Chapter 43

"Mom, hasn't daddy come back home yet?" Thomas asked Harriet, coming down the stairs. He had on his sleeping clothes. He put his phone in his pocket when he reached down the stairs.

All of them had came back home, refreshed; did their own thing, but Luther hadn't come. And there wasn't daylight up again.

Picking up her phone, she said, "No. He should be home by now. I don't know where he went off to, so I can't tell if he's having a real busy day." She put the phone back down after looking at the time.

Thomas sat next to his mom. He lain his head on her shoulder and got lost in the movie, The King's Daughter, that she was watching.

"Mom?" He called her name, still in the same position.

"Yes baby."

"Why have you and dad been fighting?" Thomas asked her.

"Nothing," Harriet retorted quicker than Thomas had expected. "Married people have to quarrel sometimes. It's expected. You'll understand when you have a wife," she said to him.

He moved his head a little on her shoulder. Her last word— wife— made him feel somehow uncomfortable. Thomas cleared his throat.

They went silent again. With the sound of the television an exception, nothing else was heard again in the house. Until Luther bashed the front door open. Harriet and Thomas stood up as the violent sound on the door was heard.

"It was you, wasn't it?" Luther said, angrily, walking towards them, pointing his finger directly at Harriet. "It was you, Harriet!"

Both Harriet and Thomas expressed that confused and scared look. You know the one you express when your African father is asking you a question with a long cane in his hand.

"I don't understand." The words stuttered out of Harriet's mouth. She swallowed at the end of her statement.

"Don't play dumb here, woman. You know exactly what I'm talking about!" His voice was so loud that he almost choked on his own spit. "You knew I was going to meet James, didn't you?" He asked her, not dropping the pitch. Harriet eyes went wide. "You knew he was going to tell me. You knew!"

"You have to calm down," Harriet said calmly. She was scared. Scared that she had never seen Luther talk to her so angrily. He also had blood on his shirt. She didn't know if he was hurt or if he got someone hurt. "Yelling is not going to solve the problem." She took two brave steps forward.

"Of course yelling won't solve the problem." Harriet took two steps back when he yelled at her again. "Of course yelling isn't going to save James' life, is it? It's not going to wake him up, is it?" He asked her.

Harriet froze for a brief moment. She felt cold.

"What happened to James?" She asked him, confused, but maintained sanity.

"You know goddamn well what happened to him. Don't ask me stupid question."

She didn't care about his yelling anymore. What she cared about was what really happened to James. What did he mean when he said: yelling isn't going to wake him up?

Luther was scaring her.

"Will you stop yelling for no reason and tell me what the hell happened to James?" She didn't raise her voice. Thomas was there. He looked worried.

She didn't want him to worry more than he already was. He seemed to be the one who was mostly affected by what they did.

"So I'm yelling for no reason?" Luther asking, shaking his head shockingly. "I'm a stupid man to yell for no reason, right?"

"Technically," Harriet retorted promptly. She watched the voltage of his anger increase. "Only a stupid man would yell at a woman who he calls his wife without a good reason," she added, staring at him sternly.

Luther looked at Harriet. His mouth opened and closed. He was looking for the right words to give to her.

There was this one sentence in Harriet head. She wanted to ask him desperately. Since she had rendered him speechless, she took that as an opportunity to ask him.

"What did you mean when you said yelling wouldn't wake James up?" She stared at Luther who didn't do much than stare back. "Is he dead?" Harriet asked the big question she had wanted to ask.

Luther chuckled. His stare turned into a glare.

"That was what you wanted, right? You wanted him dead. That was why you hired someone to kill him," Luther said. "FYI, James is not dead." He stood face-to-face with her. "You know what that means?" Luther asked her, holding a string of her hair. He went down to her ear. "You failed," he whispered in her ears.

Now, she was the one speechless. What Luther had told her made every part of her body stiff.

"I can't believe you think that I can do such a thing, Luther," Harriet managed to say, gazing into her husband's eyes. "After all the years that we've spent together, you believe that I can kill a human," she stated, hurt.

"I believe you can do anything to satisfy your selfish, little ego, Harriet," Luther whispered again. "I know just where I took you from, and what the people where I took you from are capable of."

Luther was hurting her, he knew. He knew he was touching the secluded part of her feelings. He was touching her weak point.

"Harriet, you are a selfish, gold digging, egotistical, wo...." Luther didn't have the chance to say the last word. Harriet slapped him so hard that her palm hurt.

Luther raised his hand to slap her but Thomas held his arm, standing in between. Luther hadn't planned on slapping her, but Thomas had reacted quickly.

"What have gotten over you, dad?" Thomas asked, surprising Luther.

Luther couldn't believe Thomas was taking his mother's side.

"You really need to ask him that," Harriet said from behind him.

"And you too, mom," he said to Harriet, turning to face her. Harriet froze. "What is wrong with both of you?" His gaze travelled between them. "I can as much as watch you two act like children. What I can't watch is the two of you tear each other apart." Thomas walked away from between them.

"Thomas, where are you going baby?" Harriet asked him when he reached the front door.

"Somewhere far away from the both of you," he said and slammed the door shut.

They remained silent for a long while, looking at the door as if Thomas would open the door again just by them looking.

"See what you've caused?" Luther said accusingly. 

Harriet sighed. "So I take the blame for every damn thing that happens in this house? Was it me who barged in here like a mad person, accusing an innocent woman of something she didn't do? Thomas and I were having a quiet time before you came. If there's someone to be blamed, it's you."

"You got it all wrong, Sweetheart. If you hadn't attempted killing James, I would not have gotten so mad like I did. So you should be blamed."

"Do you really think I tried killing James?" She asked him, not harshly like before, but quietly.

Luther hung his head. He didn't know what to say. "I don't want to believe that, Harriet." He lifted his head up. "But you are the daughter of your father, so I have to believe you can do anything."

Nothing is more painful than your spouse expressing their distrust for you. It stings so sharp that you think you've been pierced with Hercules' sword, right in the heart.

"I don't care what you think, Luther. But some day you will realise that I'm doing all this to protect you. Just hope it wouldn't be, too, late to make amends," she said to him, turned and walked to the stairs. She stood at the bottom step and said, "I'm off to bed. Make sure you find my son before coming in that room."

"You don't have to worry. I'm sleeping in one of the guest rooms. I can't risk sleeping in the same room with you anymore," he stated sternly, knowing fully well that he was hurting her feelings.

She wanted to look at him deep in his eyes and be honest with him, but life mattered more than honest at the moment. She didn't look at him directly, only from the corner of her eyes.

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Rachael listened quietly to all the painful things that he said. When he was done expressing how hurt he was, without getting a response from her, he got up and ordered his wife to follow him. He said few words in his dialect that Rachael couldn't understand and left the house. The way he had glared at Gibson and the gateman could earn him an Oscar award.

From the look on Fatima's face, Rachael got it that what he said had probably been worst than statements he had made in English.

Fatima glanced at her with pity. "I don't blame you," she said to Rachael. "I honestly don't. After all that my husband said, I'm the one most offended. If I hadn't allowed Amira to take Jeremy from me, your wouldn't have received all those curses from him. I'm so sorry," She said lastly before walking out.

Rachael hands remained folded between he thighs. Her legs crossed. Her head hanging. 

Gibson stared at her sympathetically, holding the nape of his neck every now and then. The pain was still there.

"We could get the police involved, Rachael. I know their faces. We can get the police involved, can't we?" His voice was shaky, tensed.

"No, Gibson. You heard they already reported the case. After what he'd said, I rather not get in their way. I don't want trouble. Don't want to be involved." Her eyes remained focused on the ground.

"But I was battered. Solomon was assaulted, brutalised. Shouldn't you report that?" He exchanged a glance with the gateman.

"If I should be doing anything right now, it's firing the both of you," she said. The men eyes almost popped out with shock and fear. "I'm sorry," she apologise to them quickly. She didn't mean to be, too, mean to them. "I've already had a lot of the cat-and-dog story you explained. It's enough," she said to them calmly.

Nobody else bothered to say another word. Rachael took off her heels and held them in her hands on her way upstairs. She threw them down on the floor of her bedroom, placed the hat on the bed and took off her clothes.

She spent what felt like and hour in the bathroom. Half hour crying. Half hour taking a proper shower.

Her stomach told her that she hadn't eaten since she had breakfast. Bad diet. She had ignored it for a long while. She couldn't ignore the pain and sound no more. She ordered Gibson to bring food, and ate silently before getting on the bed to sleep.

Her body gave in to the comfy feel of the duvet. She wanted to think about why her life was getting so messed up, why she was suffering when it was the time she should have been enjoying, but sleep consumed her.