“Beverly, I stood back there and saw the entire interaction. Your son assaulted her by grabbing her in an aggressive manner as she tried to flee. She had a lawful right to defend herself,” he concluded.
Mrs. Cook, who now consoled her son who cried like a baby in her arms, bucked her eyes. “Are you fucking serious? An outsider come in here and raises hell, and this is what you do?”She pointed her finger at Minnow. “Get your shit and get the fuck out of my place tonight. I want you the fuck out!”
“Beverly, shut the hell up! She will be out by the morning. Let me tell you something too. You better have my baby’s money for the damn month, or Sheriff Crawford will be making an arrest. I’m gonna burn that muthafucka down.” My mother was the crazy one in the family. Her age fooled a lot of people.
My father waved his hand at everyone. “There’s nothing to see here. Y’all start the damn movie back. Beverly, take ya pissy, crybaby ass son somewhere so we all can get back to the night. Like my wife said, we’ll have her stuff out by the morning.”
With that, it was like nothing fucking happened. The people restarted the movie. I walked with Minnow to get more popcorn. They didn’t charge her. Once we got back to our seats, she looked worried. I kissed her temple. “Don’t worry, you’re with me now.”
Welcome To Dawson Manor . . .
After the movie was over, I took Minnow to her suite to pack and move her things out. In true fashion, she didn’t come with much, and she hadn’t bought much since she was here. I hoped that would eventually change.
My mother kept true to her word. She came toRosebudswith us and stood at that customer service counter to get my baby’s $900. She was serious about that shit. Oh, and Victoria didn’t do it quietly. The whole time, she told Mrs. Cook that she should have let Jimmy take the boys when he left like he wanted to, but she was too bitter to let them go. Now they were fucked up and little rapists.
The Cooks’ situation was crazy and sad. Mr. Cook had an affair with one of the housekeepers atRosebuds. From what heclaimed, his wife was nagging and all the normal bullshit that men said to justify their affairs.
One thing that was true was that he tried to rein his boys in when they started to wild out, but their mother made it difficult. When he finally decided that he wanted to be with his mistress, he served his wife with divorce papers and told her that he wanted nothing but his boys. He felt it would be best if they came with him, since boys should be raised by men. The boys wanted to go with their father, but their mother refused. Now she had three boys that resented her and were out of control. She knew it.
It had been a few days since Minnow had been at my house, and I loved it here. I believe she did as well. I set her up in the other master bedroom. That was where I set her up at, but somehow she made it to my room every night. Every night, I waited for her before I went to sleep.
Tonight, my family came over, and we had a dinner to welcome her. My parents called her their daughter-in-law, and she didn’t correct them. In my mind, that meant we were in a relationship. I could have been 100 percent wrong, but my crystal ball told me otherwise.
“I didn’t know that I liked lemon pound cake,” Minnow mumbled from her seat next to me on my porch. My mother made three damn cakes and brought them over. This woman had a slice of each one and landed on the lemon pound cake as her favorite.
I tittered. “I can tell. I’ll make sure I let her know that one’s your favorite. Now there will be one here every week.”
Her smile was wide. “That would be such a great after-work treat. I would like that.”
Now was as good a time as any to broach the topic of our relationship. “Min, how do you feel about our new relationship? Do you think we’re moving too fast?”
She didn’t answer right away. Her eyes stayed on the night sky, and she continued to eat her cake for a moment. “I don’t think we’re moving too fast. I like our relationship.” She cleared her throat. “I would like it if it became deeper.”
I moved my body closer to her, then wrapped my arm around her waist to pull her closer to me. Her body stiffened for a split second before it relaxed. “Min, will you be my woman? I want you to be my woman.”
Her gorgeous face met mine. “I would love to be your woman. Only if you would be my man.”
My eyes searched hers for exactly what she needed from me. It was something deeper than just me as her man. Time would reveal it. “That’s the only way that it would work, love.”
“Then it’s settled. Winters and Dawson are one,” she said.
I shook my head. “No. Minnow and Victor are one. We have no war to fight, beautiful.”
She nodded, then returned her attention back to the night’s sky. She set her plate down next to her, then clasped her hands together. We sat there quietly for a while before she broke the silence. “How do you let it go? I mean, how do you know who you are without it?”
She didn’t have to elaborate. I knew what she meant. “I think it was because I knew who I was before it. When I came back, I had something outside of it. A set routine; I didn’t have to find one. Does that make sense?”
There was a pause before she responded. “Yes, it does. The same way you were needed over there, you’re needed over here. I guess it’s different for me. Over there, I knew what I was doing every day. I was protecting my squad. I had a mission.
“Now, I don’t. Well, not now. Since I’ve been here, I have a routine,” she pointed out. “I feel valuable.”
I sighed. “Baby, you have to know that you’re valuable even when you are standing still and doing nothing. Your value is notand never will be determined by what you can do or can’t do. It’s determined by who you are. A soldier is not who you are; it’s what you did, love. Once you understand that, then you can begin to let it go.”
Her face scrunched and head drew back a little. “How can you say that? That it’s not who we are when it governs so much of our lives? I learned almost everything from being a soldier.”
I waited a second before I responded. I understood that my view on this topic may not be that of other soldiers, but it was how I chose to compartmentalize for my peace. “Every day, we learn things from different avenues of life. Those lessons don’t make us that thing. It instills characteristics in us to make the foundation of who we are stronger. My job as a soldier taught me discipline, leadership, accountability, adaptability, and other qualities that have built on the foundation of who I am as a man. The same applies to you, beautiful.
“Everything you learned on your job as a soldier made you a better woman. It also made you better on your job as a butcher and a farmhand.” I leaned in and kissed her neck. “You want to know what’s not a job and what you are?”
