EXCERPT

A JOURNEY TO HERE

Margaret Johnson-Hodge

CHAPTER ONE

In no way is it large, assuming or worthy of a prize, but it is my backyard, this place I cultivated full of sweet smelling blooms. To my left and right are my roses, my pansies and the marigolds I planted to replace the daffodils that did not bloom this year. Bright, pretty, vibrant, my flowers are everywhere, surrounding me like perpetual ladies in waiting.

It is my garden, my Eden. My own bit of heaven. A secular place I’ve carved for myself. This is where I come in the warmer months, cultivating, tilling, nurturing my flowers as I do my soul.

I look upon my life and can’t complain. I have a husband of nineteen years who can still make me laugh and two daughters, twelve and fifteen who have resisted the temptations of the streets. I look at this life I have and know it is better than most.

Blessed, something whispers as Stevie Wonders sings from my portable CD player and I join in on the second chorus, my voice soft and light. Together Stevie and I lament about a superwoman as my oldest daughter Aaron appears.

"Someone's here to see you."

"Who is it?'

"I dunno."

I move around the side of the house and come in through the side door. Going through the kitchen, I come into the living room, the front door closed, no one about. "Where are they?

"Outside."

"You didn’t let them in?"

"Nope."

"You don’t know who it is?"

"No, I don’t."

"Man or woman?"

"Man."

I move to the door, open it slowly. My mouth opens. "Philip?" Refuses to close. I strain my neck, look beyond him. "Where’s Dorothy?"

"Georgia."

"Come in."

"I can’t stay long," he tells me as he takes a seat. "Just passing through, visiting my folks."

"This is a surprise." I feel Aaron’s eyes on us. My hand sweeps the air. "You remember my daughter Aaron? Aaron this is Philip Butler." I take note that though she has met him before, she doesn’t remember. Her eye shifts between mine and his. She will not leave unless I send her. "Did you finish your chores?"

"Almost."

"Well lets get to it."

She gives Philip one last look. Moves slow as molasses out of the room. I watch Philip follow her with his eyes. Know he will say something about the child I have raised.

"She looking more and more like you."

I shake my head, laugh a little. "Nope, that Emory’s child. But thanks for the compliment."

His eyes sweep the room. Come full circle, finds mine. "How is your husband."

"Just fine. How’s Dorothy?"

"Dorothy’s Dorothy."

I nod my head, let his words drift. Try to assemble all the pieces that have scattered in his arrival. Silence comes as I scramble for words to say. I go for the simple. Ask about his folks.

"Doing okay." He does not ask about mine. I find myself glad about it. The past can not be altered. "Haven’t changed one bit," he decides with too soft a smile.

"Yes, I have," I say quickly, and what was once forgivable, no longer is. "You changed me. Dorothy changed me," I want to shout, but only whisper. "What you two did to me," I can’t finish, can not reveal anymore how deep the pain still moves.

There is the sound of a key being pushed into a lock. Tumblers fight before they slide back. I look up and feel unspent tears in my eyes. I wipe at them quickly and blink. Getting up, I am unprepared for my husband’s arrival, unprepared for the stranger sitting on my sofa, the angst in my own heart.

I know I’ve just betrayed something, something special and real. I know I have just betrayed the façade of a happy life I’ve lived with Emory and Philip has witnessed the revelation. I blink some more, whisk away the last bit of wetness, sniffle, get composure as the front door swings open.

I reach for my husband, my body pressing his hard. He urges me back, my eyes full of a fake smile. "Hey," I say, turning him towards Philip. "You remember Philip." My hand glides along Emory’s spine, shifting the surprise that stiffens his shoulders.

But the look in Emory’s face says he doesn’t. That he can’t place the face. He does not remember the man who laughed too hard and too loud in our backyard a while back.

I feel currents running from Philip to me, wonder if Emory can sense them too. The room is charged with bitterness and regret. My mouth forms words against the silence. "Dorothy’s husband, remember? They live in Georgia? Visit us sometimes."

It takes a while, but Emory does, recognition moving into the surprise. He smiles a little, still caught off guard and closes the space between them.

Emory outstretches his hand, Philip rises to meet it. Two hands join, giving each other a hard shake. "Nice to see you again."

"Same here," Philip manages. He is looking at Emory but I know my outbreak still has a fast hold.

Emory and Philip are standing side by side and I can’t help but experience their differences. I see that Emory is shorter, Philip, more built. My heart lies somewhere in the middle.

"I have to be going." Philip says more so to my husband than to me. "It was great seeing you again."

"Same here," Emory confesses, but there is uncertainty in his proclamation.

My husband works hard and this day is no different. I know what he wants when he comes in from work, and company in his house is not one of them. He longs to slip off his leather loafers and undo the knot in his tie. He longs to relieve his wrist of the Casio watch, take the gabardine slacks and dress shirt off of his body.

He wants to sit in front of the television while I fix him a plate. Hear my voice calling him to the table, be his witness as he shares his day. But Philip had prevented this down time, the letting go of being a Benefits Analysis. There is a streak of impatientness as he waits for him to depart.

Philip moves towards me and I am going to explode, shatter into a thousand un-repairable pieces the moment he hugs me goodbye. Like flint against stone, something sparks as he does. I pull away quick, my eyes along the floor.

"Safe trip," Emory calls as he gathers up the mail.

"Thanks," Philip says as he reaches for the door. There is a slight pause, a hesitation not even a half second long, but in that space I feel it. Philip is still within me, and I, within him.

I am up in my workspace, the attic come office I’ve turned into my personal haven. Here is where I work, smoke, listen to music no one else wants to hear.

Here is where I find money for organizations, writing up proposals that will get them funding. Here is where I do my nine to five, never having to ask for a day off, or stand out in the rain to appease my nicotine addiction. Here is where I shuffle around in my pajama’s, teeth un-brushed sometimes.

Here is where I’ve taken my schooling and a love for English and math turned it into a profession that adds between ten and twenty thousand dollars a year to our household. It’s not a lot of money and there are times when months go by and I don’t make a dime, but I can do it at home and you can’t beat that.

But I retreat here now because Philip had sent my thoughts in a thousand directions and I need to evaluate all that I have and the struggles to get here. I focus on the live I’ve carved with my husband Emory; the journey we’ve made to get here.

My husband is a typical forty something middle class black man with a college education and a nice private sector job. Yet while people look at him and marvel at his mild success, I look at him and see all the struggles.

He makes over $76,000 a year now, but I will never forget when he first started working for his company decades ago and brought home a whole lot less. He takes me out to dinner at this little Italian restaurant in SoHo, but I can still remember dates that were simply a drive thru at Wendy’s.

He drives a late model Lexus, but his ’73 Mustang holds a special place in my heart. That car saw us through our dating years and the birth of our first child. And by the time it landed up at the scrape heap, it had only one side view mirror, ripped upholstery and empty oyster shells from too many trips to Coney Island.

For over a year we lived in a tiny studio apartment with a newborn until we had enough to move to a two bedroom. I will never forget the sadness in Emory’s eye when I worked the third shift at a packing plant so that we could save for our house. He would always get a look in his eyes like I wouldn’t make it back in the morning, my hour commute on the late night roads causing him deep concern.

I love my husband and he loves me, but in truth, it has never felt like a Philip kind of love, just a bountiful concession that I am grateful for and am at peace with.

Maybe it was the innocence. Maybe it’s because Philip had been the first boy who spoke to my heart. Maybe it’s because of the way we ended, the betrayal of best friend and first love. I’m not certain, only that suddenly a fifteen-year’s old heart has taken up residence inside this forty-six year old body and all I want to know now is why Philip came to my house, alone.

The phone rings. Before I can think to pick up the cordless on my desk, the shrills stops. I wait three seconds to hear ‘Mom, the phone’ but it does not come. Once upon a time most of the calls to my house had been for me, but those days have vanished with my daughter Aaron not only discovering herself, but being discovered.

She has reached the point where both girlfriends and boys search her out like a heat seeking missile. She has reached a stage where her presence in their life is a mandate. So often is the phone for her, so many times I’ve had to insist she get off so that I can get on, I’ve considered getting her her own line.

But I resist that notion. It would give up a power I struggle to maintain on her on a daily basis. Still a part of me wishes my good friend Lisa was calling. I need to share what has occurred in my home not twenty minutes ago. I need to let go of the new fears that bitters the inside of my mouth like new pennies.

I need to flesh out all the why’s that I try not to consider as the feel of Philip pressed against me remains.

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