Chasing Sophea: A Novel Read online

  “What! For Christ’s sake.”

  “Watch your mouth, boy. You know I didn’t raise you to take the Lord’s name in vain.”

  “Yes, yes. What is it now?”

  “Tell that red-dress-wearing heffa that I’m coming back, so don’t go repainting any rooms or rearranging any furniture. She don’t own nothing up in there.”

  Aunt Baby watched Brother get smaller and smaller as the train pulled away from the station. If she didn’t know any better, she’d have sworn she had given birth to that boy herself, squeezed him right on out of her womb. It was impossible, she knew, but he was beginning to look more and more like her every day—a paler version, anyway. Frankly, she had no idea what the boy was. Everyone in the family always suspected there was a drop of black blood coursing through his veins because of the light brown hue that mysteriously crept up on him sometime during the middle of July. Hell, for all she knew, that could be just a tan, a tan on a white man. He was damn near white, with green eyes, a long nose, and a sweet disposition—which was amazing considering how his life began.

  Some forty years ago, his mama or somebody left him on the front porch of the house, which wasn’t connected to the funeral parlor at the time. There was a pounding on the door, and of course, at that time of night, they all naturally assumed that there was a dead body somewhere for her father, Marcel, to pick up. Lucius was about twelve or thirteen then, and he was the one who answered the door. He busted in her room looking wild and crazy and screamed that somebody had left a burned-up baby on their doorstep. She remembered it like it was yesterday. Everyone flew downstairs and gawked at the miniature horror writhing before them. Brother was only a few weeks old then, and he was in so much pain—poor little thing, he could barely scream. He was wrapped loosely in a cotton blanket that stuck to his skin, and he was burned so badly that no one was able to figure out if he was black, white, or any color in between.

  That night, Brother looked straight through her and asked her to be his mother. She picked him up then and declared it her mission to make him well and whole from that moment on. She nurtured the scars right off his body and poured liquid love all over his soul. She mixed, boiled, concocted every herbal salve she could think of and kept that boy slathered in it for nearly three straight years. And then one day, she unwrapped him, and like magic he looked as normal as the rest of them, except for being a few shades lighter. She couldn’t have loved that boy any more if she had given birth to him herself. He was in her blood and always would be.

  They never discovered who abandoned him on that doorstep or why. It was just as well, though, because Lord knows she would have killed somebody dead if they’d ever tried to take that boy away from her. For all intents and purposes, he was her son and that was that. Brother was good for Lucius, too, a godsend for the Culpepper family. Almost overnight, he became the little brother Lucius never had. Aunt Baby named him Dante because he had already been through several levels of hell, but everyone called him Brother. And when Lucius’s children were born, he became Uncle Brother.

  Aunt Baby reclined in her deluxe room and fingered the loaf of bread that Dante had packed for her. It was still warm and smelled of sweet potatoes and nutmeg. Fresh bread had been a part of their lives for such a long time. Baskets of it began arriving at the funeral parlor more than thirty-five years ago. No one knew where it came from, but it was always there—every kind of bread imaginable. Loaves of sourdough rye, rosemary garlicinfused baguettes, and herb parmesan something or other had graced the Culpepper doorstep as if they were permanent fixtures, attachments to the architecture. Aunt Baby knew that Percival received Wednesday baskets as well, and that brought her a certain level of comfort. Someone loved them dearly, and at one time, she considered trying to figure out who it was, but in the end, her son was right—some things were best left unsaid. Aunt Baby closed her eyes and allowed her mind to finally rest. It would take forty-three hours before she arrived in Los Angeles, and she needed every hour of sleep she could get. She had to be on her toes when she stepped off that train, and she knew instinctively that she had to be ready for anything.

  “We need to talk.” Milky paced the floor. It seemed he was constantly pacing the floor.

  “What is it, honey?”

  “What is going on, Dahlia? What is happening to you?”

  “What are you complaining about now, Milky? I’m here. I’m home.” Dahlia refused to look up from the O magazine she was pretending to read. She finally had a moment to breathe, and here he was interrogating her, treating her like a suspect. Hadn’t she been questioned enough? Wasn’t she doing enough?

  “Look at me, dammit. I am your husband.” Milky snatched the magazine from her hand. Dahlia stood and faced him. It was difficult, but she had to let him know that she was trying. God, she was trying.

  “What do you want from me, Milky?”

  “I want you to talk to me. I want you to be an active participant in our marriage. I want you to be a mother to our daughter. I want you to come home when you say you’re coming home. I want to know where you are when you’re supposed to be here with me, with Isabel. Shall I go on?”

  “Jesus, what else do you want me to do? I’ve done everything that you’ve asked of me. I don’t know what’s happening to me. I just know that—”

  Milky interrupted, somewhat exasperated. “Look, I know you’ve been going to see Dr. Kelly. Have your sessions with him been helpful at all? Tell me—”

  “No!” Dahlia screamed. “I’m seeing Dr. Kelly because you said I had to. Talking to you about it wasn’t part of the agreement. Why can’t you just leave me alone and let me sort this out for myself? I meet with the shrink once a week. Why isn’t that enough for you?”

  “I think we need to consider some other options here.”

  “No. That won’t be necessary. I think I just need more time.”

  “More time, Dahlia? It’s been over a month, and nothing in your behavior has changed. As a matter of fact, things between us have gotten worse. You’ve gotten worse.”

  “I think you’re exaggerating, Milky. You and I both know you have a penchant for making a mountain out of a molehill.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really.” Dahlia reached for the discarded magazine. Milky pushed it away from her grasp.

  “Where is Isabel, Dahlia?”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. Where is your daughter?” Silence. “What kind of mother doesn’t ask about her daughter when she comes home?”

  “What are you implying here, Milky?”

  “You have a master’s degree. I think you know exactly what I’m saying.”

  “Are you accusing me of being a bad mother?”

  “I’m accusing you of being a bad everything. Look at you. Look at us. Something is missing here, Dahlia, and we can’t continue, I can’t continue, until we figure out what it is.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I don’t trust you anymore, and neither does Isabel. How do you think that makes us feel, Dahlia?” Dahlia looked away.

  “I know you take good care of Isabel,” Dahlia whispered. “I know I don’t have to worry about her.”

  “Yes, that’s convenient, Dahlia, but I shouldn’t be the only one taking care of our daughter. And she’s at my mom’s, by the way, just in case some unaffected part of you was wondering.”

  “Go to hell.”

  “Are you having an affair?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Answer me, dammit. Are you having an affair? Who is it?”

  Dahlia stormed past him toward the winding staircase. He grabbed her by the arm and spun her around to face him.

  “And all this time, I thought you were the brilliant one in this relationship,” Dahlia retorted.

  “And what the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “Think about it, Einstein. I’m too exhausted to fuck you most of the time. What makes you think I have the energy to open my legs for anyone e
lse?”

  Milky felt her jerk away and watched her disappear into another part of the house. Now he was more confused than ever. This was a side of his wife that he had never seen, and he didn’t like it. He didn’t like anything about his marriage anymore. The love of his life was only a few feet away, and yet he was more alone than he had ever been. He sat and stared at a painting of a Tuareg woman that hung above the fireplace. They’d bought it together a few years ago at a gallery in Ojai, California. He smiled at the memory and became wistful. They were happy then, or maybe they weren’t. This kind of unraveling couldn’t have happened overnight. He couldn’t have missed a character flaw this monumental, or could he? He hungered for the woman he’d fallen in love with, and he had to find a way to get her back, for his sake and for Isabel’s. He wished he could share his dilemma with his wife, his lover, his confidante. But he couldn’t because he didn’t know the woman upstairs anymore, and it amazed him just how long it had taken her to become a stranger.

  He gritted his teeth and picked up the phone. It was up to him now to do what was best for their family. “Mom,” he said, “I need you to keep your granddaughter for a while longer.”

  Mercy, that’s what her parents named her, because she was a miracle baby, and Mercy was the first word uttered from her daddy’s mouth on the day she was born. She came at a time when her mother, Lucille, believed that her period was gone forever, lost in that faraway place with her rock-hard thighs and twenty-eight-inch hips. Her head had swirled along with her stomach back then as she wondered how in the world she could possibly have been pregnant. For years, the Lord had never seen fit to bless her with a child, and then suddenly, at age forty-eight, she had an unfathomable craving for liverwurst and deviled eggs. It took her at least a month of throwing up her breakfast before she was able to accept the inexplicable.

  And Mercy’s father, Leander, was just as dumbfounded. As he had been cursed with a limp tool for most of his adult life, he couldn’t imagine that any of his spermatozoa had the energy or wherewithal to swim anywhere. Attaining an erection for him was the same as trying to find a pearl in an oyster. It was possible but highly unlikely. He had been married to Lucille for nearly twenty-five years, and her presence still baffled him every time he woke up and saw her pretty brown face. Still, when he opened his eyes every morning, he just knew she would be long gone—stolen by a younger man with a working johnson and an agile tongue.

  On the day that Lucille announced she was with child, Leander was incredulous. He couldn’t figure out how it happened and swore it was akin to the Immaculate Conception. Mercy, he kept repeating over and over again, this pregnancy was a blessing from the Almighty because the child was conceived in the oddest of ways. That night, Lucille was in desperate need of the kind of intimacy that she’d always dreamed about but never experienced with Leander. It had been years, and she yearned for a feeling, an emotion, anything to remind her of who she once was before she settled for Leander. Of course, Leander attempted to satisfy her urges. He performed the best that he could, but his best never became firm enough to reach that warm place inside her that ached for attention. Exhausted by the effort, Lucille turned away and wept just in time to feel him release himself on her left leg right above the knee. Shortly thereafter, her cravings began, and their blessing came through her womb straight from the heavens above.

  It didn’t take long for Lucille and Leander to realize that Mercy was an exceptional child marked for greatness. They both knew she had maneuvered quite a distance up her mama’s leg to come into the world. And from the moment she was born, they showered her with anything that she ever wanted. She was supposed to be on this earth, and no one could convince them otherwise. She was a walking miracle, a gift from Jehovah, and they told her so almost every day of her charmed life. They would have signed their souls over to the devil and sold everything they owned to make her happy, but in the end, all Mercy ever wanted was Lucius Culpepper. And despite Lucille’s misgivings about her only child’s peculiar request, she sent Leander to the Culpepper place to inquire about a job for Mercy when she was seventeen years old. Lucille wanted her daughter to have her heart’s desire. After all, Mercy had worked so hard and crawled so far to be a part of creation.

  Friday • December 1 • 9:06a.m.

  Am I a horrible person for even contemplating this insanity? Well, under the circumstances, I guess I am. Attempting to justify my feelings is a sure sign that I’m just no damn good. Clearly, there’s no way around it. I am a horrible person, a wretched, conniving ho, tramp, slut. I deserve happiness, don’t I? Doesn’t everyone? I deserve to live my life free of Dahlia. She’s had her chance to be blissful all these years. Is it my fault that she can’t hold her life together? No. Hell no. Why should she continue to have everything while I continue to have nothing? No one has ever helped me do a damn thing. No one has ever supported me. Why, why, why do I have to live like this? Locked up like a genie in a bottle.

  Who is going to pick me up when I fall? Who do I have to turn to in a crisis? Shit, no one but Roscoe, and he’s half the man he used to be ever since he sprang that leak. All I have ever done is protect her, keep her from harm’s way, and remind her that she was not alone. For years, I’ve been there. Me, propping her up, propelling her forward, reinforcing that she could survive what happened. And now she abandons me! Well, I’m abandoning her first. I’ve been there for every major event in her life, and now it’s my turn in the spotlight. I’m taking the microphone, baby doll, so you get your ass in the background where you belong. From now on, I’m looking out for me, paying attention to what I want and what I need. That doesn’t make me psycho, does it? Right now, I figure it makes me sane, focused. Hey, I’m not the one peeing on my damn self in front of a room full of people. I know I’m not perfect, but I have talents. I do. I have gifts. I can pretty much do whatever I set my mind to. I’m smart. I’m attractive. I’m financially independent. I take care of myself, dammit. I’m a warrior, and Dahlia better not fucking forget it. I’m owed here, and if she won’t give me what I’m due, well, then, I’ll just have to go and take what’s rightfully mine.

  Phoebe closed her journal, licked the rim of her wineglass, and danced around her apartment naked. She casually admired her taut backside in a full-length mirror and scanned her closet for possibilities. Every aspect of this plan had to be executed perfectly. She was determined to make a good impression. She wanted Milky to realize that he had chosen incorrectly. After all, she’d seen him first, and she wanted him to rectify his mistake no matter what the cost. She knew that Dahlia would find out eventually and that their relationship would never be the same again. She accepted that this was an act of betrayal on her part, and she knew deep down that she was wrong for planning to seduce her best friend’s husband; she simply didn’t care. There was no turning back now. She craved Dahlia’s life. Every sacred part of her that she cherished—love, friendship, honor—had all suddenly become figments of her imagination, concepts that no longer resided in her soul. In the scheme of things, they were no longer relevant to her survival. Nor were Dahlia and Isabel. They, too, were expendable. Nothing or no one mattered anymore. Phoebe slid her hand down her lavender lace panties and smiled. She was alone, but she wouldn’t be for long.

  “Okay, where did we leave off?”

  “I don’t know, Dr. Kelly. Don’t I pay you enough to answer these kinds of questions yourself?”

  Dr. Kelly glanced at his notes. He knew exactly where they left off the last time, but he sensed that he needed to be especially cautious. The patient became increasingly edgy and aloof when he inquired about her family. She always steered the conversation to another topic or quickly ended the sessions. He couldn’t force her to stay, of course, so he had to find a way to convince her that his questions were nonthreatening. He had already posed a series of reality-based questions, and her answers were textbook. On the surface, she appeared to be normal and somewhat well-adjusted, but his twenty-five years of experience assured
him otherwise. Perhaps it was time he attempted another approach. Instead of moving from childhood to the present, he decided to work backward—in a way, psychologically tricking her into believing he was no longer interested in a certain area of her life. He scribbled new notes on his pad and prepared himself for a heated exchange. “Do you like your husband?”

  “What kind of question is that?”

  “A very direct one, I would say. Well?”

  “Yes, I like my husband. I even love my husband—most of the time, anyway.”

  “What do you love about him, exactly? In fact, tell me how you met.”

  “The thing I love about him the most is that he loves me. And he’s stable and so secure about himself. He is the most openly defined person that I have ever known.”

  “What do you mean ‘openly defined’?”

  “You know, no surprises. I always know what to expect from him. He is who he says he is, and unlike some people, he’s incapable of any unexpected diversions.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t follow.”

  “He’s predictable. No bombshells. No shocks in the middle of the night.”

  “So I gather you don’t like surprises.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I just don’t, okay? Do you want to hear the rest of this or not?”

  “Yes, please continue.” Dr. Kelly watched her closely. “Now tell me how you met Michael.”

  “Geez, that seems like a lifetime ago. I walked into his restaurant one day after shopping in Old Town. He took one look at me and brought me a martini glass filled with milk. I liked him and he liked me. The rest is history.”

  “That’s it. No fireworks. No passion.”

  “Why the surprise, Dr. Kelly? Were you expecting a Lifetime story?”