by E. N. Joy
“If you knew you were making everybody so miserable with the way you acted, why didn’t you just stop?” Deborah inquired. “I mean, sometimes I know I can get out of hand. But I can always reel things back in. I’ve never gotten to the point where I feel like I’m losing complete control.”
“And I hope you never do. Honestly, I hope you never get as bad off as I did. I screamed, hollered, cussed, and fussed until the day you moved out of the house. And a little bit after that. Heck, your father was pretty much working all the time so he didn’t get the full wrath of me like you did.” Mrs. Lewis chuckled. “I wasn’t stupid, I knew why he was the first on the list when it came time to sign up for overtime at his job. He wanted to hop on any opportunity he could to be out of that house so he wouldn’t have to deal with my nasty attitude. I can’t even blame him.” She shook her head. “But like I was saying, I carried on a little bit after you moved out. Only thing is, no one was there to hear it but me. Yep, that’s right, I still ran around the house spewing venom out loud with no ears to hear it but myself. Then I start having those mini strokes.”
“Mom! Strokes? What are you talking about?” Deborah was shocked. This was the first she’d heard about her mother ever having mini strokes.
“Yeah, just little ones.” Mrs. Lewis shooed her hand. “I brought them on myself. After the first couple, I toned it down a little. After that last one scared me. I knew if I kept things up, I’d kill myself. I just didn’t know the damage my actions were causing to my body.”
Deborah didn’t even realize her eyes were full of tears. “How come I never knew this? How come you never told me?”
“Oh, you were in college. You were seeing Elton. For once in your life—since you were away from me—you were happy. You were free. You were free from me and my behavior—finally. I didn’t want to pull you back in.”
“But you could have died,” Deborah cried. “Then how would that have made me feel?”
“But I didn’t die, and that’s all that matters. God let me live to see another day and to change my ways. I thank Him for that. Now I just need Him to do a work in you.”
Deborah wiped her tears. “I promise you, Mother, He’s done a work in me. I’m nowhere near where I used to be. Having a child now has made me want to be better.” Deborah smiled at her son.
“And that’s good to hear. But the question is, has it? Has having a child made you better? Or, in all actuality, has it made you worse?” Deborah didn’t respond quickly enough for Mrs. Lewis, so she continued. “Or has it made you even more on edge? Do you fly off the handle when your son does something that kids do, like make a mess? Like not pick up toys? Like get into stuff?” Still, Mrs. Lewis didn’t get an answer quick enough from her daughter. “Do you”—she made quotation marks with her hands—“spank and yell at him for doing what is deemed to be normal for a kid his age?”
Deborah let off a nervous laugh. “Well, yeah, but, don’t all parents do that? And you said it yourself a million times, that’s how black folks raise our kids. We don’t do no time out and all that crap. We have to instill fear in our kids so they don’t run around back sassin’ and thinking they gon’ whoop on us. Do you know I saw a talk show that had parents on it with kids that be putting their hands on their parents? Not nary one of them parents were black. And you know why? Because we ain’t having that. We put the smack down from jump.”
“Yeah, we teach so much violence, anger, hate, and hurt that we don’t even realize that at the end of the day, some of us, who operate under those conditions, are raising pit bulls. We are teaching our kids to be loud, rude, aggressive, to hit. So when I see you and how you are, I can’t blame you, but I darn sure can help you.”
Deborah shook her head as if she was trying to get a grasp—a clear understanding—of exactly what her mother was trying to say to her. “So do you consider me one of those pit bulls you’re referring to? Do you feel as though with how you raised me, you raised me to be a pit bull?”
“If I’m being honest, I see some traits. I really do.”
Deborah wanted to fly off the handle. Her mother basically calling her a dog—a female dog—pissed her off to no end. But she knew reacting the way she really wanted to act would only prove her mother’s point. “Well, thanks a lot, once again, Mother. That’s what every girl wants to hear, her mother call her a female dog. It would have been better had you just come right out and called me a bit—”
“I would never,” Mrs. Lewis said, cutting Deborah off.
“Ha, maybe now you wouldn’t, but you called me out of my name, including the ‘B’ word, enough times when I was growing up to last me a lifetime,” Deborah reminded her mother. “You know, women on the street have never called me half the names you called me, and you’re my mother.”
“And I’m sorry, Deborah!” By now, Mrs. Lewis was raising her voice. She was tired of apologizing, but still had Deborah throwing the past in her face. “How many more times do you want to hear me say it?”
“Until it doesn’t hurt anymore,” Deborah shouted back, startling her son, causing him to cry. “Oh shut up, you big crybaby,” she snapped at her son. “Don’t nobody want to hear that mess right now.” This made the boy cry even harder.
Mrs. Lewis took her grandson from Deborah’s arms and snuggled him in her arms. “It’s okay. Everything is going to be okay.”
“You darn right it will be, just as soon as you quit coming over here, criticizing my parenting like you were this perfect parent.”
“I know I wasn’t the perfect parent. I’m not using myself as an example of the parent you should be. I’m using myself as an example of the parent you shouldn’t be.” There was plenty more Mrs. Lewis could have said. There was plenty more she wanted to say. But she knew that, for now, enough had been said. From this point on, she would limit what she said to her daughter. From this point on she decided that her actions would speak much louder than words.
Chapter Twenty-nine
“There’s my little guy.” Helen greeted him with a smile as Deborah brought her son to children’s church. “Oh, no, looks like somebody’s been crying,” Helen observed, noticing the frown on Deborah’s son’s face and his tear-stained cheeks.
“He’s all right,” Deborah said as she glared at her son. “He just almost made us late by pooping on himself right before we were about to walk out the door.”
“So I take it the potty training is not quite where it needs to be.”
“Hardly.” Deborah sucked her teeth and rolled her eyes.
“Well, just hang in there. I hear boys are harder to potty train than girls. I can’t even tell you how long it took for my son to catch on.”
“Well, hopefully it won’t take mine too long. I’ll most certainly be needing the patience of Job to keep from hurting that boy.” Deborah laughed.
“Now I do remember having to get my son’s legs with the switch a couple of times. And if memory serves correctly, it wasn’t too much longer after that, that he got it down pat.” Helen high-fived Deborah. “You know how black people gotta get things done with their babies.”
Deborah smiled in agreement. On the inside she frowned a little, wondering if perhaps this whole “black way” of raising kids was just like an urban myth—an old wives’ tale. Just something black people used to justify the way they bring up their children. Just yesterday Deborah was watching an episode of Oprah she had recorded. Joe and Katherine Jackson were being interviewed by Oprah. When Oprah posed the question as to whether Joe Jackson had whooped on the kids, all three pretty much agreed that it was okay for him to answer honestly, because that’s how black people raised their children. Deborah could only imagine how many black families had caught that episode and perhaps were now using those very words to justify the way they were raising their children.
That was the only thing that had really set off a red flag in Deborah’s mind as to how the yelling and fussing and carrying on was truly affecting her son. It hadn’t been her own emotions she’d felt back wh
en her mother used to do that to her. It wasn’t even the conversations her mother had tried to have with her in convincing her that there was a better way. Deborah knew firsthand the effect, but it took some icons speaking about it to make her look at it in a new light. It took her imagining children all over the world having to be subjected to that type of behavior by their parents, just because they’d watched an episode of a talk show and might have taken from the show that it was okay for black families to raise their children under such conditions.
But no sooner had those thoughts soaked completely in, than Joe Jackson said something very powerful. He shared with Oprah that the way he’d brought up his children had kept them all out of trouble and out of jail.
“Amen, hallelujah,” Deborah had shouted, and just like that, her spirit was okay with some yelling, fussing, and cussing here and there if it meant keeping her boy out of trouble. If it meant her, and not the system, teaching him a lesson. So this morning, when he went to the bathroom on himself instead of telling her he had to go potty, she laid into him with her tongue real good.
“I bet you you won’t poop on yourself anymore,” she’d exclaimed to her son, only she’d used the more vulgar word for poop.
“Sister Helen,” Deborah said as she handed her son over to the children’s church leader, “I know exactly how black people gotta get things done with their kids. So trust me, he’ll be potty trained by the end of the month by the time I get done with him.”
“And I’ll help out while he’s here with me. I’ll make sure I ask him does he have to go potty and all that good stuff.”
“That’s cool, but he had me so heated, I just threw a diaper on him so I wouldn’t have to deal with it. I’m not trying to be in the middle of getting my praise on and see my baby’s number pop up on the monitor for me to come get him.”
Helen laughed. “I feel ya. But it still won’t hurt for me to ask him.”
“I appreciate you,” Deborah said before turning to exit.
“Enjoy the service,” Helen said to her back and then tended to the children.
Enjoy the service was exactly what Deborah did. Heck, she even broke a sweat getting her praise on. When Pastor asked if anyone needed prayer, or for someone to touch and agree with them, she was one of the first to head down to the altar.
“What do you need prayer for?” Pastor Margie asked her.
“Please pray for me and my mother,” Deborah had cried. “I want to be able to forgive her for my childhood. I want to get rid of the anger and not take it out on my own son.” Deborah couldn’t believe she had said those words. It must have been the spirit talking, because let her flesh tell it, there wasn’t anything wrong with the way she acted toward her son. “I don’t want to be like my mother. When my son gets older, I don’t want him to hold the same grudges against me that I hold against my mother. I need prayer, Pastor.”
Pastor Margie began touching and agreeing with Deborah that God would send His comforter, the Holy Spirit, to direct Deborah’s path and to fill her heart with forgiveness. That any family curses be broken in the name of Jesus. That God would send a legion of angels to watch over Deborah’s son, to protect him and his little spirit. In Jesus’ name they prayed and in Jesus’ name they touched and agreed with an “amen.”
“Thank you, Pastor,” Deborah said. “I receive it.”
“I hope you mean that, Sister Deborah, because that’s the only way you’re gonna get it, is to open up your heart and receive it. You know the God we serve ain’t in to force-feeding nobody. Either you’re going to receive His gifts or not.”
Deborah nodded and then allowed an altar worker to aid her back to her seat. She truly felt in her spirit that God was going to do a work when it came to her mother and her own role as a mother.
“Dang it,” Deborah said with the snap of her fingers. She’d forgotten to ask her pastor for prayer when it came to something else as well: her and Lynox and the whole thing with her pretending her son was her nephew. Everything in her wanted to stroll right back down to that altar for seconds, but she didn’t want to be greedy. One prayer at a time, she thought. But by putting the situation off yet again, would she be a day late and a prayer short?
Chapter Thirty
Deborah was excited to be spending the day with Lynox. She’d yet to talk to her mother since their big blowup a few days ago. She intended to though. That was the next thing on her list. First, she needed to take care of the situation that was really stressing her out and was probably the cause uprooting all the tension between Deborah and her mother these days.
Thank God Helen had been willing to do a little babysitting for Deborah in her mother’s absence. Of course, Deborah did not tell Helen she needed her services so that she could go out on date with Lynox. No matter what Helen said, Deborah felt a little part of Helen still desired Lynox. After all, a big part of Deborah had still desired him and was bound and determined to get him at all cost. The cost: making a fool out of herself several times and then ultimately denying the existence of her own child.
All of that was about to change, though—today. Deborah had prayed on the situation with her and Lynox and she was certain she’d heard God clearly say to her, “Tell him. Tell him the truth.” So that’s exactly what Deborah was going to do today—at all cost. She had made it up in her mind that nothing and no one would interfere.
In hopes that Lynox wouldn’t flip out too much, she decided she’d tell him in a public place. That way, more than likely, he couldn’t overreact or anything. After all, he was somewhat of a local celebrity. Even if most authors weren’t recognizable, he had quite the female following. He wouldn’t want them to see him in a negative light.
This worked out well for Deborah, because if after finding out the truth Lynox decided to leave her hanging, it wouldn’t be some huge production. In all the romance novels Deborah had read in her lifetime, public breakups were always less dramatic. All that begging and crying didn’t go on.
She thought back to the last time she and Lynox parted ways. That had been in a public place. A bench at Easton Towne Center. This time though, Deborah wouldn’t be the one doing the leaving, and if God was on her side, at the end of the day, Lynox wouldn’t be doing any leaving either.
“You didn’t have to drive all the way here,” Lynox told Deborah as they met outside of a designated store inside the shopping center. “I wouldn’t have minded scooping you up at all. The price of gas is crazy. Didn’t you know carpooling was the new thing?”
“That and biking,” Deborah added with a smile. It wasn’t even a nervous smile. She was so ready to do this. And whatever would be would be.
“So, are you challenging me to a bike ride?”
Deborah laughed. “Tuh—I haven’t been on a bike since Columbus set sail. I probably couldn’t make it a few pedals without falling on my tail.”
“Nonsense. You know what they say, once you learn how to ride a bike, you never forget.”
“From the sounds of things, I take it you’re some pro or something.” The two started walking toward no particular destination. “You ride?”
Lynox thought for a second before breaking out in a chuckle and admitting, “No. My bike would probably end up on top of yours.”
Deborah joined him in his laugh. “See, told you. I’d be a fool to try to climb my tail on somebody’s bike.”
“Yeah, me too,” Lynox relented. “So maybe we didn’t have to bike it over here, but I still could have come and picked you up.”
Deborah just kept walking. No way was she going to have Lynox pick her up. This time it wasn’t because she was afraid of the whole situation with her having a son. This time it was because there was a chance if she’d allowed him to bring her to Easton, she’d be needing to hitch a ride home.
“Speaking of bikes . . .” Lynox rushed away from Deborah’s side to a display in a window. The mannequins had on biker gear. “Now check out those helmets.” Lynox pointed at the snazzy bike helmets the mannequ
ins were wearing.
“Yeah,” Deborah said, walking up beside Lynox and staring at the display. “Those must be the Cadillac of helmets. Look at all the colors with that pearly paint and the bedazzled out one for women.”
“Yeah.” Lynox stared. “Makes you just want to go in that store, buy’em, go out, buy a bike . . .” At this point, Lynox slid his hand around Deborah’s hand. “Get on it with the woman you want to spend the rest of your life with and just take a chance—no matter how many times you fall.” He turned to look at Deborah. Her eyes met his in a sentimental gaze.
This was getting too heavy for Deborah. It was like a fairytale coming to life; a fairytale that could be over before it ever even got started. As much as she wanted to just stand there and stare into Lynox’s eyes while listening to him say all the right things, she knew she couldn’t. The more she did, the harder it would be for her to be able to tell him something that could possibly put an end to things anyway.
“What do you say we head to the food court?” Deborah changed the subject, slipping her hand from Lynox’s. The food court, over a plate of chow mein noodles and orange chicken. Or a slice of Sbarro pizza; yes, that’s where she’d tell him the truth. If through a man’s stomach was the way to his heart, her chances of preserving their relationship would be much better in the food court.
Lynox pulled out his cell phone and looked at the time. “I guess it is after lunchtime, huh?”
“Yes, and I’m starved.” Deborah rubbed her stomach for added effect.
“Then to the food court we shall go.” Lynox extended his elbow for Deborah to loop her arm through. She did, and the two headed to the food court arm in arm.
They were almost there when they heard, “Is that that Chase guy? The author?”
“Yes, I think so,” another voice replied.
The voices were coming from behind them. Never one to pass up the opportunity to acknowledge his reading fans, Lynox turned around and greeted the two women who had been questioning his identity.
