When Solomon Sings (27 page)

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Authors: Kendra Norman-Bellamy

BOOK: When Solomon Sings
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“No,” Neil whispered. “Don't be sorry. I needed to hear that.” He opened his eyes but kept them set straight ahead. “The truth hurts, but it's still the truth, and if there's one thing you got from your daddy, it's the ability to tell it like it is; like it or not. And I must have wanted to hear it straight, or I wouldn't have come to you, right?” He glanced at CJ, and then looked out the front window again. “The world needs more men of God like you and fewer ear-ticklers who say only the stuff that you want to hear. I mean, when it comes right down to it, I can be a pretty funny dude, so I don't need nobody to tickle me. I can make my own self giggle.”
CJ leaned back and laughed. Only Neil would think to say something like that.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Shaylynn peeked through her blinds and smiled. She had been anticipating this moment for the past five hours. When Neil called at one o'clock and filled her in on Theresa's upgraded condition, and then told her that he wanted to come and pick up her and the kids so that they could all go by the hospital for a visit, and then go out to dinner, Shaylynn was ecstatic. Not just because she knew how much joy it was going to bring Theresa to see and hold Keola, but it would be her first time out with Neil since they got engaged.
As soon as Shaylynn heard Neil's shoes hit her top step, she opened the door. “Hi, Solomon.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him before stepping aside so that he could enter.
“Hey, suga. You look beautiful, as usual.”
Shaylynn knew he'd like the animal-print top that she'd paired with blue jeans and brown boots. “Thank you.” She pointed to the sofa. “Sit down for a second. I'll run up and get the children. Chase calls himself babysitting today.”
Neil caught her hand. “Wait, Shay. Can we talk for a minute?”
Shaylynn wasn't sure how she should read the look on his face. He didn't look sad, but he didn't look happy either. Butterflies fluttered in her stomach as she allowed him to pull her to the space on the couch beside him. “What is it? Is something wrong?”
Neil stalled. At first he seemed to struggle with looking her in the eyes. He sandwiched Shaylynn's left hand between both of his and slid his hands back and forth like he was trying to warm her hand with his. When he finally looked up at her, he searched her eyes for a short while, and then brought his lips to hers and kissed her deeply. Neil had never kissed her like that with Chase so close by. Shaylynn had never allowed it in the past, but today she did.
When he pulled away, he said, “I had to get that in now, because after I say what I say, you might not ever let me do it again.”
“What?” Now Shaylynn's butterflies felt more like wasps, and they were stinging the insides of her stomach. “You're scaring me,” she said. “What's happened?”
Neil squeezed her hand. “I found out something last night after I left here and went home. I had a visitor come by my house, someone I had never met before, but someone I really want to get to know better and make a permanent part of my life. And I really need you to understand this and—”
Shaylynn snatched her hand from his. She couldn't believe her ears. “What? You left my house last night after proposing to me, and then you meet some strange woman and, just like that, you want to be with her?” Shaylynn grabbed her engagement ring and began angrily twisting it from her finger.
“No, suga, wait.” Neil placed his hands on top of hers, stopping her feverish motions. “That's not what I'm saying. I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. This isn't about another woman. That's not what I'm saying at all. Please listen to me, okay?”
Shaylynn stopped her struggle, but her insides were still trembling from her earlier fury. “What are you saying then?” She didn't know what she was bracing herself to hear, but she braced anyway.
“My visitor was a young man. He knew of me, but I didn't know anything about him.” Neil tightened his grip on her hands again, like he thought his next words might make her get up and run for the hills. “I found out last night that I have a son.”
Shaylynn gasped. “What?”
“His name is Sean Thomas, and he's twenty-one years old.”
“Twenty-one?” This wasn't making mathematical sense to Shaylynn. She tried to keep her voice at a lowered level so that the conversation wouldn't be heard upstairs. “How could you have a twenty-one-year-old son and not know it? You were married then. How could Audrey hide a baby from you? That doesn't make sense.”
Neil brought her hand up to his lips and kissed it, then he looked her square in the eyes. Shaylynn had never seen him look at her quite like that before. Was that fear that she saw in his eyes? She braced herself again.
“He's not Audrey's child. I ... I, uh ... We were separated at the time, and I was on vacation with Dwayne, and I, uh ...”
“You had an affair?” Shaylynn could barely say the words, but when she did, Neil seemed overcome with relief that he wasn't the one who had to say them.
“Yes,” he whispered. Then in a slightly stronger voice, he added, “There was no excuse for it. It was a really bad time in my life, and instead of talking to a counselor or God or even Audrey, I confided in another woman, and it led to a two-night fling that produced a child, who I never knew about until the wee hours of this morning when he came knocking at my door.”
“Are you sure he's your child?” Shaylynn had watched enough episodes of Maury Povich's talk show back in the day to know that men shouldn't just take a woman's word, especially if they weren't in a bona fide relationship. Plus there was that question as to whether Neil had the ability to have children.
He must have read her thoughts. “Yes. He's mine. The ten-year drought I had with Audrey was apparently not because of me. Sean suggested a paternity test, and we're going to take one just to erase all doubts, but I already know he's mine.”
“Wow.” Shaylynn could imagine how having a son appear out of the blue might knock the wind out of a man. “Well, if you're that sure, then I can understand you wanting a relationship with him. I mean, what kind of man would you be if you didn't?”
Neil looked up at her and opened his mouth to speak, but closed it back up. When he opened it again, he said, “What are you feeling, suga? Are you upset with me about this?”
Shaylynn couldn't lie. “I don't know what I'm feeling right now. I'm not angry, but this is a lot to digest without some time.”
Nodding, Neil said, “I know. It was a lot for me too. Sean said he wasn't asking me to be his father. He gave me the option to walk away, no strings attached. All he wanted was to meet me after finding out that I wasn't dead, as his mother had told him for years. He searched for me against her will. She and I are kind of in the same situation right now. Abigail ... Gail—that's her name—is about to get married and didn't want this to cause any trouble for her and her fiance, and I had just proposed to a woman who had told me that she was glad I had no children, so I was scared about the repercussions too.”
Shaylynn wasn't going to admit it out loud, but the fact that Neil's former fling was in love and about to get married served as a source of comfort. “Well, I'm glad you told me. Your honesty means a lot.”
Neil looked at her like he needed more. “But what does this mean for us? I need to hear you say it. Whatever
it
is, I need to hear it. You didn't want a man with children. I love you with all my heart, and I can't remember the last time I wanted anything more than I want to make you my wife and Chase my son. There aren't a whole lot of things that I wouldn't give up for you, Shay, but Sean is one of them. I don't know him, and I can't even say that I love him yet in the way a father should, but he's still my son, and I want a chance to get back some of the time that we lost. I can't deny him. Not even for you. So tell me now, suga. Is this the end of us?”
From the expression on his face, Shaylynn knew that her answer meant everything to him, and that meant everything to her. She looked down at her hands in his, and then back at his face. “You know what I did when I went to Milwaukee for the New Year? I went to Emmett's gravesite. I hadn't done that since I buried him. I'd never been able to do it until this year, and I realized that I was able to do it because of you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, it was hard enough to watch him be lowered into the ground over eight years ago. Seeing him covered in dirt, grass, and a slab of concrete, like a forgotten piece of history, was just too much for me to consider. But when I was there this year, I asked Luke and Alice Jessup to go with me to the cemetery. I needed to say good-bye to Emmett, to tell him that I was moving on with my life. I needed to feel like he was okay with me living and loving again.” She whisked a tear from her cheek. “I'm not crazy. I know the real Emmett wasn't there, but being there made me feel close to him, and I felt like he could hear me, even from heaven. When I left, I felt like he'd given me his blessings; like he approved not only of me moving on, but with me moving on with you.
“I meant it when I said I wouldn't have begun a relationship with you if you'd had kids. But I believe God intended for the two of us to be together, and that's probably why He waited until I was already head over heels before we came to the knowledge of your son. I wouldn't have let you in if I'd known about this at the start, but what I know now is that it would have been my loss. I can't bail out now, Solomon. I love you too much.”
“Oh, suga.” Neil leaned in and kissed her. “I love you too. I was so afraid of how you'd handle this. You just don't know the lengths I was prepared to go to just to convince you stay. You make me so crazy. I sometimes feel like I'm fighting a losing battle here, and it aggravates me. You're still so attached to Emmett, and I can't lie. That frustrates the heck out of me. For over a year now, I've been trying so hard to beat him at something. . .
anything.
I've tried to be perfect just like him, but every time I turn around, I fall short.”
Shaylynn was shocked by what she heard. “Perfect? Solomon, Emmett wasn't perfect. He was just the perfect man for me. He had a lot of flaws. Most of them, he never told me about until he gave his life to Christ, but he wasn't even close to being without faults. Overall, by anybody's standards, you are a much better man.” Shaylynn saw the surprise on Neil's face. “He was in
politics,
Solomon. There's no such thing as a perfect politician. Some are worse than others, and for a while, Emmett was among the worst of the worse. I'm not going to go into details, because I don't want to rehash the hurt in my own heart, but I didn't even know my own capacity to forgive until he shared all the things with me that he had once been involved in.
“My love for and continued attachment to Emmett has nothing to do with perfection. I loved him and will always love him in spite of his imperfections. I think I was able to forgive him because I didn't have to find out about his indiscretions from the headlines of the morning paper. Once he got saved, God wouldn't allow him to keep them hidden from me. Many of the things he'd done were ongoing inside of our marriage, so forgiving him wasn't easy, but I did it, and the last year of our marriage was the best ever. I remember the good times, not because that's all there were, but because those are the times I
choose
to remember. There were plenty enough of them to make me have no regrets. And if I can look past the admitted sins of a man who committed them while we were married, I can look over those of a man who made mistakes long before he ever even met me.”
When Neil leaned in to kiss her again, this time he went deeper. Shaylynn kissed him back and could taste his love, his appreciation, and his relief.
“Let's get married tomorrow,” he whispered upon releasing her.
Shaylynn licked her lips and slid back a little to put some much-needed space between them. “We can't. I sat up last night and planned out the entire wedding. It's not something that can be put together in a day. My matron of honor is still in the hospital.”
Neil straightened his posture and laughed. “Fine. Just promise me that you'll look at what you want and factor in the minimum time needed to do it. Then let's set the wedding for the day after that.”
“Promise.” Shaylynn smiled. He just didn't know. If Neil thought for one minute that he was any more ready to make this thing legal than she was, he had another thought coming. “So all this time you thought you had to compete against Emmett? That's sweet.”
Neil shook his head. “No, it's not. It's been nerve-wracking.” Shaylynn retracted a little when he reached forward and pulled at the chain around her neck until the jewelry that dangled at the end of it was unearthed. “Do you know how hard it is to compete against a man whose ring you still wear and whose flowers still sit on your mantle? I can't help but wonder what the heck this man did to make you want to hold on to this kind of stuff.”
Shaylynn closed her right hand around the ring that now hung in front of her blouse. Out of respect for Neil, she'd only worn the necklace when she had on clothing that could conceal it. She had no idea he knew it was there, but she prayed he wouldn't give her an ultimatum, because just like he wasn't willing to deny Sean for her, she wasn't willing to deny Emmett for him. “He loved me, Solomon. Flaws and all, Emmett loved me.”
“I love you more.”
That brought another smile to Shaylynn's face. Neil was still competing and probably without even realizing it. She tucked the necklace back into her blouse, and then touched his cheek. “Wait here for a minute.” She could feel Neil's eyes watching her as she disappeared behind the door of her bedroom. It only took her a moment to find what she was looking for, and when she did, she returned to the living room, holding the box she'd retrieved. “I've never shown this to anyone,” she told him as she lifted the top and began pulling out memorabilia.

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