Mom's the Word

by Marilynn Griffith

  “Leave them. I think I’ve got a story for you. Or the beginnings of one at least…” Rob smiled and took his wife by the hand.

  Ryan’s party surprised everyone. Even Karol.

  At the sight of her parents, who hadn’t been talking to her much lately, her eyes went wide.

  “Mom? I mean Faith? I had no idea you planned on coming. If I’d known, I would have—”

  Her father’s hug smothered her words. “Karol, you don’t need to do anything special for us. And sorry for coming without any notice. I tried to call, but couldn’t get you. Your mother just decided this morning to drive down. It’s so good to see you. You all have to get up to Atlanta soon.”

  Faith ran her fingers through her new haircut—a shorter version of the old one—and pressed her lips to her daughter’s cheek in something that resembled a kiss. “Yes, Pops—Eric—insisted that I call you, but you know how you all are about the phone. I just figured that you wouldn’t be doing anything for the child with the way you were acting the last time I was here. I’m happy to see that I was wrong. Quite wrong, in fact.”

  That made Karol smile. Not only had she been surprised by the appearance of her parents, but Hope and Singh, who had called to cancel days before, had shown up, too, bringing the whole clan with them including Bone the dog. Mia had run so far and so fast and screamed so loud when they pulled up that Karol had thought a wasp had bit her. When she’d seen what, and who, had caused such a reaction in her little girl, Karol had run to join them, too.

  Though their last meeting had been awkward and painful, the old friends fell into each other’s arms with an easy grace that made both Karol and Rob smile. He and Singh headed off for the grill, while Karol and Hope cut cake and poured drinks.

  That is, until her parents had arrived. Now she stood with them under the shade of the tallest tree in her yard with her sweaty hand enveloped in her father’s cool ones. Rob had insisted that she give her parents one of the few books they’d printed. Karol didn’t want to, but she did give them a copy. For once, Karol felt as though she had surpassed her mother’s expectations and it should have felt good, but there was something in her mother’s eyes that kept her from enjoying it—fear.

  “Faith, are you all right?”

  Judah wiggled between them to give his grandfather a hug. Karol tried to wipe the icing off his face, but her dad shook his head and let the boy scramble up into his arms. Karol’s mother normally would have had a fit, but she didn’t notice. Faith’s eyes were glued to the wraparound porch of the house next door.

  “Who is that? That woman. Over there.” Faith lifted her hand and almost extended her finger but so many years of manners training wouldn’t allow her to fully point. Karol wished they’d included some other things in those charm classes her mother had taken as a girl. Many other things.

  Judah swallowed and answered before his mother could figure out which person Faith was talking about. There were several people on the porch next door but somehow Judah knew exactly who his grandmother meant.

  “That’s Fay-Ray. My grandma. She rocks. Wanna meet her?” Already out of his grandfather’s arms, he grabbed at Faith’s slender hands with icing-covered fingers.

  For the first time, she didn’t pull away. Her purse, however, a slim suede bag from Italy, slipped off her other wrist and hit the ground. Karol and her father bumped heads trying to pick it up.

  Faith crouched in a position from her daily yoga class and looked into Judah’s eyes. “I’m your grandmother, sweetie. You know that.”

  The boy shook his head and took a deep breath, ensuring that he could get his words out all at once. “You’re Number Two. Faith the Second. Mommy—I mean Karol’s—mother. Grandmas make cookies and get dirty and dance in the kitchen. That’s what me and Fay-Ray do. We have a garden, too. Wanna see? You come on, too, Pop Pop.”

  Karol held tight to her mother’s purse and patted Judah’s shoulder. “Her name is not Fay-Ray, honey. She’s an author staying next door. Fallon Gray? Perhaps you’ve heard of her. They say she’s quite famous. She’s been a godsend—”

  “Did you say Fallon Gray?” It was her father’s turn to squint across the balloons and streamers into the shade of the porch next door. “As in Fayette Renee Allen?”

  “Well, I don’t know about that…” Karol was in unfamiliar territory now, trying to understand what was happening. She remembered now that Fallon had mentioned knowing her father and made a comment about her mother, too. Both of them moved slowly across the yard, faces blank as though they’d seen a ghost.

  Or worse yet, a skeleton.

  Karol wrapped both hands around herself as Rob approached from the grill, where he’d left Singh.

  “Is everything all right?” her husband asked. “I glanced over and you all looked like you’d gotten food poisoning from the potato salad or something. What’s going on?”

  She squeezed Rob’s hand once and shrugged before setting off behind her parents. “I don’t know, honey. And to be honest I’m not sure I want to know.”

  He followed close behind. “Do you want me to come?”

  Karol shook her head. “Probably not.”

  “Do you need me to come?”

  “Please,” she whispered.

  Though Karol and Rob had set off behind Karol’s parents, they reached the edge of Dyanne’s yard at the same time. Ryan was on the porch with Karol’s book held high. Fallon’s rich laughter peppered Ryan’s recounting of all his mother had done to get it published. Dyanne’s father took the book and had begun to flip through the pages when Karol’s father, Eric, left them all and climbed the stairs of the house next door.

  Fallon’s laughter stopped abruptly. “Eric?”

  “It’s me. You look good, Faye. But then you always did.”

  There was an awkward silence as no one knew what to say or do to stop the conversation raging, one that required no words.

  “I do what I can, Eric. I do what I can. That’s a great girl you raised over there. Good grandkids, too. C’mon, Judah. It’s okay. We’re just old friends. Faith, you come on, too.” She motioned to Dyanne’s father, whose usual smile was absent. “This is Kelvin. He’s Dyanne’s daddy—she’s my publicist—and a good friend. A very good friend.”

  At that, the reverend’s smile returned. “Come on up here, y’all. Have a seat. There’s room.”

  Eric took the seat next to Fallon, but not before stopping to shake the reverend’s hand. Karol winced at the tightness of their grip. It was a wonder neither of them broke a finger. Both men kept smiling but Rob passed Faith on the stairs and extended his hand in greeting.

  Ryan, unencumbered by the foreboding of his mother, pushed forward, shoving a copy of Indigo Dawn into Fallon’s hands. “Did you see it? Mom finished her book. It’s amazing. You’ve got to read it. Promise me.”

  “I promise. Congratulations.” She tucked the book into her bag on the floor.

  Judah plopped into Fallon’s lap. She poured a glass of water on the table beside her and dipped a napkin into it and started to wipe his face. “I see somebody enjoyed the cake,” she said softly, talking into Judah’s curls. “Make sure you brush your teeth later. Now give me a hug and take Ryan back to his party. He just came to visit us old folks and tell us about his fabulous gifts. Go on now. We’ll check on the garden later, when everybody is gone.”

  That was all Judah needed to hear. “Come on, Ryan. Let’s go.”

  Ryan looked reluctant but he let his little brother take him by the hand. “Okay. I’ll come back later and see how Miss Dyanne is doing.”

  Karol looked concerned. “I noticed she disappeared all of a sudden. I thought she might have just been tired. Is she okay?”

  Fallon smiled. “It is well. She’s resting. God knows. You just enjoy your family today. Your beautiful family. And congratulations on the book. I can’t wait to read it. Faith, how have you been? You look stunning as usual. So well put together.”

  Karol watched in awe as her wel
l-put-together mother crumbled before her eyes. “I’m doing all right, Faye. Thanks, um, for asking.”

  Rob looked at his wife with questions in his eyes, but Karol could offer no answers.

  The reverend stood and smoothed the pleats in his pants. “Faye, I’m going to go on inside and see how Dee and Neal are making out, all right? If you need me, just holler. You know I’m here for you. I’ll be praying.” He turned to the rest of the group. “Nice to meet you, Eric and Faith. Rob and Karol, always good to see you. If nothing else, I’ll see you at service in the morning.”

  Rob stood and shook the man’s hand again. “Oh, yes. They say you’ll be bringing the message tomorrow morning. I’ve heard about your teaching for years. I’m looking forward to it.”

  Dyanne’s father laughed. “Yes, well, don’t be too expectant. I’ve been praying and praying and the Lord hasn’t given me a thing to teach yet. I may be learning the sermon right along with you. It won’t be the first time. Goodbye now.”

  Silence descended on the porch again until Karol finally got up the courage to break it. “Faith? Dad? Is there something I should know? It’s obvious that you all know each other. But it seems like there’s more to it—”

  “There is,” her father said. He looked over at Faith and swallowed hard. “Faye—Fallon—was my first wife.”

  My name is Indigo and I was conceived of secrets. Even now, they are growing under my skin, things that humans aren’t supposed to be able to do, things that no person is supposed to know. When it rains, I smell blood, I remember things done in the dark. Things still being done. I wonder now about my beginnings, if my mother really died when I was born or if her life was taken in payment for mine. Today is my birthday and though it isn’t raining, I smell blood.

  Karol sat on the edge of her porch, reading the words that had come to her so many years before. She’d thought then that she was making them up or that they’d made themselves and grown inside her, finally bursting inside her mind. Now, she wasn’t so sure. Perhaps a piece of Indigo was her, a child born of secrets.

  There were things children could never know about their parents, even grown children; hearing her father admit that he had been married to someone else before her mother, however, was more and less than Karol had ever expected. Seeing her mother dissolve into tears and beg Fallon for forgiveness sent Karol’s mind into a whole different plane.

  This can’t be happening, she thought.

  But it was.

  Not only had her father been married to someone else and no one bothered to tell her, but obviously Karol’s mother had done something wrong. Something terribly wrong from the look on Faith’s face. The sound of her voice.

  “I am so sorry, Faye. I was young and greedy. I didn’t understand what marriage was, what I was doing. I didn’t mean—”

  “I know.” Fallon’s eyes were cold but somehow caring, too. With the same bearing she’d had for all these weeks of living next door to her ex-husband’s daughter and playing with his grandchildren, Fallon comforted the woman who had obviously taken so much from her. The woman who had so often had nothing to give Karol.

  Karol looked away for a moment, wondering if she needed to apologize, too.

  All that time Judah spent with her. So many afternoons. How painful it must have been….

  It was painful even now, Karol knew from the way her father looked at Fallon. And how she refused to look back.

  “It was my fault,” he said softly. “I should have been stronger. I should be stronger now. It seems as though both of us—Faith and I—were changed by what we did. For the worse. And somehow you were changed for the better.”

  Fallon stood up taller. She smiled. “God did that. The changing. It didn’t come for a long time, though. A long time after you left me for that pretty little grad student. The one who could make babies, something I could never do. She was smarter, prettier, had more money. And she even had a plan for your life. Well, nothing worked out for me until I realized that Jesus had a plan for mine. Do you two know that yet? That Jesus has a plan—that He had a plan, even in all our mess?”

  Rob started nodding, the same way he did in church. Karol hugged her knees. She’d hated her neighbors for being someone other than her friends Hope and Singh. She’d been angry with her friends for being less than perfect. And yet, here was Fallon-Faye-or-whoever-she-was sharing the gospel with the people who had turned Karol’s life into something else with a few words, the people who had raised her and taught her about love.

  Faith began to ramble. “I try to read the Bible. I try to pray. It seems like all I see is my sin. What I did to you, what I did to us. All these years later, it just seems like it was yesterday. Like we can’t get past it. Eric—he’s never forgiven himself. Forgiven me—”

  “I have forgiven you. Both of you. Come here.” She waved Eric over next to Faith and took both of their hands. “Father God, I release Faith and Eric from the sins of their past, even as You have forgiven me. I pray that You will bless their marriage from this moment forward and that they will walk before You in spirit and in truth. Bless Karol and Rob and their children for allowing me to come into their lives and see the good that came out of so much pain. Somehow mend the broken pieces of us and create what we all need—family.”

  “In Jesus’ name, amen,” Rob said first.

  “Amen,” Karol managed, only because her husband held her hand.

  “Amen,” Faith and Eric said together.

  “We were planning to sleep in at the hotel tomorrow and head back to Atlanta, but I guess we should stick around and hear your friend preach in the morning. Though I doubt that anyone could preach a better sermon than you just did.”

  Faith agreed but her eyes were on Karol now. “I’m sorry,” she said. “For everything. I should have told you, but when you were young it didn’t seem right, and when you were old enough, I guess I was—”

  “Ashamed?” It certainly summed up how Karol felt. Who wanted to be the vehicle used to break up someone’s marriage? And yet, her father had never been anything but loving to her. Her mother, on the other hand, had sometimes made Karol feel unwanted. Now she knew why.

  “Yes. Ashamed. I wanted you to be a good woman. A better woman than I had been. And you are…in spite of me. You’re so much like Eric. I guess I never felt like you belonged to me. Maybe I thought God punished me or something.”

  “That isn’t true—” Rob almost jumped out his chair on that one.

  Faith smiled. “I know that. It just feels that way sometimes. I did everything I could to get your father, but it never seemed as though I could keep him. His heart was always—” she looked over to Fallon “—somewhere else.”

  Karol watched as tears welled in her father’s eyes. He stood and helped Faith to her feet. “My heart is here now. With you. Faye has forgiven us. It’s time we started forgiving ourselves. I suppose I thought that since I’d broken one good marriage, God would never let me have another. I don’t know what to do, but we’ll go to God ask Him to fix it. I know I can’t.”

  Me, either, Karol thought, watching as Mia led a throng of girls chasing after Ryan with canned string. She couldn’t fix her own life, much less her parents. This was a lot and in the days to come, she was sure there would be questions and confusion and hurt feelings, but right now, she just wanted to go home, even if that was just a few feet away.

  She and Rob got up at the same time.

  “Well, I guess Judah is smarter than us. He said you were his grandma and in a way I suppose you are. I don’t know what I could have said or done if you’d told me before, but please know that I appreciate how you handled all of this. I don’t know if I could have done the same. As always when I’m with you, you have taught me something.

  “Right now, though. I think I need to get back to my own family before the kids overturn the tables. Our friends—the ones who used live in this house—have things in hand, but we’d better not stretch them too thin. It’s always good to see you.
All of you,” Karol said before turning to walk away. She’d wanted to hug everyone but decided against it, knowing that she’d probably start bawling.

  “It’s been a pleasure knowing you, sugar. Your babies and that good man of yours, too. Whether you know it or not, being here has been a healing for my soul. I thought I was done with all this, that there was nothing left of it, but God always knows. Give Ryan another birthday hug and tell him not to spend all that money I gave him in one place. I’m going in to check on Dee Dee. See y’all at church in the morning.”

  Already on the stairs, Karol nodded. Her parents were still standing together, embracing. She waved to them and stepped onto the last step when the front door banged open and Neal ran past them, taking two stairs at a time, with Dyanne in his arms. Her nightgown fluttered in what seemed the only wind.

  Dyanne’s father followed with a grim look. He dragged Fallon toward the car.

  Karol tried to ask what was wrong before they pulled away, but only one word echoed back as they drove off.

  “Pray.”

  To-Do

  Call Mommy

  Buy a tree

  —Dyanne

  Chapter Seventeen

  Dyanne knew when she woke up that something was wrong. Very wrong. She only had to call Neal’s name once and he was there.

  “I’m bleeding,” she’d said softly. “I should have called the doctor. They warned me about spotting. It might be nothing.”

  Her heart wasn’t in the words. She stood in the bathroom, looking in the mirror and saw the same face Dyanne had seen her mother make too many times. She was sorry now that Neal had to see it.

  The heat outside had been surprising. Stifling. And then a little breeze had come, as if just for her, as her husband bounded down the stairs and gently laid her in the car. At the hospital, they’d confirmed what Dyanne already knew—she was losing the baby.

  Now, a week later, she was still losing the baby. She’d decided against the procedure that would have scraped her womb and sent her home empty. The doctor didn’t think it was a very good idea.