Beautiful and talented painter, Selma Halpern + charismatic architect husband, Jamal Halpern + bubbly baby boy, Rae Halpern. The stars had finally aligned in Selma's favor.
But by the strike of midnight on a fateful day in April, it seemed like the...
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25.
The first box, filled to the brim with architectural books that inspired some of his designs, fidget spinners and stress balls, was set aside on Jamal's desk labelled I&R as in Inspiration and Relief.
Jamal took out a second box, carefully stacking up the innumerable business and fashion magazines Selma had sent to his office that featured anyone of them in the Halpern/Robb clan. It was adorable that she would do that every time there was a new issue that remotely mentioned Jamal's name and he would immediately text her thank you, my love as if he hadn't gotten a copy the first hour it dropped.
He loved how Selma fawned over his pictures on the phone, teasing him about how he only cleaned up well for the cameras but never to seduce his own wife.
"A little strip tease once in awhile would be nice, you know," she would whisper in a low voice tempting enough to almost make him drive down to her art studio a few minutes away from Mid-Manhattan.
Jamal thoroughly missed his conversations with her, that made him lose thought of the hundreds of pages of contracts and proposals to sort through on his desk.
If there was one charming thing about his marriage with Selma, it was how every second with her felt like they were having the first taste of each other's company. The jokes, the flirtatious smiles, the little touches and kisses here and there. She brought out the shy lad in him as well as the Trevor Noah. Every word that came out of his mouth was in a bid to make her giggle and laugh so heartily, her eyes would tear up.
Their fights were sometimes intense but their making up was swift. It took one of them to crack a smile and it would be like it never happened. Jamal amazed himself when he went weeks folding himself into a shell to avoid talking to her and giving her absolutely no idea of the horrible things Kirby Jones had sent to him. There was no feat as difficult as that phase in his life.
Jamal's chest felt heavy with the weight of all the apologies he had to say to her. He needed at least a year of showering her with endless love and gifts every single minute of the day to make up for everything he had done to her. Every tear she ever wept over their marriage. Every tug her heart had felt over his actions.
And his son, Rae. Like the homophone of his name, having Rae was the brightest and most vivid memory Jamal's brain could conjure. Rae's birth had been extremely chaotic, an irony of the peace he had seeped into their lives since he was born. There was no greater blessing in his life than his son, Jamal's biggest inspiration to be a better husband and human being.
Jamal desperately wanted his Selma and Rae back.
Desperately.
The light knocks on his door pulled Jamal out of his paused state, and he resumed stacking just as Jeffery walked through the door and shut the door lightly behind him.
