Exit Strategy by L. V. Lewis Page B

Keisha was ten, and the boys had all but left home, going to college and busy with their own lives and whatnot. So when Javier came home from a bad day at the record store, he took it out on me—most of the time.
“I had foolishly promised him when we were younger that I would never leave him. See, his mama had left his daddy and run off with another man, and I don’t think he ever got over that. Pastor Johnson figured out when I didn’t come to church, I was getting over some bruise Javier had put on me. He counseled me to leave after he spent years trying to convince Javier to stop drinking and beating his wife.”
Tristan takes her hand in his. “I’m so sorry you and Keisha had to go through that.”
“I’m sorry, too. Sorrier than you’ll ever know. I should’ve taken Keisha away before it got so bad. So, it’s my fault if Keisha can’t open up. She excelled in her music and got into DePaul without much help from me or her daddy. It was the best thing that ever happened for her. The boys pitched in, and we put her up in the dorm, even though she had a home right here. Javier died of a stroke in her junior year, finally freeing us both from the hell he turned our house into.”
“Keisha began to have anxiety attacks again after you came out of the hospital. I was with her on both occasions. I believe she left because she didn’t want to tell me about her triggers.”
“That’s something she kept between her and her psychologist, but if I was a betting woman—which I’m not—I’d say it’s got something to do with her daddy. Now like I said, I can’t tell you her part of the story. She’ll have to do that when she’s good and ready, because she’s prideful like me when I was her age. It’s been only in the last few years that William has shown me how to recognize things in myself that I’ve known for years but never done anything about.” Clara Lee looks away shyly as she says it, almost as if she has shared too much.
“Sounds like you and the pastor are good for each other.” Unlike his father and Lydia.
Charles White had been a lonely, angry man after his wife died. The union Tristan’s dad forged with Lydia was more out of convenience than anything else. There’s some magical age you reach when you don’t want to be alone anymore, where if you are, you become this sad, older person living your final years with no companionship. His father married to avoid becoming that version of himself.
Clara Lee turns back to him. “We are, and I thank the Lord every day for him. We are a living testimony that it’s never too late to have the kind of relationship God intended for you to have with someone in this world. Time goes faster the older you get, Tristan. I’m not saying you and Keisha will end up together or anything, but if you all know what’s good for you, you’ll figure all this out before you get to be my age and wishing you had all that time back.”
It’s as if Clara Lee’s read his mind, but he still isn’t convinced that he can ever be that man who settles down and takes a wife. He doesn’t see his proclivities changing anytime soon. The only thing he is sure of at the moment is his desire to have Keisha back as his submissive.
“Thanks, Mrs. Beale.”
“You’re welcome.”
Intuiting that their conversation is over, he drags himself out of the car and opens the door for Mrs. Beale. She sits calmly with her arms folded over her purse until he opens the door.
Eyes a darker shade than the hazel ones he’s come to know well lock with his. “You want my advice?” she asks.
“Yes, please.”
“You go home and think long and hard about what you want before you go see Keisha tomorrow. I’ll bet you anything she’ll be about as ready to talk to you as you are to talk to her.”
    Tristan finds hope in those words, and as he walks Mrs. Beale to her door with her arm tucked firmly in the crook of his elbow, he decides that he’ll heed them.

     

CHAPTER FIVE
Keisha
     
On the