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CHAPTER THREE: - OLD CHIT-CHAT

Clarisse looked at Eric with incredulous eyes, “I didn’t hear. I am so sorry.”

“It just happened a month ago. Still sort of news.”

“Did you see him?”

“Yes, in the casket.” All the efforts he made to hide the regret from Clarisse were in vain. His eyes were as cold as they would look, yet they tinted the moist of warmth and affection he had for his father. Although, Eric's father has always been distant, emotionally. Eric was being told to control his emotions like a man, but he had never known the difference between having them in control and completely denying them.

Same old, same old, Eric. Clarisse peered away from him. She felt his efforts to not let down his guard, emerging as a strong man, just as his father wanted him to be.

“Well…,” Eric said, “… I saw your father. He still looks at me with the look like I’ve murdered his only daughter.”

“How is he?” She asked.

“Just as he was still a religious man, respected throughout the community. Austere with the teenagers and friendly with adults coming to his store.”

Clarisse fluttered away a tear and smiled through it.

“You haven’t seen him since…,” he lapsed.

“No. I left and never came back.”

“Why Clarisse?” Eric asked, “were you so selfish?”

“What did you just say?” Clarisse wailed, “ You think I was selfish? Let me remind you it was you who left the day when you learnt I was pregnant with your child. Did you have even the slightest idea of what I’ve endured since you were out living a life of your dreams, and now you have the gut to ask me about my only child that I raised bearing the scars of your abandonment.”

“Hush…,” Eric said, “they sent me to New York to study political science at Columbia University -”

“You were in New York?” Clarisse asked in her emotional stupor, “and yet, you didn’t care to look out for me?”

“Did you come looking for me?”

“I’ve spent countless nights wishing you were with me when I was lying in the bed of human services through the painful contraction while delivering him.”

“Clarisse, you need to understand it was not my fault-”

“Yes, of course. YOU WERE BUSY PLAYING THE PRINCE!” Clarisse yelled.

“I did not like that. All right, Clarisse. They shoved me into a lake and I had to learn to swim. That’s all I choose to swim despite drowning.” He finally spat.

“You had the resources, Eric. You weren’t left powerless.” She wept.

“Tell me, didn’t I come today?” Eric held her hand and probed for the forgiveness deep in her eyes, “you do not know how many Clarisse there are in the city. I got your number from Sam’s school records. ‘Sam Clarisse Holt’ it read.”

“You didn’t get to him directly?”

“Would he have recognized me as his father?”

“I haven’t told him, yet,” Clarisse said.

“Let me take care of him, of you.”

“Well, Eric, it will not work this way. You can’t just barge into our lives and claim to be the man of the home.” Clarisse buried her face in her hands and brushed her eyes.

“Is there somebody else?” Eric glanced away from her, pressing his temple between his thumb and index finger.

“I don’t know,” She mumbled.

“What?” Eric scoffed, “you don’t know? Clarisse, are you dating someone or not? It’s not that I’d asked you something about precalc in high-school.”

Eric’s question had evoked unspeakable feelings inside of her. She didn’t know how to answer this particular question. After just this morning, she might’ve ruined someone’s marriage entirely because of her selfish motives. And now she had no right to ask Eric of the same thing which she asked of Raymond. Not after knowing that she doesn’t feel the way she used to about Eric. Her heart and soul are somehow in the captivity of Wichita, but she couldn’t talk about it to anyone else when she has her own doubts about determining her relationship with Wichita.

“I need to go.” Clarisse said and spun on her heels to walk away, but Eric grabbed her elbow and stopped her. “Where do you want to go?” he asked.

“You have no right to ask me that,” she freed herself from Eric’s grip and said, “whoever you might be, Mayor? Senator? Do not patronize me.”

“Oh… for God’s sake, Clarisse, I just asked you a simple question. Tell me you're seeing someone I won’t ask who or bother you. But, however, you cannot keep me away from Sam.”

“You better be careful when talking about Sam, OK. I am the one who worked double shifts through the odd jobs to feed him and raise him. You can’t just enter like a knight in shining armour and cease the pain and miseries we’ve been enduring magically.” Clarisse’s hair fell on her face, gently swaying with her hyperventilation. She realised she had to calm down. She was shaking.

“Clarisse, I was helpless. I didn’t know. I never really thought that you would birth him. I was a stupid teenager -”

“I don’t recall you being stupid enough when you wanted to get in my pants. You call yourself a teenager. What was I then? Yet, I ran away and took care of him.” Clarisse said.

“Please, Clarisse, understand. These men around here will do whatever I ask of them. Don’t make me ask of them something I don’t want to. You are not the only soul who's endured pain.” Eric’s sufferings were masked behind the hostility.