“That’s true,” he said with a grin.
“And it doesn’t bother you?”
“It bothers me. But I can’t be bothered by it. I’m not getting any younger, Jenay. And guess what? You aren’t either.”
She laughed.
“We’ve got to live,” he continued. “And that’s what we’re going to do. They can hate me. They can declare I’m the worse human being since Hitler. I don’t give a shit. What I care about is what you say about it.” He looked at her. He looked at this beautiful black woman who had his heart in the palm of her hand, and didn’t know it. “What do you say about it, Jean? What kind of man do you say I am?”
Jenay continued to stare at the mighty river in front of them. Then she looked at him. “I say you’re a ruthless sonafabitch,” she said.
His heart fell through his shoe. Not her too!
“You’re a ruthless sonafabitch,” she repeated, “who treats me like his queen.”
His heart soared. Just like that. And then he smiled. And then he said the words he thought he would never say to another woman as long as he lived. “I love you, Jenay,” he said. “I have fallen in love with you.”
Jenay looked at him. “I think I’ve fallen too, Charlie.”
He smiled. “And you can’t get up?”
Jenay remained serious. “And I don’t want to get up,” she said.
His smile left too. And he leaned over and kissed her. When they opened their eyes again, they were heading straight for a sandbar. He swerved, and missed it completely, and then they laughed.
“Good move,” Jenay said with a laugh. “Very good move, Charlie!”
And Charles nodded his head. That was what she did for him. She didn’t make him feel complete. He already felt complete. But she made him feel relevant. And special. And the kind of man who could do anything he set out to do. With her by his side.
EPILOGUE
Seven Months Later
Everybody was there. Jenay’s parents. Charles’s sons. Megan, Norm, and Denise. Everybody came. It was the event of the season in Jericho. But Charles only had eyes for Jenay.
Her father walked her down the aisle. She wore a gorgeous mermaid dress that highlighted her slender waist up top, and wrapped around in waves of pleats below. Charles never dreamed any dress could be so beautiful. And the woman behind the veil. He was mesmerized by her. He stood there, with Brent at his side, and Tony and Robert there too, and he finally knew what perfection looked like. It looked like the woman walking toward him. It looked like the woman who still made his heart pound when she entered a room. It was Jenay.
Jenay, too, was staring at him. Not the guests. Not her employees who were thrilled to attend. Not even her mother. She was staring at Charles. He looked so uncomfortable, standing there, as if he was a man about to be given his last rites. She smiled at his awkwardness. It endeared him to her.
But by the time she made it up to him, and her father gave her to him by placing her hand in his hand and stepping back and away, she realized it wasn’t awkwardness at all. He was trying to contain his emotions. Because as soon as he saw her, he cried. Charles Sinatra, the man who supposedly had no heart, was nothing but heart and soul and raw emotions to Jenay.
And when they clasped hands, and said their vows, and the preacher pronounced them husband and wife, it was over for both of them. They were in tears as he kissed his bride. Tears of exceeding joy. The room went wild. Even his sons and her parents were in tears. But they didn’t feel half the love, nor happiness, that the newlyweds felt.
Five months later, three days after Donald was finally released from prison, there was more joy.
They were sailing again. It had become their weekend, get-away-from-it-all ritual. Jenay found out yesterday, but Charles had been out of town. He returned late last night, while she was asleep. Now was the time, she felt. Now was the perfect time.
“Donald phoned me yesterday,” she said.
Charles was sailing the boat, and she was in her usual perch on the passenger seat. He looked at her. “Did he?”
“He did. He wanted to make sure I knew, and I told you, that the paternity test confirmed what you had suspected all along.”
“That the baby Susan delivered was not Donald’s child,” Charles said.
“That’s what he wanted me to know, yes,” Jenay said. “I told him I already knew. Tony had already told us. But he was proud of the fact that it wasn’t his kid, as if the beating he put on her was now justified. He was glad it wasn’t his child. And, quite frankly, given what he did to Susan, I was pleased too.”
“As was I,” Charles responded. “That boy does not need to be anybody’s father right now.”