CHAPTER ELEVEN

Jenay had wanted to get out of that bed and sit in a chair before he arrived, but she was too weak still to do so. The doctors and nurses that had been working around the clock in the makeshift hospital on a private wing of Hammer’s mansion had managed to prop her up enough, with full pillow support, that she was sitting up in bed. Ashley and Carly had remained with their mother while the others waited for Charles’s arrival and Hammer’s explanation. They happily helped her with her bath and combed her hair and put her on some makeup at her request. She looked like a teenager again. She felt like a teenager again.

But it was a strange feeling too. Because the last thing she remembered was having lunch with Charles in the hospital cafeteria in Maine and then all hell breaking loose. But she didn’t remember what the hell was. Her memory of the last four-five months was nonexistent. That was the strange part.

“What’s wrong, Ma?” Ashley asked her. “You seem nervous.”

“I’m very nervous. I’m about to see Charlie. I’m about to see the love of my life.”

They smiled and Ashley hugged her.

“Months have passed since we last saw each other, at least that’s what Hammer told me, and now we’re going to meet face to face. I’m terrified.”

“But what are you terrified about?” Carly asked her.

“What if he’s disappointed?”

“Oh Ma!” Ashley grinned.

“Don’t even think like that,” said Carly.

“He thought I was dead. For months he thought I was dead. Maybe he’s moved on without me already.”

“Daddy ain’t moving on without you, Ma,” Ashley said happily. “I don’t care if it was ten years later, he would still be your husband, and you would still be his wife. You can bet that.”

“Just like Monk won’t move on if something ever happened to Ashley,” said Carly.

“Trevor wouldn’t move on either if something ever happened to you,” said Ashley.

“Child please,” said Carly jokingly. “He’ll give it a couple days and then say thank you, next!” They all laughed.

“Where’s the baby?” Jenay asked Carly.

“With Trevor. But are you ready to see Daddy after that emotional reunion with everybody else?”

Jenay was already nodding her head. “I’m always up for happy reunions. I have no problem with happy reunions.”

And then the door opened, and Charles, Mick, and the entire family stepped inside.

When Charles saw Jenay, he stopped in his tracks. Mick and Amelia, who were directly behind him, stopped everybody else. Ashley and Carly had already backed away from the bed when their father opened the door, and Bonita had already hurried over to them and the three sisters placed their arms around each other.

But Charles felt as if he had just stepped into the Twilight Zone. “Jenay?” It was as if he still didn’t believe it. “ Jenay ?”

Jenay covered her mouth and nodded her head as the tears appeared in her eyes. “Hello Charlie.”

“That’s you?” Charles began walking slowly toward her bed. He was staring at her as if he just knew she was some kind of Jenay doppelg?nger that Hammer Reese dragged in to see if he could spot that it was a Jenay lookalike rather than the real person. But it wasn’t until he made it all the way up to her bed, and she smiled that smile with those lines of age showing on the sides of her beautiful eyes did he realize it was no lookalike. It was Jenay. It was his wife!

And as soon as he realized it, he hurried to her, dropped to his knees at her bedside, and began touching her all over. “It’s you,” he was now saying, not as a question but as a fact. “It’s you .”

“It’s me, Charlie.” Jenay could hardly see through the tears as she held his gorgeous face with both of her hands. “It’s me, darling.”

Tears were streaming down Charles’s face too as he continued to touch her. “I didn’t believe it. I had dreams of you coming back to me, but I refused to believe it. But it’s true?” He looked like a child in desperate need of confirmation.

Jenay was nodding. She was happy to confirm. “Yes, it’s true,” she said. “It’s true, Charlie. It’s true.”

And they embraced each other with a vigorous hug. He was embracing her too tightly. Jenay knew it and everybody in that room knew it. But Jenay didn’t care. It was all joy as far as she was concerned. And all the others, from Mick on down, couldn’t see anything but love through their unstoppable tears.

But it was Charles who pulled back from her quickly, his arms still holding her. “Are you still in pain?” he asked her. “You must be in tremendous pain.”

But she was shaking her head. “It’s been months, Charlie. My wounds have healed. I’m just getting my strength back, that’s all,” she said as they both were wiping each other’s tears away. “None of my vital organs were struck, thank God. I’m fine. And the fact that I have you back, and the children?” She shook her head. “I couldn’t be better. I’m so happy, Charles. I’m so happy.”

“Don’t leave me again.” His face could not have looked more serious. “You hear me? Don’t you dare leave me again.”

“If it’s up to me, don’t worry. I didn’t want to leave you before.”

Charles smiled such a wonderful warm smile that it soothed every heart in that room. It was the very first smile any of his children had seen him smile since that horrific day.

And then Charles kissed Jenay in such a sweet, kind, beautiful way that it was, without it meaning to be that way, the most passionate kiss anybody in that room had ever seen. Then he held her again. And again. And then he kicked off his shoes, took off his suit coat and tossed it to the floor, and then he got in bed, beneath the covers, and sat up beside her. There was not a dry eye in the room again. Even Hammer had unshed tears.

“Okay, everybody out,” said Roz. “Let’s give them some privacy.”

Since the children had already spent hours getting to know their mother again before Charles arrived, it seemed like a reasonable request even if they didn’t want to leave her side. But they all hugged her again and eventually left the room.

Charles and Jenay sat side by side, her hand intertwined with his hand, as if they were kids again on their very first date.

And then they talked as if they had a lifetime to make up for. They talked nonstop for hours. Hammer even had soft music playing over the stereo system. But Charles shook his head. “All of that Lawrence Welk elevator music shit,” he said, and Jenay laughed. That was what she missed most about Charles: the way he made her laugh.

He looked at her. At that smile he adored. “You’ll tell me if you’re hurting,” he said to her. “Won’t you?”

Jenay touched the side of his beautiful face. “Of course I will. I’m a black woman, remember? A sista sitting up here hurting? Oh you best believe she will let you know,” she said, and it was Charles’s time to laugh. “Bet that,” she added.

Then they settled down again. Jenay stared at her husband. “What was it like, Charlie?”

An anguished look appeared on his face. “Pure hell,” he said as he looked down at their intertwined hands. “I couldn’t get beyond it. I knew I eventually would. I had to. I had seven children that still needed me, and grandkids. I wasn’t going to add to their pain by not getting over it. But the truth was clear. There was no getting over it. I was just pushing through.”

“You still didn’t believe I survived even after you saw my face. Am I right?”

“Hell yeah you’re right. I was convinced it was all a dream. I was certain of it. I had to touch you to believe it. When I saw your smile, and when I touched your smooth, velvet dark skin, and kissed your sweet lips, then I believed it.” Tears appeared in his eyes again. “I believed it.”

Jenay smiled and kissed his cheek. Then he kissed her lips again. This time for a long time. Until Jenay pulled away. “I’m not that strong yet,” she said, and Charles laughed.

Later that evening, after their children’s children and significant others had been flown in and told, only after they arrived, what it was all about, they all came back into the room for more rounds of hugs and kisses as they laughed and talked and forced Hammer to play better music. They all even ate together in Jenay’s huge room, with all the younger people sitting around on the floor with their plates in their laps while Mick and Roz and Amelia, Trevor Reese and Monk Paletti, all sat in chairs eating too.

And after eating they continued to talk and laugh and dance. Even the medical staff, after Hammer assured them that Charles wouldn’t allow Jenay to get overtired, stayed away.

There was a dance contest, making their parents laugh so much that Charles had to go to the bathroom to relieve himself twice, with Donald and Ashley, the original party hounds, outdancing all of them.

And then Pharrell Williams came on singing Happy , and Charles and Jenay, and even Mick, were clapping and laughing and enjoying every second as the children, with Ashley leading the way, attempted to do a line dance:

“Because I’m happy.

Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof.

Because I’m happy.

Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth!

Bring me down.

Can’t nothing.

Bring me down.

My level’s too high -

to bring me down.

Because I’m happy!

Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof.

Because I’m happy.

Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth!”

It felt like Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Easter all rolled into one. They were praising God. They were singing songs. They were dancing and laughing and having the time of their lives. It continued for hours. They were turning Hammer’s orderly house into their house party, and Hammer, who was upstairs in his office working, didn’t mind one bit.

But early that next morning, when everybody had fallen asleep in that same room, Charles saw Mick ease out of the room as if he had unfinished business. Charles eased out of Jenay’s bed and followed him.

What Hammer had done, in their eyes, was unforgiveable. And the reasoning for this massive coverup that he had given to the family? Neither Mick nor Charles, who knew how bad guys actually operated, was buying it.