25 December 1988 – Sunday
Richmond, Kentucky
Eliot stood in the doorway. He was sweating. Profusely sweating. His hands felt like they were dripping and the back of shirt felt saturated.
She was sitting there.
She was sitting on the couch with a baby.
Whose baby was it? Was it his baby?
Eliot was still sweating, but after three years in the institution, he thought he was ready for her. Ready to see her face.
He was not ready to see her nineteen years old, not ready to see her married, not ready to see her with a baby.
She hadn’t seen him yet.
He didn’t want to go in.
He was scared, and sweating.
Eliot tried to take a deep breath. It shuddered in his lungs. He gripped the frame of the door; his knuckles were white.
“You okay there?”
Eliot jumped, and cried out.
“Whoa, I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Eliot turned to the voice, looked full in the face of a slender, yet powerful looking man with dark hair and dark green eyes.
“I’m Damien,” He held his hand out to be shook; “I’m your brother in law.”
Eliot swallowed, reached out and took the hand in his own.
“You are Eliot?”
Eliot nodded.
Damien smiled, white teeth showing through his neatly trimmed goatee. “Nice to meet you Eliot, I’m sure we are going to get on great.” Damien dropped his hand and stepped past him into the lounge as Angellica looked up.
Eliot spotted her smile disappear as she looked at him.
His heart was racing.
Damien moved to sit next to Angellica, looping an arm around her shoulders, he still smiled.
Eliot turned away and left the doorway, heading back to his room.
He closed his door behind him and leaned heavily against it. He slid down the door and cried into his hands.
Angellica sat on the couch, holding her daughter. She hadn’t seen Eliot until Damien had come into the room. She didn’t see him again before she left close to lunchtime on Christmas day. Damien had taken her and Azhure up to his mothers’ house for the afternoon. It had been pleasant enough apart from spending the time with Damien’s mother and two brothers, Devlin and Kincade.
Damien’s mother, Virginia, was a tiny, meek woman who barely spoke above a whisper. Everyone seemed to ignore she even existed.
Devlin was a bachelor and self-confessed womaniser. He was twenty-nine years old and acted as though he was still seventeen. He was loud, obnoxious and arrogant, although very attractive in an odd dark way.
Kincade was the youngest at twenty-one years old. He was completely different from both of his brothers, yet nothing like his mother either. He was polite, quiet and smiled almost all of the time. He had his fiancée, Kimberly with him and they sat off to the side of the room together keeping to themselves.
Angellica watched everyone and was surprised when Virginia came over and sat next to her.
“How are you doing with the baby darling?” She asked, in her quiet sweet voice.
YOU ARE READING
