I laughed until my side hurt. Where does Kenny get this stuff from?
“What did he actually do with the money?”
He shook his head. “Took one of them senator’s daughters away for the weekend up to his daddy's cabin in the woods. He needed money to impress the girl, buying expensive wine and cheese and sh*t.”
“At sixteen?”
He nodded. “At sixteen!”
I erupted in another fit of laughter. Dang, that is so Kenny like. Gabriel let me laugh until I could laugh no more.
“Alright, I told you mine, now it's your turn.” He said quietly watching me with those stealth eyes of his that missed nothing.
My humor sizzled out. I looked at him for a minute contemplating whether or not I should tell him. How much did he know already? He mentioned my grandma's lamp. I had never told another soul about that.
“How did you know about the lamp?” I mumbled my question. He leaned his head back against the back of his chair.
“You told me.”
I shook my head. “No, I haven't told…” My sentence died as I remembered how drunk I had gotten on our wedding night. The things he told me I had done, shocked me.
“When I was drunk?”
With a smile on his face he nodded. “Yep!”
“How much did I tell you?”
“Not enough. So go ahead and start at the beginning.”
I hung my head, but he brought his hand up and gently lifted my chin so that our gaze was once again connected, our lips were only inches apart. He lowered his head and kissed me gently.
“You still don't trust me?” His soft question tore at my heart. I sat up so that I was looking him directly in the eyes.
“No, it's not that!” I put my hand flat against his chest. “I do trust you. It's just that, my story is a little stranger than yours.” He made a show of settling back and getting more comfortable in his chair.
“Well, let’s hear it, from the beginning.”
I stared at him for a moment longer before I inhaled. Well, I was going to have to tell somebody eventually.
“I was brought up on a small farm in Sweetwater, Texas. It's real small. All the black people there are related to each other in some kind of way. And all the white people are related to each other in some kind of way as well. But my granddaddy was an extreme recluse, so I barely knew any of them.”
Gabe chuckled. “Sounds like my kind of man.”
“You know what? You and my pa-pa actually have a lot in common.” I rubbed my hand through his beard taking in his handsome face. This whole time I thought he was like my great-grandfather, when in reality he was like my lovable pa-pa.
“Anyway…” I told him. “My pa-pa was a super recluse. The only time he went into town was to deliver orders, or if we needed something from the Walmart.”
Gabe frowned. “Deliver orders?”
I pointed to the tray of tarts I had made him. “Yep, we baked pastries and made jams, candies... you name it.” I smiled. “When I was a little girl my mama and my grandmother would be in the kitchen all day filling orders, our phone wouldn't stop ringing. Finally my pa-pa got tired of that, cause he say he never had his wife to himself, cause if she ain't baking, she tired. So he started accounts with the local grocery stores and a few restaurants.”
“Not enough for us to be rich, but just enough for us to get by. That way he could have more time to spend with the woman he loved.” I exhaled.
“Those were some good times, but they weren’t meant to last. My mama got sick with pnemonia and died when I was twelve. And my grandmother who never really got over the fact that she had to bury her only child, died two years later. My pa-pa said from a broken heart.”
Gabe lifted his hand and wiped away a tear that I had not even been aware I shed.
“But after they died, my pa-pa got real protective of me. He said that his mama's beauty had been passed down to me and it was the reason he didn't ever let me leave the farm. When I was really young, I didn't mind, because the farm was my world. Everything that made me happy was there. But the older I got, the more I began to look over the fence and wonder what was on the other side.”
“Why would your beauty scare him?”
I bit down on my bottom lip, wondering if I should answer his question.
“Tell me baby.” He whispered.
“Cause my looks is cursed.” He frowned as if I had just uttered some complete nonsense.
“What?” He hissed.
I nodded. “It's true. My great-grandfather went crazy with jealousy. I kid you not. Me and my great-grandmother look like twins. We have the same hair, same skin, same eyes—everything. Her looks drove him crazy!”
Gabe shook his head. “Her looks didn't drive him crazy, his insecurities did!”
He said that as if he was absolutely certain that was the case. How lovely it would be to trust in that.
“Before you rush to judgment, you should let me finish telling you what happened.”
“You can finish telling me baby, but it ain't nothing cursed about your looks.” I rubbed his chest calming him. My words had truly upset him.
“Well, this is where you and my pa-pa differ, because he believed with all his heart and soul that my looks is cursed. And because of it, he kept a constant eye on me. And well, it didn't help that the night my mama got pregnant with me, was the one night she slipped out her bedroom window to go and hang out with some kids her own age.”
“Kids?” He interrupted. “How old was she?”
I inhaled. “Thirteen.”
A
