Deadly Charm

by Claudia Mair Burney

I froze. My animal nature kicked in, and I had a powerful urge to pounce on him and claw him about the face and neck.

  He kicked out of his shoes and stepped over to my sofa smirking. Until he saw my face. “Bell, are you okay? You’re not moving.”

  I couldn’t speak, either. My own latent Tourette’s syndrome came dangerously close to activating. If I don’t speak, I can’t cuss. If I don’t cuss, I may be able to keep my rage in check.

  He laughed and plopped down on the couch, among my throw pillows. “You’re so easy to frustrate.” After having a chuckle at my expense, he went on, despite the fact that I was still livid and cemented to the spot.

  “We need to do a background check on everybody,” he prattled on. “I’ll need their names—their real names. And why do I think “Thunder” is made up?”

  I stood as still as Lot’s wife after she’d turned into a package of Morton’s salt. I’d had crampiness off and on in the past month, but nothing comparable to the sharp pain now twisting in my gut. I wondered if he’d made me so angry I’d gotten physically ill. Again, pain seared my entire abdominal cavity. It felt like my insides wanted to go outside. Jazz made me burst my tumor!

  He stood, concern shadowing his face. “Baby?”

  I shut my eyes. Someone had put a giant vise across my waist and squeezed. Hard! “Oh.” Just a tiny sound escaped my mouth.

  “I was joking,” he said. “I didn’t mean it.”

  Another “oh,” only this one was soundless. I buckled at the knees. “Something is wrong,” I whispered.

  He rushed to my side. I decided to let out my secret.

  “I think I have a tumor, Jazz. It’s on my abdomen close to my bikini line.”

  “A tumor! What kind of tumor?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t really told anybody, including my doctor.”

  “Baby! You can’t…” He looked confused. Angry at me, yet compassionate. “I’m taking you to the emergency room.”

  “No!”

  “Why not?”

  “Take me to Tiernan McLogan.”

  “Dr. McLogan is an hour away. And he’s probably not even seeing patients today. It’s Saturday.”

  Tears spilled from my eyes. “He’s open on Saturday. Please, Jazz.”

  He looked torn.

  “I want to see Dr. McLogan.”

  “Fine,” he said. What happened after that, I couldn’t say. I fell unconscious in his arms.

  According to Jazz, I woke up, moaned miserably, and promptly passed out again. Unconsciousness was a mercy. When we got to Dr. McLogan’s office, the pain hit me with such force, I thought it would kill me.

  Jazz parked the car as close as he could without taking a handicapped space. He held me in his arms, slammed the Love Bug door shut with one of his long legs, and locked the doors with the remote locker. I curled my body into his. “It hurts, Jazzy.”

  “We’re going to take care of you. Don’t you worry, love.”

  “This is it. I’m going to need a hysterectomy.”

  “I don’t care what you get as long as you stay here with me.”

  “I won’t be able to have a baby. Ever.”

  “You alone are a handful. With my luck we’d have a girl. I probably couldn’t handle two of you anyway.”

  I rested my head on his shoulder. He carted me into Tiernan’s office. I had to be the envy of every woman there. I had a strong, gorgeous man who had no problem carrying me across a threshold. I only wish I felt well enough to enjoy the full benefits of having him. Instead, pain shot through my belly and radiated down my thighs.

  I whispered to Jazz, “I’m scared.”

  “Don’t be. Whatever this is, we’ll handle it. We’ve gotten through everything else. We’ll get through this, too, but you should have told me. A tumor!”

  Dr. McLogan’s nurse opened the door to the clinic. Tiernan had prepared a room for me as soon as he got the call. An ultrasound machine was already set up. We passed Dr. McLogan in the hall. He touched my arm and assured me he’d be right in.

  He ordered Jazz, “Get her out of those clothes and into a gown.”

  Jazz didn’t even say anything flirty to me after those directions.

  The nurse settled us into the room, and I lay down on the gurney, clutching my belly.

  Jazz pried my hands away and started undressing me. “Now, I have to take off your clothes. You’re sick, baby.”

  I moaned.

  He sighed. “It must be pretty bad if you don’t have a sharp comeback for me. It’s okay, though. I’m here.”

  He slid my groovy dashiki shirt over my head and peeled off my tight jeans.

  He took a pale pink hospital gown—Tiernan totally has a chickcentric practice—out from under the gurney.

  “I have to completely undress you, baby.”

  “No!”

  “Bell, I’ve seen it all. Trust me.” He stroked my hair. “I’m not in danger of having a sexual demon flare-up.”

  I grinned despite my pain. “Okay.”

  He pulled off the last of my clothing and put the gown on me. He tied the back, carefully supporting me, and gently laid me down again. He stood at my head, rubbing my hair. His pinched expression conveyed his concern.

  Dr. McLogan came into the room with a nurse, and they rolled the ultrasound machine over to me. Dr. McLogan was kind enough to perform the ultrasound himself.

  My elfin doctor friend, the sweet Irishman who’d taken my father’s place and given me away at my wedding, held a tube of gel in his had. He muttered, “Warm, dear,” to me, before squeezing the preheated goop onto my stomach.

  He guided the ultrasound probe gently across my aching abdomen. I wailed at being touched there.

  “Hmmmm,” he said.

  “What?” Jazz said. “Is she going to be all right, Dr. T?”

  “Oh, yes, dear one,” he said, “but we have some concerns.”

  “Concerns?” I squeaked. I craned my neck up to peek at the screen, which he’d turned so I could see it. I couldn’t make out a thing.

  “Do you see this mass?”

  I did when he pointed it out. Jazz and I nodded.

  “It’s a rather impressive fibroid tumor. The last time I saw you, dearest, it was the size of a grape. It’s a grapefruit now, and there are several small grape-size ones that weren’t here before.”

  Great. My womb had turned into a fruit basket.

  Jazz bordered on hysterical. “Grapefruit?”

  “I take it that your clothes don’t fit anymore, yes, Bell?”

  I chuckled through my hurt. “Definitely not.”

  “Your uterus has expanded to make room, that’s why it’s so distended. It’s benign, glory be, but there are two more concerns I have to tell you about.”

  “Two more!” Jazz screeched.

  Dr. McLogan gave me that silly little leprechaun smile and scratched one of his mouse ears. He turned back to the ultrasound screen. “This baby and this one.”

  He’d shocked Jazz and me into silence. For a few moments we watched the areas he pointed to on the screen. Two little heartbeats pounded away.

  “I’m pregnant!” I’d taken over the hysteria department.

  “With twins?” Jazz said, matching me emotion for emotion.

  Dr. McLogan grinned at us. “Congratulations, dear ones. God has given you above and beyond all you can ask or think. And they look absolutely perfect.”

  That moment will stay with me all of my days. Chains fell away, and I felt light and dreamy. I felt in my body the first heady experience of Jazz touching me. The first time he whispered something in my ear. I felt the first time he prayed the Lord’s prayer with me and the gentle pressure of his hand holding on to mine. Our first kiss. The first and only time we made love. Everything about loving him had become quite literally embodied inside of me. I touched my belly. My babies’—my babies!—new home.

  Did I look different?

  Could the whole world see me glowing?

  They’d de
finitely see me growing, changing into a woman so loved that we had made two people, and I carried them inside me.

  Another “oh.” This one filled with wonder. It caught in my throat and stayed there tickling and delighting until it turned to holy laughter. Jazz and I looked at each other. Great big, sweeping waves of happiness flowed into and out of me, and for a moment I forgot the pain. Jazz reached down and kissed me. “I knew it.” His own voice broke. “You surprised me with two, though.” His eyes shone with unshed tears.

  I laughed, letting tears stream freely down my cheeks—silly, joyful tears. Even Dr. McLogan’s eyes misted.

  “I’m pregnant,” I said over and over.

  “And you have a fibroid gone wild from the estrogen surge, dearest. Let’s get you out of pain,” my wonderful doctor said.

  But pain had taken a backseat to the overwhelming gratitude bursting through my heart. I thought about my great-grandmother Ma Brown. She used to say, “Every shut-eye ain’t sleep, and every good-bye ain’t gone.” Just when I thought the fat lady had warmed up and was about to start belting out blues songs for my womb, God pulled a fast one on me.

  He sure knew how to surprise a sistah. And for one of the first times in my life, I was thrilled to have been wrong about something.

  Dr. McLogan admitted me to the University of Michigan hospital. It seems that the wild and crazy fibroid fed off of my increased estrogen and had outgrown its blood supply, which is why the pain started. The bleeding that I’d mistaken for a light period had been implantation bleeding when the babies first attached to my womb. Even though I felt like I was in some magnificent dream, I really was pregnant. With twins!

  I was grateful that Tiernan was also a U-M doctor. I didn’t want to be far from home and the people I needed. And, thank God, my people came out in droves.

  Jazz was the first to appear at the hospital, having followed the ambulance. Once he made sure I was comfortable and in the care of Addie Lee and Jack (who must have broken traffic laws to get there that quickly), he said he should get to the office soon to wrap up some things so he could take the next couple of days off.

  “Take as long as you want, son,” Jack said, patting my leg through the sheet. “We’ll take good care of her.”

  Addie couldn’t stop crying and fussing over me, bless her heart. As Jack settled Addie, my mother blew into the room—Hurricane Sasha.

  She flung herself onto my bed. “My poor sick baby. Look at you. You look like death eating a soda cracker.”

  Before I could recover my self-esteem, the good news burst out of Addie Lee. “She’s having twins, Sasha. Twins!”

  Sasha bolted upright. “You’re having twins?”

  “Yes, Ma.”

  She put her hand to her chest like she was going to have a heart attack. “And you couldn’t tell me this on the phone so I could bring something for the babies?”

  Never mind that I, her own baby, was half-dead. “I tried to tell you, but you said you were having chest pains about my CNN appearance. We ended up talking about you having ‘devil girl’ for a daughter.”

  Carly made a grand entrance, carrying two steaming cups of Starbucks. “What’d devil girl do now?”

  Ma answered. “She’s having twins.”

  Carly looked outraged. “You’re having twins! What do you mean you’re having twins! I’m the oldest. Do I have twins? Do I even have a single baby? Even a small one? I do not! And my fiancé broke up with me!”

  “Is one of those lattes for me?” I said.

  “No. You’re pregnant, and these aren’t decaf.” She scowled at me like she’d discovered God loved me the most. I knew he loved us the same, not that I’d argue. After all, I was the one laid up in the hospital. And I wanted that coffee. I tried to sweet-talk her and slide my java request in on the sly.

  “But you’re amazing, Carly. Gorgeous, smart, and, you know, enhanced. Besides, Tim will come back. And a little caffeine won’t hurt me.”

  “I can’t take chances like that Bell,” she said, enjoying it. “Your eggs were old.”

  The cow. Sorry!

  Kalaya popped into the room. “I’m not pregnant, and my eggs are great—as far as I know.” Carly handed her my Starbucks—the traitor. Or should I say traitors.

  “Don’t any of you people have something to do?” I complained.

  “But you’re in the hospital,” Kalaya said. “Thanks, by the way. I was bored to death at home.”

  “No problem. Let me know anytime you need my uterus to explode.”

  “It didn’t explode,” Carly said. “You’re so melodramatic. And selfish. Two babies!”

  “Not that she told me herself,” Ma said. “What did I do to deserve your hatred, Bell?”

  “I don’t hate you, but since you asked, this is what you did: You obviously favored Carly all my life. You constantly criticize me. You favored Carly all my life, and you constantly criticize me. Finally, you favored Carly all my life.”

  Jack quipped, “But did she constantly criticize you? That’s what I want to know.”

  “Oh, yeah,” I said. “You constantly criticize me.”

  He burst out laughing. Addie and I joining him.

  Ma wasn’t amused. “That’s no reason to keep two babies from me.”

  “You got the best legs,” Carly said to console me. She had a point. I did have good legs. Of course she added, “Too bad you have no clue how to show them off.”

  She just had to say that. Couldn’t leave it with me and good legs. Then she planted a kiss on my forehead. “But I love you, lamb chop.”

  “Hmph” rumbled out of my throat. I turned to Sasha to reassure her that I did not purposely keep the twins a secret to destroy her, but Jazz walked in carrying two teddy bears as big as Canada. Honestly. Jazz must be one of those people who think bigger is better.

  “Jazz, where in the world did you get those?”

  “If I tell you, I’ll have to kill you.”

  He set one bear in Addie’s lap and another at the foot of my bed. He avoided Sasha.

  “I’ve got some interesting news,” he said.

  “Do tell.”

  “Sister Lou is a nutjob.”

  “What else is new?”

  “I mean certifiable. First of all, her name is Louella Dickson, and she’s Ezekiel’s never-married sister.”

  “So that’s why he called her Sissy.” That doesn’t explain why he called me that.

  “Norman Dickson legally changed his name to Ezekiel Thunder when he was not much more than a teenager.”

  “I know, Sister Joy told me all of that.”

  He looked surprised. “Well, weren’t you busy?”

  “Just tell me about Sister Lou, player hater.”

  “Bell, are you using slang to compensate for your weaknesses as an investigator?”

  “No, I’m using slang because you were hating on me because of my superlative skills as an investigator player. Now, continue, please.”

  “About twenty-five years ago, right before that thing with the intern that blew his ministry apart, Louella was one of his key staff.”

  I nodded for him to go on. Jack and Addie looked riveted by the story already. Even Sasha sat up, snuggling closer to me, with her arm around my shoulders.

  “There was an incident.”

  Jack whistled. “That doesn’t sound good.”

  “You’re right, Dad. Turns out the good Sister Lou was known for her popular ‘deliverance’ ministry.”

  Addie jumped in. “So she specialized in casting out demons?”

  “Allegedly,” Jazz said, shuddering.

  Jack looked as if a chill went through him as well. “Spooky.”

  “You have no idea, Dad.” He and Jack seemed to have some kind of united front. Jack must have his own charismatic horror stories.

  I looked at Addie. “Mom, did your husband get shot with a Holy Ghost machine gun, too?”

  She rolled her eyes. “That poor man had to endure a lot worse than anything B
enny Hinn could come up with. Let me say, in hindsight, I can see why he never converted.”

  Jazz went back to his story. “Anyway, some foul stuff happened with some chick she was trying to deliver.”

  “Saints preserve us!” Jack said.

  “She ended up holding the girl hostage for three days. Wouldn’t let the kid use the bathroom. Tied her to a cross.”

  “Holy guacamole!” I said.

  “That’s what I thought. Somebody in the ministry took pity on the girl and let her go when Louella had gone to replenish her miracle prosperity oil supply.”

  Jack shook his head. “Freaky weird.” Addie Lee nodded her agreement. Sasha squeezed my hand.

  “The girl never pressed formal charges because her parents had taken her to the ministry for help. Even though they were told that techniques the ministry used could be dangerous, they believed in Thunder’s ministry enough that they gave permission for the ministry to do whatever they thought necessary. The family didn’t know any better. The girl was only thirteen at the time and severely depressed. Big mood swings. Didn’t really have a voice, if you know what I mean, so she couldn’t even protect herself from her parents.”

  “Was she bipolar?”

  “You guessed it, Dr. Brown. Apparently mental illness is a no-no in deliverance ministries.”

  “Among other things.” I winked at him. Red crept up from his neck to his cheeks. Jazz’s eyes seemed to plead with me not to betray his “secret.” My so-called deliverance gets broadcast on CNN and made him laugh like a lunatic, but I can’t mention the ol’ sechal demon.

  I decided to be the bigger person. The twins would make me the bigger person eventually, anyway. “Seriously, in many of those kinds of ministries, mental illness would be considered demonic oppression or possession. What else did you find out?”

  “Unfortunately that wasn’t the first complaint about her unorthodox methods, my love.”

  He called me his love. I grinned at him. “Am I your love?”

  “All day, every day, baby, but especially today.”

  Jack sighed. “Can you two love birds continue that in private? Addie and I just had lunch, and I don’t want to puke like Bell did on TV.”

  Jazz opened his mouth, momentarily speechless.

  “Look who’s talking!” I said. “Nobody is more lovey-dovey than you and Addie.”