The Last Exhale (35 page)

With the letter in my hand and tears streaming down my face, I join my husband in the bathroom. “You did this for me?” I ask him.

He helps me in the tub, gets in behind me. Says, “Couldn't imagine doing it for anyone else.”

We settle into the tub together. His legs straddle my body. I lean my head back on his chest. “I can't believe you're letting your job go.”

“It needed to be done. In order for this marriage to work, it had to be done.”

Nothing else needs to be said. I understand him and he understands me.

He rubs his soapy hands up and down my arms, rubs my neck. Takes a few suds and teases my nipples. He smoothes my curls to the side, whispers in my ear, “I miss making love to my wife.”

“I miss my husband making love to me.”

He kisses behind my ear. His lips make love to my burnt-almond skin. He turns my face up toward his and our lips connect. My mouth opens, his tongue greets mine. I can still taste my love on his tongue from earlier. Can feel him hardening against my back as my love below coos.

“Wait,” Trevor says. He fumbles in the water for a washcloth. He pours my favorite black orchid and velvet hibiscus body wash on it and lathers me up from my neck to my toes. He leaves no skin unclean. I take the washcloth and do the same to him. We jump in the stand-alone shower to rinse the suds off and run water through our hair to get rid of the chlorine. I hand him a bottle of lavender oil for him to rub me down before I pat myself dry. I take the bottle and do the same for him. He squeezes as much water out of his locs as possible, then carries me back into the bedroom.

Everything about tonight reminds me of our honeymoon. He did the same exact things the night we married.

He lays me on the bed ever so gently. “Turn over.”

I do as told.

He warms oil in his hands and places them on my back. He's careful around the scratches I got from the pool. Soft kisses apologize to my tender spots. His hands work out every worry in my body, every fear, every doubt. His lips do the same thing to the opposite side of my body, starting with my face. He kisses my forehead, my eyelids, my lips. We stay mouth to mouth for a while, slowly tonguing each other with so much passion. He sucks my bottom lip before heading further south. Locs tickle my skin as his tongue traces the roundness of my nipples. He does one then does the other. Goes back and forth before putting both breasts in his mouth at the same time. He does that and I swear the rivers of life flow from between my thighs.

His lips continue down to the land of milk and honey. “Baby, you are so wet.”

“You did that,” I say.

Instead of draping my legs over his shoulders, I spread them wide, placing one foot on each side of his rib cage. Opens me up something serious, allows him to dive face-first into my heated waters.

He licks and sucks like I'm a double scoop of ice cream melting down his cone. Surely my juices are dripping down his chin and he doesn't want to lose one drop to the sheets.

My husband holds my hips in his hands as my freshly waxed folds grind against his face. He holds me to keep us going in the same pace. His tongue flicks my swollen clit and for a minute I lose my breath. I can't moan, can't yell, can't scream my infamous, “Shit.” I fight to find air, yet I ride his face until he comes up for air.

On his way up, he stops at my breasts again and perfumes them with the scent of my love.

I feel my sweet spot revving up again, ready for round two…three…four.

He kisses me; damn near tongues me down. I try to eat my flavor off his palate. Feel myself grind against his pelvis until I find what I'm looking for. I draw him in like quicksand; feel him hit the bottom of my pit. He makes slow, deep strokes, and enters my soul in a way he never has before.

Every stroke is an apology to what went down earlier this evening. Saying,
“I'm sorry for treating you as anything less than my wife. Sorry for pushing you into the arms of another man.”

He pulls all the way out to the tip and then glides back in. Every time he does that he promises to never leave me lonely, to always listen to what my heart says, and to be a better husband.

With every rock of my hips, I apologize for not trusting in his position as the head of this household. Every tilt of my pelvis begs for forgiveness for stepping outside of this marriage for comfort and validation.

I open my eyes and see my husband's on me. I tell him, “I promise to never leave your side again.”

He kisses my tears and reminds me, “This is just the beginning.”

February 1, 2014.

It's 11:47 a.m. and I'm somewhere between thirty and thirty-four thousand feet in the air on my way back to Jacksonville, North Carolina, after a short visit to Austin, TX. I'm sitting next to my father whom I have not flown with since he retired from the Air Force two decades and some change ago. Sitting next to him, I am reminded of how far back a moment can seem in your mind but how close it can stay in your heart.

Speaking of my dad, since I began writing this book, I've been asked what makes me an authority to write about marriage having never been married. This is a valid question, one that my only answer continues to be, “My parents have been married for thirty-nine years. I've experienced marriage through them.” Their story of meeting makes my heart smile every time I think about it. A friend of my dad's was taking a gift to his girlfriend's house for Valentine's Day. My father decided to ride with him. Guess who answered the door? Yep, my mom. My father slapped his friend across the shoulder, chastising him for not letting him know Wanda had a sister. None of that mattered because from then on, my father would be very aware of my mother's existence. At fourteen, he knew she would be a constant in his life. They married four years later after my father joined the Air Force. He went back to his hometown to join forces with my mom as husband and wife
as she was completing her senior year of high school. They've been together ever since.

Stories like theirs don't come around too often, so when they do, I cherish them. In the thirty-odd years I've been a witness to my parents' union, I've learned a lot about love, sacrifice, respect, devotion and effective communication. My parents welcomed me in their very early twenties. I grew up just as they had. And I've experienced their evolution, fully understanding the commitment involved when you agree to “for better or for worse.” Even as a grown adult living with them now, I continue to learn. I have so much respect for the institution of marriage, of what it means 'til death do us part. It's because of them that I believe marriage works, no matter what statistics say. It takes work, and when two people are equally yoked, love each other, and are willing to do what it takes to honor their commitment, we will begin to see more successful marriages.

Though I've learned a lot through watching my parents, this novel is not about them at all. What it is about is an exploration of what happens when the truth is kept from the person you've pledged forever to, and often times, yourself. I've been in a couple of relationships through the years, some in which I've spent way more time in the relationship than I should have. Like Sydney in this book, I knew this from the beginning. But just like her, I stayed for the wrong reasons. I stayed because I felt time slipping away from me. Stayed because I thought I was happy. Stayed because I convinced myself I wasn't settling. Stayed because deep down inside, I doubted that someone whose pieces fit my puzzle, and mine his, would ever show up. Fortunately, we realized we were wrong for each other and walked away before walking down the aisle. I wanted to explore how those relationships could've been had I stayed. As a result,
The Last Exhale
was birthed.

Sydney married the wrong man. And as we found out, her husband knew she was the wrong one, too. Yet, they married for their own reasons instead of for the right ones. Originally, I wanted their story to be something completely different. I wanted them to fall apart because he was a workaholic. He spent more time taking care of responsibilities instead of taking care of the ones he was responsible for. Not that that wasn't interesting enough, I felt the story was too familiar. I didn't realize that until after I had written half of the story. Sydney spoke up. She was miserable and it was by her own doing. She had to get honest with herself in order to make the changes needed to have a different experience. What she wasn't expecting was her husband to feel the same way. Their lives could've had different outcomes had they both been honest from the very beginning.

How many times in life does this happen to us? We dig a hole, throw the truth in it, and toss dirt on it hoping it'll stay there. But the longer we keep it there, the more dirt gets piled on top until it's buried so deep, it'll cost us more to dig it up than it would have had we just been honest from the get-go.

Brandon's situation was different. He married the right woman. They had a wonderful, truthful marriage until an unforeseen wrong turn took place. The death of their child. Though that unfortunate event took place, it wasn't the cause of the breakdown in communication. Guilt crept into the marriage and ate its way through Rene's body. Could Brandon have pushed harder for his wife to talk instead of moving out and into the arms of another woman? Quite possibly. But that wouldn't have healed Rene from cancer, though; it would have helped Brandon from living with the same guilt that took her life.

When I began writing this story, I had no intention of having Brandon and Sydney have a physical affair. I wanted it to be emotional
only. They had different plans. As Sydney's friend told her, “What y'all are doing is building a relationship.” That wasn't what I wanted for them. It actually left me stuck for a while. For Brandon to cheat after finding out his wife was ill, left a bad taste in my mouth for him so much so, I couldn't write his parts anymore. He'd stop speaking to me because I'd judged him. I'd judged his story, his situation, his journey. Thanks to a conversation with my aunt (thanks, Miriam), I was able to free the judgment. Sleeping with Sydney made sense to him. I got it. Once I accepted it, I was able to finish the story.

The same was for Sydney. In my head, she was supposed to stay married to Eric. As the story began to unfold more, there was no way she could stay. The kids would've been her only excuse. In the end, everyone would've felt the misery. And who wants to feel like they're being smothered by a hundred pillows? She wanted me to know that nothing good would come of staying Mrs. Holmes. I had to honor her decision and her experience, and wrote what I was told. I actually exhaled right along with her.

The lessons I've learned in writing this story will follow me into any relationship I enter. One thing's for certain: Idle chitchat can turn into a lot more than you can handle when you're unhappy in your relationship and vulnerable. You don't even have to know that you're unhappy and vulnerable for the chatter to grab hold of and take over your conscience.

I hope
The Last Exhale
has opened your eyes in some way, whether you're single, involved, or married. Tell the truth to yourself and to those you're with. It's never too late to make things better.

And with that, it's time for some gratitude.

God, I thank You for placing this story in me. I may not fully
realize the reason You chose this path for me, but I am grateful. You never do anything without purpose, and I know these stories You place in me will fulfill that purpose. Thank You for your reflection of love and your blessing of marriage.

Mom and Dad, thank you for being a wonderful example of a union. I know it's not your intention to set some mark or standard in your marriage. All you did was found the one you wanted to share your life with and chose to honor those vows through it all. As long as you two have been married, it seems as though you're just getting started. May God continue to bless your union. Here's to another thirty-nine years and then some.

Strebor Books Team: Zane and Charmaine, thank you for affording me the space to tell my stories.

The Sara Camilli Agency: Sara and Stephen, thank you for all you do to help my stories make their way from my head to my fingers to the world.

Orsayor Simmons of Book Referees, thank you for joining me on this journey. You've been a blessing.

My Social Media Family: Kelly Grover, Tammy Stewart, Larnell Baxter, Nadira Abdul Quddus, Kimyatta Walker, Stacy Campbell, Robin Hardeman, Chad Tomme, Christy Turnquist, Tracy Hunt, Jordan Jones, Kyle Dowling, Ms. Niko, Marquita Olive, Tiffany Tyler or Tiffany Talks Books, Concetta Burns-Ramsey, Yolanda Long, Leigh Mohr, Marquita Davis, Sheora Harris, Alisha Gordon, Melody Frederick, Nicole Burgess, Javania Webb, Toshii Cooper, Shauna Clarke, Kimerlin Spencer, Craig Wilson, Kebia Bellamy, Candice Robinson, Monica Tolbert, Monica Rogers, Olivia Henley, and Will Dawson, thank you all for posting pictures of
Parallel Pasts
on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and other social media platforms, and for getting involved in the conversations
about it. Your support, interactions and excitement about my firstborn novel was joy to my soul.

Book Reviewers: Mary Rhone, Viviette L. Carr, Tiffany Craig, BridgeFresh, Stacy Lawrence-Campbell, OOSA Online Book Club, Barbara1216, Ms. Niko, Amazon Fan, Teresa Beasley, Orsayor Simmons, John P. Young, Kimyatta Walker, Kristina, and Chris, thank you for being the first fifteen people to post reviews on Amazon. I never realized how much anticipation goes into seeing that number go up. Thank you, Johnathan Royal, for doing the first video book review of
Parallel Pasts
on YouTube. You definitely put a smile on my face.

Medu Bookstore: Sister Nia and Brother Dub, thank you for hosting my first book signing. From the time I began writing, I'd always visualized myself sitting behind a table, greeting readers, and signing their books. You made that a reality. And a huge thank you to all who attended: Miriam Pollock, Craig Wilson, Mr. and Mrs. Campbell, Reuben Griffith, Eric Griffith, Kimerlin Spencer (Niya), Kim Bright, Jasmine, Susie, Markeida Evans Hicks, Mary McCarter, Kebia Bellamy (Kiyon), Kimberly Reese, Monica Tolbert, Diane Dorce, Deborah Dorce, Toshii Cooper, and Jaha Knight.