“So what do you propose I do, Miss I Have All the Answers.”
“I propose you get one of those DNA test kits. You can go to the hospital and see the baby. Now that it’s been proven that the little boy doesn’t belong to Stiles, surely you can see him, right?”
Skip shook his head. “Naw, legally I am still not his father, so I can’t see him, and he’s still not out of the woods yet. From talking to Detria, little dude still has a long way to go. He’s gaining weight and she said he’s been eating more, but she said the doctors say he won’t be coming home for at least a few more weeks.”
“Can’t you get her to give you permission or a clearance of some kind to see your son? She shouldn’t have a problem with that unless, like I said, she has something to hide.”
“Clearance? I don’t think so. Hell, it’s like pulling teeth to get her to tell me how my son is doing, and she won’t even let me come see her in the hospital, not that I really want to, but she barely takes my calls. The bottom line is I just wanna see my boy, that’s all.”
Skip slowly got up out of the bed. Meaghan’s eyes hungrily raked over his naked body as he walked past her and went into the bathroom. She watched him as he stood over the toilet and relieved himself. Skip was so dang hot and fine in her eyes, and she wanted him all to herself. If she could do something to cause that conniving, cheating Detria to slip up, then the better her chances of getting Skip to realize that she was the one and only woman he needed – not Detria Graham.
Skip flushed the toilet, washed his hands, then stood in the door of the bathroom, looking in his bedroom at Meaghan. “Keep talking,” he said.
“I was thinking that we go get one of the DNA test kits from the drugstore. According to what I’ve heard about them, all you have to do is take a cotton swab and rub it inside your mouth and the baby’s mouth. That’s supposed to be enough DNA for the test.
“Then what, since you know so much about this.”
“You know my friend, Pat?”
“Yeah. What about her?”
“She said her brother took one because this girl was saying he was her baby daddy. He said he couldn’t be because he always used protection. Anyway, since neither one of them could afford to get tested through the court system, they went and got one of the over the counter kits. She said it took two days for the test to come back. You go to a confidential website and get the results.”
“Still, I bet they’re not accurate.”
“Let’s see.” Meaghan got up from the bed in her birthday suit. This time it was Skip’s turn to lust after her smooth naked skin.
“Where are you going?” He watched her every move, feeling his excitement building.
She noticed his growing desire and said, smiling seductively, “Hold up, partner,” she teased. “Let’s check this out before we play again.” She walked over to his laptop that was sitting on top of his dresser. Meaghan googled, ‘How accurate is an over the counter DNA test?’ She started reading one of the sites she clicked on.
“See, listen to this. Over the counter DNA tests are 100 percent accurate if the child and the dad’s DNA are collected. See, I told you,” she said, her voice ringing with excitement. “Oh, wait, get this, Skip.”
“What?” Their naked skin kissed as he moved in close so he could read the article.
“You can test the baby with or without Detria. All you have to do is wait until the doctor clears the poor little thing to come home.”
“Yeah,” Skip mumbled like he was already devising a plan so he could somehow see Elijah at the hospital and do the test.
“Anyway, regardless of the results, you’ll have something to go by. If it turns out that he’s yours, then I say you should petition for sole custody. Think about it. What kind of decent mother will she make? From what I hear, she doesn’t even want the little girl she has. And you said yourself that some old lady at church keeps her more than Detria does. What does that tell you?”
Skip’s eyebrows raised in question.
“On top of that, Detria is one of the most talked about, probably most despised women at Holy Rock and maybe the entire city.”
“I guess that makes me the most hated man, huh?” Skip chuckled.
Meaghan put the laptop back on the dresser, and smiled at Skip before she stood up and pressed her body against his. Standing on her toes, she looked up at him and began kissing his face all over while her hands expertly explored his body.
Skip didn’t deny her. He grabbed hold of her hand and led her back to his bed.
“No one could ever hate you,” she whispered. “No one.”
Chapter 39
“Love and Death are two uninvited guests, when they will come, nobody knows but both do the same work, one takes heart and the other takes its beats.” Nishan Panwar
Stiles sat on the front row of his frat brother’s church and listened to him preach the Word.
“Do you hear me?” Pastor Wallace preached to his flock. “I tell you my brothers and sisters; God is able to keep you while you’re going through, no matter how big the problem. Listen to me!”
Wallace and Stiles attended Duke School of Divinity together and both pledged Kappa at the same time. Wallace’s church, Church With No Borders Ministries, was an up and coming church in Houston. Wallace founded the church less than four years ago and it was growing at a steady pace.
“We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed.”
“Amen,” Stiles shouted in agreement along with much of the congregation.
Stiles had been in Houston for less than a week but he already felt that he’d made the right decision to leave Memphis for a while. The realization that Elijah was not his son sent him into a dark place. He had to find a way of escape. Leo’s talk really helped him. Because of what he’d said, Stiles told Hezekiah to inform the congregation that he was on sabbatical rather than stepping down totally from his ministry. It made more sense to do it this way once he sat down and really thought and prayed about it.
Before he left for Houston, he had received clearance from the courts to leave Memphis. He was grateful that he had once again avoided jail time. His criminal lawyer had suggested a good attorney and Stiles was definitely going to divorce Detria.
Being a man of God, he understood and accepted that he would have to forgive her, but forgiving her didn’t mean that he had to stay in a marriage where the trust had been irretrievably broken and the marriage bed defiled.
He clapped his hands and stood to his feet, praising God as Pastor Wallace broke out singing Bishop Paul Morton’s, “You Ain’t Seen Your Best Days Yet.” You may think that it’s over, that your life is done…your battle is already won.
Stiles leaped for joy as the words of the song reminded him that with God everything would be all right.
***
“I know your game. You think you just gone put that baby off on Skip? Well, first lady or no first lady, I’m telling you that you ain’t gonna get away with your scheming. Not as long as I’m around.”
“Look, I don’t know who you think you’re talking to, Meaghan, but the best thing you can do is to get up out of my face.”
“And if I don’t?” Meaghan snapped back, using one hand to swiftly throw back her Brazilian weave from off her face.
Detria pushed her grocery cart past Meaghan as quickly as she could. She and Audrey had come to the grocery store to pick up a few items, and of all people to run into, it had to be none other than Meaghan Perkins. Detria knew that Skip used to mess around with Meaghan. He told her himself, but he also told her that it had been over between them since he and Detria started sleeping together. Obviously, somebody lied. From the way Meaghan was going off on her, it appeared that she was still sharing Skip’s bed. Detria tried to hide her feelings, but she was having a hard time. Meaghan was dogging her footsteps all through th
e store, getting louder and louder.
Detria pushed her cart as fast as she could, trying to avoid a confrontation with the irate Meaghan Perkins. The faster she moved, the louder Meaghan seemed to get.
“And you call yourself a first lady. Please, you are pathetic, a hypocrite. Skanks like you are the very ones that give Christian folks a bad name. You’re nothing but a ghetto chick, straight from the hood. Why don’t you crawl back into the hole you came up from?”
Audrey sat in the grocery cart trying to open some of the food packages. She seemed unmindful of what was going on around her.
Meaghan stayed on Detria’s heels. “I hope you don’t think Skip is just going to accept what you say. He may want a baby, but like I told him, that baby could easily belong to some other dude you’ve slept with. God knows you’ve probably been on more wieners than Heinz ketchup.”
Detria wanted to turn around and slap the taste out of Meaghan’s mouth. It took everything in her not to do it. She could not afford to be out in public making a spectacle of herself. There were enough people already gawking at them and listening to Meaghan’s tirade. All Detria wanted to do was pay for her items and get out of the store and away from Meaghan as fast as she could.
While Detria hurriedly walked to the front of the grocery store with a basket full of groceries, Meaghan continued her rant. She went to the express lane, paid for her items while Meaghan posted on the other side, near the door, waiting on Detria.
“Look, I’m warning you, Meaghan. If you don’t get up out of my face, I’m going to…”
“You’re going to what? I tell you what you’re going to do. Nothing, because you know I’m telling the truth.”
“Get outta my face,” Detria yelled this time when Meaghan followed her and Audrey out to her car.
One expletive after another exploded from Meaghan’s mouth. She called Detria everything but a child of God, totally dismissing the fact that the woman had her daughter with her.
Detria hurriedly put the last of the groceries in the car, got Audrey out of the cart, put her in her car seat, then turned toward Meaghan one final time before she got inside the car.
Underneath her breath, and looking around the parking lot Detria told her, “You’re just jealous that Skip doesn’t want you. If he did, don’t you think he would have committed to you by now, Meaghan? You’re nothing to him. He loves me. I have his child,” Detria pointed at herself, “not you. Don’t fool yourself, you will never ever be me, and don’t you forget it.”
Detria opened the door and hurriedly got inside her car. “Women like you kill me. You out here making a total fool of yourself over a man who doesn’t care a thing about you.” Detria cracked a smile. “And as far as my baby’s daddy goes, that’s none of your business. But, baby, at the end of the day, I will tell you this, Skip is going to take care of his, and the only way he’ll be in your bed is if I give him up. Then you can have my sloppy seconds.”
Detria started the car, put it in gear, and sped off, leaving Meaghan standing in the parking lot spewing another round of cuss words.
“Witch,” Detria said as she sped down the street. She didn’t realize until now that Skip had still been messing around with Meaghan, of all people. Here she was thinking that she was the only one rocking his world but to hear Meaghan talking, Skip had to have been talking to her because Meaghan was saying stuff that only Detria and Skip had talked about. This infuriated Detria. The nerve of Meaghan to put in Skip’s head that Elijah was not his son. She may have cheated on Stiles, but she knew who her baby daddy was and it was Skip Madison.
Detria sat at the intersection waiting on the light to change. She reached over on the passenger’s seat and started fumbling inside her purse for her cell phone so she could call Skip and tell him that he needed to put his little side chick, Meaghan, in check. She found the phone and started pressing the keys to unlock it but then Audrey started crying.
The light changed and the car horn behind her blew for her to go.
“Look, don’t start all that unnecessary crying,” she yelled at the little girl as she drove into the intersection. “I cannot deal with your hollering tail today. Now shut yo’ mouth before I give you something to cry about!”
The look on Detria’s face reflected the horror unfolding in front of her eyes. A horror that she instantly knew she could not avoid.
“OH, GOD, NOOOOO!”
Chapter 40
“Sometimes moving on with the rest of your life starts with goodbye.” Unknown
Stiles lay in the full size bed at Wallace Dodson’s tri-level home. He was grateful for friends like Wallace that God had strategically placed in his life over the years. When he made the decision to go to Houston, Wallace was the first person that came to mind for Stiles to contact. He encouraged Stiles to stay with him and his family for as long as he needed because he had plenty of space.
“Lord,” Stiles prayed. “I need your guidance. Am I doing the right thing by cutting ties with Detria? You know my heart. You know that I want to do your will. I don’t want to get divorced again, but, Lord, I would be lying if I tell you that I can look past my wife’s infidelity. So, please, help me, Father. Show me where to go and what to do. Show me if it is your will that I leave the church I’ve come to love and the family I thought I would have forever.”
Stiles turned over in the bed, resting both hands behind his head and on top of the fluffy, soft down pillow. He continued to have one on one time with the God he wanted to serve for the rest of his life. Suddenly, he felt deep anguish in his spirit and an unrest overtook him almost as soon as he finished his petition.
His cell phone rang, momentarily distracting him. He ignored it. It started ringing again. Stiles sighed heavily, picked up the phone from next to him on the bed, and then looked at it. It was Leo.
What’s up, Leo? How’s it going?”
“You need to get back to Memphis right away.” Leo’s voice conveyed an unsettling urgency that immediately caused Stiles to partially sit up in the comfortable bed, propping his body on one elbow.
“What is it? What’s wrong, man?”
“Man, I don’t know how to tell you this.”
Stiles got up and stood to his feet. “Tell me what? Is Pastor all right?” His mounting tension escalated as he rubbed his head back and forth.
Knock. Knock.
Stiles looked toward the door.
“Stiles, it’s Wallace. Open up.” Wallace sounded wild too, just like Leo. What was going on? Had Pastor had another stroke? Was he dead?”
Stiles hurried to the door, opened it, and Wallace bolted in.
“Is that Deacon Jones on the phone?” he immediately asked.
Stiles nodded and kept talking to Leo. “Look, Leo, tell me what’s going on? Is it my father?”
“Naw, Pastor is good. It’s Detria. She’s been in a pretty bad accident. You need to get home, man. Your flight arrangements are already made. Your plane is leaving at three. It’s a nonstop flight, so you’ll have only an hour and a half flying time. One of the deacons will be waiting on you at the airport. We’re already at the hospital, and we aren’t going anywhere, so Detria and her family are not alone.”
“How is she?”
Leo was silent on the other end of the phone.
“Did you hear me? How is she?” Stiles asked again.
“She’s in surgery.”
“Where is my daughter?”
“Don’t worry about all that right now, man. We got this. You just get here,” Leo answered, avoiding a direct answer to Stiles’ question. There was no way he was going to tell him over the phone that Audrey had been in the car with Detria.
Stiles hung up the phone. Pushing past Wallace, he grabbed his suitcase and threw in the few clothes that he’d unpacked. It took him less than ten minutes.
“Let’s go,” Stiles practically ordered Wallace.
Wallace hurriedly locked the door behind him as Stiles bolted down the steps ahead.
O
n the way to the airport, Stiles called Leo again to get as much detail about the accident as possible. All Leo was able to tell him was that an eighteen-wheeler rear-ended Detria while she was stopped at an intersection not far from their house. Detria had no time to react or get out of the truck’s path.
“God is able,” Wallace told Stiles after he hung up from talking to Leo. “Keep the faith. Everything is going to be all right.”
“Yeah, it is. You know, man, I had just been praying, asking God for His guidance, then this. I don’t know how to explain it, it was like a sense of dread came over me. Then the phone rings and it’s Leo telling me Detria’s been hurt. Here I was talking about divorce and now this. Is this some kind of sign? Am I supposed to stay with her? What?”
“Look, man, this is not the time to be thinking about whether you should divorce your wife or not. This is not some sign. Concentrate on getting back to Memphis and being by her side. Let tomorrow take care of itself.”
They arrived at the airport and Wallace prayed with Stiles before he got out of the car. “Keep me posted, man. And, hey,” Wallace said as Stiles started to walk toward the entrance of the airport, “I’m praying.”
Stiles stopped, turned back, and looked at his friend. “Thanks, Wallace. I appreciate it, man. I really do.”
Wallace and Stiles hugged and Stiles took off running inside the busy terminal.
***
The impact of the tractor-trailer forced Detria into the dash of the car, pinning her body between the front and back seats, crushing almost every bone in her legs and one of her arms. A chest tube was inserted into the space around her lungs to help drain the air and allow the lung to re-expand.
Detria was taken to the Regional Medical Center Trauma Unit and Audrey was transported by medevac to Methodist Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital. The Mackey’s remained at the hospital with Detria, while The McCoy’s, Brooke, and Leo’s wife went to Le Bonheur.
My Wife My Baby...And Him Page 18