Something She Can Feel

He patted my hand gently to stop.

“We have a long time together. And nowhere to go. So we might as well talk. Now, I could talk about myself, but my life is all contracts and reports.” He pointed to the pile. “It would bore you to death. At least it did my last wife.”

“She left you?” His tangent calmed me.

“No, she died. Literally ... was listening to one of my stories from work one day and just died.”

I wanted to laugh, but the solemn look on his face was so serious. And I didn’t know if he was kidding or not.

“Just fooling with you,” he said finally and we both laughed. “But I am making a point. No one wants to hear about my life.”

“Fine, but I don’t know if I’m ready to talk about what happened.”

“Well, maybe you don’t have to. If you don’t want to talk about what’s wrong now ... maybe start with when everything was right.”

“Right ... my life ... when everything was right?” I exhaled and looked at him. Even in my gloom, pictures, moments came and I felt silly for even pulling them toward me. I had no clue who the man was sitting next to me. But something about him relaxed me. His confidence, the sincerity in his voice. He had the patience of my grandfather in his eyes and somehow I felt I could trust him. I had to trust somebody. I looked at the time. More than twelve hours to go. “Are you serious?” I was feeling weakened and wanting to embrace anything that would quiet my sadness. If just for a moment.

“Yes! Start wherever you like. When times were good—great.” He looked off as if he was imagining me doing something fun. Dancing. Canoeing. Camping. “Before any of this thing that’s troubling you even began.”

“But that was a long time ago.”

“If we have nothing, we have time,” Kweku said, pushing back his seat to relax. “And if we run out of subjects, I guess we’ll talk about ... the contracts.”

“Funny,” I said, looking to the other side of the plane and wondering where I could begin to tell my story to this stranger. “Well,” I began, “and I still don’t know why I’m telling you this ... but”—I took a deep breath—“if I had to start with when everything seemed good—great, I’d have to begin with my wedding.”

PART ONE

Hear

Chapter One

July 7, 2007

Tuscaloosa, AL

I’d been nervous most of the morning before the wedding. Still wondering if I’d made the right decision. Evan was the only man I’d ever dated—we’d been together since the third grade. I loved him, and he loved me, and everybody loved us together. And coming from where I’m from, that was supposed to be enough to last a lifetime. Everyone, including Evan, expected us to get married right after college. But I wasn’t so certain. I thought that just maybe there was more to see and do and that, well, perhaps Evan wasn’t it for me. He was the perfect man. Good to me. And I loved him dearly. But something in my throat stopped me from saying, “yes.” So against everyone’s wishes, I made Evan wait ten years before I agreed to walk down the aisle, so I could be really sure. And I was for a while.

But when I woke up the morning of the wedding, something in my gut said that something else was missing. It was screaming and tossing inside of me like a banshee. But then my mother came to me wearing her pink bathrobe and rollers all over her head and told me this was normal. A case of the “cold feet” she’d had at her own wedding. We prayed together, both of our hands on her grandmother’s Bible, and she reminded me of everything I loved about the man who was waiting breathlessly to be my husband.

Evan had done a lot of growing since he was a pudgy-faced, yellow boy with acne and chicken legs chasing me around the town when we were kids. Once his face slimmed and testosterone thickened his muscles, every girl from our street to Birmingham was asking so-and-so for the who-and-what about Evan DeLong. By the time we began freshman year at the University of Alabama, even I

had to admit that Evan was easily the most handsome boy on campus. His face had the kind of refined charm that made him the perfect escort to the cotillion, the man on whose arm you wanted to be seen. But he only wanted me—the girl who everyone said looked like his sister. My Alabamian roots drew back to the days when African slaves, Choctaw Indians, and poor white Irishmen often married, and I was a few shades lighter than Evan’s sandy-colored skin. I had brown hair that was streaked the color of corn during Alabama’s long, hot summers, and despite a voluptuous size 18 frame, Evan and I did look a lot alike with our perfectly nana-pinched noses and clear, light brown eyes. My mother said it was because, like her and Daddy, we were around each other too much as children.

With those memories of who Evan was and the honorable, distinguished leader he’d become, my mother assured and reassured me, laced me up in the corseted, princess-styled gown we’d shipped from Milan, patted me on the back and held my hand until I walked down the aisle, whispered “I do,” and Evan slid the shiny, platinum wedding band on my finger. Even then, I turned to look to her tearful, honey-colored eyes for certainty and waited for the thought of “something else” to fade.

And then it did.

The reception was at a refurbished twenties mansion at the end of a long, winding road on the outskirts of Tuscaloosa. Evan and I’d found it one day during a “get lost” drive when we were just teenagers. After jumping out of his first car—a silver, hand-medown Mustang—and walking around a bit, we fell in love with the stately white columns and romantic, oilburning light fixtures that led to the front door. We dreamed of one day living in that house; however, when it went up for sale just before we got engaged, we knew we couldn’t afford it—I was a music teacher and Evan had just assumed a position as superintendent of the local school system. But Evan decided we should try to have a little piece of it and he got the real estate agent to let us use the five acres in the backyard to set up a tent for our wedding reception. With weeping willows and a still lake in the background, it was the ideal Southern setting for our new beginning together. The tent was draped in cream roses and silk ties; soft white lights and candles brightened every surface.

We arrived hand in hand, sitting atop the backseat of a fire engine red, convertible, 500 Series Mercedes-Benz. My dream car. It was brand new and Evan had somehow talked Sam Meeks down at the local dealership into letting us borrow the car so we could make what he’d called our “grand entrance as husband and wife” at the reception. “A car under the tent?” I asked when Evan told me his plan.

“It’ll be fabulous. Don’t worry,” he said with his eyes sparkling. He loved attention.

So after the “I dos” and vows, and my daddy giving his blessing, we were riding into the reception, sitting at the back of that pretty red car, and waving at 350 seated guests like we were king and queen of the prom again. Evan clutched my hand and I looked to him to see him grinning and looking at me the way he always did.

“Do you remember what I told you when you said you would marry me?” Evan asked, his hand still holding mine as we rode slowly in the car on a path through the middle of a wide ring of tables. Everyone was waving and smiling at us as the DJ called our names and played a sweet Ray Charles song my mother selected for our arrival.

“What?” I asked.