When the Fairytale Ends

by Dwan Abrams

  He had also heard rumors about her husband being accused, but never convicted, of inappropriately touching young girls in the church. Church folks criticized her for being married to a pervert.

  “When Henry got real bad off sick,” she said, shuffling her feet as she walked into her cluttered living room with Greg trailing behind her, “that old church I was going to didn’t do a thing to help me. They knew I had to take care of Henry and myself, and they knew I didn’t have no type of help. They thought taking up an offering was good enough, but it wasn’t, Greg.” She collapsed into her rocking chair, which was covered by a red, blue, and green crocheted throw. “I ain’t need they money, suga. I’s got plenty of money. I needed they help.”

  Greg grabbed her blanket off the couch and covered her legs with it, because even though it was May, Mother Washington always felt cold and liked to have a little heat going. While she talked, Greg went over to her fireplace and lit a starter log and waited until the flames leaped high before he dropped a log of wood atop it.

  “Thank you, suga,” Mother Washington said and hummed while she picked up a white and blue crocheted blanket she was working on.

  Greg sat down at the foot of her rocking chair and watched the dancing flames while she talked.

  “And when Henry passed,” she continued, “you think anybody came over to help me out? No, siree, not a soul. That old church just took up another offering pan for me, like money is the answer to every problem.”

  “And that’s what eventually brought you to Saved and Sanctified Baptist?”

  “Sure is, chile,” she said, pursing her lips and nodding her head. “Soon as I walked through them doors, I felt the love in that place. Ain’t no denying the love or the anointing in that church.”

  Greg nodded. He knew exactly what she was talking about, because he had only been going to that church five years longer than her. Franklin was actually the one who’d invited him to church with him. He went one Sunday and had been going ever since.

  Mother Washington hummed some more, then said, “Thems little children at that church treat me like I’m they’s grandma, and it makes me feel good. And everybody there calls me Mother, and they treat me like a mother too. You know how good it makes me feel to be treated like a mother?” She laughed to herself like she had just said the funniest thing; then she stopped laughing and held her head, wincing in pain.

  “Mother, you might want to go get that checked,” Greg said, looking over his shoulder at her. “If it’s been bothering you for this long, you might need to take migraine medication.”

  “No, I don’t need the doctor’s medication. I got the best doctor in town, and He’s gonna take sho’nuff good care of me.” She kept rocking, then hummed some more. “Did you see my daughter at church Sunday?”

  As soon as the words came out of her mouth, Greg immediately knew who she was talking about. She was talking about the girl with the big brown eyes, the jet-black hair, and the white dress. However, he had to wonder whether Mother Washington meant that literally or figuratively, because if that was her biological daughter, they didn’t bear any resemblance.

  “The woman in the white dress?” Greg asked.

  “Yes, chile. Ain’t she beautiful? Ain’t my baby beautiful?”

  “Yes,” Greg whispered, nodding. “She was gorgeous.”

  “See, if you wouldn’t have met that pretty little lady you married, I would’ve wanted you to marry my Kaiya, ’cause then at least you could’ve been my son-in-law.”

  “That’s her name? Kaiya?”

  “Yeah, but she goes by Kai. Just as pretty as she can be. Real sweet-spirited.” Mother Washington sighed. “Too sweet-spirited. I wish she had more of a backbone. Wish she was more of a fighter.”

  “She must look just like her daddy.”

  “Well, I can’t call that one, suga, ’cause I don’t know who her daddy is.”

  “Mother Washington?” Greg looked over his shoulder again, this time with a look of incredulity. Even though she was a “Mother” now, he was sure she hadn’t been saved and sanctified always. But yet and still, he found it shocking that she would so boldly admit her promiscuity.

  She started laughing again, then stopped to cough up more phlegm in her handkerchief. “No, chile, I ain’t mean it like that. Kaiya is my sister’s baby. She had two little girls less than a year apart, but my sister passed away when they was real young. So I took ’em in and raised them like they was my own. I ain’t never have no kids, ’cause though I got pregnant seven times, I could never carry the baby long enough for it to live.”

  The thought of such a kindhearted woman having to suffer through seven miscarriages pained Greg and he reached over, slipped off her shoes, and pulled her feet in his lap.

  “No, no,” she said, trying to pull her feet out his hands. “You don’t wanna massage them things, all those bunions, calluses, and corns.”

  Despite her protests, Greg held her cold feet in his lap and warmed them and massaged them with his hands.

  “What about the other daughter?” Greg asked.

  “Oh, she’s a hateful old somebody,” Mother Washington said, making a sour face and shaking her head. “See, I found out later that men touched her when she was a young girl. They touched her down there a lot. And I guess she turned bitter because of it. And even though I took her in and raised her, she give me ’bout as much respect as someone would give a rabid dog. She like a vulture, Greg. Just sitting around, waiting for me to die. She blames me for not protecting her.”

  Greg’s cell phone rang again, and this time, he answered it. “Shania, baby, I’m coming, okay?”

  “Where are you?”

  If he didn’t know any better, he could’ve sworn that she’d been crying.

  “Babe, are you okay?”

  “Gregory Crinkle, where are you?”

  “I’m at Mother Washington’s house.”

  “Do you know what time it is?”

  He glanced at the cuckoo clock that hung above the fireplace. It was a quarter to eight. How had time gotten away from him so quickly? “Babe, I didn’t realize that—”

  “Would a courtesy call have been too much to ask?”

  Yeah, those were tears in her voice.

  “Babe, I’m sorry, okay? I’m on my way right now, okay, Shania?”

  Her answer to his question was the dial tone. Greg pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at it, struggling to believe that his wife had just hung up on him. He looked over at Mother Washington, who was wearing a smile on her face.

  “I—I don’t know what’s going on,” Greg said, pocketing his phone and standing to his feet. “She hasn’t been herself lately. I don’t know what’s gotten into her.”

  “I know what’s gotten into her.”

  Greg stared at Mother Washington, even more confused, but she simply gave him her toothless smile. “Go’n home to your wife, Gregory. She needs you. And don’t you stress no more about that job. God’s gonna work everything out for your good. Just know that whatever happens, it’s for your good. You hear me?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said and disappeared into the back room, only to come forward with a pair of thick, furry socks. He slid the socks onto her feet, tucked the cover close around her, and kissed her forehead. “Take it easy, Mother.”

  “You take it easy, son. And be careful on that bike.”

  “I will.” Greg smiled. He liked when she called him son.

  He hurried outside to his bike, jumped on, and heeded Mother’s warning as he drove only five miles above the speed limit to his house. When he got there, Shania was curled into a fetal position on the couch, wrapped up in a blanket, with a half-empty box of Kleenex and a pile of balled tissues lying on the couch beside her.

  Guilt stricken, he realized that when he hadn’t called her, she probably thought something bad had happened to him.

  “Oh, baby,” he said and scooped her against his chest as though she was a small child. She must’ve been too
tired to remember she was mad at him, because she threw her arms around his neck and held on tight.

  He carried her to the bed, and as much as he wanted to make love to her, he simply held her and stared at her beautiful face until his own eyes became too heavy to hold open and he drifted off to sleep.

  The next day, he woke up early in hopes that he could get to the office and see if he could add some more clients to his roster. He slipped out of bed, careful not to wake Shania, and prepared himself for work.

  Within the confines of his cubicle, he worked hard and diligently, pulling more old files and calling even more numbers. Even when Franklin came over with a cup of coffee and every intention of chatting, Greg shooed him on his way and told him he’d talk to him some other time.

  He reaped a few benefits from his hard work; he got a definite yes from four of the callers, and a possible yes from one. That boosted his ego until his boss’s head peeked around the side of his cubicle as he tapped on the vinyl siding.

  “Mr. Crinkle, you got a moment?”

  Greg straightened his tie and sat a little straighter in his chair. “Follow me,” his boss said as he led Greg into his office.

  If his heart beat any louder, there was no way that he could hear a word that his boss spoke. Mentally, he tried to remain optimistic. He thought about the President’s Circle, his long-standing clients, the four, possibly five, deals he had just secured within a two-hour frame. But as soon as his boss took a seat in the vacant chair and said, “You are an excellent worker, Greg. You really are. Without you, this company would not be where it’s at now. However . . .”

  As soon as he reached the “however” mark, Greg blanked out. He had worked there long enough to know what kind of speech his boss was giving him. This was the you-just-got-cut speech.

  Though the man’s mouth continued to move, Greg’s mind was a mile away from the current conversation. He looked over the desk into the round red face of his boss, who was in the process of firing him. As he stared at the man’s moving lips, he knew his boss was in the middle of telling him the canned spiel from human resources about his severance package and eligibility for unemployment benefits.

  Greg sat there in numb amazement as he wrote down his system passwords on a piece of paper. Turning over the passwords felt like the final nail in his professional coffin. He had always been told to safeguard his passwords and not to write them down or share them with anyone. He unclamped his ID badge and placed it on the desk. Staring at his smiling photo, he remembered how happy he had been when he first started working for the company. He couldn’t believe that he, along with fifty percent of the people in his office, had been let go. His boss had apologized and seemed to have genuine concern, but that was of little consolation for Greg.

  While half listening to his boss, the desire to cuss him out clouded Greg’s brain. He felt like telling his boss where he could go and how to get there. To keep from going off, Greg clutched his iPhone so tight that he expected it to shatter in his hand at any moment. To say he felt angry would be an understatement. He felt like straight punching someone. His nostrils flared as he mentally reminded himself to breathe and not lose his cool. He didn’t want to lose his religion and be seen as unprofessional, especially since he might need a reference.

  Standing up from his seat, Greg’s boss extended his hand to Greg and said, “I’m gonna miss working with you, buddy.”

  Greg clenched his jaw. He stared at the stiff hand before him and contemplated smacking it. He thought the better of it and shook his hand anyway. Then he walked out and found a box from a storage closet so that he could clear out his cubicle.

  As he made his way to his soon-to-be former workstation, he noticed that some people were teary-eyed, others were crying, and some gathered around expressing their shock and disbelief. Greg tried not to get caught up in the emotion and cleared out his desk without talking to anyone. While removing the items from his desk, he felt an overwhelming sadness. He wondered how thirteen years, worth of stuff could fit in one box as he picked up his stress reliever ball and shook his head.

  “Lot of good you did,” he said to himself, giving the ball a squeeze, then tossing it in the box.

  He knew it was just a matter of minutes before Franklin appeared in his cubicle.

  “Man, this better be a rumor about you getting cut.”

  Greg swooped a hand around his bare cubicle, which no longer held a trace of his presence. “Does it look like a rumor to you, Mr. You Are What You Speak?”

  “Don’t try to throw my words back in my face. I ain’t the one who fired you.”

  “No, you’re not. And also, you’re not the one who got fired. So you can go back to your cubicle and leave me the heck alone.”

  Franklin sincerely looked hurt.

  Too angry to apologize, Greg ignored his friend and pretended not to see the pain in his eyes. He pulled tape across his two boxes, stacked them on top of each other, and left his cubicle. He carried his boxes stuffed with office supplies, personal photographs of him and Shania, notebooks, and assorted papers to his convertible Mercedes and popped the trunk. He placed the boxes inside and considered going back to apologize to Franklin but changed his mind. He didn’t want to go back in that place and see the looks of pity from individuals who would undoubtedly keep their jobs. Besides, he didn’t feel like being bothered. He wanted to be alone with his thoughts. Since he wasn’t one for emotional outbursts, he just got in his car, dropped the top, and headed home.

  As he drove along the interstate, panic kicked in. For the first time in his adult life, Greg didn’t have a job. So much of his identity had been tied into his professional accomplishments. What was he going to do? he wondered. Making a mental checklist, he figured that he could live off his severance package while he looked for a new job. Maybe he’d solicit the services of a headhunter. Perhaps he’d do some market research for a start-up company.

  Feeling a slight throbbing in his temple, Greg grabbed the bottle of pain medication that he kept stashed in his center console and took two pills, which he washed down with a half bottle of Sprite that had been sitting in the car for only God knows how long; it tasted like lemony spit water. He grimaced as he forced himself to swallow it down.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he could see a median separating him from the oncoming traffic. The thought that the median was the only thing keeping him from colliding head-on with another car nagged at him like a hangnail. So much in his life was so wrong; his wife and he weren’t getting along for the first time since saying “I do” on Valentine’s Day; he had just intentionally thrown a jab at his one and only best friend; and for crying out loud, he had just been fired. The image of him turning his steering wheel all the way to the left, crashing into the block of cement, and smashing his car like an aluminum can flashed across the screen of his mind. For a fleeting moment, suicide seemed to be the solution to his problems.

  Greg gripped the steering wheel tighter and shook his head. Through clenched teeth he mumbled the words, “The devil is a liar.”

  An image so vivid of a crying and inconsolable Shania popped into his brain. It seemed so real that he wanted to reach out and touch her. He had never seen so much pain etched in Shania’s pretty face. Then he saw Franklin, tears streaming from his eyes, no laughter in his face as he stood over his friend’s casket and said his final farewells.

  Oh, Lord, and what about his parents? He could see his dad, trying to stay strong; his mother, lost in despair. Just the thought caused him to shudder. He realized that taking his own life would be the most selfish and faithless thing he could ever do. Too many people loved him for him to cause them such pain.

  The sad realization that by even contemplating killing himself demonstrated Greg’s lack of faith in God and what He could do made Greg call on his Savior’s name. He began repenting and apologizing for thinking that his circumstances were greater than the one he served. Greg wondered when he had developed such a lack of faith. He spent the
rest of the drive having an intimate conversation with his Father.

  By the time Greg rolled up to his house, he felt mentally drained. He wished he could say that he felt at peace about the situation, but peace eluded him. Feelings of embarrassment and failure weighed him down.

  When he came into his home, he could feel a calming presence there. The smell of aromatherapy filled the air. Flickering candles greeted him throughout. Struggling to put on a brave face, he paused for a moment to collect his thoughts.

  “I thought I heard you come in,” Shania sang out. “You’re here pretty early.”

  She went to hug him, and he retracted.

  Frowning, she said, “If this is about last night, you’re already forgiven. I just . . . my emotions just got out of control, and I didn’t know how to handle the situation. I’m sorry for being a nag. I’m sorry for hanging up on you, and I’m sorry for giving you so much attitude all the time. You forgive me?”

  He kissed her offered lips. “Yes, I forgive you. And do you forgive me for not at least shooting you a courtesy call about my whereabouts?”

  “Yes, I forgive you,” she said and held the back of his head while she gave him an even deeper kiss. She cut the kiss short, then retracted her neck a bit. “What’s the matter with you? Why are you still acting so strange? Everything’s cool now, right?”

  Greg fell silent for a moment, then shook his head. “No, babe. No, everything’s not cool.” He glanced away from her before choking out, “I got fired.”

  Shania parted her lips on a gasp. “Honey, I’m sorry. Tell me what happened.”

  He grabbed her hand and led her into the media room, where they sat on the couch. Unable to look her in the eyes, Greg reclined on the couch and closed his eyes. For a split second he escaped into thoughts, hoping and praying that this day had been just a bad dream. When he opened his eyes and saw that Shania had fixed her gaze on him, he knew his world had changed. He went on to explain that under the directives of corporate, half of his office had been downsized.