Page 61 of Hers to Kiss
Chapter 21
The sight of her father’s headstone evoked more emotion than Keke had thought possible. No tears yet, but her chest had tightened and she found it difficult to swallow. She wrapped her arms around herself, warming against a chill in the still eighty-degree evening air.
A simple inscription on the marker read “Gregory Kaye, husband, father.” No inspirational quote. Honestly, her father wasn’t inspiring, in a positive sense. No words of love either—not shocking.
Keke turned at the sound of footsteps. Her mother placed a bouquet of flowers at the grave. Keke burned and opened her mouth to protest, but her mother beat her to it.
“I’m not surprised to find you here. I had hoped you would make peace before you left.” Her sad smile made Keke itch.
“What are you doing here?”
“It’s the six-month anniversary.”
“Are you going to bring flowers every six months?” Keke asked with disdain.
Mary shook her head. “No. This is the one and only time.”
Keke glanced at her mom. “Why’s that?”
Mary sighed. She looked to the sky, its reddish-orange hue signaling twilight in full effect. “I promised I’d give myself six months to grieve. To work out exactly what it meant to be free of him. To discover who I am without my husband, a man who so wholly dominated our lives.”
Her hand touched Keke’s arm. Keke didn’t flinch nor retreat.
“I promised myself if I could release all the bitterness and anger I’d felt over the years…the sadness…the guilt. Oh! The condemnation I built up over not protecting you girls… I said if I could do all of that and forgive the man, then I’d come lay some flowers on his grave and say goodbye for the last time.”
“Anger?” That surprised Keke. She hadn’t known her mother to be an angry person. A doormat that got railroaded, yes. Had she been angry this whole time?
“Oh, yes.” She cackled. “I can laugh about it now because I’ve released it all.” Her hands waved in front of her as though she was pushing the negative energy away. “You know, Keighly, I used to be so angry at myself for not having the spine to do and be more.” She cupped the side of Keke’s face. “To be like you. Such a fighter. In that way, you’re like your father.”
Keke grunted and gently pushed her mother’s hand away. That wasn’t what she wanted to hear. Like her father? She hated the man.
“I know, I know,” her mother continued, “you don’t want to believe it’s true, but it is. It’s one of the things that first attracted me to him when I met him in high school. He wanted to change things. Kind of like a revolutionary.” Mary chuckled. “Only I’m glad he didn’t turn out to be some sort of radical. But whenever there were protests over something, he was always the first one to show up holding a sign.”
Her father? The sanitation plant worker? That information left Keke speechless.
“He never did really find his way, and maybe I’m partly to blame for that. As his wife, I felt it was my duty to help him reach for his dreams. But he would get so angry over his circumstances…then we started having children, and he couldn’t focus on his own goals and provide for us. At least, that’s what he believed.”
Keke stared at the headstone. The man her mother described wasn’t the one she and her sisters had come to know. She resisted the cessation of her anger. What would she have to hold onto if it left? It had been her fuel for years.
“And I did feel anger toward him for dragging me and you and your sisters down. He had such potential—potential he saw in you and envied.”
Keke’s jaw dropped. She stared at her mother without blinking. “Dad envied me?”
She smiled widely. “Oh, he envied all of you. It made me so proud to know you and your sisters wouldn’t turn out like him. You always strived hard for your goals and refused to let obstacles deter you. In that way, you and your sisters are very different from your father.”
“He couldn’t get out of his own way,” Keke breathed.
“Exactly.”
“And the guilt?”
Mary’s countenance sagged. “The guilt is I allowed him to have such influence over you and your sisters. That I didn’t step up and be the mother you girls needed at a time that was critical to your growth and future. I know I can’t take any credit that the three of you persevered despite everything, because you’re sisters. You three have a powerful bond that nothing—not even your father—could break. But if you didn’t perservere…” Tears fell from her eyes. Keke wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “If I had to do it all again, I’d stand up sooner. I might’ve even left him. I wasn’t sure if we could make it—just the four of us. But now I know that wasn’t true at all.”
“I guess we didn’t really need you to stand up,” Keke said. She felt empowered that her inner strength enabled her to succeed despite her parents.
But it hadn’t been enough. It’d left a hole in her. An inability to get close to anyone and trust them. What if they tried to drag her down? Didn’t encourage her? Told her she couldn’t be who she wanted to be?
“No…no, you didn’t. But I still had a job to do, and I failed at it. For that, I am so sorry, Keighly.” Her eyes burned with contrition.
