Page 97 of Exit: Us
“Hey. It’s so nice to see you again,” Amina cooed, walking up to my grandma, to give her a hug, but my grandma stopped her while she was ahead.
Like a person that’s never missed a beat, she immediately went for Amina’s left hand, holding it in hers, and she glanced down at the rock that was on her finger. She looked at it, and her mouth dropped. With her free hand, she put it over her mouth. In just a matter of seconds, I watched the way her eyes went from the ring to Amina, to me, and then back to Amina.
“Gemini, you proposed?” she looked up to me, and asked.
“Proposed, and we got married,” I announced.
She shrieked when I said that. She even let go of Amina’s hand. She didn’t look sad. Didn’t look mad, either. She just looked shocked. She knew that I liked to play around with her, so I could also see the doubt in her eyes, as if she didn’t know whether I was telling the truth, or if this was just another one of my pranks on her.
“Seriously Gemini, did you get married for real?” she asked, slowly letting go of Amina’s hand, and looking up at me. She held a seriousness to her voice.
With a smile on my face, I reached in my pocket, pulling my phone out. We’d gotten the pictures back from the photographer in Mexico, so I was able to go to the album, pull up one of my favorite pictures, and I showed it to her.
She looked at the picture, and you could see that same love in her eyes that Amina and I had when we saw them for the first time. She gracefully put her hand over her chest, as she admired the picture. My grandma was so tough. She was so hard, never really the type to get emotional, but when she saw the picture, a tear fell. I’m sure it was happy tears. This was the woman that raised me for the first four years of my life. She watched herbaby boy grow up. Her baby went on to do big boy things. I got married, and the route that me, and Amina were going, it was only a matter of time before I had a baby on the way.
“What you crying for, grandma? You happy or you sad?” I asked her, walking over to her, and wrapping my arm around her shoulder.
I loved this woman so much, that you could feel it. I leaned down, placing a kiss on her forehead, and used my free hand to wipe away the tears that had fallen from her eyes.
“I’m happy. These are happy tears. Gemini, your pop-pop would have been so proud of you. You married her quickly just like he did with me. His mind was made up about me, and he didn’t wait. When the two of you came in here two months ago, I already knew what time it was between you two. I was prepared for it, that’s why I never fell for that foolishness, when you were telling me that she was just your friend,” she said to me all in one breath.
I took my eyes off my grandma for a second, so that I could look over at Amina. She was smiling. She looked relieved. She thought that we were going to get our asses cursed out for coming over here married and not inviting my grandma to the wedding.
“How are you feeling, Amina?” my grandma asked, looking over at Amina too.
“Happy. Like I’m dreaming. Like a princess from out of a fairytale book. You all did an amazing job with him,” Amina let her know. My grandma was happy to hear that.
She ended up pulling Amina over to us, and she had us both stand in front of her. I already knew what she was getting ready to do, and I was prepared for it. My grandma would curse you out from A to Z, but she was a praying woman. She was the kind of prayer that would have your face leaking in tears when she was done with you.
She placed her hands on top of me, and Amina’s head, told us to close our eyes, and she prayed over our union. I’m talking ten minutes straight, going to God, telling Him to bless this new journey that we were on together. She asked God to bless the disagreements that we would have, and that we knew what to do to make up when we had those disagreements. She told God to bless the words that we said to each other because words could sting when they were said in anger, and it could linger. Anything that could possibly go wrong in our marriage, she asked God to rebuke it. By the time she finished, Amina was crying, but I was cool.
She hugged Amina when she finished, rocking her back and forth. That hug went on for a few minutes, and once they pulled apart, that’s when we walked inside of the house.
“If my grandson would have called me in advance to let me know that ya’ll were coming, I would have had a spread of breakfast laid out for you two. He didn’t give me much time, but I can whip something up. I have eggs, pancake mix, and sausages. Are you two hungry?” she wanted to know, as she led us into the family room.
“I’m okay. I’ll just take a water,” Amina let my grandma know.
“Grandma, it’s cool. We not going to be here that long. I’m trying to be back in Miami before midnight. I just wanted to slide through and lay eyes on you. You don’t gotta cook for us,” I said, even though I knew she wasn’t going to hear me out and was going to do whatever she wanted to do.
My grandma’s love language was feeding people. You could come over to her house and tell her that you just came from eating, and she would still try to put more food on your stomach at her house. When you think about it, I inherited that same trait from her. I was always trying to feed Amina. I guess that was one of my love languages too.
“I’ll just whip up a little something then. Ya’ll are getting ready to get back on the truck, and I just want to send you off with some food on your stomachs,” she said exactly what I knew she would.
I let her have it. I wasn’t going to go back and forth with her because I knew that I wouldn’t win.
Since she was going to cook, we no longer went into the family room. Instead, we walked over to the kitchen area. I took a seat at the island, pulling out one of the stools, while Amina stood, taking the water from my grandma, that she handed to her out of the fridge. Amina attempted to ask my grandma if she needed any help with breakfast, but just like I knew she would, she shut it down, telling Amina that she had it under control and to just sit with me.
“Amina, how does your mom feel about you getting married and not going back to London?” my grandma asked, making small talk, as she pulled the items out of the fridge that she was going to need for breakfast.
She asked Amina that question right after she finished drinking the water and placed the cap back on it.
“She’s happy for me, and Gemini. I thought that she would be upset with me because we did a shotgun wedding. I’m her only child, and I know that she would have wanted to be there. She understood though. She knows that Gemini and I both made a decision with our hearts. She is sad that I’m not going back to London. She’ll be in Miami this weekend so that she can see me. She’s going to stay for a couple of weeks,” Amina let her know.
“You think she’ll leave London and move back to Miami so that she could be closer with you?” my grandma wanted to know, and her question made Amina smile.
“I highly doubt it. She’s built an entire name out there in London for herself. Although I’m not there, she really loves it there. It’s a place that she’s always wanted to live. My momwould never move back to Miami. It’s the city where my father was murdered, so it’s too traumatic for her. I’ll always go visit her, and I know she’ll always come down to visit me too,” Amina went on to say.
Hearing her mention her father, I knew that it was something that always put her in her feelings, so I reached my hand over, just to place it in her lap. She put her hand on top of mine, and I know that it was just a subtle way of her letting me know that she felt me.
