Page 35 of The Impact (Parachutes #3)
Vin
“Tahli…you’re sick. You got that shit.”
“Stop saying it like I have AIDS, Vin. It’s the flu. I tested negative for that other shit. I can…I can still go.” Tahli was trying to go trick-or-treating. Vin caught her with one Ugg boot on, sweat dripping from her forehead, ruining the black-cat makeup she sported.
“Baby love…no.”
“Vin, it’s Halloween,” tears teased Tahli’s eyes, and he hated it. She begged like she was his fifth child. “Please, Vin. I have to go.”
“Only place you going is back in that fucking bed. Come on. Let’s get it.”
“But she’s Mouse,” Tahli whined, as Vin draped a blanket over her.
“I’ll take pictures. We won’t be long.” He pecked her sweaty forehead.
Vin set her up with soup, tea, and forced her to take Tylenol for the fever.
He left the remote and cell phone by her side before loading up his 11-, 9-, and 2-year-olds, heading for the autumn streets of his neighborhood in a suburban sunset.
“Oh, hey Dalvin!” one of the moms called out.
Some had kids the same age as Doll, others the same as Milo or Terran. They all hung out, they all invited Tahli to things that she attended only when she got tired of saying no.
They were all lonely, bored, and fading with the memories of the women they once were.
Vin knew. He knew women. Their husbands were annoyed with them ; f antasizing about their secretaries, if they weren’t fucking them already.
And these moms, with their wine in their insulated water bottles, outfits to flatter the figures they felt they’d lost — some version of leggings, girlish grins, and gossip — were just trying to make up for the love and attention they were missing.
Vin would never let that happen to Tahli.
All of these women were beautiful in their own ways, but you could smell the insecurity life had dealt them from too many years of putting everyone else first. The same things that repulsed the men who were supposed to love them had been delivered at their hands.
He wouldn’t be that man. He’d kiss his wife even if he was rushing out and might miss his flight.
He’d eat her pussy even if they only had five minutes and he just wanted a quickie.
He’d remind her she was gorgeous, even if he’d gotten used to seeing her every day, because somebody out there wasn’t used to seeing her every day.
And Vin was the man responsible for his wife’s happiness.
Vin was a man who stepped up to his responsibilities.
Sort of.
“What’s up, Erica. Give me a minute.” He stepped away from the moms and the children his kids had already started mingling with. All of the women were cooing over how adorable Terran looked as Minnie Mouse.
“Hey, Soph. I can’t talk.”
“What else is new? So, I guess that means you’re not coming.”
In through the nose and out the same way. Those bottomless breaths he’d learned to take in his maturity to dilute his temper.
“What made-up scenario have you rewritten now that I’m flaking on?
” he grumbled, his glare roaming the quiet streets of his town.
Rust colored leaves danced across the asphalt under cotton candy skies.
Vin never foresaw, with his lifestyle, being in this moment — ever.
On a cul-de-sac of a home he owned with a wife and kids, trick-or-treating with square parents in a group, snapping pictures in quaint security, tucked away from the threat of people in the world who were more like him than they knew.
The riffraff they spoke of, relieved it hadn’t infiltrated their town like the town over. He was the wolf in sheep’s clothing.
“You told me I’ll see you later.”
Sophie didn’t have much brains. It took Vin sharing a child with her to fully realize it. When you’re young, you don’t think about shit like that. A girl looks good and a nigga jokes, “I’m gonna get her pregnant”. Then you got an airhead raising your seed.
“I was leaving. I said, ‘Alright. See you later.’ I didn’t mean literally.”
“So, you’re not going to see him in his costume before trick-or-treating?”
“I saw him in it earlier at the parade. Wasn’t that the point of me going to the parade and you doing the trick-or-treating?”
“Yeah, but it’s different. He has his sword and everything, now. They didn’t let him bring his sword to school. And guess who’s not gonna see it.”
“It’s the same fucking ninja costume, Soph!” Vin peeked behind him, having warranted some looks. “I should know. I bought the shit,” he hissed, lowering his voice a notch.
“It’s all good. Victor asked earlier if I wanted him to go with us and I told him maybe because his father was likely going to pull some stuntman shit. See? Even when you’re unreliable, you’re quite reliable.”
“Who?” Muddle warped Vin’s expression.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“One more time. After you remember who the fuck you talking to.”
“A fucking friend of mine. Happy?”
“Don’t be having just any niggas around my son, Sophie. If you’re serious with someone, I need to meet them.”
She laughed , guffawed even.
“Sure. Let’s all do dinner. Maybe at one of those fancy restaurants down by you. Make sure you invite Tahli, too.”
Then she was gone, leaving behind her signature sickening feeling.
It wasn’t a day that passed that the silent question of what the fuck did I get myself into , didn’t float through his mind.
It was disgusting to be on a countdown with his child, but “eight more years” was a quiet record played on his mind’s radio station.
She was never supposed to become a permanent fixture in his life. But some mistakes were greater than others.
“Dalvin, you’re ready? We’re getting started.” He conjured a smile and joined the moms. There was only one other dad present. His shirt read: This is my costume.
“So, no Tahli?” Red devil Erica asked, with a sliver of detectable joy.
Erica wore a red devil tail and horns with her leggings. Stacey wore a witch hat with her leggings. Barbara had angel wings and a halo with her leggings. Little did they know, Tahli was going to wear a tail and cat ears with hers.
“Nah, she’s sick.”
Erica fake-pouted, tucking a curly blond hair behind her ear. “God, so many awful things going around.”
Most of the moms were white, but Erica was something different. If Vin had to guess, some form of a mulatto mixed breed, maybe some Hispanic roots somewhere or Middle Eastern. But she blended in with the rest of them.
Him and Tahli didn’t.
They got along but they never dialed down their roots. Passed that on to their kids, too.
These Pop Warner football, cheer-champion, neighborhood-watching mothafuckas were gonna get Tahli’s locs, and Vin’s tattoos.
“Yeah, Terran had it last week,” Vin let her know, pushing the stroller, and trying to push the conversation with Sophie from his mind. But there would be a talk about this Victor.
“She goes to the Academy, right?”
“Yeah,” Vin answered about the ridiculously overpriced daycare.
“That’s where my Katie went,” she retold him for the fiftieth time. “And when she left there, she was ahead in kindergarten. Knew everything they were teaching.” Vin didn’t respond. He’d heard that before, too.
“You starting with this house?” Vin addressed his daughter.
“Yeah!” Dali shouted back excitedly, Milo and a bunch of other kids running up behind her.
“Da-li! Da-li!” Terran called from her stroller, arms stretched out. “Daddy, lemme OUT!”
“Oh, my goodness!”
“My ovaries!”
The moms gushed on top of one another as Vin lifted Terran.
“There is nothing hotter than a man being a super dad,” Erica giggled, and Vin wasn’t sure if he was supposed to hear that. But he held Terran’s hand, slowly walking her up to the house with her plastic pumpkin.
“Now did the town give you a hard time for cutting that tree down?” Erica had another question as the kids ran to the second house.
“No, they gave me clearance.” Vin chewed his thumb, wanting to check on Tahli but not wanting to wake her if she had finally found sleep.
“And you just rolled up your sleeves and went and cut it down yourself, huh?” Erica smirked. “Steven paid over two thousand dollars to have someone else do ours.”
“Bill did too,” another mom chimed in. “I bet you save you guys a ton of money. Tahli is lucky.”
“Sure is. Only time we see you is when you’re doing something on the lawn or even when you plowed the whole street in that snowstorm when the city workers took too long,” Erica’s eyes twinkled up at him. “I wish Steven were handier. He can’t plow, or hammer, or screw anything.”
Vin kept a straight face, cutting his eyes away but not missing the innuendos. Lonely and neglected, like he knew. But he left off horny. They were all horny as fuck, too.
“That’s a cool house, Lo!” Vin shouted to his son.
“Yeah, we’re going there now, Dad!” Milo raced toward the extremely decorated house blasting ‘Thriller’. He was less about socializing and more about the candy mission.
“Make sure you say ‘trick or treat’!” Vin reminded him, knowing his boy would just open his bag and not say a peep.
“That’s right, Katie! Say please and thank you, too!” Erica called out. “Somebody offers you something sweet, you gotta be grateful,” she added to her child, who was too far away to hear. So, was it to her child?
“So, listen Dalvin. I’ve got this shelf in the garage. And I think I used the wrong kind of nails or something because it just keeps falling down. You think you can come take a look at it for me? Tell me what I’m doing wrong?”
Erica took a sip from her tumbler and Vin could smell the faint wine scent. She tried to put innocence in her indistinguishable White, Black, Indian, Spanish, or whatever features. But Vin had been around real con artists his whole life. Suburban Red Devil wasn’t slick enough for him.
“Oh word? You got the big candy bars?” Vin hiked up excitement for his kids, ignoring Erica. Buying time.
“Yup! She gave me two!” Dali beamed.
“Save this one for Mom. You know these are her favorites,” Vin slid a Reese’s in his pocket.