Chapter 26
Famke wanted to go straight to bed. Bram had already locked himself in the room almost immediately after Royal’s parents had left. Imani was a vivacious woman, and her husband Cliff was a down-to-earth man with a booming laugh. He was warm and personable. Their combined affections, happy laughter and high. energy had exhausted the Noor siblings. She also suspected Bram was feeling a bit overwhelmed by the presence of Precious.
Since the time she had confessed to having had a baby as a surrogate, something he had never noticed while he’d been undergoing treatment and recovery, confined mostly to his bed and later a wheelchair with limited vision, he had never fully understood the role she had played. Seeing Precious in person, seeing the way Famke was reacting to the situation, was making it real in his mind and the sacrifices she had made to pay for his surgery were looming large over him suddenly. She had caught him more than once looking at her sadly and while she wanted to reassure him, she had no regrets, she knew nothing she said tonight was going to make it better for him. He needed to process on his own.
“Are you okay?” Royal’s voice cut into her thoughts.
She gave a nod, shaking herself out of her reverie. “Yes. I’m fine. It’s simply been a long day.”
“Are you ready for bed?”
“I think so.”
“Can I tempt you with a glass of wine before bed? I’m not quite ready to settle down yet.”
She wanted to refuse but she had a feeling she would be laying awake staring at the ceiling questioning her mental state for agreeing to put herself through this weekend. “You know what, a glass of wine sounds
really good.”
“Come on, then,” he said with a smile. He walked beside her down the stairs, “my parents really liked you. Mom broke her hip two years ago and so dancing is hard for her. She can’t keep up with Dad. He liked having a partner who he could twirl all over the living room.”
She grinned, “he reminds me a bit of my mom, actually.”
“Your mom, not your dad?”
“No. My mom was the dancer. She used to dance everywhere. Once when I was about twelve or thirteen, a pop song she liked came on in the middle of the grocery store and she started dancing. Bram would have been a baby, three or four. The two of them were dancing and I was mortified, being a teenager and all. She could sit and listen to music all day and all night and never grow tired of it. Your dad said he spends most of his retirement listening to records. Mom would have done the same.”
They walked into the kitchen where he went straight to the wine rack and pulled a bottle of red wine down. “Red, okay?”
1/2
“Definitely. I’m not a big drinker. A glass or two a year, if that.”
“Really? Why?” He held his hand up, “no judgement, simply curious.”
“My aunt was an alcoholic. She drank away the money my folks had saved. My dad had really good insurance. He was a child psychologist working at a non-profit. My mom was a preschool teacher. The thing is, when Dad died, he did have a will which stipulated health insurance had to be paid out of the savings until we were both eighteen. The payments were made by the lawyer but the monthly payments which were supposed to be used to take care of us, she drank it. When Bram got sick, she told the doctors she couldn’t make the deductibles on the insurance plan, yet she was still able to have a case of beer in her fridge every single weekend and she tried to get the lawyer to release the money he was using for the deductibles to her. There were times we didn’t have milk but there was beer. So, we applied for emancipation from her under the guidance of the lawyer. I never drank underage or in school. Then when I was finally old enough to legally drink, I was working to support me and Bram. He had been sick from the time I was eighteen, but it was exponentially worse after I turned twenty. By twenty-one, your brother and Mindy came into my life and at twenty-two I was helping Bram continue his rehab and get through school. I needed to work two jobs and keep a roof over our head and food in our stomach and it meant not a lot of time for social drinking, and I never wanted to be my aunt, drinking at home alone.”
