Page 13 of The Impact (Parachutes #3)

Two Days Before…

Vin

Eyes scanning the penthouse, he thought of where he was…and where he should have been. At home, holding his wife. His children slumbering peacefully in their rooms. Who knew dream had expiration dates? His world? Wrecked. And in the morning, his queen would divorce him.

A week before, Vin had been in his old stomping grounds of East Orange, checking in on Lola, when he’d run into an old acquaintance from his youth at the gas station.

He hadn’t seen Lou since Munch bowed out as one of the East Coast’s biggest pill suppliers.

Wasn’t surprised to see Lou was still dressing, sticking and moving like ten years before.

Sure, he had a Benz and a young girl on his arm who he introduced to Vin proudly before she switched her ass in the store in a small skirt and tall heels.

But behind those dead eyes and lifeless grin, sat a man lost in the smoke and mirrors of what he thought happiness looked like.

Vin even threw a not-so-comical joke about his choice of broad.

“Why you fucking wit’ that young-ass girl, Lou?” Vin drilled after she was out of earshot. “She could be your daughter, nigga.”

And if it were ever Vin’s daughter, Lou would be a dead man.

“Chill, she’s 23. She’s legal.” Lou was a year older than Vin at 41.

“Man, fuck legal. Since when we law-abiding citizens?” Vin reminded him, and they shared a laugh. “I’m talking about her fucking mental, nigga.” …And moral compass. But Vin wouldn’t even try to make Lou relate to that.

“Man, I ain’t wit’ her to hear her talk, you feel me? I can’t lie, though. The other morning, she woke up and just started eating leftover buffalo wings before she even brushed her teeth. Guzzling Casamigos and shit. I’m like, damn, baby. You ain’t gonna drink no orange juice, or nothing?”

Vin snorted.

“But she bad, though. Pussy tighter than a boa constrictor.”

Vin left Lou knowing one thing – he’d never be there again. He’d be alone before he went backwards. Tahli had grown him up. Tahli had altered his thinking.

Tahli.

He’d tried begging and pleading. Tried giving space then invading it. Nothing swung the pendulum. Tahli was leaving him—establishing a world removed from his. A fate that almost seemed kismet, looming even on his happiest days. She was a pick-up and go girl. He was the inevitable fuck-up guy.

Yanking on his fingers, Vin frowned at the carpet in the darkness, only one light near the kitchen providing minimal shadows.

“Dad?”

DJ’s voice broke him from his gloom. Curving his head, Vin forced a smile.

“What you doing up, li’l man?” DJ. Vin felt guilty for wallowing in the wreckage of his broken home and marriage, while his illegitimate son had just lost his mother. And still, DJ didn’t have Vin’s full attention, because Vin couldn’t stop dwelling on his own losses.

“I heard a noise.”

A noise. Vin’s jaw clenched as he imagined the trauma his son had sustained, while simultaneously restraining himself from allowing his mind to go there completely; for fear it might drive him mad.

Did that bitch-ass pedo make a sound when he crept into his son’s room?

How many times? What was the extent? Answers to questions Vin still wasn’t prepared for, even if DJ’s therapist could coax them out of him and convince him to share with Vin.

“I thought somebody was coming in here.”

“Nobody’s coming in here,” Vin swore, then immediately dialed down his rage. “If they do…they gotta deal with me. They don’t wanna deal with me.” Vin’s weak smirk was enough for DJ to smile.

“Get some sleep, baby boy.”

“Okay. Goodnight, Daddy.”

Vin’s lenses swamped. DJ said it but guiltily, he heard Terran.

He heard Doll. He heard Milo. And then he thought of how many nights he’d heard them utter that and how many nights DJ never got a chance to.

What a way to fuck up? He fucked it all up.

Vin used to ask Munch, when he refused to leave the game, ‘How can someone so smart be so stupid?’ Boy, Vin could throw some salt and pepper on those words and gobble them up now.

“Daddy?”

“Yeah?” Vin swiped his burning eyes.

“Maybe try writing her a letter.”

Vin peered through the darkness until DJ was less of a shadow. “Who?”

“Ms. Tahli.” Kids always knew what they shouldn’t. Perhaps because adults wanted to treat them like novelties, present only when it suited them. But they were always there – listening, watching. Even when people forgot they were.

“Sometimes…when Mommy would leave me at Grandma’s house for a long time, she would leave me a letter. She liked to write letters. And she would put them in my lunchbox…or under my pillow…”

DJ’s voice dropped off into choppy oncoming sobs and Vin was there to catch him before he broke down.

His little lips trembled with his cries.

Vin pulled his son into his chest, kissing the top of his head repeatedly.

He wouldn’t let DJ turn into Dalvin Junior, for real.

Motherless. Bearing witness to his father’s mistakes. Neglected.

Vin cradled his son until DJ cried himself back to sleep in his arms, brushing his soft hair with calloused fingertips.

He let him cry. Tahli had always said they shouldn’t try to fix tears.

Vin was a fixer. But Tahli showed him that sometimes people needed to cry, and we needed to let them.

Let the kids feel their feelings, she would convince him.

Ironic…his baby love was skilled at bouncing at the first sight of adversity; never letting her own catch up to her.

After DJ dozed off in his lap, Vin hauled him to bed. Finding himself back in the living room with nothing but his regrets, he retrieved a notepad from his briefcase. With DJ’s advice echoing in his mind and his last sliver of hope placed on the betting table, he put pen to paper.

If you’re reading this, I’ve already lost you…

Three Days Later…

It was as loud as expected. Glasses clinking and laughter from private conversations spilling over early 2000’s R&B music. Vin scanned the restaurant for the waitress.

“When you see her, tell her I need some hot sauce,” Lola repeated for the third time. “You know this my favorite restaurant.”

Lola was talking a lot. She wanted to go out to dinner, see her grandson, and was talking way too much. A clear sign she was having an off day in her off-and-on drug addiction, trying to keep herself busy.

“I love this restaurant,” she repeated of the busy seafood eatery titled Cuzzins.

“You not eating your food?” She sounded alarmed, making Vin glimpse the fish that he forgot was there. He shook his head, frown on his lips.

“Here, Dad.” DJ dropped one of his shrimps on Vin’s plate. Vin paid a sad smile in return, aware that DJ assumed Vin didn’t like his food. But Vin didn’t like his life.

“Excuse me…can we get some hot sauce, please?”

“Absolutely,” the pretty, cocoa-skinned girl smiled at him. “I swear, he got your whole face. Your mama must’ve been mad at your daddy when she was having you.”

“My mom is dead.” DJ hung the waitress’ jaw with that one. She muttered something about being sorry before scurrying off, and Vin examined DJ, unsure of what to say. When DJ resumed eating, Vin left it alone. The kid wanted to express himself, no harm. His mother was, in fact, dead.

“She’s cute,” Lola said after she walked away. Vin fixed his stare on the seafood tower in front of them.

“I’m just saying. You gotta get back out there. Being alone ain’t no good for you.”

He cut his eyes at her. She must have read the are you fucking kidding me behind them.

“Look. I love Tahli. You know Tahli was my homegirl. But she wanted a divorce, like I always told you she would. A woman like that, you were lucky to have her while you had her. But I told you a long time ago not to fuck it up. And you did. I knew that other thing was trouble when I saw her at Milo’s funeral.

So, I knew it wasn’t no fixing that. Don’t mean you don’t deserve to be happy.

Get back out there. Find you somebody a little easier. ”

Easier.

DJ’s eyes bounced between Vin and his grandmother, not knowing the “ other thing” Lola referenced was his dead mother. Or maybe he did know. He was a smart boy. Took in a lot more than he put out, like Vin.

“Tread lightly, Lola,” Vin warned. Speaking of dead Sophie in front of his child wouldn’t fly. “And I don’t want easy.”

“I ain’t trying to start nothing. But you know that Tahli was work. She was a good woman, but she wasn’t no walk in the park–”

“You don’t know Tahli. You don’t even know me,” Vin slighted, temper pushing his restraint. “Tahli and I had something in common… fucked up mothers. Hers made her think she didn’t give a fuck, and mines let me know she didn’t.”

“Here we go,” Lola scoffed. “So, it’s me? I’m the reason you can’t say no to a skirt? Not ya gigolo father who couldn’t keep his eye, hands, or anything else off other women?”

DJ’s eyes played ping-pong between them.

“You wanna walk home, Lola?” Vin’s threat was calm but assured.

“No. Shit. It’s raining. But I say one thing about Tahli and the gloves come off.”

“That’s because Tahli’s fucking off limits.

She’s got her shit like everybody else. She’s been battling perfectionism her whole life,” Vin defended.

“Becoming it. Expecting it. Don’t talk about Tahli.

You don’t know shit about Tahli. Just eat your lobster.

” Vin pulled out his cell phone, scrolling to a text message thread with Tahli.

Next Wednesday works. What time do you leave for Charlotte?

The pull on his heartstrings pushed his lip out. His thumb hovered over words he couldn’t find to write. So, he didn’t. Just placed it face down on the table. He’d gone too hard on Lola.

“She’s moving out,” he revealed, at least not holding that in anymore.

Lola’s eyes bugged with the shock he felt when Tahli first declared it.