Chapter 30

“Okay, buster,” said a red eye’d Stacey, “We’ll be wheeling you outta here this afternoon.”

“Okay babe, can’t wait to get home,” said Ronald. “Hospital food ain’t the greatest.”

She started to cry again. “Honey, it’s all good. You needn’t keep on cryin’ all of the time,” said Ronald.

“I’m just so grateful to God or whatever angel was watching over us,” she said.

“Yeah, I know. I agree. It had to be divine intervention,” he said. “I mean what are the odds that the registry would find a donor in time.”

She started crying all over again. “I am just so grateful,” she sobbed.

“Anyway, the doctor said I could go home early?” he said. She wiped away her tears with the hankie she pulled from her purse.

“Yes, and the outlook is good,” she said. “Thank God, thank God, thank God!”

“How is Jenna doing?” he said.

“She’s good. She and her hubby are waiting for us at the house,” she said. “Our lawyer daughter passed the bar you know. She’s employed now. Works for Misguez and Salcedo downtown. I mean she took the job: the one she’d been angling for.”

“I am so proud of her. I wish daddy number two was here to share her success. If anyone deserves to take pride in her success it’s David Carter,” he said.

“Yes, he does,” she said. “But what can we do. He has to want to be here, and he doesn’t. Even if we find him, he’ll just blow us off and run away again.” He nodded and it was a nod tinged with sadness.

“I guess. I really miss the guy. What he did for Jenna is way beyond loving, next to giving his life for her, well...” he said. She nodded, and her nod was likewise tinged with sadness and guilt and regret. She should never had angled to get him to share walking Jenna down the aisle. It was a mistake. But hell, she’d made so many of them relating to the man what was just one more. And her incipient tears mixed with her gratitude for whoever saved her husband were over the top and inevitable.

“Someday,” she said.

“Yeah, someday,” he said.

2015

“Daddy,” she screamed, as her mother wheeled her biological father through the entry way. His smile was a mile wide.

Hugs and kisses all around. “Jenna, get your daddy a cup of coffee will you. He’s been harassing me about having a cup since this morning,” said Stacey.

“Coming right up,” said Jenna, she disappeared into the kitchen.

“And how are you, James?” said Stacey.

“Good, good,” he said. He turned his attention to his father-in-law.

“And you Mister Carter?” he said.

“Fine, a little weak. I’ve been on my back for the past ten days, so I’m a little stiff, and as I said, weak,” said Ronald Carter, “but okay otherwise.”

“Well, anything you need,” said the younger man. Stacey smiled her broadest in a long time.

And there was peace and love if also a little pathos all around.

The knock on the door of the two bedroom apartment the Ellisons shared was unexpected. James answered it.

“Aunt Delia!” he said. “Welcome and good morning.”

“Well, thank you, James,” she said, as she entered with his gesture to do so.

“Aunt Delia,” said Jenna, as she came into the front room from the kitchen. “You’re just in time for breakfast.”

“That’s very thoughtful of you, dear,” said Aunt Delia.

Over the next hour the trio talked about nothing and “almost” everything. James excused himself to go to the store and pick up some things that Jenna told him she needed for dinner.

“So you’re happy, everything is going well for the two of you, Jenna?” said Aunt Delia.

“Yes, yes, Aunt Delia. Everything is fine. Well, almost. I mean you know,” she said.

“Yes, your daddy David,” she said.

“Yes,” said Jenna.

“The time will come when you will be together again,” said Aunt Delia. “I know it.”

Jenna sighed. “I hope so, it has been so long and so many things have happened and he has done so much for us, especially me, and all any of us seem to do is to make his life harder. How can that be, Aunt Delia. I mean it makes no sense. We, especially me, have no intention of making daddy hurt or feel bad or suffer or any of it. So why is it that all of those things keep happening to him,” she said. “And the thing at my wedding. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

The older woman smiled. “Jenna, what you were thinking is that you were trying to get the family together once again. But, well, your daddy David was just at that place yet. Maybe one day, but not quite at that time I suppose.”

“Aunt Delia I know you’re right. My intention was indeed to have my two dads be close again. I need them to be. I mean they’re brothers, right?” said Jenna.

“It’s not you or your intentions, dear. Really it’s not. The only thing that stands in the way of your daddy David being here and ending his misery is the undeniable fact that he can’t get his wife, his ex-wife, your momma, out of his heart. Nothing else has ever mattered to him as much as Stacey Carter. He may at some point find another woman to take her place, but failing that, he will never be completely happy again.”

“I failed him too, Aunt Delia. He took my punishment for killing those men. Isn’t that an even bigger thing than him losing momma as his wife?” said Jenna.

Her aunt smiled. “Hard as it may be to believe, Jenna, him helping you made things a little easier for him to accept his misery and to deal with it. It gave him something he could feel good about at a time when nothing else could. And, again, as hard as it may be to believe, his time in prison was nothing compared to the heartache of losing his soulmate to another; I mean that quite literally.”

“Aunt Delia, I have another cross to bear and I don’t know if I can,” said Jenna.

“You want to tell James about that day with the men,” said Aunt Delia.

“Yes, but...”

“I’m a pretty good judge of character, Jenna. James will deal with the knowledge, if you do tell him, very well. He loves you, that’s plain to see and he will do just as your daddy David did and protect you at all costs,” she said.

“Okay, then, I’m going to tell him. Would you...” she said.

“Yes, of course I will, that’s a no brainer as they say these days, she said.

The only one in the room not short of breath, if that were the way to say it, was James. The two women, Aunt Delia and Jenna, were as nervous as ticks, and, short of breath.

“Okay?” he said.

“James we need to talk,” said Jenna. “I’ve been keeping something from you since, well, since the beginning; but, no more. You deserve better and today is the day I come clean.” She sounded like the lawyer she was.

“Okay,” he said. “But, as far as I’m concerned you don’t need to tell me anything that makes you as uncomfortable as you obviously are. I’m good.”

“No, no, today’s the day,” said Jenna. He spread his hands in an “okay tell me gesture.”

“James some ten years ago, my dad, Daddy David, helped me. James, he took the wrap for me. I killed those three men. I called my dad. He came and convinced me to step aside and let him take my punishment. I was so frightened that I let him. To my everlasting shame I let him.

Then to make things worse, if that were even possible I let Uncle Ronald, Daddy Ronald, be my dad and I loved him too and it made my other daddy, Daddy David, sad and maybe humiliated. The wedding, well you know about that, was maybe the final straw for him. That’s why he ran off; but, as I said, I know you figured that one out by yourself,” she said.

James looked over at Aunt Delia. “Aunt Delia?” he said.

“You knew this already didn’t you, James?” she said. He looked away.

“Yes, well, not at first, but about a year ago, a little less; I heard your mom and Dad Ronald talking. They were distraught. They couldn’t believe what your Dad David had sacrificed, and how bad they thought of themselves, the way they’d treated that good man. They were both crying crocodile tears. I snuck out before they discovered me.