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“Oh, thank you, Dean.” I breath out as I stare at it.
He grabs my hand and says, “It’s a promise. That I’ll always be waiting. That there’s no rush. That my heart is yours.” I look up at him, at this and my tears are back, but this time, they are happy tears.
“I love you,” I say to him with all of the feeling I can muster. It’s the first time I’ve ever felt like those words weren’t enough to express how I feel.
“I love you, too,” he says simply. He presses a kiss to my cheek and takes the ring from me and slips it onto the third finger of my right hand. “I promise,” he whispers. And then he starts us back down the hall.
* * *
When I got out of bed after that vivid dream, I was even more determined to put distance between us. I don’t want to start living in the past. Remembering a kind, generous boy who obviously didn’t exist anymore. I emailed Cristal and told her I couldn’t fulfill the contract we’d signed. She hasn’t responded. I’m not sure what it means, but I’m trying not to add that to my list of things to worry about.
I feel completely adrift.
I'm so angry at Dean. How could he do what he did? Just to hurt me? It doesn’t matter he came clean, that he could even come up with such a despicable and cruel plan just to exact some misguided quest for revenge is just unfathomable.
My mother and Rabea are going to Atlantic City tonight for a week of fun. I haven’t told her what happened with Dean. I hardly understand it myself; I can’t even begin to explain it to someone else.
When I get back from dropping Anthony off at school, I find her in her bedroom packing. They are leaving later tonight and you would think they are planning a trip around the world from the size of her suitcase.
I watch her, unnoticed for a few minutes. She has a picture of my dad by her bedside. She doesn’t go anywhere without it. I have heard her talk to it, sometimes angrily, when she thinks she’s alone. I never stay to listen. This is one matter where my mother is a closed book.
She's humming as she packs. For someone whose life was irrevocably changed when my dad left, you wouldn’t know she walks around shouldering feelings of loss, guilt, and pain. She's the strongest person I know. She holds us all together, even at the expense of her own well-being at times.
“Hi, Mom,” I call out from my position against her doorframe. She turns around and her face, beautiful and completely unlined, splits into a huge grin.
“Millicent. Honey, come in. Why are you loitering in the doorway?” She ushers me in with a beckoning motion of her hands.
I walk in and sit down on the edge of her bed. The comforter is a simple white eyelet and the bed’s accent pillows are made of the Kente fabric she got from her last trip to Ghana.
When she came to live with us in November after our last year when our identities were revealed, I had this room done for her. Her coming to stay with us was supposed to be temporary, but we’ve both settled into her being here. Especially since Kevin left. I know she will eventually want to get back to her own house, which is just sitting empty, but for now, it’s a perfect arrangement.
“You ready for your girl’s week?” I ask and she claps her hands in delight.
“Oh, yes. It feels very decadent to do something like this, but I can’t wait,” she says, her eyes dancing as she stops packing and sits down next to me. She grasps my hands; the joy in her expression dims.
“I also hate leaving you when I know something is bothering you. I didn’t want to ask because you seemed so . . .” Her eyes scan the ceiling as she searches for her words. “You seemed so rubbed raw, and I wanted to wait until you came to me.”
Her eyes come back to mine and they are full of understanding. The knot of tension at the base of my throat loosens as I look at her and know I can unburden myself with her—she will help make it better.
So, I tell her about Dean and what happened last week.
“So, I quit. I can’t—no, won’t—work for him. He made me feel so many horrible things at once, Mom.” I finish on a hiccupped sob.
“Oh, Milly. I'm sorry. This must have been a lot for you to process. His mother did that? You never told me.”
“How could I? I wasn’t supposed to use the phone to call anyone we knew. And I didn’t know what to say, I didn’t have anyone to say it to,” I say to her, imploring her to understand.
“I know you felt that way, Milly. I'm sorry I haven’t been there for you more. I can’t believe Dean went to all of this trouble to try and get you back,” she says as she shakes her head in dismay.
“Get me back? He isn’t trying to get my back. He wanted to hurt me. He wanted to make me feel guilty for abandoning him. For moving on,” I say tersely.
“Okay, Milly. If that is what you need to believe.” Her tone is coated in pity.
I feel my hackles rise. “Mom, he thought I was married. He just wanted to humiliate me. To punish me for some perceived slight.”
“Trust me. That may be what he told you and may be what he told himself, but no man goes to this much trouble to g
et close to a woman for revenge. Or whatever that crazy scheme of his was.”
