her head in agreement, as Mr. Newmont mouthed words I couldn’t make out. After about twenty minutes of this, she waved for me to come on. When I got to the door, I remembered to say thanks for the invitation to Mr. Newmont who was still standing next to Glenda at the front entrance. He just smiled as Glenda and I left. In the car Glenda shook her head and said more to herself than me, “You know, I think I hate the Newmont’s.” She never said a word after that about what Mr. Newmont said to her nor asked if I enjoyed the party.
GLENDA
I never intended to have three, just two, boys that is. Don’t get me wrong though, I loved all three of them. They made the house lively after I put Ralph (my ex husband) out. I couldn’t have just lived there alone without him. The boys gave me hope. I just couldn’t deal with Ralph’s drinking and the philandering with women. There was just so much a woman could take and I had reached my limit. I dealt with his bad behavior for way too long. Moreover, I had two young boys, and he was a bad influence on them.
I couldn’t have him teaching my boys his worthless ways.
Now Arun (Lillie’s husband), God bless his soul, but there was a real man. He was someone you could depend on, with an education and a real opinion. He wasn’t just a person with a GED and a lousy warehouse job like Ralph. Too bad that God took Arun so soon. He (God) must have wanted him in heaven, and I don’t blame him— he (Arun) was almost angelic.
That new pastor we have, Adamson, it just took much more effort for me to stomach him, with his extra words and lack of discretion. The “flock” loved him though, couldn’t have gotten a better replacement from God, they said. I was not so sure, there weren’t any better replacements, but I was grateful for his leadership. I mean, where would I be without him? My sister was dead, my ex husband was lousy, and I had three boys to raise on a receptionist’s salary. I needed his direction.
The accident, where Lillie and Arun were killed, just caught me at the lowest point of my life. I prayed everyday to God to help me understand him and my purpose. Lillie and I would talk for hours about how lost we felt after dad died from lung cancer; it was like God sent Arun into our lives to give us hope.
Not everyone was like me and liked nor appreciated Arun in Lillie’s life. Mom, she just never warmed up to Arun. She felt he was always trying to prove how much smarter he was than everyone else. You could see the look of contempt on her face when he would talk. It was like every word was spotlighting her inferiority. It got to a point when she barely called or visited us. I was the oldest, I could’ve sided with mom against Lillie and “this man” who was breaking up our family, but I needed him too. It was never sexual—I gave up those fantasies when Ralph left, but emotionally and spiritually, I fed off Arun in the most despicable of ways. Like a vampire, I sucked whatever life I could get from him (we all did) until he was so mentally exhausted that he fell asleep behind the wheel of that car.
I’d never tell Jeremy that his father had fallen asleep and that was why the tractor-trailer swerved lanes and ultimately crushed the car. It was just not something you told a young boy. Jeremy was so close to his father; it was hard enough to see his ten-year-old face, tears streaming down when I tried to explain that he wouldn’t see them again in this life.
He asked me, “In what life will I see them again?” I wanted to answer truthfully, say I didn’t know but you had to be sure of yourself when talking to young children. They need firm direction, so I said heaven.
After that, I took Jeremy to see Pastor Adamson for instruction and prayers. Pastor Adamson told him—I heard him because I was listening outside the door—that if he lived his life right he would see his parents again. The boy cried for the longest ten minutes of my life. Then I heard him ask between his sobs, “Where? Where will I see them again?” Pastor Adamson replied, “Honestly … I don’t know son.”
The boy just looked so much like him (his father) but his personality was more like my sister, Lillie. Lillie was so talented growing up; she would sing and dance around the house. Father loved her so much (more than me), but I never had a problem with it. I loved her, too. Jeremy was like a lot like her, didn’t ruffle feathers, and got along with everyone, so quiet, so inside his own head. Sometimes that didn’t work for Lillie. I mean, it did get her to college on scholarship, but beyond that, she would never really let you know what was going on up there. She kept it all to herself, let Arun dominate. Good thing Arun had something to offer or Lillie would have been up the creek. Imagine Lillie with a loser like Ralph—a tractor-trailer wouldn’t have killed her, a broken spirit would have.
I couldn’t hate Ralph too much though, gave me two beautiful boys, my reason for living. My oldest, Andres, looked like Ralph, tall and with bold blond hair. The youngest, Christian, looked more like me. Christian—that was my heart and soul. I had him right when I turned my life over to God, named him Christian because of it. That child saved my life. I was right there on the brink with Ralph, drinking and smoking, killing my brain cells. However, one too many broken promises and I had to right what was wrong. If not, who would my boys look to, who would be coherent enough to raise them right?
I remembered when Lillie introduced me to Arun. I was living with Ralph after his first wife put him out. I was just barely past a child myself. She had met him at school, wanted me to meet him. It was obvious from the look in her eyes that she was already far more in love with this man than my meeting him and subsequent approval could change. Regardless, I was excited to meet him. At first I admit, I didn’t understand him. She told me he was from DC, that he was in Law School and that his father worked for the United Nations. She left out that he was African. Everyone pronounced his name like Aaron so I was thinking Aaron Rose, not Arun Rose (shortened from Arundele). Growing up in Kitty Hawk, there weren’t many black children and definitely not African ones. I remembered his large eyes, and I didn’t know whether to think him handsome or strange looking.
It didn’t matter though because Lillie thought of him as beautiful. The thing with Arun was that once he spoke (he had the most melodious voice), his words didn’t have a race or nationality. He commanded respect. I could see after just a few days of being with him why Lillie loved him.
His family though, I never did understand. A bunch of classist, heartless pigs they were. Lillie told me about how it was when she went to their large home in Georgetown. How his mother would hardly look Lillie in the eye. See, they hated that Lillie didn’t come from money and that Arun had chosen to marry her. They wanted him to marry someone else and held his decisions against him for the rest of his life. They also didn’t like that he did not practice law and had decided to be a “preacher,” as his father was quoted saying many times. Lillie told me about how Arun and his father argued for what seemed like hours when he came to his parents’ home to announce their engagement. She heard them in his father’s study, his father yelling obscenities like “fuck your ideas,” and “so this bitch is pregnant.” It was horrible. Arun finally stormed out of his father’s study and announced to Lillie that they were getting the hell out of there. His mother ran behind him, crying, and apologizing for his father’s behavior, but Arun would not turn back. He jumped into his car with Lillie and drove off. Lillie, at this point, was six months pregnant with Jeremy. Arun and Lillie got married the next month in a small ceremony in Charlotte.
At first, Arun’s mother would send letters and called Arun secretly, trying to keep in contact, but Arun would not answer the letters and would always end any phone conversations with his mother angrily. She also shared a reproach for Arun’s decisions (just not as harshly), as his father. Overtime her letters and calls decreased. Most of the time Lillie wouldn’t comment too much about Arun’s family, but I knew they made her feel ashamed for not being the person they imagined Arun deserved. Lillie said that his mother had wanted to see Jeremy after he was born, but Arun refused. If they couldn’t accept his wife, than they couldn’t accept a child who was half her. His mother hung up the phone on him. That was just how Arun was. He never backed down to anyone; he always stood up for what he believed in. Some people called him haughty, but I just thought that he had something to say and the balls to say it. There should be more people like that in the world.
I had never seen Arun’s parents in person until the sad day that he and Lillie were put to