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Authors: Grace Octavia

BOOK: Something She Can Feel
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Journey ... Just Living
June 23, 2008
Sunrise
 
M
y father lied to me. Love does hurt. In fact, sometimes, love can hurt so badly it burns your insides fast and heartless like the blue part of a flame. Now I'd known this for a long time. I'd seen that blue flame in my mother's eyes when my father didn't come home from Bible study some nights, even heard it in the cutting cries of my best friend when the love of her life hurt her and let her down again and again, so hard all she could do was weep. But I'd never felt it for myself. Never been there, out on the flame, burning and ready to die for something I'd loved with all of my living heart. I'd been safe from it all. In the incubator my life had built around me. Until that morning. The morning after Dame left me alone on the floor of a hotel room in the middle of nowhere in the world. Through the blue-black night, I'd found my way out of Kumasi and to the airport just as the sun rose in the sky. After spending every nickel I'd had on each of the plastic cards in my wallet to get on a plane home, I was standing outside on the tarmac of the runway waiting to board a plane back to the United States.
Flicking the ticket in my hand back and forth to create some coolness in the already humid morning heat, I felt a sinking in my insides I'd never known. Hours ago I had everything I ever wanted. Freedom. Music. And true love. Out of my incubator, I'd convinced myself that was all I needed from the world to survive. I'd risked everything for that. Walked away from my whole life. And now it was all gone. Just like that. I was going home. Alone. Hopeless. And feeling like a complete fool. My mother was right. I was thirty-three years old and playing with my life like I was a child.
I kept running through everything that had happened. Dame's hand on my thigh. The man sitting at our table. The watch. The gun. The bang. The fight. It wasn't real. I wanted so badly to hate Dame for everything that had gone wrong. For leaving me. But the Dame from last night wasn't the Dame I knew. Wasn't the Dame I loved. And standing there in that line, hurt from everything else in the world, my heart felt pain because I really wanted him to come chase after me. To at least apologize. Even I knew that was crazy. But it was true. Hidden in my heart, it was true. And I kept peeking over my shoulder to see if he'd appear. Lord, I prayed he'd come running. To make this all right. To make me not seem so crazy for turning my back on my life—my family, my friends, my world, my husband—for him. Foolish. But I looked and looked and he never came.
“Mother Africa will wait for you to return. Don't worry,” a voice announced behind me as I looked out of the window after boarding the plane. I turned to see a slender, dark brown man, dressed in a navy blue business suit seated next to me in the aisle. He was handsome and I could tell by his accent that he was Ghanaian.
“I hope so,” I said weakly and praying he would just leave me with my thoughts. I didn't feel like talking. I looked back at the gate door outside of the window.
“Oh, I see this all of the time—people crying as they lift off. Thinking this lovely place will just disappear. Just die. But no worries. Your mother is stronger than time. She has a secret and she is the only continent that can survive a living death. She'll survive forever. She'll always be here for you.” He sounded eloquent and melancholy, like a poet. Through the corner of my eye I saw him ease back in his seat and put on his seatbelt as the flight attendant walked by.
“You must fly a lot then,” I said.
“More than I'd like to. But it comes with the job.” He extended his hand to shake mine. “Kweku Emmanuel Onyeche, attorney at law.”
“Journey De- ... Cash. And I'm ... just ... living.”
 
 
It takes over sixteen hours to get to the United States from Ghana—and that doesn't include the layover. When I first got on the plane on the way over to Ghana with Dame, I wasn't even worried about the time. Others had Sudoku and laptops and DVDS and iPods, anything to keep them busy. All I had was my hand in Dame's and a smile plastered on my face. We'd laugh and joke and touch the whole way and even when we slept, we'd still be together. It seemed then that was all that mattered.
Now I was two hours into my return flight and with only my mind to occupy me, I was feeling restless and burdened by my sadness. A baby, who'd been wailing during takeoff, probably because of the air pressure building up, had finally been calmed and the flight attendants were busy serving drinks in the aisles, so I couldn't get up to walk around. Kweku, who I could tell was a bit older than me by his graying, distinguished side burns, was reading a magazine and clearly avoiding a stack of papers he'd set on the seat tray in front of him. I looked out of the window at the blueness surrounding the plane and thought of Dame. Of our song.
“I am worried about what people will say,” I heard Kweku say. I turned to see him still looking at his magazine, so I didn't say anything. Perhaps he was reading aloud. “I wonder what they will say if I let you return to the U.S., looking so sad, ‘Journey Cash ... just living.' ”
“I stopped caring about what people had to say a long time ago,” I said, looking back to the endless blueness.
“Point taken. But this is my homeland we're talking about here. And I can't have them thinking it was Ghana that gave you such a sad face. So I'm thinking, ‘Kweku, how do you get rid of this sad face to ensure the positive image of your country?' Ah! I must cheer up this pretty girl.” He wagged his index finger in my face knowingly and we both laughed. “Now I could turn on my lethal charm and romance her like any true Ghanaian man would ... but something tells me that perhaps it is not the attention of a man she needs.” He tilted his head toward me for a response.
“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 the 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.” I felt hot blood rushing to my face.
He patted my hand gently to stop.
“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 my last wife.”
“She left you?” His tangent calmed me.
“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 just for a moment.
“Yes! Start wherever you like. When times were good—great.” He looked off as if he was imagining me 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 seat to relax. “And if we run out of subjects, 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.”
PART ONE
Hear
Chapter One
July 7, 2007
Tuscaloosa, AL
 
I
'd been nervous most of the morning before the wedding. Still wondering if I'd made the right decision. Evan was the only man I'd ever dated—we'd been together since the third grade. I loved him, and he loved me, and everybody loved us together. And coming from where I'm from, that was supposed to be enough to last a lifetime. Everyone, including Evan, expected us to get married right after college. But I wasn't so certain. I thought that just maybe there was more to see and do and that, well, perhaps Evan wasn't it for me. He was the perfect man. Good to me. And I loved him dearly. But something in my throat stopped me from saying, “yes.” So against everyone's wishes, I made Evan wait ten years before I agreed to walk down the aisle, so I could be really sure. And I was for a while.
But when I woke up the morning of the wedding, something in my gut said that something else was missing. It was screaming and tossing inside of me like a banshee. But then my mother came to me wearing her pink bathrobe and rollers all over her head and told me this was normal. A case of the “cold feet” she'd had at her own wedding. We prayed together, both of our hands on her grandmother's Bible, and she reminded me of everything I loved about the man who was waiting breathlessly to be my husband.
Evan had done a lot of growing since he was a pudgy-faced, yellow boy with acne and chicken legs chasing me around the town when we were kids. Once his face slimmed and testosterone thickened his muscles, every girl from our street to Birmingham was asking so-and-so for the who-and-what about Evan DeLong. By the time we began freshman year at the University of Alabama, even I had to admit that Evan was easily the most handsome boy on campus. His face had the kind of refined charm that made him the perfect escort to the cotillion, the man on whose arm you wanted to be seen. But he only wanted me—the girl who everyone said looked like his sister. My Alabamian roots drew back to the days when African slaves, Choctaw Indians, and poor white Irishmen often married, and I was a few shades lighter than Evan's sandy-colored skin. I had brown hair that was streaked the color of corn during Alabama's long, hot summers, and despite a voluptuous size 18 frame, Evan and I did look a lot alike with our perfectly nana-pinched noses and clear, light brown eyes. My mother said it was because, like her and Daddy, we were around each other too much as children.
With those memories of who Evan was and the honorable, distinguished leader he'd become, my mother assured and reassured me, laced me up in the corseted, princess-styled gown we'd shipped from Milan, patted me on the back and held my hand until I walked down the aisle, whispered “I do,” and Evan slid the shiny, platinum wedding band on my finger. Even then, I turned to look to her tearful, honey-colored eyes for certainty and waited for the thought of “something else” to fade.
And then it did.
The reception was at a refurbished twenties mansion at the end of a long, winding road on the outskirts of Tuscaloosa. Evan and I'd found it one day during a “get lost” drive when we were just teenagers. After jumping out of his first car—a silver, hand-medown Mustang—and walking around a bit, we fell in love with the stately white columns and romantic, oilburning light fixtures that led to the front door. We dreamed of one day living in that house; however, when it went up for sale just before we got engaged, we knew we couldn't afford it—I was a music teacher and Evan had just assumed a position as superintendent of the local school system. But Evan decided we should try to have a little piece of it and he got the real estate agent to let us use the five acres in the backyard to set up a tent for our wedding reception. With weeping willows and a still lake in the background, it was the ideal Southern setting for our new beginning together. The tent was draped in cream roses and silk ties; soft white lights and candles brightened every surface.
We arrived hand in hand, sitting atop the backseat of a fire engine red, convertible, 500 Series Mercedes-Benz. My dream car. It was brand new and Evan had somehow talked Sam Meeks down at the local dealership into letting us borrow the car so we could make what he'd called our “grand entrance as husband and wife” at the reception. “A car under the tent?” I asked when Evan told me his plan.
“It'll be fabulous. Don't worry,” he said with his eyes sparkling. He loved attention.
So after the “I dos” and vows, and my daddy giving his blessing, we were riding into the reception, sitting at the back of that pretty red car, and waving at 350 seated guests like we were king and queen of the prom again. Evan clutched my hand and I looked to him to see him grinning and looking at me the way he always did.
“Do you remember what I told you when you said you would marry me?” Evan asked, his hand still holding mine as we rode slowly in the car on a path through the middle of a wide ring of tables. Everyone was waving and smiling at us as the DJ called our names and played a sweet Ray Charles song my mother selected for our arrival.
“What?” I asked.
“I told you,” he began as his cousin Lenny stopped the car in the middle of the circle. He turned to me and looked into my eyes softly. “—that I'd give you the world.”
Before I could say anything, the DJ stopped the song and began speaking to the guests.
“Now, I know everyone's excited that our couple has joined us, but please remain seated, because the groom has something he wants to say to his new bride.”
Everyone began cheering and I looked at Evan, unsure of what was going on. We'd said our vows at the church. I certainly hadn't been prepared to say anything else. The DJ rushed over and handed Evan the microphone and with his usual charisma during such happy occasions, Evan jumped up and helped me out of the car.
“Now,” he said into the microphone when we were standing beside each other next to the car, “I was just reminding my wife—”
When he said “wife,” all 350 of our guests began to cheer wildly and even I felt myself blushing.
“That's right ... my
wife
,” he went on. “I was reminding my
wife
that when she agreed to marry me, I said I'd give her the world. If nothing, I'm a man of my word! And I intend to do just that. So, Mrs. Journey
DeLong
, I have something I want you to know.”
“Yes,” I said shyly. Evan wasn't big on surprises. He was a planner and he seldom planned anything I didn't know about.
“He's pregnant!” my younger brother, Justin, hollered and everyone laughed.
“No, that's coming though ...” Evan said playfully. “But seriously. Journey, you know that dream car you always wanted?”
“What?” I asked. “You mean—”
“Yeah, that car right there.” He pointed to the pretty red car. “Well, darling, you don't need to dream about it anymore.”
“What?” I shrieked this time.
A steady mix of “wow” and “ohh” came rising from the tables around us. I turned around to see my parents looking on arm in arm. My dad gave me a quick thumbs-up.
“What?” I cried in disbelief this time. “What?”
“Yes, it's yours.” Evan smiled, and we hugged tightly.
“I love you so much,” I whispered into his ear. “How did you—”
“Wait, y'all,” Evan said into the microphone as people continued to applaud. “There's more ...”
“More?” my best friend and maid of honor, Billie, shouted. “I hope there's a car for me!”
“Are you ready for this?” Evan asked me, holding the microphone behind his back with one hand and using the other to hold me. His eyes were now intent and serious.
“What is it?”
“There's a house in front of this tent,” he whispered. “Eight bedrooms, ten bathrooms, a three-car garage—”
“No—” I broke loose from his embrace and looked at him, covering my mouth with my hands.
“And a master suite with a walk-in closet,” he went on, “that now has every item of your clothing inside.”
“Evan,” I said happily as I began to cry. “We can't ... we can't—” The indecisiveness I felt earlier was fading fast. I was Cinderella at the ball right there in that moment.
“No such thing.” He placed his finger over my mouth before I could finish and handed me the microphone. “You tell them this one.”
“He bought the house. He bought the house,” I said, keeping my eyes on Evan. I couldn't believe it. I felt like I was living a fairy tale. And if I'd been looking for something when I woke up that morning, now I had everything. The perfect husband. The perfect house. The perfect car. What else could I ask for? Right?

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