The Choice Page 11

  Your loving husband, Jerome

  Marcie’s heart felt heavy with Jerome’s despair, and his desire to be with the woman he loved. She glanced at Sam while he paced through the kitchen and bedroom, talking on his cell phone. Marcie sighed. She opened the next letter, dated several months later.

  February 27, 1815

  My dearest love, please do not forget me. I dream about you every night and long to hold you in my arms. The pain and emptiness I feel at this moment tears my heart out to write this. I’m in the brig and have been wrongly convicted of treason. Evidence was planted in my bunk. Letters to the Spanish describing in detail our holds and the location of Jean’s stronghold. My dear friend has turned his back on me, and his look of contempt for me is damming for this perceived betrayal. I swear to you, my love; I did not do this. I’m trying not to lose faith, but I fear that by day’s end, I’ll be dead. There’s still a traitor on board. I don’t know who it is. Somehow, I suspect the colonel’s connected. My love tell our babe every day how his papa loved him. I do not know if it’s a boy or girl. My greatest fear is never holding my child. Keep safe my love and know my last thoughts were always of you.

  I will love you always, Jerome

  The words blurred. Marcie’s chest burned from the unspeakable torment, of having his life and love wrenched away.

  A soft touch on her shoulder nearly sent her through the roof. She allowed Sam to pull her into his arms.

  “What happened, I heard you crying?”

  Marcie shook her head. Emptiness of a lost love embedded like a solid rock deep inside. “They killed him. He was set up.”

  “Who killed him? What are you talking about? Who was killed?” He sat her down and knelt beside her. Marcie sniffled while he held her hands.

  “There, in the letter.” She pulled her hand from his and picked the letter up from the rickety paint splattered side table.

  Sam took it from her, his face a mirage of questions “Oh … okay.” He put down the letter and wandered away with only a vague flicker of interest. “What happened in that letter was over 150 years ago, a tragedy sure. But nothing I can fix or do anything about. Besides, we need to go.”

  He tossed her a plastic bag.

  “What’s this?”

  “Your new clothes; we leave in fifteen minutes.”

  Sam whistled as he strode into the kitchen. So much was going on inside of her. She couldn’t separate one feeling from another. Feelings refusing to allow her to be happy. Doubts, anxiety, pity and losing control of who she was, all mixed up with fear; she was falling for him big time. All because he dictated, took charge, looked after things for her and protected her. She felt inadequate, which made her furious because out of all of this, somehow he’d stolen her heart. Marcie stomped into the bedroom, afraid of the lighthearted giddy fluttering flowing through her heart. She viewed this unknown with such distrust that some familiar misery leaked out from some secret compartment, locked deep inside.

  * * * *

  Sam choked on his coffee when he heard the door slam. He knew she was mad but couldn’t help the devil in him who enjoyed getting a rise out of her. He couldn’t figure out why he was drawn to her. He barely knew her but couldn’t keep his hands off her. She was trouble, in an honest sort of way—a way he couldn’t explain. And he told himself if he was smart, he’d have walked away. But some feeling he couldn’t shake had him believing, like his own circumstance, she too may be a pawn for someone’s gain. He knew the criminal element darkened some people, and no part of that greed or manipulation filled her. If he were honest with himself, he’d admit he already lived with that. Deep down he always suspected Elise had her hand in some pot, skimming off the top. Except he loved her so much; he thought he could change her. The icing on the cake, Marcie had more fire and passion knotting him up than any woman he ever met, even Elise. An inner war waging inside had him bouncing back and forth between anger, honest to goodness chivalry, needing Marcie and just plain lust.

  Then guilt washed over him. He closed his eyes to block out her face when Elise crept into his thoughts again. He refused to be sucked into that despair. He had to let her go.

  Marcie was different. She peaked his interest, and he craved being with her in a way he had never experienced before. Right now it threw him a curve ball he wasn’t sure he wanted. He shook off this craziness. Still, for some reason he couldn’t explain, he had this burning need to keep her with him. She was now his lover, friend, and he knew what about her past? Nothing but his gut and heart urged him not to walk away.

  Marcie erupted from the bathroom five minutes later. She shimmered in the red cotton sundress, with her miles of hair hanging past her shoulders, and it punched up his heart a few notches. Wow. The only word his brain could produce. Thin spaghetti straps enhanced her lovely breasts, and the soft cotton fell loosely from her waist to mid-thigh, magnifying her curvaceous body. Alarmed, he realized his mistake. She now stood out.

  “Thanks for the dress; it’s beautiful.” He turned away and poured her a cup of coffee.

  “I like my women wearing a dress.” When Sam handed her the steamy mug, a harsh glare greeted him.

  Where the hell did that come from?

  Then his cell phone buzzed on the table. “Good timing.” He reached for the gifted reprieve when Marcie gave him her stiff back and sauntered into the bedroom.

  This was an emotional roller coaster. His nerves were stretched thin, and he had no desire to traipse after her and smooth over ruffled feathers. He had to deal with things—more important things. Didn’t she get that?

  “Sam here.” Now he was pissed too.

  “Whoa, bad time?”

  “No Jesse, were about to leave. What’s up?”

  “Lot’s, Derek figured out where you are. Time to move it.”

  “Thanks for the heads up.”

  Sam disconnected and stuffed his cell phone in his back pocket. “Marcie, hustle your butt; we're leaving now.”

  Sam rushed Marcie out the door. A warm wind rustled Marcie’s hair from the Camaro’s open window. Sam hurried across the bridge on Highway One to Lafourche Bayou. “Sam, where are we going?”

  He met the fire still brimming in her eyes. Then put his focus back on the road. “We’re going to see a friend of mine, Mama Reine; she lives outside Thibodaux.” He pointed out her side window. “Those are sugar cane fields, ever seen one?”

  * * * *

  She shook her head at the stately view of moss-laden oaks and sugar cane fields, filled with an active labor force. Several dark bodies were at work in the field. A chill swept outward from some part in her center. There’s no happiness alive within these people. Maybe times have changed but also not. What she watched reeked of despondency, drudgery and dictatorship, which manifested, becoming stronger, over and over.

  “Sam what’s going on with us? I’m scared. I need to say that much. Sam reached over and squeezed her hand. “It’s going to be okay, Marcie.” But the way he said it, she wondered if he truly believed it.

  “Tell me about Mama Reine. She sounds like an amazing woman taking kids in and living way out here.”

  He let out a heavy sigh. “She is. I guess you can say Mama Reine was kind of a surrogate mother and father to me. My own parents sucked. My daddy grew up in violence, so that’s all he knew, how to be mean. And that’s what we got. I guess you learn from what you see. Anyway, he used to smack Mama around, threw her down the stairs. I was just a little kid. I’d hide and watch, and she’d always make excuses for not leaving. He’s a good provider. He meant nothing by it. Or even better, I made him angry. How many women say that Marcie, huh, tell me?” “Then he started in on me, until I was big enough where he couldn’t push me around.”

  “Mama Reine provided us local vagrants with a safe place to come. If we were hungry, she’d feed us. If we were hurt, she’d patch us up. She did weird stuff too. Like always having a line drawn in the dirt outside her front door so no one bad or with evil intent could cross
. We’d always be safe, to a little kid that’s a slice of heaven.”

  Marcie frowned at his comment. “Line, what do you mean a line? I don’t understand?”

  Sam laughed. “One of her many superstitions, it’s a line in the dirt with red clay, like she cast a spell of protection. Some folks out here lay them in front of their doorway, but you need to believe.” The last part he whispered, spiking an icy shiver up her spine.

  Sam averted his gaze. But not before she saw generations of hurt transform his face. Once again, he shut her out.

  He slowed the car right before a narrow dirt driveway appeared, like a magical trail, among thick, moss laden oaks. Sam turned. The car jolted over ruts and potholes. An old wood cabin emerged, weather worn and raised on stilts. Sam parked beside an old rickety shed. He leaned his head back and let out a heavy sigh. Pulling a thick wall around him as if drowning alone in some private hell he wouldn’t let go of. Then he climbed out without a word or a glance, clutching his keys and slamming his door. He didn’t come around for her. He walked away, self-absorbed, and she felt abandoned and discarded—a woman of no importance, triggering a flood of memories, filled with hurt, pain and what she’d forgotten. The locked door hiding her past suddenly flew open. And it was time to accept what she’d done.

  Dan and how self-centered he could be. How he kept her at arm’s length, and what she willingly did for him. From the fire in her first dream, the memories of him were packed with hurt, wanting, desire, degradation and lust—memories of their time together as lovers, but only when he was playing. His charm and charisma exuded with this powerful need to be surrounded by people—lots of people. His gifted ability to transfer his entire focus in an instant to her, with those whiskey colored eyes, became an addiction. Even now, she felt a familiar tug inside her tummy, a connection to his magical presence, which left her obsessed—with a fiery need to be his one and only. To please him, to help him, to do anything for him, except the outcome was always the same. Saturated with pain, hurt and scandal, never the fairytale she dreamed.

  She closed her eyes when bitter nausea burned in the pit of her stomach. The bile climbed. Each hazy blank filled, one by one until her keen awareness acknowledged one thing. What she’d experienced the last few days had been a blessed gift.

  A lone tear weaved a path down her damp cheek. She understood now, the difference between lust and love. She was worthy of being loved—worthy to receive honest caring given by a real man—an honorable man. Sam oozed with respect in his role toward women. She’d honestly never experienced this before. Dumbstruck, she wondered if she’d have seen the gift in Sam before her memory loss. Probably not. Now what she feared more than anything was her weakness. Had Dan snared her so far into his treacherous web that she’d lost any chance for happiness with the one man she now believed to be her soul mate? Faced with a choice only she could make—to continue this path of destruction or walk the right road.

  She opened her door and climbed out into the stifling humidity. She closed her eyes and lifted her face into the bright sunlight. Marcie followed the rough dirt path to the rickety front steps with a rough, narrow railing, hammered together with two by fours. Marcie clutched her green cloth bag Sam bought her, filled with her clothes and Jerome’s letters. The warm air was so damp and heavy she found it hard to breathe. She grabbed the railing with a trembling hand and forced herself to climb, until she stood shaking outside a torn mesh screen door.

  “Well I’s been waiting for ya, come on in.” Marcie pulled on the broken handle dangling by one screw. Rusty hinges protested with an angry squeal. Small bones dangled from a string and caught in her hair when she passed over the threshold.

  “Chicken bones, keep the bad spirits out.”

  Sam shrugged as he leaned against the light brown paneled wall. His whole body, his spirit, appeared coiled so tight, she was positive he’d snap if she dared to touch him. It had to be ghosts of painful memories, Elise, Della and Leon. There was so much someone needed to atone for. But whom?

  “Step in here’s so I’s can have a look at ya.”

  She shuffled past Sam, still hurt by his rebuff that triggered her unwanted memories. She swallowed her fear when she faced him. “You left me out there, why?”

  He pulled his brows in. Something harsh faded from the confusion outlining his face. He said nothing.

  Marcie faced a large woman wearing a sleeveless blue housedress rocking in her chair. When she smiled, her aged, dark, spotted skin creased like old worn leather. The image of a sightless old gypsy woman, the way she watched Marcie with those unseeing eyes. Positive this woman could tap into her very soul and rip open each vile secret she hid. She swallowed hard. Her weak knees threatened to give out.

  “Spirits talk, they share, you listening there, girl?” The white covering her eyes was indicative of her long since diminished eyesight in this world. How’d she look after herself?

  “Marcie, this is Mama Reine. Mama meet Marcie.” The old woman with bony knees had crammed her plump body into an old rocker, with not an inch to spare. Bunions on her crooked toes peeked out through the tops of worn dark sandals.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Ma’am.” Marcie stepped closer to shake Mama’s hand, but teetered back a step. Feeling foolish, she yanked her hand back. Marcie glimpsed a bookshelf behind the rocker, jammed with photos. Mismatched frames, wood, silver, brass and gold, filled with faces of children, adults, families, graduations and weddings. One stuck out like a sore thumb, amid all the colorful, unfamiliar faces. The gorgeous dead woman from her dream, a ghost she really saw, wrapped in the arms of Sam. As he gazed adoringly in a way that said, you’re everything to me. A younger Sam sporting a mustache and spotted red bandana tied around his head. Leaning against his Harley, his wife tucked safely in his arms. The woman was a knockout. Her long blonde hair swung free and loose with the same radiant smile that beckoned in Marcie’s dream. And it hurt Marcie to see how much he loved her.

  “You ache just looking at that photo? Don’t deny it now, girl. Any fool can feel the air spark when you two are in a room together. You want his love so much it damn near kills you. But that’s all you’ve ever wanted.” She pursed her fat lips. “I may be old, but I remember what it’s like to want nothing more than to be loved by the right man. That’d be Elise in the photo. But you already know that.”

  “The first night here I dreamed of her.” Marcie pointed her finger as if Mama could see.

  “What kind of games are you playing?” His words hurled daggers at her heart. “You don’t—whoa, stop. How do you know Elise? And don’t you dare give me any more bullshit about a dream. That’s not real.”

  “Oh hush up you, what do you know about what’s real and what’s an illusion. Get your lady a chair, and you’d best listen this time. She knows some, not everything though.”

  Tears burned from the ache she felt in that moment. He didn’t understand, and he didn’t move. Sam stood there declaring mutiny, his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. His face contorted with a crimson hurt exposing the depth of his despair. Somehow, Marcie knew Sam felt responsible for Elise killing Leon. And for Della, Leon’s mama, who was serving life in prison for her role in this tragedy, shooting Elise in a fit of grief out of some sense of misguided justice. Of course, he couldn’t help take this on. It was how he was made.

  “You don’t understand, my boy. She’s not to blame. Go ‘n collect yourself. The girl will stay here.”

  There was kindness in the rude, harsh commands. Those sightless eyes saw more than a person with twenty/twenty vision, right into the soul of the man. She jumped when the screen door clattered. The rusted hinges wobbled as they fought to remain rooted in the rotted wood.

  “Pull up a chair so I can see you.”

  Marcie dragged over a straight back chair by the door.

  “I knew you were coming. Elise told me.”

  “Ah.” A chilling tingle pinched her skin. She knew the room was full. She remembered with her Granny an
d her teacher, Sally, how they too saw through the veil. Angels and spirits surrounding each person, they could hear messages sent from the other side. “Open your eyes child, don’t be afraid.”

  “I didn’t know she was his.” Her unsteady voice broke when panic rose of her unknown future.

  “Their time’s over, so let it go.” Mama was so matter a fact. But these feelings weren’t so black and white, not when you were drowning in them.

  “Girl, do you remember now? You were walking the wrong road, but you know that now. You don’t know it yet, but you were sent to him.”

  “No I wasn’t. I was delivering something for a friend.”

  The old woman’s face tightened. Her angry glare reached out and snagged Marcie’s heart. “Oh, no don’t you lie to me. I see and know what you had with you. You’ve been the broker, a mule, carrying drugs, to destroy some poor kid’s future. Fate intervened and stopped you. Right now, you’ve a choice to make. You and I both know what happens if you don’t pick right.”

  “You were born with the sight, but you abused it. Everything you did for that guy, you believed was the only way he’d love you. Haven’t you learned yet, that ain’t love? You even believed he’s the one you’d been asking for, your soul mate. Be careful what you ask for. He’s a lesson you needed to learn. You’ve been together before in another life. Soul mate’s isn’t always who you should be with. Understand the difference.”

  “You just want to be loved. That’s all you’ve ever wanted. You turned away from your teacher too early. You’re vulnerable, and you didn’t listen to your angels, guides and the good spirits around you. They warned you about him. I do understand why you didn’t hear. You’d lost the one person who centered you.”