As the back of her hand; that’s how she knows and understands him. Not because of his possessions or status in the community but because of how illogical his life is. Even a mother of twins has her favorite one, even doctors have their favorite patients and as for Dr. Mkhize, a Clinical psychologist, it’s Emanuel for her.
Behind her four pink walls that fitted with the sky-blue thick carpet, the truth had been out of horses’ mouths.
He stared at her chubby round figure when she opened the curtains: sunlight seeped in and it gave him an illustration he didn’t want to miss; having its picture hung over his wall. He captured it with his mind and never took it out of his mind: even though a certain lady did great contentment to it.
‘You’re early today.’ Her voice had a bit cold tone in it but he never paid attention to it.
‘I am a paying client. I’m starting to go mad, Doc, her face appears everywhere. I close my eyes she’s there, I try to think of work, and, and, and…’ His voice trailed off in ecstasy.
‘What matters is how happy she makes you.’
He stared dreamingly at the beautiful art of the morning sunlight with a smile on his face. It was the first time they’ve changed their topic to something chewable. They’ve talked about, death, illnesses, jail and all a person could think of as bad, but never of love. The topics changed when it suits him, like how climate change does great awe to the world.
‘Tonight she’s coming back.’
‘From overseas?’
‘Yes, she passed the tests and I think she’s a qualified medical doctor now.’
‘You know what that means, right?’
He took his glance off the water bottle on the table that reflected the sunlight and stared at her.
‘What does it mean?’
‘It means a lot of work, hands-on on the most critical cases. And people get hurt, every day.’
He giggled, ‘Pshh! she’s mine. No patient will take her away from me.’
‘Where did you meet her?’
He dropped his smile remembering that he was once her patient when she was doing her internship at Live Life Private Hospital.
‘No patient is this handsome.’ He stroked his freshly shaved chin. His hard jaws shone when he smiled.
‘Do you think she’s the one?’
‘I don’t think. I know she’s the one.’
‘You didn’t leave a room for disappointment?’
She wrote in the journal while speaking.
His heart rate started to increase, his breath began to be heavy; with her on his mind boarding off the plane with another foreign man.
‘Do you think she will disappoint me?’ His lips were clasped together and his voice got out thick and heavy.
‘I don’t know her intentions. But if she does what will happen?’
‘I’m going to stick around,’ He stood up and walked towards the window, ‘until she understands that I’m the one. The only one for her.’
‘You can’t hold her against her will.’
‘Sure I can. Sure I will.’ He inserted his trembling paw into the blazer’s pocket and took out a small squared golden chest. He went to her and opened it: a diamond ring blasted its sparkles to her eyeballs.
‘I am going to make her mine until death do us apart.’
‘It’s so beautiful and looks costly. I see you’re breaking the cheating chain off your genes.’
‘Only my father was a womanizer. Not me, I respect women. And besides, I’m madly in love.’
‘I thought it’s been a month.’
‘Time tells no bond.’
‘Is it possible if I sometimes meet her?’
His phone rang, ‘Sorry, it’s her.’ He answered it and went back to the window. She glanced at her notes and grinned at the transition he had made within a week. She was the one who steadied his anger. She was the one he called after he chased his mother out of his house. She was the one he called when he beat the police officer into a pulp and bought the judge and she is the one to witness their love at its purest: A spark that’s bound to be turned into a flame.
‘…Okay, I’m on my way.’
He concluded his call and dived out without saying his goodbye – It’s usual of him: he’s not the person to be involved in other’s life, only a girl he’s made of and the only he’s ever been made of.
Under the shade of the bus stop, she stared at the wide terminal with her luggage. From inferior to aging people who sat next to her boarded the bus and it swift away. She patiently waited for his lover like a groom waiting for a bride at the pulpit: but it’s been over two hours now and her sweatdropped and kept on dropping even her tiny hand surrendered to it. A black SUV BMW halt in front of her. The window slid down and she frowned to see the face of her pastor.
‘Need a lift, child of God?’
‘…Ah, no. I’m waiting for someone.’
‘Jesus? He’s on His way, repent while there’s still time.’
Over five years she’s been at his church and that’s the only thing he preaches of.
A grey Porsche Cayenne came drifting and thundering from the upslope. Their conversation went to mute when the Porsche hault in front of the BMW and the driver intentionally made a deafening noise.
The pastor sat flat on his leather seat staring at the convertible vehicle. Finally, he drove away and gave the Porsche a space to park. Her mouth widened into a smile when she laid her eyes on the light-brown fading eyes with his black fluffy hair of her boyfriend.
‘Need a lift?’
She flung her Ginger Mary light summer dress in and shortly she kissed his lips.
‘You took long.’
‘I had some stuff to deal with. So you leaving your butt behind?’
‘My boyfriend, my strong built boyfriend is going to carry them up with his strong hands and…’
He laughed and got out to get her luggage. On their way they passed by a Café and few stalls, she was raving about the weather, lifestyle, talent, and courses available in Cuba; though it didn’t make sense, by the speed she spoke and her tiny voice in ecstasy, it sounded sweet and she looked so pretty in his eyes.
‘You’re hungry?’
‘Yes, but not fast foods please. I’ve had enough of them.’
‘Fruits?’
‘Yes. From now, no more meat, no more diary. I’m vegetarian, actually, we are.’
‘What?’ he yelled.
‘Yes, fruits and vegetables and steamed veggies not fried or deep-fried. It’s so unhealthy and it decreases life expectancy by 30%…’
‘Here we go again.’ He murmured and hit the steering wheel.
She stopped talking and widened her eyes, remembering something, ‘oh, no!’
‘What, what is it?’
‘I forgot to tell my Auntie…’
‘About us?’ He sounded disappointed and she opened her mouth and closed it: she had no reply to his question and that wasn’t what she had forgotten also.
‘Are we going to date in shade forever?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Emanuel.’
‘No, answer me.’ He turned off the engine and parked right on the highway, different honks honked pass by.
‘Drive!’
‘I won’t. Do you love me?’
She rolled her head from the back to the front a sudden panic hit her: not a panic of the question but the rush hour gave her chills and wild imaginations of accidents.
‘You’re going to cause accidents.’
‘Dr. Mkhize said a heartbreak is equal to a numb person who is in a coma…’
‘-I love you, now drive.’ She was just saying that to avoid the chaotic drifts.
He smiled and took off.
‘I promise to love and honour you for the rest of my life.’
‘Now it’s getting out of hand. I thought we said one step at the time.’
‘I love you, Annabelle, I love you.’
‘Emanuel, love is a heavy word. We’ve been dating for a month to use it.’ She was polite as Dr. Mkhize and he felt the comfort he felt with Dr. Mkhize.
‘What do you mean?’
‘My mother used it,’ she dropped a tear but her voice didn’t change its tone: she was used to the sad stories she told her patients – to have the strength to fight for their lives but never had the strength to pull back her own tears. ‘She used it more often to the same unfaithful guy and before she knows it, she was skinny and lifeless on the bed. The same bed he slept on with different women.’
‘Your father?’
‘That rubbish is not my father!’
‘Okay. It’s not good to hold grudges, it will only suck you…’
‘Don’t you ever tell me what to do? You’re not my mother!’
‘I was just…’
‘-Take me home.’
‘Anna…’
‘-Now!’
Indeed it needs specialties to neutralize a person’s emotions. It looks so easy and simple how Dr. Mkhize consults her patients but it’s so difficult with only a 26-year-old woman.
They drove an hour drive with a silence struck in between their seats. Everyone was deep in their thoughts, he parked on a sidewalk with the bonnet pointing at Annabelle’s home yard. With a single button, he locked every door.
She tried her luck but her hand was soft and delicate. ‘Open the doors, Emanuel.’
‘I don’t want to. I love you.’
‘I heard you. Now open the goddamn doors!’
‘Yell all you want. You’re not getting out until we sort this issue out.’
She took rapid short breaths to steady her anger and impatience. ‘Emanuel open the door.’
‘Annabelle, do you love me?’
‘Open the doors first.’
‘No, it’s my car, my rules.’
Her forehead was sweaty even though cold air dissipated from the aircon. She started breathing deeply and hearing nothing from Emanuel while he explained his love to her and waved the ring on her face. She passed out and hit the window with her head.
‘Annabelle! Annabelle! Anna!’
He opened every door and window and dragged her to the warm ground. She slowly opened her lids to the frightened face of Emanuel.
‘I love you, I love you.’ He cried.
A slenderous woman came running with a bag full of groceries and didn’t pay attention to the dropping of cans of beans.
‘What are you doing to my daughter?’ She pushed Emanuel away and hugged Annabelle, ‘Bella! It’s me, baby.’
She kissed her head. Emanuel had his back against the car.
‘What have you done to her?’
‘She passed out.’
‘Save it, you’re going to explain to…’ Her eyes met the brown eyes of Emanuel and her face was assailed in shock: Like she was seeing a familiar stranger.
‘…Who are you?’
It was a silly question to inquire about a wealthy artist who made stacks of money from painting on streets, robots, and malls.
‘Emanuel, Emanuel Riet.’ Though his mother was long married to his late father he used his mother’s ancient surname – He believed his surname came with shame and cheating.
‘Emanuel, help me get her in.’
They both carried her and Emanuel was amazed; he thought she was dead: Annabelle’s mother.
‘You’re not dead?’
‘What do you mean? do you know who I am?’
‘Yes, Annabelle’s cute mom.’
She laughed softly and pushed the door with her shoulder, ‘I am her Aunt. Her only Auntie.’
‘Ohh! I’ve heard of you.’
‘And I never heard of you.’
He dropped Annabelle to her Auntie’s shoulders: he was shocked to witness a portrait as the same as he had before burning it down with his clothes and everything that held his memory.
‘I forgot to throw it.’ She grabbed the portrait off the wall and shrink it into her paw.
‘Is that, Is that…’
‘It’s Frank, her father.’
He fell to the ground with his knees.
‘…What?’
‘One night stand killed him. Ohh, Frankie loved women, and sadly he…’
Emanuel grabbed the coffee table in the centre of the room and threw it across the room and it landed on the television.
‘Are you crazy?’
Annabelle woke up completely, ‘Emanuel…’
‘That man is my father, that man is my father, that man is my…Arghhh!’ He hit the walls with a couple of fists, he wasn’t angry with the fact that his father’s face was familiar, but because his father had another seed and that seed is now a woman he sees no future without – A woman of his dreams.
‘Emanuel calm down!’
Annabelle started weeping in silence while digesting the fact that she kissed her brother but not only that; Its a fact that she’s in love with him, though she never admitted it: afraid of the situation with her mother and now when the news simmered on such blistering day, like a steamy tar, she wished she never came back home.
He grabbed her shoulders and stared deeply in her shiny eyes full of tears and terror.
‘You’re not my sister, you are not my sister!’
Annabelle’s aunt came with a dusty picture and slid it across the sofa, ‘I’ve been hiding this secret. I’ve sworn I would take it to the grave but here it is.’
It was a picture of a tall, lean man carrying a baby that looked exactly Like Emanuel – It was him, he was five years old but his oval face was there with his fluffy hair.
Siblings wept in pain while huddled together into the cushions of the sofa.
‘I love you.’ After all the shock and daunting news that could take an old woman with a snap of heart attack and sent an old man to Alzheimer state, all the siblings could do is to confess their love to one another: Love that knows no boundaries, love that heals every wound and the love that dissolves hate into a thin bitter pinch.