AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“No,” I said with sadness infiltrating even this single syllable.
“So…then I think, perhaps it is an ear she needs.”
“No, not that either.”
He slid the magazine onto the pile of papers and folded his arms across his chest as we sat there in what seemed an unexpected silence. A man seated behind me began coughing and wrestled to clear his throat.
“Look,” I started, “I’ve been through some crazy stuff and now I just want to go ho—” I couldn’t finish my sentence. My voice splintered and I knew not to keep talking or I’d begin to cry.
“Easy,” he said calmly. And when he moved to pat my knee, I could smell jasmine and oak. It was soft, yet masculine, a familiar scent I’d gathered in sniffs surrounding most of the well-to-do men I’d met in Ghana.
“I just—” I whispered. “I can’t.”
“We have a long time together. And nowhere to go. So we might as well talk. Now, I could talk about myself, but my life is all contracts and reports.” He pointed to the pile. “It would bore you to death. At least it did to my last wife.”
“She left you?”
“No, she died. Literally…was listening to one of my stories from work one day and just died.”
I wanted to laugh, but the solemn look on his face was so serious. And I didn’t know if he was kidding or not.
“Just fooling with you,” he said finally and we both laughed. “But I am making a point. No one wants to hear about my life.”
“Fine, but I don’t know if I’m ready to talk about what happened.”
“Well, maybe you don’t have to. If you don’t want to talk about what’s wrong now…maybe start with when everything was right.”
“Right…my life…when everything was right?” I exhaled and looked at him. Even in my gloom, pictures, moments came and I felt silly for even pulling them toward me. I had no clue who the man was sitting next to me. But something about him relaxed me. His confidence, the sincerity in his voice. He had the patience of my grandfather in his eyes and somehow I felt I could trust him. I had to trust somebody. I looked at the time. More than twelve hours to go. “Are you serious?” I was feeling weakened and wanting to embrace anything that would quiet my sadness. If for just a moment.
“Yes! Start wherever you like. When times were good—great.” He looked off as if he was imagining my doing something fun. Dancing. Canoeing. Camping. “Before any of this thing that’s troubling you even began.”
“But that was a long time ago.”
“If we have nothing, we have time,” Kweku said, pushing back his chair to relax. “And if we run out of stuff, I guess we’ll talk about…the contracts.”
“Funny,” I said, looking to the other side of the plane and wondering where I could begin to tell my story to this stranger. “Well,” I began, “and I still don’t know why I’m telling you this…but,” I took a deep breath, “if I had to start with when everything seemed good—great, I’d have to begin with my wedding.”
