Black and White

*SENSITIVE CONTENT: DEATH OF A LOVED ONE*

The air changed the moment I stepped through the narthex. Somehow, the cavernous space felt lighter, brighter. Words traveled, and voices billowed around me as I took the velvet walk toward the front. My left hand hooked onto my faded purse, bearing the scratches of my nervous fingers.

Ignoring the heat of inspection, instead, I let the sanctuary absorb my footsteps until I stood before her. Ashe blonde hair feathered over her shoulders. Cream blouse with frills and lace. Her favorite skirt and white closed-toed heels that she pulled out of storage on the first day of May. The outfit was the furthest thing from my own. But that was her standard.

“We are so glad you could be here today.” I took my eyes off the ring on her finger. The one I knew better than my own. Jude stood in a black suit. Freshly pressed. Hair combed back and trimmed. His eyes roved over me while I took in the years it had been since we last saw each other. I wasn’t sure if it was him or me who had fallen into disrepair. While I saw the successful businessman and husband. I also noticed the purple bruising beneath his eyes and the thinning areas of his beard where he had pulled when he was stressed. He rubbed beneath his watch every few seconds, and he bit his tongue, thinning his throat just a tad.

“I wouldn’t be anywhere else,” I murmured before anyone could chime in. I reached over and squeezed his hand. Then my mother's. With one last look at both of them, I walked toward the pews.

The third row had an empty end. I just needed to make it past anyone who would try to speak with me. The world was not kind, though it never had been.

“Teresa,” Gran waved her hand from the middle of the second row. I forced a smile, the best I could muster, as I looked next to her and Pops.

Taking a deep breath, I slid past my uncle and aunt. Both focused on their phones. My cousin, who just graduated from college last spring, and his girlfriend.

“Hey, Gran.” I leaned over, pulling her close, for a moment longer than I had in years. A byproduct of my choices.

“Sweetpea, you look thin as a pencil. What on earth is that husband of yours feeding you?”

I rolled my fingers into a fist, setting my purse on my lap.

“Here, T.” I looked over toward Pop. My head pushed back slightly as he thrust my two-year-old brother into my arms. I stared at Connor, while he stared at me.

The first thing I noticed was that he had our eyes. Light blue with a darkened ring around the edge. Jude’s hair, dark brown with slight curls. Connor was everything that I had heard about and dreamed of once before.

Within those sky eyes, he assessed me. My worth in his life. My ability to keep him safe. My absence. As if there had never been any doubt, babbling words released from his chest, as he zeroed in on the string of my black dress.

“I think that means he likes you, T.” Pops smarted from across Gran.

“Yeah,” I whispered. Watching in rapt fascination as he pulled the strings toward his mouth. I shook my head, taking it from him. “Doesn’t taste as good as food, I promise.”

He fussed for a few moments. A pout on his lips as he tried to circumvent the reality of the matter. Better to learn now.

“Could everyone stand, please?” The preacher spoke loud and sure. I looked to where Jude stood to his right. His back was to us.

“Daddy,” Connor mumbled as my left hand became his for inspection.

I watched as Jude stood whispering something to my mother. I wasn’t sure of the words he spoke now, but I remembered the first ones I ever heard out loud from him.

“Oh, Teresa! You are just in time! Lillian is about to tell us how she and Jude met.” Jude? My Jude?

No.

That was a coincidence, right? He had disappeared. Didn’t want to talk to me. Deleted me. Likely blocked me for whatever reason I had yet to come up with. But none of them included…stepping into the living room of my childhood home…I took in my mother. Arms wrapped around a man’s biceps, eyes batting 90 mph fastballs in the majors. A man who glanced away from her with a frown, meeting my shocked expression with his own.

Jude.

My Jude.

Mine…Hers.

I felt a crack inside. Something shifted as my heart raced.

He was exactly as I had seen him in the photographs. Maybe that hurt more, maybe less. I had viewed each one so often that I could name the men standing next to him in the desert of the Middle East. Ten months of his deployment were spent digitally together.

“I don’t think we should go over that.” Lillian, my mother, chuckled as she shifted in her seat, tightening her grip on his arm.

“What?” Gran questioned. “I’ve been waiting hours for everyone to get here to hear this darn story, Lillian Mae. Now tell me how you and my handsome son-in-law met, considering you deprived us of a wedding.”

Son-in-law.

Wedding.

I turned to leave. I didn’t want to hear. I didn’t want to know.

“Cassie.” My footsteps faltered as I reached the front door. The cold metal of the brass knob was already beneath my grip. A small indentation where I tried to knock a baby tooth out when I was six. “Cass.”

The last one whispered.

No one in this house called me that.

Dad? yeah. His family? Of course. That’s why it felt so easy to go between the two homes after Mom and Dad split. I essentially had two lives. I was Teresa in one and Cassandra in another. To Jude, I had always been Cassie.

I turned, taking a deep breath. Jude stood there, wrecked. His eyes were wild, like no photograph could capture. His chest rose and fell in harsh breaths. “I don’t…I can’t…please.” He took a breath, running his hands through his longer hair. That already grabbed the curls it had been deprived of with regulation haircuts. “Let me explain. Please.” He implored.

I didn’t know what happened or why. He could try to explain, give me a reasonable answer to why the man I had fallen for from thousands of miles away over emails, letters, and messages was now my new stepfather.

But it wouldn’t matter.

It wouldn’t change a single thing.

Even now, I hugged Connor a little closer, watching Jude turn toward the open room. His eyes found us almost immediately. They softened with the distraction of his son.

No matter what today was. It didn’t change anything.

It never could.

I had already lost everything I had ever wanted.

What do you do when the world asks what you want, then laughs when you finally answer?

“Lillian Mae Pritchard was my wife. She had two children: Teresa Cassandra Beaumont and Connor Lucas Wright. She is survived by her parents and siblings. Her community will remember her dedication to spiritual growth within the home and the church. Her family remembers her smile and the joy she brought to each day. Although I know she is no longer in pain, I miss her smile in the mornings over breakfast and hearing her sing to Connor before bed. On May 24th, she passed away after a long fight with illness.”