Blind side, p.12
Blind Side, page 12
“It’s not babysitting when it is your own. When the child belongs to you, it is called parenting. I need you to parent your daughter until I can get back,” she told him.
The expression on his face was priceless as he looked at the child, then at the mother. Slow pointed to himself. He again looked at the child. Try as he may to wrap his mind around what had been said, it didn’t seem to be happening in his head.
“How. Why? When...Hold on Cherry, you can’t simply expect me to...”
“Expect you to what Michael?” She asked, using his given name. “Remember the night in Tijuana, about four years ago? See, you do remember. So did my ovaries who decided you were a prime male specimen and allowed an egg to be fertilized. Meet your egg. Michael, this is Naomi. Naomi, say hi to your daddy.”
“Hi daddy,” the child said.
“Hi,” he replied, scowling, his chest growing tight. Swallowing a wad of spit, he finally managed to get out, “I can’t. Why didn’t you tell me? Call me? Allow me to help you.”
“I’m asking for help now,” she said. “Get the bags, take the car seat, take your daughter home. I’ll call when I get free.”
The child fastened her tiny coat, fiddling with the buttons. “Cherry, honestly? This is how you want to handle this?”
“I have no other options to handle this Michael, Shenita was my backup and childcare provider. I have to find my cousin, not for the childcare which helped a great deal while I worked to keep a roof over our heads, but because she’s like my sister. I love her and I will not sleep until she is home safe. Help me. Take our child.”
“Cherry, I have no idea what to do with a kid.”
“Feed it, water it, allow it to sleep regular hours, and don’t kill it. Read a story at night, provide affection and engage in full sentence conversation so her cognitive abilities will develop,” Cherry told him, picking up her work bag. “Also, as often as you can, tell her you love her, and buy gifts as tokens of your affection when she does something spectacular. Kind of like the stuff you did for me to get me into your bed.”
She bent low, opening her arms for the toddler. The child walked into the embrace, but her eyes were on the man she’d call daddy. His eyes as well were on her. She pulled away from her mother, her small mouth opening to say her first sentences to the man who entered her small world.
“Daddy, I gotta poop,” Naomi said, turning around, lifting the coat to show him her tiny, bright yellow flower-laden tights-covered butt.
“Dear Jesus,” he said, as Cherry walked over to him. She tipped toed and planted a kiss on his lips.
“Take care of our baby. I’ll be in touch soon,” she said and walked out into the night. She didn’t look back at him. She didn’t look back at their child. Cherry marched into the night just as she had the evening she walked out on him. He didn’t have the courage to go after her then, but now, he had a reason for her to come back. She had a reason to come back.
The reason spoke up again, “Daddy, stinky air came out my boodie.”
“Lord, order my steps,” he prayed silently, lifting his daughter for the first time in his arms, looking for the bathroom, to start a journey into a life, he never imagined having, and couldn’t see, living any other way.
- Fin-
- Meet Olivia Gaines
- Olivia is a USA Today Best Selling, Emma Award and multiple award-winning author who loves a good laugh coupled with some steam, mixed in with a man and woman finding their way past the words of “I love you.” An author of contemporary romances, she writes heartwarming stories of blossoming relationships about couples not only falling in love but building a life after the sensual love scene.
- When Olivia is not writing, she enjoys quilting, playing Scrabble online against other word lovers and spending time with her family. She is an avid world traveler who writes many of the locations into her stories. Most of the time she can be found sitting quietly with pen and paper plotting more adventures in love.
- Olivia lives in Hephzibah, Georgia with her husband, son, grandson and snotty evil cat, Katness Evermean.
- Learn more about her books, upcoming releases and join her bibliophile nation at www.ogaines.com
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Silent Nights- Chapter One (Excerpt)
Silent Nights- Chapter One- Speechless
Joshua Langdon lived a quiet orderly life, neatly compartmentalized into easily sorted boxes of activities. It was rare, if ever, he allowed the boxes to mix or co-mingle. For him, it was easier that way. The confusion and chaos of the world were held at bay, by the simple of act of opening a box when it was time to play in the sand.
In sandbox one, he maintained with a sharp-tined rake. This box held his work world. A world of the technical writer who wrote the frequently asked questions on websites by providing simple, clear responses to everyday inquiries on how to do the mundane. When he dug deeper into the box leaving the imprint of his size twelve feet in the sand, the work included how-to manuals for setting up and operating home media equipment for the sensory impaired. He found this to be even more mundane since it required the use of pictures. The upside, if one believed there to be such a thing in this scenario, is that he received free products in order to actually write the manuals. Although he found no joy in having an extra microwave, blue-ray, or webcams around his house, his family often appreciated receiving the free gifts.
The gift of family, Joshua also kept in a separate box. A cute box adorned with a neat bow which housed his parents and annoying younger sister. He found her irritating as hell since she loved to interfere in his orderly life by popping in for a visit on her bi-weekly run from Charleston to Martinez, Georgia to visit their parents. Parents who lived in a retirement community that had daily happy hour at 6 pm, and frequent bus trips to do senior citizen activities.
It didn’t bother Joshua much, especially having them close and in a safe environment. Well, as safe as could be from outsiders doing them harm, but twice he’d been called to speak to his mother who often fought, physically, with the other women in the residence. Women in the residence found his father extremely handsome.
“Mom, you can’t keep fighting every woman that flirts with Dad,” Joshua explained.
“Oh, you don’t know these conniving bitches, Joshie. Most of them have nothing to lose and love to run around yelling YOLO. I will cut a chick over my man,” Tessa Langdon professed.
“And how is daddy handling all of this attention?”
“He pretends he doesn’t like it, but one of the young nurses called him a DILF. I didn’t know what that was until I used the little speaker circle you gave us and asked Alegra what that was. I was shocked,” Tessa said.
“Mom, it’s called Alexa,” he corrected.
“Whatever. He’s told me time and time again that his new status as a silver fox is simply nothing for me to worry about,” she told her son.
“And he’s right mom. After nearly fifty years of marriage, now you want to worry about women coming after daddy?”
“Before he was too arrogant as a surgeon and loaded down with cases. I was busy with social engagements and my tennis lessons, now we have nothing but all this time with each other, and you know what Joshie? I don’t think I like him,” Tessa professed. “I think I want a divorce. Can I come and live in the house with you?”
“Mom, you’re moving too fast here,” he said. “I tell you what, let me book you for a treatment at the spa. Get away for a weekend and let daddy miss you, then, then, rethink what you’re trying to do and how you wish to spend your golden years.”
“Okay, but which spa?’
“Out of all of that, you only heard the spa?”
“Out of all of that, that is the only thing you said which was worth hearing,” Tessa said. “You just don’t want me to come back and live with you. Fine. Put me in a nursing home. I don’t care anymore.”
She then went through her normal routine of crying, playing the victim, and threatening to end her relationship with them all. Every other month he went through the same routine with her, wondering how his father managed to live with the woman for fifty damned years without strangling her within an inch of her life. Yet he understood his father’s desire to have a bit of fun. His mother possessed the uncanny ability to dampen the spirit of Jesus after feeding the masses with five loaves of bread and two fish. His mother would wonder if Jesus had washed his hands and if the fish was from a reliable source and mercury free. The woman was a certifiable, overdressed, over Botoxed, piece of work.
However, working all the time to provide for a family at a level to which they were accustomed had been no easy task for his father. It also dampened his box of fun, which seemed to get smaller and smaller with each passing day. Especially now, since he was starting to lose his hearing.
The buzzing about his ears had become this non-stop thing that seemed to be slowly, and methodically descending him into a self-imposed prison of madness. On occasion, he would insert a pair of earbuds to offer music to soothe the beast threatening to pull apart his soul, but the wearing of the buds only irritated his ear canal and the little flap of ear meat that protected his hearing hole, he learned was called the tragus.
Often, he’d allowed his mind to drift to fonder times, hoping to alleviate the reality of what began three years ago and was only worsening as each day went on. He was eventually, in the very near future, going to lose the ability to hear. The constant buzzing took him back to his childhood and the fishing trips with his grandfather. Ollie Langdon wasn’t really a fisherman per se, but he took the opportunity to take a day away from his wife, whom he claimed never shut up. He, was the one man, or one person Joshua Langdon knew was happy when his wife lost her hearing.
He, on the other hand, was not. The consistent hum in his inner ear canal was driving him insane and throwing off his equilibrium. Breathing deeply and centering himself, he mentally went back to Miller’s Pond. Seated on the side of the bank, leaning against the tree, Grandpa Ollie, half asleep, but barely awake, occasionally would reach out to swat at the gnats. The active wings of insects drawn to the sweat secreted from his pores aggravated him to no end. Grandpa Ollie, not so much. He placed a dab or two of the saliva from the chaw in his mouth behind each ear, and the bugs would make a wide berth.
“Hey boy, let me put some behind your ears, them dang bugs’ll leave you be,” Grandpa Ollie stated.
“Uhm, none for me Grandpa,” Joshua would tell him.
On the next fishing trip he asked his father for a can of bug spray as he leaned against the tree watching his grandfather nap. It brought him peace, but there was no can of spray to ease his current discomfort. To make matters distinctively worse, his hearing would go in and out. On the days when the buzzing would stop, that irritating sound got replaced by a constant ringing.
When he’d finally reached his limit, he picked up the phone to call his doctor. Panic set in as he dialed the number and noticed the call connecting, but he couldn’t hear the person on the other line. Why his hearing never faded in and out when his mother called was beyond his comprehension; at least then he’d have a reason to ignore the constant whining- this was something much different. Joshua disconnected the line, hanging up and staring out the window. His sister Monica, who was in town on her bi-weekly visit, entered from the guest bedroom.
The old house in the Hill District of Augusta had belonged to his parents. He loved the stately house built in the early 1900s which still had a carriage house that he meticulously restored with a fantastic kitchenette. At times he looked forward to visits with his sister, today, however, wasn’t one of those days.
Monica told him, standing directly in front so he could read her lips, “Josh, you’re not going to wake up tomorrow and your hearing will be fixed. It’s degenerative. Cochlear implants will not help you. It’s time to face the music.”
“I can face the music, but it doesn’t help if I can’t hear it,” he said, sighing deeply.
“Josh, you’re going to have to learn sign language in order to communicate. In three months, six months, or even next week, you could wake up to a world you can no longer hear. Be proactive instead of reactive,” she said to him, touching his arm. “The group I told you about, tonight they are having an accessibility night at Wolf & Finch Art Gallery downtown.”
“And why would I want to go to this art gallery...accessibility, or otherwise?”
“Because, before long, that group will be your tribe. It’s time to meet the tribe and get to know the people,” Monica said. “Go with me, say hi. The showing is Ellen Diane Amanda, her latest collection. I’m hoping to score a piece for my place in Charleston.”
“She has three first names, I bet her art looks as crazy as her name sounds,” he said, grumbling, not wanting to go.
“Josh, the people who teach the sign language classes will also be there, and maybe, just maybe, you can connect with someone you feel comfortable with to aid you on the next trek of this unfortunate journey,” Monica told him. “Don’t dawdle, get dressed. I don’t want to be late.”
“It’s an art show at a gallery. Is there any such thing as being late?”
“Yes, Ellen Diane Amanda is testing new accessibility equipment for a company and you need to see how the stuff works, plus I want first dibs on a bid,” she said. “If, and this is a big if, you’re a good boy and behave, I’ll treat you to dinner.”
“I’ve had dinner.”
“Then drinks and tapas,” she scoffed, pushing him towards the bedroom to get changed.
HE DIDN’T WANT TO BE here. The colors were entirely too bright. The paintings were entirely too weird and to make his level of irritation rise, his hearing was fading in and out. At times, he could hear moments of conversation followed by the buzzing. It was enough to drive any man to the point of shoving knives inside of their ears to dull the pain.
It did impress him to watch the artist speak. At the base of each painting, she mounted a thin strip that read like a chyron, or the news crawler at the base of a television screen. As she spoke, the words appeared under the image she described. After six of those, the amusement waned. He meandered his way to the bar, accepting a glass of lukewarm champagne which tasted like flat beer, and a mini quiche, warmed in a microwave from a wholesale club.
“Shit, the cost of her paintings, the gallery could have at least hired a caterer,” he mumbled, spitting the crumbly quiche into a napkin.
People started moving about the gallery, a few leaving altogether and Monica entered into a fierce negotiation with the gallery owner over a painting they both wanted. Bored, he stood, leaning against the wall, holding the glass. His mind was on nothing in particular when he noticed the artist staring at him, or at least trying to make it unnoticeable. She failed to turn her lips away, although he could surmise, that she’d lowered her voice to speak to what he assumed was a friend. He knew she’d lowered her voice because the friend moved in closer, almost bending to hear the woman speak. Now he was interested because he knew she was talking about him.
“He is f-i-n-e,” Ellen Diane Amanda said, spelling out the word in sign language. “I don’t care if he can’t hear, see or taste. He could get it.”
Her friend laughed, “lower your voice.”
“Why? He can’t hear me,” she said, glancing at him again, offering a gentle smile. Joshua nodded his head. “I’m not into white men, but that one, I would play with for a while and show him why pink men like dark meat.”
“Seriously Ellen, what does his race have to do with anything? A good man in this day and age is hard to find. Hell, I’d take one that had his own car, a credit rating over five hundred, and didn’t still live with his Mamma,” Jennie said to her longtime friend.
“Your problem Jennie is you set the bar too low.”
“And your problem is you’re too free-spirited, and your bar keeps moving each time you see something interesting. The man is deaf, what are you going to do with a deaf man?”
“The same damned thing I’d do with one that could hear me, have him spank my ass and call me Ellen,” she said, stopping to shake hands with a person who purchased a painting. “Thank you. I hope the painting brings you years of joy.”
Jennie was ready to leave, she’d heard all of this before and Ellen had horrible taste in men. At times, it seemed as if the woman went to the natural foods store and came home with the most pathetic excuse of a man, ready to fix him up and set loose on the world. The last one owned an animal companion who, as she understood it, was to aid in the man’s anxiety. The poor dog was more anxious than its owner and would spontaneously shit on the floor each time it heard a loud noise. Ellen’s latest quest for the betterment of mankind was to teach sign language at a local support group. The group was now present in the gallery as she tested out new equipment by the gallery who received a grant to offer accessibility in art.
“Here you go again, trying to repair the damaged by using your coochie as if it has magical properties,” Jennie scoffed.
“Hey, when I finished with Jamal, he no longer needed that little shitty dog,” Ellen boasted.
“No, when you finished with Jamal, he was the one spontaneously shitting himself. Please, leave that handsome man alone. The dude looks like he has mommy issues, three dead bodies in his basement and a baby momma name Missy Jane who lives in a trailer park in Thomson,” Jennie said.
“Naw...not that one; he’s still feral. He has hungry all in his eyes and if comes over this way, momma is going to put out a bowl of milk with a tad bit of tuna,” she said. “If he walked over here right now, smacked me on the ass and said I want that, I’d give it to him. Besides, he has big feet, large hands, and look at that thumb. I would do him and restore his faith in women. Oh shit...oh shit, he’s coming this way.”
