Chapter Twenty-Four
Clove
I know Turner and Zack think I am going to fall off the deep end, but I’m not. I can’t. If I do, Tina wins. To her this is a game; to me, it’s my life. My family’s lives.
When I looked at Turner after I gave my testament today, I saw that all color had drained from his face. Something hit me hard. It wasn’t until I talked to Dr. Jollup that I understood what it was.
He and I need to talk. I need to tell him the truth. It’s the only way I will be able to move forward, the beginning of me forgiving myself and the end of him blaming himself.
The truth will hurt. I hate having to tell him any of this at all. This is a part of my life I wish I could forget; however, I believe in him and I believe in us. I felt broken before, but now I feel as if my pieces are being glued back together. There are several pieces left before I can be whole again, but the biggest one is still lying between myself and the man sitting in front of me.
Turner sits in the chair in the corner of this frilly pink bedroom, reading a story to a baby who has no idea what he is saying, yet who sits there as attentive as a little girl listening to her dad read her favorite book for the hundredth time. I could stand here in the shadows of this darkened hallway forever watching him be the perfect dad I always knew he could be.
“Mommy thinks she’s being sneaky.”
I swallow the lump in my throat as his gaze lifts from the book and looks me over appreciatively from head to toe, lingering on my legs. I wander in, my bare feet squishing into the thick carpet.
“Sorry to interrupt,” I say hesitantly.
“Nah, she needs to get to bed, anyway. I changed her after you fed her and she’s good to go. I’ll rock her to sleep.”
He lifts her onto his shoulder. Her head automatically lays right down, her eyelids heavy. I pat her on her little butt, kiss her forehead and his cheek, and leave them alone.
I’m lost in my thoughts, sitting cross-legged in the middle of the bed and applying hand lotion, when Turner comes into our bedroom. His back is to me, digging through a drawer in his dresser. He closes it and starts walking into the bathroom.
“I knew something was different the minute we drove away from the airport,” I say quietly.
He freezes in mid-step.
“I just didn’t know what. For days you didn’t seem to be yourself. At first, I thought maybe you were cheating on me.”
I swear I can hear his heart beating as loud and fast as a drum solo being pumped through speakers too close to my ears. His shoulders tense as if I have just slapped him, and then they slouch just as quickly, his head slack as he looks to the floor. I focus on the solid contours of his back, watching his chest rise and fall.
“I was in our office when Zack told me the man I was with wasn’t you. I felt physically sick. Zack begged me to leave with him right then and there, but I couldn’t do it. I knew what I was doing was wrong. I knew I was betraying you. I have to live with that for the rest of my life, but I would go through everything again if it brought you back to me. I don’t know how much you know, or how much you care to know, but the one thing you need to know is that I never once stopped loving you.”
My voice stays strong through my entire confession, but when I’m done, misery sets in. I sink back into the bed, watching him as he soaks in everything I just said. He stands there and says nothing, his silence driving me to hopelessness. I see him swipe away a tear, which causes my breath to hitch and my heart to collide inside my chest. He still doesn’t speak, not even when he retreats into the bathroom, or hours later when I am lying awake, curled up on my side, the feel of the bed dipping as he climbs in leaving me feeling all alone.
My chin starts to tremble the longer we lay here in stillness. I know he’s awake. He knows I’m awake. Turner has always held me at night when we sleep, and he never sleeps on his back unless I’m curled up into him. Did I make a mistake by telling him? I tried to choose my words wisely, to say what needed to be said so we could try to move forward. Or does he need time to process what I’ve told him? I don’t know; all I know is I am restless and I can’t lie in this bed anymore, so close to him without being in his strong arms as I need and want to be.
Throwing the blanket off of me, I climb out of bed, pick up the baby monitor, and leave the room, closing the door behind me quietly. I trudge down the hallway and into the kitchen. The clock on the stove reads three a.m. I know sleep is impossible, so I make a pot of coffee and decide to go into the office. With my coffee in hand, I turn on the laptop to scour the internet for news about Tina.
Her profile is everywhere, on every news site I check, all across the country. I laugh to myself when I see her mugshot photo with her black eye and busted lip. My hands grip the coffee mug tighter when her smug smile glares back at me.
“Where are you, you fucking bitch?” I say to her picture.
After two cups of coffee and having no luck figuring out where Tina is, I shut down the computer. I don’t have any clue where she might be, but I know someone who would. I need to find a way to get to him, but how? There is no way in hell Turner or Zack will let me go see him on my own. Unless? A thought occurs to me.
I set the computer back on the desk, checking the clock as I walk out of the door. I nearly drop my mug, practically jumping out of my skin when I see Turner sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee in his hand.
“Journey’s still sleeping,” he says, barely above a whisper.
It’s heart-wrenching to see him looking at me like this. It’s as if he’s looking right through me, as if he doesn’t even know who I am. A cloudy mist of grey is settled all around him. Neither one of us move, we just stare, me with pleading eyes, his shadowed.
I close my eyes and try to will away the tears that want to fall.
“Clove.”
He says my name so gently. When I open my eyes, he is standing right in front of me, his eyes casting a different look. My heart plummets to my stomach. He’s forgiving me. I see it. I don’t move as he brings his hand up and strokes the side of my face, his touch both tingling and comforting.
“I forgive you. I’m sorry about the way I reacted earlier. I’m standing before the woman I love and asking you to forgive me.”
I lean my forehead against his chest. The words, ‘I forgive you’ playing over and over in my head. His arms circle my waist.
“You’ve done nothing for me to have to forgive you for,” I say into his chest.
“I have. I should have been man enough to tell you right then that I never once blamed you for any of this and that I love you so fucking much, Clove. The things you went through, sacrificed... you did it all to find me. I’ve known it all along, it’s just… I needed a little time after hearing you say it to finally convince myself that neither one of us are to blame for this. The entire time I was without you, I blamed myself for not fighting hard enough to get back to you. For not leaving that damn house with you when you begged me to. If I would have, things may have turned out differently. Or maybe not. We will never know.”
One hand leaves my back and cups my chin and this time when he looks at me, I see the same love in his eyes that I have seen since the first time he told me he loved me.
“This part is over. I don’t want either one of us to talk about it again. I am, and always will be, in love with you. Every part of me belongs to you, and I know, God, baby, I know every part of you belongs to me.”
************
“She’s clean.”
I turn around from loading the dishwasher to see two big grins strolling into the kitchen.
“And she’s not wearing pink,” I say as I kiss her chubby little belly.
“Not today. Of course this was buried in the back of her closet. My mother’s doing, I’m sure.”
“Speaking of your mom, has she called back yet?” I’m starting to really be concerned.
“No. Why don’t you take her? I’m going to call her again.”
He passes the baby off to me, snatches his phone off the counter, and sits at the table.
I hear Melody answer, so I take Journey into the other room and click the television on. I’m starting to get bored being cooped up in here. Things have been crazy, as if everything is moving so fast. I haven’t even caught up on what’s happened in the world. It’s like I’ve been in a coma this entire time. I guess I have, if you want to get technical about it.
I sit Journey on a blanket on the floor and curl up on the sofa, scanning through the channels while she plays with her rattle. Finally finding one of the national news stations, I settle back with my knees off to the side, watching and listening to nothing but grief and sadness. Why can’t there be something happy on here? No such luck.
I startle as I see my face as well as Trent’s and Tina’s pop up on the screen. Blood starts pumping in my ears as I hear them talk about the story; how I haven’t been spotted since I left the hospital, the BOLO for Tina, and on and on. I let the drone of the reporter’s voice wash over me when I see in the far background a man being chauffeured out of the hospital in a wheelchair, hands and legs shackled in cuffs. Nurses help him out of it with care.
The remote slips from my grasp, a string of expletives tumbling out of my mouth when I hear the reporter’s announcement.
‘Doctors at Mississippi State General Hospital released Trent Calloway into the custody of the FBI. Calloway will be transferred to an unidentified hospital in Atlanta, Georgia. We will keep you updated on his whereabouts as soon as we receive more information.’
“Turner.”
I swallow, my mouth in need of a drink, preferably the hard stuff I put away that was left out on the counter.
“Well they move fast, don’t they?” he grumbles from beside me as we both watch Trent being transferred into the back of an ambulance.
“Why are they bringing him here?”
Turner turns to me, a mixture of emotions all over his face. I put my hands on his arms.
“What?”
“When you were in talking to Dr. Jollup yesterday, Zack told me that the FBI and the D.A. are working out a plea bargain with Trent.”
“A plea bargain? For what?”
“To help them find your mother.”
************
I find myself tired and restless after yesterday’s events. I want out of here. Knowing I cannot leave, I pop in a movie, becoming peacefully relaxed with the baby sleeping by my side and Turner on his laptop at the end of the couch. He’s been on that thing for a few hours now, so I nudge him with my foot to ask him the question that had slipped my mind since I thought about it the other day.
“What’s up?”
Closing the lid to the computer, he sets it on the table in front of him and takes hold of my foot. He tenderly begins to massage the sole.
“Oh. That feels so good,” I moan as his strong fingers press into the arch. “I missed these.”
“I missed giving them, especially those little noises that come out of your mouth when I touch you here.”
He presses firmly under my big toe. Don’t ask me why, but whenever he touches that spot, it sends an urgent thrill up my leg straight to my core, making it ache for him.
“Hmm,” I groan.
He continues with his torturous onslaught of my foot then moving on to the next before I remember again what I wanted to ask him.
“Where did you get all the money to buy this house? And what’s happened with our business?”
“We’re living off my mother,” he chuckles, not at all what I was expecting.
“And the office?”
“Is a clusterfuck of a mess just like everything else.”
He continues to massage my feet and I sink farther into the couch.
“It’s really not funny.” I say through another moan.
“No, it’s not, but that’s the least of my worries right now, and yours, too. After all this is over, we will sort it all out. The office hasn’t been touched since the day you left, except for when my mother went in there and gave Zack all of our computers and files. She is the one who notified all of our clients. Everyone thought I was dead, body never found. Like I said, a clusterfuck.”
“And our old house?”
“Will be sold as soon as this shit is over.”
I sit up carefully so I don’t wake up Journey.
“So basically we will be starting all over, building our clientele from scratch. God, do we even have health insurance?”
“Clove, quit worrying about money and insurance and how we’re going to live.”
He hesitates, my feet left in his lap as he turns slightly to face me.
“Look, we’ll be fine. Trust me. I have a plan, one I think you will really like, but right now I need to tell you where my mother has been.”
All playfulness has left his tone. By the look on his face he’s about to tell me something I don’t want to hear. Removing my feet from his lap, I climb over it and straddle him. My fingers trace the outline of his jaw. He looks tired and worn out, not to mention stressed and fed up with all the shit being flung our way.
“Go on,” I say as I rub his scalp, trying to put him at ease.
“She spent the entire day with Trent yesterday.”
My movements stop. I’m not really surprised, I think to myself as my maternal instincts kick in.
“How do you feel about that?”
I see the way he feels in his eyes before he even tells me. I don’t say anything though, I just listen.
“I’m hurt, I won’t deny that. I can’t say I’m mad at her, because I’m not. He’s nothing to me, he never will be, but he’s her son, too. I can’t and won’t deny her the right to be his mother. She’s suffered too long, and if this is something she needs to make her happy, who am I to tell her she can’t see him?”
The pain and the suffering in the way he speaks breaks my heart. At the same time, it makes me proud to be his wife, seeing the unselfish man that he is cast aside his hatred for Trent in order to stand down and let Melody have her sense of inner peace.
I am so lucky to have a man who puts others before him. I lay my head on his shoulder and kiss him with love, trust, and hope. Hope that one day soon this clusterfuck, as he calls it, finally comes to an end.