Someone to Watch Over Me

by Michelle Stimpson

  Outside the courtroom, I crumbled with joy in Jacob’s arms. “We got him back!”

  “We sure did, Tori. Praise God.”

  Epilogue

  One Year Later

  “Go!” I screamed from the stands.

  “Runnnn, Dadre!” Aunt Dottie echoed as we watched DeAndre run from third base to score for the Yellow Jackets.

  Jacob yelled, “Come on in, DeAndre!” from the dugout.

  DeAndre tore across the field, sliding into home plate, ensuring every thread of his pants absorbed as much red dirt as possible. He repositioned his helmet, wiped his knees, and gave me a thumbs-up. I gave it right back to him.

  Aunt Dottie giggled. “Heeee sompin else.”

  “He sure is,” I agreed.

  I wished Aunt Dottie and I weren’t the only ones cheering DeAndre on. Most of the other kids had uncles, cousins, great-grandparents present. (There’s not much to do in Bayford on a Saturday morning.) After the state deemed Joenetta and Ray-Ray unfit, they’d basically wiped their hands clean of DeAndre, which is what they’d wanted to do the whole time anyway. To date, Zoletha hadn’t replied to my letter.

  DeAndre deserved better, and I was determined to give him all the love and support he could possibly contain, so help me God.

  I checked my watch. Two-thirty. Almost time for me to go to Dottie’s and help Cassandra plan next month’s throwbacks. Though Cassandra was more than capable of handling Dottie’s herself and even more committed (as if possible) to the store’s success now that Aunt Dottie had made Cassandra part owner, I didn’t want Cassandra to fall into I’m-every-woman syndrome. More than anything, I kept an eye on Dottie’s to make sure Cassandra didn’t bring a cot and move into the back office.

  “I gotta go, Aunt Dottie. Jacob will take you and DeAndre home after the game. We’re all going to the movies tonight in Henrytown.”

  “Kaaay.”

  Exiting the stands, my mind shifted to things-to-do mode. Help Cassandra, update Inner-G’s weekly reports, and visit with Jacob’s mother, who was slowly working through Senior Pastor Carter’s passing, a month earlier. In His infinite wisdom, God had taken Pastor Carter home to glory before Alzheimer’s could reduce him to Jacob’s greatest fear.

  Even unto death, God is always watching over us. Always.

  Thank You, Father.

  DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  1. Some might describe Tori as a workaholic. How do you separate work from your personal life? Do you struggle to balance both?

  2. Tori’s brush with mortality leads to a poignant discussion with a social worker, Ms. Sanchez, who paints a grim picture of Tori’s life without true friends and family. Do you agree with Ms. Sanchez’s views?

  3. Do you think Kevin really loved Tori? Did she love him? How would you characterize their relationship?

  4. Tori seems to have a love-hate relationship with Joenetta. How do you handle difficult family members?

  5. Tori isn’t used to being around children and initially resents DeAndre’s presence. Can you relate to her reservations? Would you be willing to step in and raise a neglected child?

  6. Everyone in the small town of Bayford knows Aunt Dottie. Have you ever lived in a community where there were no strangers? Do you feel a sense of community in your neighborhood or church?

  7. Though Jacob expresses his interest in Tori early on, Tori is slow to respond to his advances. Why was she hesitant? Have you ever felt like something (or someone) was too good to be true? How did that turn out?

  8. Cassandra is hesitant about hiring Virgie to work in the store because she believes black people will not trust a white woman. Do you think Cassandra’s concerns were valid? Do you trust people who don’t look like you?

  9. While Tori is reading the Bible to Aunt Dottie, the Word begins to penetrate Tori’s heart. How has God’s Word changed your heart?

  10. Lexa seems bent on ruining Tori’s reputation at work. Have you ever had to deal with a conniving coworker?

  11. Jacob’s knowledge of the Word helps Tori understand God’s will better. Do you have someone who helps you make sense of God’s Word?

  12. Jacob was bothered by hypocrisy in the church when his parents forbade him to take Tori to the prom, but his prom date (a deacon’s daughter) was just as sexually active as people thought Tori was. How do you choose your friends? Are you cautious about people who aren’t “in the church”?

  13. Tori abandons her job to appear in court on DeAndre’s behalf, but the judge is not impressed with her living arrangements. At that point, Tori felt all hope was lost. Have you ever felt hopeless? In retrospect, what lesson did you learn from this experience?

  14. After Preston reconsiders what it would mean to fire Tori, she suddenly realizes that the ball is (and always has been) in her court. Have you ever had such an epiphany? Have you ever had a time when God set you up for success?

  15. In the end, Aunt Dottie’s name changes the judge’s mind. One name made all the difference. How has the name of Jesus changed situations in your life?

  Don’t miss Vanessa Davis Griggs’s newest novel of faith and resilience,

  Redeeming Waters

  In stores August 2011

  Here’s an excerpt from Redeeming Waters . . .

  Prologue

  And he shall be as the light of the morning,

  when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds;

  as the tender grass springing out of the earth by

  clear shining after rain.—2 Samuel 23:4

  It was summertime, school was out, and with sky-high temperatures reaching near one-hundred degrees, even the bees appeared to be chilling out from the smothering heat.Ten years old, Brianna and Alana were outside on the long, covered front porch playing a game of Monopoly—the board type, not something electronic like all the other children their age normally played. Brianna’s father, Amos Wright, didn’t believe children should stay cooped up in the house watching television and playing video games all day. Brianna didn’t mind; she liked being outside. On the other hand, Brianna’s mother, Diane, would have preferred her daughter do things inside, especially on scorching hot days like this.

  Around midday, suddenly and unexpectedly, dark clouds rolled in.

  “Girls, it looks like it’s going to rain. You probably need to come inside now,” Brianna’s mother said as she stood holding the front door open.

  “We’re on the porch, Mother,” Brianna said. “We won’t get wet on the porch.”

  “Well, if it starts lightning, I want you to come in the house immediately. Do you two understand me?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Brianna and Alana said in such perfect unison that it sounded like one voice.

  “Older people sure are funny when it comes to rain,” Brianna said after her mother closed the front door back.

  Alana loosely shook the two white dice around in her hand, then threw them on the board, rolling a double three, automatically garnering herself another turn by getting a double. “I know,” Alana said as she counted out loud and advanced her wheelbarrow six spaces. “Boardwalk,” she said with obvious disappointment.

  “Yes!” Brianna said, picking up her title deed card to that property. “Let’s see now, with two houses, you owe me six-hundred dollars!” Brianna held out her hand for payment.

  Alana slowly counted out the money, leaving her with only a small amount of money to play with. “It’s a good thing I’m close to passing go and collecting two-hundred dollars,” Alana said. “I just hope I don’t land on any of your other properties on my next roll, or this game will pretty much be over—two hundred more dollars or not.”

  The rain started pouring down. And then the sun, just as quickly, came back out—brightly lighting up the sky even as the rain continued to fall.

  “Look!” Brianna said. “The sun is shining while it’s raining!” Brianna got up and walked over to the top step. “Wow. With the sun shining like that, all of those falling raindrops look like diamonds bouncing all
over the walkway. Do you see how they’re sparkling as they hit?”

  Alana stood up and walked over to Brianna. “You do know what this means, don’t you?”

  “Know what what means?”

  Alana turned and grinned at her friend. “When it’s raining and the sun is shining.”

  “No. What?” Brianna could see that Alana was pleased, knowing something that she apparently didn’t.

  “It means that the devil is beating his wife.”

  “It does not,” Brianna said.

  “Yes, it does. If you don’t believe me, then go ask your mother. She’ll tell you.”

  “Well, I don’t believe you because the devil doesn’t have a wife.”

  “Apparently, he does,” Alana said with a snarky shake to her head as she moved her face in toward Brianna’s. “That’s why the sun is shining while it’s raining: to let us know that he’s beating her. I feel a little sorry for her even if she is the devil’s wife. It’s got to be bad enough to be married to the devil. Then to have him beat on you like that.... Then again, she should have known better than to hook up with a creature like him. I mean, what did she expect when she married the devil?”

  “Well, I’m not going to let any man ever beat on me,” Brianna said. “Not ever.”

  “They say if you stick a pin in the ground, you can hear her screaming when he’s beating her.”

  Brianna frowned, then winced. “Who would want to hear anything like that?”

  “Hey, let’s go get a pin and see if we can hear her. That way, you’ll see whether what I told you is the truth or not.”

  Brianna and Alana hurried into the house. “Wait right here while I find two pins.” Brianna started upstairs to her room, then stopped and looked back. “Does it matter what kind of pin it is? A straight pin, a hat pin, a safety pin, or is it actually a writing pen . . . ?”

  Alana shook her head. “As long as it pierces the ground, it should work.”

  Brianna came back quickly and handed Alana a large safety pin.They started toward the door.

  “And just where do you two think you’re going now?” Brianna’s mother asked as she walked out of the kitchen into the den wiping her hands on a dish towel.

  “To listen to the devil beat his wife and to see if we can hear her scream,” Brianna said as easily as though she were saying that they were going to the kitchen to get a glass of water.

  Brianna’s mother shook her head as she smiled, but didn’t protest—essentially telling Brianna that she had no objections to what they were about to do or the idea of it.

  Brianna opened the large, lead-glass door and allowed Alana to go out first. Brianna grinned. She saw him before he saw her, and she ran full force, straight into his arms. “Granddad!” she said.

  “Hey there,” sixty-year-old Pearson Wright said as he picked her up and spun her around two full turns. He set Brianna back down. The two of them now stood close to the man who had come with him. “So where are you two going in such a hurry?” he asked.

  “We’re going to listen to the devil as he beats his wife and to see if we can hear her screaming.” Brianna held up her safety pin to prove they were serious.

  “Oh, that,” her grandfather said as he looked back at what he’d just come in out of. “You’re talking about the rain with the sun shining. That’s a beautiful sight for sure—rain and the sun shining at the same time, a phenomenon that’s always fascinated folks.”

  The good-looking man standing next to her grandfather began to chuckle as he smiled at Brianna.

  “Gracious, where are my manners,” Pearson said. “This is my granddaughter”—he placed his hand on top of Brianna’s head—“the lovely and talented young poet and short story writer Miss Brianna Wright.”

  “And this”—Brianna pointed to Alana as soon as her grandfather finished introducing her—“is my best friend in the whole wide world, Alana Norwood.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Miss Alana Norwood. And this is David R. Shepherd a.k.a. King d.Avid,” Pearson said, pronouncing it King dee-Avid. “That’s a small d, period, capital A, small v-i-d. You’re looking at the next world-renowned recording artist.”

  “Are you a real king?” Brianna asked as she placed her hand in the tall, black wavy hair, caramel colored skin man’s awaiting hand he’d presented to her to shake.

  “No, not in the way you may be thinking,” King d.Avid said. “But I do plan—with your grandfather advising and managing me—to rule the world of music someday.”

  “Sounds like a plan to me,” Brianna said. “I plan on being the queen of something myself. Just not exactly sure what I intend to rule over. But I’m going to be somebody great, or at least produce something great one day, just like you. I promise you that. A lady at church spoke that Word over me last year.That’s what she called it: ‘A Word from God.’”

  “I’m impressed,” King d.Avid said, smiling at her as he continued to hold her young hand in his. “And I believe that.” He gave Brianna a slight bow with his head, then let go of her hand. He reached over and held out his hand to Alana. “And you are the best friend of the queen to be?”

  Alana walked over, shook his hand, and giggled. “Yes. Although, it’s likely we’ll both be queens. That’s how a lot of friends roll, you know.”

  “Absolutely,” King d.Avid said. “It’s always good to be in the company of those who are going somewhere, instead of hanging around people who are going nowhere.That’s precisely why I hang with Mister Wright here, the way I do.The man is good at what he does.” He glanced over at Pearson. “And I believe he’s going to help get me where I’m destined to be.” King d.Avid turned his attention back to Alana and gave her a slight nod.

  “So, how old are you?” Alana asked.

  King d.Avid laughed. “Why, I’m twenty-five.”

  “You’re kind of old,” Alana said, turning up her nose slightly. “Me and Brianna are only ten.Well, we don’t mean to be rude, but we need to finish before the rain stops just as quickly as it started. Otherwise, Brianna won’t believe that the devil really is beating his wife.”

  “Okay.” King d.Avid sang the word. “But I don’t think the devil really is beating his wife. Because I don’t think that the devil is married.”

  “That’s what I told her,” Brianna said triumphantly with a grin.

  Alana trotted down the steps into the rain and stood in the grassy, manicured yard. She looked back up at the porch, her eyes blinking with the raindrops before she eventually shielded her eyes with her hand. “Brianna, will you come on, already!”

  Brianna hurried and caught up with her friend. They unlatched their safety pins, kneeled down, stuck their pins into the ground, and placed their ears respectively over their pins with the rain drenching them and all.

  Pearson shook his head, laughed, then escorted King d.Avid into the house.

  Chapter 1

  The waters wear the stones: thou washest

  away the things which grow out of the dust

  of the earth; and thou destroyest the

  hope of man.—Job 14:19

  Brianna Bathsheba (Wright) Waters looked out of the window of their three-bedroom, one-and-a-half bath house, at the rain. “A starter home” is what her twenty-three-year-old—three years her senior—husband of eight months, Unzell Michael Waters, told her over two months ago when they bought it.

  “Baby, I promise you, things are going to get better for us down the road,” Unzell had said after they officially moved in. “I know this is not what either of us envisioned we’d be doing right about now. But I promise you, I’m going to get us into that mansion we talked about. I am.”

  She’d married Unzell at age nineteen, a year and a half after her high school graduation, as Unzell was finishing his final year at the University of Michigan. Unlike most women she knew, Brianna wanted to marry in December. The wintertime was her favorite time of the year. She loved everything about winter. It wasn’t a dead period as far as she was concerned. To her, th
at was the time of rest, renewal, anticipation, and miracles taking place that the eyes weren’t always privy to see.Winter was the time when flower bulbs, trees, and other plants could establish themselves underground; developing better and stronger roots. Winter was the time when various pests and bugs were killed off; otherwise the world would be overrun with them. Brianna loved the rich colors she would be able to use in a winter wedding—deep reds and dark greens.

  But she equally loved summertime. Summer was a reminder of life bursting forth in its fullness and full potential after all seemed dead not so long ago. Summer now reminded her of her days of playing carefree outside, truly without a care in the world.

  So she and Unzell married the Saturday before Christmas. It was a beautiful ceremony; her parents had spared no expense. After all, this would be the only time they would be the parents of the bride. Her older brother, Mack, might settle down someday. But even if he did, they would merely be the parents of the groom, which was a totally different expense, experience, and responsibility.

  Unzell Waters was already pretty famous, so everybody and his brother wanted to be invited to the invitation-only wedding ceremony. Unzell was the star football player at the University of Michigan and a shoo-in for the NFL. As a running back, he’d broken all kinds of records, and the only question most had was whether he would be the number one or number two pick in the first round of the NFL draft the last Saturday in April. Unzell was on track to make millions—more millions than either he or Brianna could fathom ever being able to spend in several lifetimes.

  Still best friends, Alana Norwood had been Brianna’s maid of honor. Alana had grown wilder than Brianna, but Brianna understood Alana . . . and Alana understood her.

  “Girlfriend, I’m glad you’re settling down so early, if that’s what you want,” Alana had said when Brianna first told her she and Unzell were getting married in a year. “But I plan on seeing all that the world has to offer me before my life becomes dedicated to any one person like that.”