“Well, a strange lady answered their son-in-law’s door.” Janey mused in between bites of food.
“She was only strange to them, Janey.” Mr. Bishop’s tone held a warning. “She’s not strange to my son. Besides, they’re gonna have to accept the fact that he’s gonna find love again.”
“Maybe he could have told them about his friend before he let them find out in such a jarring way.”
Quentin glared at Ms. Janey. “I don’t owe them open-door access to my life. And maybe I could’ve told them about Eastley and even introduced them to Eastley if they would’ve let me know they were coming. Who shows up unannounced to a grown man’s house?”
Janey shrugged her shoulders. “His wife’s parents.”
“His wife is no longer on this Earth, Janey. Like he said, he doesn’t owe them access to his life.”
“Well—”
Mr. Bishop cut her off. “Drop it, Janey. You don’t know any more about my son’s situation than what you hear in the gossip circulating around Sweet Jackson. You shouldn’t offer opinions about subjects you don’t know anything about.”
She chewed her food thoughtfully before speaking again. “I’m sorry. I guess I’m just thinking like a parent.”
Mr. Bishop made a sound deep in his throat that sounded like a cross between a scoff and a groan. “I’m just thinking like a parent too. Yes, I understand they lost their child. It was a horrible and devastating thing that happened. They buried their child, and I watched helplessly while mine became a shell of his former self. Withdrawn. Angry. Guilty. Hopeless. Eternally altered. Now God has decided to restore my son. There’s not a devil in Hell or that spends time in my bed that I will allow to convince him that if he doesn’t walk around with a black cloud hovering over his head, he’s in some way dishonoring Teagan.
“Her parents and nobody else gets to decide when the appropriate amount of time has passed for my son to make his way out of the active grief and mourning stage.”
“That wasn’t where I was going, Quincy. I was just acknowledging the fact that the last thing Monique and DeVaughn were probably expecting to see was an unfamiliar face at their son-in-law’s door.”
“And I was just acknowledging the fact that my son doesn’t owe them his chastity, his singleness, or his celibacy.”
The rest of lunch was silent with unspoken tension. Every bite of food that landed in my stomach hit with a thud. I hated that there was so much contention centered around my presence in Quentin’s life. If I could’ve gone back in time, I never would’ve answered his door. I would’ve hidden out in the bedroom and let him deal withMoniqueandDeVaughn.
I felt the biggest wave of relief when Quentin announced to his father that we were leaving. I expressed my gratitude to Mr. Bishop for having me and told him that the meal he prepared was delicious. I said a stiff goodbye and gave a brief wave to Janey. I neglected to lie about it being nice to meet her. It wasn’t.
I was glad that we took Quentin’s bike instead of the truck. There was no way for us to talk on the bike, and I still wasn’t ready to express the thoughts going through my mind. At the house, I went directly into the guest bedroom. While I had moved a lot of my stuff into Quentin’s room, I hadn’t moved everything. I changed out of the sundress and into a hoodie and shorts.
I left the room, padding through the house in my socks. I found Quentin in the kitchen getting a glass of iced water.
He glanced over at me, and a look of sadness passed over his face before he schooled his expression. It hurt my heart to see him unhappy, but the entire day had made me feel a way that I didn’t like feeling. I needed to talk my feelings out with somebody who wasn’t enmeshed in the situation.
“You going somewhere?”
“Asia’s picking me up. I need a minute to process.”
“You don’t feel like you should process those feelings with me?”
I gave him a small, weak smile. “I do. But first I have to process them with me.”
He watched me silently for a few seconds before he nodded. “Okay. Not too long, though. I’m not going to sleep without you in our bed with me.”
He called itourbed, and that actually made some of the tension I was feeling dissipate. I walked over to him. When I was close enough, I wrapped my arms around his waist. He wrapped his around my shoulders and held me.
“It was intense,” I confided to Asia after telling her about how Mr. Bishop checked his lady at the lunch table. The two of us were seated at the kitchen island.
“Well, she probably should’ve stayed her mouthy ass out of it,” Asia said. “You know I can’t stand her.”
“I don’t remember her,” I admitted. Sometimes, it was like I had erased the memories of growing up in Sweet Jackson. But then again, I left pretty young.
“She used to process the loans at Sweet Jackson Bank.” Asia rolled her eyes. “So she would see all of your financial business when you applied. I remember I went there for a small personal loan to buy my first car. They turned me down. Then I ran into her at the grocery store, and she starts telling me how I should’ve known they were gonna turn me down when I had all those outstanding student loans.” She eyed me. “Now, she knew good and damn well that peoples’ loan applications were confidential. She had no business discussing them, let alone in the middle of Sweet Jackson Food Basket where anybody could overhear. I wanted to punch her dead in the face.”
“Did you report her?”
“For what? Her granddaddy was the bank’s president. That’s how she got away with running her mouth about people’s finances and kept her job. The next time I needed a loan, I carried my ass straight to First National Bank of Londynville where nobody knew my name and where I wouldn’t run into them in the grocery store. After that, I found out that nobody local got loans from Sweet Jackson Bank. Everybody went to Londynville. Sweet Jackson Bank had to close their loan department. When her grandfather finally retired, and her daddy took over, he moved her ass right outta loans and into the safe deposit box department. She was down there in the basement all by herself most of the time. Then local people slowly started returning to Sweet Jackson for loans.” Asia cackled loudly. “Mr. Bishop told her ass off? That’s what she gets. I can’t stand her.”
