but I didn’t help you out of the darkness. I know I love you because I want to make you happy. I want to be your partner, the person you rely on. When I think of you, my heart speeds. I’d die for you. I know it hurts for me to say this, but back then, I didn’t love you unconditionally. I didn’t understand the full range of love. It’s like I was operating in black and white, and now I see color. I see you.”
My heart clanged like an old church bell. My body shook so much I had to clench my stomach to stop the shakes. But it didn’t stop the hope from growing in my core because, damn, he moved me. Moved my heart. I wanted to bury myself in his arms, but something held me back.
“What do you love about yourself?”
“Me?”
“Yeah, you.”
“I like my drive to make myself a better person. I like my relationship with God. I read and studied the Bible, and I realized that a part of me never forgave God for taking away my parents, for leaving me with loveless grandparents, and for allowing that to happen to me, an innocent child.”
“How did you move forward? How did you forgive Him?” I leaned forward, hoping he could give me the answers I needed.
“I realized that I knew nothing.”
“Huh?” I asked, underwhelmed by his answer.
“I’m looking through a keyhole. I won’t ever truly understand God’s ways, and for a guy who considers himself intelligent, it kind of pissed me off. Honestly, I asked Father Frank the same question.”
I rolled my eyes. “And what did His Immenseness say?”
“To lean not on my own understanding but know that God is good, just, loving. And that He gave us a gift of eternal life. I just have to open my heart to accept it.”
I rolled my eyes. “How trite.”
“More like impossible. It was kind of hard for me to do, to love Him when I didn’t love myself. So, I started to just read anything I could get my hands on about hearing from God. And then one day, I did.”
“Oh, yeah? What did He say?”
“It wasn’t anything He said, just a feeling. Of love. Like my heart got unblocked and I could feel and hear and see clearly. Everything just clicked.” Darren stretched his legs. “And you know me, I wasn’t talking for months. But I had an epiphany. God gave us a heart, a brain, consciousness, and intellect to be able to get back up and try again. He never promised us a perfect life, but He gave us the means to survive.” He grew quiet after his statement.
I remained silent. I didn’t know what to say, how to follow up his aha moment. I was happy, truly happy he felt better, but I wasn’t ready to forgive . . . Darren or God.
“Do you believe in Him, Kara?”
“Yep. Never stopped believing. Which is why I’m pissed. I know He’s supposed to be with me.” I tapped my heart. “But I’m not ready to accept some corny thing about understanding the will of God. My mom was kind and good and . . . and she was just living her dream as a teacher. She deserved better. Deserved more time to enjoy her life, deserved more time to meet her grandchildren. She would’ve been an awesome grandmother. But no. He,” I pointed to the sky, “yanked my mother’s life away.”
Darren nodded, his eyes compassionate, patient. “So if you believe, then you believe in eternal life, right?”
“Yes,” I hissed, slightly agitated that he didn’t address why God took Mama away.
“Then you know that she didn’t die. She’s living, more fully than we can ever imagine.”
A breeze fluffed up my hair. Goose bumps formed on my forearm, and I swore, I swore I could feel her, as if she were sitting beside me.
“One of the main things I realize is that we aren’t meant to live life alone. We were built to love and be loved. And to love, unconditionally, is to accept things about ourselves and each other: the good and bad and ugly. To love without boundaries or conditions. I couldn’t love you the right way because I was blocked.”
He pointed to me. “But you put conditions up, too. You stopped loving God because you think he’s mistreating you. But everyone lives and everyone dies. And now, you’re convincing yourself that you don’t love me because you think I never loved you.”
I lowered my head. Shaking my head. Not true. Not true.
I loved him so much that every day without him felt heavy and worthless. It didn’t matter how many victories I’d won in my life. I was losing the most important thing in the world: my husband.
He remained silent. Maybe he was letting me digest my part in our destruction. But then he spoke. “Just . . . just try to remove those limitations of what you think life should be and how love should be expressed.”
His voice shook as he lifted my chin to meet his eyes. “I love you. Your drive, your ridiculous victory dance. The way you twist up your nose when you smell cheap wine. The way you give your girls shit when you think they messed up. And the way you support them when they’re low. I love everything about you, and all I’m asking is that you love me as I am. An imperfect man. A man with a lot of scars and skeletons, but a man who loves the hell out of his woman. A man who’ll love you for the rest of his life, if you let him. Let me in. Let Him in, and every day, we’ll show you just how much we love you.” He held out his hand and I took it, needing comfort. “Let me help you, Kara. I don’t know all the answers, but I know Mama Carla wouldn’t want you to feel this way. You aren’t alone in this.”
He pulled me close into his arms, warmth seeping from his body. Gathering me closer, he whispered, “My biggest regret was not being there for you. For allowing you to slip into the darkness. When you needed me, I wasn’t there and I didn’t know how to be someone else’s light. I failed you. I should’ve followed you into the dark.”
I leaned into his chest and cried. Cried for us, cried for Mama, cried for Dad and Tracey.
Cried for me.
“I love you, Kara. He loves you, too. And you love Him. Let go of your anger and let Him in.”
His word seemed to untighten and loosen the bands of fear, anger, and sadness across my chest. I exhaled, gasping for air as if I’d broken the surface of choppy water.
A ball of energy warmed me from the inside, percolated through my pores, and ignited my body. It was as if I were coming to life after a long hibernation.
I felt it. I felt Him. “Well, I’ll be damned,” I whispered to myself, realizing that Darren was right.
Darren leaned back, looking in my eyes. His eyes brightened at whatever he saw in me. “Told you.”
“Yeah,” I whispered, overwhelmed by emotion. “You did.”
I moved away and pushed off from the ground, full of boundless energy. “Can you take a few days off for a road trip?”
Darren, still seated, looked up questioningly. “Where to?”
I reached out my hand. “ “St. Louis, Missouri.”
One week later, Darren drove eight hours to Saint Louis. He held my hand the entire time, never letting go. Not even on the fast highways or the winding back roads or in the bumper-to-bumper traffic.
He drove us to the Four Seasons, checked us in, gave me space to study, and then the next day waited in the lobby while I took my exam.
Half an hour later, I floated out of the exam room. I saw him before he saw me.
He paced the floor, glancing at his watch. He held a bunch of flowers behind his back. Before my exam, he’d tried to pin a white heather flower on me for good luck. I had declined because we weren’t allowed to wear anything that could throw off our senses.
“Darren?” I called across the lobby. Some of the patrons and staff at the Four Seasons rolled their eyes. I was buzzed. I was happy. I didn’t care.
He rushed toward me, grabbing my elbows. I swayed a bit.
“Did you…” He looked at my chest, pointing to the small, round pin. “You did it?” A wide smile spread on his face.
“I did it.” I grinned and twirled. “Twenty-five minutes. Six glasses of wine. I’m a mother-effing-master!” I yelled again.
He pulled me to his chest and hugged me tight. “Baby, I am so proud. So damn proud. And your mother would be, too.”
“I know.” I bit my trembling lips.
“Let’s go celebrate. I got us reservations to a really nice restaurant.” He grabbed my hand and led me to the entrance.
“What if I hadn’t passed?”
“I knew you’d pass.”
I stopped walking. Daren looked at me.
“How did you know?” I asked.
He shrugged. “You were so focused and confident. I haven’t seen that look in a while and well…I believed in you because you believed in yourself.”
I looped my arm through his and sighed deep and content. “Guess I’m back in the game.”
“You just pulled a Michael Jordan and left the game for a little bit. But as soon as you returned, you found your way back.”
“Hmm.” I said, making the comparison in my head. Like MJ, I’d lost a parent, switched directions, and then returned back to the game I loved. “Guess I did.”