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My stomach immediately began to growl. Hosanna was out of her damn mind if she thought I was missing out on this. After giving Mom a kiss on her cheek, I headed outside to see what my Pops was showing my brother. Sure enough, he’d gotten a new riding lawn mower that he wanted to show off.
I hadn’t even made it over to them good before Pops was saying, “What’s been going on with you?”
“What you mean?”
“You’ve been off this weekend.”
I squeezed the back of my neck and laughed as Promise lifted his pointer finger to excuse himself like we were in church. If Pops was about to grill me, he’d be up next. I didn’t blame him for getting out of the way.
“I’m good,” I lied, but his head shook as he prepared to call me out on it.
He got off the riding lawn mower telling me not to tell Mom he’d gotten on it in his church clothes. I laughed as we headed toward the patio to sit down.
“Now you don’t have to lie to my face, son. You can just tell me you don’t want to talk about it.”
That was true. I didn’t want to talk to my parents about Shalom. They made it clear back in the day that they believed we were moving too fast and needed to break up. When I told them we were pregnant, Mom fainted, and Pops wanted to whup my ass. I thought they would be proud of me for stepping up and wanting to do things the right way, but all they cared about was me ruining my future. I resented them so much after I lost Shalom. I felt like the last year of our relationship was so stressful because our parents didn’t want us to be together. When she broke up with me through a letter and killed our baby, Mom tried to heal my broken heart, but it was no use. I took my anger out on those closest to me because that was easier than telling them how much I was hurting.
A part of me wished I could talk to Pops about this and other women in my life, but after Shalom, I never felt safe being vulnerable with them in that way again. I didn’t want them telling me the woman I loved and cared about wasn’t good for me and making me question our relationship, that’s why I kept my dealings with women private now.
Still, I considered opening up to him. It had been fifteen years, and last month was just as hard for me as it was when she first left. Clearly, I needed help to get over this.
“Shalom,” I said for the second time this weekend, and it was just as hard getting it out now as it was then. “Just… been thinking about her a lot lately. The anniversary was last month, and Parker is seeing one of her friends. Well, old friends. I don’t know if they still talk.” My head shook as I sighed and ran my hands across my waves. The more I talked, the more anxious I felt. My left leg began to shake as my heart palpitated. There was no reason for this girl to still have such an effect on me.
“It’s been fifteen years, Mecca, and you’re still holding on to that?”
My head whipped in his direction. “Holding on to what?”
“The abortion.”
“That was supposed to be my firstborn child. She was supposed to be my wife. That’s not something I can just… get over.”
“Have you tried?” He chuckled softly, turning slightly in my direction. “I promise you, you only feel as strongly as you do because of how things ended between the two of you. If you would have had that conversation with her face to face and gotten your closure, you’d be okay.”
“You think I like having this affect me? I wish I could forget about her, about them, but they’re engrained into my heart. Whether Shalom and I talked face to face or not, I was in love with her, and that doesn’t just go away.”
“You were eighteen, son. What did you know about love?” To avoid disrespecting him, I stood to leave. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry. Maybe I’m being harsher than I should. It’s just difficult for me to hear that you’re suffering because of something that happened so long ago.” When I continued to head out, he stood and grabbed my neck. It was hard enough to even gain the courage to talk to him about this. I wasn’t expecting him to be soft and to coddle me, but he was making me feel worse. “I’m sorry,” he repeated, turning me and giving me an unexpected hug. “I’ve never lost a child or the woman I was in love with, so I don’t know what you’re going through. I’m not going to deny how you felt about her. If you’re still struggling, whatever it was, it was real.”
“Thank you,” was all I could think of to say.
Though I appreciated his apology, his response was exactly why I hadn’t bothered to try and talk to him or anyone else about this. They didn’t understand what I was going through, and if they didn’t understand, there was no insight they could offer me. I appreciated him trying, but this was something I’d have to figure out on my own—if I even figured it out at all. Even after I got married and had kids, I felt like the one we lost would haunt me. They couldn’t be forgotten or replaced. Regardless, I would have to find a way to not be so triggered and affected by Carina or thoughts of Shalom. If things got as serious with her as Parker suspected, I’d have to be around her eventually, and I refused to make my friend feel bad about his relationship just because of how bad I felt about mine with Shalom.
“Have you considered grief counseling?” he asked as we headed back inside.
“No, I haven’t,” I admitted with a shake of my head.
“Maybe you should. From the sound of it, you haven’t released them or the pain of losing them. No matter how I feel about the abortion, she was pregnant with your baby and he or she never made it into the world. I think if you talked to someone about the pain of that loss, it’ll help.”
My pride wouldn’t allow me to seek professional help over my loss of a child I’d never held in my arms, but maybe Pops was right. Whether I held my child or not, I fell in love with them the moment I learned they were in her womb. And when we went to her first appointment and heard their heartbeat, I was determined to do whatever I had to, to be as good of a father to them as my father had been to me. My plans for the future died along with our baby, and maybe I needed to talk to someone about that to truly get closure.
“I’ll do that, Pops. Thank you.”
“Anytime. I’m here for you, even if I don’t always say the right things immediately.”
That was true, but I loved him anyway. He was a man who could acknowledge his strengths and weaknesses, and I would always respect him for that. I know in my mind my parents wanted Shalom and me to break up because they thought that was best for both of us, but still. I wasn’t sure I’d ever get over how hard they made things for us. It didn’t matter though. As far as I was concerned, she died right along with our baby.
Violet informed me that she’d been held up in court and would be late, but I could expect her and the written offer by the time I was done meeting with the lead attorney. I was okay with that. Today, I wanted nothing more than to speak with the attorney over the case so I could get a better understanding of what was going on and how I could help. Research, to me, was my purpose, and a way to help improve society, life, and the law by working with people who had the power to make change instead of being the face of that change myself. Like Pac, I didn’t care about being the one to make change; but I did want to be the one who helped or inspired someone to do it.
Gloria ushered me into the room where the attorney I’d be working with was waiting, and my heart, for some reason, began to rapidly beat as I made my way over to him. He was immersed in his phone conversation, which was fine because it gave me time to compose myself. I ran my sweaty palms down my pale yellow slacks that I’d paired with a blue silk shirt and heels. When I was first meeting a client, I always wanted to make a good first impression and make sure my energy felt like energy they could trust. Wearing blue helped with that.
