Page 27 of Happy Is On Hiatus
Sharae resumed walking to her car. That headache that had been brewing when she first arrived was on full blast. She needed something to eat, a couple of aspirin, and a drink.
“I shouldn’t have to deal with any of this,” she said, surprising herself and apparently Rita and Jemel as well.
They’d both been on their way to their cars but looked up at her outburst.
“He never did anything for me,” she continued as Jemel and Rita now walked toward her. “Nothing.”
No phone calls. No birthday cards. No hugs.
Those words lodged in her throat.
“It’s okay to be angry with him, Sharae. Nobody’s saying you have to be beside yourself with grief.” Rita took her hand. “But I know you, and I know you don’t have it in you to hate anyone.”
“But Ishouldhate him, Rita!” Her fingers clenched at her side. “I should hate him and the air he breathed all these years. I should’ve told them his body could rot in the morgue for all I cared. And all this other estate shit, I should just let that go however it needs to go without my help. Because he was nothing to me. Nothing!”
What was that saying about protesting too much?
She couldn’t think. Her mind was a flurry of past events, mingling with the present. Sanford pushing her on a swing in the backyard when she was nine; her mother lighting the candles on her birthday cake while Sanford carried her over so she could blow them out when she was five; the Christmas morning when she was ten and Sanford took her outside in the freezing cold to teach her how to ride her brand-new bike; and the night she’d sat at the police department crying and confused until Aunt Vi and Uncle Hale had come to pick her up.
Her chest hurt so much she thought for just a second that it might be better to simply not breathe.
Jemel was on her other side then, her arms going around Sharae’s waist, while Rita’s circled her shoulders. Sharae couldn’t do anything butlean into them. How many times had they stood like this when one of them was going through something? A lot. Most recently, last week at Rita’s when she discovered her husband was an ass.
Now it was Sharae’s turn, and she hated it. She despised the raw emotion that had been bubbling inside her all last week and through the weekend. Not one day had passed since learning of his death that Sanford didn’t cross her mind. Him, her mother, and all Sharae had lost.
“I don’t want to hate anybody,” she said honestly. “I just don’t want to care either.”
“You’re not built that way,” Rita said. “And I’m glad for that. You’ve got a good heart, and your mother would be so proud. We’re all proud of who you’ve become.”
“If you don’t want to keep the ashes in your house, Rita will keep ’em in hers,” Jemel said.
Rita looked around Sharae to glare at Jemel. “Excuse me?”
Sharae chuckled. She loved these two women. They were hers. Maybe they weren’t sisters, but they were blood, and they’d always belonged to her, especially Rita, who’d let Sharae climb into her bed and cry herself to sleep on countless nights after she’d come to live with them.
“I’ll take that expensive-ass urn,” she said, giving them both one last squeeze before breaking their embrace and stepping toward her car. “I might put it on the floor in the back of my closet, but I’ll keep it.”
Or she’d leave it in some alley to rot the way she’d wished Sanford would’ve rotted in prison.
Chapter 12
DO YOU SHARE?
Sharae held a receipt in one hand and a fourth of the giant Italian cold-cut sub she’d picked up from Jersey Mike’s in the other. The total funeral home bill had come to $1,217.84. Money that wasn’t in this month’s budget. Who was she kidding? She never made a budget, despite the numerous times Rita had offered to create one for her.
She was single, loved purses and shoes, but could live off the leftovers she packed from Rita or either of the Aunts’ houses on any given day. Since she’d opted for the police academy over college like Jemel and Rita, she had no student-loan debt. Jemel had a gripe with her tossing her money into the abyss of a rental apartment, but Sharae was fine not having the weight of plumbing and other expensive household repairs on her shoulders. Still, last week when June was about to come rolling in, she hadn’t imagined she’d be shelling out this type of money on a man she didn’t even like.
The knock at her door had her dropping the receipt and looking over her shoulder toward the living room. Her dining room table was positioned near the window so she could stare outside while she ate. Skylines had always been her favorites. Interruptions, however, were not.
Setting her sandwich on her plate, she grabbed the napkin beside it and stood to answer the door.
First thing she noticed when she opened it was that this man was too damn fine. Did that matter? Of course not, but still. It wasn’t just the crisp lines of his beard and haircut, it was also the cheekbones that were too sharp and too perfect for a man. The eyes that weren’t extraordinary in any way, but when they fixated on her, made her heart stumble and her palms sweat.
“Oh, you did say you were coming over.” She tripped over the words as her mind tried to readjust to the business reason Desmond would be at her door.
“I did, and I’m on time too.” The edge of his mouth tilted in that barely-there-but-still-potent-as-hell smile, and she frowned.
“Well, come on in, and let’s get this over with.” Backing up, she left enough space for him to walk past and into her apartment.
