Page 90 of If This is Love

I’d barely shaken off my trembling when I left Gabe’s house, and it was rushing its way back into my blood and into my veins, through my whole body, and I was straight-up shivering all of a sudden. I gripped my clammy palms together and pressed my eyes shut, trying to breathe myself to a state of calm.

“Ruth.”

I froze.

I didn’t move a muscle. Didn’t flinch. I even managed to still my own shivering. I held my breath.

Just like minutes ago in Gabe’s kitchen, I couldn’t tell what direction the voice was coming from, but I knew exactly who it was.

Abraham.

“He’s not here,” I whispered, my eyes still pressed shut, the fogginess of my mind even thicker. “It’s in your head. Just get out of the car. You’re going to be late.”

The figure moved from the post across the porch, stealthily slinking along, but with his unmistakable, lurching cadence. He was now standing on the top step, separating me from my own goddamn front door, and in a pure reflex, I grabbed my phone out of my purse.

I was about to call Gabe. My thumb was hovering above his name in the call log, and a lump was swelling in my throat, and instinct drove me once again to seek the protection of a good,goodman IknewI could trust with my life. He would protect me from this, Iknewhe would. If he had aninklingwho was standing on my porch, waiting for me in the darkness, Gabe would drop everything andrunto my rescue. I knew he would.

But for some reason, I swiped away from Gabe’s name. I didn’t call him, and I didn’t know why. Instead, I had 9-1-1 at the ready as I pushed out of the door.

I let it slam loudly behind me as I crossed my arms over my chest and stood up straight. Inside my house, Jax was losing his ever-loving mind, wailing and growling and clawing at the windows. I’d have to replace the screens, but Jax was going to get a steak dinner for ripping them to shreds because he knew this man was a threat.

“You better have a good goddamn reason to even know where this house is, Abraham,” I clipped, my mama’s south Louisiana accent coming in thick with the adrenaline pumping through my veins. “’cuz I think you’re about to have to give it to the police. At least if you don’t take your behindoffmy goddamn porch.”

“Hmph.” Abraham gave a disdainful grunt as he cast me a snide but dismissive glance. “Girl, you are lookin’ like a bad blues song right now.” He lifted his red ball cap off his balding head and waved it at me. “Runnin’ off toN’awlinsin a skimpy gold dress like the fast woman you always been.”

“Isaid,” I snapped, Jax barking so fast and furiously that he was chomping at the air behind the windows, “take your behind offmyporch.” I pointed at him with my phone, 9-1-1 still just one tap of my thumb away. “You’re atmyhouse now, Abraham. You’re inmyneighborhood.” I stomped my high heels on the concrete path as I slowly marched toward him. “You are in violation of a court order, so unless you’re ready for me call all my neighborsandthe police, I suggest you get the hell out of here.”

He stood up slowly, groaning under his breath, his joints creaking and popping with age, and he just looked like a sad, lonely old man. Hewasa sad, lonely old man. He’d devoted his life to charlatans who’d been rotting in prison for tax fraud for years, and now he had nobody. The bitterness seeped more pungently from his veins than the alcohol I could smell from here.

The putrid scent grew thicker as he approached me, and Jax was going so wild that I was shocked the neighbors weren’t flipping on their porch lights. No, it was just me and this sad, lonely old man who let the death of his only child bring out the worst in him, and who heaped all his pain onto me and turned me out of the home I’d built with my husband.

Abraham snorted and spit a wad of phlegm onto the path in front of my shoes, looking at me with contempt. “I am gettin’ outta here, but it ain’t because you’re telling me to. I’m gettin’ outta here because I came to see what you become, and I seen enough. First I seen you on the internet, spreading all kinds of lies about the work we did for our community, just so you could profit from it with those godless, elitist billionaires. Now I see you right in front of my own eyes.” He wagged his sausage-sized finger at my face. “You comin’ home in the middle of the night dressed like a street walker and reeking ofsin. You think I can’t smell the sin on you, girl? You think I can’t remember you stinkin’ like sin inmygoddamn house that Igaveto you after you corrupted my son and turned him soft?”

He wasn’t soft!I wanted to scream and screech while I clawed at him like the wild woman he still believed I was.He was nothing but love! Real love you know nothing about!

But that’s what he wanted. He wanted to needle my old wounds for a reaction that he could take back to what was left of their glory days.

Oh you shoulda seen her, church!I could practically hear him testifying behind the microphone.Wearing a gold dress that barely covered her privates and even a used condom stuck to the bottom of her shoe! I seen it! I went down to ol’ N’awlins myself, and I seen it!

Him and every last one of them could go to hell. From where I was standing, Abraham was already there, and I just felt sorry for him.

“The only thing you smell on me is love and freedom,” I said placidly, keeping my chin high. “And the only reason you can’t understand it at all is the only time you had real love, you tried to break it to fit in your tiny version of the world, all because you were blind enough to pledge your life and his to a con man who fleeced you into believing he was God.”

His hand started to lift like he was crazy enough to strike me, but I pointed at him with my phone and planted my foot behind me and gritted through my teeth, “If you touch me, I will ruin the last of your sad, empty life.”

Abraham held his hand at the level of his head, poised to throw his palm across my cheek, and he waited long enough for my eyes to reflexively sweep our surroundings like I was checking for something.

Like I was looking for Gabe.

A stale chuckle wheezed out of Abraham, shaking his fleshy shoulders. “I can’t even do that to you now, girl.” He lowered his hand and dismissively flitted the ball cap at me again. “You’re even weaker now. You don’t even need me telling you how weak you are, ‘cuz you know what you been up to around here.” He scoffed and spit again, pivoting away from me. “N’awlins.” He waved his ball cap through the air. “God did the world a favor drowning half this city in Katrina, but he woulda done better to wipe it off the map with the way sin runs so rampant here.” He looked back at me one more time. “I pity you, girl. Choosing this life and ruining any chance you got to ever see my boy again. All ‘cuz you have a perverse definition of love. What youloveis rebellion. And God’s gonna hand you a fistful oftough lovewhether you believe it’s love or not. You know it, too, girl. You already know. Youreapwhat yousow, and yourseedispoison.”

I refused to waste another breath saying a single word more to him. He continued to plod away, slipping into the darkness and taking his sweet time as I stood my ground in the place I had every right to be.

Your seed is poison.His spiteful words rang in my mind.You reap what you sow, and your seed is poison.

My entire body jolted with a falling sensation, and I blinked.

I was still sitting in my car.

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