Raw Deal (Beauty for Ashes: Book One)

by Dayo Benson

  He blocked me. “Is that baby mine or Dan’s? Or someone else’s?”

  I caught a whiff of alcohol on Carl’s breath. I knew better than to engage in an argument right now.

  Carl pushed me, sending scalding hot chocolate all over my hand. Some splashed onto my face. I screamed. “Answer my question!” Carl yelled.

  I set the mug down on the table and ducked Carl’s flying fist. “Carl, why don’t you wait until we do a test and you see the results before you get angry?”

  This time I wasn’t quick enough, and Carl slugged me hitting me in the jaw. I tasted blood.

  Carl staggered slightly, his drunkenness making him unbalanced. I seized the opportunity and dashed from the kitchen. I ran up the stairs and locked myself in one of our bathrooms and turned on the cold water faucet. I rinsed my mouth over and over until the bleeding stopped, then I sat in the bathtub and cried. I didn’t dare look in the mirror for fear of what I would look like.

  “God, you have to help me if You’re there,” my heart cried out. “Please, God. I will go to church and become a Christian. Just get me out of all this.” I swore and punched the side of the bathtub. Why was I praying? If God was there, I wouldn’t be in this state to begin with. And the starving children in Africa wouldn’t be starving. There’d be no wars, and there’d be no diseases. The atrocities of the world were all testimony to the fact that there was no God. I punched the bathtub again, punishing an inanimate object for my pain. I felt like any moment I was going to snap and just go crazy.

  I heard Carl leave the house after a while, and I wondered if it was a ploy to lure me from the bathroom so that we could have round two. Then I remembered that Carl was drunk. He wouldn’t be thinking that intelligently.

  I let myself out of the bathroom and descended the stairs painfully. My hands and arms had reddened where the hot chocolate had burned me. Poisonous hatred writhed within me like a viper. I was leaving Carl, and I was leaving him now. I’d had enough of this!

  I went to the living room to get Crystal from her bouncer. It was empty! I choked back a sob. What had Carl done with her? I ran around all the rooms downstairs, frantically searching for her even though I knew I had left her in her bouncer. I went back to the living room and dropped onto the hard wooden floor, ignoring the pain of the tender skin of my hands and arms, and forgetting my throbbing nose and jaw. If anything happened to Crystal I would never forgive myself. If Carl did anything to her, I would hunt him down myself and murder him. I didn’t care if I’d spend the rest of my life in jail. I didn’t care if they put me on death row and tortured me for weeks before killing me.

  I rose to my feet and grabbed the phone and dialed Carl’s car phone. “Where’s Crystal?” I demanded as soon as he picked up.

  “I’m taking her for a DNA test. I have to know if she’s mine.”

  “You’ve been drinking. I can’t believe you’re driving her when you’ve been drinking.”

  “I had one beer.”

  “But don’t you need to have an appointment for this? You can’t just show up and expect a DNA test on the spot.”

  “Dan’s booked us in.” Carl hung up. I called him back, but he didn’t answer.

  I sat on the couch and waited. Carl didn’t come back for hours, and it just rang out whenever I called him.

  ***

  I woke with a start when Carl got home. It was ten past two in the morning, and I’d fallen asleep on the sofa. He came into the den and put Crystal in her bouncer. She was crying wildly, probably hungry. I jumped up and went to get her.

  Carl slammed a letter onto the table and walked out. I heard him leave.

  I picked up the letter and stuffed it into my pocket. “Let’s get you something to eat first,” I said softly to Crystal. I took her to the kitchen and made her milk. The poor child was probably starving. How could Carl not think to take a bottle with him?

  She sucked her bottle hungrily, and I balanced her in one arm and took the piece of paper from my pocket. It was the DNA test results. Crystal was Carl’s!

  I felt my hatred for Carl increase a notch. So why hadn’t he apologized? Why had he stormed out of the house as if he’d found out that Crystal was Dan’s?

  I smiled down at Crystal, and my tears fell onto her face. “So you’re Carl’s after all. You just decided to only look like me.” I wiped my tears from her cheek. “Clever girl, you don’t want to look anything like that Carl. He ain’t all that good-looking.”

  Crystal finished her bottle, and we both went to sleep. She had me up again at six, and I took her down to the kitchen for another feed.

  When she finished, I took her to the study and put her in her bouncer chair. She waved her hands and kicked her feet, smiling. I watched her lovingly. She was the best thing that had ever happened to me, and I didn’t care who her father was. But I guess it was lucky for me that it was Carl.

  I packed Crystal’s bottles, sterilizer, milk, and a hot water flask to the study so that I wouldn’t have to come out all day. I didn’t want Louise to see me and know that Carl and I had fought. I left the DNA test result on the kitchen table so that she’d see it when she came in later. I wrote her a note saying that I would stay in the study all day, and that I would prefer it if she didn’t disturb me because I wanted to be alone. I told her she could leave at noon even if she hadn’t finished her work.

  Before long, Crystal fell asleep. I was tired too, but I couldn’t sleep. I took a novel from the shelf and started to read. I heard when Louise arrived. I listened to all the homely sounds she made. Around eleven, she started cooking. Green bean casserole, I guessed. My stomach rumbled.

  Carl was supposed to be at college until five, so I was surprised when I heard the doorbell. He had better not come into the study.

  I glared at my book angrily when the study door was flung open. I looked up and nearly died from shock. “Jace?”

  It couldn’t be Jace. It had to be a ghost!

  Jace stopped. “Are you okay? What happened to you?”

  I looked away, and Jace came and sat next to me. “Lexi, what happened?”

  “You have to leave, Jace. How did you even find this place?”

  “You answer my question, and then I’ll answer yours.”

  A tear dropped onto my book, and I shut it. “Close the door.”

  Jace went to shut the door, and I tried to pull myself together. I had told Louise I didn’t want to be disturbed. Why had she let Jace in? He came back and sat next to me.

  I looked down at the floor and let my hair fall over my face. Jace pushed my hair back, and I swatted his hand away.

  Crystal chose that moment to wake up. She started kicking her legs and moaning. Jace looked at me. “Are you, uh, babysitting?”

  “No, she’s mine.” I didn’t look at Jace to see his expression, but I could imagine it. “Her name’s Crystal.”

  Jace went to pick her up. “Hey, little lady.” He came and sat down again, bouncing Crystal on his knee and making her grin. “When did you have her?”

  “January.”

  “Wow!” was all Jace could say.

  “I think she’s hungry.” I made Crystal’s bottle and cooled it down. Jace feeding a baby was quite amusing to watch. “So how did you find out where I live?”

  I got your address from your mom. She was in New York earlier this year. She was staying in my hotel, and I made her come to church. I swear she slept through half the service, but she denies it.”

  “I haven’t spoken to her for a while. She doesn’t even know about Crystal.”

  “Really? You have to tell her.”

  “What are you doing in LA?”

  “I came to see my folks. My aunt is on my case because I don’t come home much.”

  “I saw Jamie on TV the other day.”

  “What were they saying about her?”

  “Just that she’s a party freak. It was a countdown of the craziest party girls.”

  “Jamie needs Jesus. I hope she changes soon, be
cause she’s driving everybody insane, always getting into trouble.” Crystal started choking a little so Jace removed the bottle from her mouth. She yelled, and he quickly put it back in.

  “Yeah, she’s kinda greedy,” I said fondly.

  “How’s Carl?”

  “He’s okay.”

  “Is he the one that did that to you?” Jace asked. I didn’t answer, and Jace shook his head. “I can’t believe Carl would do that. Are you still together, or is this your house?”

  “We’re still together at the moment.”

  Jace looked incredulous, and I felt myself getting angry. “Jace, you don’t know what’s going on, okay? You don’t even know what happened, so you’re not really in a position to tell me to leave.”

  “Maybe not, but I know that you can’t bring up your child in a violent home. Don’t you remember how depressed Monica was because of her parents’ fights? She tried to kill herself! Do you want to put your baby through that?”

  I looked at Crystal and winced. Okay, that made sense.

  We both watched Crystal drink her milk hungrily for a moment. “I can’t believe Carl—” Jace shook his head. “I can’t bring myself to say it. It’s so mental. I always knew he was weird, but I didn’t know he was this bad.”

  I understood that Jace was concerned for me, but as a Christian, should he really be bad mouthing my husband and telling me to leave him? I changed the subject. “Didn’t Tanya tell you I was pregnant?”

  “No. Did she know?”

  “Yeah, we went for lunch after Michelle’s wedding and I told her. I thought she’d tell you and Monica.”

  “Well, Tanya wouldn’t discuss something like that unless she was sure you’d be cool with it. You know what Tanya’s like.”

  I was impressed that Tanya hadn’t told anybody. Maybe she was okay after all.

  “So what did you do to make Carl so mad? Or does he just fly into fits of rage and beat on you for no reason?”

  “Jace—”

  “C’mon, Lexi. It looks really bad.”

  I reluctantly told Jace about mine and Carl’s problems. I didn’t know why I was telling him, and I didn’t know why he wanted to know, but he listened in horror as I stated the main facts emotionlessly.

  He whistled when I finished. “What a story! And what a liar you are!”

  “Thanks.”

  “But that still doesn’t excuse Carl. I couldn’t do that to a girl. If it were me, I think I’d just let her leave and keep praying for her.”

  “Well, Carl and I don’t pray.”

  “It would help if you did.”

  Crystal finished her bottle and gave a satisfied burp. Jace grinned at her. “She’s so beautiful. I can’t believe you have a child, Lexi.”

  “I know.”

  Jace cooed at Crystal, making her grin, and she threw up on him. I took a packet of wipes from the crib and helped clean his shirt. Jace looked at my hands. “What happened?”

  “I was holding a cup of hot chocolate last night when Carl—”

  “Let’s get out of here,” Jace groaned. “This is crazy. You can stay at the Glacier until you find your own place.”

  “It wouldn’t be very Christian of you to make a married woman run off with you.”

  “Lexi, listen to me. Think of your daughter. This is an unhealthy environment for her. Tell Carl that unless he changes you’re moving out with Crystal and getting a court order against him. That would bring the average guy to his senses.”

  “Well, Carl is no average guy. He’s crazy.”

  “All the more reason to get out of here. Do you want to pack your things?”

  “I have too much stuff. I can’t pack it all now.”

  “Then, we’ll leave everything behind.”

  I sighed heavily. “Jace, let me fight this battle myself. I don’t need you pressuring me into anything. I’ll do what I think is right.”

  I could see that Jace thought I was crazy. I understood his point about Monica and her parents, and I understood how that made him want to help me leave. But this was none of his business.

  Louise knocked on the door. “I’m leaving now,” she called not entering the room. “I’ve made lunch and dinner. See you tomorrow.”

  “Thanks, Louise,” I called.

  I heard her leave, and then I went to get the sandwiches she’d made for lunch. I guessed the casserole was for dinner. I carried the sandwiches and two soda cans back to the study. Jace was singing Amazing Grace to Crystal. “Care to join me for lunch?”

  Jace took a ham salad sandwich, and I put Crystal in her bouncer so that Jace could eat. “So aren’t you going to preach at me today?”

  “Actually, I brought you a devotional book.” Jace removed a small book from his jacket pocket. “You can read one page every day for a year.”

  I took the book from him. He’d written a few lines on one of the blank pages at the beginning, about how I needed to be saved. I turned to the first page. “So I should have started in January?”

  “You can start any time.”

  I closed the book and read the title: Daily Inspiration for Women. I looked at Jace. “You got a girlfriend yet?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I have other things going on in my life, but don’t worry about me. I’ll get a girl when the time is right.” Jace opened his soda can and gulped half of it down. “What’s that look for?”

  “Just remembering high school. I had the biggest crush on you.”

  Jace didn’t say anything.

  “Sometimes I still think about you.”

  Jace’s face was a picture. “Change of subject, please.”

  “If you hadn’t ditched me, I’d probably be in New York now, and I wouldn’t be in this mess.”

  “Right, so what Carl is doing is my fault.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Well, everything happens for a reason.”

  “What reason is this happening for?”

  “I don’t know,” Jace admitted.

  “For what reason are all those kids starving in Africa? For what reason do we have war, and sickness, and injustice?”

  “I don’t have all the answers, Lexi.”

  “Then stop spouting bull about everything happens for a reason.”

  Jace raised his eyebrows. “Okay.”

  We were both quiet for a moment. Jace took another sandwich. “So do you think you’ll finish college?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Are you still doing your modeling?”

  “Not at the moment. I’ll start again next year I think.” Crystal came first.

  ***

  Carl came into the study the next morning before he left for college. Crystal had woken up early, so we’d come down. Now she was sleeping again, but I couldn’t sleep. I was reading a new novel. The one from yesterday had been quite boring.

  “What are you doing?” Carl asked.

  I ignored him. He came over and picked up the devotional book that Jace had given me.

  My heart constricted with fear as he opened it and read Jace’s little message at the beginning. I should have known to hide it.

  “So you’re still in touch with Jace. When did he give you this?”

  “Ages ago.”

  Carl tore the pages out of the devotional book and balled some of them up and tossed them over his shoulder. “I’m off to college. I probably won’t come home tonight, but I’ll still know if you have any guys round.” He banged out of the room.

  What was Carl still mad about? It had been proved that he was Crystal’s dad, so why was he still acting like this? I didn’t know how much more of this I could take. I was seriously hurting inside, and I was sick of it—sick to my stomach. Heartsick!

  I picked up one of the pages that Carl had torn from the book. It was the one I should have read on March 29th, and there was a poem at the bottom:

  A lifetime spent in misery is not Your will for me,

  But the storm never seems to end
.

  Darkness covers my mind, chaos reigns within me,

  Against my own choices, I contend.

  The fire of trial burns harshly around,

  But rather than purify, it consumes.

  Your grace is what I need, but rather fear abounds.

  And my heart sings sorrowful tunes.

  But where there is life, there is still hope,

  A hope for restoration though everything crashes.

  I don’t know where to turn, so I turn to You.

  Oh Lord, give me beauty for my ashes.

  I closed my eyes, remembering the verses that Jace sent me almost a year ago at Matt and Michelle’s wedding about God giving beauty for ashes. I didn’t really know what it meant, but I got the idea. My life was an ugly pile of ashes. Anything would be better than my current reality. Life had dealt me a raw deal.

  Crystal started getting restless in her crib. I picked her up and hugged her close to me. One day, all this would be over. It couldn’t go on forever...could it?

  Reflection Questions

  Lexi’s loss of her father affected her life in a profound way. Have you ever had any experience that affected you deeply?

  Tanya said, “You owe it to the people around you to tell them about the abundant life available in Christ.” How far do you think this is true, and how easy do you find it to share your faith?

  What do you think Lexi should have done the first time she found out she was pregnant?

  Can Carl and Lexi’s marriage be saved even after Lexi’s abortion and lies? If so, how?

  Jace advised Lexi to leave Carl. What do you think Lexi should do?

  What do you think of the role Lexi’s mom plays in Lexi’s life?

  What do you think of Lexi as a narrator? Is she reliable or unreliable?

  Contemplate Isaiah 61:3. Can Lexi’s life be different if she allows God to give her beauty for ashes? How can your life be different if you surrender to God will?