Aunt Melba leapt from the sofa and grabbed the phone from Aunt Irene before it stopped ringing. Even in her stilettos, she didn’t falter.
“Burns residence,” she said. “Hello, Troy. It’s Melba. How are you? You’re calling for Rachelle? Well, can I take a message for her?”
Aunt Irene frowned and swatted Melba’s arm. She motioned for Melba to give the phone to Rachelle, but Melba pretended not to see.
Rachelle wouldn’t have been surprised if her heart pounded right through her shirt. What had she started?
“No message?” Melba asked. “You sure? I mean, you took the time to call.”
She pursed her lips and nodded. “Got it. I will be sure to tell her. And Troy? Oh, never mind.”
Aunt Melba hung up and returned the phone to Irene. She put a hand on her hip and glared at Rachelle. “What is going on?”
“What did he say?” Rachelle asked. “And what was that last exchange about? That whole ‘never mind’ thing?”
“He said to tell you he was out of line and that he’s sorry,” Aunt Melba said. “He said to tell you he owes you an explanation. I told him ‘never mind’ because instead of handling it with him, I’m going to deal with you.”
Aunt Irene looked at Rachelle. “Where have you been today? What is he talking about?”
Rachelle’s face grew warm. She started to squirm. This could not be happening.
“Rachelle?” Aunt Irene said. “Why is Troy calling here for you?”
Aunt Melba moved toward Rachelle and grabbed her by the arm.
“Come on,” she said and pulled Rachelle from her chair. “We’ll be back later, Irene. Will you be okay?”
Aunt Irene nodded. “Charles is here for the rest of the afternoon. Go on. Get things straightened out. We can’t have Troy calling here like this.”
Aunt Melba kept her grip on Rachelle’s arm and led her outside to her Volvo. She unlocked the car with her keychain device and walked Rachelle to the passenger side, where Rachelle opened the door and plopped in the seat.
When Aunt Melba had settled behind the wheel, Rachelle turned to her. “Why are you treating me like I’m twelve years old? Why are you even getting involved in this? Was that all that Troy said?”
Aunt Melba didn’t respond. She put the car in reverse and pulled out of the driveway, steering the two miles to her house in silence. When they reached the beige brick rancher, she ushered Rachelle inside, into her family room. She offered Rachelle a seat on the sofa and returned a few minutes later with a glass of iced tea.
Rachelle sat back and sipped it while Aunt Melba settled on the floor in front of her and began rifling through the lower shelves of a wall-length bookcase.
“What are you looking for?” Rachelle finally asked. “And why did you bring me here to ignore me?”
Aunt Melba finally found what she was searching for—a small black photo album that had been tucked in the back of the bookshelf, behind a row of hardcover novels. She dusted it off and stood up, pressing the album to her chest.
Aunt Melba came over and sat next to Rachelle. She waited until Rachelle set her glass of tea on the table and turned to face her.
“Do you know who you are?”
Rachelle frowned. “What are you talking about, Aunt Melba? And why did you bring me here? To ask silly psychological questions?”
Aunt Melba stared at her for the longest time without responding. Then she passed the photo album to Rachelle.
“You want me to look at your pictures?” Rachelle asked, wondering if Aunt Melba was losing it.
“Rachelle, I’ve never been married and I’ve never confronted the regret that must come with being reunited with someone you once loved dearly.” Aunt Melba spoke slowly and thoughtfully. “I haven’t walked in your shoes, so I have no idea what you’re thinking or feeling. But I do know what it feels like to be tempted and to yield to your emotions because it seems right and you think that makes it okay.
“I know what it feels like to wish you could go back to yesterday and fix everything you messed up when you were young and stupid and thought you knew everything. I’ve been there, and it seems to me that you’re heading down that path for a second time.
“Whatever happened between you and Troy years ago needs to stay there,” Aunt Melba said. “I’m telling you this because I love you. I know you’re struggling in your relationship with Gabe, and coming here and seeing Troy has only clouded the issue further. But you know what? What you’re really struggling with is yourself.
“You have to figure out who Rachelle Mitchell Covington is, behind all of the titles—wife, mother, niece, cousin, friend. What do you want out of life? What is your purpose, independent of the people who fill your life? I’m not saying you don’t need those people, but until Rachelle comes to know and love Rachelle, how can she really love anybody else? And until you decide to surrender your heart to God, you might not ever be able to claim a piece of it for yourself. Maybe that’s why you’re trying to turn back time.”
Rachelle lowered her head and closed her eyes. She hadn’t yet opened the photo album that she now clutched to her chest.
Everything Aunt Melba said struck a chord. She didn’t know who she was. She never had.
That was why it had been so easy for her to give up on a life with Troy when her parents had insisted. She had always been their perfect little princess and hadn’t wanted that to change.
That was why she had so readily latched onto Gabe after taking him home one weekend and getting her mother’s approval. At least the second time she wed, she got to have a real wedding.
Having the children back to back had been Gabe’s idea, as had her membership in Houston’s Junior League, Jack and Jill, and other elite organizations that would help them both become movers and shakers in the Houston Metroplex area. Gabe had even chosen her girlfriends, because he happened to associate with or like their husbands.
So who was she really, except a trophy wife with a phat house and a nice bank account—things that, in the long run, could be considered trappings rather than blessings?
Aunt Melba folded her arms and watched Rachelle ruminate.
“Take as much time as you need to think it through,” she said. “We’ve got all night. I just don’t want you to leave here and think that running into the arms of an old love is going to make you happy. Troy can’t make you happy. Only God can give you that kind of contentment. I know, because he finally showed me that when I was ready.”
Rachelle raised herself from her bent-over position and looked at Aunt Melba. Her voice trembled when she spoke. “Troy called because we ran into each other today and he kissed me. No—we kissed each other.” Rachelle offered her aunt a sad smile. “Gabe has been indifferent to me forever, and I think he’s having an affair. I noticed changes in him and in our relationship a little over a year ago, but I didn’t call him on it because I didn’t want to throw our lives into upheaval.
“He takes care of home. The kids and I have everything we need . . . except him.” Rachelle’s voice trailed off as she looked away.
Aunt Melba finished the sentence for her. “So you decided to live with a glass half full rather than risk it becoming empty.”
Rachelle raised her eyes to Melba’s face. “You didn’t know I was so shallow, did you? It can get pretty comfortable living in a place where most of your needs are met. I figured since I had given up the love of my life and my career, I could at least have everything else.”
“But how does that make you feel about you? How do you feel about the fact that Gabe isn’t faithful to you?”
Rachelle looked away again to avoid Aunt Melba’s searing gaze. “I really don’t know. I tucked my feelings away, I guess, so I wouldn’t have to experience the pain and rejection that had become the norm. I started functioning inside the new reality and didn’t examine it too closely.”
Aunt Melba held out her hand. “Let me see the photo album.” She took it from Rachelle and opened it. “This is one of my favorite pictures.”
She pointed to a photo of herself clad in a strapless royal purple gown. She was standing next to a tall, muscular man dressed in a white suit and purple cummerbund. They were hugging and grinning at the camera.
The next photo showed them clad in bathing suits, kissing under a waterfall. In a third picture on the page, Melba and the man sat on a sofa and she was resting her head on his lap, eyes half closed.
“I loved him,” Melba said and sighed. “But he couldn’t love me back.”
Rachelle squinted at the photos then gasped. “Is that . . . ? Isn’t he married?”
Melba looked at Rachelle. “Yep, that’s the mayor. We were together before he became mayor, during his tenure with the city school board. Very married. With children, the house, the dog, and me, a long-term concubine.”
Rachelle cringed. “Why, Aunt Melba? You’re beautiful. You own your own business. Nothing was holding you back. You could have had anybody. Why settle for a married man?”
Aunt Melba gave her a pointed look. “Why do any of us settle, Rachelle? I was in between serious boyfriends at the time and flattered by his attention. I didn’t realize he was married when we first began dating, and by the time I discovered his status, after our fifth or sixth date, I was smitten. He told me the usual—he was staying there for the kids, he didn’t love her, she didn’t have his back—and I wanted to be there for him.”
She released a dry laugh. “And I was there for him, for five years.”
Rachelle gasped. “That long, Aunt Melba? How did you hide it?”
She shrugged. “When you’re in love, or accept what masquerades as love, you’ll do whatever you have to do. We were never together in public, but we’d travel solo to island locations and other vacation spots and meet there. He would come here to my place after nightfall and leave out of the back door in the early morning hours. We had a system, and it worked.”
Rachelle’s mind was reeling. She wanted to know what this had to do with her, but she also wanted to know what happened. Aunt Melba was good at reading her face.
“By the fourth year, I was tired of playing the game,” she said. “I wanted to settle down. I wanted to start a family. I wanted a life.
“But he already had one,” she said and laughed softly. “That’s when I realized I was just another trinket, another hobby. I started to wake up and understand that I had been sleepwalking through life. I didn’t know who I was or what I wanted. I needed to find me so I could love me.”
Rachelle sat back and grabbed a pillow to hug.
Aunt Melba continued. “When I began to change, he stopped coming around as much. I didn’t push him away because I was still attached to him. I still loved him, and some part of me was holding out hope that he would eventually realize that we belonged together.
“About that time, two things happened. I found out I was pregnant, and when I told him, he went ballistic. He insisted that I get rid of the baby, and I was stunned. I couldn’t believe that he wanted me to kill something that was part of both of us.”
Rachelle glanced at Aunt Melba and tried to keep her disbelief from spreading across her face. Melba had always been the one who had it together—style, business savvy, self-confidence. How had she hidden all of this muck beneath the image she portrayed?
Aunt Melba stood up and paced the floor while she went back in time. “Irene noticed a change in me, but I wouldn’t tell her what was going on. She and Charles had begun attending St. Peter’s, and she kept bugging me to visit . I went the Sunday after Elvin told me that he wanted me to abort our child. I was just broken inside.”
She sat next to Rachelle and looked out of a window. “The minister that day preached about the woman at the well, who had been married to five men and was living with another man who wasn’t her husband. Jesus offered her a chance to follow him, to fall in love with him so that she’d never feel empty and lonely again.
“I wanted that for myself, Rachelle. I decided that day to start over.”
Rachelle leaned forward and looked at Melba. “What happened with Elvin and with the baby?”
Melba looked at her and took a deep breath. “I stopped seeing Elvin, and I lost the baby. Two days after deciding to live for God, I was opening the salon and I started bleeding. I drove myself to the hospital where I had a miscarriage.”
She picked up the photo album again and flipped to other pictures of herself and her married friend. “If you look at these images, our smiling faces don’t tell you all of these stories. You don’t know that he’s someone else’s husband and that we’re sneaking around, creating a pretense of happiness. You don’t know that he’s breaking his vows and that I’m not as fulfilled as I appear. It’s all a façade, Rachelle, and many of us live that way until we decide to wake up.”
“Yeah,” Rachelle said, “but what does waking up cost you?”
Aunt Melba shook her head. “I think the more important question is, what does it cost you to remain half whole? That’s why I brought you here today. I don’t know what all is going on between you and Troy, but it’s obvious that you two are at a crossroads, and before you take a plunge off a cliff, I had to at least warn you.
“I also don’t know what’s going to happen with you and Gabe—that’s between you, him, and God. But nothing needs to happen with Troy or with anyone else until you look in the mirror and figure out what’s going on with Rachelle. Now is the time.”
Rachelle hugged her aunt and didn’t let go. Melba was right. This was it. Who was she going to be?