Tears on a Sunday Afternoon - Michael Presley [5]
I walked out of the kitchen and went up the stairs past the master bedroom into a room littered with an assortment of toys. I knelt next to the bed where my child lay fast asleep. I held the Heineken in my right hand as I used my left to move the curly hair away from his eyes. I kissed him in the middle of his forehead. A small tear escaped from my left eye onto his bed.
“I love you,” I said and stood.
I left the room and headed down to the last room at the end of the hall. I put the bottle next to the cases of empty ones in the walk-in-closet. I sat by the window looking out at the darkness of the night. I knew what I had to do. Maybe the next day I could stand up to my father-in-law and tell him what I had been unable to for four years. Then maybe I could walk away from my prison of madness.
Chapter 2
“Emerald, come here,” I called to my son as I walked toward the entrance to my father-in-law’s study.
“Coming, Daddy,” he answered, running to me on his active little legs.
When he was at my side, he nudged his head against my pants leg as I reached down and played with his hair. I had recently taken him to the barber, who had cut Emerald’s shoulder-length hair so that it barely touched his ears. I knocked gradually against the dark cherry, wooden door.
“Come in,” the baritone voice came forcibly through the door.
I opened the door cautiously.
“Grandpa!” Emerald shouted and ran into the arms of a man who had celebrated his seventieth birthday but remained as agile and fit as a forty-year-old man.
“Son,” he said and turned the big, ancient-looking mahogany chair around so that Emerald could come into his arms. “How’s my favorite son doing today?”
“Daddy and I are going to the Bronx Zoo,” Emerald replied, holding his grandfather tightly around his neck.
My son’s IQ was way beyond his tender age of four. By the age of two, he was already speaking in complete sentences. He currently attended a special school for gifted children.
“Did Grandma give you that gift I bought for you?” Dennis Malcolm, my father-in-law, asked. Even though Dennis was his first name, no one called him that, not even his wife. It was either Mr. Malcolm or Malcolm.
“No, I didn’t see Grandma.”
He ran his hands through Emerald’s hair. “Well, you know where she is.”
“Is she in the bedroom?” Emerald asked.
“No,” my father-in-law answered.
“Is she in the kitchen?”
“No, and you have one more chance. Otherwise, you don’t get the present.”
My son looked up at his grandfather with those big, beautiful brown eyes of his and said, “She’s in the garden.”
“You’ve got it. Now, go see Grandma while your father and I talk. Donald, thanks for coming over today. How’s work?” he asked.
“Work is fine, Mr. Malcolm. Thank you for the opportunity.”
“Donald, you are part of the family now and family members help each other. Did you reconsider what we spoke about last week? As you know, I’m not young anymore and my daughter is definitely not making any more kids. I’m even willing to let you divorce my daughter. You could go on your merry way, a rich man.”
“There’s no reconsideration, Mr. Malcolm. I’m not changing my son’s last name from Edison to Malcolm. And there isn’t enough money in the world to make me leave my son.”
Mr. Malcolm leaned forward in the chair, interlocking his hands.
“Donald, you know my wife doesn’t like you. She has always felt that you married our daughter for the money.”
“I didn’t…”
“Don’t interrupt, Donald; especially when I know she’s right. I see the way women ogle you. You can get any woman you want. I don’t believe you took one look at my daughter and said to yourself, ‘This is the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with.’ After you two were engaged, I had a detective follow you from that very day until the day you walked down that aisle. You never went one week without being unfaithful to my daughter, but that’s not important. You’re an opportunist and I can’t fault that.”
He cleared his throat.
That