“It has. I do not quite know how to explain it, nor do I know just yet what it means. All I know is I do not ever want to wake up not feeling this way.”
“Good for you, Ally. Good for you.” She picked up her punch and took a sip. “Now, enough of all the Jesus stuff. I want to hear about this doctor you mentioned earlier. What’s his name again?”
“Seth. Seth Carson.”
“I wish you could have seen the light that shone in your eyes when you said his name. This man must be pretty amazing, because I have heard you talk about a lot of guys, but none of them made you beam.” She sipped her punch again. “I think someone has fallen in love.”
Seth and I had spoken every day since I arrived back in Atlanta. He had made it through the funerals for his staff and had even attended Ms. Helen’s memorial service. That had taken a lot out of him. Thus he had been spending a lot of time on Carson Land, burying himself in the things that made him happy. He had also canceled his appearance at the medical conference he was supposed to be attending in order to take time to breathe after the devastating loss of his friends and business.
Ms. Todd had gone back to her apartment, and from what I could gather, life was getting back to normalcy somewhat. Seth was debating about doing some public speaking at a few pro-life events to give his testimony about how and why he started performing abortions. I missed him terribly and could not wait to see him, but in spite of his efforts to come visit me and his offers to have the chopper come and pick me up, I decided against a visit. The next time I went to him, I did not want to be running away from something, but instead I wanted to be running to someone.
“I don’t think I am in love, or even falling in love, for that matter, but I do feel very strong feelings for Seth.”
“I am sure him being rich helps to cultivate it.”
“You know what? Initially, I was fascinated by the amount of wealth he had. But if he called me right now and told me he had lost it all, I would not care. I like him as a person, and what he has, has nothing to do with it.”
“Okay,” she said, leaning in to touch my forehead. “Where is my friend? Allyson, are you in there?” This time she pretended to knock on my forehead. “I am getting ready to call nine-one-one, because something is wrong.”
I brushed off her comment. “I am serious, Kristal. This man is so wonderful.”
“Uh-huh, he might be wonderful, but you cannot sit here and make me believe you are not turned on in the slightest bit by the fact that he is rich. Don’t play with me, Ally. I don’t care how saved you are now. You know good and well money will make an ugly man look good. Don’t tell me riding in that chopper didn’t have you feeling some type of way.” She gave me the side eye.
“Well, yeah, it was nice,” I said, smiling.
She clapped her hands loudly. “I know it did. You ain’t got to lie to me. Remember, I am your hood friend. You can be honest with your girl. A Cadillac is a whole lot better than a Caprice any day of the week. And, Lawd, a chopper? Shucks, you done struck the gold for real this time.”
“But that is what I am saying. I was not digging for gold when I met him. I was not digging for anything. Now, back in the day . . . different story. ‘I ain’t saying I was a gold digga, but I shole wasn’t messing with no broke nigga.’” Kristal got a kick out of me quoting that line from Kanye West’s song.
“Here is what you need to do. You need to either go where he is or have him come here, and the two of you need to figure out together how to get you out of this mess. From the little you have shared with me about him, he seems to be a very smart man. He will know what to do.”
I mulled over that idea. It had never occurred to me to talk to Seth about it. I had wanted to handle this on my own since I had gotten into it that way.
“Maybe I will do that.”
“Really though . . . what is the worst that could happen? Byran lose his church? Couldn’t he get another one somewhere else? Actually, that might be good for him, especially since he is in love with that Shatrice woman. Maybe they can skip town, go somewhere, and live happily ever after.”
“I wish it were that simple. Byran is infatuated with being a pastor—a mega pastor. He is one of the only ones from our generation who has achieved this enormous ministerial success. Losing this church would mean he would have to start all over, and he is definitely not willing to do that. It has been proven that anytime a pastor gets a divorce, a large percentage of his church walks off, unless it is somehow proven that it is the fault of the wife.”
“Which is rare.”
“Exactly. So if I left, so would a lot of his members. Plus, he told me when I mentioned divorce last week, it was not an option. The only way he could remain at this particular church is if he were married. The moment he announced a divorce, they would begin working on a severance package, and then a church meeting would be held to vote him out.”
“Allyson, that is not your problem. I understand you feel somewhat responsible for this mess because you readily agreed to it in the beginning, but things change. People change. What worked for you then does not work for you anymore.”
“The agreement was not set up for change. He asked me plainly if I could live the rest of my life according to that contract, and I said yes. He even gave me thirty full days to think about it before I signed it, followed by another thirty days to cancel for whatever reason. Once the engagement was announced, there was supposed to be no turning back. There was no way of escape.”
“There is always a way of escape. We just have to pray and ask God to show us what it is. There has to be a way for you to get out of this.”
“I know,” I said, defeated. It was all so depressing to me. I hoped that I could think of a way soon, because there was no way I could go another year like this. No. There was no way I could go another month like this. Something had to give. “Maybe I will reach out to Seth and see if he has any suggestions. However it goes down, it will not be pretty.”
“Maybe we can just arrange for Seth to come and kidnap you. You said yourself that Carson Land was out in the middle of nowhere. So if he comes and takes you there, who would find you?”
“Girl, his little nosy estate manager, Melanie, would be in all kinds of knots. It would not take a full hour for her to announce to the world where I was—especially in the case of a kidnapping. Not only is she a problem, but she is cool with his grandmother’s nurse. I am sure at some point I would have to go and get his grandmother or something, and that nurse would sing like a canary.”
“But if he knew the circumstances, I am certain he would ensure you never had to leave the land for anything. He sounds like the type of man who would love nothing more than losing himself in his own man-made world. He would probably build whatever was necessary in order to make sure you were safe and that nobody would find or bother you. Your mom and friends would have to have a secret chip placed in their hands or something to be identified when they came for a visit.”
“You are so dumb, Kristal!” I shrieked. “Where do you get this stuff from? What in God’s name have you been watching on television? You talking about me arranging my own kidnapping to go and live on a farm—basically disappear from plain view—all because I am trying to finagle my way out of a marriage.” I got up from the table and went inside to the kitchen. She followed behind me. “You are something else. People only feel the need to plan their own kidnapping, Kristal, when they feel threatened by someone. Byran would never touch me, but I am trying to figure out a way to leave whereby his reputation will not be tarnished, and I won’t have a lawsuit or have my life played out in the media.”
“The media? You think the media will care?”
“What!” I exclaimed. “Yes, of course they will care. Even if we did not get national media attention, we would surely get local attention. Byran is young, successful, and he pastors a mega church. If this is not handled perfectly, as I already said, it could be the end of his pastoral career. No one wants to hire a pastor
whose name is attached to any type of scandal or disgrace.”
“As far as I am concerned, he took that chance when he got Shatrice pregnant.”
“I agree with you.”
I sat down in one of the chairs at my bar and began peeling an orange. I popped a slice into my mouth and started thinking of all the possible divorce scenarios and their ramifications. Even if my name was sent through the public’s shredder, I could recover from that. I was not a public figure outside of being married to Byran, so what harm could it do to me? The only person who would be affected would be him. The question was . . . did I care enough to care at all?
“I am going to call Byran and see if we can work this out.”
“Good luck with that. Anybody who has been as selfish as he has been doesn’t strike me as the compromising type. But prayer changes things, right?”
“Right.”
Kristal checked her cell phone. “Honey, chile, I gotta run. I have a hot date tonight.”
“With who? You mean to tell me you sat here and let me dish out all my dirt and you held back on me?”
“Your life is much more interesting than mine.”
“I still want to know what’s going on with you. Who is the hot date of yours?”
“You remember Popeye from high school?”
“Are you talking about Popeye with the pop eyes?”
“Allyson, he does not have pop eyes!”
“Yes, he does have pop eyes. He looks as if something has him caught off guard at all times.” I demonstrated how his eyes looked, and she fell over on the bar, laughing so hard.
“All right, all right. His eyes are big. But his heart is bigger, and it’s about the heart, right? He is such a good man.”
I snickered. “If you like it, I love it. Whatever floats your boat, I am cool with it. One good thing about dating a man with big eyes is that it does not matter where you are headed in life. He will see it.” She playfully slapped me on the arms. “Ouch! What was that for?”
“You are dead wrong for that. You know he can’t help his eyes are like that. He was born that way,” she said, sounding serious. This time I fell across the bar, laughing. “Besides, you didn’t hear me talking about blind Bartimaeus when you were dating him.”
I hollered. “Hunter Ingram was not blind—well, not totally blind, anyway. He was really cute without those bifocals.”
We spent the next fifteen minutes laughing at the defects of our former boyfriends before Kristal took off to meet her big-eyed man. I did not know how much I had missed having girl talk—something she and I used to do on a weekly basis before Byran came into my life and consumed all my time. Until now, I had failed to pay attention to the fact that somehow in the midst of me merging my world with Byran’s, he had become my world and I had lost myself in the process.
But it was time for all of that to change. Seth had long ago challenged me to begin making my own decisions, and that was exactly what I planned to do from this day forward. No one—including Byran—was going to stand in my way.
Chapter Nineteen
I turned right on Baker Street Northwest and pulled into the parking lot of the Hilton Garden Inn. I was meeting Mom for lunch at Legal Sea Foods—one of my all-time favorite restaurants.
“Mrs. Ward, where have you been? I haven’t seen you in a few weeks,” said Merlo, the West Indian valet attendant. “I missed you around this place.”
He was such the charmer. “Been missing you too, Merlo. I promise to do better, okay?”
“All right now, I am going to hold you to that. I need to see your beautiful face at least once a week.”
“Gotcha.”
“Oh, and Mrs. Ward?”
“Yes, Merlo?”
“Please don’t tell Pastor Ward I talk like this. He got my buddy fired for complimenting you.”
What?
“Is that what happened to Simeon?”
“Yes, ma’am. But he meant no harm by anything he said. He would never disrespect you.”
I could not believe Byran had someone fired from his job for something so trivial.
“Give me your boss’s number, Merlo. I am going to put in a call to him and see if I can get Simeon’s job back.”
“Oh, Mrs. Ward, he would be so happy. He has four children, and his wife doesn’t work. He really needs a job, Mrs. Ward. He would probably kiss your feet if you were able to do something.”
“I will do anything I can to help.”
“Thank you, ma’am. Enjoy your lunch.”
“I will.”
I headed inside and got on the elevator to go up to the second floor, where the main dining room was. I could already taste the famous crab soup that I was going to order, along with the Louisiana Catfish Matrimony, mashed sweet potatoes, and braised greens. I had skipped breakfast so I could have a big lunch, and I was going to savor every bite of it.
The elevator door opened on the second floor, and Amy, the manager, greeted me. She was always so accommodating and treated me and my guests like royalty.
“Mrs. Ward, it is so good to see you. How is Pastor?”
“He is well. I will let him know you asked about him.”
“Please do. We miss seeing him around here too. Well, let me take you over here to your table. Your mom and dad are already seated.”
“Excuse me? Did you say my mom and dad?”
“Mmm-hmm. They have been here about ten minutes.”
Unbeknownst to Amy, I was fuming. I had planned to have lunch with my mother and her alone. She never once mentioned my father would be joining us.
I walked up to the table, and my father stood to greet me.
“You all enjoy your lunch,” Amy said as she walked away.
“Baby girl, you look radiant today,” my father said. I could tell he was nervous, unsure how I was getting ready to respond.
“Absolutely stunning,” my mother added, piggybacking her compliment on my father’s.
“Thank you,” I said dryly.
I sat down and took a sip of the water that was on the table to wash down the choice words I wanted to spew out at my parents for not telling me we would be having a “family” reunion.
Angela, my favorite waitress, came and took our order. Seeing that I ordered the same thing almost every time, when she came for the order, she already had my crab soup with no parsley ready and steaming hot for me. I could have hugged her for this today because it gave me something to focus on other than my parents sitting across the table as a couple.
I grabbed one of the rolls, spread butter on it, and dipped it in my soup.
“Darling, are we going to sit here in silence for the entire lunch?” my mother asked.
“I don’t know, Mother. Perhaps you can tell me since this event is your brainchild.”
“Actually, this was my idea,” my father said, speaking up.
Now, that surprised me. My dad was like me in that he was not too fond of surprises. Masterminding this little surprise lunch was a departure from his typical behavior.
“May I ask why no one deemed it necessary to let me in on this? I mean, do I not have a right to know that I would be having lunch with both of my parents?”
“Does it make a difference? You do love us the same, correct?”
My dad’s tone suggested he was attempting to pull rank, which was not the best thing to do right now.
“If you thought it did not make a difference, then why didn’t one of you inform me this was taking place? Because the truth is, you knew it would make a difference. You knew I would be opposed to it, and that is why you let me walk into this ambush.”
“Ambush? Allyson, you are taking this a bit too far, dear,” Mom said.
“You all sneaking around and tricking me into having lunch is too far, Mother.”
Angela came back with our drinks, and once again I was grateful for her. I was getting ready to say more than I ought to say.
When Angela walked away again, my dad continued. “Sweetheart, w
e wanted to talk to you . . . together. We knew that if we had told you prior to you getting here, you would not have come. Your mother told me about the conversation the two of you had the other day, and I felt it was time that we sat down like a family and discussed some things.”
Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . . seven . . . six . . . five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . . Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . . seven . . . six . . . five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . . I had to count down to calm myself. Like a family?
“Dad, I mean this with the utmost respect. We are not like a family. We are not a family. In case you have forgotten, you left our family to go and be with Melissa and the family you made with her. Have you any idea how you hurt Mom? Me? Have you any idea how we struggled when you first left? Before you decided you wanted to send something our way?”
I paused to give him time to respond. He remained quiet.
“You were not the one who had to watch Mom try to drown her memories of you with bottles and bottles of Riesling and white zinfandel. It was me, Dad. I had to watch her. You were not there when she was struggling to keep the lights on, working here and there, practically begging for money so we would not be in the dark and so we would have food in the refrigerator. When you walked out on us to hold on to what you had with that other woman, we were the ones left to suffer. We barely had a car to ride in, and Mom struggled to work because she could not find anyone to watch me, so many days I had to stay at home by myself because she could not afford to send me to a babysitter.
“So don’t you dare sit here in my face twentysomething-odd years later and tell me you want to sit down like a family and discuss anything. As far as I am concerned, we do not have a family. I love you and I love Mom, but as I told Mom, she would be a fool to listen to anything you say in reference to why you left us that day. Nothing stopped you from coming back home to us. Matter of fact, I heard Mom a few times asking you—practically begging you—to come home. But you chose to stay where you were. So now that things have fallen apart where you are, you want to come back to the woman you knew loved you no matter what you did?”
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