His Last Wife Read online

  Kerry thought to point some things out to Tyrian, but he’d long tuckered out. And had his heavy head resting in her lap. In fact, everyone on the plane but Kerry and the pilot was asleep. Val had her head resting on her mystery man’s shoulder. And Baba Seti must’ve worn himself out from all of his talk, because he’d nodded off and his kufi had fallen to the floor.

  “You ready for this?” Kerry asked herself aloud. It was the thought that got her through the ten-hour hopscotch trip it took to get to Cuba. As her traveling companions had engaged in pedestrian conversation, Kerry sunk inside of herself and considered what it would be like to see Jamison again. What she would say to him. Would she let go of the pain of losing him and finding him again? Would she be angry? Would she be mad? Maybe she’d fight him at first, but in her heart, she knew that wouldn’t last long. She had to touch him. To kiss him again. To hear him say he loved her. If she could just have that one more time . . . Just to hear those words . . .

  Kerry rubbed at the little band on her left-hand ring finger. It was her first wedding ring. The one Jamison brought her when he was still a poor man with a dream. He’d promised so much. Was filled with so much potential, so much promise. He’d been a contagious infliction of love and light in her life. They were a part of each other.

  The steward walked down the aisle and took the announcement receiver from its holder on the wall. “All right. Looks like we’re about to land in Havana,” he said with his voice still burdened by newly ended sleep.

  The party began to move a little to the sound of his voice. Val opened one eye and peeked out of the window. She nudged Ernest and pointed to the romantic Havana night. “We’re here,” she said.

  Baba Seti sat up and looked out of his window too. “We’re here,” he said. “All praises.”

  Kerry looked toward the back of the small cabin where Ernest was gathering Val’s bags from the tiny overhead compartment. Val was looking forward toward Kerry. Val winked at her.

  Kerry winked back.

  As the steward moved to open the door, the party was gathered behind him with their eyes focused on seeing the first glimpse of Cuba. It was nearly dawn in Havana, but still the heat was relentless. As soon as the door opened, it seemed to invade the cabin and suck out all the air, drawing every soul out and onto the tarmac.

  With Tyrian hiding under her right arm and snuggled into her hip like she was about to leave him at school for his first day, Kerry scanned Havana and thought of it as a possible home. The green in the woods not far away looked neon in the thin light. Leaves were lush and graceful in a slight rush of wind that could hardly be considered a breeze.

  While Baba Seti kept insisting everyone come stay at Fihankra Center’s community compound, Kerry didn’t want to bring Tyrian there until she was sure of how he’d take seeing his father again. She’d already booked rooms at a small family boarding home that featured day care and facilities appropriate for children. If she’d been on her own, she would’ve demanded to see Jamison immediately after she got off that plane, but being with her child made things a little more complicated and she had to move slower and think like a mother. Val and Ernest decided to stay at the boarding house.

  Outside the airport, an old dented van with the Fihankra symbol was waiting for Baba Seti and his little bag. He’d been talking to Kerry about plans of meeting up that afternoon as they walked through the airport. He’d held Kerry’s hand, told her he sensed her hesitation, and assured her that this was the perfect plan.

  Two men jumped out of the van. While they were much younger than Baba Seti, they were also rather thin and were dressed in simple mud-cloth shirts. One had a short Afro, but his beard was wild and bushy; he looked like he hadn’t ever shaved. He was chewing a wooden stick, but his teeth were new white. The other greeter had unkempt dreadlocks with trinkets hanging from the tips. Some were wooden. Some were bronze. Those matched the rings hanging from his ears and nose. Both men were gracious and greeted Baba Seti with a respectful bow that made it clear to all of the people standing outside of the airport how important Baba Seti must be to those young men.

  Ernest was actually taken aback by the display. He elbowed Val and whispered, “Interesting” in her ear. When he’d showed up at her house for sleep the night before they left, he found Val in her bathroom staring into the mirror. He asked her what she was looking at and she said she was thinking; she always stood in that bathroom when she was thinking. She then told him about Kerry and her mission to Cuba. She didn’t want to go along with it all, but she didn’t feel right about letting Kerry go alone. Ernest came up behind her in the mirror and told her what she needed to hear, but already knew: “You’re going to Cuba with Kerry.” Then he added, “And I’m going with you.”

  “Greetings, my sisters and brothers,” the man with the beard said, nodding to everyone. His American English sounded odd in front of the airport, where white and yellow and a few brown Cubans spoke mostly Spanish. He went to get the bags from Ernest, but Kerry reminded Baba Seti that she was going to the boarding house.

  “Oh, sister, I hoped you’d changed your mind. You really must see the compound. It’ll open your eyes. Help you to see,” Baba Seti said. “Prepare you.” He looked at Val and Ernest. “Prepare all of you.”

  “I think we’ll catch up with you all later,” Ernest said, imposing his male voice in Kerry’s stead. He’d also been following some of the gossip about Jamison being in Cuba. As he’d told Val, he believed it. Well, he didn’t exactly have a reason not to believe it. His father was a Black Father and he knew well what the country meant to black militants. It was seen a refuge. A place to sharpen knives. To prepare. Still, as long as he’d known men and women and revolutionaries who’d gone there for just that, he’d never seen any return home. He hadn’t told Val, but a part of him was anxious to see what Jamison had in store for this. What was he going to do?

  Tyrian quickly adjusted to the Cuban Carribean heat. While his mother, Val, and Ernest had spent the time in their cab to the house wiping sweat and begging the driver of the small van to turn up the half-working air-conditioning, the little boy seemed so happy to be in the tropical sunshine.

  It was a short drive to the boarding house. Through the window, Kerry saw that the part of Cuba she was seeing had so many more levels than what she’d peeped from the sky. There were rich and poor pockets. A beautiful young Cuban man in a business suit who looked like he could be worth millions in America would be standing on a street corner, while a man of similar age and build could be hunched over and begging for change. This was interesting to see in a place that claimed equality for all through even income distribution since its revolution. Since then, all eyes had placed Cuba front and center, some in crosshairs, some in rose-colored glasses. Seeing it up-close, Kerry didn’t know what to make of the Communist dream.

  The boarding house was actually a small and decent hotel on the beach in Playa. From the car, it was clear the place had some decades on it, maybe half a century, but where paint was missing, vines with budding, exotic flowers popped out, making the old beautiful and quaint.

  Ernest had sat in the front seat with the driver, picking his brain about everything Cuban. He sounded like he was on vacation and seeking the hottest places to hang out and things he had to see before leaving the embattled paradise.

  Val was seated behind him, listening to his voice. How confident he was. Cheerful. He sounded so happy. It was like there was nothing dark inside of him. No secrets. No flaws. Maybe a past, but he was a man who was open and honest. She’d never heard him speak to another person. Not to engage. To have a conversation. It eased something in her. He sounded like a man a woman could love. A solid man.

  When the driver opened the van door to let them out at the hotel, Tyrian spotted a few little boys his age playing on a huge, indoor jungle gym in the open-air lobby. He quickly untangled himself from Kerry and begged to join them.

  “Okay,” Kerry agreed, “but stay where I can see you. And don’t
wander off anywhere. We’ll need to go to our room once we check in.” This final message fell on deaf or departed ears. Tyrian was already gone and climbing up the back of a slide behind a boy with blond hair.

  Val was standing beside Kerry as Ernest helped the driver and doorman with their bags. She slid her shades down and looked into the lobby behind Tyrian. “Looks like he’s about to make some friends,” she said to Kerry

  “Yeah,” Kerry said, surprised. It was the first time Tyrian had voluntarily left her side since she’d gotten home. She’d even kept him home from school a few times to avoid his good-bye tears.

  After checking in and being introduced to Anna, one of the home’s nannies, who’d been assigned to care for Tyrian, Kerry found herself in her hotel room, staring at bags and bags of her and Tyrian’s things. Ernest had volunteered to sit downstairs and watch Tyrian play with his new friends and Val went to their room to shower.

  Kerry opened her suitcase and fingered a pair of high-heeled shoes poking out the top. They looked so odd in the bag and she wondered why she’d packed them. What use would they be? This wasn’t a party. This wasn’t a celebration. When she’d flung the plum-colored peep-toes into the small carrying bag she needed to fill to prepare for the two-night stay—that’s as long as she’d thought she’d need to see Jamison and convince him to come home with her and Tyrian—she’d convinced herself that she needed to be ready for anything. Maybe the reunion would be splendid. Something that would require that plum sundress she’d fetched from her bag. Those shoes. The golden earrings. Jamison would show up in a suit with a bow tie. There would be some jazz band or a symphony playing. He’d run toward her, and she toward him. They’d meet. Kiss. He’d dip her low to the ground as if they were ballroom dancing. Then he’d slide a new engagement ring on her finger. Say he loved her and that he’d been a fool.

  Standing right there and right then, she knew she could’ve left those shoes and the earrings at home. There would be no romantic union. She wasn’t sure what it would be, but definitely not that. These people Jamison were with—the people from the Fihankra Center, Baba Seti—they were on a mission. One for which Kerry had no shoes, understanding, or identity. She knew that before she got on that plane, but now her head was reeling in worry about it. She was considering that maybe Jamison didn’t want her there. If maybe Jamison had no intentions of ever seeing her, his family, his world ever again, and she was scrambling to get to him and bringing it all with her. She’d be rejected, made the fool, turned down and away.

  After knocking on the half-open door, Val walked inside in a thin sundress that clung to her still-wet skin. A towel was over her hair. She had her cell phone in her hand.

  “You busy?” Val asked.

  “Just unpacking. How was your shower?”

  “Short, but it’ll do.” Val held the phone out to Kerry. “I was checking my messages and someone sent me a link to this picture.”

  Kerry took the phone and looked at the screen. There was a picture of the van parked outside the airport. The one Baba Seti had gotten into to go to the Fihankra Center. Beside it were Kerry, Val, Ernest, and Tyrian. Baba Seti was there too. The men who’d retrieved them from the airport were bowing to him.

  “This is us,” Kerry said, interested in the image, but not yet bewildered, as Val expected her to be.

  “I know. It’s kind of odd. I wasn’t sure if I should show you.”

  “Who took it? Where’d you get this?” Kerry asked.

  “It was on some Web site. A news Web site.” Val reached over and scrolled the screen on the phone to the next photo. “This next one was on a blog. There’s more.” She scrolled again and again. The images were taken from various vantage points and at different times. One was taken right outside of the hotel.

  Kerry covered her mouth. “This is crazy. Someone’s following us?” Kerry looked at the room door.

  “Clearly. I read one of the articles,” she said, opening the screen to show Kerry. The headline read: TAYLOR’S WIVES ARRIVE IN CUBA TO JOIN THE FIGHT. Val scrolled down to the article itself and explained that the writer claimed they were in the Havana area to lead a rally for the Fihankra Center. There was something about Kerry being an organizer and that she was there to spread Jamison’s message of equality for all citizens.

  “What rally? I have no idea what they’re talking about. I didn’t come here to lead any rally. Where’d they get this stuff?” Kerry scanned the article as she spoke.

  “Well, there’s more.” Val showed Kerry the next blog she’d read. It was Baba Seti’s blog. Front and center was the picture of them getting into the van at the airport. His headline was more direct than the last: SISTERS JOIN THE FIGHT: THIS REVOLUTION WILL BE TELEVISED.

  Kerry took the phone to the bed, where she sat on the edge and tried to make sense of the blog entry that had been posted just minutes before they’d gotten to their hotel. Baba Seti’s words and ideas mirrored the content of the last article. Aside from mentioning their marriage and his legacy, there was little mentioned of Jamison being a part of the rally or even in Cuba.

  “He just posted this,” Kerry said. “But he had to have written it before we left. Like when we were still in Atlanta.” She scrolled up to the image and finally her voice was bewildered as she admitted, “He had someone take those pictures of us?” She looked up at Val. “You think he’s behind this—these pictures?”

  “I think so, but there are so many articles, it’s hard to tell,” Val revealed.

  Kerry looked like she was sick to her stomach. “So many?”

  “A lot.”

  “But, I don’t understand. Why would people be interested in why I’m in Cuba? Like, how is that even a topic and why would Baba Seti be writing about it? He had to know I’d see this. He had to know.” Kerry looked at the pictures again. She was standing there beside Baba Seti. Tyrian under her arm. The heat of Cuba already had them sweating and glowing. They looked like they were on some great mission. “What do you think I should do?” Kerry asked.

  “You need to talk to him about this shit,” Val said quickly. “Find out why the hell he’s doing this and where the fuck is Jamison. That’s why we’re here, right?”

  “But Tyrian—”

  “Ernest can watch Tyrian. You don’t even have to worry about the nanny. We got you.”

  “But I told him I’d take him to the beach.”

  “Ernest can take him.”

  “And I told Baba Seti I’d come to the compound later—after lunch.”

  “Well, you’re changing it to now.” Val looked at Kerry seriously. “You need to talk to him. Like, you really do. It’s not only your image in the pictures—I’m in them too, and so is Ernest. You need to find out what’s up with this guy.”

  “I know.”

  “I don’t know if you really do,” Val said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, you’re in here unpacking your suitcase.” Val pointed around the room at various piles of clothing Kerry had arranged to put into the drawers. “You took time to get a nanny to care for Tyrian.” Then Val said bluntly, “You brought Tyrian.”

  “I didn’t want to leave him alone. Not after what happened and then us leaving my mother’s house. And I couldn’t take him back there. I haven’t spoken to her since we left,” Kerry defended herself.

  “Kerry, you’re stalling,” Val let out. “I think you’re stalling. I don’t know why. But, look, we’re here. All of us. We’re here for you. You know? And you don’t have to worry about anything. This is what you wanted. To find Jamison. And he’s here. So there’s no reason to wait. Like you said, you have to find him. So, go. Do it. Don’t waste another day, hour, or ten minutes wanting to do it. Just do it.”

  Kerry rushed to hug Val. It was like she was hearing exactly what she needed to hear and exactly when she needed to hear it. She exhaled in her arms and took a deep breath like a baby who’d just finished crying.

  “Okay,” she said.

  It
took a driver Val found in the lobby an hour to get Kerry and Val to the Fihankra Center. They rode in silence in the backseat of an old green Beetle with lots of dents and no air-conditioning. Peering out of either side of the car windows as they sought fresh air, the two actually held hands on the backseat. Kerry had tried, but wasn’t able to get in contact with Baba Seti before they left the hotel. At first she thought how rude it would be to just show up there unannounced, but then she remembered what Val had said about her seemingly stalling and remembered that even the idea of pleasantries could have little regard in the circumstance. This was an unusual situation and that required unusual behavior.

  When the driver turned onto the road leading to the compound, he turned down his jumping Cubaton retro mix that had somehow matched the bumpy ride they’d endured off-road for the last thirty minutes. The women had discovered when they’d gotten in the car that the youngish Cuban hip-hopper spoke little English. Still, when they got to the road, he turned to them and seemed like he wanted to communicate something.

  “Revolucion,” he said, pumping his fist. “Revolucion. Africano. Vienes aqui?”

  Kerry and Val smiled pleasantly and pumped their fists too.

  The driver knew they had no clue what he’d asked them about being a part of the revolution, but they’d gotten the gist of his statement, so that was enough. “Revolucion,” he repeated, pumping his fist again.

  The car made its way through two checkpoints of haggling and questions about who they were and how they’d found the compound. The driver, who Kerry and Val learned was called Yuxnier from his debating with the black men in sand-colored military uniforms each time they encircled the car, was quickly becoming annoyed and seemed understandably unnerved by the guns the guards so freely pointed at him. Still, each time he revealed who his passengers were in the backseat, the muscle quickly backed up, signaling to each other and then bowing to Kerry and Val quite graciously. One man actually genuflected and opened the back door, begging to kiss Kerry’s hand, have her touch his face, and thank her.