When You Come to Me (61 page)

“Now, now, Helen,” Jack Greene said. “Hear the kids out…they’re busy people…”

“And people are having kids much later these days, Ms. Chandler,” Mark Greene interjected. “They’re more concerned with getting their careers established…”

“Exactly, Ma,” Natalie said, touching Brandon’s arm. “Just because we haven’t discussed it doesn’t mean that we won’t ever…isn’t that right Brandon…?”

Brandon didn’t answer initially. He lifted his bottle of Budweiser, took a couple of gulps, before saying, “Right…”

“And Brandon hasn’t even started his new job,” Natalie explained, looking at him. “We should give him a chance to see if this is the career that he wants to pursue…and then there’s medical school…”

“Right,” Jack Greene said. “Natalie will be in school for awhile…”

“But, you don’t want to wait too late, do you, Nattie?” Mama asked.

Natalie could feel her throat clam up. She took a sip of water before answering. “Well…no…”

“Exactly,” Helen Chandler said.

“Helen, will you leave them alone?” Jack Greene said. “Like Brandon said, they’ve only been married for three weeks…let them breathe a little…they’ve got time…”

They put their family up in a Double Tree downtown and they returned to Swaying Maple, pulled the king-sized, pillow top mattress up the narrow flight of carpet-covered stairs, into the moon-bathed master bedroom at the top, and covered themselves in a thin white sheet as they started to make love just before midnight. Yes, she wanted it, hadn’t thought of much else during the drive from Georgia in the U-haul truck, when he was rubbing her thigh, running his fingers up and down her arm and the back of her neck, dreaming of the moment that they could be alone again.

And now, they finally were, weren’t they? And Brandon was kissing every inch of her brown nakedness, every inch of warmth and sweat and wetness that covered her, that longed for him, that appreciated his broad shoulders, the way his muscles in his back flexed when he moved over her, the way his hips rocked between her, the way her back arched for him, while John Mayer wailed from the CD player perched in a corner…

Yes, she was high, and somewhere in the middle of it all, she wanted to scream, the way she’d done in Nevis, laying against the cool marble floor in the screened lanai…

But her thoughts kept her from doing so, even though Brandon felt just right, even though she ran her fingers through his thick hair, even though she felt the balmy September breeze through a cracked window above them, even though Brandon made those noises…yes, the ones where she knew he was really enjoying himself; soft, low, bellowed groans, while he subtly gasped for air…

Her thoughts drifted back to dinner, and what his father said, and how Brandon had reacted to the subject; how he’d remained almost silent, making her worry…really worry…

And she stopped his hips from rocking between her, stopped his lips from kissing her collarbone, and she tried to catch her breath, him, looking strangely down at her, his breath caught, her, holding his face…

“What, baby…w—what is it?” he asked her.

“We need to talk…”

“What? Now?”

“Yes…now…”

She knew that he didn’t want to. She knew that he only wanted to keep going, and with his momentum, Natalie was almost certain that he would have no trouble going for at least another hour or so…

He rolled off of her, flopped onto the bouncy mattress, and she rested her head on his chest, feeling his deep breaths…

“Bran…”

“W—what? What do we need to talk about?”

“Us…”

“Not necessarily sure I like where this is going,” he told her. “But I have an idea…because I know Natalie so well…”

“You do?”

“Yes…it’s about what my father said…”

“Wow…”

“Because, I’ve been thinking about it too…”

“Really?”

“Of course…we’re married, aren’t we? It’s my issue just as much as it is yours…”

“So…it’s an issue…?”

“No, no…wrong choice of words…”

“I can’t believe we’ve never talked about this…I mean, we’ve been together, how long?”

“Long enough to have talked about it…”

“Exactly…”

There was silence for a moment, and she could hear Brandon still trying to catch his breath. He then cleared his throat and whispered, “Natalie…”

“Yes?”

“I should tell you that…you know, about kids…I…”

“You…what?”

“I’ve never really…jeez…I’ve never really been into…you know…having them…that’s why I was acting so funny at dinner…I didn’t think that it was the right time to tell you…and I definitely didn’t want to say it in front of your mother…”

Natalie felt her stomach do something funky and her head began to throb. Yes, she wished that they’d talked about it sooner. A lot sooner! It might have changed how she felt about marrying him at all…

“Say something, Tallie…”

She couldn’t. She had to process it first. She had to breathe first. She had to try and picture a life without having kids with her soul mate, a life without providing grandchildren for her mother…

Brandon sat up on one elbow and looked down at her. “Tal…”

She only rolled over. Looking at him at that moment would make her cry…

“Tallie, I’m…I’m sorry,” he whispered, touching her shoulder. “I should have told you sooner…I don’t know why it never came up…”

“It should have,” Natalie said quietly. “It should have come up that you don’t want to have kids…”

“Tallie…”

This time, when he tried to touch her, she pulled away.

“Baby, don’t clam up like that,” he said. “I hate when you do that…look at me…”

“If I look at you, I might kill you…or cry…”

“Natalie, please don’t cry…God, don’t cry…”

“You know, I always assumed that with you working at Bledsoe all these years that you…that you…”

“You know I like kids,” he said, reaching down to kiss her arm. “I just…baby, I’m just scared…”

She sighed, and rolled over to look at him.

“That’s better,” he said, running his fingers across her cheek.

“Scared of what? You have your family, and your friends…and you have me…”

“I know…it’s great…but, babe, I’m just like any other guy…I get scared, you know? And think of what this kid has to go through…being, you know…”

“Mixed…”

“Right…”

“It’s not too late, you know…”

“Not too late for what?”

“To get this thing annulled,” she said, sitting up. “You can go and have children with some pretty blond named Stacy and live the pretentious suburban life that Martha wants you to lead…”

She felt her throat tighten and she attempted to fight back the tears then…

“You must be out of your fucking mind if you think that I’d do that…how dare you say something like that to me…?”

“How do you think I feel, Brandon?” she said, her voice cracking. “The love of my life just tells me that he doesn’t want kids with me because I’m black…that definitely makes me feel good…”

“Tallie, don’t cry…”

Too late, she thought, as she felt a tear run down her cheek. He lifted his hand to her face and caught the next fallen tear with his finger.

“God, the one moment we get to be alone all day, and I go and ruin it…”

“No, it’s good that we get this out now…”

Silence fell between them. Natalie spent that time searching on the floor for her clothes while he sat there motionless.

“I just need time, Tallie,” he told her, escaping his trance. “I mean, you haven’t even started school, I haven’t even started my new job…why don’t we just see where we are in a couple of years and then we can talk about it then…?”

“Mm-hmm,” she replied, finding her pajama bottoms tossed across the room.

She found her clothes piece by piece and began slipping them on.

“Where are you going?” he asked her.

Natalie sighed, shook her head with frustration and bit her lip.

“Tal, where are you going?” he repeated.

“I have to go,” she told him, her voice barely audible. “I have to go for a walk or drive…I—I just have to get out of here for a little while…I can’t look at you right now…”

“Tallie, don’t…”

But, she walked out anyway. She would get out of the house before she screamed, before she pulled all of her hair out, and she hoped to God that he didn’t come running after her, unsure of what she might say or what argument they could potentially get into. She only hoped that he’d respect her need to be alone.

When she returned to the house, some several minutes before dawn, she found him sitting up on the bare mattress, with the sheet angrily balled up in his lap, with his face buried in his large hands. She sighed, and though her anger still prevailed, she didn’t enjoy seeing him like that. She sat down next to him, heard his jagged breathing and wrapped her arm around his shoulder, resting her head against his lowered one.

“We’ll figure this out together,” she told him in whisper.

He didn’t answer. He only raised his head from the hold of his hands and rested it in her lap.

#

They never really got around to talking about it. They simply woke up the next morning, let their parents into their new home, started their painting job, and virtually pretended as if the conversation had never happened. Natalie figured that if she knew anything about him, she figured that he’d come around eventually. She also figured that if he’d learned anything about her over the course of their time knowing each other, he’d know that she couldn’t live without having a family of her own. Her only hope was that when the conversation did occur, it didn’t turn into another fight, leaving him confused and looking like a jerk, and her, shedding tears, contemplating whether or not she made the right choice by being with him…

Natalie started school in September. Brandon started his new job at the firm in Raleigh. They had no money for furniture, barely any to pay the bills, car payments and groceries, and by the time their first Christmas came around, they were on two completely different sleeping schedules. Natalie slept with pens and pencils and paperclips in her hair, had slowly become a victim of her textbooks and notebooks, while Brandon became the early riser that he’d dreaded, became the coffee-drinker, a slave to the morning commute, and slowly began to miss the days that Natalie had the time to cook him breakfast. They were the kind of adults that they’d been wary of their entire young lives, became a true vision of their parents, in their worst form.

The weekends brought them solace; it seemed the only time that they actually got to talk to each other the way that they used to. They’d admit that they missed each other, she, missing the way that he’d hold her, missing the way that they talked, missing the way that they fought. Natalie cried one Saturday and he felt guilty; he’d lost his talent when it came to consoling her, when it came to assuring her that everything would turn out all right.

As much as they piled on him at work day by day, he didn’t know how to handle his job of being a husband. By the turn of the New Year, he knew that he was neglecting his wife, his duties, his love as much as she was…

By February, they’d stopped having sex, even on the weekends. Before, he could count on being with Natalie on Friday night and on Saturday night to make up for the lost time, and although it was physically fulfilling, they both knew that they’d lost the mental connection that they once had, and they both weren’t sure where it went…

By March, Brandon couldn’t remember the last that he’d told her that he loved her. He also couldn’t remember the last time that he heard her say it either.

They both acted completely unfazed by it, as he would rather have worried about his presentation the next day, and she, about whatever examination she had. It was as if the incident of “baby” had cursed them…

If they hadn’t have ignored the subject, could their first year of marriage been salvaged?

Possibly…

By summer’s start, they didn’t know what to say to each other anymore…

On the nights that Natalie did attempt to make dinner, they’d simply sit at the small kitchen table, in severe silence, picking at their plates, pushing food from side to side, sighing uncontrollably.

On a tepid night in July, as they lay in bed, Natalie straddled him slowly, tugged at the collar of his undershirt, kissing just below his chin. He pushed her away. All he could think about was work the next day, about having to get up extra early to help the boss fix some spreadsheet disaster that the secretary had worked on the week prior. Natalie curled into a ball, and cried softly till she fell asleep.

His mother called him at the end of the month. He was stunned and he couldn’t remember the last time that he’d talked to her.

“Brandon,” she said quietly, her voice sounding weak. “How have you been?”

He most certainly wasn’t going to tell her that his life was shit, and that everyday, he thought about running away. After all, this was the life he’d chosen, right? She most certainly didn’t want to hear from her that she was right all along, that Natalie might have been the wrong girl. The wrong girl? Brandon was shaken that he could have thought such a thing…nevertheless, allowing the mother to see his defenselessness would never happen.

“I’m fine, Mother, and yourself?”

“Not so good,” she said, her voice trailing off. “It’s your grandmother, sweetheart…”

“Yes?”

“She passed away this morning…”

Margaret Abbott spent most of her life, living in a Cape style cottage, in Chilmark, on Martha’s Vineyard (Martha Greene’s namesake), that overlooked quiet Menemsha. Old Maggie’s husband, Richard, built the edifice sometime in the mid-1940s, just after they’d married, and shortly following the birth of their first child, Cecilia.

Brandon didn’t remember much about his grandmother from his childhood, except for the times that she’d slap his hands for saying “Jesus Christ” in front of her, or when he fought with his brothers. Hell, the last time he could remember being on the Vineyard was when he was nine, for his grandfather’s funeral, where his mother and her three sisters, sprinkled his cremated remains in the sound, under a warm, September setting sun. Afterward, his aunt Cecilia served cod fish and tea at her home in Oak Bluffs.