Ben (The Sherwood)

“That means, I am dead to them. I am a ghost. If they see me in town, which has happened, they look through me.” I reached across and took Disa’s hand in mine.

“Which is why it was important for you to have Jasmine in your life?” I asked feeling more regret because I had taken her from Disa.

She nodded. “It was.” With her free hand, she wiped away some tears that I knew she didn’t want to cry, not in front of me. “Jasmine’s mother had walked away from the compound like I had. They warned me I would be just like her. Having children without the sanctity of marriage,” Disa explained. “I look like my aunt, she’s a sister to my mother. Funny how things turned out. Jasmine and I look alike but she has her father’s coloring my mother said, where I’m blonde like her mother. She had a child out of wedlock, not me.”

I gazed at the woman sitting beside me. I took in her features and her mannerisms and I noticed not for the first time that she was too much like Jasmine. I should not have been with her cousin.

The thought floated through my subconscious and I frowned. It bothered me that it might have been the only reason I was attracted to Jasmine. She reminded me of Disa and I couldn’t have her, so I settled on Jasmine. Someone I could have.

Those thoughts had been tickling my brain for weeks. I had been trying to ignore them and push them away. I released Disa’s hand and leaned over on my knees. Staring into the woods, like she was. “What’s on your mind?” She asked me.

I glanced in her direction. Those damn eyes of hers. I felt like they were reading my thoughts. Seeing in my soul, the loneliness that I felt, and I wanted to run from.

“Nothing,” I replied.

Then m

y daughter rescued me. She started crying. We both got up and headed inside. Asia needed changing. “I’ll do it. If you don’t mind?” Disa suggested.

“I’ll never turn down the offer for someone to change her diaper.”

She laughed at me. Disa went to the living room while I went to the kitchen to check on our pizza. I could hear her talking to my daughter. Her sweet voice a comfort to me as much as it was to Asia who calmed the minute Disa picked her up out of the swing, while I took the pizza out of the oven.

I turned off the stove and found the cutter then I sliced up the pizza and put it on plates, carrying it to the living room. I laid them on the coffee table and headed back to the kitchen for drinks.

“Bottled water okay?” I shouted from the kitchen not that I needed to. My open floorplan didn’t have walls to block sound. She could have heard me just fine but Disa made me nervous.

“That’s fine, Ben,” she replied.

I returned carrying two bottles of water. I sat on the sofa now where Disa was cradling Asia in her arms. She was talking to her like my baby knew everything she was saying. She was good with kids.

“Do you want children?” I asked.

She gazed at me for a moment then she nodded. “I do. I love kids.”

“Just not with that elder guy?” I asked.

She laughed. “No, he wasn’t a bad looking guy, but he was at least ten years older than me if not more. I couldn’t imagine becoming a wife to a man who was that much older. Someone I didn’t love,” she explained. “I wanted to experience life a little, outside of the compound. My parents told me if I left they would disown me which they did.”

“You don’t regret it?” I asked her.

Her eyes, so mesmerizing I couldn’t look away met mine. “No, Ben. Not one bit,” she replied. “Elder Ron was kind of creepy.”

“Good,” I said. I knew it couldn’t be easy, making it on her own.

“I didn’t become my aunt. I don’t go from man to man like she does. I’m a good woman, Ben. A good person.”

I couldn’t help myself I reached out and touched her cheek, letting my fingertips trace over the smoothness of her skin. Her eyes lowered. Her lashes covering her beautiful eyes and I wondered what Disa was thinking. Hell, I wondered what I was thinking touching her like this.

I withdrew my fingers and picked up a slice of pizza. “Want me to hold her? I have mastered the art of eating and holding Asia. I’m not saying she doesn’t manage to wear a little pizza sauce or a splotch or two of mayo or ketchup but for the most part she comes out of it unscathed,” I teased Disa.

She burst out laughing. “You eat. I’m content right now. Then I’ll eat.”

“Asia, I’m sure appreciates it,” I replied.

I watched Disa wrap her finger through Asia’s. I knew this woman well enough to know that something was on her mind too. “What?” I asked.

She glanced up at me. “I’m just worried about Jasmine.”