Full Figured 14, page 24
After Kasim left home, he stayed with Adaeze and Mitaire for two weeks at Eboneé’s old place. Adaeze helped ease Eboneé’s racing heart the best that she could, but her loyalty remained with Kasim. She started off as the mediator between the two of them, as she recognized that they needed one another during the horrific time. But Kasim refused to take his sister’s advice and encouraged her to do as he had done and sever all communication with Eboneé. She wasn’t family, and blood was thicker than water, he reminded her. Although it broke Adaeze’s heart, as she had grown fond of Eboneé, she granted Kasim his wish. All communication was terminated. When Kasim, Adaeze, and Mitaire left Eboneé’s apartment to return to Nigeria, they left their cell phones behind. Eboneé had no way of communicating with them thereafter. They left no forwarding address, too.
When her calls to Adaeze’s phone kept going straight to voicemail, Eboneé feared that she and Mitaire had left the country. She talked Parish into accompanying her to the apartment to check. When they walked inside the apartment and found three phones and a note attached, Eboneé picked up the note and saw that Adaeze had penned it. But she couldn’t get past the first line, which said that returning home to Nigeria was the only thing that would make this situation somewhat bearable for Kasim. Eboneé was devastated. Her entire world had been stripped from her, and there wasn’t anything that she could do to fix it. And she was pregnant.
“This can’t be happening, Parish. How could he leave me like this?” She eyeballed the note.
“I am so sorry, Ebb. I don’t understand any of it at all. But I need you to try to calm down. You’re pregnant,” Parish told her friend.
“How can I, Parish? Seriously, how can I calm down?” She tore the note into tiny pieces. “I can’t read this.”
A tear escaped from the corner of Parish’s eye. She hated to see her friend suffer.
“I thought he loved me, Parish. This isn’t love. We lost our little girl, I am pregnant, and to add insult to injury, he abandoned me. Do you know how I feel right now?”
“You’re pregnant? When did you find out? Never mind all of that. If it’ll make you feel better at this moment, we can tear this whole place up.” She knocked a lamp from the coffee table.
They completely destroyed everything that was sitting or standing in the living room. As Eboneé threw, tossed, and broke things, she was overcome by a sense of relief. As she headed to the kitchen, Eboneé’s phone rang, startling her.
“H-Hello?” she panted into the phone.
“Hello? Mrs. Oringo?”
“This is Eboneé.” She cut her eye at Parish.
“We are at your home. I have some news, but I must wait until I see you to share it. How soon can you get here?” Detective Simmons said.
“N-Now. I will be there in ten minutes,” she said, then disconnected the call.
“Who was that? Is it about Emani?” Parish quizzed. “Dear God, we need you now.”
“It was Detective Simmons. He told me nothing. I assume what we’ve feared the most has been confirmed. Unless it is about Kasim. I really don’t know, Parish. I don’t think I can take much more. It feels like my heart is being cut piece by piece with a knife. That’s how bad my chest is hurting.”
“‘God won’t give you more than you can bear,’ is what I am supposed to say, and believe, but right now I don’t know what to say or think. I will call Kwame and have him meet us at your place. We need his help right now.”
Eboneé wasn’t in any condition to drive, and neither was Parish. Both of their emotions had been in overdrive for so long. When Parish phoned Kwame, he wasn’t too far from where they were, and offered to drive them over to what had been Eboneé and Kasim’s home.
When they arrived at the house, Detective Simmons greeted Eboneé before she got out of the car. “I have some great news for you, Mrs. Oringo.”
“We are not married. He left me. Please stop calling me that. My name is Eboneé,” she growled.
“My apologies, ma’am. But as I was saying, I have some great news. We found Emani.”
Eboneé was unable to make it very far from Kwame’s car. When she took a step, her legs gave way, and she passed out. The detective could not revive her, so he called for an ambulance, and she was rushed to the hospital.
The moment Eboneé came to in a hospital bed, she had trouble processing where she had been and what had happened.
“Hey, there. Glad to see you’re back with us.” Parish stroked her face.
“What happened? I had a nightmare that Emani was kidnapped on my wedding day and Kasim left me. It felt so real, Parish. My heart is racing just thinking about it.”
“I-It wasn’t a dream, Eboneé,” Parish replied, her voice dropping.
“So, what you’re saying is I am alone and I have no one? Oh, correction. I am pregnant and alone? Is that what you’re saying, Parish?”
“No, that that’s not what—”
“Mommy!” Emani shouted as Detective Simmons carried her into the room.
Eboneé couldn’t believe her eyes. She thought she was hallucinating. “Parish, am I dreaming? Is that really her?” Overcome with emotion, she trembled uncontrollably.
“Yes, this is really your baby girl,” Detective Simmons confirmed as Emani leaped from his arms onto the bed and hugged Eboneé.
During an attempted kidnapping of twin ten-year-old girls, Shelby Garrett, a thirty-two-year-old custodian for the local library, was arrested. Shelby was trying to muscle the girls, named Tatiana and Taylah, into his car as they made their way home from basketball tryouts at school. A Good Samaritan intervened, wrestled Garrett to the ground, and held him down until police arrived. After seven hours of interrogation and a little roughing up, Garrett admitted that he was responsible for a number of kidnappings that had taken place over the years, but he insisted that he’d never hurt any of the girls and that it had been just to make his grieving mother, Cicely, happy.
Cicely’s two-year-old daughter, Ramani, had been abducted and murdered five years prior. Each year, on the eve or anniversary of Ramani’s passing, Shelby would kidnap little girls that were the same age that Ramani would be if she were alive. He began to get sloppy and thought the police were on to him, so he began kidnapping little girls that he thought were the same age as Ramani was when she was kidnapped.
During their investigations, the NYPD Special Victims Unit was able to narrow down Garrett’s place of residence, as he refused to give it up. He said he was protecting his mom and little sisters. When the officers arrived on the scene, they found six girls, including Emani, that had gone missing over a period of four years. All were between the ages of two and seven. Three of the girls had been there for four years. They were two and three when they were abducted, and so they considered Cicely their mom. All the girls appeared to be well cared for. When they were found, their hair was in pigtails, with huge pink bows attached. They were all dressed in ballerina slippers and tutus. Each of the bedrooms looked fit for a princess: pink walls, lots of glitter, and dolls and toys galore. When the officers arrived, the girls were having a tea party with Cicely. She and her son were arrested and were being held without bail. After a full examination of all the girls, they were returned to their families.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Parish and Kwame were totally unnerved by everything that had transpired during and after “the wedding that didn’t happen.” After Emani’s abduction, they had been as strong as they could be for Eboneé and had even moved her into their home with them so that she wouldn’t be alone. Parish couldn’t imagine not being by Eboneé’s side. She carried her friend’s pain in her own heart and unloaded it all on Kwame behind closed doors. While in the presence of Eboneé, Parish did her best to be strong and to conceal her pain and sometimes her tears. Kwame would pray with her every morning and anytime she left their bedroom so that God granted her the strength she needed to help Eboneé.
Kwame spent a lot of time at his blossoming church, but he made sure to be available if and when Parish called. Eboneé had been attending services on Sundays. She said only God, alongside Parish and Kwame, would be able to get her through it all. Eboneé’s pain had brought Parish and Kwame closer. They couldn’t imagine losing or walking away from each other. They’d been through a lot together from the day they met. Kwame said their heartaches had prepared them to be a source of strength for Eboneé and everyone else that God sent their way. Before the abduction Parish hadn’t been as committed to the ministry as Kwame, but Eboneé recent trials drew her closer to the ministry. She decided to work with Kwame full-time in ministry once Eboneé was back on her feet.
Parish’s music career hadn’t taken off the way that she’d envisioned it would. It had all started out with a bang, but her unwillingness to spend days away from Kwame had taken a toll on her career. Parish hadn’t been fully healed from the rape, and this had affected all areas of her life, including her singing career. For instance, she was still afraid to be alone with more than one male at a time. She would never forget one particular incident. It was when she was working on a song as a featured soloist for one of the top gospel artists. She was at the recording studio, and Kwame was supposed to pick her up, but he was running late. A few of the engineers were there, wrapping up. When they saw that Parish was still there, they asked if she wanted to work on a song that they’d been working on until Kwame came. She agreed to do it, but then she found herself in the booth with the recording engineer and the producer. Parish had a panic attack.
“What are you doing? Get away from me!” She swung her headphones.
“Parish, we are not going to hurt you. Are you on something? Please calm down,” the recording engineer told her.
“No! I am perfectly fine. Get away from me.” She swung the headphones again as if her life depended on it.
As Kwame entered the studio, he heard his wife shouting and ran to her aid. When he entered the booth, the recording engineer and the producer both had their hands in the air, as if surrendering, and were pleading with his screaming wife.
“Parish, it’s me, baby. I am here. Everything is all right. They’re not trying to hurt you,” Kwame told her
She ran into his open arms.
Following that incident, word got around, and no one felt comfortable working with Parish. She became the talk of the gospel world and was pretty much blackballed, as everyone saw her as a lawsuit waiting to happen. No one wanted to sing with her, and her album was selling. Kwame insisted she seek counseling. He said that God gave therapists gifts to help hurting people and that she needed to take advantage of it.
Parish was embarrassed by her actions and hurt that she had been ostracized. She wanted to be free of the hold that the marines had on her. If she continued to allow what they had done to her to make her fearful, it meant that they’d won, and Parish refused to be their hostage any longer. Seeing what Eboneé was dealing with made Parish do an internal checkup, and she agreed she needed help. Parish sought counseling, and Kwame followed suit. They wanted to be deal with all the things that had been haunting them. Kwame said in order for them to be great friends, leaders, and lovers, they had to get the junk of their past out of the way.
Therapy was just what Kwame and Parish had needed. They could feel the impact that it had on them. A huge weight that they hadn’t realized they were carrying was lifted. Life looked better from the new vantage point. No matter what was going on, they found the good in it. So much so that they made love at any given moment. Even on the days when life seemed to suck them dry. They found something good in it and celebrated in their birthday suits.
After two and a half months of therapy, Parish had never felt happier. However, she had been so caught up in rediscovering herself and healing that she hadn’t realized she hadn’t had her period in nine and a half weeks. By then Eboneé had moved back into the home that she’d once shared with Kasim. Rebecca was there, which made life much easier for Eboneé, who was hugely pregnant and was now a single parent to Emani.
In an effort to pick up the pieces of her life, Eboneé hosted a dinner party in honor of her guardian angels, Kwame and Parish. Parish put up a fight and declared that a party in their honor was unnecessary, but Eboneé insisted.
During dinner, Parish suddenly felt quite nauseated.
“Parish, do you need some water?” Rebecca questioned, noticing that the color had left Parish’s face.
“I think I am fine—” Parish began, but then remnants of her lunch made their way into her lap.
“Dear God, we are having a baby,” Eboneé announced.
“I think you might be right,” Rebecca agreed.
“She’s ill, not pregnant, ladies,” Kwame said, correcting them.
“How about someone get me a towel or something?” Parish demanded. “Keep your theories to yourself.”
“Let me help you into the bathroom to get cleaned up,” Rebecca volunteered.
“I should have a pregnancy test in the drawer by the shower,” Eboneé announced.
While she was changing into the dress Eboneé insisted she borrow, Parish decided to take Eboneé’s advice. She went into the bathroom and took the pregnancy test.
“Kwame, please come here,” she shouted from the bathroom ten minutes later.
“Yes, baby?” he called as he ran into the bathroom.
“God answered our prayers.” She placed the test in his hands.
Although they’d say they hadn’t been trying to get pregnant, they had prayed and asked God to bless them with a child.
“I guess practice made perfect, because you’re going to be a father, Kwame.”
They embraced one another and cried tears of joy.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Returning home to Nigeria had been an impulsive act, and it had been eating away at Kasim ever since his arrival. But he had refused to be with Eboneé for another minute. Kasim hadn’t been back home in Nigeria since he left decades ago. The same regret and failure that he’d been adamant about avoiding in the States had greeted him with a vengeance in Nigeria. The deaths of his wife and unborn child had occupied all his waking hours since the instant he stepped off the airplane after a thirteen-hour flight. The tragedy of their deaths wouldn’t leave him, and he was filled with guilt and regret. Anger began to strangle him as his thoughts moved to the moment he decided it was time to leave America for good.
The last thing Kasim had envisioned after he moved to the States was losing another child, as well as a fiancée. In his mind, Eboneé had been kidnapped and murdered along with Emani. He couldn’t face her; she was dead to him now. Adaeze had tried her best to reason with him before they left New York, but he’d refused to hear anything that she had to say. He remembered one conversation in particular.
“Kasim, you cannot really believe what happened is Eboneé’s fault,” Adaeze said.
“Was she not responsible for keeping watch over my daughter?”
“Yes, but we were all there, and it happened under all our noses.”
“Where is Naija?”Kasim asked.
“She’s in the bed. Why do you ask?”
“Because you have never been so caught up or so malnourished that you were prevented from keeping an eye on and protecting your daughter. So yes, all of this is her fault.”
“Kasim, I cannot even imagine or begin to feel what you’re possibly going through right now. But what I do know without a shadow of a doubt is that this woman loves you and Emani. She’d give her life before she’d allow something to happen to you or your daughter.”
“You have a point there. She gave up her life, all right. All the weight loss caused her to selfishly lose herself, and she lost the nurturing abilities that a healthy woman possesses.”
“You’re not making sense, Kasim. Her losing a few pounds had nothing to do with what happened. Some monster is responsible for kidnapping that child. You cannot punish Eboneé.”
“Whose side are you on? You’re my flesh and blood, not her. I am the one that has been punished and is suffering because of her selfish actions.”
“Two wrongs don’t make a right, Kasim.”
“We’re done discussing this, Adaeze. I have to think about what I am going to do. I don’t ever want to see that murderer’s face.”
“Kasim, do you hear yourself? Eboneé is not a murderer. Please stop saying that. You’re scaring me right now. I am afraid to return home right now. I don’t know what you’re capable of doing.”
“You don’t have to worry about that. I am going home with you. This isn’t where I want or need to be anymore.”
“You cannot walk away from your life here, from everything like this, Kasim.”
“I have nothing left here. My fiancée and my child are gone.”
No matter what Adaeze said back in New York, Kasim wouldn’t budge. Emani’s abduction was all over the news, and that made him look weak. As if he wasn’t man enough to protect his family. He refused to walk around in humiliation. He cursed Eboneé for making him look like a disgrace. She had murdered what they had, and Kasim could never forgive her. Which was why he was determined to leave America.
Being back in Nigeria was bittersweet for Kasim. He had to face the fact that he’d run away from his problems; however, that reckoning, he believed, was easier to withstand than dealing every moment with the reality that his daughter had been kidnapped and murdered. Since his return, he’d occupied his time by visiting family and old friends. As well as cozying up to his newfound companion, cognac. Since his return, Kasim had spent countless hours in the local shebeen, drinking his troubles away. Adaeze had become so worried about her brother’s dependency on alcohol that she’d asked Mitaire to keep an eye on Kasim. Mitaire had never been a drinker, either, but on several occasions when he joined Kasim at the shebeen to watch out for him, he found himself heavily intoxicated too.
