by E. N. Joy
“Well, I’ll just go fix both you and Pastor Frey up some to-go containers.” Mother Doreen headed straight to the kitchen and began packing up food.
Bethany and Uriah stood in the living room with silence between them. “Oh, before you go,” Bethany spoke up, “I brought up another box of your stuff I had packed away downstairs.” She pointed to the cardboard box that sat by the front door.
“Oh, thank you, but I think I have plenty to tide me over.” Uriah had already gotten some of his things the last time he was there.
“Here you are, brother-in-law.” Mother Doreen returned to the living room and handed Uriah several bags of food. “You be careful driving home,” she said, watching Bethany walk Uriah to the door.
Once the two got to the door, it was a very awkward moment for them. Mother Doreen could tell that they didn’t know what to do. Should they hug or kiss each other good-bye like a husband and wife usually would? Eventually Uriah decided to simply extend his hand. Bethany grabbed it, but only to pull him in for a hug, almost causing him to drop one of the bags.
“I’m glad you’re alive,” she whispered in his ear.
Having his wife’s arms around him, after months of being alone, almost erased all of her indiscretions. Almost. But there was still that matter of Pastor Davidson that had yet to be discussed fully. But for now, Uriah decided to just take in the moment of being in his wife’s arms. “Yeah, me too,” he smiled, feeling that perhaps there was a chance that things wouldn’t be so rough after all. After pulling away from the embrace, he gave his final farewells to both Bethany and Mother Doreen and was on his way.
Bethany exhaled after closing and locking the door behind him. Then she leaned up against the door. “You know, watching him leave tonight, I have to admit that I kind of wish he was staying. I wish that things could go back to about three years ago, and we could start all over. Erase all of my wrongdoings with . . .” Bethany’s words trailed off as guilt of her affair began to suffocate her mind. She had to admit, though, that since Uriah’s return, her thoughts hadn’t been much on Pastor Davidson. That undying, yielding love she’d tried to explain to Mother Doreen just days ago was now . . . well . . . dying.
“Look, it’s all in the past now,” Mother Doreen told her sister. “I’m about to warm Sadie some sugar milk. Can I get you anything?”
“No,” Bethany said looking downward. “Just my old life back.”
Chapter Twenty-two
Broady had been caught off guard by Lorain’s sudden outburst. “Lorain, I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“Upset me? You did more than just upset me. You took everything from me—everything!” Lorain cried out. Her hands were trembling, and her eyes were filled with tears.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart. Really I am. I know your mother was everything to you, with your daddy leaving you two and all.”
“Don’t you put my father’s name in your mouth!” she snapped, pointing at him. “He may have left me and Momma, but he took care of us. He still paid child support and alimony. He still made sure that when I was sick I could get medical care. But what he didn’t do was take from me what you did—my innocence.”
“Perhaps this wasn’t a good idea, my coming by here.” Broady stood to leave. “Which is why I didn’t mention it to Eleanor; I knew she would have thought it was a bad idea too and would have tried to talk me out of it. Guess I learned the hard way.” He nodded. “Good day, Lorain. I hope you get to feeling better.”
“Oh, now that I bring it all out in the open, you just wanna run off,” Lorain accused. “What, you going back to Phoenix? Where are you going this time when you run away from me? California? Yeah, you’ll fit right in with all the freaks there. Or should I say with all the other pedophiles?”
“You’ve gone mad,” Broady stated with a look of confusion on his face. “Perhaps you better go back to the doctor and get your head checked out, because you’re talking real crazy.” He walked to the door.
Lorain jumped in front of the door to block Broady from leaving. “No, you’re just trying to make me think that I’m crazy. You’re trying to manipulate me just like you did back when I was in middle school. But it’s not going to work this time. I’m not crazy. I’ve got proof.”
“What on God’s earth are you talking about?”
“Don’t play dumb with me. You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
“Look, I’m leaving, and don’t worry, I won’t tell your mother about this little episode. It would break her heart to know of your actions.”
“What? My actions? And you don’t think it would break her heart to know about yours all those years ago?”
Broady’s voice boomed with sternness as he walked up on Lorain and pointed in her face. “Look, I told your mother everything; she knows everything about my past, my conviction, and my jail time. More importantly, she knows about my deliverance and healing. I know what God has done for me, and I won’t allow you or anyone else to force me to feel guilty or harbor on my past.”
Lorain shook her head in disbelief. “This isn’t an act is it? Neither is it some selective memory loss on your part either . . . is it? You honestly have no idea who I am, do you? Or what you did to me all those years ago.” Before Broady could reply, Lorain was pushed forward by the opening door. The force landed her right into Broady’s arms.
“Viola Lorain Waterson!” Eleanor shouted as she stood in the doorway carrying a pot of soup. She’d wanted to surprise her daughter by coming over to nurse her back to health. She surprised her all right. “My only daughter; my only child. Please explain to me what you’re doing in my husband’s arms!”
Before Lorain could reply to her mother, there was a loud thud. She didn’t know at first whether it was her bottom hitting the ground, or Broady hitting the ground after he’d let her go.
“Mom, is he going to be all right?” Lorain asked Eleanor as she spotted and approached her in the ER waiting room.
Eleanor couldn’t even look her child in the eyes as she spoke. “I . . . I don’t know. It wasn’t looking good. His heart stopped twice on the way here in the ambulance.” Eleanor had ridden in the back of the ambulance with her husband after calling 911.
After finding out what hospital they were going to, Lorain drove over in her own car. Guess she wouldn’t make it in to work after all. But her boss understood once she told him what had happened to her stepfather. Her concerns regarding Broady were genuine, but not because of him; because of her mother. She could see how torn up and scared her mother was. She didn’t like seeing her this way. And she couldn’t help but think that this might be the way her mother would react when finding out the truth about her and Broady.
Now Lorain was beginning to have second thoughts and regrets. She was having second thoughts about telling her mother the truth and regrets about rehashing the situation with Broady, although he was acting as if he were none the wiser. Lorain didn’t know if it was just that—an act; the old man playing dumb in order to save face. But come to think of it, there was no way Broady would knowingly marry the mother of the girl he’d molested as a child. Would he? Could he? Only a monster would do something like that. But to Lorain, Broady was a monster. The Mr. Leary she knew was a monster indeed. If, as a grown man, he was capable of having sex with little girls, then he was capable of anything.
“Mrs. Leary,” a voice called out. “Mrs. Leary. Mrs. Broady Leary.”
“Oh, my, that’s me,” Eleanor exclaimed. She hadn’t gotten used to her new last name. After all, it was the fourth time she’d switched last names. The name on her birth certificate is Eleanor Simpson. When she married Lorain’s father, it changed to Waterson, but after the divorce, she switched it back to her maiden name of Simpson. And now it was Leary.
The doctor made his way over to where Eleanor was sitting and Lorain was standing. “Hi, I’m Doctor Healshire.” The doctor extended his hand to both Eleanor and Lorain.
“Doctor Healshire, I just need to know if my husb
and is going to be all right,” Eleanor said in a broken voice.
The doctor slowly closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and then opened them. “Mrs. Leary, I have to be honest. I don’t want to give you false hope, but it doesn’t look good. Your husband suffered a stroke. He’s on a heart monitor, but we also have a nurse stationed in his room because his heart just isn’t strong, and it keeps stopping on us. He’s weak. I honestly don’t know how much longer his poor body can handle it. Which is what I wanted to talk to you about.”
Lorain put her arm around her mother’s shoulder. She could tell that the doctor’s report was only going to become grimmer.
Doctor Healshire inhaled, and then exhaled again before continuing. “I’m going to need you to decide whether you want us to continue to resuscitate your husband or place him on DNR.”
“DNR?” Eleanor asked.
“Uh, yes, that means Do Not Resuscitate,” the physician explained.
Eleanor jerked out of her daughter’s arms. “Are you asking me whether I want to let my husband die?”
“No, Mrs. Leary, that’s not exactly what we’re trying to say.”
“Who’s ‘we,’ doctor? I only see you standing here asking me whether the next time my husband’s heart stops I should just let him die. What kind of person would do that? What kind of wife would I be to stand here and tell you to instead of doing everything possible to save my husband, to restart his heart, that you just let him die? What kind of woman do you think I am, doctor?” By now, Eleanor was raging with tears streaming down her face.
“Mom, please.” Lorain tried to grab hold of Eleanor’s arm, but she jerked away once again.
“Look, Doctor Healshire,” Eleanor stated matter-of-factly, “I don’t know whether you believe in God, but I do. I’m a Christian. I ain’t the perfect Christian, but I serve a perfect God. And my God is the author and the finisher. Not you, me, or anybody else is going to say when the end is for my husband. I don’t care if his heart stops a hundred more times; if you can get it back to beating again, then by God, doctor, you better do it.”
The doctor nodded his head in understanding. And he did understand. He dealt with these types of situations on a daily basis. But it was his job to provide the family of his patients with options. “Yes, ma’am, Mrs. Leary. We’ll do everything we can.” He turned to walk away.
“When will I be able to see him?” Eleanor asked before he could leave.
“Let us try to get him stable, and then I’ll send a nurse out for you.” The doctor gave Eleanor a reassuring smile, letting her know that her wishes would be granted. He was letting her know that he and his staff would do everything they could do to keep her husband alive . . . for as long as they could anyway.
Chapter Twenty-three
Things had gotten heated earlier that day in the conference room, so heated that both parties agreed to just see each another in court. It was obvious it would take a judge and a bailiff with a gun to keep the mother and the son, the daughter /sister, and the wife from strangling each other. Because that’s just about what happened after Barnita took the liberty of answering her son’s query.
After Blake asked his mother, “Why did you leave me? And why didn’t you ever come back?” there was a moment of still, stiff, cold silence in the room.
In a Lifetime movie, this would have been the moment when the mother broke down with regret, giving her sad sap of a tale of how she felt Blake would have been better off without her. This would have been the part where the mother was overcome with emotion, realizing the error of her ways, then begged her son for forgiveness. This was the part when Blake would have broken down like the little boy he was when she’d left him and forgiven her, the two promising to make up for lost time. But that is not what happened.
Instead, a smooth, calm smirk eventually made its way onto Barnita’s twisted lips before she spoke. “Iunknow.” She shrugged as if she was answering a math problem in class. “I left you because I wanted to, and I didn’t come back because . . . well . . . I guess because I didn’t want to,” Barnita had answered so heartlessly. It was a reply that infuriated Blake beyond measure.
“You low-down, selfish, gold-diggin’ poor excuse for a human being, let alone a mother,” Blake snarled through gritted teeth. “You should have done the world a favor and stayed gone; stayed put under the rock you slithered under all those years ago.”
That’s when Sharlita rose up out of her chair and began shouting out expletives toward Blake. She called Blake everything but a child of God. “Who do you think you are talking to my moms like that? I don’t care how much money you and biggums here got.” Sharlita nodded toward Paige. “She strolling up in here with you dressed in a Donna Karan suit, carrying a Prada bag with bangin’ bling-bling rings while your mother is barely making ends meet.”
“Hold on now, sweetheart.” Now Paige stood. “My wedding ring set, yes, he bought, but the Donna Karan suit and the bag—all me, Boo. See, unlike you and your triflin’ momma here, I don’t have to run around suing people to get what I want in life. I gets mine on my own.” Paige had no idea how long that ghetto seed had been being nurtured inside of her, but it fully bloomed today.
“Triflin’?” both Barnita and Sharlita spat.
“Oh, it’s on and poppin’ now!” Sharlita kicked off her shoes like she was Fantasia about to sing a song. She then started around the table, headed like a bull toward Paige.
Randall jumped up out of his seat and met Sharlita before she could reach Paige.
“Oh, let her go!” Paige shouted. “Please, let her go so she can put her hands on me, then let’s see who’s the defendant in a lawsuit.”
“Baby, don’t even stoop to their level,” Blake said to his wife.
“Stoop?” Sharlita roared. “So you higher up than us? You think you better than us just because you got a little bit of ends? Well, we’ll see who’s better than who when this is all over.” Sharlita looked at her mother. “Mom, sue the pants off of him.” She then looked at Blake. “I was hoping, with us being brother and sister and all, that we could be cool. That you could put me on at your company or something so that I can be like you. You know, you be Puffy and I be like Li’l Kim.” She then looked at Paige. “But I doubt that’s possible with Piggy Smalls here.”
Paige leaped over that table so quick and got a hold of Sharlita’s weave, that no one saw it coming. Blake did manage to restrain his wife before she could do any real damage. But the damage had already been done as Paige held a handful of microbraids that she’d yanked out of Sharlita’s head.
Paige couldn’t erase the vision of looking down at her hand full of cheap, synthetic braids as she now sat at home thinking about it. “I’m sorry,” Paige stated to her husband as she sat in the garden tub, bubbles surrounding her, with her arms wrapped around her knees. “I blew it. I might have ruined everything for you. Perhaps this is why I forgot about the first meeting; God didn’t want me there. I should have just stayed out of it.”
“No, it’s not all your fault,” Blake replied as he took the sponge and squeezed water down Paige’s back. “I made a big stink about you being there, and I’m sorry. It was selfish of me.”
Paige closed her eyes as the water drops drizzled down her back like honey glazing a ham. This was the Blake she knew and loved. This was the Blake she wanted to take up permanent residence in their home. When Blake was on, he was on. It was that off switch she wished would deactivate itself forever.
“It’s not selfish for a man to want his woman by his side,” Paige begged to differ. “I’m supposed to be there for you, to have your back.”
Blake chuckled. “And boy, oh boy, did you have my back.” He began demonstrating Paige’s earlier hand and arm motions. “I mean, the way you snatched that ghetto girl by her ghetto hair; that was—”
“Ghetto. That was me acting ghetto and shaming the Spirit man inside of me. I had no business putting my hands on that girl, no matter what she did or said.” Paige looked over
her shoulder into Blake’s eyes. “No one has the right to put their hands on anyone.” She hoped he was getting the message.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Blake shrugged. “But sometimes folks deserve it.”
Paige turned around again and leaned back against the tub. Perhaps both she and her husband had a point. Maybe sometimes she pushed Blake to the point of no-return, kind of like how Sharlita had done her. Paige had experienced firsthand how easy it was to set someone off. How could she look down on Blake for his actions when she herself was just as capable? Was God trying to tell her something, or was the devil trying to convince her of something? But she didn’t want to dwell on that now. She wanted to soak up the tender, loving care her husband was showing her as he caressed her shoulders.
“Babe?” Blake stated.
“Yes,” she replied, her eyes closed.
“I know I haven’t really been myself lately. But this is rough for me right now. I’m trying to live up to my name at work, especially now that I’ve had media coverage. I’m trying to handle this lawsuit thing discreetly while at the same time try to keep our marriage intact. It’s just hard for me sometimes, and sometimes I just lose it, you know?”
“Are you asking me if I know? The person who just lost it herself?” Paige certainly realized how easy it was for a person to just snap and do something they ordinarily wouldn’t have. She’d done it, so that didn’t make her any better than Blake for the times he’d snapped on her. She did not want to be the kind of person who threw stones while living in a glasshouse of her own.
“You did lose it, babe,” Blake chuckled again.
Playfully splashing him Paige said, “Will you stop? It’s not funny. I could have hurt that girl. What was she, a buck fifteen soaking wet compared to my—”
“Compared to your biggumness?” Blake laughed.
