Daddy I miss you so much!! I will forever love you!!
I read the text at least three more times before, I decided to call Roe to come out to the pool house. The sound of her voice did something to me. Every hair on my body stood up when I heard it. And, my man stood at attention as if I was saluting the commander in chief. “Baby come out to the pool house.”
Roe didn’t say anything, but I could hear her breathing. I know I told her that I wanted to meet the next day, but I had to use the element of surprise. My sudden resurrection wasn’t an Easter miracle. It was a matter of life and death. Roe’s life to be exact.
“Umm,” she said. I could tell she was debating on rather or not she wanted to come out to the pool house. “Give me a few minutes,” she finally replied.
“Alright Baby.”
As soon as we ended the call, my hands started sweating and my heart started racing a mile a minute. I went into the kitchen to see if my wife had anything in the cabinet to calm my nerves. I searched through several cabinets before I found a bottle of Tequilla. I didn’t bother grabbing a glass. I took the top off and took two quick swigs. It helped knock the edge off.
I put the bottle back and went into the bedroom to wait for her. The bedroom was in the back of the house, and the light couldn’t be seen from the road. The last thing I needed was for one of my nosey family members coming or even calling Roe to see why the light was on.
Ten minutes passed before I heard the door open and close. I took a deep breath as I heard her walking towards the back of the house. “Cartier,” her voice said softly as she approached the bedroom.
I didn’t want to step out and startle her. The last thing I needed was to give her a heart attack and leave my kids without a parent. “In here.”
The closer she got, my heart felt like it was about to jump out my chest. “Where are you?” Her voice was trembling.
I stepped out of the bathroom to see the love of my life standing there with a pair of jogging pants, a t-shirt that was showing the shape of her nipple, and her hair pulled up in a huge bun. I looked down at her feet and they looked as if she had just gotten them freshly done.
Yeah, I have a fetish for my wife’s feet.
The moment I stepped out the bathroom, Roe gasped. “It’s really you.”
“Yeah baby it’s me.” I walking towards her when she did something I wasn’t expecting. She pulled out a gun and pointed it at me. At me. Her husband.
“Stop right there.”
I threw my hands up to let her know I mean her any harm. “Roe, I’m going to step back. I promise you, I’m not here to hurt you.”
“What are you doing here,” she screamed. I could tell she was trying to hold back tears. “I buried you. I buried you.”
The pain she was feeling was all over her face. I wanted to comfort her, but I wasn’t going near. Especially with her pointing 45 at me. I knew techniques to disarm her, but I wasn’t going to use them. I needed her to feel safe around me.
Plus, my wife was a damn good shot. I made sure she knew how to handle herself with a gun. Each time I was home we would go the firing range for practice.
“Baby, I know you’re hurting, but I can explain.”
“Explain what? You died. You died,” she exclaimed
She was absolutely right. I died. But, that was just on paper. Truth is, I got into some shit, and the only way to get out, was to die.
“Roe, you’re in danger.”
“No, you’re in danger if I pull this trigger.”
Roe was absolutely right, but I came prepared. I was wearing a bullet proof vest. She was pointing the gun at my chest, I wasn’t worried about dying. Maybe some bruised ribs. “Roe, you remember that bag I gave you.”
At first she looked at me as if I was speaking a foreign language. Then it was as if a lightbulb went off in her head. But, she still didn’t lower the gun. I put my hands up before I made a move that might startle her enough to pull the trigger. And, I was pretty sure that would wake every Ebony in a mile radius.
“Roe, I need that bag.”
The bag I was referring to was the bag that I had taken from my partner, Flynn, three years ago when he called me to pick him up. That bag changed my entire life, and it’s what led to Flynn death two days later. And, my death nearly a year later.
You see I was a hustler from the day I was born, and not even the military could take that away from me. The bag I got from Flynn was my payment for the smuggling ring we were operating. Drugs, diamonds, documents, exotic animals. If they could afford our prices, we took care of it. At first, it was easy. So, easy that I used the money to make the down payment on our house. I told Roe that I had been given a huge bonus from the new job I had taken.
It all went wrong when Flynn double crossed the men we were working with. Two Afghan men that had family in the States, and we were their connections. Our last job was to deliver some microprocessors. I didn’t know what was so important about the brains of the computer, and I didn’t care. All I cared about was getting paid.
“Cartier, you better start explaining why in the hell you’ve come back from the dead or I’m putting one in your knee cap.” She lowered the gun to point directly at my knee.
I smiled because I had taught her when she didn’t want to kill the person, go for the knee cap. “Roe, where’s the bag?”
“I’ll give you the bag, when you tell me why you faked your death.”
That’s the part I didn’t want to do. I don’t know why I thought coming back from the dead would be a bed of roses. Honestly, I thought I would make love to my wife before retrieving what I had come for. But, I don’t think that was going to happen.
“I messed up,” I told her before explaining what Flynn and I had been doing prior to his death. “I didn’t realize that he kept one of the chips, until I was approached by the men we worked for.”
“Wait. Wait.” I watched as Roe lowered the gun, she seemed to be having some kind of panic attack.
I rushed over to her. “I have an inhaler in the bathroom,” she barely got out.
I ran into the bathroom and found the inhaler in the medicine cabinet. “Here baby,” I said as I watched her use the inhaler and regain her breath.
The gun was laying on the dresser, but I didn’t try to go for because it. It was obvious she needed it to feel safe. So, I was going to let her hold on to it. “Baby are you ok?”
When she looked up at me, tears were rolling down her face. For the first time in two years, I felt my wife against my body as she fell into my chest. I wrapped my arms around her and held her as tight as I could. I didn’t want to overstep, but I couldn’t help it. I kissed her. I moved my tongue around in her mouth as if I was moving to the beat of Drake’s Toosie Slide.
Roe didn’t resist. And, I couldn’t stop. I didn’t stop until I was in between my wife’s leg making love to her. It had been two years. Two long years. If her tubes weren’t tied, I’m pretty sure we would’ve made a baby.
She let out moans and groans as we rolled about the sheets. For an hour, I forgot that I was supposed to be dead. I forgot the reason I was back in Commons. I forgot about everything that had separated me from my family.
“Don’t leave me again,” she whispered in my ear as we lay there in each other arms. I wanted to tell her that, I would stay. But, I couldn’t. I had to retrieve that bag and get the hell out of Commons.
“Roe, I need that bag.”
She sat up in the bed. “What is it about that damn bag,” she snapped.
“Baby.” I didn’t finish before the scrambler phone I was using started ringing. I knew exactly who it was. My commanding officer calling to see if I had retrieved the package. Yeah, he was in on my death as well. Hell, he was in on all of it. “Yo,” I said when I answered the phone.
“You haven’t checked in is everything ok?”
“I know. It’s taking a little longer than I expected.” Out the corner of my eye, I could see Roe putting her clothes back her. I stared at her perfectly plum body. I wanted to make love to her over and over, but I didn’t have time.
“You need to be at the extraction point in 15 minutes.”
“On my way.”
I jumped out of bed and started putting my clothes on. Roe walked out of the room. I followed behind her because I thought she was leaving. I couldn’t let her leave without getting that bag. I was about to say something to her when she grabbed the step stool and placed it in front of the wall vents. She opened the top one and pulled out the bag. “I don’t know what’s in this bag, but I hope its worth leaving your family.”
Her words pierced me like a two-edged sword.
“Thank you.” I leaned forward to kiss her, but she pulled away.
“Don’t you need to be leaving?”
“Baby.”
Roe held her hand up. “I don’t know what kind of obligations you have that would cause you to fake your death and leave us behind.” I could see the tears welling in her eyes. “I pray whatever it was. It was worth it.”
“Baby, I’ll call you in a few days.”
She nodded.
As, I was walking towards the door she stopped me. “Sahara used a read receipt on the last text that she sent you. She knows you opened it. I’ll make up something to get her to stop texting.”
“No.” Those texts were everything to me. They kept me going when the world seemed to be closing in around me. “I’ll put something on the phone to make it seem like I don’t open them.”
She smirked. “Figures.”
“You can text me too,” I told her.
She didn’t say anything. I couldn’t imagine what she was going through. I was heading out the front door when I turned around. I kissed my wife one more time before I left out her life again.
Ten minutes later I was at the extraction point and my commander was waiting on me. “Did you get it,” he asked. I held up the bag.
“Good. Now, lets get you out the country before someone recognizes you.”
I didn’t say a word, as we made our way down to Charleston so I could catch my ride back to Sudan. Where I had been for the last two years. Now, all I could think about was how I felt when I made love to my wife.
The moment she fell in my arms, I couldn’t help myself. Before I arrived at the house I gave myself a pep talk to ensure that I wouldn’t do the one thing that would compromise the entire thing. And, that was sleep with my wife. A woman can change the way a man feels and think. Roe was and is my kryptonite.
And, now all I could do was think about her and our girls. I wanted to turn around and go home to them. But, I had other obligations.
“What would it take to bring me back to life?”
My commander looked at me as if I had cursed him or some shit. I could see his hands trembling. He was a big man. 6’4. 230 pounds. And, yet he was shaking like a scared little boy. “Shaw, you know that’s not possible.”
“Why not? My family is suffering because of some shit you got me into.”
“You knew the consequences from the jump. You would still be home, if Flynn hadn’t double crossed all of us.”
I just nodded. The last thing I needed was my commander thinking my family was my weak spot and do something to them to keep me in line. “You’re right,” I replied as we drove up to the airstrip.
“Son, I know seeing her after all this time probably brought something up. But, you know it’s no way you can go back.”
“I know,” I told him before I jumped on the plane.
As soon as the plane took off, I made a phone call to one of my old buddies. I needed him to keep eyes on my commander and make sure my family was until I could get back home to them.
Fourteen hours later, I landed back in Khartoum and I had come up with a plan that would get me back home to my wife.
I walked through the airport thinking about what Roe said to me, I don’t know what kind of obligations you have that would cause you to fake your death and leave us behind. There were no obligations that were so big that should’ve kept me from my family.
“Welcome home,” a voice called out the moment I stepped outside the airport. “I missed you.” Then, she planted a kiss on me. Normally, her kisses did something to me. But, after kissing my wife, I felt nothing. “Everything alright,” she asked.
“Yeah. Let’s head home,” I said as I hopped in the car.
“Good because I missed you,” she said as she seductively smiled.
Her smile was as beautiful as a sunset, and I knew what she was referring to. But, all I could think about was my wife. And, as we pulled up to our home a text came in from Roe.
I love you, forever and always!!!
