Trying to Stay Saved

by E. N. Joy

  “Okay, Pastor,” Mother Doreen said with authority, “you wanna know what I’m really trying to say here?” Pastor Frey nodded. “Well, I like you, man. I like you a lot. And if I were your . . . woman . . . I wouldn’t be ashamed about it.”

  At first Pastor Frey just stood there, still holding Mother Doreen’s arms and still looking deeply in her eyes. She was feeling kind of awkward standing there. She felt like she’d just told her new boyfriend that she loved him for the first time, and now she was waiting for him to say it back; only he couldn’t get the words out.

  Finally Pastor Frey spoke. “You don’t know how it makes me feel right now to know that your feelings about me are mutual to how I feel about you.”

  Mother Doreen exhaled and smiled. Only Pastor Frey was still as serious as a heart attack.

  “So what do we do about it, Pastor?” she asked.

  “We seek God and let Him direct our paths.” Now he smiled. “And prayerfully our paths will join. But until then . . .” Surprisingly, he leaned in and placed a nice, soft kiss on Mother Doreen’s lips. It was one that sent sparks through both their veins. “I’ll leave you with—”

  Pastor Frey’s final words were interrupted by someone clearing their throat and then saying, “Excuse me. I’m Bishop Klein.”

  “Bi-Bi-Bishop . . . the Bishop Klein?” Pastor Frey stuttered as he gave the larger-than-life man the once-over. Pastor Frey had only seen a picture of him, an outdated picture at that. He couldn’t believe he was standing before the man himself, the man he’d only heard wonderful things about. He’d heard how he had whipped sister churches back in shape and kept others on the straight and narrow, but not once had he’d been assigned to Living Word since it started twelve years ago. Pastor Frey couldn’t help but wonder what had now brought Bishop Klein their way. Perhaps he was just passing through. Perhaps.

  “Oh, well, I don’t mean to be rude,” Pastor Frey stated. “Just a little surprised to see you here is all.” He extended his hand. “I’m Pastor F—”

  “I know exactly who you are, Pastor Frey,” the bishop stated, totally ignoring the outstretched hand extended to him.

  Pastor Frey allowed his hand to drop slowly. He then looked at Mother Doreen. “Oh, and this is—”

  “Uh-huh, I’m quite clear on who she is as well,” the bishop said in his deep baritone voice. His voice was even larger than his persona. If anyone was to ever make a movie and needed the voice of God, this is the voice they would choose.

  “So, what brings you by?” Pastor Frey asked, failing miserably at his attempt to hide his nervousness.

  “Actually, Pastor, I’ve been in town for a bit now,” the bishop informed him.

  “Really?” Pastor Frey was surprised. “How could I not have noticed you?” He chuckled. Bishop didn’t. Neither did Mother Doreen.

  “Anyway, I’ve seen enough,” Bishop Klein continued. “Actually, after what I just witnessed, I think it’s safe to say that I’ve seen more than enough.” He looked from Mother Doreen to Pastor Frey. “Pastor Frey, we need to talk.”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Lorain sat in Broady’s hospital room next to her mother. In just the past few days it looked as though her mother had lost more weight than when she’d had the bariatric surgery. Getting her to leave her husband’s side was not an option. Getting her to go down to the cafeteria to grab a bite had been an unsuccessful task as well. The salad Lorain had carried in from a local deli two hours ago was dry and wilted. Eleanor had picked at it, but never once took a bite.

  “Mom, you really need to eat something,” Lorain said to her mother.

  “I’ll eat when my husband eats,” Lorain told her only child.

  “Come on, Mom. It’s been four days. Please eat something, or I’ll be up here visiting Broady and you.”

  Eleanor looked away from a near lifeless Broady and into her daughter’s eyes. “Why are you here anyway?”

  Lorain was shocked by her mother’s ice-cold tone. “Wha . . . what do you mean, Moth—”

  “Just what I said,” Eleanor spat. She turned her body toward Lorain. “You didn’t even like him. You’ve been jealous of the man ever since the day you met him. Don’t think just because I didn’t say anything that I didn’t notice the look in your eyes that first day you met him. It was that day he came to my house for dinner. The day you played sick and ran off like Snow White at the ball.”

  “It’s Cinderella, Ma,” Lorain said in a hushed tone.

  “Huh?” Eleanor snapped.

  “It was Cinderella who ran off away from the prince at the ball. Snow White ate the poison apple and . . .” Lorain’s words trailed off once she saw her mother could really care less about the technical details of a couple of Disney princesses.

  “You know what I mean,” Eleanor said, rolling her eyes and turning her attention back to Broady. “You know, Broady didn’t have a regular heart attack.” She rested her hand atop of Broady’s, which were folded across his chest. “His heart broke.”

  “I guess you could say that,” Lorain agreed. “When your heart stops functioning right, I suppose one could say it is broken—”

  “No, I mean it really broke.” Eleanor was defensive. “The doctors said it’s called Broken Heart Syndrome. That’s what gave Broady his heart attack. They said with a classic heart attack, a blood vessel that feeds the heart muscle is blocked. The heart muscle is rendered helpless and can’t pump blood through the body. But with Broken Heart Syndrome, the damage comes from a surge of chemicals released by a strong emotion.”

  “Huh? What?” Lorain began to get nervous and fidgety. “A strong emotion? Like what?”

  “Like anger, sadness, or fear even,” Eleanor answered so technically, as if she’d memorized word-for-word the report the doctors had given her. For a moment there, Lorain felt as though she was listening to someone with a Ph.D. explain Broady’s condition to her.

  Once again, Eleanor turned and faced her daughter. “So let’s not dance around the giraffe in the room any longer.”

  “Elephant,” Lorain said with eyes cast down.

  “Huh?”

  “It’s elephant in the ro—never mind.” Heavy silence blanketed the room.

  “Well?” Eleanor almost shouted, causing Lorain to jump in her seat.

  “Well, what?”

  “Well, what did you say to my husband that broke his heart?”

  This was all too much for Lorain as the room started spinning. Technically, the room wasn’t spinning, but her mind was. Yes, this was all too much. She was hoping that her mother’s concerns would be so fixated on Broady that she wouldn’t even be worried about why Broady had been at Lorain’s in the first place, what they had been talking about when she arrived at the condo. Why did her mother have to bring it up? If she told her about Broady, then she’d have to tell her about Unique. Wasn’t that too much for her mother to handle all at once? She didn’t want the shock of it all to land her mother in the empty bed across the room from Broady’s. She didn’t want to be responsible for causing her mother that broken heart syndrome stuff, her death certificate reading: “Cause of Death: Viola Lorain Waterson.”

  A glaring light bulb went off in Lorain’s head. That was it. Viola Lorain Waterson. It was those words that had landed Broady in that hospital bed. The light bulb, still flickering, shone its light on the day Eleanor had stormed into Lorain’s house.

  “Viola Lorain Waterson!” Eleanor had shouted. “My only daughter; my only child . . .”

  As an adult, Broady had only been introduced to and knew his wife’s daughter as Lorain. As a young girl back in middle school, he knew her as Viola. And that last name. He’d probably assumed, since she wasn’t married or anything, that she carried the same last name as her mother; Simpson. Eleanor’s maiden name was Simpson. She’d abandoned the last name of Waterson after the divorce from Lorain’s father. It all made sense now.

  Lorain looked over at Broady. “He really didn’t know who I was,” she mumble
d under her breath.

  “Who? What are you talking about? Don’t try to change the subject. You answer me what I asked you, girl. Why was my husband at your house? And more so, why were you in his arms like some damsel in distress?” Eleanor sneered at Lorain. “Wait a minute. You were jealous all right, you were jealous of me. You wanted my husband. My own daughter wanted my husband!”

  Lorain had almost forgotten that her mother was there . . . waiting. Waiting on answers. Answers that Lorain now had. There were so many answers now. So many pieces to the puzzle. Broady . . . Unique . . . the connection . . . the final fit. What had once been a bunch of scrambled pieces now looked just like the completed picture on a puzzle box; what it’s suppose to represent when it’s been put together correctly. Was now really the time to share the picture with her mother? Wasn’t it all just too much, too much for Lorain to share with her mother? Yes, it was. Lorain knew this because it was all still too much for her.

  It was just two days ago when Lorain had sat on her living-room floor and told Unique who she really was—that she was the horrible witch of a mother that Unique had hated all her life. The mother who had thrown her away like trash and left her for dead. Lorain had hoped—no, she had pictured, envisioned, and imagined a thousand times since learning that her baby was alive—how the reunion might take place. But nothing she had thought up in her head came close to Unique’s reaction.

  Just a few minutes before telling Unique the truth, Lorain had urged her to curse since she appeared to be doing every other work of evil, like drinking and fornicating. Unique finally did take her up on the offer by calling her every curse word she could think of. She cursed Lorain all the way to her sister’s house. Not riding in the passenger seat of Lorain’s car though. She stormed down the sidewalk while Lorain drove slowly next to her, trying to convince her to get in the car so that they could talk things out.

  “Talk things out?” Unique had shouted. “What’s left to talk about? You are the trifling, no-good whore of a tramp who didn’t have a problem spreading her legs to make me, but couldn’t bother to raise me.”

  The words didn’t even anger Lorain. She deserved them, and much more. What she had done all those years ago was heinous and incomprehensible. She felt as though she even deserved the wad of spit Unique shot in her face the moment she’d let the words, “I’m your birth mother,” escape her lips. She felt Unique needed to get it all out. Holding it inside wouldn’t do anything but make it worse. Lorain knew that from personal experience. She’d held in so many secrets for so long. The one she’d finally shared with Unique was just the tip of the iceberg and it felt so good letting it go. Now it was time to let another secret go.

  Lorain looked up into her mother’s eyes. It was time for Lorain to introduce her mother to the giraffe in the room.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  “I have to admit, Sister Paige, I was surprised when Pastor told me that you wanted to meet with me,” Nita said as she sat next to Paige in the church sanctuary. They were the only two in the sanctuary, but not in the church. The pastor and the church secretary were back in their offices. The choir had just departed from their Saturday morning rehearsal.

  “Uh, I know, I . . .” Paige’s words trailed off. She felt so humiliated and so embarrassed. Right now, her throat felt dry as she nibbled on the crow she felt she’d been served up. “Sister Nita,” she managed to get out, “I know you’ve only been trying to help me. And I know I haven’t been the nicest person in the world to you. But right now, I’m . . . sorry. And right now . . . I need your help.” Paige couldn’t believe she was sitting there crying.

  At first she didn’t know if she was crying because of how bad she’d been treating Nita or how bad things were getting with her and Blake. She was out of excuses for that man. The other day when she sat in the hospital getting her arm placed back in its socket, wrapped, and put in a sling, she didn’t want to make excuses for him; she wanted to hurt him back. She’d envisioned the next time him putting his hands on her she’d go to jail for real: arraignment, trial, and sentencing—probably getting life for premeditated murder in the first degree. It was as if everything bad that could happen as a result of escalated violence in their home showed itself to Paige’s inner eye. That’s not the life she wanted. That’s not the life she’d intended when she said “I do” to Blake.

  On the drive from the hospital back to their home, Paige had told herself that she was going to pack a bag and go stay with Tamarra. But if she showed up at Tamarra’s doorstep in the middle of the night with her arm in a sling, then she’d have to tell her why. She didn’t want Tamarra to see her like that. And although she’d been devastated when Tamarra decided to leave New Day, she was now glad that she no longer attended. That way, she didn’t have to worry about Tamarra seeing her injury at church.

  Even though Tamarra and Paige talked quite a bit, they didn’t see each other a great deal. Tamarra’s catering business was on fire, and so was her love for the Lord. It was as if she’d fallen in love with Jesus all over again and spent every minute she could in Him . . . in the Word. Tamarra and Jesus were just like a couple courting. Paige had been wrapped up in Blake, trying to keep him happy and from losing it. And with all of these thoughts going through her head, one person popped up just as clear as day. And now she was sitting in the church right next to that person.

  “I accept your apology, Sister Paige,” Nita told her. “But I also understand.”

  “I was mad at myself, not you,” Paige confessed. “I was mad at myself because I could see where things were going between Blake and me, but I didn’t want to face the truth. So I kicked truth under the rug and walked over it. But then, here you come with your broom and dustpan to sweep it up.”

  Both Paige and Nita chuckled at the analogy.

  Paige turned to Nita. “So, how did it . . . you know . . . the abuse . . . start between you and your husband?”

  “Believe it or not, everything was fine while we were dating.” Nita smiled as if recollecting back to the good times she’d shared with her ex-husband. “And our wedding, it was to die for; a true fairytale wedding. Our honeymoon was only two days long, but it was beautiful. We just flew to Chicago, ’bout an hour flight, and stayed in a really nice hotel. We got room service, spa treatments, carriage rides; the works. Those were two of the best days of my life.” Now Nita’s smile was replaced with a blank stare. “And it was the last two days of peace I can remember with him.”

  Nita paused for a moment, and then swallowed hard.

  “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want—”

  “Oh, but I do have to tell you,” Nita was quick to say. “I have to, and I want to.” She turned and looked at Paige. “My testimony is my ministry.”

  “Okay,” Paige said, relieved that Nita decided to continue. It wasn’t that misery loved company; it was just that Paige needed to know that she wasn’t the only one who’d gone through something like this. Not only that, but she needed to know that someone had made it out . . . alive. She knew the statistics. She knew that some abused women were eventually murdered by their partner. She knew that the abuse oftentimes started off verbal, that possessiveness was involved, that it turned to minor hits and jerks, but then escalated to something beyond control. She didn’t want the kind of testimony Nita had. She wanted her own, of how God turned her marriage around before it could get to all that. But she needed both God and His vessels to help her achieve that testimony. And the way she saw it, Nita was one of His earthly vessels.

  “Yep, two days of peace was all I ever had while married to that man,” Nita told Paige. “It actually started the night we returned from our honeymoon. His luggage didn’t make it on the plane, so we had to go to the airline’s baggage office at the airport. When the lady asked him to describe his suitcase, he gave her the standard description that a million other folks gave: black, medium size.” She shook her head. “I’d told him to tie a bandanna or something around the handle because his s
uitcase looked like everyone else’s and that someone might accidentally mistake his for theirs. When the lady at the office typed in a few things, she noted that his bag had, in fact, been placed on the plane. She went on to explain the likelihood that someone else had grabbed it, thinking that it was theirs and would hopefully return it.

  “‘See, I told you that you should have put a bandanna on it,’ I said quietly to him. I knew something like this was going to happen.” Nita sighed. “He didn’t say anything at the moment, but if looks could kill . . . Anyway, we drove home. I tried to make small talk the entire way, but he wouldn’t engage me. Then the minute we walked through the front door, BAM!” Nita made a smack on her hand that caused Paige to jump. “That’s when it started. That was the first time he ever hit me. And he was screaming at me about how I disrespected him and made him look stupid in front of that woman and how it better not ever happen again.”

  “What did you do?” This was what Paige really wanted to know. Because whatever Nita did, she’d made up her mind that she’d do just the opposite. She did not want to experience what Nita had gone through. “What did you do after he hit you the first time?”

  Nita looked at Paige and simply stated, “I stayed.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Mother Doreen and Pastor Frey had been sitting at the restaurant table for half an hour. Their breakfast sat before them on top of the paper place mats that read “The Friendly Diner.” Mother Doreen loved this place. It reminded her of the Family Café back in Malvonia.

  Mother Doreen could count on one hand how many words she and Pastor Frey had spoken outside of ordering their meals. Although she had a gift of discernment, it didn’t even take all that to see that something was going on with Pastor Frey. But enough had been enough. Watching him gobble down his food just to keep his mouth full so that he wouldn’t have to talk to her was driving her crazy.