Under the Cypress Moon Read online

"Thank you, Mrs. King. I love you, too, all of you." As Mark said this, his eyes turned to Shylah. The words were meant especially for her.

  "Darius, T.L., I think we should leave these two alone for a while," Mrs. King said with a wink directed to her husband.

  The three left the room, only Shylah and Mark to discuss whatever pressed upon their minds. It was clear that Mark hadn't lost any feelings toward Shylah and was particularly joyed at her being there. Shylah could not find the strength to raise her head. She felt so much shame, such immense anguish, guilt, and worry that it ate at her, consumed her, devoured her very being.

  Neither of them knew who should speak first or what should be said exactly. Mark had a general idea of what he wanted to say, but both the drugs in his body and the recent events made it difficult to think of everything or of how to formulate their full meaning into vocabulary. Mark's arm lulled and dangled, drooping over the railing at the side of his bed, reaching out, without his full knowledge that he was doing it, toward Shylah. Shylah had only just uncovered her face and raised her eyes. She saw Mark's hand and both hesitantly and emphatically took it.

  "Mark," Shylah choked. "Mark, I... I never... I never wanted anything to be like this! Believe me, please! I would die right now if it meant I could save you from all of this! You weren't supposed to get hurt. You weren't even supposed to fight for me like you did. Why do you always have to be the big man and show off?" Shylah was angry with herself, not with Mark. Mark's defense of Shylah's honor only further cemented her realization of what a truly amazing man Mark was.

  "I wasn't showin' off," Mark replied, still having difficulty speaking, his voice raspy, his pallor clammy and pale.

  Rubbing Mark's hand with her thumb, Shylah stared into his eyes as if she were trying to see his very soul. There was nothing more needed to know. There was no question of whether or not Mark was a good and noble person, a good soul. Shylah wondered why she had had to make Mark prove himself, as if he hadn't already done so many times.

  "That guy.... that guy meant nothing, I swear. We were only talkin'. I didn't even like him. I just didn't make him leave was all. I swear to you he was nobody to me. I haven't stopped thinkin' about you for one second. Every day, I've had to fight the urge to just call you and say I'm sorry." With a long pause and a deep sigh, Shylah continued, "I listened... to my dad. I don't even know why. But after that, all I could tell myself, no matter how much I wanted to make it all better again, was that I'd only hurt you. I wished that things could just go back to how they were before you told me how you felt about me."

  Mark wasn't sure if Shylah was done speaking or not, but he couldn't help but blurt, "And now?"

  "Now, I think some part of me maybe wants that still, but I know that that's not really what I want."

  "What DO you want," Mark asked, unbelieving that things might turn out the way that he had been hoping that they would.

  "I want you! Ok? I want you." Shaking her head from side to side, the grief, the agony, the unsurety, the doubts, the fears, the pulsating horror of reluctance and realization running throughout her entire body, Shylah hung her mouth open, her cheeks swelling, her eyes rolling back a little, fighting the tears that worked their way to the edges. "Why? Why, Mark? Why do you have to be so good? Why do you make me feel so bad?!"

  Mark's mouth hung open like Shylah's, not sure of what to make of all of this, especially what Shylah had just said. "I... I don't mean to make you feel bad, ever. You know that. I wanna be the guy that always makes you feel good and always looks out for you and takes care of you and would go to Hell and back just to keep you safe. If you feel bad, I'm sorry. I'm not tryin' to hurt you; I promise."

  "See. That's what I'm talkin' about, Mark. I'm not sure I can be the person you want me to be. I'm not sure I'm worth all of that stuff. You sayin' all this just makes me feel that much worse after all I've done to you."

  Mark found a bit of strength, squeezing Shylah's hand intently. "Don't feel bad. You said you were sorry. That's enough. Let's just give us another chance and not make the same mistakes again."

  Neither Mark nor Shylah realized that there was a presence in the room. Until they heard the clearing of a throat, they didn't turn or see anything but each other. Now, standing in the doorway was Thomas Crady, a really strange sight to behold. He seldom left the house, and moreover, because he seldom left the house, he seldom kept his appearance neat, unless he knew that he would be having the "more respectable elements" coming to visit.

  "Mr. Crady," Shylah almost shouted, with nervousness and great anticipation. Thomas Crady was not a man to be respected, but he was a man that many feared.

  "Shylah," Thomas replied, tipping his head to the woman, a sign of courtesy that Thomas never before showed to anyone that wasn't white and wasn't of his station in life or higher.

  "Well," Shylah said, turning first to Thomas and then to Mark, "I will... leave the two of you alone." Leaning in, Shylah added softly and quietly to Mark, "Be nice, ok? We'll talk more later. I'll be back to see you again soon; I promise. But I did mean everything I said. You have no idea how sorry I am or how much you mean to me." With that finished, Shylah gave Mark a short but heartfelt kiss on his lips, leaving him with much more to think about and with much more hope than he had had for some time.

  Chapter 6

  Shylah left Mark's room with a big smile on her face. She really did wonder if she could ever be good enough for Mark, but she hoped that she could be. Everything that could be said for the moment had been said, everything done. Shylah now felt bad for Mark, not because of his predicament of being so grievously injured but for having to be alone with his father. Shylah knew fully well how heinous and callous of a man Thomas Crady could be.

  As of late, at least since Thomas' recent apologies, Mark no longer felt quite so uncomfortable around his father. There were still mixed feelings, perhaps, there was even more of a feeling of obligation than of love, but Mark could stand a few minutes alone with the old man.

  "How'd you hear about it," Mark asked before his father could even take a seat.

  "They called me. I guess they'd been leavin' me messages since late last night, but I never heard the phone until this morning. They said you wouldn't be out of recovery til at least one or one-thirty." After a brief moment to gather his thoughts, Thomas spoke on, "Mark, Son."

  Thomas fought to know what to say, having never been very affectionate with either of his sons, never being shown that kind of love himself. He always left the love and affection to his wife, and even after she was gone, he figured that that sort of thing was better left to Mrs. King since she and Mark seemed to get along so well, or even to Darius King. If he wanted to be the father figure in Mark's life, so be it.

  Now, Thomas had regrets. He had lots of them. They were not always present at the surface, but they were there, somewhere. He spent much of his time trying to decide what kind of father he had been and if wrongs could be righted before it was too late. "How are ya feelin', Son?"

  "Ok. I could be better, but hey, still here."

  Thomas felt a tickle in his throat that would not go away and found it difficult to speak his next words, but having thought them over carefully, he was certain that they were worth saying. "Son, I'm glad. You know, when your mother passed, it hit me hard. I was never the best husband I could be, but I loved her, in my own way. Your mother gave me a lot of good years, but it wasn't until she was gone that I realized how good they really were... and when Michael died..."

  "Dad, don't."

  "You have to know these things, Mark. It's important. Believe me. Don't live your life stupid like I have and look back one day wondering what the hell you've done with your life. I spent most of my life lookin' for my next dollar. I never stopped to see that I had plenty already and a lot of people that counted on me. You don't want to be a sixty-two-year-old man that never did anything worth a damn other than have kids. Even that, you gotta admit, anybody can do that." Thomas reached for his son's hand. Th
is, of course, made Mark uncomfortable. Verbal affection was one thing and hard enough to get used to, but physical affection from a man that many had nicknamed "The Ice King" and "Crabass Crady" was more than Mark could handle.

  "Son," Thomas continued, releasing his grasp on Mark after seeing the affect that it had, "There's more. I have to tell you these things. I don't know when I'll ever get the opportunity again."

  "Like what?"

  "About... about me, about you, about your brother, the company. You name it."

  "I think I know," Mark said, quite sure that he really did know what his father wanted to say.

  "Trust me, Son. You don't."

  "Ok?" Mark, now puzzled, began to wonder what more his father could say, what there was that would make a difference. It seemed doubtful that any words or actions could bring about feelings of real father/son love.

  "The night your brother died... the night your brother died, I was with him at the bar. I told him he was messin' up his life and needed to get his priorities straight. He'd had a few, and I knew I should've taken his keys from him. He got mad when I told him he needed to finally grow up and be a man and stormed out. You know what happened to him, but I know I caused it all." Thomas strained himself to keep the tears from rolling down his cheeks but couldn't do it. They ran. They smeared. The left a trail down his shirt and pools on the legs of his pants, gathering more and more with each moment.

  Mark, speechless, stared at the ceiling. A part of him, deep down, wanted to console his father, but the rest of him barely knew how to breathe.

  "You can blame me if you want, Mark. I've blamed myself for the last nine years for that night. I could've taken his keys. I could've watched my words. I could've done I don't know how many things that I didn't."

  The thing was that Mark didn't really blame his father. Michael made the choice to drink heavily and to speed away in anger. What happened next, though tragic and devastating to the family, was Michael's fault. Sure, Thomas could have taken Michael's keys, but he was only truly guilty of a lapse of judgment, perhaps, out of haste, out of being dumbfounded. Who knew for sure, Mark thought.

  Mark, too busy thinking over what he had been told, didn't notice that his father was attempting to gain his attention once more. "Mark. Mark? Mark?!" It finally took heavy shaking to snap Mark out of his trance.

  "What," Mark asked, his voice shaking.

  All Thomas could do was stare at his son, look at him in awe of the man he had turned out to be, happy that, despite Thomas' lack of effort, Mark had become a great man. More than this, however, Thomas did not know how he would break the news to Mark that he knew he must.

  "Son, I'm dying. Plain and simple, there it is. I'm dying."

  Thomas had dried his eyes, a dead seriousness and solemn, stoic words of iron propelling him further. "I knew I was sick for some time. I was tired all the time and havin' lots of different pains. I just thought I caught somethin'. I finally decided to get checked out."

  "What is it?" Mark's eyes now bulged, his heart racing at an advanced pace.

  Gulping, Thomas replied, "It's cancer, Son."

  "Can't they fix it?!"

  "I suppose they can, but I don't want 'em to."

  "What?!" Mark shook his head from side to side and pointed his finger straight toward his father's face. "No! Go back to the doctor! Tell him you want treatment!" Mark realized that maybe there were some sort of affectionate feelings somewhere within him toward his aged and until now, bitterly angry father. "How long have you known?"

  "A couple of months now."

  Scratching his head, unable to fathom the magnitude of his father's words, Mark now felt like crying. It seemed funny to him, all along, that others were crying, and had hadn't. He rarely did cry, though, a fact that he was a little proud of but mostly never thought much about.

  "Where," Mark finally asked.

  "Where what?"

  "Where is the cancer?"

  "They think it probably started in my stomach or maybe my pancreas, but now, it's spread to a few other places. It's eating up my organs, Son."

  Mark wanted to scream, scream at his father, scream at the world; he didn't know. "Why won't you do somethin'?"

  "Mark, they'd have to put me through months of treatment. I'd be so sick, a lot sicker than I am already, and there's not a big chance I'd make it. The doctor, last time I saw him, gave me about a thirty to forty percent chance of survival, if I start treatment right away, and that was about a month back. I don't like those kind of odds or what it would do to me. I'm ready. I made my peace with it all. If Heaven has a place for a man like me, I'm happy. I'll be with your mother again and your brother." Thomas wanted to say something more comforting to his son, but he knew that he had said the best and wisest things that he could think of, far better than most things that he had ever spoken. Furthermore, he was unsure if he should cry once more. He felt like crying, but he didn't know how his son would take it, if it would make Mark break down, too.

  "Dad," Mark asked, barely capable of raising his head back up to look at his father's face.

  "Yeah?"

  "You know we've never said how we really feel. You were always closed off, and I guess I picked up on that early on. It's sad it took us so long to even be able to really talk."

  "I know, Son," replied Thomas, almost hanging his head. "I know I've never been a real father to you. I could've done so many things so much better. You're right about us taking too long to open up. I want you to know, Son, I do see all of this. You're all I have left in this world. You have no idea how bad I feel for how I treated you all your life. I hope you'll forgive me. Just know that my joy is seeing you be the man you are. You grew up and grew into a real man, without my help. I could've instilled in you honor, love, hope, charity, and a million other things, but I didn't. You found those things on your own. I think that's your mother. She's there, in you. You're so much better a man than I ever could've been. If you hadn't had your mother, I'm afraid of what kind of man you would've turned out to be. Maybe it's even a little bit Darius King."

  Mark had no idea what to say to this. He still loved Darius dearly, but recent events still left a sour taste in his mouth when thinking of Darius. To hear Thomas speak kindly of Darius was more than Mark knew how to handle. Mark thought for a moment, feeling as if he should say something. Every word that came to the tip of his tongue, however, soon left it. Finally, Mark was able to muster a short response. "I thought you always saw him and his people as beneath you, Dad."

  "Yeah. I suppose I have. I know now that that was just as bad as how I treated my family. It was wrong. Darius King is a hard-working man, a good family man, and if you learned more from him than you ever did from me, you did good, Kid."

  "Sorry to say this, Dad, but I did learn some things from him. I wish I'd learned 'em from you, you know?"

  "It's ok, Son. I should've been the one teachin' you how to be a man, and all along, it was the man I despised that did it for me... but I suppose I must've taught you a thing or two, even if it was from my own bad behavior. If I at least taught you to never do what I did, I did alright, huh?"

  "I'd love to say you're wrong, but..."

  "I understand," said Thomas, his head now hanging so lowly that it seemed to nearly snap off.

  "Dad?"

  Thomas slowly raised his head, hoping that maybe things would become lighter, maybe sentimental once more. "Yeah, Son?"

  "I do love you, Dad. Ok? You're still my dad. Maybe it was just the way things had to be, you not seeing things how they really are until it's almost too late, but I guess for some people, it's never actually too late. Don't worry anymore. You still got me." Mark smiled so big, so fully that Thomas had never seen in all of Mark's life.

  "I'm glad, Son. I was afraid you might not feel that way, but hey, like you said, for some, it's never too late. I love you, too, Son. Well, I'm gonna go back home. Everything I do nowadays takes a heavy toll on me. I need to get some rest, and I'm sure you do, too.
I'll be back tomorrow, most likely. Be decidin' who's gonna come pick you up, ok? If you want, I'll do it. I'll get Mary back at the house again and have her fix up your room really nice for you." With these words finished and nothing left to say, Thomas stood, but unlike at other times, instead of merely walking away from his son, he walked over to him and threw his arms around him, squeezing Mark so tightly that Mark gasped.

  "Goodbye, Dad. I love you. You get some rest now. I mean it."

  "I love you, too, Son, and I will. I promise. Seems that's about all I do anyway. You take care of yourself, and I'm so proud of you. I heard from Dan Brady what got you here in the first place. You did the right thing, standin' up to that college trash, defendin' your lady. Like I said, you got your mama in you, Son, though I think I would've done the exact same thing."

  Thomas left his son there in his bed, re-thinking everything that had been said that day. It was all a lot for Mark to take in, given his delicate situation. Unbeknownst to Mark, however, Shylah had thrown a fit as she and her family were exiting the hospital, demanding that they go without her. She wanted to stay, wanted to wait until Thomas had left Mark's room and sneak back in. Shylah wanted to remain until Mark was released, even if that meant a lack of food, lack of sleep, even a lack of sanity. Shylah felt immeasurably responsible for what had happened, not to mention that she realized, once and for all, that every feeling she had felt was true, that Mark was all that she wanted. His defense of her not only garnered pity but an insurmountable sense of debt and hope for the future. If Mark would give Shylah the one last chance that she so severely desired, she would do all in her power to make it worthwhile, to cement their relationship and bring it to heights never before imagined.

  T.L. persisted in convincing his sister that she should go home, get rest, and leave Mark to do the same. Shylah finally relented, but the ride home would prove tumultuous at best. Shylah, mostly delving into her own quietude, could scarcely be roused from this state or be expected to comply with her family's wishes. She refused to accompany them to a restaurant, refused their comforting words, even refused still her father's further apologies. Darius tried several times during the brief drive to get past the wall that Shylah had built in her mind, but to no avail at all. Shylah could not be reasoned with, even spoken to at all.