Twenty-two
I stood there frozen. “Gabe . . .” He held his arms open, and I jumped into them. He held me tight for a few minutes, and then pulled away from me. He bent to kiss me, and I remembered how sweet his lips were. He finally stood back, holding me at arms length. “Wow, you clean up well. You look even more amazing when you’re not covered with red dirt and sand.”
I laughed.
He looked me up and down. “My beautiful angel.”
I looked him up and down as well. “Look at you.” I had never seen him clean and shaven. I was used to him with stubbly facial hair and a wild afro he couldn’t seem to tame. The women of the village used to cut it with a large knife, but it never came out even. He was dressed in a pair of khaki slacks and a white, starched, button-up shirt. With his close haircut, sharp angular features, jet black skin and tall, lanky frame, he looked like a Calvin Klein model. More striking than actually handsome.
He pulled me to him again, and we both sighed and said at the same time, “You smell so good.” We hung on to each other, laughing.
I laid my chin on his shoulder with my arms still around him. “Gabe,” I breathed out his name. “What are you doing here?”
He pulled back and looked at me. “You called. I came.” His facial expression and tone let me know he thought it was a ridiculous question.
“But I called and left a message with Zembala for you not to come.”
“I was probably already on my way to Johannesburg by then.”
I stared at him in wonder. “I can’t believe you came.”
He looked hurt. “You can’t? Could you imagine anything that would keep me away if you needed me? I would have sprouted wings and flown across the ocean myself if I had to.”
I laughed and traced the outline of his jaw with my finger. “But how did you get here? How did you find me? When did you get all cleaned up and fine?”
He laughed and traced my lips with his finger. “I actually got in last night. I meant to call you then, but by the time my cousin picked me up at the airport, I was so tired, I didn’t even know my own name. I got up early this morning, and he took me to get clothes and get my hair cut and all that good stuff. He let me borrow his car. Driving was . . . whew.”
He ran a hand over his head like he missed his wild hair. “I’ve been calling you all day, but you didn’t answer. I had brought your emergency contact numbers with me and called your mother’s cell phone. She is something else. I can’t wait to meet her.”
“Is that my son-in-law out there?” Moms walked over to the door where me and Gabe still stood, hanging on to each other. “Ain’t you gon’ invite him in?”
She reached out to hug Gabe and held on to his arm. “Come on in, baby. I promise I raised her good. I don’t know why she’s acting like she ain’t got no home training.” She led him into the house, shaking her head at me.
Moms smoothed a hand across Gabe’s face. “Ain’t you a fine something. You two make a beautiful couple too. Look like something out of a magazine. All tall and fashionable looking.”
“Moms, please.”
“Don’t even start, Trina. You’ve known me too long to be getting embarrassed by anything I say.” She led Gabe into the living room and sat him on the couch, and then indicated for me to sit next to him while she sat in the armchair. “Trina, ain’t you gon’ offer the man something to drink?” She rolled her eyes and shook her head at Gabe.
I didn’t bother to ask what he wanted. I walked into the kitchen, grabbed a bottle of water and a tall glass of ice and brought it to him. He smiled as he accepted it, like he knew I understood what a precious gift I had just brought him.
“So you are well—Ms. Michaels, is it?” Gabe asked my mother and turned to me like he should know her name.
She reached over and squeezed his arm. “You can call me Moms, baby. I’m feeling fine. Trina made me stay in the hospital for a few days, but I’m much better now.”
I narrowed my eyes at her, but didn’t bother to say anything.
Gabe smiled at her. “I’m glad you’re doing better. I trust that you’ll let me pray for you while I’m here, yes? We wouldn’t want to let that cancer continue to have any place in your body.”
“Of course, baby. Anything for my son-in-law.”
This time my mouth fell open.
“Close your mouth, Trina. Wouldn’t want nothing flying in there. You just let me know when, Gabe. I’ll be ready.” Moms stood. “Well, I’m gon’ get out your way so you can spend some time together.” As she slowly ascended the stairs I heard her say, “Now I can die in peace.”
“Not today, Moms. Okay?” I yelled after her.
When she was out of earshot, I said, “Please forgive me for my mother’s behavior. I don’t know where she got this habit of calling you son-in-law.”
“No reason to apologize. I rather like the way it sounds.” He took my hand in his. “Don’t you?”
I smiled and leaned my head against his shoulder. “I’m so sorry you came all this way and nothing’s wrong. I should have called you back sooner.”
“Are you not happy to see me?”
“Of course I’m happy to see you. Especially looking so good. I just feel bad that you spent so much money and went through all this trouble for nothing. Moms is fine. Well, for now anyway.”
“First of all, the money means nothing if you needed me to be here. And if you were upset enough to call in the state you were in, then it’s not for nothing. And what do you mean for now anyway?”
I explained our conversation with the doctor in Moms’s hospital room before I brought her home. He took it all in, listening intently as I described how sick she was and that she had been released under hospice care to die. “If something happens, I can’t even take her back to the hospital. I just have to watch and let her—”
“My dear, in a little while, we’ll pray for your mother, and all this cancer rubbish will be finished.”
“That’s just the thing. Until you asked her, she hasn’t been willing to let me pray for her. I think she just agreed to let you pray to make you happy. I’ll be shocked if she really does.” I told him about me and Moms’s conversations since I’d been home.
“What does your mother have against God?”
I shrugged and shook my head, not wanting to have that conversation with Gabe. “And we haven’t seen Tiffany. I don’t even know where she is.” I told him about Tiffany’s recent behavior, the wad of money she gave me and the fact she admitted she was seeing a drug dealer. “When I talked to her when I was at the hospital, she was drunk. Moms yelled at her, and we haven’t heard from her or seen her since. I hope she’s okay, but who knows.”
He nodded, listening to everything I said. “Tiffany is unsaved, yes?”
“She has basically the same attitude as Moms when it comes to God.”
“And you don’t know where either of them got it?”
I looked down and intertwined my long fingers with Gabe’s.
“Or you do and you don’t want to talk about it?”
I nestled my head into his neck and let out a deep breath.
“What else is bothering you?”
“Huh?”
“What was it that you were about to tell me on the phone when I called you that night, but then you decided not to tell me?”
I looked up at Gabe and smiled. I kissed his cheek. “I love you.” I snuggled back against his shoulder.
He kissed the top of my head. He smoothed his fingers across my hair. “What happened?” He fingered the fake bun at the back. “What is this?”
I laughed. “Tiffany pressed it for me.”
“Pressed it? So it’ll go back, yes?”
“Yes. Why, you miss the afro?”
“Terribly.” He stroked my arm softly with his fingertips. “Are you going to tell me the rest, Trina?”
“Do I have to? I’m enjoying being with you.” I wrapped an arm around his waist.
“And you won’t enjoy being with me if you tell me?” He pulled away from me a little so he could see my face.
“I’m afraid you’ll be upset with me.” I looked down at our hands and held his tighter.
“What could make me so upset that you would not enjoy being with me anymore?” He gently lifted my chin so I would have to look at his face. “Nothing could ever make me not love you. You know that.”
I got up and went to the kitchen to get him another bottle of water and a glass of ice. He followed me, asking where the bathroom was. I pointed him down the hall. “Don’t forget to flush.”
He laughed.
When we both came back to the couch, instead of curling up against him, I sat facing him so I could look in his eyes when I talked. I told him everything, starting with Monica’s discovery two weeks before I left for Africa up until the present with my recent interactions with Bishop Walker. As he always did, Gabe listened intently without speaking.
When I finished telling him everything, Gabe got up and paced the floor. I sat there biting my lip, waiting for him to talk. My heart needed him to say what he was thinking.
“I don’t understand,” he finally said.
“Don’t understand what?” I asked.
“Why you would think you would need to take that job when you first got back?”
I frowned. What part didn’t he understand about mom’s bills and mine? I started to explain again, but he held up his hand.
“Just as you called me to come, all you had to do was call and tell me about the money. You know I would have had it wired to you immediately. You never would have had to set foot in that man’s office.”
I shook my head. “Gabe, you know I could never ask you to—”
“And why not, Trina?” He came over to the couch where I still sat and knelt in front of me. “Why is it so difficult for you to let me love you?”
I stared at him. “Because I wouldn’t call to ask you for thousands of dollars means I won’t let you love me?”
He nodded. “And so many other things. You feel as if it was too much to ask for me to come here when you’re carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders. Even in Mieze, for you to allow the slightest vulnerability and for me to be a man to you requires the severest conditions. Why must a child die or there be a flood or your mother almost die for you to need me? When everything is fine, you push me away. It’s only when you’re desperate that you’re able to admit how much you love me. I can’t bear this push and pull, back and forth with you any longer. I love you, Trina. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. But you’re unable to believe that I could love you that much. Or unable to receive that love. Or unable to love me back.”
I sat on the couch without speaking. I couldn’t explain the emotions going on inside me. I wasn’t sure I understood them myself. I wanted to curse him out, and I couldn’t remember the last time I cursed. I wanted to scream and throw him out of my living room. And at the same time, I wanted to burst into tears.
Because everything he said was painfully true. As much as it hurt to admit it.
He looked down at himself kneeling in front of me and shook his head. “How ironic, yes? Because even if I ask you to marry me again, you’d say no. No matter how many times I asked. Wouldn’t you?”
I still couldn’t answer.
Gabe stood up. “I love you, Trina and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. But I can’t do what we’ve been doing for the last year. My heart can’t take it. I want you to think about it.” He picked up a pen and a piece of mail off the coffee table. He scribbled a phone number on the back of the envelope. “Here’s the number where I can be reached. I’ll stay in town for another few days. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll be on my way back to Mozambique.”
He pressed the envelope into my hand and walked out the front door.
Moms must have heard the alarm beep when the door opened. A few minutes later I heard her feet on the steps. “Where’s my son-in-law? He left already? What did you do?”
I rested my head back on the couch and let out a deep breath.
“Tree? What you do to run that man away?”
I glared at her. “Why does it have to be that I ran him away?”
She sat on the couch next to me. “Where did he go? He going back to Africa?
“In a few days he said. If I don’t call him back.”
She picked up my cell phone and thrust it in my face. “You better call that man back then.”
I took the phone from her and put it back on the coffee table.
She rolled her eyes. “At this rate, I’m gon’ live forever.”
I laughed. “You mean to tell me all I have to do is never get married to keep you alive? That’s a fair trade.”
“No it’s not.” She squeezed my knee. “You love that man, Tree. It’s written all over your face. And he loves you too. It should be simple. You love him, he loves you.”
I nodded.
“So why are you on the couch looking like your dog just died, and he’s on his way back to Africa?”
I shrugged.
“You refuse to let me die in peace, don’t you?”
“Moms, what does my relationship with Gabe have to do with you dying in peace? Not that you’re dying anytime soon.”
“Everything. It has everything to do with it.” She leaned back against the couch. “I’m trying to put my affairs in order. There’s just some things I have to make right before I can go. The biggest one is the mistakes I made with you girls. Messed up your lives. I can’t be okay until I fix that. Or at least do my best to fix it. I can only do so much. The rest is up to you.”
“What are you talking about? You were a great mother. Everything I’ve accomplished, I owe to you.” I put an arm around her thin shoulders.
“And everything you haven’t accomplished you owe to me as well.”
I rolled my eyes and lifted my hands to the ceiling in frustration. “What are you talking about?”
“That wonderful man you just let walk out the door.”
I closed my eyes and massaged my temples. “Moms, please. I’m tired, and I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I was a great mother in many ways, but in one way, I really damaged you girls.” Moms sat forward and looked me dead in my eyes. “When your father left us, I turned so bitter. Filled your hearts and heads with so much poison about men. Brought men in and out of your lives that you had no business being exposed to. Just generally gave you the wrong ideas about men, marriage, and relationships. And so for a while, you were sleeping with everyone, but still not giving your heart away. And now that you all sanctified, you just won’t give your heart away. That’s my fault, Tree.”
I took her hand in mine and squeezed it. Her words were hurting me as much as Gabe’s did.
“I taught you not to trust a man. Not to depend on no man. Not to be vulnerable or let a man anywhere near your heart. Never let a man do nothing for you. Be strong and independent and never need a man for nothing. And you learned it well. Now it’s time to unlearn all that garbage I taught you so you can love that beautiful man that heaven sent you. Gabriel . . . he’s an angel indeed.” Moms patted my hand. “Find a way, Tree. Call on that God of yours to fix your heart. Make it right so I can have some peace. And while you’re at it, pray for Him to bring Tiffany home so I can make things right with her too.”
I squeezed her hand. “Thank you, Moms. I love you so much.”
“I love you too, baby. Now call my son-in-law and get him back over here. That sho’ is a fine looking man. Why he talk so proper though? Ain’t you said he was from Detroit? How a black man from Detroit end up talking all white?”
I laughed. “He spends most of his time speaking Portuguese, Moms. When he switches back over to English, it’s like a second language for him.”
She grunted. “Baby, you better call that man. And you need to test drive the car while he’s here.” She shifted her imaginary gearshift. “Vroom, vroom!”
I swatted her legs. “Moms, you are too crazy. Shush with all that.”
She took my face between her hands and kissed both my cheeks. “I love you, Tree.”
“I love you too, lady.”
I knew both Moms and Gabe were right. I had to find a way to overcome the pain of my father leaving and every negative word my mother had ever spoken into my soul about men. I couldn’t lose him.
But I was afraid to keep him.
I would have to pray and trust God to fix my heart, before Gabe got on that plane going back home.