The White Fence

41. Comings and Goings

            The night before Erin was supposed to arrive, I tossed in the bed, unable to sleep. My restlessness kept Derek awake, and he finally sat up in the bed. “What’s wrong?” he wondered, reaching over me to switch on the lamp.

            I stopped him, not wanting the light on, but I turned towards him in the darkness. “If I tell you, promise not to laugh?”

            “Why would I laugh?” he questioned, sincerely.

            “I’m worried about meeting Erin tomorrow,” I admitted.

            “Are you?” Derek sounded surprised. “Why’re you worried ‘bout that?”

            “Just because,” I said with a sigh.

            Even in the dim light I could see him trying to figure out my motives. “You worried she won’ like you?”

            “Yes, but not exactly the way you think. We’ve written a few letters, and we seem to get along okay, but I’m worried that she won’t like me…you know, once she finds out I’m black.” From his silence I gathered that he wasn’t expecting me to say that. “You’d think that I’d be used to people making decisions about me based on skin color,” I mused, “but still, it’s startling every time; it’s not something you ever really get used to.

“Aria, my aunt’s neighbor, says that she knew a girl who was treated so badly by her roommate that the girl dropped out of college entirely. I…I mean it’s a big deal, meeting your roommate and everything.”

            Derek nodded, leaning in to kiss the top of my head before he secured his hold on me. “It is,” he agreed. I could hear him considering his words before he spoke. “I wish I could say that she’s goinna love you as much as I do, and I hate that I can’. If she don’, though, you don’ need her in your life no way. You’re outta sight, baby, and if they don’ get that, they’re squares.”

            I laughed nervously at his words. Derek adjusted so we were facing each other, and I could just make out his outline in the light from the window. “I wish that everyone else saw what I see when I look at you.”

            “And what is it you see?” I wondered.

            “Uh girl too beautiful for words. Someone whose inner is just as beautiful as her outsides. Tha smartest, strongest, woman I’ve evuh met, who takes whit from no one, includin’ me.”

            “Especially you,” I corrected, smoothing down a lock of his hair.

            He kissed the inside of my hand. “I love you, Tracy,” he said, fondly.

            “I…too,” I remarked, wondering why it was suddenly so hard to say the words. I love you Derek, I thought fiercely. “Dare?”

            “Yeah?”

            “When the dust settles?”

            “I’ll still be here.”

            He reached for my hand, and held it to his heart. Without realizing it, I synched our rhythms, breathing in and out, in tune with him. “Do you know, if everyone loved like this, there’d nevuh be any war?”

            “Wouldn’t that be something?” I wondered. Derek nodded. “What if you were to get drafted, Derek? That’d be…you couldn’t go.”