Casting Down Imaginations

by LaShanda Michelle

“Hi Deacon,” I said through giggles.

  “Now, you didn’t have no troubles driving all this way, did you?” he asked.

  “No, sir.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes, it was fine. I didn’t get any tickets or anything like that.”

  “Good, good,” he said.

  I popped the trunk so he could get my bags out of the car.

  “Good Lord, girl,” he said. “You only staying for two weeks and you need three bags?”

  I nodded. “I had to bring a lot because I didn’t know what I would feel like wearing.”

  He shook his head, not understanding. “I guess it’s a girl thing. Or a woman thing, I should say.”

  I smiled, happy that he acknowledged me as an adult.

  As soon as we were inside the house the sweet smell of lemon meringue pie welcomed me. He remembered. A sentimental tear drop formed in my eye.

  “Deacon!” I cried.

  He pulled me close to him and gave me another hug. “Lemon meringue pie. I thought that might make you happy.”

  The tear fell as I remembered the Thanksgiving I was in the sixth grade. Deacon had been at the church all day feeding the homeless and I decided to cook him a big holiday meal. By the time he came home, all that wasn’t finished was the lemon meringue pie in the oven. I waited and waited for hours for the pie to form in the oven, but all it ever became was a yellow sticky mess. The whole meal was horrible. I didn’t know how to cook at all. Every Thanksgiving and Christmas since then, Deacon had been faithful to make a fresh lemon meringue pie from scratch. I’d forgotten all about our holiday tradition.

  “You didn’t forget,” I whispered.

  “Of course not,” he smiled. “I don’t forget nothing for my baby girl.”

  I wished he would stop talking. Why did he have to be so sweet and love me so much?

  I sniffled.

  He turned to me, surprised. “What is it?”

  I tried to hide the tears that were coming down my face, but he saw them.

  “What’s the matter, baby?” he asked.

  I shook my head, surprised at my behavior. This was so unlike me. I hardly ever cried.

  “Nothing,” I answered, and pulled away from him. “I just… I just…”

  I couldn’t tell him that he was the reason I was crying. Deacon was my father, and I treated him like he was crap. For so long I’d been looking for someone to love me, and he’d been right here the whole time. I blamed him for everything and he wasn’t even the one who was wrong. It was me. I blamed him for my break-up with David, but it was David who was to blame. If I’d listened to Deacon from the beginning, I probably would have never ended up with that two-timing jerk. All Deacon ever tried to do was protect me from losers like David who only wanted one thing, and I resented him for it. What was worse was that I took his hard earned money that he’d saved to pay for my college education and spent it on an apartment. I stole from him. How could I be so ungrateful? There were people all over the world who would die to be able to go to school and have a father like mine, and I took it all for granted. I didn’t deserve to have him.

  Deacon smiled at me. It broke my heart.

  “What’s the matter, baby? You okay?”

  I could hardly breathe as I nodded. I swallowed. “Yeah.”

  He chuckled. “What is it?”

  “I uh… I just…” I swallowed again, my heart tearing inside. “I didn’t realize how homesick I was. It feels really good to be home.”

  He leaned over and kissed me on the forehead. “That’s okay, Baby Girl. I missed you, too.”

  I watched as he carried my bags up the stairs to my old bedroom, describing how it was just the way I’d left it. I determined right then and there to pay back every single cent of the thirty five hundred dollars that he deposited into my checking account. It was the only right thing to do after all he’d done for me. I didn’t know how I was going to do it, but I was going to find a way.

  twenty two

  Anaya

  I walked into the living room with the last of the photo boxes from the hall closet.

  “This is it, Deacon,” I said to him over my shoulder. He was in the kitchen making a batch of strawberry lemonade, another one of my favorites. We were finally putting together family photo albums and were actually having a good time together. After we finished the photo albums we were going to put up the Christmas tree. I almost felt like a kid again. No worries at all. No Reese, no Lexi, no schoolwork. Just me and Deacon, like it used to be back in the day.

  I opened the box and began to pull out old pictures. I stopped when I came to a picture of my mother. I held it up and looked at it. It was a picture of her and Deacon on their wedding day. She had on a beautiful long white dress and in her arms she was carrying a big bouquet of white and yellow roses. She was beautiful. I never noticed it before but I looked a lot like her. I bet Deacon saw a piece of her every time he looked at me. No wonder it was so hard for him to talk to me. Her smile was as big as the sun. She looked like it was the happiest day of her life.

  “What you got there?” Deacon asked, bringing the glass of lemonade that he had prepared over to me.

  I held the photo up for him to see. He froze when he realized what it was, just as he always did whenever someone brought up his wife. He never wanted to talk about her, and I respected that for the most part, but I was getting older now and needed to know where I came from.

  “She was beautiful,” I whispered aloud.

  He gave a partial smile. “Yes, she was. That’s why I picked her,” he tried to joke.

  I was gentle. “Tell me about her.”

  He sighed. “What is there to tell?”

  What was there not to tell? What did she like to do? Where did she like to go? What did she do for a living? What did she aspire to be in life? Could she dance? Could she sing? Did I cry when she left the room? What about her family? I knew she didn’t have any brothers or sisters, and my maternal grandparents were both gone by the time I was born. But didn’t she have an aunt or an uncle somewhere, or maybe a distant cousin?

  “How did you two meet?” I asked. I had to know. He was my only connection to her.

  His eyes drooped to the floor, then wandered around the room. He looked everywhere but in my eyes. It was the first time in a long time that I forced him to face his memories.

  “You don’t know this story?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “You never tell me anything,” I whispered, surprised at the sudden sensitivity that was overtaking me.

  He didn’t say it, but I saw the apology on his face. He cleared his throat. “We met in college,” he answered slowly.

  It was a hesitant response, but at least it was something. I wanted to know details, though. I wanted to know the exact location, the who, what, when, where, and why of the whole situation.

  The phone rang.

  “Let me get that,” he said, scurrying over to answer it. “It’s probably somebody from the church.”

  I hoped that it wasn’t. If it was I knew they didn’t want anything but to drag him away, as always.

  “Hey, Pastor,” he said into the phone.

  My eyes rolled in resentment. Pastor Fields got on my nerves. Whenever something needed to be done at the church, he always called on Deacon Patterson. And like a fool, Deacon would be right there for him. Never mind the fact that I hadn’t seen him in months. When it came to the church, I always came second. I loved Deacon, I honestly did, but sometimes I thought that if it came down to it, he would choose the church over me. Pastor Fields could have at least been courteous enough to wait until tomorrow. I hadn’t even been able to spend an entire day with my dad and that stupid church was already pulling him away from me.

  Deacon walked back into the room after he got off the phone.

  “That was Pastor,” he told me, as if I didn’t already know. “He has family over tonight so Sister Fields won’t be able to pick up the church programs from the printer, so I’m
gonna have to go do it.”

  What? That was such bull. I could care less about her family. What about me? Wasn’t I family? I hated Pastor Fields! Why was his family so much more important than mine? Deacon was my daddy and I wanted him with me!

  “Why do you have to do it? Can’t they find someone else?”

  He gave a disapproving look and walked past me to the closet to get his jacket. I didn’t even know why I was surprised. Some things never changed.

  Irritated, my mind drifted back to the day when I first started referring to my dad by his church title. He’d just become a deacon and everyone was going out of their way to acknowledge him as such. It was sickening to me, as if before he was a nobody, but now that he was “Deacon Patterson” he was somebody special.

  One day Karen and I were waiting outside the church for a Deacons meeting to be over with. I’d gotten too hot and needed to cool off. I went inside and kept calling “Daddy, help me. Daddy, help me, I think I’m sick.” But he didn’t hear me. So I finally called him by his title, just to see if it would get his attention. It had, to my surprise. After that, I kept calling him that, and I guess it just stuck. Today, when I needed him to just be my Daddy, his title was more important, just like it had been then.

  I watched him put on his jacket and scamper around the house, looking for his keys. They were on the table next to the door where they always were, but as usual, it was the last place he looked.

  I whispered his name. “Daddy.”

  It felt awkward. I hadn’t called him that in years.

  “Daddy,” I said again, a little louder this time.

  No response.

  “Daddy!” I called out loudly.

  He should have heard me. Anybody with ears would have heard me. But he didn’t. I may as well have still been in Daytown.

  I watched him as he continued to look for his keys, not hearing me at all.

  “I’ll be back in a bit,” he told me as he walked toward the door. “It shouldn’t take long.”

  “Deacon,” I whispered under my breath, barely able to hear it myself.

  He looked up. “You call me, Baby Girl?”

  I was shocked. How in the world could he hear that and not hear me yelling a few seconds ago?

  I shook my head. He spotted his keys next to the door and put them in his pocket.

  “It sure is good having you home,” he told me, and left.

  I turned back to the photo album and placed my mother’s picture inside, then wondered to myself why God put me here if he knew I wasn’t going to have any parents?

  twenty three

  Karen

  “Karen, can you fix my tie for me?”

  I turned away from the mirror at the bottom of the stairs and faced Kevin. He was dressed in his Sunday best, except for his tie, which he held in his hand.

  I took it from him. “You look nice, Kevin.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  He looked past me and frowned. “Man…”

  “What?” I asked.

  He pointed out the window. “Terrance.”

  “What is he doing here?” I asked aloud when I spotted him walking up to the house.

  “I don’t know. Make him go away.”

  I looked down at Kevin, surprised that he didn’t want to see him either.

  “Why don’t you like Terrance?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. I just don’t.”

  I laughed and finished arranging his tie for him. Terrance rang the doorbell.

  I fussed at him as I opened the door. “What are you doing here? We’re about to go to church.”

  “Is that Terrance?” Mama called from up the stairs. She poked her head around the corner, expecting him. “Why hello, Terrance. How are you doing this beautiful morning?”

  I watched in disgust as she made her way down the stairs, putting on her earrings. I wanted to smack her and then turn around and kick him. It was too early in the morning for this drama. I wasn’t in the mood to put up with Mama trying to hook me up with Terrance behind my back. Whatever happened between him and me was going to be on my time and my terms. Not hers.

  “I’m great, Mrs. Stephens. How about yourself?”

  “Oh, Terrance, I’m blessed. The Lord is good.”

  “Yes, He is,” he replied.

  So he was a preacher now? Great.

  I cleared my throat. “I was just asking Terrance what he was doing here,” I said.

  She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “Oh, sweetie, didn’t I tell you?” She smiled. “Terrance is coming to church with us.”

  “No, Mama. You didn’t tell me.”

  “Humh. Must have slipped my mind. Oh well.” She turned to her second child. “Come on, Kevin. Let’s leave your sister alone with her guest.”

  She sashayed past us into the kitchen, dragging Kevin with her, and leaving me alone with her collaborator.

  “What are you trying to pull, Terrance?” I asked. “You know you don’t really wanna go to church.”

  “Come on, now. You know I’m trying to be wit’ you. Why you giving me such a hard time?”

  “Because you’re not being honest,” I hissed, keeping my voice down so others in the house wouldn’t overhear.

  “What do you mean, I’m not being honest?” he hissed back. “I been tellin’ you for the longest I wanna be wit’ you.”

  “Yeah, only when it’s convenient for you, or when you get your way.”

  His face twisted. “What you talkin’ ‘bout?”

  “Terrance, you finally made it,” Daddy interrupted us as he walked down the stairs. I turned away so he wouldn’t see the angry expression on my face.

  “How you doing, sir?”

  “Good. I’m good. Now you’re here, we can finally get going.”

  I must have been the only person who didn’t know Terrance was going to church with us today.

  “Everybody ready?” Mama asked, walking back in from the kitchen.

  “Kevin, run and get your coat, dear. Hurry now, we gon’ be late.” She turned to me as Kevin hurried to the coat closet, suddenly beaming. “I just had a wonderful idea.”

  I already knew it wasn’t as wonderful as she thought it was.

  “What?”

  “Instead of all of us riding together in the truck, why don’t you and Terrance go together alone in his truck?”

  I shook my head no, but Terrance cut me off before I could verbally protest.

  “Yes,” Terrance answered for me. “That’s a great idea. In fact, I prefer it that way.”

  “Great,” Mama said. “I’m sure you youngsters don’t want to ride with us anyway. All we’ll do is bore you.”

  “No no, Mama,” I said. “I don’t mind, really.”

  “Of course you do, sweetie. It’ll be good for you and Terrance to be alone.” She turned away before I could say anything else.

  I rolled my eyes. The only reason she was doing all of this was because Terrance got me pregnant, and she thought we needed to get married. She was mad at him at first, but now that she thought he was gonna be some hot shot celebrity basketball player, she wouldn’t stop trying to get us together. It was pissing me off.

  “Come on Kevin, let’s go,” Mama called.

  Already weary, I turned to Terrance. “What are you doing?”

  “Just trying to spend some time with you,” he answered. “I was thinking after church we could go out to lunch. You know, just us two.”

  Kevin trotted back into the room with his coat. “I’m ready.”

  I acted out the first thing that came to me. “Guess what, Kevin? Terrance is going to take us to lunch after church. Just us two. Mama and Daddy are going to stay home. And he said we can go wherever you want to.”

  Kevin’s little face lit up. “Yea!”

  I was happy to see Terrance’s face full of disappointment. The last thing in the world he wanted to do was help me baby sit Kevin, but that was the way it was going to
go down today.

  “Okay, we better hurry up,” I said, and helped Kevin put on his coat. “We don’t want to be late for service.”

  After Kevin was dressed in his proper winter gear, I grabbed him by the hand and escorted him outside to Terrance’s truck.

  twenty four

  Anaya

  I stood with the rest of the congregation as Pastor Fields prepared to dismiss us, happy I was about to leave so my skin could finally stop crawling. Hearing the same sermon that I’d heard a thousand times before in a dress that was curiously too tight didn’t put me in the best of moods. Karen really topped it off when she walked in with Terrance. I could have jumped up from my pew and popped that fake heifer in her mouth. One thing was for sure though. Terrance got fine! If he wasn’t all over Karen I would have tried to get his number. Karen and I weren’t friends anymore so there wasn’t anything wrong with it. It probably would have put that snob back in her place to see her man with me. But oh well, I didn’t want what she already had. If anything, she could pick up my leftovers. But at least she got him to come to church. That probably made her daddy proud.

  Pastor Fields raised his right hand and the rest of the congregation did the same in preparation for his signature closing remarks.

  “Go with God, go in peace. You are dismissed,” he said.

  With a sigh of relief I immediately sat down and took my heels off. They were hurting my feet and I knew it was going to be at least another thirty minutes before Deacon came out of the prayer room with the rest of the “new converts.” I knew I should have driven my car, but no. I had to be nice to Deacon when he asked me to ride with him like we used to. That’s what I got. It was my own damn fault for being so kind.

  I felt a tap on my knee. I looked down to see somebody’s child trying to get my attention.

  “Mommy,” the little girl said to me.

  I looked around, trying to find the girl’s parents. It was hard because I didn’t know the girl or her parents, so I had no clue who I was looking for.

  “Mommy!” the little girl screamed. She was becoming upset, but I didn’t know why. She wasn’t crying as if she were lost, like I’d first thought. It was like she was calling me Mommy, even though she knew I wasn’t really her mother.