by E. N. Joy
“Forget it, Pastor. It’s clear we will never see eye to eye on this thing.” Deborah stood and picked up her purse.
“No, please wait,” Pastor Margie insisted as she fiddled around with her cell phone. She pushed a couple of buttons, and then her recorded voice filled the atmosphere:
“In the Kings James version the scripture says—”
Pastor Margie stopped the recording. “Oh, wait a minute. I’m sorry. That’s not far enough.” She fiddled around with the phone again, and then it was Deborah’s voice that filled the atmosphere:
“Oh, me too, Pastor, and I’m sorry I interrupted you.”
“No problem. God bless you, woman of God, and have a wonderful week.”
“Will do, Pastor. Bye-bye.”
It took a moment to register, but then Deborah realized what she was listening to:
“Do you know what you’ve done? Why can’t you just sit your simple self down somewhere? Why you always messing with stuff you little . . .”
Deborah grabbed her stomach as if someone had just shot her a lethal blow. Her jaw dropped. Her throat was empty as she stared down at the phone. She gasped for air as the vulgarities she heard suffocated the room. They were vulgarities being directed toward a child. Her child. She looked up at her pastor. “You, you recorded it?”
“Not on purpose,” Pastor Margie replied. “Remember when I mentioned that I had been recording some Bible Study notes when you called? Well, I hadn’t stopped the recording.” Pastor Margie looked down at the cell phone. “I guess the both of us need to learn how to work our cell phones a little better, huh?”
Deborah didn’t reply, she just stared back down at the phone and listened to her go on and on and on, fussing and cussing and yelling and screaming and hollering. But then something else seemed to drown out her voice. It was her son, crying. His little wail. He just wouldn’t stop crying. And she wouldn’t stop her rampage. Eventually Deborah covered her eyes and fell down into the chair.
Pastor Margie raced over to attend to her.
“Turn it off, Pastor, please,” Deborah pleaded. “I can’t listen to anymore.”
“I’m sorry, Sister Deborah, but I can’t turn it off. I think you need to hear it. I think you need to hear yourself—hear what you sound like. You need to hear what your child hears.”
Deborah just began to cry out and shake her head as if she was being tortured. By the time the recording ended, Deborah had no idea how much time had passed. She was drained. She was disgusted. She was humiliated. She was embarrassed. She was . . . she was sorry.
“I’m so sorry, baby,” Deborah cried as she rocked back and forth.
Pastor Margie just held her, knowing that the apology was directed toward Deborah’s son.
“Baby, Mommy is so sorry. She’ll never do it again. She’ll never talk to you, treat you, that way again. Oh, God, I’m so sorry.” She sobbed uncontrollably in her pastor’s arms. After a while, she cut off the waterworks almost instinctively, looked up at her Pastor, and said, “I need help. I’ve got some deep-rooted stuff, some generational curse that I need to work through. I’m just so bitter and angry that it’s destroying me. I’m like a bad weed and nothing good can survive around me for long. I need help, Pastor.”
“Oh, Deborah, honey.” Pastor kissed her on the forehead. ”I knew there was something going on with you. That day back at my office when I had that talk with you and Sister Helen,” Pastor recalled, “I tried to get you to be real with me, but you insisted everything was just fine with you. I should have listened to my gut instincts and pressed harder.”
“No, Pastor, you did all you could,” Deborah said, thinking back to that day when Pastor had seen right through Deborah’s forgiving Helen and Helen forgiving her, and then each of them riding off into the sunset on their merry way. Deborah remembered Pastor telling her that she could confide in her if there were some deeper issues going in her life, other than her issues with Helen. Deborah had assured Pastor all was well. So much had been wrong.
“No, I didn’t do all that I could, but I’m going to now.” She looked Deborah in the eyes. “I’ll be happy to counsel you, Deborah, but the first thing—”
“No, Pastor Margie; I need another kind of help. From a doctor. Yes, I’m going to need your spiritual guidance through all of this as well, but I need clinical help.” Deborah shook her head and began crying again. “Something’s wrong with me. This losing it and going off, it’s like an addiction. It’s something I feel like I have no control over and can’t stop. It’s this pull that I can’t explain.”
Pastor Margie gave Deborah a sideways glance. “And you said my people were overdramatic,” she joked, and then squeezed Deborah close to her.
“I know, Pastor, and I’m sorry. It’s just that black women are expected to be so strong—to do so much. But it’s killing us. Black women are losing their minds. They are killing themselves and their children. I honestly used to think it was a white thing. ‘Black people don’t hurt themselves or their children,’” Deborah mocked. “But women, black women, are dying. We are killing ourselves—mentally, physically, spiritually, and literally—and expectations are killing us.”
Pastor Margie pondered Deborah’s words. No, she couldn’t relate to the black woman’s plight specifically. But she could relate to the plight of women, period. And she agreed that when it came to women trying to make it in the world, it wasn’t a black or white thing. “I hear you, Sister Deborah, and I know it’s hard. But please know that I’m here to help you any way I know how. I’ll talk to Children Services. I’ll be there for you. As your pastor and your friend, I want to see you delivered, healed, and set free. And I want you to walk in that deliverance and healing. Claim it. Own it. Keep it. It’s yours, Sister Deborah. If you want it bad enough, it’s yours.”
“I do want it, Pastor. I do. After hearing myself on that phone . . .” Deborah choked. “Thank you, Pastor.”
“For what?” Pastor Margie asked.
“For being loyal to God and not me. For being concerned about my son’s wellbeing and not how I would feel. For calling Children Services. If you hadn’t, no telling how bad things might have gotten. Children Services being called on me could have been the one thing that really pushed me over the edge. And the devil knew that, too. But what the devil meant for evil . . .”
“God turned it around,” both women said in unison, then hugged as they laughed.
God had turned the situation around all right; now the rest was up to Deborah. In the past she’d wanted to change badly. She’d set out to change and had every intention of doing so no matter how hard it would be. But her change had never come. Yes, it might have come temporarily. But Deborah couldn’t live off of temporary fixes. A permanent change needed to be made, and this time not making a change could mean losing her son. She couldn’t take that risk. This time things would be different. This time, change was gon’ come.
Chapter Forty-one
Six weeks after Deborah’s confrontation with her pastor, Deborah was feeling better than ever. Before leaving her pastor’s house, the two of them had gone online and found a Christian psychiatrist. Deborah had returned home where she and Mother Doreen spent the night praying and reading scripture. Before Mother Doreen returned to Kentucky that next morning, she’d helped Deborah schedule her first doctor’s appointment.
Mentally, Deborah had never been in a better place. She’d been going to church, Bible Study, the singles ministry meetings, and counseling sessions with her pastor. All of this had been very beneficial, including her weekly visits with her psychiatrist and the prescriptions he’d prescribed to her. Happy pills was what Deborah called them, but pure joy was what she called what the Lord gave her.
Renewed, refreshed, revived were just a few words to describe how Deborah had felt these past few weeks. Blessed was another word. And one blessing in particular was her case with Children Services being closed without any charges being brought up against her. Pastor Margie and Debo
rah’s mother had joined her at a mediation-type hearing with the woman who had come to her door. If it hadn’t been for them being there to support her, God only knows what could have happened. So paying it forward, in a sense, Deborah made sure she showed up at Helen’s court hearing to support her. Deborah didn’t think twice about going to the state prosecutor’s office and telling them the truth about the incident at the diner. Deborah was their main witness, and after her giving them her latest statement, they knew their initial charges wouldn’t stick. They ended up dropping the charges and advised Helen as to how to get the arrest expunged.
“That’s the least you could have done,” Helen had told Deborah with a wink before the two shared a hug outside of the courtroom.
The charges against Helen being dropped meant that Helen’s dream of owning her own childcare business was once again a possibility. And Deborah promised Helen her son would be the first to enroll.
Speaking of her son, Deborah had laid him down for a nap of couple hours ago. During his nap, she’d done something she hadn’t done for quite a long time. She’d dusted off her book she’d started writing years ago and began working on it again. And it was pretty darn good, if she did say so herself. It would certainly give Mr. Lynox Chase a run for his money. But Lynox was no longer a factor in Deborah’s world. The day he stepped out of her door and the social worker stepped in, her only focus became her son. And then she focused on getting herself better with her son. As much as her heart, mind, body, and soul craved Lynox, with as much as she was going through, factoring him in might have only made things worse.
Even though she hadn’t wanted to, she blocked Lynox out of her life. Those two times he’d called her cell phone, she’d let the calls go to her voice mail. When she’d checked her messages and heard his voice, she deleted those messages as well. The e-mails he’d sent her had been deleted too. Right now, things were looking too good in Deborah’s life for any setbacks. She knew the only reason Lynox was trying to reach out to her was to question her about her lies and then officially dump her. Well, her spirit couldn’t handle that, so to avoid the drama, she avoided him until he finally got a clue and gave up trying to reach out to her altogether.
It wasn’t easy though, but she managed to work her issues out in therapy, Lynox certainly being one of those issues. It was hard for her to get over him, but with time, distance, counseling, prayer, and God, she was able to see that she needed so much more than just winning Lynox to be happy and secure in life.
Besides, she figured he must have gotten over her real easy. In the past, Lynox had been much more persistent, but this time, he’d given up after only two phone calls, voices messages, and a couple of e-mails. That was proof alone that he was over her but had only been trying to contact her in order to ram the final stake through her heart.
Just as Deborah was about to wrap up her writing for the afternoon, her doorbell rang. She rushed from her office to the door before the person at the door could ring the bell again and perhaps wake her son. She was a second too late arriving at the door as the bell sounded again.
“I’m coming,” she whispered so low that whoever was at the door couldn’t have been able to hear her. It was a nice summer day, so Deborah had left her front door open with the screen door locked. When she got to the door, words couldn’t explain how she felt when she saw Lynox standing on the porch.
“Lynox?” she questioned, rubbing her eyes. She had to make sure they weren’t deceiving her; that one of those side effects of her happy pills wasn’t hallucinating.
“Deborah,” he said, standing there looking as suave and debonair as always, even in the outfit he was wearing, which Deborah recognized as the biking outfit the two had seen in the window of one of the stores at Easton. In each hand he had a cycling helmet. Over his shoulder, Deborah could see the wheels of bikes.
“What are you doing here?” Deborah asked from the doorway.
“What do you mean what am I doing here?” he asked, raising the helmets. “Didn’t you get my voice messages?”
“Yeah, I got them,” Deborah replied. “I just didn’t listen to them.” She was going to be honest from this point on, with herself, and with everybody else in her life. But was Lynox still a part of her life?
A crooked smile spread on his lips as he looked down. “I figured as much.” He looked back up. “And my e-mail messages?”
“Nope,” Deborah admitted.
“I see.” He nodded.
“Look . . .” both started. “Go ahead,” they both said to one another. “You first,” they spoke at the same time and then laughed.
“Okay, ladies first.” Lynox smiled.
“I’m sorry,” Deborah said. “I’m sorry I hid the fact that I had a son from you. I’m sorry for the charades, the games, the tricks, and the tension it all caused. I’m sorry I wasn’t honest with you. You deserved more from me. While you were genuinely trying to establish a relationship with me built on trust, I was one big walking lie. And I hope you can forgive me.”
“I certainly can forgive you, Deborah,” Lynox said. “But I know I made it easy for you to lie by making all the comments I did about not wanting to date a woman with kids. I was wrong for that. I wasn’t wrong for feeling that way, but I was wrong for the way I relayed it; making it seem like the plague or something. It’s just that I have friends who have dated women with kids and I heard nothing but horror stories about their dealings with the baby daddy. Not only that, but having a child with another man means that dude showing up at the house to see the kid, and, who knows, maybe with underlying intentions to even see the mother. You know my ego can’t withstand that.”
Deborah smiled, nodding her agreement.
“But I love you, Deborah. I love every part of you, and your son is a part of you.”
“But you walked away so easily that day the social worker came,” Deborah reminded him.
“I was in shock mode. You were snapping off. I just didn’t see how my being there would benefit either one of us. I was hurt, angry, and confused. I kept asking myself, ‘What kind of woman denies having a child?’”
“And the conclusion you came up with?” Deborah was curious to know.
“A woman who loves me so much that she would be willing to put herself through the drama and the stress of doing such a thing.” Lynox stared into Deborah’s eyes. “I know that had to be hard for you, Deborah. I can’t imagine. I almost feel partly to blame. That’s why I needed to apologize to you. I hope you can forgive me.”
It was as if Deborah could breathe again. No, she hadn’t been holding her breath waiting for Lynox to run back to her, but she was glad he had. She was glad that he was even willing to take partial blame for a decision—a wrong decision—she’d made all by herself. “Yes, Lynox. I forgive you.” Deborah nodded her forgiveness with a smile.
“Good. Now what do you say that we try this thing—me and you—one more time?” Lynox asked. “I hear the third time is a charm.”
Lynox’s request was both shocking and music to Deborah’s ears. The rejection, the official breakup she was expecting from him didn’t happen. Instead, he was still willing, ready, able, and wanting to give the two of them another shot at love. It made her feel really good inside to know that he still wanted her in his life. But the fact also remained that there was someone else in her life.
“But what about Tyson?” Deborah asked.
“Who?” Lynox had a confused look on his face.
“Tyson—my son.”
“Oooooohhhh,” Lynox replied while nodding with a smile. “So the little guy does have a name.”
Deborah nodded as tears filled her eyes. Tears that displayed the hurt of ever denying her son just because she wanted to be with a man.
Lynox took a step toward Deborah. He placed her helmet in the same hand as his was in, then took his thumb and wiped away her tear. “Don’t cry. Tyson has a helmet too.” It was at that point that Lynox stepped to the side. There Deborah saw two bikes: a hot
pink one and a royal blue one. No doubt the hot pink one had been purchased for her. And on the back of the hot pink one was a special seat made just for a toddler the size of Tyson.
“Lynox?” Deborah said in both surprise and shock. But she had a question mark all over her face as she looked back and forth from the bikes to Lynox. The unspoken question was asking him what all this meant. “Does this mean . . .” She couldn’t even get the words out she was so choked up with hope. Could—would—the God she served, after all the mistakes she’d made, some twice (heck, others over and over again), really give her the fairytale? Would God really give her another chance at her heart’s desire?
Lynox looked from Deborah to the bikes. “This means . . .” He left Deborah’s side and walked over to the hot pink bike. He pulled something out of the toddler seat. It was a mini version of the helmet that matched the one for Lynox. “That we all have to take a chance—together. That includes Tyson. If one falls, then we all fall together.”
Lynox quickly and intensely walked back to Deborah’s side. “But we’ll all get back up together again. But you never know . . .” His eyes and his index finger pointed at the bike. He then looked back at Deborah. “We may never even fall. Who’s to say we can’t ride this thing out? But we’ll never know unless we try. I mean”—the excitement in Lynox’s voice picked up—“so what, neither one of us hasn’t done something like this in forever. Something in my gut . . .” He touched his stomach. “Something in my spirit tells me that I can do this.” He walked up as close as he could to Deborah. “That we can do this. I mean, so what if it’s not true—that once a person learns how to ride a bike they never forget? But what I do know to be true, Deborah Lewis, is that once a person learns how to love, now that, they never forget. And after all this time, no matter how many miles away you were, I never forgot how to love you. I’ll never forget how to love you. All of you—and that includes Tyson. Like I said, and maybe you missed it. But Tyson is a part of you.” He looked Deborah up and down while licking his lips. “And I want all of you, woman.”
