Chapter 22
A little after one o'clock on the day of Monet's doctor appointment, Marcus and Wade were on their lunch break. While Wade went into a greasy spoon to get hot dogs, Marcus reached into the glove compartment and removed his cell phone and the slip of paper that had the telephone number to Dwight Prison, the facility where Aron Reynolds was incarcerated. He looked at the paper, opened his phone, and punched in the numbers. After being transferred a couple of times, Marcus finally spoke to the warden's secretary, Levi Smith.
“My name is Marcus Caldwell. I'm a detective with the Chicago Police Department, and I'd like to make an appointment with Warden Jones,” he stated.
“What is this regarding?” Levi asked, in a bored tone of voice.
“It's about my father-in-law, Aron Reynolds,” Marcus explained “He's due to be released from there soon, and he called and asked me if I'd help him wade through the red tape. I wanted to get a feel for Aron's personality and his behavior since he's been there.”
Levi scrawled the name Aron Reynolds on a notepad in loping letters. “Give me your number, I'll make some inquiries and call you back,” he said.
Marcus recited his cell number to Levi. By the time he ended the call, Wade had returned to the car. Marcus returned his cell phone to the glove compartment as Wade got in the vehicle.
“Did we get any calls from the station? Is anything happening?” Wade asked.
“No, not yet,” Marcus said. He took his chili dog and fries out the brown bag that Wade had placed on the floor, and set it in front of him on the dashboard. Wade passed him a can of Coke.
Wade looked at Marcus disgustedly. “I know Monet's been cooking since she's not working. All this food is going to do is harden your arteries and send you to an early grave.”
“I work out; I'm okay,” Marcus said, pointedly looking at the pouch that circled Wade's stomach.
“Now, you're just plain wrong,” Wade admonished as he took a ham and cheese sandwich out of the bag for himself. The men munched on their food, and for a time there was a sense of camaraderie between them like before Monet's assault.
Wade finished eating first and wiped his hands and mouth on a napkin. “So what's happening with you?” he asked.
Marcus explained about Monet's father's request, and Wade listened intently. When he finished talking, Wade's eyebrows rose skeptically.
“What does Monet and her brothers make of this?” he asked.
“I think Monet and Duane are curious, and Derek is being Derek. He doesn't want to have anything to do with his father. I'd like to check out their father, Aron Reynolds, myself. Who knows? Maybe there's a connection between him and Monet's assault.”
“I don't think so,” Wade replied dubiously. He put the napkin in the paper bag and swallowed more Coke.
“You know people can find out whatever information they want in the joint. Maybe Aron angered someone who had access to his records. Nothing is impossible when it comes to a criminal's mind. All I know is that I can't leave any stone unturned.” Marcus said stubbornly. He put his last french fry in his mouth and chewed.
Wade held up his hands. “I understand. So where are you going from here?”
“Well, the warden's secretary is going to call me back. If things stay quiet at the precinct, which you truly can't predict in a city the size of Chicago, then I'd like to ride out to Dwight Correctional Facility this week or early next week. I'll run the request by the chief,” Marcus said.
“That makes sense.” Wade started the engine. “I guess it's time for us to get back to the station.”
“Hey, Wade, what do you think about going to Dwight with me?” Marcus asked, as he looked out the car window.
“Sure, I'll go with you. Someone has to keep you out of trouble.”
“Thanks, man; I appreciate it,” Marcus said gratefully.
Before long the two had returned to headquarters, and it would be another couple hours before the workday ended. Marcus sat at his desk writing case notes. He and Wade were scheduled to look at surveillance tape from a robbery in twenty minutes.
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Monet stared at her mother's neat printing for a long time. She had an intense longing for her mother that tugged at her heartstrings. Her hands shook as she used the tip of her pink fingernail to slit open the top of the brown envelope. She was so overcome by the longing for her mother that she laid the letter in her lap until she composed herself. Though her mother had been gone for five years, at times it felt like yesterday.
She took a tissue from her pocket and blew her nose. Then she picked up the letter again and quickly scanned it. She was stunned to learn that her mother knew her father was in prison, and even more taken aback that she had never shared the information with her children.
Her mother confessed how she was mistaken in allowing them to think their father had been gone all those years and never tried to contact them. She asked for forgiveness, citing she just wasn't sure how to tell them their father was in prison for murder. She didn't want to give them another reason to dislike him more, and it was her hope that her children would reconcile with him one day.
A sense of discomfort nibbled at Monet's heart. She had always felt her mother was perfect, but the contents of the letter proved her wrong. She shuddered at the thought of her brothers' reactions, especially Derek's. The letter went on to explain that her mother had corresponded with their father while he was in prison and that she had kept the missives for them to read and draw their own conclusions. The letters were in a safe deposit box at a bank located about twenty miles from their mother's home. The keys to the box were inside the brown envelope.
Their father, according to their mother, had battled demons his entire life, and hadn't been able to overcome them until his later years. Those demons affected her and Aron's marriage. She added that she felt he had changed for the better after he went to prison.
The second page of the letter went into detail about how he couldn't cope with Monet as a child. Her mother said that she believed her father loved her, and just as equally, he feared her. She revealed how she didn't tell him about the gift until they were married, and how that was a mistake. She basically took the blame for the breakdown of her marriage, and placed the responsibility for her children not having a relationship with their father squarely on her shoulders.
Monet's eyes filled with tears, and droplets of water trickled down her face as she read the rest of the letter. Then she put it in her pocket and went to her bedroom. She lay in the bed, turned on her side, and wondered if her fate would be akin to her mother's. The enormity of the gift that was passed down from mother to daughter and seemed to negatively affect marriages gnawed at her mind.
A sigh escaped Monet's lips as she realized that her work was cut out for her because her daughter would, too, share the gift. A light sensation flitted inside Monet's abdomen and she felt comforted, as if baby Faith knew what she was feeling. Monet felt desolate because she would have loved to share the baby's moving with Marcus. She imagined his big hand stroking her belly and smiled. Monet's hand stole down to her abdomen and she patted the mound gently, then she went to sleep.
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Marcus arrived home at six o'clock that evening, and was surprised to find the house dark. He fumbled for the light switch in the kitchen, and set a brown bag of Chinese food on the table. After he hung his jacket on the hook behind the door, he looked at the stove and saw that Monet hadn't cooked. He wondered if she felt well. He walked upstairs to make sure she was okay.
He dimmed the light in the hallway when he reached the last step, and peeped into the master bedroom. Marcus saw the wrinkles on Monet's face, and wanted to smooth them away. She looked tired, and he wondered if he were the cause. He was about leave when he caught sight of her stomach. He was shocked to see how thick her waist had become. Grief traveled through his body. Marcus watched his wife a few more seconds before he turned and went downstairs.
He went to the foyer and looked at the mail that Monet had set atop the black and gold lacquered, scalloped edged console table. An oval mirror, with sconces on each side, was placed above the table. A burgundy wine colored Persian rug, intertwined with black and gold threads, greeted guests when they walked through the front door.
The mail was mostly bills and magazines for Monet. He stuffed the bills in his pocket and strolled to the kitchen, making sure Mitzi had food and water. Then he took his bag of food and headed to the basement. He turned on the light and walked down a flight of eight stairs. Marcus put the bag on the card table next to his pride and joy, a fifty-two inch high definition television with surround sound.
He had been in a quiet, but reasonably good mood. But after seeing Monet's baby bump, his good mood vanished like a puff of smoke. He looked longingly at the wooden wet bar on the other side of the paneled basement. He could use a drink, but after his brouhaha at Lee Otis's bar, he'd sworn off liquor and had made good on that promise. He picked up the TV remote off the cocktail table in front of the couch and channel surfed until he found a basketball game on
ESPN
.
Though the Chinese food had gotten cold, Marcus didn't have the energy to walk across the room to the microwave to warm it up. He decided to eat it cold. Twenty minutes had elapsed, and he had finished eating, but he still couldn't keep his mind from drifting to the picture of Monet's stomach.
He heard the doorbell ring, and figured Monet had awakened and that she would answer it. Marcus just sat inertly with his head against the back of the couch, when the doorbell rang again.
“Now who could that be?” He lifted his body off the couch and ran upstairs in time to see a UPS driver entering his brown truck. He pointed to the steps, where a box lay. Marcus picked it up and brought it inside the house. When he looked at the label, he saw that it was addressed to Monet and was from a dress store. She had ordered maternity clothes.
Monet walked down the stairs. “Hello,” she said warily. “Would you take that box upstairs for me?”
Marcus nodded. When he returned downstairs, Monet was in the kitchen looking for something to eat in the refrigerator. She held the door open with one hand, and her other hand was rooted on the side of her hip.
“How was your day, Marcus?” She interrupted him before he could take refuge in the basement.
“Not bad, same ole, same ole. How was yours?”
“Not bad either. I talked to Angie, and I had a doctor's appointment today,” she announced as she closed the refrigerator and took a pint of chocolate chip ice cream out of the freezer.
“Hmmm,” Marcus grunted. He looked down at the floor.
Monet waited for him to ask her how the visit went, but he didn't. “I kept hoping you'd change your mind and go with me,” she said.
Marcus threw up his hands and said, “Hey, that's your thing, not mine. I have nothing to do with your situation.”
“It would be nice,” she said, taking a spoon out of the cabinet, “if you would at least ask me how the visit went. Can't we be a little more civil to each other?”
“Nay-Nay, I'm really not interested in your doctor visits.” Marcus looked at her stomach, and his knees sagged momentarily as his heart seemed to bounce to his feet. She was showing more than he thought.
Why couldn't that be my child she's carrying
, he thought.
“A lawyer called today. His name is Attorney Garner, and he wanted to know if we'd discussed suing the hospital for negligence,” Monet announced after she swallowed a spoonful of ice cream. “I wonder where he got that idea from.”
That was another bone of contention between the couple. Marcus was in favor of suing the hospital. He felt someone needed to pay for Monet's injuries and the state of disarray their marriage had dissolved into.
“I talked to him a couple weeks ago, and asked him to let me know if we had a case. He shouldn't have called you about that anyway. He was supposed to call me.” Marcus was clearly annoyed. “What did he say?”
“He said we had a case because the camera was out in the parking lot. I thanked him for his time and services, and asked him to send us a bill,” Monet said placidly.
“Why did you do that?” Marcus exploded. In the past they would have discussed the issue together, but now the two were on different wavelengths.
“Marcus, I know you didn't really think I was going to sue the hospital. It wasn't their fault what happened. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. True enough I was hurt, and I realize I could have been killed. But my wounds have healed, and God spared my life.”
“It would have been nice if you had talked to me before you pulled Mike off the case,” he said, with a tinge of venom in his voice. His eyes narrowed as he rubbed his chin and shook his head.