“It is, but you’ve got help. Let’s get started!”
“Okay. Do you want something to drink? I’ve got some soda and wine somewhere.”
“I don’t drink wine, but some water would be nice.”
Eva covers her mouth, and her eyes widen. “I’m sorry, Yvonne. I didn’t know. Is that one of the church rules? No drinking?”
I sit down on Eva’s IKEA couch and shake my head. “Girl, our church doesn’t have rules. We follow the Word of God, but there aren’t any rules. I personally don’t drink, but I’m not saying it’s a sin or anything like that.”
“Would the rest of the church members think it’s a sin?”
Before I reply, I think about some of our church members. Rhoda and Rochelle would definitely call it a sin if asked, but I think Rhoda carries a flask of some sort in her purse. Most would probably agree that drunkenness is a sin, but not a glass of wine. I have no idea what Pastor Brown would think, because he’s never preached on anything like that.
“It’s not really about what everyone else thinks. It’s about what God says. And if you read your Bible and don’t feel convicted about a glass of wine, then who am I to tell you that you’re sinning?”
Eva looks confused. “Convicted? What does that mean? Sometimes I don’t understand the church lingo. I’m sorry.”
“Convicted is like when you know something isn’t right. You feel it inside, we would say, in your spirit.”
Eva nods slowly. “I don’t know if I feel convicted about anything. That’s the problem.”
“You will. If you spend enough time feeding on the Bible, God will meet you where you are. He’ll speak to your heart.”
Eva seems to ponder this silently as she finds two cans of soda and two glasses. I wish I could tell her something more comforting, but I don’t know how to explain something I’ve known my entire life it seems.
“I’m sorry I can’t find any bottled water. Is a Coke okay?” Eva asks.
“Yes, that’s perfectly fine, honey. One Coke won’t ruin my complexion.”
Eva laughs. “Your skin is beautiful, Yvonne! I was going to ask you what you use, because I have acne flare-ups from time to time.”
“I just drink a lot of water, and I think I have good genes. God blessed the women on my mother’s side with great skin and our slim physiques.”
“Well, God blessed me with some major curves, so that’s some church lingo I do understand.”
“Did God bless you with all those curves, or did you purchase some of them?”
Eva’s jaw drops. “Do you think my boobs are fake, Yvonne?”
“Either your boobs or your behind. I ain’t never seen someone so thin with so much of both!”
Eva bursts into laughter. “They’re both real, Yvonne.”
I give her a skeptical glance. “That’s your story, and you’re sticking to it. It’s just fine with me.”
She walks over to the couch with the Coke and the glasses and sets them on the floor. “You can touch my boobs if you think they’re fake! I promise you they’re not.”
“I’m going to take your word for it. What do you want to unpack first?”
“I guess my bedding and towels and stuff. And the cleaning supplies, although this place is spotless.”
“We have a staff at the church that cleans the apartments once a week. We use them for special guests sometimes, so they have to be in great condition.”
“I know that I already said thank you, but Yvonne, I have to keep saying it. No one has ever been this nice to me. Not even my own mama.”
I listen intently, thinking that Eva may share something about herself. She’s never mentioned her family, so maybe this is the beginning of her sharing something with me.
“My mama could be in a ditch somewhere, for all I know,” Eva continues. “She chose drugs over me and left me with my grandmother.”
“God bless grandmothers. Mine helped to raise me.”
Eva frowns. “Mine was okay, I guess. She died a while back. Sometimes I miss her.”
Since she seems to have gone to a dark place, I won’t press for any more details. This is progress, though, because she’s finally peeling back some of those layers.
“Well, let’s find those blankets and sheets, then!”
I open my can of soda and pour some into my glass before marching into the bedroom. The boxes marked BEDROOM are there, so I’m assuming that’s the first place we should look. Eva is right on my heels and drinking her Coke straight out of the can.
She points to a large box in the middle of the room. “That’s the bedding.”
I set my glass down and start ripping the tape off the sides of the box. Eva stands there watching me. “Are you going to help?” I ask.
She chuckles and starts attacking the box from the other side. “You seemed like you were having fun, so I didn’t want to interrupt.”
Eva hums a tune as we unfold the pretty pink comforter and the cream-colored satin sheets. The bedding is the expensive kind. I’ve never slept on satin sheets, but these feel so luxurious that I might just try them out.
“What are you humming?” I ask. “Your voice sounds pretty. You should be in the choir.”
“I’ve never been in a choir. I don’t really know any gospel songs.”
“You’ll learn them. That’s what choir practice is for. Kingston is always looking for another voice.”
“I do know one song,” Eva says.
“Let me hear it, then.”
Eva clears her throat and sings a very moving rendition of “His Eye Is on the Sparrow.” Her voice is even more beautiful than I thought it was from the humming.
“I’m about to call Kingston right now! You should be up there doing solos.”
“Don’t call him, Yvonne. I—I don’t think I should be singing in anybody’s choir just yet.”
“Well, of course not, but once you get baptized and turn your life over to Christ, I think you definitely should.”
“I was wondering when we would start talking about this. I want to get baptized, but I’m not sure.”
“About what? About Jesus?”
Eva smoothes out the satin pillowcases and places a big feathery pillow inside one. “No, it’s nothing about God. It’s about me. The baptism water would probably evaporate if I stepped into it.”
“I’m sure it wouldn’t. God has seen and forgiven much worse than the likes of you.”
“You don’t even know me, Yvonne. How can you say that?”
“Then tell me, Eva. You keep telling me that I don’t know you. I’m not going to run away from whatever it is that you’ve done.”
Eva stares at me for a long moment. Then she slowly places her pillow on the bed and retrieves a small footlocker from the corner of the room. She puts in the combination and opens the footlocker. She reaches inside and pulls out a handful of DVDs. Then she walks over to me, places them in my hand, sits on the edge of the bed, and waits.
The DVDs are the filthy kind, and I almost drop them on the floor. Even on the covers the people are doing all kinds of things that should be done only in the bedrooms of married couples, and some things that I don’t think I’ve ever imagined.
“What does this have to do with you, Eva?”
She sighs and takes one of the DVDs out of my hand. “This is me.”
Eva points to a girl with her body type on the cover. She is completely naked and has a lollipop in her mouth. Judging by the girl’s face, she looks absolutely nothing like the Eva standing in front of me.
“That’s not you. I don’t believe it.” “I don’t want to believe it” is the more proper response. I put the DVDs down, because just touching them makes me feel like I need to lie on the altar.
“It is me, Yvonne. I have on a wig, eyelashes, a fake beauty mark, and lots of makeup, but it is me.” She lifts her blouse to expose a tattoo on her stomach. “See. Same tat. This is why I don’t think I should be in the choir or anywhere near the baptism pool.”
I am ashamed for feeling this. God delivered me from this. I don’t judge people anymore.
“Are you still making these movies?”
“No. This is why I’m broke, Yvonne. I left the business. Almost got the package, so I walked away from it all.”
“What is the package?”
“HIV, or full-blown AIDS. Same thing to a porn star.”
I glance over at the glass I used, wondering if she used the same glass. What if she has some other disease? What if she has herpes of the mouth or something? Oh, Lord, Jesus, please help me. I can’t do this. Not this. And why did she have to say porn? That word sounds like a disease.
“Yvonne, you look ill. Do you need to sit down?”
“No, I-I’m fine. Let’s get your bed made.”
I start whipping that sheet through the air like nobody’s business, and then it occurs to me that she may have done her ungodly acts right on this very bedding. My stomach swirls at the thought of random bodies and bodily fluids all touching this sheet. I drop it in midair and let it fall to the floor.
“Yvonne, I never did it in my own home.” Eva’s voice trembles. “I wish I hadn’t told you! Now you won’t be my friend anymore. Please don’t tell the others! Please! Just let me find another church.”
“Wait a minute. Just wait, Eva. This is pretty heavy stuff to just drop on someone. I need a moment, that’s all. I mean, I thought you were mixed up in drugs or something. I wasn’t expecting this.”
“This is worse than drugs, huh? This is worse than any other sin you can think of, huh? Yes, I got paid for having sex on camera. Nobody paid me when my uncle took it from me! How about his sins, huh? Are his worse than mine?”
Eva falls to her knees and sobs bitterly. I go to her, drop to my knees, too. I should’ve known something happened to this child to make her do this. I wrap my arms around her shaking body and rock her back and forth. I sweep the hair back from her face and rock her like I would my own child if I had one.
Finally, her crying slows and her breathing becomes calm and even. She sighs and looks up at me. “Thank you.”
I smile and kiss her on the forehead. “You’re welcome, honey.”
Just as I get ready to fix my mouth to pray for her, this child does the unthinkable. She reaches up with both her hands, grabs my face, pulls me close, and kisses me on the lips. It’s a lover’s kiss, and I nearly vomit thinking of the meaning of this and of all the other lips that have been on hers.
I jump up from the floor and wipe my mouth involuntarily. I grab my purse and dash for the door.
“Yvonne! I’m sorry! I—I thought . . .”
“You thought what? I’m dealing with you like a sister, and you would do this to me?”
“I’m so, so sorry, Yvonne.”
I feel my anger rising. I haven’t felt this furious since Luke beat me and left me for dead. “I don’t kiss women, Eva. And I suggest that you don’t try that on anyone else. I won’t tell Pastor Brown, because I want you to get back on your feet. But you can stay away from me.”
“Are you going to tell Pam and Taylor?”
“Why? You got plans to kiss them, too?”
“No. I know what I did was wrong, Yvonne. It’s just that you were so close, and something came over me. It won’t happen again.”
“You’re darn right it won’t.”
I swing the door of the apartment open and storm out. On the way to the car, I take hand sanitizer from my purse and rub it all over my face, hands, and mouth. I know it’s irrational, but I feel dirtied and unclean.
But most of all, I feel like a failure. This was surely a test that I didn’t pass. I thought if I could forgive the girl who slept with my husband and had a love child, then surely I must be a child of God.
Hot tears sting my face as I get into my own car and rush away from the church. When I asked Pam and Taylor to pray for me, who knew that this would be my trial?
I want to go back and apologize to Eva and tell her that God will throw everything into the sea of forgetfulness if she will just repent. But my skin crawls at the thought of being in the same room with her.
All the way home, I’m praying only one thing. Lord, please don’t let my reaction to Eva’s past keep her from you.
CHAPTER 21
TAYLOR
“I want to go over my daddy’s house,” Joshua says as soon as I get home from dinner with Shaquan.
Her little meet up with her new potential boo didn’t go as planned, so we decided to go and have dinner at Chili’s—Shaquan’s favorite spot if she has to pay. If she’s out on a date, then she’d rather go to a place with no prices on the menu.
We had a good time, and I was able to get my mind off of this mess with Luke, but as soon as I walk through the door, I have to hear about him. Ugh! Most of all, it makes me cringe to hear him calling Luke “Daddy.” He started doing this after he talked for hours on the phone with Luke a couple days after his visit with him at the restaurant.
“You’re not going over to Luke’s house,” I say. As far as I’m concerned, the conversation is over.
“Why not? That’s not fair, Mom. You’ve had me all this time, and he just wants to get to know me. I want to know him, too.”
I take Joshua’s hand and lead him to the couch. “Don’t you want to spend some time with Spencer, honey?”
Joshua shakes his head. “He doesn’t like me. He only wants to hit me.”
“You know that’s not true, Joshua. You’ve been out of pocket lately. He’s just trying to help you get back on track.”
“Well, I want my daddy to help me. He understands me.”
I cringe again. “He doesn’t even know you yet, Joshua.”
“But he has to understand me, because I’m a part of him. I mean, for real, Mom, we look just alike.”
“Spencer came into our lives when you were little, and he loves you just like you were his own son.”
“But I am my daddy’s son. And he wants to be around me, so why are you tripping?”
My blood just went from simmer to boil in the flash of a second. “Luke ain’t done nothin’ for you! You didn’t even have a decent winter coat until Spencer came along.”
“So ’cause Spencer got more money than my daddy, that makes him better?”
“Did Luke tell you to ask me that?”
“No, but you keep bringing up child support. So I’m asking because I want to know. If my daddy was rich, would you let me go over his house?”
I am not about to sit up here and defend myself to my own son. This boy is about two syllables away from getting his behind handed to him. Too grown talking to be eleven years old. My mother would’ve never let me get away with this.
“I think you better take yourself up into your bedroom, look around, and appreciate everything you have. Then later, when you can talk to me like you have some sense, we can discuss Luke and what he means to this family.”
“You can’t stop me from seeing him.”
“Try me. I’m not playing with you, Joshua. I will beat the black off you.”
Joshua shakes his head. “Now you and your husband gonna beat me?”
“I swear, you got five seconds to get upstairs!”
The loudness and ferocity of my voice scare me a little. I’ve never been this harsh with Joshua, but he is trying my patience with this Luke stuff. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to get through this. Maybe I can talk Spencer into moving all of us to Atlanta or Dallas. To a place where Luke can’t disrupt our once happy home.
Spencer walks in from the kitchen and sits down next to me on the couch. “We’ve got a problem.”
“Yes, I know. Luke just won’t let me have any
peace, will he?”
“We got a letter from the school today saying that Joshua will have to repeat fifth grade if we don’t send him to summer school.”
“Well, of course. They made him miss the last three weeks of school.”
“Summer school starts next week, and they sent us several locations he can attend, none of which are close by.”
“Bump them. I’m going to homeschool my baby.”
“Taylor, how are you going to do that and work, too? I thought we agreed that your time off from work was temporary and that you were going back.”
I take Spencer’s hand in mine and trace my finger across his palm. “I meant to talk to you about that. I think that I should stay home with him for a while and take an indefinite leave of absence from work.”
“You think Ellis Financial would be cool with that?”
“I don’t care what they think. Are you cool with it?”
Spencer snatches his hand away from me. A bad sign. “I mean, no, not really. I’m not cool with that. We have a lot of bills, Taylor. Living like we do doesn’t come cheaply.”
“I know, baby, but we’ve got a lot of money saved up, and it wouldn’t be forever. . . .”
“You mean our retirement fund? Joshua’s college fund? That’s not money I’m willing to touch. Not for this! What if one of us is truly incapacitated and can’t work? Then we might actually have to use some of that money to survive. I’m not going to let Joshua’s bad behavior mess up our lives.”
“So how do you suggest we handle this?”
“I think we should send him to one of these summer schools and get him enrolled in whichever district will have him next year.”
“We’re going to have to pay tuition.”
“It doesn’t matter. It won’t even touch the amount of money we’d lose if you came off your six-figure-a-year job.”
“But, Spencer—”
“This is not even up for discussion, Taylor. I’ve sat back and let you make decisions that I should be making. That ends today.”
“Okay. Since you’re running stuff right now, can you please figure out what to do about this Luke visitation scenario?”
Don't Tell A Soul Page 13
