Amaryllis

by Nikita Lynnette Nichols

  “She just slipped into a coma. I doubt if she makes it. She’s lost a lot of blood.”

  They carried Amaryllis out on a stretcher past Nicholas. James approached him. “Nick, I’m sorry. She’s in a coma and the paramedics aren’t optimistic.”

  Even though Amaryllis wreaked havoc wherever she went, and even though she was wrong for what she had done to her own sister, Nicholas still loved his daughter and couldn’t help but whisper a prayer to God for her recovery and healing.

  Michelle opened the door to see a distraught Nicholas.

  “Daddy, where did you go and where is James? I’ve been calling both of your cell phones and left messages.”

  Nicholas walked in and sat on the sofa. “Come sit with me, Baby Girl.”

  Michelle’s heart started to race. Every time Nicholas told her to come and sit with him, it usually meant bad news. She slowly walked and sat down. “Did something happen to James?”

  Nicholas took her hands into his. “No, it’s not James.”

  “What is it then?”

  He silently prayed for the right words to tell her. “It’s Amaryllis.”

  “I don’t want to hear anything about her.” Michelle stood to walk away, but Nicholas grabbed her arm.

  “She was attacked and robbed at the Swan Lake Hotel.”

  Michelle’s eyes grew wide. “Attacked how?”

  “She was brutally beaten in her hotel room and her purse was stolen. By the time she was found, she had been lying in a pool of blood for quite some time. She’s lost a tremendous amount of blood and the paramedics don’t think she’ll make it through the night.”

  “No, Daddy, no.”

  “James is at Vegas Memorial with her now.”

  “Take me to her.” Michelle grabbed her keys and purse, and followed her father’s lead.

  Michelle rushed into the intensive care unit with Nicholas close behind. James and Alexander were standing outside Amaryllis’ hospital room when they saw Michelle running toward them. She ran to James and buried her face in his arms. “How’s my sister?”

  “Mickey, the doctor just left her.” James paused before continuing. “She’s not going to make it.”

  Michelle’s knees collapsed. James barely caught her from hitting the floor.

  “I gotta see her, James. I wanna see my sister. I don’t care what the doctor said. Jesus can still say ‘yes.’ ”

  Nicholas escorted Michelle into the room. Amaryllis lay in bed unconscious, with many machines attached to her. Michelle saw tubes taped to her arms. She pulled up a chair and sat next to the bed and grabbed Amaryllis’ hand. “Why, sis? Why does it have to be this way?”

  Nicholas stood behind Michelle and put his hand on her shoulder. Michelle patted his hand. “Leave me alone with her, Daddy.”

  Nicholas squeezed Michelle’s shoulder and left the room. Michelle closed her eyes. “My God, I know you’re a miracle worker and I need you to perform one right now ...”

  Nicholas, James and Alexander stood outside of Amaryllis’ room for an hour with Michelle inside. James poked his head into the room. “Mickey, I hate to leave you at a time like this, but Alex and I have to go to another crime scene.”

  Michelle didn’t move or respond. James walked over to her and saw her eyes closed and her lips moving silently while she held Amaryllis’ hand. He left the room and told Nicholas to call him if anything changed. Nicholas peeped in at Michelle, sitting by her sister’s side.

  Amaryllis began to dream.

  The year was nineteen eighty-four. Amaryllis saw herself at eight years old, being taken out of school in handcuffs for pushing a nun down a flight of stairs.

  Imps began attacking Amaryllis. Michelle could see her lifeless body being pulled in every direction.

  The year was nineteen eighty-six. Amaryllis heard little Karla Monroe in the shower at day camp, screaming and crying because her hair was falling out due to the fact that Amaryllis had put hair remover in her shampoo.

  Amaryllis’ flesh was being torn from her bones as she lay in a coma. Michelle saw tears streaming from her eyes down to her ears.

  The year was nineteen ninety. Amaryllis saw her neighbor, Mr. Taylor, being carried away by ambulance because two goons jumped him in the alley after his wife anonymously found out he was cheating.

  Michelle watched as her sister’s body convulsed. The imps had inhaled her skin from her lifeless body.

  Amaryllis saw herself fully grown, walking down the street in the rain when a thunderclap spoke to her. “YOU ARE A BAD SEED.” Suddenly, a lightning bolt stretched out from the sky and struck her and knocked her to the ground.

  An alarm sounded on one of the machines. Michelle looked at it and saw Amaryllis had flat lined. Michelle began screaming and hollering. “Oh God, no. Please, God. Please, don’t take my sister from me. Please, Jesus, please.”

  Two nurses rushed into the room and shooed Michelle out into the hallway. She stood and watched through the window of the door as the doctor and attending nurses work on reviving Amaryllis. Nicholas stood behind Michelle and watched as well.

  “Are you praying, Daddy?,” Michelle asked her father.

  “Yes, I am,” he replied sadly.

  The medical team were able to silence the machine’s alarm after two minutes. After adjusting the tubes in Amaryllis’ arms and chest, they allowed Michelle back into the room. No sooner than when Michelle sat next to her again, Amaryllis’ eyes opened. She looked at Michelle sitting beside her praying and she squeezed her hand. Michelle saw Amaryllis had awaken and began praising God. Two nurses came back into the room and asked Michelle to step out while they tended to Amaryllis.

  At the nurses’ station, Michelle left strict instructions. “Please remove my name as next of kin for Amaryllis Price. Our father, Nicholas Price, is to be contacted for anything regarding Amaryllis.”

  Having prayed and pleaded with God to bring her sister back, Michelle felt her job as a loyal sister was complete. She’d done her part. Amaryllis was alive. Michelle asked Nicholas to drive her home and he did.

  Once she was cared for, Amaryllis asked the nurse to send her sister in. The nurse reported to Amaryllis that Michelle and Nicholas had departed. She asked Amaryllis if she wanted her father to be reached to return to the hospital.

  “No,” was Amaryllis’s answer. For the first time in her life, she truly felt all alone.

  Chapter 16

  Early Sunday morning, three days after Amaryllis was admitted into the hospital and six days until Michelle and James’ wedding, Nicholas arrived at the hospital. Amaryllis’ doctor had just signed her release papers and was leaving the room as Nicholas was walking in. She was sitting on the bed, dressed and facing the window. Nicholas stood quietly for a moment and watched his daughter, wondering how anyone with a pumping heart could be so evil and do what she’d done.

  “Amaryllis?”

  His voice startled her and she turned to look at her father. “Hi, Daddy. I didn’t hear you come in. Where’s Michelle?”

  “Why are you asking for her?”

  “I thought she’d be the one to come and take me home.”

  “After what you’ve done to her? Do you have any idea how you almost destroyed your sister?”

  “Daddy, this kind of thing happens everyday. Michelle is a big girl. She’ll get over it.”

  At her words, Nicholas was stunned. He knew Amaryllis was coldhearted, but to hear those words flow nonchalantly from her lips truly amazed him. “Amaryllis, when your mother and I divorced, Michelle and I moved to Las Vegas. I know I wasn’t a big part of your teenage and young adult years, so I need you to tell me what happened to make you behave this way.”

  “You just answered your own question.”

  “I’m to blame for you making folks’ lives miserable?”

  Amaryllis didn’t answer her father. Instead, she asked a question of her own. “Why didn’t you bring me here to live with you and Michelle?”

  “Amaryllis, I tried to
get custody of you, but Veronica fought me tooth and nail.”

  “You knew Veronica was screwed up in the head. I knew all about her running the streets and selling dope behind the house in the alley. Do you know that if I didn’t want to go to school, she didn’t make me?”

  For the first time ever, Nicholas saw emotion in Amaryllis. Tears flowed from her lower eyelids.

  “I’m sorry, Amaryllis. I will accept the blame. I could have visited more, but you are a grown woman now. I don’t care what kind of upbringing you had, what you did to Michelle was wrong.”

  “I am who I am, Daddy.”

  He stood and looked at her. From his suit’s interior jacket pocket, he withdrew a white envelope and gave it to her.”

  “What’s this?”

  “It’s a one-way ticket to Chicago. Your plane leaves in four hours. There’s a taxicab downstairs with all of your belongings waiting to take you to the airport.”

  Nicholas turned to leave then stopped and turned around. “I wasn’t gonna say anything because Michelle asked me not to, but you need to know that you were as good as dead when the ambulance brought you here. It’s only by the grace of God that the waitress found you in time. When your sister was told that she was the only one who matched your blood type, she wasted no time offering her veins for your sake. And she didn’t stop there, Amaryllis.

  “While you were in a coma, Michelle was here kneeling by your bed, praying for you. In spite of everything you’ve done to her, she still loves you. She took you into her home when you were broken and beaten. She bathed you, literally fed you with a spoon, nurtured you back to health and you show your gratitude by doing the worst thing a woman could ever do to her own sister. Every time I turn around, I hear about you doin’ tha fool. And every time I warned Michelle about getting too comfortable with you, she defended you. She trusted you, Amaryllis. Is your life that miserable that you can’t help but make everybody else’s life miserable too?”

  Amaryllis looked at her father as though she wasn’t phased by anything he was saying to her.

  “Do you feel any remorse? Have you any shame for the things you’ve done?” Nicholas didn’t wait for an answer, he knew what it would be anyway. “I’m late for church. Make sure you’re on that plane.”

  Amaryllis watched her father leave and looked down at the airplane ticket. Something wet dripped on it. She looked at the ceiling for a leak but her vision was blurred. It dawned on her that it was her own tears dripping onto the ticket.

  The nurse came into the room with a wheelchair and saw her. “Why the tears? You’re supposed to be happy to leave this place.”

  When Amaryllis got down to the cab, she gave the driver the address to Praise Temple Church of God.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am. I have specific instructions to take you directly to the airport,” the driver reported.

  “How much did he pay you?”

  “Fifty bucks.”

  “I’ll double it.”

  Amaryllis entered the sanctuary and saw Bishop Graham preaching in the pulpit. She saw Michelle sitting on the right side of the church on the second pew from the front. Next to her sat Nicholas with his arm around her shoulders. James was sitting in the pulpit and saw Amaryllis the moment she came into the sanctuary. He tried his best to get either Nicholas’ or Michelle’s attention, but they had their eyes fixed on Bishop Graham.

  Amaryllis walked in and sat down on a pew at the rear of the church. She looked at James who had his eyes fixed on her, then she turned her attention to what Bishop Graham was saying. He was at the height of his sermon entitled, “Don’t Settle.”

  “For your entire life, you’ve been searching for love in all the wrong places. You thought love was in the casinos, but it wasn’t. You thought love was in married men’s and women’s beds, but it wasn’t. You thought love was in the nightclubs, but it wasn’t,” Bishop Graham preached.

  Amaryllis glanced around the church to see if anyone was looking at her. Bishop Graham was hitting home and she wondered how much more of her business he was going to tell.

  “Have you ever thought about the mess and dirt you’ve done and God still seems to keep His hand on your life? Some of us know that we should’ve been dead long ago, but God kept us because He loves us.”

  The saints were on their feet rejoicing. Bishop Graham was pacing the pulpit as he raised his voice. The organist accompanied him. The louder Bishop Graham preached, the louder the organist played.

  “My brothers and sisters, I came to tell you today that you can bind your sin in the name of Jesus. Matthew, chapter sixteen, verse nineteen says, ‘I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.’

  “The word bind means to hinder or to restrict. You’ve got the power to bind and to loose. The enemy has a way of making you feel like there’s no hope for you when you’re going through a particular situation. But you can bind that devil that hinders you and loose the blessings of God upon your life.”

  The congregation was in an uproar. Amaryllis found that she couldn’t sit any longer. She joined the saints on their feet and applauded what Bishop Graham was saying.

  “Isaiah, chapter fifty-four, verse seventeen says, ‘No weapon formed against you will prevail, and you will refute every tongue that accuses you.’ That means that anything the devil throws your way shall not prosper. Tell yourselves, I’ve got the power to bind every devil that attaches itself to me.”

  A man standing next to Amaryllis started to dance. She moved out of his way and he danced into the aisle. Tears started to stream down her face as she watched the saints rejoice.

  Bishop Graham kept on preaching. “Ephesians, chapter three, verse twenty says, ‘Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us.’ That means that if you trust God, He is able to keep you from falling into the enemy’s grip because you have His power in you.”

  Suddenly, Amaryllis started jumping up and down repeating the words, “I’ve got the power, I’ve got the power.”

  Bishop Graham slowed his heart rate and stood behind the podium and looked out at the congregation. “I don’t know who I’m talking to, but I’m talking to somebody in here today. God wants you to know that any stronghold of the enemy cannot attach itself to you if you bind it with His word. Anything the devil puts on you or against you, bind it in the name of Jesus; by the blood of Jesus.”

  Amaryllis’ smeared black mascara made her look like a raccoon, but she didn’t care. She knew that it was God who had brought her here today. Her initial reason for coming to the church was to confront Michelle and cause a scene. She wanted to disrupt the service and bring shame to her father. But what was meant for evil was turned for good.

  “Young man, you don’t have to keep taking drugs. Young lady, you don’t have to sell and misuse your body. There is a better life for you. To loose means to set free. You have the power and authority to loose yourself from the enemy’s plan. Today, I want to encourage God’s people and to let you know that the power of God is in you and you don’t have to let the devil walk up and down your back. But you can stand flatfooted and let the devil know that he is a liar and the truth is not in him. Know that you are the righteousness of God and you are a joint heir with Jesus Christ.”

  Amaryllis began to holler out “Amen” and “Thank You Jesus.”

  “Know ye that the Lord, He is God. Tell yourselves that you won’t accept weakness and you won’t accept defeat. You can accept the greatness of God that is upon your life. Somebody say, ‘Yeah.’”

  “Yeah!” the church echoed.

  “Shout, ‘Yeah.’”

  “Yeah!”

  Bishop Graham hooped. “Saaay, ‘Yeeeaaahhh.’”

  Amaryllis felt the Holy Spirit all over her. Unable to contain herself, she moved out into the center aisle and ran to the front of the church and threw hersel
f at Michelle’s feet. Amaryllis wrapped her arms around her sister’s legs and it caused Michelle to stumble. She looked down at Amaryllis who was crying and begging for mercy.

  “I’m sorry, Michelle, please forgive me. I’m so sorry. I love you, I love you, please forgive me. Please don’t turn from me, Michelle, I need you. I need my sister. I ain’t got nobody else. Don’t nobody love me like you. I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.”

  Michelle was crying too. She had already forgiven Amaryllis in her heart, but set her mind to believe that if she never saw her sister again, it wouldn’t bother her. But right now, seeing Amaryllis beg for mercy, softened Michelle’s hardened heart and she decided not to let the enemy win. At that moment, she was determined to have a relationship with her only sister. She bent down to help Amaryllis stand. She looked into her eyes and saw sincerity and humbleness. Michelle pulled Amaryllis into her arms and squeezed her tight. “I’ve already forgiven you.” Michelle guided Amaryllis to the altar and stood in front of Bishop Graham. “Bishop, my sister is seeking forgiveness from the Lord. Can you please pray for her?”

  Before Bishop Graham honored Michelle’s request, Amaryllis spoke. “No, that’s not what I’m standing here for.”

  Both Michelle and Bishop Graham looked confused and he asked Amaryllis a question. “If you’re not here seeking prayer, then how may I help you, my daughter?”

  Amaryllis was crying uncontrollably, but she managed to pull herself together. “I need you to tell me what I gotta do to get into heaven. What do I need to do to be saved?”

  Michelle’s eyes rolled to the back of her head and she fell to the floor. James ran out of the pulpit to see about her. Nicholas went to Amaryllis and wrapped his arms around her and cried.

  The entire church sent praises up to God.

  Two hours later, Amaryllis was sitting in the airport, waiting for her flight number to be called. The church had given her a small Bible as a token of love. She was glancing at scriptures when someone from behind approached her. “Hello, saint.”

  Amaryllis looked over her shoulder and saw Michelle. She stood and faced her. “Hi. What are you doing here?”