Don't Blame the Devil

by Pat G'Orge-Walker

  “She was his foster mother, Delilah. Of course she feels a connection to him. She’s also Tamara’s godmother and was Cindy’s best friend. There’s history there.”

  Delilah began to unravel the hair she’d just pinned back. “Well, then I’ll send her a thank-you card and some flowers, but I’ll be damned if I let her keep me from my family.” She stopped once more before adding, “And I mean my entire family.”

  Deacon Pillar once again was clueless. But he wasn’t stupid. He didn’t bother to mention the divorce. Yet he was dumb enough to ask, “I am his father, ain’t I, Dee Dee?”

  Within moments after asking his dumb question the deacon fled her house holding his mouth. And Delilah fled to her kitchen and went to work on her hand, which already had started to swell. She quickly thrust it into a bowl of ice. She didn’t know she could still land a punch like that. That fool almost caused me to fracture my hand. After all this time, how in the world could he ask me if he was Jessie’s daddy? As far as I know, he is.

  Chapter 17

  “Hold still, Thurgood. I can’t get the swelling to go down if you don’t stop squirming like a baby.”

  Sister Marty had raced over to the deacon’s side as soon as Tamara had called. She’d sounded alarmed. “Somebody’s mugged the deacon!” When Marty arrived, he lay in his apartment blubbering. His lips had swollen to almost twice their normal size. The deacon looked like he had two balloons taped between his nose and his chin. It didn’t take her long to discover it was Delilah who’d beat him up again. And that’s when Marty laid into the deacon for the second time.

  “My goodness, Thurgood, maybe you should leave Delilah to deal with her anger on her own. You can’t take too many more beatings like this at your age. At this rate she’s not leaving much for you to divorce or for me to have.”

  Deacon Pillar wanted to speak, but it would have to wait. He’d driven home scared to open his mouth, as if he could without some teeth falling out, too. Delilah had hit him with something, but he didn’t know what it was. He refused to believe it was her small fist that caused the damage; although he’d not seen anything in her hand. But then again, he hadn’t seen the punch coming, either.

  Shortly after Marty had begun working on Deacon Pillar, Tamara walked into his apartment after going to get her father.

  “Tamara told me what happened, Deacon. This is my fault. I shouldn’t have asked you to do what I needed to do.” Jessie put his hand on the old man’s shoulder to comfort him as best he could. “I’ll handle things from this point on. I’ll just come out and ask her what she’s really after.”

  “What are you going to do, Daddy?”

  “Don’t worry about it. God’s got all this under control.”

  Jessie sat down and held an impromptu family meeting. He’d decided to share with them his need to find out all he could about Delilah. No matter how much he didn’t trust her—or really like her, for that matter—they still shared blood. He just wanted to know, and then they could go their separate ways.

  “I don’t ever want you to feel that I don’t appreciate all you and pop did for me,” Jessie told Sister Marty. “Even Delilah showing up after all these years has not diminished one bit of love I have for you, and it never will. But I’m sure I didn’t have to tell you that. You know where you stand in Tamara’s and my heart.”

  Marty’s spirit should’ve soared. It didn’t. All the conspiracies and the lack of trust that ruled her actions over the last few weeks had pulled back a veil. She thought her salvation was more solid than it was. She wanted to tell him so bad that the deacon and Delilah were married. She couldn’t. “I won’t pretend to understand or particularly like Delilah. She wouldn’t be my cup of friendship even if she weren’t your mother—your natural mother. But that’s something I’ll have to pray about. It won’t be for her sake but for my own.”

  Marty continued anointing the deacon’s swollen lips with the ice pack. This time she bore down a little harder. She intended to send him a message that there was a new game on the table, called truth.

  “Well, if you’re about to confront Delilah,” Sister Marty continued, applying ice to the deacon’s lips a little more gently since he’d almost leapt off the sofa a moment ago, “you’d better put on the whole armor of God and take a bat along with you.”

  “Mama Marty,” Jessie said, laughing. He hadn’t called her that in years. “I know it’s going to take time. I think she and I need to get to a place where truth can’t hide behind a lie. But I’ve got to start somewhere and sometime. I’m still fasting and praying about it.”

  If any of them saw the deacon’s eyes go wild they never said a word. His body became stiff like a corpse. Time was running out for him. Delilah was already thinking about coming clean.

  “I’m going with you,” Tamara announced. “If you’re going into enemy territory, I’m going, too.”

  “She’s your grandmother. She’s not the enemy!” Jessie barked. He was just as surprised as the others at his outburst. “I’m sorry, Tamara. I didn’t mean to yell. But we cannot allow Delilah’s issues to become ours and make us cynics.” Who am I kidding? I’m going over there because I’m already cynical. Father God, help me to rule over my tongue.

  “Don’t worry about it, Daddy.” Tamara was indeed hurt. In all her twenty-one years, her father had never raised his voice at her. Yet in the past several weeks since Delilah showed up, nothing was normal. Despite what her father said, she was beginning to not just dislike Delilah, she hated the woman. She couldn’t wait to get Delilah told off. “I’ll drive. You need to take better care of that hand.”

  Despite his protests, Tamara followed her father to the car and slid into the driver’s side.

  Since leaving Brooklyn, Tamara and Jessie hadn’t said much to one another except to share information about the best route to Delilah’s home and his cautioning that she slow down. And though she hadn’t driven her father’s car in quite some time, Tamara quickly found the “play” button on the CD changer. If they weren’t going to share conversation, music was the next best thing.

  From the very first eight bars Tamara knew she’d lost her battle plan to stay angry until they reached Delilah’s house. She hadn’t been prepared to hear the last album the church recorded earlier in the year. Her father hadn’t removed it from the CD changer.

  Jessie knew immediately how his daughter felt. He’d felt the same each time he played it. With a nervous laugh, he said, “Let’s never forget that when your mama sang she took it straight to the Throne of Grace.” He quickly turned his head away. Speak to your daughter’s heart, Cindy. Jessie’s eyes moistened but it wasn’t the time to cry.

  “I Go to the Rock” was not only one of her mother’s favorite songs but Tamara’s, too. Was her mother sending her a message? Tamara felt rebuked by the song’s words and her mother’s memory, and she didn’t like it. Yet Cindy wasn’t the type to get or stay mad. So Tamara kept on driving, a bit slower and a little less angry.

  However, back inside the deacon’s house anger was just getting started.

  Sister Marty put away the ice pack. She looked over at the deacon. He looked as though the effects of the painkiller she’d given him were kicking in and the swelling was almost gone. So she leaned slightly over him. With her pocketbook swinging from side to side like a pitcher winding up, she eyeballed the deacon. The more she thought about the havoc he’d begun to play in her life, the angrier she became. She was like a dog with a fresh bone to pick and she was ready to gnaw.

  Sister Marty opened her mouth and grinned. And that’s when she took the first bite of his behind, knowing he could do nothing but listen. “When are you gonna come clean, Thurgood? Huh? Besides being that woman’s husband, are you Jessie’s daddy?”

  The deacon’s head rolled over to the side. He imagined he was dreaming. What happened to the sweet thing who’d just bathed his lips?

  Yet she’d thrown it out there.

  “Say whaaa . . .” He couldn’t answe
r without a prepared lie. Damn Delilah. His masculine Garden of Eden life was quickly disintegrating. Delilah had sowed seeds of discord at every turn. One thing he knew for certain, if he wanted to keep his garden peaceful, he’d need to retool his hoeing skills.

  And he needed to do it quick because Marty now looked like the Queen of Winter, coldhearted.

  Deacon Pillar managed to sit up on the sofa. “Listen, Marty,” he said with a slight lisp. “I honestly can’t say for sure.”

  “What does that mean?” She came over and took a seat. “Either you are or you’re not. That routine you did the other night about you and Delilah getting married when Jessie was only two is not gonna work with me this time. What I should’ve asked was, when did you and Delilah hook up? Not when y’all got married.”

  “It was about a week after we met, honey. By the time I learned she was pregnant, we were head over heels in love. So we thought, anyway.”

  “So why didn’t you marry her then?”

  “Delilah wasn’t sure if she could handle a baby. She’d even thought about an abortion.” He grew more agitated as he tried to explain. “I don’t believe in abortion!”

  “Neither do I, Thurgood. What happened next?”

  “I got arrested for some petty stuff. You don’t need those details. By the time I got out of Upstate, she’d had the baby and Jessie was almost two.”

  “And you didn’t marry her soon after you got out?”

  “No. I didn’t. It was another six months before I even found them. By that time Delilah had moved on and hooked up with some pretty shady folks. . . .”

  “More shady than you were?”

  “That is possible, you know.” She’d insulted him. And her pushy attitude was beginning to get on his nerves. He’d never seen this side of her. The deacon needed rest, not an inquisition. “The bottom line is that Delilah was about to get into some serious trouble when I finally found her and Jessie.” The deacon’s smile came easy and sudden. “I immediately fell in love with him. He was so handsome there was no way I’d believe he wasn’t mine. . . .”

  “Are you serious?”

  “That’s the way I felt back then. I’m not quite that conceited anymore. Anyway, she saw things my way and we ended up getting married on Jessie’s second birthday.”

  “You really are serious.” Sister Marty was about to set the deacon straight about his current level of conceit, but she needed him to stay focused.

  “This pain is coming back,” the deacon said quickly, “so here’s the short version. Delilah had already started making quite a name for herself singing at different spots up in Harlem and eventually downtown, too. And just when it could’ve sent her star rising, she stabbed a gangster who tried to take what she didn’t want to give. I’d just arrived at the club that night when it happened. I guess I was running on emotions because I got her out of there and we went and picked up Jessie. We left Harlem that same night and went up to Poughkeepsie, New York. Long story even shorter—the cops came knocking and I immediately took the rap. I couldn’t have Delilah go to jail and I certainly wasn’t able to take care of a two-year-old, and I already had a record. The one letter I received from her while I was doing her time said she’d placed Jessie in temporary foster care until she could get on her feet.”

  “My Lord, Thurgood. No wonder no one can stomach the woman. She’s a selfish—” Marty stopped herself. She was trying to reclaim her own status with the Kingdom. Her hands weren’t all that clean, either.

  Her outburst again caught him off guard. It was as though he’d begun to see Sister Marty with new eyes. Either that or his pain was returning with a vengeance.

  He tried to rise off the sofa. “I sure hope I have some of those blue pills left.”

  “You take Viagra!” Sister Marty hadn’t meant to shout at him. In all the time they’d been seeing one another, there was never an occasion to bring up sex.

  “Hell no!” the deacon shot back out of embarrassment. “I was talking about Aleve. You’re giving me a migraine.”

  Chapter 18

  Jessie was impressed almost as soon as they’d turned onto Delilah’s block. It was everything the deacon had described and more. Maples and hawthorn trees dotted the block, along with brightly colored annuals sprouting from well-kept lawns.

  Tamara was still conflicted and she didn’t know where to put her feelings of guilt. Every song her mother sang on the CD became a message meant especially for her.

  Jessie, on the other hand, didn’t hesitate once he parked the car. Instead of waiting for Tamara to get out, he walked around and opened the door for her. He was making his point because she’d insisted on coming. “Come on, Tamara, get out of the car.”

  Jessie rang Delilah’s doorbell several times before he heard a shuffling sound.

  If Delilah was shocked when she answered her door to the deacon earlier that day, she was now completely blown away to find Jessie and Tamara standing there. She asked them in and tried her best to hide her excitement. She’d been praying when she thought she heard the doorbell. Thank you, Jehovah.

  “Sorry to just show up without a phone call first.” That was the best apology he could give for coming without an invitation.

  It’s not like I came to you with an invite, either, Delilah thought. “You don’t ever need one.” She suddenly remembered what she’d done to the deacon. In case Jessie and Tamara had come to lay the blame at her feet, she needed them to see a different side of her. “Y’all follow me and come on in the living room. Please have a seat.” Delilah slowly moved aside several of the Bibles on the arm of the recliner and offered that seat to Jessie. She was happy he’d at least seen that she could be a woman of peace despite all the butt kicking that happened in God’s Word.

  Tamara didn’t sit down. She hadn’t taken her eyes off Delilah’s photo-decorated wall since she’d entered. She needed to see them up close. As she went from picture to picture, her plan to blast her grandmother again took a backseat.

  Delilah couldn’t suppress her smile as she watched Tamara examine the photographs. She didn’t say anything when she saw Jessie pull one of the Bibles closer to him, either.

  When Jessie saw how interested Tamara seemed in Delilah’s photos, he mouthed to Delilah, “Can we go and talk?”

  Jessie followed Delilah into her kitchen. Somehow he wasn’t surprised to find it as spotless as the living room. But he did find it odd that someone who could wreak so much havoc could still have so much order about them.

  Mother and son took a seat. Over glasses of lemonade they began to chat. But first Jessie prayed. That was something they had in common, although with different results.

  While Jessie and Delilah were in the kitchen, Tamara studied the wall. Despite how Tamara felt personally about Delilah, all the star-studded, autographed photos on the wall caused her to admire the woman’s gift. Even at her young age she knew about some of the jazz and rhythm and blues greats who grinned and laughed along with Delilah.

  “How in the world did she hook up with Diana Ross? Delilah’s wig is just as crazy as the Boss’s.” And there were others: Aretha, Smokey Robinson, Buddy Guy, and Shirley Caesar. It seemed Delilah had had a part in every music genre.

  But then out of the corner of her eye Tamara saw the Roland E-600 keyboard and her heart pounded. A huge palm almost covered it. It was the exact keyboard she’d planned on asking her father to buy. She wanted to take it back to Juilliard when she returned in a few weeks.

  “I wonder how Tamara’s making out? Perhaps we shouldn’t have left her alone.” Delilah was sorry as soon as the words left her mouth. Hadn’t she left him alone?

  Although he hadn’t said much to Delilah, she was glad the deacon had given her a heads-up. She might’ve had a chance to come up with a customized version of the truth, if Jessie had called first. But then she also appreciated that he’d laid aside his resentment and brought Tamara along.

  “You want to know whether or not I want something from you. If you’re
willing to get to know me a little better, I think you’ll see I don’t.” Delilah wanted to beg him to see her shame and her hurt from what she’d done. But she didn’t.

  Jessie smiled. “I think I know enough to believe God’s Word when it says that I shouldn’t hate my elderly mother. I’m also getting over the shell shock of seeing you, and my anger these days is tempered with a lot of prayer, but I need to know the truth.”

  “Jessie, I’ll just have to show you that I’ve come to a place in my life where I’ve learned what’s important. It certainly wasn’t what I thought it was when I had you. I was young, ambitious, and selfish.”

  “For a few days now I’ve been consumed by this need to know the truth. And to be honest, even listening to what you’re saying, I’m still not sure. I don’t know if I’d want you in my life even if what you said was true. And that makes me even sadder and a little angry. But I still need to know who I am.”

  It wasn’t exactly the answer she’d hoped to hear when she laid out her heart, but she’d take it for now. “Well, I can understand that,” Delilah said softly, “but I need something, too.”

  Jessie’s first thought was to say no to whatever she was going to ask, but then Tamara flew into the kitchen.

  She was almost giddy, like when she was much younger and it was Christmas morning. “Daddy, I need to show you something.”

  “We’re talking right now, Tamara.”

  “It’ll only take a moment. I’m sure Delilah won’t mind.”

  “Of course, I won’t.”

  Neither Jessie nor Delilah spoke about it, but they knew the conversation was far from over.

  By the time they got to the living room they found Tamara seated at the keyboard. “Like they used to say back in your day, this is the joint,” Tamara said.

  “Is that the Roland E-600?” Jessie walked over and with his good hand, he touched it. “This thing costs a lot of money.”