Page 51 of The Best Man: Unfinished Business

Chapter Twenty-nine

Robyn

Robyn hustled to the school building, her mind on the red red stew she’d left simmering.

It smelled so fragrant with aromatics of ginger and scotch bonnet pepper filling the kitchen.

With the extra cooking time, it would be thick and hearty to pair with the fufu she had the staff prepare.

She was in her own head and moving so fast that she didn’t hear someone call out to her.

“Robyn?” Robyn looked around but didn’t slow down.

She had to get to Mia’s classroom, scoop her up, and get back to Robyn’s Nest in time for the dinner rush.

“Robyn!” the voice bellowed again. Robyn finally stopped and turned around.

She spotted Ms. Ekuwa, her daughter’s teacher, tending to another one of her students reuniting with her parents, a white couple.

Robyn sighed at the reminder, the irony that even in a country run and buoyed by Black people, there was still the presence of whiteness looking for privilege.

Perhaps the times had changed and these white ones would do better than what others had done in the not-so-distant past… .

“Hey, Ms. Ekuwa,” Robyn said as the teacher approached with a smile and slight look of bewilderment on her face. “Sorry, I didn’t hear you. Always on the go. How’d Mia do today?”

“She was great as always,” Ms. Ekuwa said. “But…did you forget something?” What? Robyn’s skin between her eyes crinkled.

“Forget something? I’m here to pick up Mia as usual.”

“Mia has already left,” Ms. Ekuwa replied, looking confused now.

Robyn was sure she hadn’t heard her correctly. She cocked her head, frowned, and pursed her lips before responding.

“Already left? With whom?” Robyn had a lot going on, but she was positive she hadn’t told anyone to pick up Mia today. Haniah was out running errands at Makola and maybe she picked up Mia? She wouldn’t have asked Kwesi.

“Her dad,” Ms. Ekuwa responded with a bit less assurance in her tone.

“Her dad ? Her dad is five thousand miles away in New York,” Robyn shot back, now feeling the start of a cold sweat of panic.

“Yes, her dad. He was here,” Ms. Ekuwa said matter-of-factly.

“Ms. Ekuwa, that’s impossible. Are you sure?” Ms. Ekuwa nodded assuredly.

“Yes. I’ve seen your husband before. The author. It was him. He looked tired.”

“ Ex -husband,” Robyn corrected her.

“Right. My apologies. Mia had talked about his visit all day and rushed into his arms when she saw him,” Ms. Ekuwa reported.

“What?” Robyn’s head was spinning. Mia spoke about it? Her mind raced back to drop-off this morning. Mia had been unusually quiet, but Robyn didn’t think anything of it, chalking it up to moody preteen stuff. Ms. Ekuwa interrupted her thoughts politely.

“I’m sorry, Robyn, I didn’t know that you were unaware. He is authorized to pick her up—”

“With my permission, ” Robyn snapped back. Ms. Ekuwa looked taken aback, making Robyn quickly realize her tone hadn’t matched Ms. Ekuwa’s own polite one. Yet she remained courteous and firm.

“Robyn, with all due respect, that is not true.” Robyn shifted her stance, squaring off with her daughter’s teacher, expecting but not getting an acceptable explanation.

Ms. Ekuwa continued, “Listen, I am sorry about this. I feel terrible if there’s been some kind of miscommunication between you—” She paused without judgment, kind.

Robyn took a breath. Ever since she placed Mia in this school’s care Ms. Ekuwa was one of many welcoming, nurturing teachers that Robyn felt a strong rapport with.

She was part of Robyn’s extended village and had always been supportive.

But now, this moment…when she should have been on her side, she wasn’t.

But it wasn’t Ms. Ekuwa’s fault, Robyn reminded herself.

It was… Harper . That’s who her issue was with.

And that was who she was about to deal with. Right now.

Robyn exhaled as she spun on her heels and headed back to the school parking lot with determination and urgency.

“Robyn, I’m sorry—!” Robyn heard Ms. Ekuwa’s words behind her back as she whipped out her phone to call Harper.

She wanted fucking answers. Now. She pulled open her car door, dropped in the driver’s seat as her call went straight to voicemail.

“Harper, what are you doing here in Accra? Call me when you get this. As soon as you get this.” Her voice was neither measured nor calm.

Robyn was agitated as she cranked up her RAV4 and pulled out of the school parking lot, drawing up dust under her wheels.

Some parents grabbed their children closer to them as Robyn sped past. In the rearview, she stared back at her own tense face—a deadly serious Black momma.

Robyn’s countenance wouldn’t change at all, all the way back to Robyn’s Nest. She wanted her daughter— and her goddamn father—to see it.

And if by any chance it wasn’t Harper, then God help whoever it was.

But somehow, Robyn already knew. She let out an audible sigh as her RAV4 rumbled down the road at least ten kilometers over the posted speed limit.

Speeding down the street she almost missed the voicemail notification on her phone’s display.

She never paid attention to her smartphone most days, instead preferring the restaurant’s landline where the people who needed to reach her did.

She was already a slave to the restaurant, there was no room left to be a slave to her device.

Needing to check her voicemail now only added to her agitation.

Because as she’d both hoped and suspected, the voicemail was from Harper.

“What the fuck?” she said aloud. She pressed play on Harper’s message, telling her he just got off the plane and was picking up Mia. Got off the plane? What plane?

“Why the hell are you here, Harper?” Robyn mused out loud.

As the dots were connecting, her nerves began to calm, but not her anger and certainly not her confusion.

She was confused as hell. And angry. No, she was pissed!

What is so urgent that Mr. Harper Stewart would take time out of his busy schedule to fly halfway around the world to Ghana and then pick Mia up from school?

And Mia had known about it? This little girl is keeping secrets from her momma?

! Robyn tried to grasp the entire situation.

How dare he and she keep this from her? What is this about?

“Call Robyn’s Nest,” Robyn commanded her phone. After a few rings, Haniah pickedup.

“Robyn?” Haniah said through the din of kitchen noise.

“Yes, Haniah. What’s going on? Is Mia there?” Robyn asked with the tone of a woman not to be fucked with.

With a mischievous note in her voice, Haniah responded, “Yes, she is. She is here having a snack with her daddy…And Kwesi is here as well.”

Robyn’s teeth and lips folded back into her mouth as she took a full five seconds before speaking. “I’m less than ten minutes out,” she said and pushed the pedal to the floor of her RAV4.

Robyn’s heartbeat was pounding in her ears by the time she stepped across the threshold into Robyn’s Nest. The scene unfolding in the center of the restaurant was impossible to believe.

There, in front of her, standing on the far side of the room was…

Harper? Harper Stewart, in Ghana. In Ghana?

And Kwesi? That was surely Kwesi, with his broad shoulders and tall frame, facing away from her but closest to the door.

And Harper was pointing a finger right in Kwesi’s direction.

“No, you don’t talk to her, you talk to me,” Harper said loudly, pushing Mia defensively behind him. Robyn’s mouth dropped open.

“Listen, bruv,” Kwesi said, thankfully sounding much calmer, especially relative to a strangely hostile Harper. “I’m not sure you’ve got the right guy. Everything is cool, everyone knows me….”

“Just what is going on?” Robyn called out, finally snapped out of shock and walking with quickened pace to stand between the two men. “Harper, what are you doing here?”

Both Kwesi and Harper seemed stunned to see her approaching.

Surprising to Robyn, given that she was who they’d been talking about and it was her damn restaurant.

But Harper turned to her and spoke first, just as hostile as he’d been earlier, defiant, like he was ready to defend some square of territory.

Of which he had absolutely none in East Legon.

He was here, on her turf. In her space. Uninvited.

“I’m here, Robyn, because our daughter asked me to be here,” he said.

“Because there is clearly some kind of problem with… him. ” Harper gestured toward Kwesi, who, thankfully for Robyn, didn’t seem to be taking much offense to the rapidly escalating insanity.

Whatever this was, whatever was going on, and whoever started it, Robyn resolved to get to the bottom of it, and quickly.

“Harper, there is no problem with him. This is Kwesi, and he’s…a friend. I’m sure Mia wouldn’t call you about Kwesi, so there must be some kind of mistake.”

“Oh no, the mistake here is not mine, Robyn.” Harper did not seem to be backing down at all.

Behind him, Mia cowered silently. Robyn narrowed her eyes in a moment of rapid assessment.

If Mia called Harper…about…Kwesi? But Harper interrupted her thoughts.

“And Mia said that there was a man who came around causing a problem here. And evidently the roof is leaking, there have been floods, and you’re delinquent on rent so, your friend here doesn’t seem like much help to me. ”

Robyn felt a sharp stab of horror at Harper’s words.

First, the nerve! And second, there were the obvious issues that Kwesi had helped with and offered more help beyond that, but Robyn wanted to fix her own mess.

She hadn’t come to Accra to create the same situation she’d left back home.

But Kwesi wasn’t to blame. And Mia? Why would Mia call Harper and tell him anything about Kwesi?

Unless… Robyn thought back to the day Mia sat at her usual spot at the family-style table doing her homework, when Aboagye made a bit of a scene, Kwesi took him outside…

him coming back in… Oh God. She saw. Behind those big brown eyes of Mia’s was a quick mind.

Robyn was constantly surprised by her daughter, and some surprises were better than others.

Robyn turned to look at Mia, ignoring Harper’s comments about Kwesi for the moment.

Mia gazed back at her mother with obvious trepidation.

“Did you call your father about Mr. Kwesi?” Robyn asked her directly.

If she was old enough to make big-girl phone calls, Mia was old enough to answer for herself.

Mia looked down and shuffled her toe into the ground.

“Mimi. Tell me what is going on here.” Still, silence from Mia.

Robyn felt a warm hand on her arm and then heard Kwesi’s voice.

Calm and soothing. “Look, Robyn, it seems like you’ve got a bit of a family thing happening here and you could use some…

privacy.” Kwesi’s eyes subtly gestured to the staff that was paying attention to this center-stage fracas.

“I’m going to get going. And…umm, see you later?

” Later? Robyn almost forgot their date that evening.

They were meant to spend what time they could together before Kwesi left for his latest trip.

There was no way Harper was changing that. She turned to Kwesi.

“Yes, Kwesi. Absolutely. Later is good. I’ll have gotten to the bottom of this by then. And figured out exactly who owes you an apology.” She turned the heat of her gaze back to Harper and Mia. “You two, in my office. Now. ”

As Robyn ushered her ex-husband and her daughter through to the back of the restaurant, she turned only briefly to look back at Kwesi.

She hated to see him leave, especially like this.

But this situation needed explanation and resolution right away.

She gave a weak, tired smile to Kwesi, who waved as he exited, then turned back to follow behind Harper and Mia as they entered her office next to the kitchen that was just starting to smell like dinner preparations.