“But what? What’s with all the suspense? Just tell me already!” I slapped his shoulder.
He grabbed my hand and pulled me closer to him. “All right, all right. Don’t take this the wrong way, but for the past year or so you’ve kind of lost your mojo.”
“My mojo?”
“You don’t compete anymore.” He moved us to the dining room, near my Wall of Winning. He wrapped his arms around my waist, then pulled me back against his chest.
“Three years ago you won the tennis championship for our neighborhood. Two years ago you placed second for the Peachtree Road Race.”
“Should’ve won first place. Stupid leg cramp.”
“Right, and then the Bron-tasms won the kickball tournament. You led us to victory, team captain.”
I chuckled at the team name that I had chosen in honor of my favorite basketball player, LeBron James. “Good times.”
“Great times. But you don’t enjoy these things anymore. You gave up.”
“I’ve been busy.” My voice was a note too high to give my defense credence. I shrugged out of his embrace. “But I’m still active. I run, I hike, I play tennis, just not competitively. It’s not healthy to be that aggressive.”
“Yeah, for normal people, but for you, it’s different.”
“So I’m not normal?” I asked, crossing my arms. Irritation slithered across my skin. What the heck was he getting at anyway? We didn’t have these types of conversations. Darren had never been this pushy. It was the reason why our relationship worked.
“Hell, no,” he said with zero remorse. “But that’s what makes you, you. And that’s why I want you to take the test again. For yourself . . . and for the promise you made to your mom.”
I rolled my eyes and stomped to the sofa. I sat, stretching my legs on the couch before my too-honest-for-his-own-good husband got any ideas of sitting beside me. “Why does everyone keep bringing Mama up?”
“Roddy?”
“Yes. He said I’m a ghost.” I frowned and crossed my arms. “Am I a ghost?”
Darren settled on the leather ottoman in front of the couch. His eyes scanned me over. “You’re . . .” He hesitated, probably assessing my crossed arms and clenched-jaw body language to mean “woman on edge.”
“You’re not a ghost, but she haunts you. Sometimes I think you wanted to . . . to go on with her.” His tone was loving, but there was a deep sadness lurking in his eyes. It wasn’t sadness for me, but for himself.
I was dragging in the moving on with my life department. I knew that I needed to heal, but I hadn’t done much to move forward. I did a few counseling sessions, but if anything they just cut open my wounds. My family and I didn’t talk about Mama. In fact, we rarely spoke these days. I swallowed the hot, painful lump in my throat. I would’ve completely lost it if it weren’t for my husband.
Darren had nursed me back to health after Mama died, becoming my rock. He took me out on dates, forced me to eat, to comb my hair, and encouraged me to be a productive member of society. I relied on him so much that I was scared it would drive him away. When I told him this, he reassured me, told me that no one or nothing could push him away, that he’d always be by my side.
And I needed him because my cheerleader was gone.
Carla Kennedy, Mama, had been my support system all my life, even when Darren and I were married. She had been my best friend, my confidant. We went on trips together just the two of us, and we had inside jokes that were three decades old, often feeling like we lived in our own orbit.
I reached for Darren’s hand and whispered, “I miss her. I think of her every minute of the day. Sometimes, though, I forget, like when I see something ridiculous happen on The Real Housewives and I pick up the phone to call her, and then I remember and I’m devastated all over again.”
“Your mom would want you to live. She’d want you to pass that test. You know that.”
Moving closer, he pulled me into his arms, settled me on his lap, and hugged me tight. “You can do anything you put your mind to, Kara.” His words were so sincere. Flutters of butterflies attacked my chest, and I felt warm, secure, and loved.
Immersed in the moment, I touched his face. This was a mistake. He clutched my hands, kissed my balled fists and playfully shoved them away.
The butterflies disappeared.
“And I’ll support whatever decision you make.” His voice was tight and tense.
The last statement wasn’t filled with the same warmth as seconds before. I was glad Darren couldn’t see my eyes because he could always read me. I nodded against his chest and squeezed tighter. After years and years with someone, you know the things you shouldn’t do. Seven years later, I still didn’t know why my husband hated when I touched his face. No idea why he flinched, as if expecting something hot and heavy to attack him.
Pushing down my pain, I smiled and settled for a kiss on the lips. “Got any new games?”
He went on describing a new game about an attorney who solves mysteries for his clients. It seemed boring, but I feigned interest.
“Cool. I have a Jack Reacher book that’s calling my name. Why don’t we hang out on the couch tonight?”
He smiled, this time a fraction wider, most likely relieved that I hadn’t call him out about the flinch. I wasn’t the only person with ghosts.
* * *
It was Friday night, and I was preparing for our girls’ night. The vibrating phone buzzed against the marble countertop. I dashed to my cell, clicked the answer button, and then cradled the device to my ear as I rushed back to arranging the cheese and charcuterie platter.
“Please tell me you aren’t calling to cancel our girls’ night,” was how I immediately greeted my best friend, Sienna. The woman was on a mission to get her fiancé, who was also an attorney, reelected to a city council position. Between visiting nursing homes, kissing puppies and babies, and grand openings and closings, I hadn’t seen my best friend in a month.
Her rich laughter flooded through the receiver. “No. I told Keith that I could either be indisposed for the night or I’d be disposed of for good once you and the ladies caught up with me. And you’d be the ringleader.”
“Damn right,” I agreed.
“What’s the murder weapon of choice?” Sienna asked.
“A bottle of Cab.”
“Motive?”
“You canceled on girls’ night? Obviously I’m a woman scorned.”
“Nice,” Sienna had started this game with me years ago when she was in law school.
On the surface, Sienna seemed to be all positivity, kindness, and light. But she certainly had a slightly morbid sense of humor. As a public defender for the city of Atlanta, she needed the balance, otherwise her clients—hell, the world—would feed on her warmth and drain her dry.
Her fiancé was already doing an excellent job of that. Sienna proudly wore oversized rose-colored sunglasses when it came to Keith. She thought he was the second coming of Martin Luther King Jr. who would save our city from poverty, drug abuse, and gang violence and achieve world peace.
But what Sienna didn’t see was that Keith was pretentious, third-generation black wealth, who liked the sound of his voice, and was in lust with his looks and in love with anything in a skirt. How Sienna didn’t notice his wandering eyes was beyond me.