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“I can say a lot about her.”
“Well, let’s hear it.”
“Hell, I breathe her in when I wake up in the morning. Her essence fills the air wherever I am, whether she is near or far. Being with her has made me come alive. She’s on my mind all the time, morning, noon, and night. My body rages for her today the same way it did when we first met. I could say more, but that’s the gist of how I feel.”
“And you’re marrying her because she does all these things to and for you?”
“That and the fact that I couldn’t imagine going back to life without her. In truth Dad, I couldn’t live without her even if I tried.”
“That’s very good, Son. Now let me ask you one more question. The way you feel about Destiny, do you think forty years will change that?”
“I’m confident no amount of time will change the way I feel about her, even a week without her drives me up the wall,” I said remembering the time after the attack, when I couldn’t see her. To imagine forty years without her was torture to my soul. I looked my Dad square in the eyes and asked, “Are you saying you feel the same way about Ms. Clara?”
“You’re damned right that’s what I’m saying.” Dad ran his fingers through his hair. “Does it make me feel good to know I’m a married man whose heart has been owned by another woman for al
l these years? No. But it’s the way I feel and I can’t deny the way I feel.”
“This is deep, Dad. You admitting this is going to change everything for our family.”
“I know and I’m sorry, but what you feel for Destiny multiplied by forty is how long and hard I’ve loved Clara Baker.”
I couldn’t believe Dad was talking about the same woman who’d been evil enough to conspire with Destiny’s ex-husband, Montie, to keep me away from Destiny when she was in the hospital. The woman who’d been a thorn in my side during a tough time. Then it hit me. Clara didn’t want Destiny with me because of her relationship with my father. She had known who I was before I met her at the hospital.
“Back in the seventies, she was my heart,” Dad said, interrupting my thoughts. “I thought those feelings had wasted away, until I laid eyes on her again. Clara was a feisty little thing, but she was as sweet as they came when she was with me. I think I feel even stronger for her now.”
“But how can you be sure? Forty years is a lot of time. People change over the years. I think you need to take some time to get to know her and her quirks, before you jump ship.”
Start here “Son, had I had enough heart years ago, I’m one hundred percent sure you and Destiny would be siblings. I would have been with Clara, exactly the woman she is today. I’m just glad you had the courage to follow your heart, which strangely enough led you to where I left mine.”
“Mom’s heart is breaking right now,” I said, knowing some of the heartache she brought upon herself.
“I assure you that if your mother’s heart is breaking, it’s not for the reasons you think.”
“You have to do something to make this right, Dad. She may be hard around the edges, but she loves you. She’s still my mother and, no matter what she does, I don’t want to see her hurt,” I said realizing my parents may be at the end of their marital rope.
Dad pressed the button on the lamp twice to bring extra light into the room. There was a haggard look on his face. “I know you love her. I love her too. But we can’t keep excusing the hurtful things she does. Your mother is a hurt person who hurts others, and I think that hurt stems from feeling trapped in a loveless marriage for almost forty years. She has hopes and dreams that she didn’t follow, too. I think they’ve caught up with her and made her bitter.”
“Well, I never heard Mom talk about anything but proper etiquette, dinner parties and galas. I imagined her dream was to be Queen Elizabeth or something,” I said on a slight laugh, as I remembered Mom’s elegant tendencies. “What dreams did she have other than being elegant?”
“Much like my parents, Tammy’s parents had two things they wanted most. They wanted her to marry someone of the opposite sex and of the white race. So, when Papa Turner hired her father as an engineer for Turner Enterprises back in 1965, I think he started planning my future family then. It didn’t help that Tammy’s father went on to create ground-breaking construction tools and methods that made Turner Enterprises lots of money. Since my mother and Tammy’s mother were good friends and our fathers were in the same business, it was just natural to pair us together.”
“Well, did you want to date Mom?” I asked.
“She was fun to date, but I wanted a full life experience. I couldn’t see myself being tied down to a handpicked wife, at the time. I wanted to see what the world had to offer. So, I talked my parents into letting me go to college at Wellmington, where I could find my own identity.”
“Wellmington, the community college? I thought you went to Yale.”
“I did, but your old man went to Wellmington first. It was back in the days when Wellmington was a university. It didn’t become a community college until it reopened in 1996.”
“I can’t believe Papa Turner was fine with you going to Wellmington.” I said in disbelief. I remembered my grandfather being adamant about me going to Yale, when I graduated high school. And just the thought of the rundown Wellmington buildings probably made Papa Turner cringe.
“Yeah, Papa didn’t think the college was up to the par for his son. Nonetheless, it was where I wanted to go and I was adamant, so eventually he agreed. I had to promise I would keep a 4.0 GPA and take my graduate classes at a school of his choosing though.”
“I assume you met Clara at Wellmington?”
“And fell so crazy in love with her,” Dad said as he thought back to the day he fell for Ms. Clara. I watched my father stare longingly at the ceiling, as if he were remembering every moment exactly as it was. “We were inseparable,” he finally added.
“I see,” I said before pausing. “But what were Mom’s hopes and dreams? What is it that she left unfulfilled?” I asked, in attempt to bring him back to the reality that he had a wounded wife sleeping under this same roof.
