Exit Strategy by L. V. Lewis Page A

once and for all. If avoiding them is the only way he can convince her to come back to him, he needs to figure out a way to do that—and fast.
Granted, he’s taking an enormous leap to believe that Mrs. Beale will share anything with him at all. Of course, she had taken to him early on, and Tristan genuinely likes Keisha’s mother, but that might not translate into any sharing of secrets. He’s about to find out.
They spot each other at the same time as Tristan turns from another short clip of pacing. Clara Lee is chatting it up with Mrs. Searles as they spill through the double doors from the sanctuary where they were finishing up choir practice. For two women who are almost seventy, they are remarkably well preserved.
Tristan grins and bears their fussing over him briefly until Mrs. Searles spots her ride through the glass doors.
“Don’t be a stranger, young man,” she says to Tristan and takes her leave.
Clara Lee narrows her eyes at him. “I know you didn’t come all the way out here to say hello.”
Tristan holds her gaze. “No, I didn’t.”
“Well, give me a ride home so you can tell me what’s on your mind.”
“Of course,” Tristan says and holds the door open for her, but she doesn’t walk through.
She seems to remember something, stops and turns. As she does so, a young man exits the sanctuary and Clara Lee stops him.
“Jerome, please tell Pastor Johnson I got a ride home with Mr. White.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The young man makes a one-eighty and goes back into the sanctuary.
Tristan’s driven the Range Rover, his preferred mode of transportation in Chicago’s harsh winters. He opens the passenger door and helps Clara Lee get settled before taking his seat on the driver’s side and pulling away from the church.
They travel a few blocks in silence before Clara Lee says, “Keisha Anarosa told me about the breakup, but she didn’t tell me why.”
“It was my fault,” he says. “I think I pushed her away... unintentionally, mind you. I didn’t bargain on how much she’d—”
“I know my daughter, Tristan. She can be a bit difficult, a little stubborn. She gets it honest, though.”
He isn’t surprised that Clara Lee see’s through his bullshit. He has to be careful to speak the truth without raising suspicion or making his and Keisha’s relationship into something it isn’t. “And I wouldn’t want her to be any other way. She challenges me like no one else ever has.”
“I can see how them society girls out for the MRS Degrees would take to you like pigs to slop.”
He smiles. “That’s certainly one way of putting it.”
“I ain’t mad at you for pursuing a real woman. I raised Keisha to be a Proverbs 31 woman, but also to have her own mind. She didn’t always take too kindly to what I was trying to teach her, but I don’t think she departed too far from it.”
“I agree. Keisha is an extraordinary woman, but there’s a part of her life she guards with everything in her, even to the detriment of her own happiness.”
“I know what you’re talking about, but I can’t tell you what she hasn’t chosen to share.”
Tristan frowns as he pulls up to the curb in front of Clara Lee’s house and parks. “I was afraid you might say that.”
“But I will tell you this. My late husband was a devoted father and husband while the boys were growing up. He was still making a decent living from his record sales in Brazil, and I was doing the same from my not-so-popular blues albums. We sold every bit of our rights to a record company to buy his dream. That record store consumed him, and when it didn’t pan out like he expected it to, he began to drink. He got meaner and meaner the more he drank, and as the business fell off, he drank more. The last ten years of his life, he made our lives a living hell.”
“I know about the domestic calls, Clara Lee.”
“I figured you might—a man of your means. Anyway, I was getting to that part. Javier began to hit me right around the time