Stand By Me (9 page)

She held Sophie's hand in her lap. “You know, I have no idea what to expect. I've seen a picture of him, but I have nothing personal to go off of.”

“I'm surprised yer no upset,” Sophie acknowledged smoothing a hand over Kenya's wavy hair, tucking it behind her ear.

Kenya smirked because to laugh would have sounded wicked. “I'm pissed, Sophie. Not just pissed, but angry and quite frankly a little envious of Morgan and Michael.” That didn't cover what she felt. Crossing her ankles she twisted around to look at Sophie, she said, “For thirteen years, he stayed to be their father. But...” closing her eyes, Sophie's delicate touch stroking her cheek, Kenya let the frustration seep out on a sigh. “That little girl hurt for a long time, Sophie...it still hurts twenty seven years later.”

“Don't fester on the negative it's nae good for you or me grandchild.” Kenya looked at the blue eyes taking her in, and a measure of Jonathan's compassion filled her instantly. Those were his eyes feeding her strength. Sophie continued, “You grew into a beautiful loving woman I'm proud to say is carrying my first grandchild.” She smiled. “Besides, I doubt that if Katherine and Marcus didn't trust him they'd give him your location.”

“I hope you're right.” She paused and let Sophie's words sink in. “What's odd is I don't feel any anger toward Katherine or Marcus for not telling me. I don't know...I guess in my heart I know whatever the reason it was for my benefit.”

Commotion and voices outside the door brought their heads up and Kenya to her feet, her heart pounding in her ears. This was it. The day she'll remember for the rest of her life--meeting her father.

The glass paneled doors swung in, the curtains rippling under the movement as if a breeze came in through the window to make them sway. A face from her childhood filled the doorway making her body tense with memories she'd stored away for years. Her brother, Michael. Instantly her mind transformed her into that anxious little girl with the two French braids hanging down her back and her in her yellow jumper. She could feel his hands tugging her hair when he'd walk by interrogating her about going in his room. She fought the instinct to say, she wasn't in his room and pushed down the pain. Instead, she clasped her hands in front of her nodding politely.

From behind him, walked out pain number two, Kenya noticed. There stood a light skinned man equally as handsome yet progressively older, than Michael with a dusting of freckles under each eye and a smile she didn't want to find inviting. Kenya never saw her brother and father move across the room, but suddenly they were in front of her. Strong and healthy. Michael was as distinguished as she remembered him, yet a hint of street always sat just below the surface of his perfect smile. Her pulse jumped and her tongue became dry as her old fears ran through her of not being good enough. Jonathan’s words rang through her mind. She deserved to be happy. Just keep saying that and she’ll get through this.

Her brother pulled her against his chest calling her name over and over in a warm embrace that felt more like stabbing icicles over her flesh. Stunned she just stood there not hugging him back, still chanting to herself letting him rock her in his arms. When he stopped, she stepped away. His cologne filled her nostrils and the little girl inside grabbed onto the new scent. The grown woman raised a hand to wipe where tears should have been and came away dry. Not one tear was shed.

“Am I supposed to be happy to see either one of you? Michael you never cared if I lived or died growing up,” Kenya accused in a rushed tone she couldn’t control. “What did you used to call me?” Snapping her fingers she said, “Oh...I remember...family killer.”

Steve shot Michael a dark stare that surprised Kenya. No one's told him how shoddy they'd treated her all those years, even now? Why would they when he wasn't there.

“Michael I told you and Morgan to be there for your sister when I left. In that hospital I said take care of each other for me and your mother.”

Kenya crooked a sardonic stare at Steve.

“Are you serious? You told elementary school kids to watch over a newborn, me. Thaaanks,” she drew out rolling her eyes. “That was your job, Mr. Erickson, not theirs.” Steve flinched. She couldn't form the word father, it just wasn't there yet.

“Kenya, there's no words that'll change what happened. I just hope you'll give me a chance to explain.”

She hoped she still cared once he stop talking. “I can give you one hour, Mr. Erickson. I'm waiting on an important call.”

Sophie came up beside Kenya. “Why don't we all sit down...relax...there's a lot you need to discuss and quite frankly, Mr. Erickson, I'm glad you're here. Your daughter needs you, but know this,” Sophie's back stiffened in a protective posture. “Doona hurt me daughter-in-law, by not intending to stay. She's had enough heartache lately.”

Katherine and Marcus moved in beside Kenya and they shared hugs and kisses, before the room settled.

“Listen to him with your heart not your hurt,” Katherine suggested holding Kenya's hands. “Jonathan's not the only one with people standing behind him.”

She squeezed her mother then wrapped her arms around her father moving in around Katherine. Marcus said, “Tell me what you need.”

She held Marcus to her heart and whispered in his ear, “For you to let me and Jonathan pay for the Florida room on the house, so you can sit on the back porch in the winter. I know you can afford it, but I need to do this, for me, please.” Marcus nodded and kissed her face before stepping away.

Sophie offered hot coffee or tea in the room pointing to a carafe and some mugs spread out over a long console table behind the sofa angled out away from the door. After Katherine made Marcus a cup of coffee, they sat and the room quieted. Kenya watched Steve and Michael sit on the sofa and Katherine and Marcus took the love seat beside the fireplace closest to the settee.

Kenya couldn't sit. She'd prepared herself to see Steve, not Michael. Her head spun with questions for both men. Katherine had already told her their father hadn't wanted them to know who he was for reasons he'd explain one day. Well that day better be today or else he would never get a chance again.

Steve rubbed his hands down his legs and rose up off the sofa to stand before Kenya. She let him hold her hands as he led her to the settee and knelt before her. Creases in his brow, revealed he was older, not as much as she first thought, but at least ten years. He was at least sixty.

“Lord...you're the spitting image of your mother, Karen. Same warm brown complexion and bright eyes.” He searched her face raising a hand as she reared back and he dropped his hand. “I loved her. I need you to know and understand that, Kenya. I loved your mother from the moment I met her in high school.”

Sophie squeezed her hand and Judge moved in closer to her hearing her suck in a breath.

“High school?” There's no way this man went to school with her mother. “...High school...How old are you?” she had to ask incredulously.

Steve dropped his head pressing it to her hands. She wanted to yank it away but didn't, cause he was her flesh and blood. “I was almost seven years older than your mother, Kenya. I was her teacher in high school.” She snatched her hand away, bolting up grasping on to the cushion to keep from falling; a hand to her mouth getting away from him, stopping once she had nowhere to go except to lean against the large fireplace mantel.

She pressed a palm to her forehead and spun around to face Steve. “That's sick. She was just a child,” Kenya ridiculed. Didn't he know how perverted that sounded? People go to jail for that sort of thing.

“Kenya I was fresh out of college and your mother was in the tenth grade when we met. Don't slap a label on me before you hear the entire story.”

She scowled. “I didn't say a word,” she replied thinking her biological father was a pervert.

He raised a hand indicating her eyebrows. “Karen's brows arched the same way when she said one thing and thought another.”

“Then yes,” bracing a hand to the fireplace mantel, “I labeled you a pervert in my book,” wrinkling her nose in disgust Kenya groaned.

Steve crossed the room slowly with his hands in his pockets. Once he stood in front of her, their feet touching, he held a hand out to the chair in the corner. “Let me finish.” Eyeing the chair then him Kenya gave in crossing the few feet then lowered down into the chair crossing her legs. What could he say to make this better? Steve knelt before her touching her hands on her knees closing his around them. “Your mother was a lady with everything in every way. Nothing happened, Kenya. She was a bright student and picked up on lessons quick in class. I got to know her over the next three years, thought she was a very special person.” He dropped his head appearing to go back in time. When he raised his head, she could see he had. His eyes were softer speaking of her mother. “I never approached Karen, romantically, I doubt she knew I saw her that way, but when she came to school that last year she was a lot more mature than the previous year and I couldn't help the way my feelings grew for her. I couldn't teach there knowing how I felt about her and that year I left the school and began teaching at the college. That fall our paths crossed when she enrolled at the same college, we started talking. For that first year, I kept my feelings to myself...but by this time, I was in love with Karen. I tried dating other women, let Karen enjoy being at college, but somehow we'd end up talking sometimes two three times a week, other times maybe only once a month. When she graduated we got married.”

Shoving her hands under her knees and tapping her feet on the floor kept her from asking the rude question forming in her mind. Unable she looked up, and snapped, “Was she pregnant when you married her? Did she love you?”

Steve's attention moved to Katherine sitting quietly listening. Had no one heard this story before now? Shock bled over the faces around the room. When he brought his eyes back to her, she let him take her hands holding them between his. “She wasn't pregnant, Kenya...but I was her first. Yes your mother loved me, we loved each other.”

Cocking her head to the side, she said, “Then why leave?”

He got to his feet and sat on the end of the sofa next to the chair. He leaned forward elbows propped on his knees and fingers clasped. “I taught computer graphics and was finishing my degree in computer engineering when I met your mother. Years later, once we married, we had Michael and Morgan, then by the time you came along I was teaching part time and working full-time at a computer company. One day a competitor bought out the company and my salary was cut in half.” The pad of one thumb stroked over her knuckles before he brought her hand up to rest his chin on. His fair complexion carried soft creases around his eyes and he spoke against her skin. “Without full-time status, I had no health insurance. I had a family to take care off.” His lips compressed into a thin line as he held his head up to rub a finger over one eye. Kenya resisted the urge to say, it's okay, because it wasn't...not yet. “The company offered positions overseas paying four times what I made. Karen would never have to work again and that was something she'd wanted since Michael was born. I made the choice to secure the financial future of my family. Good or bad, Kenya, I made the choice.”

She frowned. “And there were no jobs in America, not even another state you could have applied to?”

“The market's flooded with techs and teachers, Kenya,” he said taking her hand in his. She let him. “A pregnant wife and no health insurance, I had to think about our future. Three kids to put through college,” he cringed dipping his head and stared at the wool rug picking at the frayed corner before he brought his face up. The memory bled out in frustrated red blotches on his cheeks. “I love my children, Kenya and would sacrifice everything I have for them. We weren't poor, but until you have children the word sacrifice is just letters from the alphabet.”

“Money's that important to you?” Kenya couldn't believe how arrogant she sounded but her pain was sitting front and center today and her concentration was on the clock on the coffee table. Needing to hear Jonathan's voice beat on her mind.

Steve held up a hand, “Taking care of my family is that important to me, Kenya. You're important to me, all my children are.”

“How do you walk away from your children when their mother is lying there dead after giving birth to your child?”

Steve blinked and Kenya could almost feel the tension creasing the light skin around his eyes, her eyes. “I don't have an answer that'll make it all better, Kenya.” Their eyes met. Years of blank pages fluttered past her mind's eyes with every breath she took forcing back the emotion he didn't deserve yet. “I'm not so old and foolish as to think I can make it up to you. I can offer you the years ahead of me not the ones behind me.”

“Why are you here? Honestly?”

“Your aunt,” he held up a hand in an apologetic gesture. “I'm sorry, Kenya, Karen will always be your mother to me. Katherine's been trying to get me to see you for years. She told me how much it's torn you and Morgan and Michael apart.” He set a stare on Katherine. “I can't believe my girls have so much animosity for one another.”

Marcus shot to his feet, eyes dark and pointed one long thick finger to Steve. “Now look, don't go jumping on my wife, cause the kids are pissed off at you.”

Katherine stood a hand braced to Marcus's arm. “Steve, who else were they gonna take it out on, but each other? All the love in the world from Marcus and me couldn't give them their parents back.”

“Hold up,” Kenya said getting to her feet, “Marcus and Katherine were wonderful to me and I've been nothing but respectful to my sister, and you Michael, more than either of you deserved.” And she had all her life. She took whatever they dished out without a word.

“I'll admit,” Katherine added, “I'd hoped they'd grow out of it, once Kenya got older and they could all play together...” Katherine recounted walking Marcus around the rug as if the cool colors soothed the anger rising in his face. They stood before the window looking out over the driveway.

Holding back the curtain, while Katherine stroked a hand down his back, Marcus said, “Kenya gravitated toward Katherine’s younger sister, Karla, has always called her Auntie.”