Page 40 of The Impact (Parachutes #3)

“And you what? Let niggas run trains on you in school bathrooms? Not my fucking daughter!” He blared. “I’m a murder them little mothafuckas.”

“That’s not what happened!” Tahli screamed back.

But Dali had given two boys head, and what the fuck was that about? Tahli really would have to talk to her. “You mean to tell me that you and Munch never did no wild shit when y’all was younger? Involving girls?”

“What the fuck are you talking about right now? That’s my daughter!”

“And that was somebody’s daughter, too! All of those girls you did whatever with. Somebody’s daughter. Me? Somebody’s daughter. Fucking Sophie! Somebody’s daughter!”

“What the fuck…are you talking about, Tahli?” Bellowed at the top of his lungs and down into her face. Anyone else would have cringed. But she wasn’t scared of him. And Tahli was at her limits.

“I’m talking about I’ll deal with Doll. You’ve done enough.”

His head jerked. Eyes narrowed. Mouth fastened as he processed.

“So…this is my fault? You putting this shit on me?”

“Yes, Dalvin! It’s your fault! All of this shit down to the last fucking drop!

It’s all. Your. Fucking. Fault!” Tahli shouted, pushing him in the chest and forcing him into silence.

“You broke up our family! You fucking lied! And you have everyone else scrambling trying to pick up the pieces, not even knowing how to return to who the fuck we were! It is absolutely, one hundred and fifty fucking percent, your fucking fault!”

Tahli flung her purse, and all of her contents spilled onto the ground. She watched his eyes gloss over, stretching into a stare before his big hand smoothed the hair on his mouth. Tahli grimaced, her lenses burning with acid water.

“I’m marrying Drew.”

Slowly, his face morphed from confusion to disbelief. Tahli watched every brick of confidence Vin had built himself up with over the past 40 years crumble.

“Wha…What?” Was his shuddering question, as if the wind had been punched out of him. If there had been a desire somewhere buried in her for Vin to feel the crushing of his treachery, here was vindication.

“I know its sudden and we haven’t set a date or decided any specifics but…he’s a good guy, and…we both deserve to move forward. Not that I owe you any explanation, but I want to take a chance on love and I’m ready to move on, and I thought you should–”

Vin raised a palm in front of his shut eyes. Turned and took steps away from her. She watched him try to peel the skin off of his face.

“You stupid fucking bitch.” It was spoken so coldly, Tahli wasn’t even sure she heard it right.

“Eh… Excuse me?” Tears welled her eyes as his glare seared them.

“Fucking history repeating itself. You and this nigga. You’ll do anything but stay where the fuck you at and just deal with life.”

“I am dealing with life, mothafucka! You don’t have a say in how I deal! I don’t have to stay anywhere. If I want to move on, I will!”

“Then move on! Why the fuck you gotta marry a nigga you don’t even fucking love?”

“You don’t know who I love! I love him. And guess what? It’s the way it’s supposed to be. Not with all of this other shit mixed in with it,” Tahli swirled her hands over him. The big ball of every emotion she’d ever experienced wrapped up in a man. “I don’t feel pain with him.”

“You don’t feel shit!” Vin boomed, crimson eyes packed with water.

Oh, God. Tahli recognized it right away. Fear. He was terrified. Even shaking.

“You think that’s fucking good? To not feel shit?

” His voice splintered. “Love you? That mothafucka don’t even know you.

That nigga loves the idea of you. You know enough about each other to sit on your fucking porch swing and not hurt each other’s feelings.

But all that shit about you that you don’t want people to know, Tahli…

all that shit you don’t even love…I do,” Vin vowed, face folding in devastation.

“You gonna marry this nigga, Tahli? You can’t.

No…not that. You’re mine, baby love. You. . Marry me again,” he blurted.

Tahli held up. Inside…she was Jello.

“Let me come back home, Tahli. Please. Look at this shit with Doll... The kids need me. They need us. Tahli, I need you . You gonna, fuck…” Vin panted heavily, squeezing his head.

Tahli could only watch, afraid to walk away and leave him, afraid he might collapse in this madman state.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck…Fuuuuuuuuuuuccckkkkkkkk!” He kicked over a garbage can.

“Dalvin!” she cried out, smearing tears across her cheeks.

“It’s done! It’s fucking done. I said yes. It’s not tomorrow or next month, or next year. But…it’s happening. It’s done.”

A storm darkened his expression. He advanced on her menacingly.

“Yeah? Then I’m fucking done. You do this shit and I’m done with you. The kids. That’s all it’ll be. I’ll be fucking done, Tahli, I swear to God.”

He was scrambling. Petrified. Trying anything to hold onto her.

“Dalvin, it’s been done.” Her sore eyes watched him die in some way. “You’ve just been living in a fantasy for these past six months like something’s gonna change. Up on a stupid fucking parachute all by your damn self,”

Tahli delivered the lethal blow, witnessing the devastation he tried to hold at bay.

After gathering what had spilled, she held out the USB Sophie had sent her. Pushing it into his hand, she glared at his bewilderment.

“What the fuck is this?”

“Gift of sight,” she mimicked Sophie, ready to get away from him.

“What the fuck does that mean, Tahli?” He panted out. Tahli saw that look once on him: when he had the flu.

“It means that…in your hand…is the last sliver of a chance of me ever forgiving you. And I don’t mean reconciling. But I was almost at forgiving you. But that? You made your dog-ass bed, now lie in that shit.”

Time can be an illusion, a healer, or a thief.

It can pause pain, giving the false assumption that the pain passed.

It can steal beauty, and hopes, and memories. Place expectations on our goals, and dreams, and relationships.

Time can make you believe that because enough of it has passed, things that were, are no longer…

December 2024

“Baby, please… Not too much cinnamon–”

“Do not tell me not to put too much cinnamon,” Tahli pushed his hands from her hips, smacking him with the red and green kitchen towel. “You know I’m the queen of Christmas. Which makes me the what?” She put a finger behind her ear.

“Which makes you…”

“The Queen of Christmas cookies,” she finished for him because he must have forgotten. He chuckled with a lip between his teeth, finer than he was 16 years prior.

“Aight, Queen of Christmas.”

The doorbell sounded. Drew’s hands were back to her hips as Tahli gave into his peck.

“Hey, hey, hey! No goodbye?” But Dali dashed through the kitchen toward the front door, typical teenage disregard.

“She drives me fucking insane,” Tahli whispered. “She’s intolerable lately.”

They had gotten through the incident at school months ago.

A real heart-to-heart with Tahli speaking to her as a mother, reminding her of her self-worth, dignity, and power.

Then, a follow-up where she spoke to her as a woman, letting her know, you don’t ever get on your knees for some cheese-dick boys, with nothing to show for it but a hit to your reputation and a little rebellion .

Dali had seemed to comprehend. She was a beautiful, intelligent, prize of a girl. You let them do the chasing , Tahli tried to instill. There had been no more terrifying sexual encounters, but Dali was still challenging Tahli every day.

“I’ll go,” Drew assured. Tahli returned to mixing, a minor frown hitting her lips. Her stomach flipped in anticipation. Finally, footsteps returned.

“Yep,” he assured from the kitchen doorway, popping the word, and Tahli gulped. “He’s here. The one and only.” No hold on the sarcasm as Tahli sighed out a jagged breath.

“Your ex-husband.”

Wiping her hands with the towel, she walked past him.

“Doll! Lo! Terran! Your dad’s here!”

In the ten weeks since that volatile blow-up at Dali’s school, Vin and Tahli had gone from barely speaking to only communicating when necessary.

Her harbored anger weakened with each passing day, and he certainly still held a grudge about her getting serious with Drew.

But lately, they’d reached a tentative truce.

Tahli, regardless of my feelings on your decision, I do owe you an apology. I’m sorry you received that from Sophie. I knew she had some problems, but I never expected her to pull no shit like that. Regardless. That’s all me. My fuckups created that monster. I’m sorry.

It was an apology she accepted for the sake of their children. But Vin had a way of apologizing and making her feel the burden. Regardless, the past joined Sophie in her crypt, and Tahli was with Drew now.

So on this December 23 rd , Vin’s birthday, he was picking up the kids for a fancy dinner and early Christmas gift opening.

With an anxious exhale and a brief pause to regroup, Tahli bent the corner toward her front door. A much shorter walk than her former home, no less festive.

“Hey, Vin.”

He turned, pensive gaze rising from the bottom of the steps. It was cold and he was finely dressed for it: peanut butter leather coat, construction Timberland’s, and a skull cap over what she knew was his buzzed, bald head, leaving out that still bushy beard. Did it get longer?

The thing in his eyes was a constant. The same something that had the power to make Tahli go warm, starting at her fingertips, up her arms, to her core. Like that day at the steakhouse. He always looked at her like she was a wonder.

“’Sup, baby love.”

“You…” Tahli stepped out fully, pulling the door closed behind her. “You have to stop calling me that . He doesn’t appreciate it, Vin.”

“Now why would I give a fuck what your little boyfriend appreciates, Tahli?” Little had to reference how Vin viewed Drew in significance. He wasn’t much shorter than Vin, albeit leaner. But Tahli wiggled her two-carat stone.

“My fiancé,” she reminded him, and Vin cut his eyes away like it burned. Instantly, she regretted it.

It had been two weeks since Drew officially put a ring on her finger. When Vin spotted it three days after, the color drained from his face.

Drew must have also understood the trickery of time. He didn’t let much of it to pass before stepping onto the porch himself, hands in the pockets of his jeans, warm white breath in the cold air.

“What’s up, Vin?” He was trying. Drew wanted him and Vin to see eye-to-eye. “Got it. Good talk as always,” Drew chuckled when Vin didn’t respond.

“Tahli, tell your soft-ass, seat-filler, beta boy I don’t have anything to talk to him about, and he should be real fucking thankful for that.”

“You know what–?”

“Hey!” Tahli’s hand shot to Drew’s stomach when he stepped forward with the unfinished words, stopping him from making the mistake Vin’s grin was daring him to.

“Hey…guys!” She acknowledged the kids coming out, alerting the two grown boys to behave.

An imploring look from her retreated Drew inside.

Tahli shook her face, wondering if it would ever be civil. Knew hell would freeze over first.

“You guys have a good time with Dad and…” Tahli sighed out distress. “I guess I’ll see you on Christmas.”

“Later, Mom.” Milo walked away with headphones on as Dali lingered, scrolling her cell phone, a little less cooperative. At least her cold shoulder was predictable.

“Nah.” Vin rubbed Terran’s afro puff ponytail between his fingers still tattooed with Tahli’s name, transforming back to loving father that effortlessly. “I’ll have them back tomorrow. I know how important Christmas Eve is to you.”

Although Tahli’s eyes misted over, she managed a short nod of acknowledgment. He was playing nicer than her.

“That was really gonna suck if I didn’t have them,” she admitted, making him snuffle.

“I know,” barely audible. “You are Christmas, after all. If I don’t get to tell you…Merry Christmas, ba–” He raised a hand of surrender, letting the endearment fall off his lips. But Vin didn’t surrender anything. So, it felt unnatural when he whispered her name instead.

He’d be alone for Christmas. Nothing like what he’d been accustomed to with her throughout the years. Made something heavy tug on her heartstrings.

Lola was in a rehabilitation program with three months to go, DJ was spending the holiday with his mother’s family, and Munch was in prison.

“Merry Christmas, Vin,” Tahli whispered, emotion making the words difficult to say. “Hey,” she called out before he turned. Their eyes locked. Memories flew between them at light’s speed.

“And duh… Happy Birthday,” she chuckled solemnly. A stare of a lifetime, interrupted by the sucking of teeth and Dali storming to the car.

“So freaking unbelievably stupid,” their daughter grumbled, leaving them both in her lingering resentment.

“I got her,” Vin assured to Tahli’s frown.

“I hope so. Because I’m two seconds from knocking the entitled fuck out of her.” Dali’s good moods never lasted long. It was beyond hormones.

“Chill,” Vin snickered. “We’re gonna have a talk. I’ll find out what’s really going on.”

Tahli already knew.

Dali didn’t see why they couldn’t just be . Why they couldn’t move past it in the Hayes Family spirit of triumph and middle fingers to adversary; piece their family back together in its felicity? Why the love couldn’t trump the solecisms?

Tahli and Drew spent the intimate night together. He retreated to his townhome when Vin returned their children the next day.

The holidays came and went with little friction – Christmas, New Year’s, and even Valentine’s Day, Tahli and Vin’s memorialized anniversary. All breached normalcy.

Until one evening, Tahli went for an impromptu drive, smashed into a divider, and sent them all into a tailspin.

All that was assumed to have washed away with time, was merely stuck in its grasp, only to be shaken loose by one…forceful…impact.