“Oh, God,” Reyna groaned when Peyton’s blue eyes danced with excitement. There was no way she could stop him from distorting everything, now that he knew the source of her sudden wealth.
“I wasn’t aware you lived here, since Reyna never added you to the lease. How long have you lived in my house?” Tyson pressed on, much to Reyna’s discomfort. “Are you employed?”
“What difference does it make? She pays the rent on time. So what? A few things are missing, but it’s nothing your insurance won’t cover,” Peyton spat and then turned to Reyna. “Why didn’t you tell me you were banging the landlord too? We could have been living rent free.” He pointed at Tyson’s wrist. “I told you the stuff I sold was no big deal. Look at that Rolex. He can afford it.”
Tyson turned to Reyna. “What is he talking about?”
“I wanted to tell you,” she slurred.
Filled with dread, Reyna watched Tyson walk around the main floor of what was once his home, as if seeing it for the first time. He touched the spot where an original painting had once hung, and inserted his fist into a hole in the wall. He went downstairs to his old office alone, and after what seemed like an eternity to Reyna, he returned and stood in the middle of the living room. Reyna waited for him to yell or scream, but he didn’t say a word. Just stared at her through charcoal flecks.
Peyton interrupted the silent communication. “Since you’re here, can you write out another check?” He held out the original one. “This one got torn by mistake.”
“Either you’re on something or you’re the dumbest person in the world. Get that out of my face before you lose your arm,” Tyson warned.
Reyna laughed as Peyton retreated like a scared puppy, a small vindication for what he’d done to her. The victory didn’t last.
Tyson turned to her. “I could have forgiven you for anything if you had just been honest with me.”
“I was going to tell you what Peyton did. That’s why I wanted you to come over,” she answered, stumbling over her words. “Then he showed up, and he—”
He pointed at Peyton and for the first time unleashed his anger on her. “This is not about that loser. This is about you and me. I gave you my heart and compromised my beliefs for you. And less than twenty-four hours later you’re screwing someone else. I specifically asked you if you were involved with him, and not once did you mention you were living together and destroying my house.”
She collapsed on the couch. “I promise I’ll pay you back, somehow.”
“Those are just things, Reyna! They can be replaced. You can’t repay what I’ve invested in you.” He pointed at his chest. “I believed in you when no one else did. I was there when no one else would come. I went out on a limb for you. I gave you everything, and you didn’t have the decency to level with me.”
She rocked back and forth. I’m not going to cry.
“I’ve never begged a woman to be with me, and it’ll be a cold day in hell before I beg a coldhearted and self-centered woman like you again for a morsel of affection. I’m done.”
“I thought you loved me.” The words dripped out before she could stop them.
“Love,” he smirked. “You don’t know the definition of the word. Consider this your thirty-day notice. I want you and your trailer-trash boyfriend out of my house. I’ll have the car picked up tomorrow. Outside of turning in your keys, I don’t ever want to see or hear from you again.” He turned to leave, then paused as if he’d remembered something. “Good-bye, Reyna.”
She expected a door slam, but it never came. She heaved and shook but forbade tears to fall. I’m not going to cry. She rocked faster and gripped her stomach when she heard his tires screech, taking her heart with him. The expanding ache in her heart overpowered the throbbing in her head. I’m not going to cry.
Tyson was wrong; she did know the definition of love. He’d shown it to her and then broken her heart by not believing her. Sure, it looked bad, but Tyson should have known she wouldn’t willingly be with another man after him. Even semi-drunk, she could see something was wrong with the scene he’d walked in on. Then again, she had been living with Peyton for almost four months and knew his antics.
“Give me the keys to the car. I have a run to make,” Peyton demanded while standing over her.
Reyna rolled her eyes. “Get out of my face. I’m not giving you anything.” Peyton had taken the last thing of value from her. Besides, she couldn’t remember where she’d left the keys.
He yanked her up by her throat. “Give me the keys before I snap your neck.”
A loud, quick boom blasted Reyna’s eardrums and sent Peyton to the floor.
“That was a warning shot, but I promise you the next one won’t miss.”
Reyna whirled around, too stunned to speak. The sight of her mother cocking a gun left her speechless, and so did the crew standing in the doorway with her. Pastor Jennings held a baseball bat in striking position, Mother Scott brandished a switchblade, and First Lady Drake waved a pipe wrench. All of them had a shiny look, like they’d been smeared with Vaseline.
By the time Peyton got his bearings and raised up on his knees, Jewel was standing over him, pointing the barrel of the gun between his temples. “This ain’t no toy, and I ain’t playing a game. This is a thirty-eight snub-nose. Put your hands on my daughter again, and I’ll brand your forehead with all five bullets before you can call on your Maker.”
“And on the off chance that she misses, we’ll beat you like the thief you are while she reloads,” Pastor Jennings cosigned.
Peyton’s olive skin burned crimson, but he didn’t say a word.
“M-mama,” Reyna stuttered. “When did you get a gun?”
“Always had one, baby,” Jewel answered without taking her eyes off Peyton. “My grandfather was a marksman. He gave me my first gun for my sixteenth birthday and taught me how to shoot. I can hit a target a quarter mile away.” She directed the conversation to Peyton, whose teeth chattered. “You’re leaving this house today and never coming back. Either you can walk out or the coroner can roll you out. The choice is yours. You got five minutes to get your junk and get out of here.”
“He don’t need that long,” Mother Scott said, pointing the switchblade. “I can tell he don’t own nothing. Two minutes is all he needs to grab his stuff.”
“You heard her. Now move!” Jewel ordered. “And you better not take anything that doesn’t belong to you.”
Peyton jumped up and ran to the hall closet.
Reyna blinked and refocused. She needed to spend more time with her mother; there was so much she didn’t know. “How did you know . . . I mean, why did y’all come here?”
Jewel kept her eyes on her target. “I told you to call me if you needed me, and you did. We’d just ended our prayer session and were getting ready to head out to that new Chinese buffet when you called. When I heard him threaten to kill you, we grabbed our girls and headed on over.”
“Girls?” Reyna questioned.
“Beulah, Louise, Silvia, and Roxy,” the women answered one after the other, referring to their weapon of choice.
“But I never told you where I live.”
“Rosalie got that information from Kevin a long time ago. I just let you think I didn’t know because that’s what you wanted,” Jewel said.
Reyna shook her head as if to clear it. She couldn’t have heard her mother correctly. “The pastor, the prayer warriors, and the pastor’s wife carry weapons?”
“We put on the whole armor of God every day, but every now and then you need some tangible armor to take care of business,” Pastor Jennings explained.
“We weren’t born prayer warriors,” Mother Scott added. “We all have a past, and I know I ain’t forgot nothing. Besides, we’re doing what Jesus would do. We’re about to whip this thief out of this temple.”
Reyna wanted to laugh but no longer had the energy. At some point she would ask when the four of them became buddies.
“Thirty seconds,” First Lady D
rake warned.
Peyton raced into the kitchen and opened the utility closet and pulled out a garbage bag and dumped his clothes inside it. He headed for the door, still shirtless, with the bag over his shoulder.
“Stop,” Jewel called from behind. “Leave the key.”
Without turning around to face the gun’s barrel, Peyton complied. With shaky hands, he removed the key from the ring and set it on the table.
“Reyna, is there anything you want to say to him?” Jewel asked.
“Or do to him,” Pastor Jennings added, holding out the bat to her.
Reyna shook her head. “No. I just want him gone.” He had taken so much from her, his death wouldn’t be enough to make retribution.
“Turn around,” Jewel ordered Peyton. “I want you to see my face and Beulah’s smile when I say this.”
He obeyed.
“For the remainder of your natural life, you better not come within breathing distance of my daughter. If you do, I promise to carve your name on your body with bullets. When I get through, the only identifying marks left will be your fingertips. Do you understand me?”
“Y-y-yes,” he stuttered.
“Now, turn around and run, just in case I change my mind and let Beulah loose.”
The gang of women stood in the doorway, laughing at Peyton as he ran through the subdivision with that garbage bag over his shoulder.
Reyna watched the scene until she heard someone screaming. A piercing shrill followed by intense wailing echoed throughout the town house. It wasn’t until she felt her mother’s arms around her and heard the prayer warriors speaking in an unknown language that she realized the horrific sounds were coming from her. “God, help me,” she opened her mouth to say, but only cries of agony would come out. Her fists swung and her legs kicked at beings that were visibly present in her mind, but not physically there.
Chapter 33
The sun’s brilliance obscured Reyna’s vision as the car traveled down Fairmont Drive, away from John George Psychiatric Pavilion. She had no memory of the trip there three days ago. Emergency room doctors had placed her on a 5150 hold and then had had her transported to the county’s psych facility after failing to find anything physically wrong with her to explain the constant wailing and combativeness. After three days of probing questions and evaluations, Reyna had arrived at her own diagnosis: she’d lost her mind, along with everything else. Oddly enough, this time she didn’t blame anyone but herself.
Spending hours isolated in a small room had a way of bringing out the truth. When she was surrounded by those white walls and that dark linoleum, her pride and denial vanished and the bare truth emerged. Her predicament wasn’t Peyton’s fault; she’d allowed him to take advantage of her. Her relationship with Tyson didn’t end because he didn’t believe her; the foundation of the budding relationship had been built on her lies and omissions. It wasn’t even Pastor Jennings’s fault for manipulating and using her all those years. After Jewel came to her rescue, Reyna could no longer blame her mother for her insecurities. In that cold, sterile room, Reyna came face-to-face with the real perpetrator: herself.
Stubbornness had driven her to make bad choices. In rebellion, she’d deputized herself captain of her ship and master of her soul. She’d allowed hurt to fester and transform into bitterness, which ate away the tenderness of her soul. Pride had blinded her on her quest for independence. The enemy had disillusioned her and beguiled her into believing no one controlled her, that she was in control. Lying flat on her back on the metal-framed slab that served as a bed, with a braid on each side of her head, Reyna accepted that she controlled absolutely nothing.
Pastor Jennings had many warped teachings. Ironically, one of the few biblically sound ones had echoed in Reyna’s head all night.
“God will never leave you or forsake you. You’ll never get too far, where His hands can’t reach down and grab you,” her former pastor would say.
Tyson had told her the same thing with different words, but she hadn’t wanted to hear it then. She was ready to listen now.
“Would you like to stop and get something to eat?” Jewel asked from the driver’s seat. “We could pick up Zachary’s to go.”
“That’s okay. I’ll make a sandwich at home.”
Home meant back under her mother’s roof and in her old bed. She thought it best to make a clean break and not wait to move out of the town house. She’d be going to back to her mother’s house in thirty days, anyway.
“You really should eat a decent meal,” Jewel insisted.
Reyna detected the worry in her mother’s voice. Jewel had good cause to worry. In the last ten days Reyna had lost twelve pounds.
“If you make fried chicken, cabbage, and macaroni and cheese for dinner, I promise to eat two platefuls.” After Jewel saved her life, she didn’t want her mother worrying about her.
“You got a deal.” With exact precision Jewel made a U-turn and pulled into the grocery store parking lot.
Reyna napped in the car while Jewel shopped. Images in her mind of her seated at Pastor Jennings’s table, reciting the sinner’s prayer at age seventeen, disturbed her rest but gave her the peace she’d been searching for. She was both physically and spiritually exhausted; instead of resisting, Reyna welcomed the comfort. “Come into my heart, Jesus,” she whispered repeatedly until uncontrollable tears cascaded down her cheeks. “I’m sorry, Lord. Come into my heart, Jesus.”
Supplication was still being made when Jewel loaded the grocery bags and entered the car.
“I can’t do this anymore,” Reyna cried, gripping her mother’s arm.
Jewel threw her purse on the backseat. “You can’t do what anymore, baby?”
“I can’t live like this anymore. This is not who I am. I need God. I need to feel His presence again.” She collapsed on her mother’s shoulder.
Jewel lost track of time in the parking lot as she held her daughter and prayed for her restoration. It didn’t matter that the vanilla ice cream she bought to accompany the peach cobbler she’d planned to make would melt. Her child had finally come back home.
“I found one I like,” Reyna announced, walking into the kitchen three days later. “I can check in on Friday. It’s a little pricey, but I think it’s a great fit.”
“As long as it works for you, don’t worry about the cost.”
Reyna kissed Jewel on the cheek. “Thanks, Ma. You won’t regret it.”
Jewel pulled a paper towel from the rack and dabbed her eyes. “I know I won’t. You can do all things with God’s help.”
Reyna’s cheeks flushed at her mother’s vote of confidence. It had taken almost thirty-one years for her to realize her mother was a ride-or-die chick.
“I have to start preparing. I hope you don’t mind me not helping with dinner.”
“Take care of your business, girl. I have some calls to make.”
Reyna trotted off to her room and began making preparations for the rest of her life. She didn’t doubt the power of God. She believed He’d forgiven her and restored her, and denial no longer ruled her. She acknowledged she had become an alcoholic and needed help beating the addiction. Old issues remained that needed to be dug up. She needed help identifying triggers, and she needed to learn how to properly deal with problems, instead of numbing the pain.
After much prayer, she’d found a faith-based recovery center online. The luxury, state-of-art center, located in the beautiful Santa Cruz Mountains, was small enough to provide an individualized recovery plan and resourceful enough to help her manage her personal and financial problems as well. A ninety-minute drive, the center was far enough from the city for her to focus on getting better without distractions. After a thirty-minute phone assessment, both she and the counselor agreed she was a good match for the program.
She had three days to completely move out of the town house and pack for the ninety-day stay. Utilities had to be turned off, and a change of address request given. Most importantly, she needed to call and plead
with Starla to do her hair. Dealing with her hair would be a distraction at the center. Single micro braids would be perfect for the three-month stay. She hadn’t spoken to Starla since the incident at Kevin’s house months ago, yet, Starla called and welcomed her back into the fold and offered to assist her in any way possible.
Reyna figured the entire crew knew about her rededication to the Lord within seconds of Jewel calling Mother Scott, because they all called. Tyson must have known too, but he didn’t call. She couldn’t dwell on that now; it was time for her to “do her.”
Her next order of business was to call Paige and resign from her position. She was grateful to Paige for not firing her, but Tyson had gotten her that job. She thought it best to cut ties and stand on her own two feet. It was time for her to trust in God’s provision and not Tyson’s resources.
“Ouch!” Reyna screamed and winced when Starla started the first braid two days later. They were sitting on Jewel’s front porch to avoid tracking hair in the house.
“Girl, I can’t believe you’re tender headed. I barely touched you.”
“I’ve never had my hair braided,” Reyna said, pouting.
“Stop whining, before I send you to the mountains looking like Simba from The Lion King.”
Reyna turned and looked upward. “You wouldn’t dare?”
“Yes, I would. Now, turn around and hold still,” Starla ordered. “I’ll give you a Tylenol before I leave.”
Reyna gritted her teeth and obeyed. She didn’t have a choice; she was scheduled to leave for the center in eighteen hours. She’d completed every task, including mailing the keys for the town house to Tyson’s post office box. She still hadn’t heard from him and didn’t expect to. He’d made it crystal clear: he was done.
“What time is Tyson picking you up?” Starla inquired three rows later.
“He’s not. My mother’s taking me. We’re not a couple, you know,” she answered, hoping to prevent further questions about Tyson.
Starla smirked. “Since when does that make a difference?”
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