Love Thy Neighbor (Friend-Zoned)(79)

She searches my body first, her hands cup my cheeks and she shakes her head and clucks, “Oh, dear me. You turned into a looker, Ashy.”

I open my mouth to speak, but Aunt Faith turns on her heel and walks back into the house. She shouts, “Follow me, honey.” So I do. I open my mouth to speak a second time but she cuts me off again with a shout to another room, “Jeffrey, get off your ass! We’ve got company!”

Holy shit. Jeffrey’s still alive?

Jeffrey putters in saying, “What’s with all the squealin’ woman? I can’t hear what the hell’s going on on Wheel of Fortune.”

Aunt Faith puts a hand on her fleshy hip and responds, “What the hell do you need to hear when you watch Wheel of Fortune? It’s all right there on the screen, Jeff!”

Uncle Jeff scowls at her and says, “I’m missin’ all the one-liners. Wheel of Fortune ain’t funny if you miss the one-liners. Oh shit, woman. Askin’ you to be quiet is like asking the cat to take a dump on the toilet.” He turns to me with a smirk. “Ain’t gonna happen.”

I chuckle and watch as his brow furrows. He stares at me long and hard before a small smile breaks out on his face. He whispers, “I don’t believe it. Is that my little man Asher?”

Smiling so hard my cheeks are starting to hurt, I nod. Uncle Jeff comes forward and wraps me up in a bear hug. I don’t do hugging all that much, but if I’d let anyone hug me, I’d let Jeff or Faith.

Jeffrey is a large African American man who fell in love with my aunt Faith when they were in college. I’ve never met a more perfect couple in my life. Faith is my mom’s sister and the complete opposite of what my mom is.

Mom is tall, Faith is short. Mom is graceful, Faith is not. Mom cares about appearances, Faith…not so much. Mom is quiet and Faith is louder than an air horn. Faith is happy…mom is not. Mom told Faith she was making a mistake by marrying a ‘colored’ man, Faith told her to stick it.

Jeffrey taught me how to throw a football. He taught me how to swing a bat and pitch too. Jeffrey was everything my dad should’ve been and I loved spending summers with them. They never had kids of their own, but they fostered two or three needy kids at a time. They had a lot of love to give and would give it freely to whoever needed it. Faith did a lot of charity work with special needs children and Jeffrey used to coach a baseball team for paraplegic kids.

They are, for lack of a better word, exceptional.

Jeff finally lets me go and clears his throat. He says quietly, “How you doing, Ash?”

Sitting at the table, the same table I sat at as a kid, it all pours out, “If you’d asked me that yesterday, Uncle Jeff, I’d have told you I was doing pretty shitty. But today, I’m better. I’m doing better than I’ve ever been.”

Aunt Faith’s face softens. She raises her brows as she smiles, “You got yourself a girl, baby?”

My face falls. I tell her, “I don’t know. I hope I do. I f*cked up.”

Uncle Jeff booms, “Oh hell! Never thought I’d see the day!” He turns to Faith and says, “The boy’s in love, Faithy. Seen that look many, many times before.” He smiles at me and recalls, “I remember this young man told me one day a long time ago that girls were yucky and that he’d never take a wife because he didn’t want to catch cooties.”

My head falls back and I burst into laughter. I really did say that. Faith and Jeff laugh with me.

Suddenly, I’m sad. My chest hurts. I tell them both, “You guys were the only good thing in my life, and I’m sorry I never came to see you after I left. You- you helped me a lot and I guess- I guess I just wanted to say thank you.”

Faith bursts into loud and noisy sobs, and for some reason it makes me want to burst into laughter.

Aunt Faith…she’s somethin’ else.

Jeff looks over at me and rolls his eyes. I grin at him. He knows how she is.

What Faith sputters through tears makes us both sober: “If I’d known- If I’d known, baby. I would’ve taken you away from that place. Never taken you back. You’d have been safe here, Ash. I would’ve protected you with my life.”

She says this with such conviction that I don’t doubt her, not even for a second.

Her face remains devastated when she asks quietly, “So all the sports injuries you had? They were really-”

Cutting her off, I reply, “Yes, ma’am. Never played sports all that much. Dad was a serious case of f*cked up.” Turning to Jeff, I say, “You remember how he liked to drink, right? I can’t really remember a time he was sober.”

We sit in thoughtful silence for a while before I decide to get to the point of my being here.

I ask, “Do you know where mom is? I don’t want to call her. I don’t actually want to speak to her, but she has something I want.”

Jeff and Faith look at each other in a way that makes me narrow my eyes. Jeff says quietly, “Well, you see, son, Grace lives here…with us.”

My back straightens and I look around. I see photos of her on the wall and wonder why it never clicked.

I ask quietly, “Is she here?”

Faith looks confused for a moment before saying, “Honey, I thought that was why you were here. She went to see you today.”

My brow furrows.

Why the hell would she come to see me? She’d know I wouldn’t want to see her.