Chapter 80 – Overheard

Sasha’s POV


I’ve pretty much lived with either Ovi or Nef for the last few weeks. I’ve only gone home long enough to drop off laundry and dry cleaning and pick up clean clothes. I was home doing that and my parents were in their room with the door cracked. I could hear them talking.

”I don’t know what to do anymore?” my mother said.

”There is nothing you can do. Let them be and when they are ready they’ll talk to you.”

”But what if she’s never ready? What do I do if she never wants to be around here again? What do I do when they get married? I can’t lose him; he’s still my little boy.”

”You’re not going to. He loves you and he’s not going to walk away from you but you have to stop meddling. It’s only hurting him. I’m honestly surprised that the two of them have put up with this much. For more than a year you’ve done nothing but try to drive those two apart.” My dad.

I’d been catching bits and pieces of their conversations for a little while now. I could tell that my mom had been crying. My mother is controlling. She’s always had this need to try and control nearly everything around her. It hurt her to not be able to fix this. It hurt her to not be able to make everything the way it was. There was nothing I could do to ease this for her. There was nothing that anyone could do to make this go away.

I heard my dad close their bedroom door as he walked out. He walked into my room and sat down on my bed.

”I’m sorry this is hard on you,” I said.

”There’s no reason for you to be sorry.”

I was past the point of blaming anyone for this. I couldn’t hate the people I love. Nef was getting there. Slowly but surely she was finding peace within herself and in our relationship. There were still time when I found her crying or subdued but for the most part she was getting better. I’d promised her that no matter what we’d have as many children as we could. I knew that we could never replace this baby but I would promise her anything just to see her smile again.

Nefetiri and Adjo still wanted to meet my parents and I’m sure that my parents still wanted to meet them…well my dad did anyway. My mother was convinced that they would hate her just like she thought Nefertiti did. We were still working on making a meeting happen.

”I’ll talk to Nefetiri and Adjo tonight. We’re meeting them at a soup kitchen in Baltimore. We’re volunteering tonight with dinner and handing out blankets to the homeless.”

Nef’s family is very much so civic minded. They frequently go out as a family to do community service and make donations to local charities. I didn’t stay home for long. I went back to Nef’s and we drove to Baltimore for a quick family dinner and then off to the soup kitchen. Nef and I had gone shopping the previous evening for blankets, clothing, toiletries, and food to donate.



Nef’s POV


Yesterday Sasha and I had gone shopping for things to donate to a soup kitchen in downtown Baltimore. They were in the middle of a 3 game home stand and I have to say I love having him at home when I get there. The one down side is that he’ll be gone for Valentine ’s Day yet again. So to make it up to me he’d been pampering me for the last week, flowers every day, my favorite chocolates, back rubs, the works.

Family dinner was nice; we’d had one a few nights ago. I expected there to be awkwardness but there wasn’t. In fact my family was more accepting and accommodating to Sasha. Even though he was not officially a part of the family, my parents treated him like they treaded the rest of us. That meant he was expected to participant in family activities when his schedule permitted. He’d been thrilled. I knew that he was concerned about how my family would react when I came back from Egypt. After all I told them everything. They were sad for our lost but understanding of our need to be with each other. My dad told me that he’d been there for Sasha whenever possible while I was gone. Khai and Set just wanted us to be happy again. Im was a little bit more reserved and Sasha would have to work to earn his trust back. He no longer trusted Sasha not to hurt me.

“I never want to see you like that again,” Im told me when I came home. “I never want you to hurt like that.”

”Come on woman, get out of the car.” Sasha yelled to me.

”Don’t rush me!” I playfully admonished. We were supposed to be unloading the cars but I had opted not to.

”Take the blankets inside and I’ll grab the boxes from the trunk.” He’d gotten into the habit of telling me what to do.

Once we’d unloaded the cars Sasha and I went into the back store room to help with setting up for disbursement.

“And who is this?” Mrs. Robinson asked me. She was the Manager of the soup kitchen and the homeless shelter. I’d known her since I was about 8, when my family first started to volunteer here with regular frequency.

She was an older, southern black woman that had moved to Baltimore with her husband. He’s a surgeon that works at Johns Hopkins with my dad. Mr. Robinson had been one of the surgeons who my dad had studied under. Mrs. Robinson knows absolutely nothing about hockey and had no idea who Sasha was. He didn’t want to tell her either. This gave him the chance to do something because he wanted to, to volunteer without cameras present for PR.

“Mrs. Lyn!” I said. It had been a few weeks since I’d seen her last. “This is Alex. Sasha this is Mrs. Lyn. I told you about her.”

“Hello Mrs. Lyn. It nice to meet you,” he said shaking her hand. She pulled him in to a tight hug and laughed.

Mrs. Lyn is very motherly and it doesn’t take long for people to warm up to her. I’m sure that my mother had told her about Sasha. Those two liked to gossip...a lot.

“I was wondering when you would bring him down to meet me.” She gave me a look that clearly meant that I should have done so sooner.

“I’m sorry! Things have just been so busy.”

She didn’t buy it, not even a little bit.

“We’re sorry,” Sasha jumped in. “It just I busy with work that I never have the time before. It my fault, not hers.”

I hoped the donations we brought would assuage her. Sasha and I had been together for more than and year and we had only just now found our way down here. She wasted no time putting us to work.

“And just because it’s your fault, you get the heavy lifting,” she told him.

“Not too heavy, he’s got a game in a couple of days and he’s supposed to be resting.” Not to mention his wonky groin.

“He looks strong enough.” She pointed to the utility shelves along the back wall.

“You and Im grab a case of each of those cans please? Take them over to the table and Neffy and I will start bagging them up. Nef and Adjo and the little ones head to the kitchen and start with setting up for dinner.”

That’s Mrs. Lyn, straight and to the point. It doesn’t take long for her to start giving orders. She’s called me Neffy since the day she met me.

“Now you, Miss Neffy,” she said once everyone started moving to do her bidding.

“Start talking.”

“Talk about what?” I asked innocently. “Sasha and I have been together for a little longer than a year. I met him at Six Flags.”

“So this is serious?”

“Yes ma’am, but I’m sure you know that. You talk to my mom almost every day. I know you two talk about me.”

She wanted to know everything about Sasha; who he was, where he grew up, what he did for a living. She didn’t like that he was a professional athlete. Apparently all of them are bad news. I assured her that he was well behaved and good to me…that was when he wasn’t throwing Styrofoam packing peanuts at me.

“Stop it!” It was nice to see him have that playful spark again.

It wasn’t long before my mother and I switched places. Those two couldn’t stay apart for long. Mrs. Lyn didn’t bring up the baby although I’m 100% positive she knew. She did field questions about me moving in with Sasha after graduation.

“Tell me how they’re really doing,” Mrs. Lyn said to my mom.

“Better. They’re doing a lot better now that they’re back together.”

“Have you met his parents?”

“We were supposed to, but that was the day that we went to the hospital. We’ve told them that Adjo and I still want to meet them. We left it up to them to figure it out.”

I hadn’t told my mom about the stress on the relationship between myself and Tatiana. Or I hadn’t told her that the woman wanted nothing more than for me to disappear. My mom had figured out that there was a bit of tension there. I’m not sure if I want my parents to meet her anymore. I knew I couldn’t put it off forever. Eventually I’d have to face up to this but is it wrong for me to prolong this for as long as I can?

No, Nef. Stop running away. You’re running away from this. That’s what you do. When things get hard you bail.

Stop it.

When I found Sasha, he and Im where handing out meals and blankets outside.

“How are your parents holding up?”

“My dad is fine. He happy that Nef is back. My mom…she…she worried.”

“About what?”

“That Nef hate her. She worried that Nef blame her for what happened.” I don’t hate his mom. I don’t like her very much at the moment but I don’t hate her.

“Well can you blame her? It’s kinda her fault.”

“I know that Nef don’t hate her but I also know that Nef don’t want to talk to her or see her. I not going to make her. My dad did talk to me about meeting your parents. He want it to happen soon.”

I did want my parents to meet his dad. Valeri is a really nice guy. I think they’ll get along well.

I don’t like feeling rushed or forced or pushed. I hate it. I guess that’s one of the reasons why I tend to run away so much. I can’t keep running away from this. Okay. Fine. It’s just dinner. It won’t be that bad. We’ll do it. I can do it.