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"Baby girl," she sighs, folding me into her arms. The instant she has me, we are both crying.
"What happened?" I sniffle through my sobs. My mother's grief is infecting me. I'm taking it on in addition to my own.
She pulls back and squares her shoulders. It's such an unconscious gesture, so much like her normal self that the tears are flowing again. My mother always centers herself before she speaks. She always chooses her words carefully, for maximum effect, making sure to hit you with the full force of her emotional one, two punches. But there is no power in her stance now. She is just trying to hold herself together.
"They're saying i
t was a stroke," she says, like the doctors can't be trusted. "He was walking to the bathroom, Yahya, and he just..." her chest hitches slightly," went...down."
"Oh mom."
"I was right there, honey. I haven't left his side, not once." The tired lines etched into her face are proof of that. "So I was right there to catch him as he fell, but that man just got so fat. I kept telling him he needed to lay off the sweets, that it was going to be the death of him. He was too damn heavy for me to hold up and we both went down." For the first time I see the splint around her wrist. "He landed on me, and the doctors say that's the only thing that kept him from splitting his damn head open." She shakes her head at the irony. "I got stuck though. Had to pull myself out from under him to get to the phone...and...."
I am openly weeping now. Tricia is patting me everywhere, but I barely feel it. I watch my mom as the full force of what she just went through hits her. All the color drains from her cheeks, her beautiful cocoa skin an ashen gray with deep purple bags under her eyes. "They say it might have been too long," she finally whispers. "They don't know how much of him is left in there."
Tricia grabs me, steering me towards the chairs before my knees buckle. I land, hard. "When will we know?" I croak. This isn't right. Not Otis. He has dignity, poise. He is always dressed up, his pocket square ironed crisply in his Sunday best suit. He always walked with such a straight back that I teased him about the literal stick up his ass...
My mother glances up at the huge clock that dominates the wall above us. "I have no idea, Yahya. We just have to wait. And pray." Her shoulders hitch. "That man doesn't deserve this," she half moans, half wails.
She collapses against my shoulder and I cradle her face, letting her tears soak my hand as I try to soothe her with words I don't believe. "It's going to be okay, Mom. Otis is strong, you know that. Remember when Monique stayed with you two, and he was so intent on being the best granpappy ever that he nearly broke himself in two? You yelled at him to stop tossing the twins around like they were ragdolls? And he just looked at you like you were talking Chinese to him and went on throwing those seventy pound kids around like they weighed nothing at all."
My mom sniffles. "He was hurtin' for days after that, I know he was. But he wasn't about to let me say I told you so. Caught him sneaking Tylenol in the bathroom and I just had to laugh at him."
"See, he's strong and stubborn, mama. He's not about to go down without a fight."
I expect her to agree, because it is true. But instead my mother is quiet and still. I feel a flutter of fear in my stomach. "Mama?"
Slowly, she sits up. Her face is dry, her gaze faraway. She is staring at a point on the floor in front of her and I look towards it on instinct. There is nothing there except a spot, but I stare too, wondering what it is that is holding my mom's attention.
"He's been fighting for so long," she says, slowly. The hitching in her voice is gone and she is speaking clearly. "So long. My man is tired of fighting and he deserves a rest. I don't want to see him trying so hard to stick around if he's hurting himself doing it."
"No, mama."
"Yes, Yahya. He doesn't have to fight for us anymore. We're okay, he's done right in every sense of the word. It ain't fair to be holding on so tight if we're only hurting him in doing so."
I am shaking my head. "No mama," I can only repeat the words over and over again. "I can't lose him. He has to stay." My voice is rising and Tricia is shushing me, but the words won't stop. I grip the handles of the hard chair, ignoring the swivel of heads in my direction as I feel myself shouting louder and louder. "This isn't how it's supposed to be... I'm not ready! I'm not ready!"
Chapter Twenty-Four
Carter
Greg is going to be my brother-in-law very very soon. And the fact that Cammy loves him is the only thing that is keeping me from killing him right now.
"You have all of this unused real estate on the southwest side of the island," he is saying. He wavers slightly and grips both the railing and his cocktail glass a little harder. Cammy is staring at him in mute horror, but she's too sweet to tell him to shut the fuck up and I want to see just how far he is going to take this. "This is a serious business proposal, Carter. I could have you an offer in writing by close of business today. Seriously, you're sitting on a gold mine right here. With the natural harbor, we could market it to the yacht crowd, a cluster of exclusive villas with your property right here as the main hotel on the premises. I'd have to clear the final numbers with headquarters, but conservatively, I'd say you'd be able to increase your investment here tenfold...at minimum."
He finally shuts up, clearly pleased with himself as he stares into the waves. I decide to count to ten, for my sister's sake, before I flatten him.
"Greg," Cammy's voice is simultaneously softness and steel.
Greg's drunken focus settles on my sister. She is standing on my deck in a simple white dress, barefoot and barefaced. To my eyes, she looks like the same little sister I've always had, but it's clear when Greg looks at her that she is way more than that. As she raises her eyebrows, his face shows an array of emotions, starting with confusion and then ending up with slow, dawning horror, then finally sober regret.
"Ah, shit. I'm a complete asshole, aren't I?"
I don't answer him, but I do unclench my fists a little.
Greg smears the palm of his hand down his face. "Carter, shit. I'm am really sorry. I was on that business trip for so damn long I forgot how to be a human being. I only know how to speak in deals now." He peeks out from between his fingers. "Thanks for not decking me."
"He wouldn't do that," Cammy pipes up, fixing me with that same steely gaze. "Would you, Carter?"
"Of course not," I say as I shake my hands out. "No hard feelings." I extend my hand, and Greg takes it eagerly. I swear I see him checking over my shoulder to make sure Cammy sees us making up.
"Thank you," Greg says, pumping my hand up in the enthusiastic manner of a real estate mogul. "I really thought you were going to punch me out there for a moment."
I feel Cammy's hand on my shoulder as she peeks at her husband to be. "I wouldn't have let him, Greg." She pats me reassuringly. "Or at least I wouldn't have let him hit you too badly."
Now that the tension has passed, I feel silly. "Okay, okay, I'm not a fucking psychopath or anything. I'm not just going to snap and kill someone just for suggesting that I, I...I don't know. Get over my pathological fear of people, or something."
"You're not afraid of people, Carter." This is a familiar refrain, one that my sister has been singing since the day after we buried our parents. "You are having a legitimate anger response to the way Mom and Dad died."
I bristle. "You don't need to be my therapist, Cam. I have a call in to Dr. Kaplan already. I'm being a good boy."
Greg cocks his head to the side. "Hey, so I'm more than a little buzzed here and my mouth has already gotten me in trouble once, but can I just say something here?"
"Go ahead," I growl.
"Granted I don't know all the details here and whatever, but from what Cammy has told me, this whole freakout you had?" I feel my fists clench and I know he sees it, but he soldiers on, in too deep to not see his babbling all the way through. "It actually seems to me that rather than this be some sort of setback or reason to call your therapist and all that stuff, that you actually just made huge progress. "
"Greg," Cammy says warningly.
He throws up his hands. "No, just hear me out here. You never met this Sanniyah person before." He gestured at Cammy. "You trusted Cam with her decision to hire her, and you allowed her to visit Annika without running a billion background checks or whatever you usually do when you hire people to work here."
"I run a billion background checks," I confirm under my breath.
Greg nods. "You trusted she'd be okay. And...unless I'm wrong here...you, er, found her company to be quite...enjoyable."
"Greg!" Cammy is blushing but I have to laugh.
"I did...." I conc
ede.
"You liked her?"
"Yeah," I grunt. Flashbacks of her naked body writhing on my sheets send a little shockwave right down to my groin.
"And until she left all in a huff, you had almost settled on maybe, just maybe, pursuing something with her?"
Cammy turns to me, her mouth agape. "You were really ready?" she sounds triumphant.
I sink back down onto the deck chair and bury my head in my hands. "I'm fucking tired of this life, Cam. I really, truly am done with this. The guys that did it...they're in jail...right? They're not getting out for a long time."
