Return to Love
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Remembering the night sent arrows of heat through Regina’s body. She was letting the memory overwhelm her, when she needed to be figuring out what to do now and where they would go from here.
Only, there was no they, and one night of passion didn’t erase six years of frustration and hurt and loneliness. It didn’t bring back their child or make their wedding happen. It didn’t turn back time.
* * *
Nigel had woken up early, before dawn. He couldn’t get back to sleep, but he didn’t want to wake up Regina. He thought about it—round two—but decided he had better not. His day would have to start in a bit, and he wouldn’t be able to take his time.
He just held her for a while, smiling to himself because she was back in his arms. His happiness was tainted by the fact that their child had been lost. He still needed to deal with that, and he needed to help Regina deal with it, too. He could see how much she was still hurting, and how angry she was that he hadn’t been there. He could never make up for that, but he wanted to spend the rest of his life trying.
Nigel slipped out of bed just as the sun was about to come up. He washed up as best he could, dressed and went to look for something for them to eat. He didn’t know whether she had to be up early on a Monday or what time the studio opened, but he knew he would wake her before he left. This way, they could have breakfast together. They could start their day and their lives together, start healing.
He found her key on the counter next to her purse and drove down the street to see if any place was open. It turned out that he could have walked, because the café on the corner already had customers. He got them bagels with cream cheese, bacon and eggs, pancakes, orange juice and coffee—more than they could eat.
When he got back, he heard her running water in the bathroom but decided not to disturb her just yet. He found a fork and sat down to his breakfast, checking out her pieces on the walls and thinking about where each one could go when they had their own place.
Nigel caught himself imagining their life together and sighed. They had a lot of talking and healing and forgiving left to do, but he was eager to begin the journey.
* * *
Regina didn’t smell the bacon until she was almost finished getting dressed. Was he still there? She threw on some slacks and a top and peeked out of her bedroom.
He smiled at her from the dining table and began moving the packages he had brought the night before to clear a space for her to sit. His smile almost turned his face into the boyish one she had known before—almost. The cheeks plumped out the way they used to, but the rougher angles remained.
“I thought I smelled bacon...”
“Good morning, beautiful. You did.”
“...but I knew I didn’t have bacon in the house.”
“No, I ran down to the corner to get us something. I hope you’re hungry because I think I overdid it. Come sit.”
Before she could sit down, he pulled her onto his lap and into a long hug. He kissed her cheek and her forehead. He didn’t seem to notice that her body stiffened now at this touch. And before she could protest to the affection, he released her to the chair he had cleared.
She could tell that they weren’t on the same page about last night. She wasn’t ready to broach the issue, but she knew she had to.
“I thought you were gone,” she said.
He must have read that hesitance in her voice as concern or disappointment because he slid his hand under her chin to pull her face toward his. He caressed her cheek with his thumb and said, “No, no way. You must think I’m a rat.”
He let her face go and uncovered her plate and juice, smiling at her. “I know I have a lot to make up for, a lot to prove, but I won’t be running out ever again. I just went to get us some eats. I figured we needed it after last night, which was...amazing.”
Regina looked at the mound of food in front of her and tried to figure out how to get them on the same page.
“I got up early and didn’t want to wake you. I didn’t know what time you had to be up.”
“Early.”
“Then eat up.”
Regina heard the mirth in Nigel’s tone when he mentioned last night. She read the possessiveness in Nigel’s eyes when he looked at her. In contrast, she couldn’t even bring herself to eat. Tired of pushing the food around on the plate, she put the fork down and just looked at it, trying to find the right words.
He came around the table and knelt down next to her chair.
“Hey, what’s wrong, Reggie? I know there’s hurt, but we’ll face that together now.” He put his arms around her and pulled her toward his chest. Regina tensed, not responding to the embrace.
“Hey, what’s wrong?”
“I think we need to talk.”
Nigel scooted back onto his chair. He bent toward her and covered her hand with his own. “Okay. What’s going on?”
“Last night was...”
She saw his face drop, as if he could tell what was coming.
“...like it used to be between us.”
“But?”
“But it’s just what it was.”
“Which is?”
“Something we both needed.”
He let go of her hand and leaned back in his chair.
“That’s not all it was, Reggie. Don’t you know that?”
His voice was calm and sincere, but it had an edge that bordered on exasperation. His eyes pleaded with her to see it his way.
“That’s all it can be. I don’t even know you anymore.”
“But that’s what I want, Reggie—for us to spend the time getting to know one another again. You don’t have to make any decisions now. Just give it a chance.”
Regina got up and covered her plate before taking it to the fridge. She needed to be away from his eyes for a minute, to have something to do with her hands. His eyes followed her every move.
“No. We had a chance. I can’t go back there. Maybe I’m just finally getting over what happened back then.”
“Maybe I am, too. Maybe it’s something we can do together.”
She whirled around and looked right at him. “I can’t just forgive you for leaving and then for not being there when I needed you.”
He balled his fists and shook his head. They had finally gotten to the real issue.
“You told me to leave. You put me out. You can’t put me out and then hold it against me when I go. And you didn’t tell me about...the baby.”
“We were engaged. I needed you to be more serious about life, especially about our life together. You weren’t supposed to jump ship. You were supposed to grow up. You should have been there.”
“How can—”
“Stop. I’m not going to argue with you. And that’s all we can do now because we’re never going to agree on it.”
Regina got up from the table. This wasn’t going well. They were never going to see eye to eye. She disappeared into the bedroom and returned with a small, black jewelry case.
“Here.”
She handed him the case, and he opened it. It was his grandmother’s wedding ring.
“I’m sorry I didn’t have time to mail it.”
“It wasn’t just time. If it was that important, you would have mailed it. There’s a reason you didn’t make the time to do it.”
She considered his statement. Maybe it was true. Maybe she’d dawdled because part of her wanted to keep the past alive, to have a keepsake of it.
“Maybe I wasn’t ready to let it go. I am now.”
“I don’t want this back, Reggie. It was for you.”
“It belongs in your family, Nigel, not mine.”
Nigel shook his head. She knew he was fighting a losing battle over the past. Regina saw the disappointment in his face, but it had to be this way. She went back to the dining table and sat down, turning to look at him seriously.
“Now it really is over between us. There’s no reason we need to have contact again.”
“Reggie, this isn’t what I wanted to happen. I want us to have—”
He moved to touch her, but she pulled away. His touches made her stop thinking straight, and right now, she needed all of her faculties.
“I know this seems crazy after...last night.”
“Last night was something special. Don’t throw it away.”
“I...I’d just been holding so much in for so long. I guess it all came out. I didn’t mean for that to happen. I didn’t know it would happen. I shouldn’t have let it happen.”
“It was meant to happen. It’s always been that way between us.”
She shook her head and picked up the check from last night, which was still on the table.
“And this.” She ripped it up like she had the other one. “I’m doing fine on my own, and there is no...child...that you need to care for.”
It was ending, really ending, and her heart had grown heavy with the reality of it, as heavy as the look on Nigel’s face.
She took a teddy bear out of one of the bags on the seat next to hers. It had on a baseball jersey and a cap and had a bat sewn to its hands. It brought tears to her eyes, but she didn’t let them fall.
“Reggie, we’re not meant to end.”
“We ended a long time ago. Over six years ago.”
She turned the teddy bear around in her hand and found a string to pull to make it talk. She fingered the string but didn’t pull it.
“Do you know anyone you can give these to?”
Nigel took a deep breath and looked at the bear in her hands, seeming to feel the same wistfulness she did.
“I have little cousins.”
“Good.”
She shook her head. There was one more thing that she wanted to say.
“Nigel, I’m sorry...it has to end this way.”
But that wasn’t what was on her mind. It wasn’t what was in her heart. She was thinking about having lost their child, but she had no way to speak her shame.
“It shouldn’t end this way. It doesn’t have to.”
“Yes, it does.”
* * *
Nigel carried his packages back down to his car with a heavy heart. He’d almost had it all back, but now he didn’t have any of it. He could have spent all day trying to convince her to give them a chance, but until she could forgive him, he knew that no effort on his part would make a difference.
He opened his trunk and put in the packages. There was no need to keep them now. There was no boy, no girl.
He would have taken the day off if she had been willing to spend it with him. Now he had an hour to get to his place, shower, shave, change clothes and get to the office. Fine.
He’d gone from ecstasy to despair in less than twenty-four hours, and now she had simply shut him down. But he wasn’t going out like that. He had worked too hard to get this far. He would have to bide his time until he could come up with a new point of entry, a new way to get her to soften her heart to him. It still wasn’t over, not yet.
Chapter 4
It had been two weeks since she had seen Nigel, and Regina’s spirits were finally picking up after the emotional turmoil. She had her focus back, and she had an on-site installation to keep her busy.
“Are you going to take off from your morning job tomorrow to get the installation done?”
Amelie was at a workstation in the back of the studio stringing an elaborate necklace—one with rows of turquoise and cowrie shells that tapered to a long V. They didn’t have any customers at the moment, so she and Regina could chat across the back of the shop.
“No, I’ll still need the money,” Regina said. “That’s the only reason I have that secretary job to begin with—steady income until our income here gets steady. Will you be able to stay late next week so that we don’t have to shut down too early?”
“Yeah, no problem. I’ve already covered all of my evening jewelry-making classes at the bead shop. We’ll only have to close early one day.”
Regina had a large order to install in a couple of weeks—a custom kitchen backsplash that she’d been working on for most of the last month. It would bring in some much-needed money, so she had to forgo her hours at the store. Half of the money that came in would be going to renovations, so it was worth losing some income at the store.
“I can’t thank you enough,” Regina said with a smile.
“No prob. You cover for me enough, and you’re here more hours than I am anyway.”
“Yes, but right now, your beadwork is bringing in more income than the mosaic pieces.”
It was true. Amelie was a talented bead artist and sold beadwork supplies as well as her own pieces—mostly jewelry but also hair accents, art objects and even some clothes.
“Oh, mostly the small stuff. My biggest pieces are still sitting here.”
“As are mine.”
Regina made more from her installations than from the studio, but she did mosaics of just about everything one could think of. She had her standing art pieces, but she also did tables, mirrors, planters, sculptures—anything strong enough to stand a layer of tile and grout. For installations, though, she did kitchens, pools, walks, stairs and fireplaces. She’d even done a patio once.
“You know what we need?” Amelie said. “A showing.”
“After we finish the renovations, we should have a real grand opening.”
“And we need to change the name.”
“Actually,” said Regina, “we need to do that now. I’ve been looking into getting our website back on track, and we should get all the updates done at the same time—save money.”
“Speaking of which, I got information about the seminars at the community center you mentioned—the ones I signed us up for.”
Regina looked up from the tiles she was laying out. “Excellent. I’ve been working on the paperwork, but it’s like figuring out tax forms. Why didn’t they teach us this business stuff in college?”
“At least you went to college.”
“Girl, you did, too. You just took your classes in different places one by one. Then you taught yourself. I admire you for that.”
Amelie looked up from her necklace and smiled. “Thank you, sweetie. About the name, we need to get something Black in there, let people know that there are some sisters up in here with some culture.”
“I agree with you there. I actually want to do some more African sculptures. When the front is redone, we can put them in the window with some of your work that has the cowrie beads. More than half of what we do has a Black flavor. We need to find a way to announce that.”
“And we need some incense.”
“No.” Regina groaned and waved her hand in front of her face. “We have enough smells in here with the paints and the clay and your soldering and the hot glue.”
“That’s why we need the incense.”
“No, our classes will pass out from all the fumes.”
The door chime sounded as a couple came in. Amelie winked over at Regina; it was Regina’s turn to see to the customers. She pushed her mosaic onto the table, grabbed a wet rag to get the mastic off her hands and got up to approach the couple.
“Good afternoon. Can I help you find anything today?”
Regina showed them her various mosaic pieces and then the beadwork. They stopped for a long time in front of one of her favorite mosaics, a large piece of a woman in a sarong looking over a patio at the ocean and horizon. They seemed interested in it and took one of her business cards from the counter. They even looked over her portfolio of in-home installations, but Regina couldn’t tell if they would come back.
By the time she was done, Amelie had already begun wrapping up her project and getting ready to leave for the afternoon, as usual.
Mr. Lundstrum came in just before she left.
“Regina has our rent check ready for you, Mr. Lundstrum.”
“I do. It’s under the register,” Regina said.
Their landlord was an old man and walked with a cane. It was clear that he hadn’t had the ability to look after this place for a long time. But he was pleased with the upgrades they’d made and liked having them as tenants.
“Come, my dears. I have a bit of hard news.”
“What is it?” Regina asked, worried that something had happened to his wife, who was also getting on in years and was not as agile as her husband.
“Well, this won’t be easy for you to hear.”
He settled down in one of the chairs at Regina’s worktable and sighed heavily.
“You know I’ve been waiting for you to come up with the down payment on this place. You had first refusal.”
“Oh, no.” Regina could tell what he was getting ready to say, and her heart sank.
“What? What is it?” Amelie hadn’t caught the clue.
“You’ve taken another offer on the house, haven’t you?”
“I’m sorry, dear. I just had to.”
Amelie turned to Regina. “What are we going to do?”
“Mr. Lundstrum, can’t you give us more time? I have an installation in a couple of weeks. That’s a couple of thousand dollars. We can give you that. It’s not the down payment, but...”
Regina didn’t know what else to say. Thankfully, Amelie stepped in.
“We have a good portion of it saved up, and we’re looking for a small-business loan now. Just a little more time is all we need.”
“I’m so sorry. My granddaughter starts her junior year at American University in a couple of months, and we’re strapped. Retirement and the rent on this place haven’t been enough, with school bills and all. We needed somebody who could pay now.”
The old man took off his glasses and wiped his eyes. His sight was going, as well.
“Gentleman in a fine suit came in willing to pay more than we’re asking—pay it now, one time. Wife and I couldn’t say no. Was like looking a gift horse in the mouth.”
“Oh, no,” said Amelie. “What do we do now?”
“Isn’t there anything we can do, Mr. Lundstrum? Anything?” Regina asked.
“I’m so sorry, girls. We just had to take it. Wife wouldn’t want me to tell y’all, but the savings is almost gone—with the economy and all. This way we can pay tuition and put some in the bank to replace what’s gone.”
Regina sighed heavily. “I understand.”
“We wanted it to go to you, help y’all out. But weren’t no way we could wait. Look, I know it’s hard. You just forget about the rent this month and the month after that.”
“We can’t do that,” Regina said firmly. “Can we contact him, Mr. Lundstrum—the gentleman who’s buying the place? I know it’s a long shot, but maybe if he hears us out, if he knows how much we’ve put into this place already, maybe he’ll let us have it after all.”
The old man patted his pockets. “I know I’ve seen his card. Had one of those little cases you hold business cards in. I think I gave it to the real-estate agent we got to handle the sale for us. I’ll get it for you, but dear—” he looked at Regina “—don’t hold out hope for that. He’ll want more than you were going to pay.”
“I know you’re right,” Regina said, “but we have to try.”
“I’ll bring you the information tomorrow.”
“When do we have to be out?” Amelie asked.
“Six weeks from the first of next month. I wanted to give you some time to find someplace new to sell your things.”
“Six weeks for upstairs, as well?” Regina asked.
“Yes, ma’am, the whole building’s gone. He worked for some kind of investment firm. He’ll probably turn it into another restaurant or something. Said he had someone come check it out just a couple of weeks ago.”
Regina went to the cash register and returned with the rent check.
“Here is this month’s rent. We wouldn’t think of not paying it.”
Amelie gave her a wry look but went along.
Mr. Lundstrum crumpled the check in his hand and left it on the table.
“No, dear, no. You’ll need that to find another place to live in, another shop. I know I’m going back on my word to you. I told you I would wait and sell this place to you, didn’t I? Give you time to fix it up a bit and get her going. Didn’t I?”
Tears filled Regina’s eyes and spilled down her face. Her dream for the shop was being ripped away. “Yes.”
Amelie’s arms went around her shoulders and the two women hugged one another.
“Don’t cry,” Amelie said. “You never cry. Now you’ll start me crying.”
But Amelie was already crying, as well.
“I gave my word,” said Mr. Lundstrum. “And here I am going back on it. It’s the last thing I wanted to do. And you’ve got only two months to figure things out and move. I’m so sorry, girls. We just had to take it. Else I don’t know what we’d do for tuition next fall. But that means the least I can do is cut you some slack on the last two months of rent. I won’t take it, no matter what you do.”
“We appreciate it. We really do,” Amelie said.
Regina pulled herself together and let out a deep sigh.
“Thank you, Mr. Lundstrum. Thank you. We understand that you would have waited for us if you could have. And we appreciate you giving us a break on the rent to help us move.”
“Y’all start looking for a place right away. Won’t be easy to find one in this neighborhood.”
“It’ll be impossible to find one here,” Amelie said, but Regina gave her a look that stopped her from going on.
“We’ll start looking,” Regina said. “I’ll let you know what we find.”
After walking Mr. Lundstrum to the door, Amelie flipped the store sign to Closed and locked the door and leaned against it.
“What are we going to do?”
Regina heard the devastation in Amelie’s voice.
“I don’t know. I don’t know. This changes our whole business plan—everything. We’ll need to find a new space—”
“And it sure won’t be in the art district,” Amelie said. “There isn’t a vacancy anywhere around here, and if there is, we can’t afford it.”
“We can check, but I know you’re right. That’s how we ended up here.”
Regina was on the verge of tears again. She looked around the shop, at all they had done already, all the money they’d invested in fixing things up. But she didn’t want to give in to those tears. It wasn’t hopeless; it was just overwhelming.
“We can’t figure it all out right now,” she said. “Let’s finish the day as usual and then start to create some kind of plan tonight—when to go looking for other places, how to move things, where things can go in the meantime.”
“You’re right. I have to get these pieces to the consignment store and then get to my sister’s shower with a present. It’s too early to panic,” Amelie said, but Regina could read the disappointment in her voice. “Let’s talk tonight.”
After Amelie left, Regina tried to carry on with her regular tasks, but her mind kept churning. If they couldn’t find a place in the art district, maybe they should try to get a space downtown. But that would be way out of their price range. Their business proposal wouldn’t float without a location. They even needed an address for their website.
She worked as efficiently as she could on the mosaic for the installation. All of a sudden, that project took on a whole new significance. A couple thousand dollars could make a big difference right now for her apartment search.
Of course she had some money in her savings, and she had her morning job, which could always pay rent. And her parents would always let her come back home temporarily, but she had no intention of asking them for assistance. She had to figure this out.
A man had come in offering more than the asking price for the place. He probably knew it was worth more than Mr. Lundstrum was asking, too.
Regina’s mind suddenly flew to Nigel—flashing five-thousand-dollar checks around and wearing his fancy suits. He had had a case for his business cards, and if she remembered correctly, his card said he worked at an investing firm. He was also the only one she could think of who hadn’t come in shopping. Could he have been the one to make an offer on the place? Did he know that she was planning to buy it? He could see that they were trying to fix it up; he might have assumed that they were trying to get it. If it was him, she was going to be angry as a wet cat.
In fact, the more she thought about the possibility, the angrier she got. Maybe he wanted it as leverage to try to get her back. There he was thinking he could buy her again. Or it could be that he was trying to get back at her for not seeing him. Or... What else, she didn’t know, but she sure as hell was going to find out.