His Wife

Chapter 44

Leslie was gone for quite a bit and I found my eyes keep drifting to the door. I was once again glancing towards it when I heard Myra say something and I turned to her with an
expression of confusion.

"You're ok son?" she asked with a frown and I nod as I tried to pay attention to what she was saying.

I wish it was easy as I kept thinking why Leslie would be taking so long in the bathroom. I turn to the door as I saw a shadow walk by but it was just Sofia admitting a few more persons who were turning up to support Myra.

"I'm just waiting for a few more persons that I called over, and then I will share with you all what it is that I would like to say," I heard she said and I look around at the small gathering then back to mother's somber face.

She gripped my hand tightly as she spoke. I pulled her to my side and held her there for a while until Celeste and Donovan McPherson came in. I felt her composure break but she stood her ground as her body shook slightly against mine and waited for the woman's embrace as she was walking up to us without stretched arms and grief radiating from her eyes.

The woman who was a dear and close friend to both my mother and father and her husband who was my father's colleague for a close part of a decade did not just hug my mother alone she hugged the both of us.

I did not realize it but the feel of her arms around me seems to make it more clear than ever that this was going to be the day that I have to give of myself the part of me that I held locked away from everyone. I was not sure I could do it.

I wanted to keep it locked away. I wanted it to stay safely hidden where I had shoved it to be safe and secure from all the sorrow that I knew a day like this would bring.

I was for the first time in my life going to have to say goodbye to someone because of death. I felt my heart lurch in my chest, my breath became shallow and something close to hysteria rushed from nowhere and circulated itself in my mind.

I clamped my eye shut and when I opened them again I was in a darkened room. The current sounds, colors, shades, and smell or the feel of Celeste and mother were like a distant memory.

Julian?.... Julian?

Who was it calling me? I look around, searching for the sound until I saw a figure came out of the dark and into my line of sight.

I stood shocked as I stared at myself, the broken boy who I kept hidden away, the boy who I vowed never to let life or circumstances hurt ever again. There he was looking at me with eyes that tore at my soul, eyes that showed all the emotions I never allowed myself to feel until now.

I swallowed and tried to speak but my voice seems to lodge in my throat and all that happen was my mouth opening and closing like a fish gasping for its survival.

"Yuh finally come back," he said and I was surprised by the smile and sound of genuine happiness. "I tried reaching out to yuh nuff time but yuh just nuh pay mi no mind."

This was not an accusation but just a fact. He looks at me and I look away rather scared of what facing him would do to me. I did not want to feel all his emotions but I knew I have to give in, I wanted to hold onto the armor that I shielded myself in for a minute more but it was time I stop being a coward.

"I am a part of yuh enuh," he said and this time his voice was sad, "I just want to be wid yuh. I am tyaad of watching you live without the memories of me. I am the little boy they talk about weh rise up from the bitter life of poverty and made himself into you but look at me, just talk and nothing more.

Yuh will just fall apart in di end Julian. Nothing will be the same because if you nuh se'it people leave people in many ways and you can't kip locking yuh self away tinking yuh can rise above it. Yuh jus a guh come right back to me.

It's not wrong to love me or embrace me, am the part of Charles yuh don't want but am the part of him weh yuh should need."

"Look what mi fada duh to yuh---"

"No to wi," he said cutting me off and pointing to the both of us as he continues to speak, "to Mama, to Devon, to Sonia, and Charles Junior."

Silence played in the dark enclosure around us for a while as I awaited what else was going to be said.

"Yuh shut mi weh thinking it will help you Julian but Charles dead an gone and am still here. Now it's Kenton who is about to die and he made yuh into the man yuh are so what yuh guh do, lock up dat part a yuh to?

What will there be for your wife and your child when you lock away your childhood and then the man that erupted from dat childhood?"

The question shook me to the core. I remember Mama telling me that the night when we talked for hours into the night when Leslie had stayed by her and I had been too scared to face her.

"Stop run Julian. There are always going to be hurtful things in dis life but running away from them or hiding the hurt away won't make them go away. Yuh have to face them mi son or pretty soon dem a guh consume yuh, eat yuh away from the inside out. Then yuh tun nothing but what yuh running from."

I look at the little boy in his faded and old khaki pants, hacked away haphazardly below his knee, his crumpled old dress shirt laying open because the buttons have long since fallen off and not been replaced. He was fairly tall and filling out into the handsome man that he would become.

His face was not yet angular, it still held the grace of youth but his budding manliness was beginning to show its signs within his features and structure. It was time to set him free so that I could become the best version of myself.

I walk up to the boy that was me and embrace him and when his lanky but strong arms wrapped themselves around me in return I felt for the first time in a long time whole. I felt a burden lift from my shoulders and the brokenness was filled as the emptiness washed away.

I sighed as I inhaled the sweet floral scent and press it into the warm body that engulfs me. My eyes flew open and I look to see that I was once again beside Myra with Celeste embracing us.

I kiss Celeste's cheek and hug mother reassuringly after which I greeted Donovan along with a few other people then after which I then excuse myself to find my wife feeling renewed.

I walk up the stairs thinking lightheartedly that with this renewal of myself and Leslie and the baby I was now complete. I could also face this heartbreaking juncture of Kenton's death without being ripped to pieces.

When this day was over he believed he and Leslie should visit Mama in the country. Yes, they should.

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Hhheeyyyaaa my peeps 😁

I hope you find this chapter interesting and conveying Julians (Dan) facing his deepest fears to overcome his anxiety and loss of Kenton's upcoming death. I did not want it to be too literal or mundane.

Thanks for your continued support😊
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