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Authors: Vanessa Miller

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BOOK: Latter Rain
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Isaac loosed him, picked the bill off the ground and handed it to MacMillan.
A nervous laugh escaped MacMillan's thin lips as he studied the bill. “Hey, you gentlemen might be right.” He snapped his finger. “Now that I think about it, you guys paid for your lumber about three months ago. I'm going to have the accounting department go over this bill one more time.”
Neither Keith nor Isaac responded. Just stared him down.
“Come on, fellows. I'm human, I make mistakes. Aren't you people supposed to forgive and forget?
“Yeah, I'll forgive you when you stop cheating us. But, I haven't forgotten nothing since I was three years old, and you better believe I'll remember this mess.” Isaac turned and walked toward the car. His shoulders slumped with the weight of memories.
Keith stood back and watched him. Then he saw it. Isaac walked with confidence and brass.
4
Nina and Charles held a unified front as Donavan glared at them. The afternoon sun shone through her picture window and danced on the engagement ring on her finger. It shimmered. She smiled. Was it so wrong that she should be happy? Nina had finally put the ring on after Donavan walked in the house and demanded that Charles leave her alone. She told Donavan that she was engaged and showed him the proof of her engagement.
“I don't believe you! Donavan roared. “How can you do this to our family?
“I'm not doing anything to our family. I'm doing this
for
our family, Donavan.”
All her life, Nina wanted to have a family; a unit that would be there, no matter what. Couldn't Donavan understand that? She was just trying to give him something she didn't have growing up. Nina's birth mother gave her up for adoption when she was four years old. The only thing she remembered about the woman was their good-bye.
Standing in front of an orphanage her mother told her, “I love you, Nina. That's why I'm doing this.”
To this day, Nina still wondered how someone could love her and give her away at the same time. Her adoptive parents were good to her, but they died in a car wreck when she was in high school.
Donavan laughed and turned to Charles. “I suppose you think my dad is going to fall all over himself thanking you for what you're doing to his family?”
“Donavan!” Nina wondered why Isaac had to fill his head with impossible dreams; things that would never come to pass. “You and I are a family; that's it. And Charles wants to be a part of our family. You're going to have to face the fact that I'm not going to marry your dad.”
Donavan's throat constricted as his eyes narrowed. He had his father's eyes. Dark and dangerous. “Why do you have to ruin everything?”
Charles stood and put his hand on Donavan's shoulder. “We're not trying to ruin anything for you, son.”
“I'm not your son. I've got a daddy,” Donavan told him while rolling his eyes.
Charles lifted his hands in surrender. “You're right, Donavan. You already have a father. But I love your mom and she has agreed to marry me—we want to be a family.”
Nina noticed that Charles did not tell Donavan that she loved him. Did he have doubts about her love? She smiled at her future husband, trying to portray the love her lips hadn't been able to say.
“Where's my dad? He should have been here by now.”
Your no-good daddy is too busy to leave Chicago for someone as unimportant as his son
. That's what she wanted to say. Putting her thoughts in check, she told him, “I'm not sure if your dad will be able to make it.”
Donavan fought a good fight, but his eyes misted anyway. “Oh, so I guess this is the,” he mimicked Nina's soft, patient voice, “Cheer up, Donavan. Your dad is a loser, but I've got a new daddy for you, talk. Is that it?”
Charles was in his “I object” courtroom stance. His hands gripped the sofa. “We are not going to tolerate your disrespect, young man.”
“You don't have to tolerate nothing from me. I don't need you. I didn't ask to be born,” Donavan said as he stormed out of the house.
Isaac always left her to deal with his mess. Oooh, he infuriated her. Made her want to bring her lunch back up. Nina got up and followed her son. “You get back here right now.”
Donavan pushed his bike off the porch and sped off.
“Donavan! Donavan, get back here,” Nina hollered as she watched her son continue riding his bike down the street.
Charles walked onto the porch. Nina kept screaming for her son.
“Come on back inside, baby,” Charles told her while shaking his head in frustration.
“No!” She rushed down the stairs. “Donavan, don't do this! Turn that bike around this minute.” Donavan kept going. She stood there until he was out of sight, wondering when she had lost control of her precious son.
Life had not been easy for her and Donavan. After Isaac went to jail, she worked two and three jobs just to make ends meet. And then there was college. She thought the time she spent away from Donavan would be worth it once she graduated from college and was able to provide for him. But here she was, making a decent enough living as a writer with time to spend with her son, and he was moving farther and farther away from her.
“Come on, baby.” Charles pulled at her. “Let's go back inside.”
Nina turned toward Charles.
Seeing the desperate look in her eyes, he grabbed her and hugged her close. “He'll be back—just needs to cool down some, that's all.
 
 
Across the street, Mickey Jones sat in a black Maxima with tinted windows. He smiled as he watched Charles cling to his lady. “Lookie here, lookie here. The DA is in love.”
This was going to be more interesting than Mickey imagined. His first thought was to kill the assistant district attorney. Charles had been on his back for years. Always hassling him, trying to get him locked down. He was worse than a gold digging stalker, blowing up his pager and cell phone. His nemesis was riding high now, thinking he had won. But Mickey hadn't begun to show him the meaning of loss. Oh, but Mr. Charles Douglas III would soon feel the wrath of the underworld. He would live to regret the day he decided to tangle with Mickey Jones.
The voices inside his head were screaming at him. They weren't very nice. “Loser—fake—you're a nothing—zero.”
He shoved his hands against his ears. He wasn't a loser. He was top dog. Even Isaac had said so. What was it he had said? He moved his hand in the air as his fingers danced over the words, “
Looks like you already own Dayton
.” Yes, Isaac had been impressed with the way he had come up in the world. He hadn't accepted the car or the house Mickey had bought for him; a kind of get-out-of-jail present. But Mickey understood. Isaac was a preacher man now. But, oh, how he had dreamed of sharing his kingdom with Isaac. He was the only one he would share anything with. Not these other thugs in the street. He had a bullet waiting for each one of them. And he certainly wasn't sharing anything with these rotten voices he couldn't get rid of. Disrespecting him.
He rolled down his window, listening to Charles and his lady friend.
The assistant DA pulled his lady close to him. “Come on, Nina, let's go back inside.”
She was crying. “Charles, I've got to go find him.”
“Donavan will be back. He just needs to blow off a little steam. Trust me on this, baby. We'll work through this.”
Nina looked skeptical.
Charles gave her an I-think-I-can, I-think-I-can look. “Oh, I'm up for the challenge. By the time we're married, I'll have Donavan wrapped around my finger. I'm telling you, Nina, we're going to be happy.”
Mickey smirked. “Good luck with that,” he said, while running his trigger finger along the barrel of his gun.
5
Donavan rode his bike to the park a couple of blocks from his house. He leaned his bike against a rusty, old, green trashcan and headed for the basketball court. A little one-on-one was what he needed. Something to take his mind off his family.
The court was full of overgrown brothers shooting hoops at four o'clock in the afternoon. God hadn't been able to convince these thugs that a man who doesn't work shouldn't eat. When they wanted food they got it with a gun and a ski mask. Donavan shook his head and wondered, yet again, what kind of person grows up with an allergic reaction to work. He'd asked as much to JC, the almost seven foot ex-NBA hopeful who was dominating the court right now. During his high school, eleven o'clock news making days, several universities offered him scholarships. One offered fifty thousand in cash. JC was packed and ready to flee the hood. He was going to take his game further than LeBron or Jordan ever did. But then that racist university asked him to take a drug test. To this day, JC spouts off about the unjust drug laws. If marijuana was a drug, then JC's mama was the Queen of Egypt and they lived in a palace instead of the maggot infested dwelling that disgusted the roaches so bad, they packed up and moved to their less trifling next-door neighbors.
When JC wasn't complaining about the unjust drug laws, he was borrowing money and shaking down shorties like himself. Donavan had gone without lunch for a week the first time JC shook him. He was so mad he didn't care that he was a shortie and JC was next to a giant, he screamed at him, “Man, why don't you get a job?”
“Please. A job don't do nothing but keep you just-overbroke,” JC had reasoned.
“Well, at least you won't be just-over-borrowing,” Donavan countered.
JC laughed as he playfully shoved Donavan. “I like you, shortie. You're all right.”
From that day on, JC became Donavan's protector; watching out for him throughout the neighborhood. There was an eight-year difference in their ages, but they were friends. It wasn't the Big Brother program Donovan's mama would have signed up for, but it worked.
JC saw Donavan standing at the edge of the court and waved as he checked his opponent.
Donavan lifted his chin to say, “What up?”
None of his school friends were balling, only the older guys. Donavan wasn't big enough to take any of them on yet. So he sat down and watched JC whup on a couple other unemployables. He put his foot on the basketball that was on the ground next to the bench he sat on. Put his hand under his chin, and sulked. If he wasn't so young maybe he could do some things to earn money and get out from under his mother's lovesick roof. His parents didn't have time for him. He was one big inconvenience they fit in around their busy ministries. His mom claimed that she left her day job to spend more time with him and focus on her writing. It was more like she left her job to focus on her writing and then spend time with him if she had the time. And with Charles always sniffing around, she rarely had exclusive time for him anymore.
As for his missing in action daddy, please. Every time he thought about Mister-I-love-Jesus-so-I'm-going-to-travel-the-world-preaching -the-Gospel-and-forget-all-about-the-son I'm-suppose-to-help-raise, he got ill. Forget 'em. He didn't need mommy dearest or the rolling stone. If he ran away, it would probably take them a couple of days to miss him. No rumpled sheets. No dirty socks in the hallway. No milk left on the counter. Oh ... Donavan must not be home.
“What's got your brows all scrunched up?”
Donavan looked up to see JC's sweat-drenched body standing before him. “What's up, man?”
“Nothing much.” JC wiped the sweat from his face with the bottom of his T-shirt and sat down. “What you doing here? Thought you was hanging out with your dad this weekend.”
Donavan smirked. “Me too. But you know how that goes.”
JC took Donavan's ball and bounced it. “Naw, Shortie, I don't know nothing about that. My old man ain't never stopped by to pick me up for no weekend visit. Shoot, when he ain't vacationing behind steel and concrete, I gotta drive by the winos on Fifth Street just to get a whiff of him.”
6
“Nina, baby, come sit down.” She turned from the window, pulled back the curtains and shook her head as Charles patted the seat next to him. “I've got to go find Donavan.”
Charles got up and walked over to where Nina stood peering out the front window. “Baby, don't do this to yourself.” He pulled her away from the window and into his arms.
Tears filled Nina's eyes as she allowed Charles to hold her. “What am I supposed to do? I feel like a failure.”
They sat on the couch. Charles rubbed her back and placed a kiss on her forehead. “You did the best you could, baby.”
Her shoulders shook from the torrent of her tears. “B—but, h—he's been so hateful lately.”
“You can't do this alone. When we're married, I'll become more active in Donavan's life.” He wiped her tear soaked face and kissed her soft, wet lips. “Anyway, we'll have plenty of our own children. And they'll have a mother and father in the home right from the start.”
Nina pulled herself from Charles's embrace and eyed him. “How many is plenty?”
He smiled. “Well, I figure that since you're already thirty-six, you can't have very many baby making years left.”
Hands on hips, she challenged with an, “Excuse me?”
His hands went up in surrender. “I'm not saying that you're old. But realistically, baby, the clock is ticking.”
She stood, mouth open. “I know you're not talking. I mean, you're thirty-nine.”
He grabbed Nina and pulled her back on the couch next to him. Her back was pressed against his chest as he held her. “You know that men can have babies at just about any age. I could be a hundred years old and still impregnate a woman.”
Nina's eyes got big. “You sound like you're trying to be like Abraham. That's all well and good for you, but I hope you're not looking for a Sarah, I'm not signing up for that job.”
Charles laughed. He then rubbed Nina's shoulder and asked, “What do you think about having three more children?”
“I don't know.” Nina said with a sigh. “My biological clock might blow up after the first child.”
He laughed again. “You got me on that one. He turned her around to face him. “But, all jokes aside. I come from a big family. My mom had ten children. I always thought I'd have at least six or seven. But I'm willing to settle for three. What do you say?”
Nina always wanted more children. But it took so long for her knight in shining armor to show up, she'd given up on her dream. Donavan would be graduating from high school in about six years—setting off on his own soon after that. She could see herself writing more, traveling, and just enjoying life. But as she looked into Charles's eyes, she knew that this was something he needed. Who was she to deny him? “We'll give it our best shot.”
BOOK: Latter Rain
12.03Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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