The no nonsense woman sitting across from me steadies her sharp gaze on me as I envelop the hot mug with my hands. The stinging hot feeling is the only feeling that makes sense at the moment. I can get away with a made up story. I am not one of those people who are bad at lying but I am not a professional either. Either way, a lie is a lie.
‘Again I am sorry about your father.’ Detective Alice says at the end of her interrogation. My alibi is clean and story believable. I am as shocked by father’s murder as everybody else.
‘It was.’ I say softly as I will the memory away. The funeral is tomorrow. ‘Do you have any leads or suspects?’
Detective Alice sighs, ‘no—we thought perhaps the killer may be after you but....’
‘What does that mean?’
She shakes her head, ‘we don’t deal with gunshot homicides very often here Mrs. Phatshimo—it means whoever killed your father is rich enough and influential enough to get their hands on one.’
I nod in agreement as Taylor comes to stand impassively by my side, placing a gentle hand on my shoulder.
‘Will that be all?’ he asks rather tersely
The police woman nods and start packing her bag, ‘yes thank you for your help.’ She stands and her eyes settle on me for a few moments. I think she has something she wants to ask me but Taylor’s impending presence urges her to start leaving. With one last polite smile, she makes her way out from the room and then out of the apartment.
I finally breathe. I stand to dump the coffee in the sink feeling sick and a little dizzy. I need to sit down.
‘Hey!’ Taylor holds my shoulders and stops me, ‘you did okay.’
I can’t even look at him as I say, ‘I hate this—these stories—I really wish I wasn’t there when he was shot.’
Or that I wasn’t there when my friends were murdered. What have I done to the universe to be living in the same circle of sequence?
‘I’m sorry—it will be over soon.’
My eyes snap to meet his, is he serious? Am I the only one who sensed dread in everything that came out of the mouths of those men? In everything he said?
‘What’s man-man?’
Yep the billion dollar question. He gives me that look. That look he gets when he is wondering whether he should tell me something or not. He takes my hand and guides me to the couch. We sit facing each other. Truth—my brain companions settle for a comfortable cross-legged sitting position with glasses and notepads.
‘I have been planning to pull out of this family business ever since I found out its existence.’ He starts, ‘they could leave me alone if I get them the contract that they want.’
‘Man-man?’
‘Yes that.’
‘What is that?’
‘I can’t tell you that.’
‘There is nothing you can’t tell me Taylor—or do you want me to find out from one of your great uncles?’
Seriously? Great uncles? That is so ancient and they are all not even over thirty by the looks of them.
‘You can’t leave me to run to any member of my family like you did today Heather—stay by my side always—please?’
Celine wouldn’t hurt me. Sense and logic agree.
‘What is man-man Taylor?’
‘No!’
I narrow my eyes at him. What makes him think that I can’t find out what that is? There is Google and the four great uncles.
‘The less you know the better—I don’t want you mixed up in any of this.’
I fold my arms across my chest, ‘what are you going to do Taylor besides what I have already figured out.’
‘What you have already figured out?’
‘Why did you take this far?’ I gesture between us, ‘you wouldn’t have had anything to lose.’
‘Not this again Heather.’
‘Oh you think it’s a blast being me right now? Watching you come to heinous terms with the three great uncles just because I can’t bring you all to a stronger clan? Or watching my father die and the very murders talking about it like they just killed a chicken.’
‘You father never cared about you.’ Taylor says between his teeth
‘He is still my father.’ My voice rise a little,
‘Oh how touching.’ He mutters insolently. ‘I don’t get how you can have any soft feelings for a person who treated you like a piece of property instead of his own daughter.’
‘And you know better?’
‘I would do anything for you.’
‘Even committing crime?’
He chuckles humorlessly, ‘I have been committing crime since I was born, don’t go there,’
Okay at this point my brain companions and I are ready to withdraw the mission, but a part of me won’t let go. I have seen and felt too many harsh things in the last hours to have him speak to me as if he is more stressed out than I am.
‘Well I wasn’t born into it—and I am going there—you can’t just push me into a dark corner and ask me to watch silently like you know what you are doing.’
‘What’s wrong with that?’
I scoff, ‘everything is—I feel like I don’t even know you.’
Silence falls between us as we stare at each other. Him poker-faced, me somewhere between resentment and panic.
‘Please just let it go for now,’ he whispers, ‘the funeral is tomorrow—I am sure you will be happy to say goodbye to your lovely father.’
I just stare at him as he leans forward and plants a kiss on my forehead before he stands and leaves the room. Anger looms and surges in me so strong a visible shake comes to my body. How dare he act like there is something wrong with the way I see father. He may not have the best view of fathers but I refuse to let him talk about my dead father as if he was nothing significant.
But I am frightened. Of that side of him I never really met before. The mean cold side of him that makes him—as he rightly said – the man he was born to become. I burry my face into my hands and will myself not to cry.
The end of a life is always agonizing in some way. Whether they were a saint or a sinner. It is always mystifying that a person will never be seen physically again. A part of them has left and the body remains behind. All that it left are memories. Some are legacies some are troubles.
But I can’t take the death of a person so lightly like it is every day business. Even if it is my evil selfish father.
I also believe that people have two sides. A darker side that we all try to keep a lid on by the laws and ethics and social rules and morals. And the good side which I believe we were all created with the likeness of God. The one we try to nature but never fully understand.
Life, I reflect as the laying to rest service proceeds and the coffin is being lowered into the six fit grave, though we know will end. It’s inevitable but still unexpected. The pastor says some things I couldn’t hear and then it is over. We all walk away from the land of the dead back to our cars. The crowd is a mixture of the suspicious, the curious and the ones that seem as if they are grieving. And then there is me. I feel like my life is a story I am reading. Like it is not so real. Like I am bound to wake up any moment and watch the dream fade in the back of my mind.
‘Oh Heather!’ Judith rushes to hug me ignoring the imposing figures of Taylor and Lawyer hovering over me like old mother hens. I put my arm around her shoulders and manage a small distant smile as she regards my face with the look I have been getting the whole day. What the hell exactly happened? Question in everyone’s eyes and for a moment I almost admitted that I should have listened to Taylor and Lawyer’s suggestion to not come.
‘Thanks.’ I mutter and she returns my smile. The story had been simple. The thugs that killed my father attacked me. While the police would be out there hunting down for thugs hey didn’t know who owned guns, I was officially off the suspect list.
‘I will pray for you.’ Judith pats my arm bids the old mother hen hovering men goodbye before walking away.
After Judith is gone I walk hastily towards the car just wanting to get out of the place. I notice Ms. Sephutho casting a glance at me. She wants to talk or she is curious I wouldn’t know. In fact I wouldn’t know why half the people I don’t know and even Mr. Abiwu and his cohorts don’t recognize are doing here besides the obvious fact that the police arrived at the school and started asking about me.
From what I learned, Ms. Sephutho and other teachers who knew me were appalled that I should be involved in such a thing. And then there was a case about Collins. He was caught somewhere in the deep streets of broadhaust and he mentioned my name when he was confessing his evil deeds.
So much for being invisible I was now the popular girl in school. I am positive I won’t step my foot on that campus again even if my life depended on it. I lean my head back on the car seat as one song seem to repeat inside my head. ‘Nearer my God to Thee’
Taylor’s hand finds mine but none of us say anything. This kind of feeling is unworldly. Where the world seem to crumble around us and still the passion and crazy love that brought us together still lingers. Like I could ever encourage him to leave me because that would make life easier for both of us. I should. Like I could vanish and not have him choose between anything in this dark world we have landed. I might.
Like I would ever, for a moment forget about the life growing inside of me. What they will be welcomed into. Evil, secrets, cruelty, darkness—death. They couldn’t come at a better time and I, passionate as I may be to rescue them from the clutches of this life. I can’t.
There are five words that seem to stir something within me.—I will pray for you—there was a time I believed that God existed and could do anything that seemed impossible then that murder happened. Now I really don’t know. He exists for everyone—but not for me.
We reach the apartment and I realize with a sagging relief that it is the only place so far that has not been tainted with horrific memories. I blindly walk inside and find a couch to ease onto. Taylor comes to sit beside me and engulfs me into his arms. I wound my arms around him and rest my head against his chest. I can hear his steady beating heart and his enchanting scent.
A rueful smile creeps up my face. Are we okay? I don’t know—like that would even matter. I could never turn away from the man since I looked up at him in that parking lot and he colonized my island and sat on the throne as king. He may not know it, but even if it’s not okay—it’s still okay.
My response is to slide my twitchy fingers through his curls. Another addiction I will never overcome. I love how his hair looks so wild and those curls look so untamed and rough and yet so soft to the touch, I was right about them when I first laid my eyes on them.
‘No one will ever hurt you like this again.’
I tilt my head to meet serious dark eyes. ‘When you make promises like that.’ I take a deep breath, ‘they scare me.’
Dark eyes search mine, looking for elaboration. I pry my happy fingers from the curls and trace them down his beautiful face.
‘I don’t want you to do something like what I have witnessed so far for me Taylor.’
‘Like I wouldn’t do anything for you.’
‘Taylor--.’
‘I was afraid that you would walk away after you went through all that… my own family tried to kill you.’
I rest my fingers on his lips, ‘please don’t remind me of that—and don’t do what you wouldn’t do—I came to this knowing exactly what I was to expect. I could have ran for the hills or chose to leave or avoided getting to where we are, but I …’
He silences me with a deep passionate kiss that I return with the same fervor. He presses me closer to himself while my fingers find his hair again. I wonder if our child will have his hair or mine. A wild thought drops suddenly.
Taylor pauses and scowls at me curiously, ‘what it is?’
I blink, open my mouth and close it. My baby. For a moment I had erased Celine’s story from my head. The horrible events that she unfolded to me that day before Alex came to kill me. What am I going to do? No, what must I do? My heart immediately start beating so fast I think I am having a heart attack.
‘Heather!’ Taylor’s voice snaps me back to the present.
‘Huh!’ is all I say as a fear comes upon me.
‘What is it? Why are you looking like that?’
I then remember his expression the last time I mentioned the baby. Maybe he or she is an inconvenience to him just like it is to the rest of his family. I unwound my arm from him while he is trying to figure out what is going on in my head. The sudden change of the atmosphere. Seconds ago I admitted that it didn’t matter what his world threw at me, I couldn’t get away and leave him. But now after all the epiphany and memories only hurt and distrust are building walls around my heart and I start a new process of keeping it together.
Celine was right. I can’t lose it now. If I didn’t have another life in me to fend for, I would have given up and stopped existing. But I need to hang on for the innocent person relying on me for the moment and even after.
‘Heather?’
I turn away from him ready to bolt out of the living room when Lawyer’s tall figure materializes in front of us in the middle of the living room. I shriek and bring a hand over my heart while I stare at him and his huge valise with wide eyes.
He flashes an apologetic smile, ‘sorry I didn’t mean to startle you.’ He says, ‘I thought you saw me.’
I breathe out as my heart starts coming down a notch, ‘what possessed you to just appear like that?’
Taylor holds my shoulders to calm me, ‘what is wrong with you?’
Lawyer hold up his hand, ‘hey I knocked thrice and decided to let myself in and I didn’t want to disturb your cozy cuddle either I was just about to walk quietly to my room.’
‘What is wrong with you?’ Taylor repeats a little more annoyed than before.
‘Wait!’ I raise my palm, ‘what do you mean your room?’
When Lawyer doesn’t say anything I turn to Taylor who says, ‘Lawyer is going to live here.’
I turn back to Lawyer, ‘why? Did you get kicked out of your house?’
Seriously do I really need one of the creepy uncles living close by—oh correction creepy cousin who is suddenly infatuated with me recently?
‘Sort of.’ Lawyer replies and glances around, ‘great place you have here.’ He crosses the living room pulling his bag behind him, ‘wow such antique.’
My brain companions and I sign him off as a victim of insanity as he disappears in the passage.
‘What is going on?’ I turn to Taylor, ‘besides everything else that is going on?’ I elaborate.
‘Uh,’ he is thinking—I hate that, I can’t have his half answers right now.
‘Body guard?’ I say my first guess. I mean what else could it mean? Lawyer was all over the place since I opened my eyes in the hospital or wherever that was. But it did qualify as a hospital to me. Anyway, either I was with Lawyer or Taylor—come to think of it I never actually had a breathing space, even today they made sure to scare away all strangers that would have come to give me their condolences. That just shows how complicated this situation is and dangerous I dare add.