Soon After

by Sherryle Kiser Jackson

  Around the same time, Vanessa gave up the notion of waiting until the day she delivered to find out the sex of their child. She didn’t tell Willie immediately, baiting him into a guessing game when he came to pick her up.

  “So what will we be raising, a young man or young lady?” he asked, staring down at her in her hospital bed the same day she found out.

  “Wouldn’t you like to know?” she teased.

  “Okay, I see how this is going to go. In the bathroom, will the baby sit or stand?”

  “It’s a baby, Willie. You’ll have to change its diapers,” she said, “and don’t we all sit eventually?”

  “Okay, okay inside the diaper, will the baby have an innie or outie?”

  “It depends on how they cut the umbilical cord.”

  Time went by and she thought they were done with the game, then Willie asked out the blue, “On prom night, will I be throwing our child the car keys or shaking down a date?”

  “I guess it all depends on whether or not our child lands a date,” she said.

  “At our child’s wedding, will I be standing at the front of the church or walking down the aisle?”

  “Are you assuming you will be officiating?” Vanessa asked.

  That seemed to be the straw that broke the camel’s back, because he sat in the chair next to her bed and positioned himself so he could lay his head beside her to rest while they waited for Vanessa to be discharged.

  “Will our child follow in your footsteps or mine?” he murmured.

  “We’re both preachers, honey.”

  He sat up suddenly as if he were possessed. “You can end this, you know.”

  “You can too, by asking the right question,” she said, shoving him to let him know she was having too much fun torturing him.

  “What would be a good name for our child?” Willie asked, relaxing his head back down as if he expected her to think of a unisex name like Terrie to keep up the mystery.

  “Elijah,” she whispered, stroking the back of her husband’s head as he kissed the sheets of her hospital bed with his smile, “because he will be a prophet like his daddy.”

  Vanessa wished the joy of the guessing game and the possibility of their child’s future could last throughout the duration. Six months of pregnancy had her nose spread across her face with strange dots, marks and moles appearing over her body that wasn’t a good look to anyone but her husband. She was home once again, and her husband brought in a specially trained watchdog, Keisha, to check up on her when she wasn’t in class. He didn’t know Vanessa would be allergic to her sister’s dander.

  As much as she couldn’t stand being treated with pet gloves and not allowed to do anything for herself when Willie was home, she almost had to remind Keisha why she was there. She didn’t follow orders, and to Vanessa, she was too self-absorbed to be attentive. It felt like they were twelve and thirteen again, a time when Keisha would come into her bedroom and brag about having privileges when Vanessa was punished. She talked incessantly about the things she’s done or places she’s visited recently when Vanessa could only imagine what the hot August air felt like. It left her wondering what her mind was supposed to be doing while her body was at rest.

  Just when it seemed like her sedentary state settled into a full blown sadness, Willie came up with the bright idea of having a Sister Circle one Sunday after church. It was a combination baby shower and Sunday dinner with her close sister-mother-friends from church. Pat even made the drive up. That and the fact that Willie had the affair catered and got a few of the guys together to serve her guests made the entire event bearable.

  Vanessa wiggled into the nicest maternity tunic she owned and maternity jeans and joined her guests downstairs in the dining room. Pat, Mother Thomlin, Luella, and Alexis were all getting acquainted. A new glider with matching ottoman pulled up to the head of the table marked her place of distinction. Savory aromas came from chafing dishes set up on their wall buffet.

  Willie came in with a pitcher of iced tea. Alexis went to grab it from him.

  “Let me get that for you, Pastor,” she said.

  “No, Alexis, it’s my party and the men are serving today,” Vanessa said, winking at her husband to show her appreciation for his efforts. The women all applauded the day off.

  “That’s right. Just call me Jeeves,” Willie said, pouring a glass for each table setting. He reached for the bottle of cranberry juice left on the edge of the buffet to make a special drink for his wife that was more juice and less tea before leaving the room. He returned with a few men from the church to serve salad plates for the first course, and then they retired to the kitchen.

  The attention turned to Vanessa and talk about everything from her swollen ankles to her roly-poly figure ensued. “I don’t want to spend all afternoon discussing me. Shoot, I am home twenty-four seven with myself. Tell me about church and what all of you are doing. Please, I beg of you.”

  Vanessa devoured every tidbit. Of course she talked to Pat and Luella almost every day, so there was not much to catch up on, but the minute details of Sister Thomlin’s large family and Alexis’s job were fascinating. Alexis shared that it was rumored around the station that her series of stories on Harvest Baptist Church would be nominated for a local news award for outstanding investigative news reporting. Her producers had also made mention of her becoming a full time anchor and co-host of the expanded hour version of Inside 7 segment in the fall, leaving her with a lot to think about and just plain thankful to God.

  Keisha finally arrived with her fiancé and future mother-in-law in tow. She carried two large gift bags for Vanessa and the baby, filled to capacity, which showed how else she had spent her time since quitting her job.

  “Sorry we’re late, Sister Pastor. The two of them got to talking so much after church like they couldn’t bear to part from one another until we told him to just come with us,” Thelma Grant said.

  “To the left, to the left,” Pat started, pointing back and forth in a steady rhythm from where Paul was standing to the direction he needed to move into to leave the ladies-only gathering. All the ladies joined in with similar hand motions until Paul got the message and joined the other butlers in the kitchen.

  “Do we dare ask her what’s new in the land of wedding planning?” Vanessa polled her guest. “She’s been surprisingly hushed mouth about it.”

  “That’s because you’ve thrown a major monkey wrench in my plans,” Keisha explained dropping off the gift bags at the foot of Vanessa’s throne. She took off her sunshades and folded the arm over the bib of her sundress to let it hang for safekeeping.

  “Don’t blame it on me,” Vanessa said with her hands up in protest.

  “No, I blame it on the man that knocked you up,” Keisha said, raising her voice with no shame. “Y’all excuse me. You know after church it’s no more pastor stuff. My brother-in-law and I love to go at it. I love him to death, but y’all know we were looking toward October for the wedding, but now that our guest of honor here is due and darn near out of commission until then, October is out.”

  “That’s why if we had planned it for the family reunion, you’d be getting married next week,” Thelma said. The future mother and daughter-in-law smiled at one another to remind each other this was an area that they would agree to disagree.

  “I want to just push it back into next year now, but Mr. Grant is suddenly so adamant that we will be married before the year is out,” Keisha said, whispering this time.

  “The man has spoken,” Mother Thomlin said.

  “That’s right, you can’t make that man wait,” Pat said.

  “What? Why not? What about my dream wedding?”,Keisha looked around the table.

  “Girl, please,” was all Pat could say.

  “Take it easy on her, she’s young,” Mother Thomlin pleaded.

  “Let me take this one, y’all. I might be on bed rest, but I can still write prescriptions,” Vanessa said, referring to her sermon footnotes that usually ended with a
Bible verse or two to study. She forced her bulge forward to keep their conversation from wafting into the kitchen. “Did not Paul, the apostle, not your fiancé, say it’s better a man marry than burn in his lust? Paul, your fiancé, not the apostle, is a hot, red-blooded, American male, and I don’t mean because he spends time outside in the August heat. The man is tired of waiting and could care less about a corsage, bouquet, or color scheme.”

  “I wish I had that predicament,” Luella said, slapping an awaiting five with Alexis who felt the same way.

  “I know I got a good looking son. Don’t be surprised when your natural instincts kick in when you’re wedding planning over at his house or he’s over at yours when I call late at night. Ain’t that what you call it?” Thelma Grant said with raised brows.

  “Uh-huh, I think Minister Morton needs a complete prescription; ’cause she’s playing with fire. Too much can happen in a year,” Vanessa said.

  “I can’t tell you how many people Ben and I counsel that end up like Vanessa in between getting the ring and walking down the aisle,” Pat said.

  They could barely contain themselves when the men appeared with their entrees, thinly sliced roast beef apparently carved in the kitchen. They each waited in line to add asparagus and a twice baked potato or rice to each plate before serving the women.

  “That’s right, Paul, serve your fiancée first,” Miss Thelma said.

  “She was just saying she wondered if you had some hot buttered buns in there to serve up,” Pat added.

  They lost it. Keisha was left red-faced and about to choke on a piece of ice as everyone else around the table laughed shamelessly.

  “I’ll check?” Paul questioned, not knowing what he walked into.

  Willie grabbed his shoulder and whispered, “Run,” into Paul’s ear.

  When the coast was clear, Keisha had her own admission to whisper. “Why do you think I work out so much now? I got to do something with that pent up energy.”

  “So that leaves the month of November and December in the year and some serious planning,” Alexis said.

  “Paul’s father and I were married on November fifteenth. It would have been twelve years if he didn’t get killed out there in Vietnam.” Miss Thelma hugged herself.

  “Daddy and Momma were also married in November, the twenty-third. They shared thirty-six years before he died,” Vanessa reminded.

  “That’s close to fifty years between those two dates,” Luella said.

  “Who’s got a calendar?” Keisha asked.

  Luella handed her the pocket version from her purse. Keisha flipped quickly to the desired month and skimmed her finger to find the weekend that fit between the two dates. “November eighteenth,” Keisha declared with a smile. “I’m getting married on November eighteenth.”

  “Good, now we can eat,” Miss Thelma said as if that was what was really holding them back from eating.

  Cutting, slurping, and lip-smacking was all that could be heard among the women in the Sister Circle as they satisfied their basic need. Vanessa surveyed the women in the room and was thankful she got her mind off her mundane weekly existence for a little while.

  “You know, Sister Pastor, I sure miss your weekly prescriptions. I still have that one about forgiveness you wrote me at the time I was going through with my sister and her family when they came to live with me that summer and nearly turned my household upside down. Matthew 5:44: pray for them that despitefully use you. Yes, Lord, you should write a book,” Mother Thomlin said between bites.

  “That’s a good idea,” Keisha added.

  “Prescriptions—” Pat started, painting a picture with her right hand of how it would look and sound as a book title.

  “For an ailing world,” rolled off Vanessa’s tongue as if it were planted there. She was in a vacuum where all she could hear was her thoughts. She contemplated the many tough issues brought to her in counseling that she tried to tie up simply with a prescription. Then she thought about the countless sermons that ended with a course outline of study that she issued out in prescriptions.

  “Willie,” she hollered with grave desperation.

  He bound from the kitchen with the others afoot. “Yes, baby, what’s wrong?”

  “I’m going to write a book,” she declared, “while I’m on bed rest.”

  “Prescriptions for an Ailing World,” Keisha couldn’t resist. “And I’m getting married November eighteenth.” Keisha winked at her fiancé standing in the doorway. The other men were so shocked and amazed by all the revelations of the evening that they were afraid fully to enter the room.

  “I’m gonna need my laptop and the files from my office computer copied to a drive, and—” Vanessa said, her thoughts as free-flowing as her words.

  “All right, calm down. I see you’re serious about this. Luella will help compile all that you need,” Willie said.

  “Luella,” Vanessa reached out for her like Celie did Nettie in The Color Purple when Mister threw her sister off their farm. “I need—Luella.”

  Silence abounded at the audacity of her request to take the only administrative assistant away from their active ministry, but Vanessa knew she couldn’t do it without her trusty sidekick.

  “Hold up, I think I got the remedy,” Willie said, raising his arm in the air as if he were a superhero there to save the day. He crossed over his wife and dropped to one knee in front of her sister. “Will you be my administrative assistant and help me run the mother ship called the Pleasant Harvest Baptist Church? We’ll have to work out the pay with the joint board, but you can have the joint study.”

  Willie got off his knee and took a bow for his idea and dramatic presentation. It just made sense. Luella was hand chosen by Vanessa and better suited for her leadership style. Keisha was working Vanessa’s nerve just looking in on her a couple times a week. Willie was almost certain if she were assigned to assist Vanessa with her book project, he’d come to find their family ties permanently severed.

  “Yes, yes, yes,” Keisha said, taking the Academy Award for her acceptance. She stood as she hugged her brother-in-law and was surprised that Paul joined in on the group hug.

  “Now we can have the extra money to get the horse drawn carriage for the wedding,” Keisha said. They all chuckled as they held on to one another, knowing full well she was serious.

  “Good, now we can have dessert,” Miss Thelma added.

  Chapter 26

  Motion of Discovery

  The day that Reverend Kennedy came to visit Willie, Pleasant Harvest was in transition. Luella was moving out and Keisha was moving in as the church’s administrative assistant. The phones were ringing off the hook, and admittedly, Willie hadn’t given the Trinity Conference a second thought.

  He was so distracted watching the ever-professional Luella trying to show the ropes to the hopelessly distracted Keisha that he hadn’t t seen the odd looking man come into the waiting area. The reverend was a lot shorter than he expected, capping off at a little past five feet. Every follicle of his hair had turned grey and stood straight up from his scalp. His height coupled with his extremely long and thick patches of brows gave the man an elf-like quality.

  Willie introduced himself and took him on a tour of the church, ending with the cave.

  “You’ve had an adventurous two years,” Reverend Kennedy said when they had finally settled in to Willie’s office.

  Willie noticed that the reverend referenced a page in a portfolio of some sort that made Willie feel like this conversation was more than mere small talk. He began thinking about where he was two years ago compared to now and all that had transpired since then. He had met his wife and married her. Together they had to endure the growing pains of shuffling people around and combining their churches. Now they were having a child and the ministry continued to change.

  “I certainly have. I am good and ready for life to slow down a bit,” Willie said.

  “Are you really? Well let me tell you that will not happen with a baby on the
way.” Reverend Kennedy smirked.

  “No?” Willie shook his head and questioned if this wiser man could possibly be wrong with his assertion.

  “Most certainly not, and wait until the baby becomes a roaming toddler, and then a rebellious teenager; Lord have mercy, an independently-minded, but not independently-funded young adult.” The Reverend tapped his cane to make his point.

  “No slowing down for me, huh?” Willie asked.

  “No slowing down for either of you, but I believe the two of you thrive that way. Vanessa’s probably at home going crazy. She always brought such energy to our meetings. I am going to miss that.”

  Willie wondered if his new friend didn’t possess a crystal ball inside that portfolio he kept open on his lap, he was so on point. He wanted to tell him he’d see Vanessa soon enough after the baby was born, but didn’t want to admit the fact that he hadn’t really thought much about the care of the child once their son was born.

  “I believe you, sir, have a quality to affect people that most people, even ministers, don’t naturally have,” Reverend Kennedy continued.

  Willie was more than fascinated at the reverend’s ability to read people that he wanted to call him on it, but the phone rang down the hall. His extension light flashed, and he ignored it.

  “How can you assume that about me? We just met.”

  “I observe and investigate and the rest I ask God to help me discern. Case in point, the way you’re helping out your sister-in-law. You didn’t just say she was in need of a job, you helped her.” He looked down at his portfolio that he must have made a note on without Willie seeing. “You said she was a ministerial student and you wanted to mentor her in the things of ministry. I also saw the first part of the news series on a Roy Jones. It was phenomenal. Here we have a homeless man who wants to share the gospel, and he sang your praises for inspiring him to do so.”