The Mystery of Chad Harris: Fate Delivers Us, Chapter Thirty-Two
 

TC and Sam are still sitting on the Dock, when Sam sees, out of the corner of his eye, a hooded figure approach them. He gets up, and walks over to Madelaine.

" How is he, Samuel?"

" Bad shape, Miz Madelaine. I’ve never seen him this way. Well, maybe after the accident."

Sam and Madelaine are silent. They both know the pain and agony that TC went through following the accident that ruined his tennis career. Coupled with the death of his father, he had sunk into a deep depression that lasted for a long time, and didn’t break until TC met Eve and fell in love with her.

Madelaine leans in and kisses Sam on the cheek. " You have always been the best of friends to Theodore. I appreciate it, Samuel. But, I’ll take over for now. Please go home, and help Grace keep Simone and Whitney away from the house. It’s too soon for them to know."

" Ok. I’ll do whatever you say, Miz Madelaine."

" Thank you."

Madelaine watched as Sam walked away, and she walked over to where TC was still sitting. She stood next to him, looking out at the water. They were silent for several minutes before Madelaine spoke up:

" Don’t you think it’s time that you went home?"

" What home, Mama?  I don’t have a home." , TC says bitterly.

" Oh, excuse me. Then, I must have been sleeping in a mirage for the past few weeks."

" A home is built upon trust and honesty, NEITHER of which I’ve had in my marriage. I’ve lived a lie."

" Oh….poor dear Theodore…..you’ve lived a lie.", Madelaine says in a very sarcastic voice.

TC looks up at his mother in shock.

" What? What did you expect me to say, Theodore?"

" You’ve made it quite clear over the years that you’ve never approved of Eve."

" And what if I did?"

" You find out that she’s a lying whore, and silence from you?"

TC barely gets the words out before Madelaine has lowered herself to his level, and slapped him across his face.

" Whatever she is, You will NEVER refer to the mother of YOUR children as a whore. You will NEVER allow anyone else to hear you disrespect your wife like that."

" I….I…..what the fuck is wrong with you, Mama?"

" Don’t ever talk to me in that language. Remember who I am."

" I do. MY MOTHER. So, WHY are you defending HER?"

" Did I say that I was? It’s no secret that I didn’t approve of Eve. That from the moment I met her, I knew that her ‘aura’ was wrong, and that someday, it would come back to haunt you. I had hoped that I was wrong. But, YOU LOVED HER, Theodore. YOU took her as YOUR wife. So, I had to respect your marriage. "

" Well, you were right.", TC barks to his mother.

" No, I was wrong."

TC stares at his mother.

" She is a liar, Mama. She lied to me EVERYDAY of my marriage. She had a relationship with the ONE man on Earth that I hate above all else, and bore him a son. A SON! I  love my daughters, but, you know how close I was to Dad. How I would have loved to have had the chance with MY son. But, she never gave me one. She gave HIM one."

" Yes, she had a son with Julian Crane. But, she loves YOU, Theodore. She has been devoted to you and then to your daughters from practically the first day that the two of you met. She’s back at the house, catatonic. Destroyed at the thought of the loss of you and her family. You HAVE to know that she didn’t know about Chad….don’t you?"

TC nods. " I… I don’t think she knew about him. In the least."

" Well, then, that tells you something."

" What?"

" Something went wrong? For her to have no thought that Chad could be hers, means that something had to go wrong. What  other explanation could it be?"

" Chad was inconvenient, so she threw him away like garbage, to advance herself."

" Theodore Claiborne Russell, you KNOW that is NOT true. You’ve seen her with Whitney and Simone, and you KNOW that she could NEVER throw away her child. That was said out of spite, and you are NEVER to spread that to anyone else. NEVER."

They were silent with one another, until TC spoke up again.

" What am I going to do, Mama?"

" You’re going to go back to your house, and begin putting your family back together. A family that now includes Chad."

" I…I don’t think that I can do it. SHE ruined EVERYTHING."

" No, she did not. You took vows, Theodore."

" Mama.."

" For better, or for worse. You had over 20 years of better. It’s time for your to suck it up, and work through the worse."

" I can’t do it."

" You can and you will. I didn’t raise you to be a quitter, Theodore. To run in defeat at the first sign of bad times. That is NOT the man I call my son."

" Eve ruined this when she lied to me."

" Have you ever asked yourself WHY she lied? Maybe she lied, because she didn’t want a mistake from the past to erase the promise of the future. You can’t tell me that you haven’t been happy all these years. I know better. I know the love and devotion you received. How can you be a coward and run?"

" A coward? My wife has a child with my worst enemy, and I’M the coward?"

" Yes. If you let Julian Crane run you out of your home, and away from YOUR family, you are a coward.

Is THAT what you want to teach your daughters about Black Men? That when things get very tough, vows don’t matter – they’ll cut and run no matter what."

TC stared at his mother. " How could YOU go THERE with ME?", he says in all his fury.

" Because, I’m the ONLY one who can. The decisions that you make in the near future will have an irrevocable influence on your daughters and their futures. Their relationships with whatever men come into their lives will be influenced by how you handle things. And, no matter what logical argument that you give for leaving Eve, the bottom line is this: they will know that their mother gave you nothing but complete and utter devotion for over 20 years. She made a mistake. A big one, but, one that happened before she even MET YOU, and the man that swore to love her for all eternity, threw her and that devotion away. How can they believe in love, trust, fidelity, if they see that it didn’t apply to their own parents."

" You should ask Eve."

" No. I’m asking YOU. YOU are their male role model. And, if you walk away from their mother, the lesson that they will learn, might not be that you should always be honest with your partner. It’s that you will never be able to trust someone enough to believe that they’ll be there for you if you ever make a mistake. We ALL make mistakes, Theodore. We’re human. "

TC and his mother are at another standoff. TC turns away from his mother and stares out at the water. After awhile, he begins to speak:

" All my life, I’ve seen people in this town admire the Cranes. Maybe not admiration, but, envy. Envy at all they had. I never had that envy. There has never been ANYTHING in the world that Julian Crane had that I remotely wanted. Nothing. Until now.

He’s wonderful, Mama. He’s a wonderful, charming, strong, good and decent young man. I….I felt a connection to him from the first moment we met. I felt a kinship with him. In the back of my mind, I thought, ‘he was the son I never had.’

But, he’s NOT my son. He’s HIS son. How can a loathesome sonuvabitch like that get blessed with a wonderful son like him? How can it be fair, Mama? I know….nobody said that life was fair. But, did it have to be THIS unjust?

He couldn’t possibly love that boy more than I do. He couldn’t possibly teach him and help him grow into the man that I know he can become.

How can vermin like that get blessed with a terrific son, and I don’t have one?"

TC’s eyes are full of sadness and bewilderment. Madelaine takes his hand.

"You can have one, Theodore. He can be a part of your family. You have to make the choice. I’m not going to say that it will be easy for you and Eve and Chad. I’m just trying to get you to realize that it’s possible.  It’s SO dark right now. I can see it in your face. You don’t think that things can get better. But, they can. You just have to want it. You have to want to work things through. Your heart IS big enough to bring Chad into your family. To love him. Guide him. The man I raised has that much love in him. "

" I don’t think I have it in me."

" I think you do. You’re a better man than he is, Theodore. Don’t let the Cranes take another DAMN THING of your life. Don’t let them take YOUR LIFE. You’ve built a good life. DO NOT throw it away. You have a lot of people who love you, Theodore. Who will help and support you keeping your family together. Me, Samuel, Grace, George, Maggie. Love…REAL love….is hard. But, it’s worth it."

Madelaine had tears streaming down her face. Looking at her, TC had tears of his own to match hers. He took a hand and wiped the tears off of her cheek. He then took her hand and kissed it, and then kissed her cheek.

" Let’s go home."  , he said quietly, as he led her back in the direction of the cars.