Anyone Who Has a Heart by Jacqueline Powell

Author:Jacqueline Powell [POWELL, JACQUELINE]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780446561624
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2009-05-30T00:00:00+00:00

Theresa

I was sitting in a white floral wing-backed chair at my engagement party three years ago and Don was standing behind me. Our living room was filled with his family, as well as Robert, Nikai and Kalif, as awkward as it was. Don lifted his champagne glass and made a toast. Announced that we were getting married. The crowd gasped with joy and instinctively looked down at my left ring finger. I held it up and wiggled it so that my marquise diamond could catch the light. An elderly woman who’d sat next to Nikai before she ended up causing a scene walked over and hugged me. When she let go, I felt pressure on my shoulder. I looked up and Don was gripping it tightly. Blood covered his face. Reminded me that he’d died painfully, violently. I screamed and yanked away but he wouldn’t let go. I screamed again, literally stumbled to my feet and found myself breathing heavily in the middle of my old bedroom in Smyrna, Georgia. My mother’s silhouette filled the doorway as the breeze danced across the room and took hold of my sweat-drenched nightgown.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

I stood there shaking, crying and wringing my hands. Shook my head.

Mama opened her arms to me. “Oh, Theresa baby, come here.”

She walked me over to the bed and sat down next to me. Wiped the tears from my eyes. And tucked my auburn hair behind my right ear. She was silent, held my hand and breathed with me. I was hurting for more than one reason and she knew this. Don’s death was a big part of it but there were other things involved, other unresolved issues.

I didn’t bother to look up at her when I asked, “Why didn’t you come?”

She sighed, gripped my hand a little tighter.

This time I tried to look her in her eyes but she wouldn’t give me the privilege. “Why didn’t you come and be by my side when Don died, Mama?”

“Richard and I… it was just that I knew that… I don’t have an excuse, Theresa.”

My tears began to flow as I unleashed something that I’d held in for so long. “You know, people tell me that Don won’t die because I won’t let him. But it’s like I can’t let him go. If I don’t hold on to his memory, who will? Nobody cared that he was no longer living but me. His family wanted his possessions, Robert moved away, Nikai fell in love and you…you didn’t even show up to help me. I was burying a man I loved at twenty-five years old alone. Do you know how that feels, Mama?”

She shook her head. “I almost lost my mind and you let Richard, a man who doesn’t even like your only daughter, convince you that I didn’t need you?”

I squeezed her hand as she began to cry. “I hold on to Don because I don’t know how not to. I did what I could. I told myself what I needed to hear in order to make it because of Dameron.

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