8:36 PM Bud: Dad, I don’t know what’s going on but Georgie’s upset and Luke won’t tell us fuckin shit. You aint been picking up your phone.
7:51 PM Georgie: Dad? I asked mom. She was drunk. Please, what’s going on?

Now Mom: You r tryin to ruin our family. Fuck you.

I sighed. Mildred never failed to ruin my mood. A part of me wanted to change my number altogether so I wouldn’t have any contact with her. Then I thought, why do I have to change my life because she couldn’t get her shit together? It wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t fair. But Jamica had reminded me that things weren’t going to be fair.

We had arrived at her apartment not ten minutes later. The chill of the night had crept into my bones, and clouded my nose, causing me to sniffle. She thought it was cute. I smiled.

The lights to her apartment was stationed about twenty feet away from the door. She explained that the light in the entryway had blown and they had yet to fix it. I had full intentions of standing by the door, staring at the only hint of light, a blue power button that I later learned belonged to printer. It blinked at me, and I waited. When she saw that I wasn’t following, I heard her light footsteps retreat back to me. In the dark I had felt her hand bump against my hip, then move to gently grab my shirt. It was then that my heart decided it was going to spit fire in my chest. She had to stop touching me. I heard her mumble sorry, then loosely grab my index and middle finger.

“I know this apartment like the back of my hand. You don’t. I wouldn’t want you to trip and fall and sue me for what I don’t have.” She laughed at the end in jest, and I smiled. She could have hit me with a car on purpose and I still would not have sued her. She was no Mildred, that much I had come to recognize.

“Stay,” Her fingers disconnected from mines and my arm fell to my side as if it weighed a ton. She had cut on the living room lights then hurriedly rush past me in the direction of which we came. “Hold on darling. My room was not expecting company.” She was gone, but within ten seconds she had come back in a blur. Her sudden presence had caught me off guard. I traveled a bit to peer around the corner and admired the Christmas tree that sat in the corner of the apartment. It was March. I smiled. Her hand had found its way to the small of the back, while her other had grabbed my elbow in a gentle fashion.

“I’m being so rude. I’m so sorry,” She tugged me towards the sofa that sat up against the far right wall. I smiled. She was being so polite. “Here, let me get this.” I was about to protest, but her fingers were already grabbing the labels of my jacket. She stood in front of me, with determination in her face to make me feel at home. I allowed her to undress me. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed her. She took the jacket away from me and moved back around the corner. She had disappeared from my view but I heard her voice, clear as day.

“Honey? Do you want some water, tea? I don’t have coffee. Sorry. It’s something about it that makes me feel like my heart just sniffed crack,” I grinned. She was being a homebody. She was making sure I was comfortable when she had yet to remove her jacket or change out of her work clothes. I had bent my body forward, with my elbows stationed on my knees and my head hung.

It was a strange feeling I tell you, to have somebody look after simple things, like appeasing your thirst or taking your jacket. This is what my life should have consisted of. No, I didn’t want Mildred to look after me as if I was some child, but acted in some way like she cared, or showed that she put thought into my well-being. And Jamica was, doing things that Mildred hadn’t done in almost twenty years.

“Are you okay?” I had thought she disappeared into her room, to leave me alone, but she hadn’t and I was grateful. She came back with her braids hanging loosely around her body. She wore fuzzy socks on her feet, and a long sleeved, fitted tunic hung to the middle of her thigh. I liked the color. It was a rich coral. It complimented her skin. I complimented her skin.

She took notice of my appraisal, although it came out as a mumble, and I had averted my eyes. It was a simple statement. “It’s pretty.” I said it as if I was ashamed but she took it as if they were the most beautiful words. Her hands fluttered to the tunic, and I glanced up just in time to notice her pinch the side of the shirt.

“Why thank you honey.” Her smile made me smile, and I chuckled. It was cute of her to think I was talking about the shirt. If that’s what pleased her then I would allow her to do so.

“Come on,” She stretched out her hand towards me, and motioned for me to follow her. I was still in my hunched position, and eyed her hand as if it was an air of opportunity. There was something inside of me that told me I was entering her sanctuary. Where she slept, worked, bathed, and dressed. She was allowing me into her space. It was an intimate moment to me. I had not expected to take her hand, but I did. My figure trailed behind her, long and tall, as if I were more her body guard than her acquaintance. 

“So this is where I hibernate.” She let go of my hand to peer back at me. “It’s not much but it’s mine, right?” She didn’t look back at me this time, but I nodded anyways. I admired hard working people.

Mildred probably held one job after we moved to North Carolina. I had recognized her fondness of anything cosmetic and suggested she try opening up something small out of home. Do a little hair here, a little makeup there, and she could have easily been bringing home three hundred dollars a week. It wasn’t much but it was hers, right? Wrong. It was too much. Those were her words to me over dinner, after the kids had been dismissed from the table and I had asked her how the clientele were coming. I’d rather be a housewife. Never again did I inquire about her desire to work, and she never approached me about it.  

There were hints of pink everywhere. Her bed sheets were pink with flowers. The comforter was a creamy white color with pink and purple flowers. On the wall there was a small pink board. It wasn’t an overload of the color. There were just the right amounts of other colors that balanced it out. I liked it. Alongside the wall she butterflies flew up the wall, and pictures of what I assumed to be her roommates and friends. One thing that caught my attention and held it, were the keys that hung on her wall. There had to be at least ten that hung. They all came in different sizes, and made from different elements. Upon closer inspection I realized that carved within each one, were different names. My hand moved across the largest key on the wall. It was hanging on aqua colored hook. The name Victor was carved in the most conventional way. It looked like it was carved by a third grader. But it was beautiful. They were all beautiful.

“That’s my daddy’s.” She had startled me. The key clanked against the wall upon my release. She had been gone into the bathroom five minutes before. Claiming if I had to pee she had to de-girl it so she wouldn’t freak me out over the pile of panties that littered her basket. I assured her it was okay, but it was her determination to respect me. I respected that.

I didn’t ask her why, or how, but she decided to explain anyways.

“He killed himself.” She was whispering again. I turned my head to see her turn her head towards the lamp that was sitting on the desk. I studied her. In the light her eyes appeared sadder than what she shown. She crossed her arms on her chest then shrugged.

“Almost all of them killed themselves.” I stepped back from the wall. Had she known all of these people?

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.” She tried to smile at me, but I saw the light that had fallen from her eyes. It landed somewhere on the floor, in the same place my happiness had.

“You didn’t. I promise you didn’t. It was just, unexpected.” She shrugged her shoulders again and I wanted to grab her. I wanted her to feel more than whatever caused her eyes to water and her lip to tremble. So I said the first thing that came to my mind.

“Thank you.” She looked as if she had been lost in thought. Her head still faced the light, but upon my appreciation she looked back to me. I caught her attention. I didn’t want it anywhere else but me. I knew that look. It was the same look I had found lurking behind the hazel of my eyes. It was one of sorrow. It was one of pain.

But I made her smile again. She looked grateful that I was thankful, as if she didn’t mind taking home a complete stranger and making him feel like he had been living there his entire life.

“Honestly, I don’t think I was going to let you go home,” She took a step towards me. I braced myself. “And I know this all weird, to say the least. Because we don’t know each other, and if my roommates were to walk in right now and see you—“”

“Do you have a boyfriend?” I hadn’t meant to ask her that. Whatever she was saying had been lost in my mind as it filled with the image of her eyes roaming to anything other than my face and her round lips moving at a faster pace than my mind could process. I couldn’t help it. She seemed perfect. Like she did have a boyfriend, or at least somebody who knew how to kill the monsters that went thump in the night and knew the secrets to her heart. She just had to.

Her laugh caught me off guard. The question wasn’t funny, or at least I didn’t think it was funny. She was just beautiful. And beautiful people like her always belonged to somebody else. She didn’t answer me, and I had expected it. I was peeping into her life without permission, and had come across as rude. I didn’t apologize, however. I would never apologize for wanting to soak her in.

The room was big enough to house a recliner. It was wide enough that two of me could have comfortably slept in it. I hadn’t expected me to stay, something I expressed to her. She knew that. She never expected me to, but there was something in her eyes that made me tell her I wanted to stay. I knew what an empty room felt like. I knew what sadness felt like in the dead of the night when it consumed your body more than sleep had. So I stayed. The recliner was to become my home. She tried to convince me to take her bed, while she slept on the recliner but I refused. This was her home, not mines.

We had spent three hours talking. In that time I had learned nothing about her, while she learned everything about me. She seemed to not like to talk about herself. It made me suspicious, but I relented and told her the things that mattered. I had three kids that came out of a broken marriage to Mildred. I had explained to her what our marriage had become. How our home became a house, and how our children basically raised themselves.

We were in the dark, but she decided to cut off the light and allowed the light from the bathroom to shine through. I had been staring at her. Her eyes only closed briefly, but when she opened them, they were met with mines. Somewhere behind her sleepiness, I saw it. It was a flicker, but it was alive. She understood the happenings of my life. She only opened her eyes to let me see that she understood. And just like that they were closed again. She no longer held her head up to watch me talk. I’d yet to make myself comfortable. The sense that I was invading her personal space was too strong, but she didn’t mind. She chided me a couple of times to relax, that she wasn’t going to bite me. And I trusted her.

That’s how she left me. Her breathing evened out to sighs, and the muscles in her body relaxed. She slept with two comforters, but decided to give me the bigger one to accommodate me in the chair. I had yet to make myself comfortable. I was so transfixed on watching her that my phone went unnoticed. The door to her room wasn’t unlocked, and I tried my hardest to not make a sound. She looked peaceful. I wanted to keep it that way. 

I never cared too much for cellular devices. The only things they brought me were high bills and nagging children. It was one o’clock in the morning. I cleared the calls from Luke and Bud, and read through the text messages. I would get back to them in the morning. Out of the three, Luke was more levelheaded. He knew how to hold down the fort and I trusted him in his ways. It was the last text that gave me pause. It took away energy that I fought to keep. Instead of focusing on the text, I unconsciously groaned and leaned back in the chair.

I heard it. Her voice traveled to me soft and clear. It was filled with drowsiness and a sweetness that one could not deny. “Are you okay?” I cut off the bathroom light long ago, leaving us completely in the dark. I couldn’t make out her figure moving towards me, but I could make out the sounds. I didn’t want her to move, and disturb her life with my problems, but it seemed she wanted it like this. So I obliged, and gave her nothing less of me.

“Why can’t you be my wife?” My question stopped her movements and she fell back into the bed in a fit of giggles.

“Ken,” My name was light, and almost came out like a moan. I itched to touch her. “You wouldn’t want me as a wife…” I waited for her to finish, but soon realized her voice had been lost to sleep. A part of me sat there, watching her press her body into the mattress, and wished she would lose herself to me.