The Last Exhale (29 page)

“Flight Crew, please prepare for landing,” the pilot says, perfectly interrupting my thoughts.

Underneath my feet I can feel the plane's wheels coming out from hiding. I glance back out the window, feel my eyes widen at the sight of the landing strip. So small looks like we're about to land on a stick of gum. My heart rate quickens. I close my eyes until I feel the wheels brake against concrete. I'm not able to
open my eyes until the plane comes to a stop, and when it does, I don't hesitate to grab my bag and deplane.

Stepping off the plane, I'm glad with my decision to wear shorts. The heat is no joke. First on the list to buy is a hat, a pair of shades, and sunscreen. And something cold to drink is a must.

I walk past baggage claim and right out the doors to a swarm of taxis. I hop in the first one with an open door. I tell the driver, “Frenchman's Cove.”

He tells me the fee is eight bucks since I'm without luggage, then says to give him a few minutes for a few more passengers to arrive.

I nod.

The ride to the hotel is quick. Was afraid for my life riding up and down narrow roads at ninety miles per hour and no seatbelt. Not sure I would've felt any safer being secured to my seat. Thank God, we arrive unscathed. I give the driver a onceover to make sure if I ever see him again, I run in the opposite direction.

After checking into my room, I head downstairs to grab a bite to eat. It's happy hour. Half price on drinks. I order a piña colada with double rum, a jerk chicken wrap and a side of fries.

I sit back and take everything in. It's not crowded, but enough people to know vacation can be any time you take it. Two couples are playing volleyball in the pool; guys against the girls. Others are standing at the edge of the infinity pool, looks like they can walk straight into the ocean. A few are in the hot tub even as hot as it is out here. People are sunbathing. Women, men, kids. There's a live band playing. One local on a keyboard, one beating hand drums, and another one does double duty with strings and the microphone. They've definitely set the island atmosphere.

The waitress brings my drink. As pineapple-coconut-flavored rum travels down my throat, a smile crosses my face. In this moment, I feel everything is going to be all right.

“My parents are coming over for dinner to spend a few hours with the kids before flying out in the morning.”

“I'm not in the mood for company, Eric.”

“Just said they're coming to see the kids.”

“And who's supposed to feed them?”

He struggles to pull a T-shirt over his head. His motor skills haven't quite been the same since the accident. When he finally gets it off, he tosses it in the laundry basket. “Look, nobody's asked you to cook or entertain. I was just telling you
my
folks are coming over. You can stay up here, or better yet, you can go for a run.”

It's been like this since I told him about the affair. Two weeks with him taking jabs at me whenever he can. It probably wouldn't bother me as much if I were still sleeping with Brandon, but I haven't talked to him or seen him since the funeral. Not that I haven't tried. Been to his apartment, the gym, the lake. Even went to the hotel where our sin stained the sheets. No luck.

“That's what I thought.”

“Whatever, Eric.”

He shuts the bathroom door with a little too much aggression. I wait a couple of minutes before busting into the bathroom. Wait for him to get good and wet, let the heat from the shower steam up the space. I pull the shower door wide open.

“Hey, what are you doing?”

I don't say anything as I stand with my arms folded.

He tries to reach the door to close it back. Each time he reaches for the door, I move, block his way. “Come on, Syd. Quit playing.”

My left foot steps in the shower. My right foot behind it. I step in the shower with my work clothes still on, pull the door shut behind me. “Is this how we're going to be?”

“You made that decision.”

He's right. I made that decision just like I have so many other decisions through the years that I'm not proud of. Most recent, soiling this marriage. It was never my intention to have an affair, to go against the vows I made before family and God, but I knew what I was doing when I got in bed with another man. Another woman's husband, at that. I knew there was a possibility that decision would lead Eric and I to this point. It was a consequence I was willing to risk.

My husband stares at me, begs me to apologize for something I'm not sorry for.

Ego against ego.

Husband against wife.

It shouldn't be this way. We have to come to an equal understanding. Compromise. He has to give a little and I have to give a little. Can't be any other way.

The fresh-scented green bar of soap drops from his hand, hits the tile floor and slides between my feet. I kick it as I move toward my husband. My eyes don't leave his and his don't leave mine. He wraps his good arm around my waist with a question. I move forward with an answer. Our lips touch for the first time in months with the unfamiliarity of a first kiss. Our tongues try to find a familiar rhythm. When they don't, they create a new rhythm.

I help him lift my soaked shirt over my head. I reach behind me
to unzip my skirt. It clings to my wet skin. Takes effort to get it fall. My bra comes off next. Eric watches as I remove my panties.

Both of us stand bare.

My womanly parts wetter than my skin.

His manly parts harder than his heart toward me.

Husband and wife ready for what comes next, but not sure what to do next.

I'm not sure what I was hoping would happen by intruding in on Eric's shower. Guess I wanted him to get mad, yell at me. Keep blaming me for what I did to our marriage, to his career, his friendship. After he awoke from the coma, he gave Sgt. Lee every detail of the accident. His version of events were consistent with the reports from the witnesses, including Mr. Carter's. Although he wasn't the one behind the wheel or the direct cause of the accident, his involvement in the altercation, which sent an innocent man into panic, warranted a suspension. Mr. Carter chose not to press charges for harassment. He wanted to move on with his life. But lines were crossed and it created a bad image for the department and Eric's and Michael's unit. Thirty days with no pay for Eric. Michael, on the other hand, had been terminated. He wants nothing else to do with his ex-partner or this family.

As my husband reminded me moments ago, it was a decision I made. Though I didn't choose none of this, I chose something. Everything else is a consequence.

His lips on my ear summon me from thoughts of disaster and reignite my desire. He nibbles on my neck, draws me closer with his arm still on my waist. I feel his manhood throbbing against my womanhood. It taps at me with a new beat. Not sure where the music will lead, not sure where I want it to lead, but as I once heard in a song, I'll take passion over pride.

Laughter greets me the moment I reach the bottom of the stairs.

Eric Jr. is sprawled out in the middle of the living room floor being tickled crazy by his grandfather. He laughs like everything is all right in his world, like he has not a single care. My father-in-law has so much joy in his face, like this is what living is all about. Watching them brings a smile to my heart. I feel like a voyeur in the lives of adolescence and history.

Meowing and purring is at my feet. I look down, see Forrester in all his furriness looking up at me. “Hey, buddy.” I grunt as I pick him up, rub him on his head. “I know you don't agree, but it's time we put you on a diet, sir.” He yawns in my face, breath smelling like The Dead Sea. I put him down by the fireplace.

Mr. Holmes stops tickling his grandson long enough to give me a snug hug. “This guy doesn't stop, does he?”

I wrap my arms around his shoulders, give him a kiss on the cheek. “Never.”

“Come on, Grandpa. Lemme show you the fort I built in my room.”

“EJ, let your grandfather breathe for a minute.”

Mr. Holmes grabs EJ's hand and winks at me. “Can't disappoint my favorite grandson, now, can I?”

I nod. “Be careful.”

EJ pulls his grandfather's hand so hard up the stairs I see my father-in-law jerk, and he looks back at me. I shrug. He was warned.

Light chatter from the dining room trickles into the living room. Kennedy's at the table talking with her grandmother about school. I can see Eric in the kitchen, putting slices of pizza on plates. I wink at him and quickly divert my attention to his mother. After what her son did to me upstairs, I'm willing to call it a truce. “It would be nice if we lived closer to each other. The kids love spending time with you all.”

She glances up at me with no words coming from her lips, then diverts her attention back to Kennedy. “You get your smarts from your father. He was good in school,” she tells her granddaughter.

“My mom is smart too,” Kennedy says in my defense. I swear, kids are a lot smarter than we give them credit for. They have a sense almost stronger than animals.

A smirk crosses my face. I want to say, “That's right, my daughter has my back,” but I don't. So much for that truce.

Eric Sr. comes out with two plates for the kids, puts them on the table. “You want juice or milk?”

“Mom, can I have some soda?”

My eyes are on my daughter, but I see my mother-in-law look to her son.

“Soda's not an option tonight, Kennedy. Juice or milk. Better yet, how about some water?”

The little miss gets up from the table, her chair screeching against the hardwood. “I'm not hungry.”

“Young lady, that's not the way you talk to your father.”

I put my hand up. Say, “I'll handle my child.”

“Doesn't seem like you've done much handling as is.”

“Excuse me?”

Eric marches off back into the kitchen. Leaves his wife and mother to war between themselves. Same thing he's done since the day he introduced us. He knew right off the bat his mother wasn't a fan of me. He's never tried to get us to an equal ground. Just lets us fend for ourselves. Maybe he's waiting on one of us to reach a breaking point. I'm past that point.

“Why do you have such a problem with me?”

“I don't have a problem with you. I only wish my son had made a different decision.”

“Why? What makes me such a bad choice?”

She reaches her hand over, pinches at my shirt. Flicks a piece of lint to the ground. “Do you even love my son?”

I step back, run my hands down my shirt. “Why does everyone keep asking me that?”

“Because everyone can see the truth but you. Or at least we're willing to call you out on it.”

“That's ridiculous.”

She scoots back from her chair so hard it bangs against the wall. “You want to know what's ridiculous? I knew the day Eric first introduced you to us that he was making a bad decision. The only reason he ended up with you is because Abigail broke his heart. Had she not taken that job overseas, she would be my daughter-in-law, not you.”

I do all I can to keep my simmering blood from boiling over. The name of the woman who Eric wanted to marry instead of me has never been mentioned in this house until now. Both he and I did our best to pretend she didn't exist. But as much as she didn't to us, she existed to Elaine.

“Well, as I told you before, he chose me. It was his decision to marry me.” I point to my chest, do it so hard almost feels like my fingernail broke skin.

The mother of my husband takes her seat, sits down with a Mona Lisa-smirk dancing across her face. She's angered me and she knows it. “By the way, did he tell you they saw each other the night before your wedding?”

Those words chop down my pride of being the
chosen one,
they quickly deflate me from the high her son inflated me with twenty minutes ago when he put something good on me in the shower.

I go into the kitchen to find Eric fumbling with an unopened bottle of apple juice. He struggles to twist the cap off with his good
arm, which is his weak side. His doctor says it'll be months before he gets full strength back on his right side, his strong side; his gun hand. I watch him struggle with the bottle out of the corner of my eye. I know he needs help, but I won't step in unless he asks. But the way he fumbles with the jar and avoids my eyes, I know it's more than his weakness.

“I didn't sleep with her, if that's what you're thinking.”

“Obviously we've been lying to each other all these years, no point in changing things now.” I look behind me to make sure no one else is involved in this conversation. “And since we're lying, the shower was just a fuck, right?”

“You came in the shower with your nipples hard. I'm a man.”

“And you're also my husband.”

“You weren't thinking about that when you were laid up with another man.”

I grab the juice from his hands, twist the cap until it loses its suction to the jar. I do that, slide the jar back over to him, and dismiss myself from the conversation. As I walk past Mrs. Holmes still sitting at the dining room table, I tell her, “Safe travels back to Denver.”

M
y eyes are closed, head leaned back. Feel mist from the ocean spray against my face. Hear the sounds of life flowing through my ears.

I'm on a boat with fifteen other people. We're cruising between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean on our way to Virgin Gorda. A tour of the British Virgin Islands arranged by the hotel resort. The Baths is our first stop. I remove my flip-flops and slip into a pair of water shoes I bought at a shop back at St. Thomas last night. It was advised when I registered for this excursion, as we would do a little bit of rock climbing in the beginning of the tour.

“You look like you needed this trip.”

I peer into eyes the color of the ocean at sunrise. “You just don't know.”