A Million Blessings

by Angela Benson

  Finally, at five o’clock, she turned to the early morning news. It was her sign that daybreak was just a few hours away. India would arrive soon enough and they’d figure out what do to.

  But Dara didn’t witness the sunrise of that Sunday morning.

  Chapter 12

  “Dara!”

  Dara felt the catch in her neck as soon as it happened. She jerked forward so abruptly that her entire right side had twisted in a way that normally would’ve seemed humanly impossible.

  “Girl, don’t scare me.” India was clutching her chest. “I thought you were dead.”

  Dara winced when she tried to tilt her head to the right. “Why did you scream my name like that? No, I’m not dead, but you almost killed me with a heart attack.”

  India dropped her purse on the coffee table. “I’ve been knocking on the door for the past five minutes and couldn’t get you to answer the phone. I had to run downstairs to my glove compartment and get your spare key.”

  “You were knocking?” Dara asked, stretching her mouth wide with a yawn.

  “And calling on every phone you have,” India fussed. “What’s going on? Have you been in here getting your sip on or something?” she asked, walking into the kitchen and doing an inspection in the sink and trash can.

  “I’ve been up all night,” Dara said, rotating her right arm to see if that would help relieve the pain in the side of her neck. “You’re not going to believe this.” She walked into the kitchen and pulled the cereal box out of the pantry.

  “What I don’t believe is that you’re about to eat cereal when you were getting on me about being on time.” Despite her fussing, India opened the cabinet and pulled out two bowls. “And then you have the nerve not to have any clothes on,” she said, holding out Dara’s shoes, each one of them hooked on the tip of one finger.

  Dara shoved her hand into the side of the cereal box and produced the small paper square. She put it into India’s empty hand. Either India would call the lottery phone number and tell Dara she’d been hearing things or she’d tell her that both of their lives had officially changed. Dara was prepared for the former. Becoming a millionaire in one day was too good to be true.

  “Call the number on the back of the ticket,” she told India.

  “Ticket? What kind of ticket?” India asked, unfolding the paper.

  When her cousin realized it was the lottery ticket, she nearly went into an immediate stupor.

  “Don’t do it,” Dara said. “Don’t go there. At least not now. Just call the number.” She hovered over India’s back as her cousin tried to call the lottery number.

  “Please stop. You’re making me nervous,” India said, looking around.

  Dara could imagine that her cousin was going through the same thought process that she had when she’d first called. And Dara was right.

  “Is the door locked?” India asked. “Check the door.”

  Dara did as she was told because Dara knew India wouldn’t push a single, solitary number until then. Dara unlatched, then relatched both locks on the front door and shook the handle to assure India that they were safely bolted inside.

  “I swear, if you’re playing with me, I’m gonna—”

  “Call the number, India,” Dara screamed. She bit into her fist.

  India dialed the number, and when her mouth dropped open in disbelief, Dara had her first confirmation that it was true. She’d hit the lottery. They’d hit the lottery.

  “You won,” India whispered frantically.

  “No. We won,” Dara said. She gripped India’s shoulders and shook her back and forth. “We won.”

  “We won,” India repeated. She covered her mouth and held in a squeal. She set down the lottery ticket in the middle of the coffee table and backed away from it. “That’s the ticket that I bought last—”

  “That’s the ticket,” Dara said. She picked up the ticket again and folded it back into fours. “Why are we whispering?” she asked.

  “Because,” India said. She looked around the room and began to throw back the sheers and open the blinds. “I don’t know why. We can buy this entire building if we want to,” she said, kicking each of her legs so that her shoes flew off and hit the wall. One of them left a black scuff mark on its fall to the floor.

  “Put it on my half of the tab,” India screamed, her voice finally escalated to normal. Then with each word it raised an octave.

  Dara stuffed the ticket back in the box. “Okay, shut up already,” she said, even though she wanted to do the same thing. “You keep it up and the whole city is going to know.”

  “Once people get ahold of this news, you know we’re going to have all sorts of new friends and family.”

  “Nobody is getting word of anything because we’re not telling a soul yet.”

  “My thoughts exactly. And especially not Uncle Hunter.”

  “Not unless you want me to get written out of the will,” Dara said, not wanting to think about her parents’ reaction to her windfall fortune. Dara twisted off the childproof top of her multivitamins. Her inadequate sleep was already taking a toll on her, and now wasn’t the time to make her body susceptible to illness. “We might be going to the grave with two secrets between us.”

  India was helping herself to a breakfast bar from the pantry. “That microscopic cross tattoo on your back is nothing compared to this,” she said.

  Dara perched her feet up on the coffee table and leaned her head back against the couch pillows. The muscle strain on her right side prevented her from getting as comfortable as she wanted to.

  “I know you’re not trying to kick back and relax. We’ve got to get to church. We’ll be a little late, but not that much.”

  “You’re going to church?”

  “This is not the day that I want God to decide to strike me down with lightning because I didn’t go to church because of a lottery ticket. Throw that cereal box in the pantry and get moving,” India directed. “If you think I was having a praise party yesterday, you wait until I get to church.”

  Chapter 13

  Dara was still waiting for India’s praise break. It seemed more like someone had pushed the pause button on her usually bubbly cousin, because she’d barely moved.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Dara whispered when Sister Renee got up to read the weekly announcements.

  “I feel like somebody’s watching me.” India pulled out a pen and filled out her offering envelope.

  “Relax. There’s no way anybody knows anything. God is about the only person paying attention to you right now.”

  India shifted in her seat. “If that was supposed to make me feel better, it didn’t work. I can hear Uncle Hunter in my head.”

  Dara didn’t want to think about it. She had been fighting the urge to day dream. When the praise leader, Warren, entered the pulpit, he’d admonished everyone to lift their hands. Dara had closed her eyes and tried to focus her thoughts on magnifying God, who was bigger than everything she faced and any decision she had to make.

  When Dara had opened her eyes, tears streaming down her face, the view from the back pew had stirred her spirit. The arms of the congregation reaching heavenward had looked like extended eagle wings.

  Dara wasn’t one to quickly attribute her thoughts and say that God has spoken to her, but at that moment the words “Eagles Pointe” came to mind. She’d envisioned building a new subdivision, and Ms. Bettye would be the first to receive a new home.

  Reverend Sullivan picked up his microphone, walked down the side steps of the altar, and stood in front of the first pew.

  “I feel a leading in my spirit that there are many of you in the congregation who are facing situations where you need God’s wisdom, above anything you can hear from man. Now I’m not saying that you shouldn’t seek wise counsel,” he said, holding onto the gold medallion cross that he always wore draped on top of his robe. “But God’s word never changes. And you’re going to need to know you had a word from Him if the going gets tough.�
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  Reverend Sullivan stretched out his hands, and Dara felt drawn to the altar. Both she and India stood up and walked to the front together.

  If they ever needed wisdom, now was the time. They locked arms, and Dara was glad they did. She was going to need someone to help cushion her fall if she collapsed to the ground under the weight of this enormous responsibility that had come her way. She prayed her legs wouldn’t give way, and by the end of the altar call Dara felt strengthened instead. She was still floating on a spiritual high at the service benediction.

  “How are you feeling?” Dara asked India as they walked back to India’s car. They’d headed straightway for the exit instead of milling around after church like they usually did. The Kingdom Knights typically had a brief debriefing on the Sundays after an outreach, but Dara decided to catch up with them later or read the newsletter that Isaac dutifully e-mailed every week.

  “A hundred percent better,” India said, unlocking the car doors. “But you know, I was thinking about something.”

  “What’s that?” Dara slid her shoes off and dropped them on the floor in the back. No wonder she’d been so quick to let India borrow them. They hadn’t shown any mercy to her little toe, either.

  “We might be going through all of this drama for nothing. You never know how many people will have to split that money. You could walk out with a few thousand dollars.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” Dara said.

  It’s not like she walked around hitting the lottery on a daily basis. As a matter of fact, before last Sunday Dara had never had a ticket in her possession. Her family was so adamantly against gambling of any sort that when she’d attended college she was clueless about how to play spades, bid whist, tonk, and the other card games that kept her dormmates engaged in tournaments well into the night. After trying—and failing—to learn all of them, Dara had given up. But she was the champion at UNO and Go Fish. And to think her first experience at a game of chance could very well yield her millions. Dara knew God had awesome plans for her, but she never fathomed it could come this way.

  “We’ll just take it one day at a time,” Dara said. “Right now, let’s go eat. What do you have the taste for?”

  “A couple of million,” India said, laughing. “And a box of some granola crunch cereal on the side.”

  Dara was glad India was getting back to herself. She didn’t even bring up the thought that she was sure they could find out if there were other winners simply by checking the Internet or calling back the automated line. In their haste, neither of them had listened to the prompt past the announcement of the Powerball number.

  “Why didn’t we have prizes like that in our cereal when we were growing up?” India asked, pumping up the music.

  Chapter 14

  Dara picked up Cassius’s call on the first ring.

  “You sound like a woman who’s ready to talk to me,” he said.

  “Because I am. I need your help. How’s your accountant and financial advisor working for you?”

  “Charles McGlothen has been with me since day one and I haven’t been locked up or had the IRS come after me, so evidently he’s doing a pretty good job.”

  “Well, that’s not a rule of standard,” Dara said. She ignored the comments that India was making in the background. They’d decided yesterday it would be a good idea if India picked up some clothes and stayed with Dara indefinitely. But they didn’t anticipate indefinitely lasting more than a few days.

  Once they were aware of how much money they had coming, they’d both go back and figure out how they were going to adjust to their new life. Last night they’d let their imaginations run wild. Dara had her construction plans laid out and told India that she needed to call her best real estate contacts so Dara could contract with Atlanta’s best to get the Eagles Pointe housing subdivision moving forward.

  Of course India believed that the money could be better served elsewhere, but Dara didn’t burst her cousin’s bubble when she outlined the traveling excursions she wanted to take, especially her newfound interest in going on an African safari. The only thing Dara had said was, “You know you can’t drive to Africa, right?”

  Dara heard a clanking in the background and guessed that Cassius must have been lifting weights in his downstairs gym.

  “In all seriousness, the man knows what he’s doing. I wouldn’t steer you wrong, especially not when it comes to money,” Cassius said.

  “I trust you,” Dara said. She took down the accountant’s information, gave Cassius his weekly updates, then closed down the screen of her laptop. There was one appointment this morning that she couldn’t handle by phone. If she walked out of the lottery district office as a millionaire, then Cassius may have to find someone else to be his walking calendar.

  Dara stood up and slung her purse over her shoulder. “You ready to go?”

  India walked to the door ahead of her. Dara usually had to peel India from under the covers, but this morning she’d been the first up and the first dressed, welcoming Dara into the kitchen with a Mexican omelet.

  “As ready as I’ll ever be,” India said.

  It was a short ride from Dara’s downtown Decatur abode to the lottery’s district office. Dara thought how millions—or at the least thousands—of dollars probably traded hands there during a week while the folks in the Southside were trying to make ends meet.

  “Did you bring your social security card?” India asked as they rushed into the building.

  Dara clutched her purse to her chest. “Girl, I even got my birth certificate. I wasn’t sure what they’d need, so I brought it all.”

  They contained their emotions until they were alone, and when they’d closed both the driver and passenger doors, they let the emotions erupt. It was the first time Dara had screamed, and once she started, she realized she couldn’t control herself. When she felt a soreness tickle her throat, she stopped. But India didn’t.

  “We’re millionaires,” India said, beating the steering wheel.

  “You might have to drive back home. I’m not sure I can take it.”

  Dara held out her hand. “Look at me. I’m shaking. Did you see how my hand was trembling when I was trying to fill out that claim paper? That man probably thought I was crazy.”

  “When’s the last time you laid claim to nine million dollars?” India pounded the steering wheel again. “Nine million dollars.”

  If she keeps it up, nobody is going to be driving the car home, because this girl is about to beat the thing out of the console, Dara thought. They were carrying on for so long neither noticed that someone had approached the car.

  The man’s face and hair were just as dusty as his blue city-issued uniform. He wrapped his knuckles on the driver’s-side window and pressed his nose against the window like a hound dog trying to get a whiff of the action.

  “You hit the big one?” he asked. He pulled at the car door handle like Dara and India were crazy enough to let him slide onto India’s lap and share in their joy and their winnings.

  Without a second thought about her nervousness or any of the man’s body parts, India threw the gear shift in reverse and slammed on the gas pedal. The force threw Dara against her right side. She clenched the seat and reached for the seat belt while India ripped from the parking lot. She didn’t slow down until she slipped in front of incoming traffic, sped through a yellow traffic light, and stopped at the corner.

  “What in the—?” Dara looked at India as if she’d lost her mind.

  “What did you expect me to do? We’re millionaires. We can’t be entertaining every little vagrant that sticks his face on the window. Shoot, if he got something knocked off, let the city pay for him to get it put back on.”

  Laughter shook Dara’s body so hard that she forgot about her right side that was still slightly sore from India busting in on her. India laughed until she couldn’t catch her breath, but an impatient driver behind them didn’t find anything funny. He blared his horn to remind India that th
ere was such a thing as turning right on red, which only heightened their laughter. Infuriated, he sped around their car and shot them the bird.

  “Let’s go chase him down,” India said, turning down the street and pulling up behind the man who, despite his rushing and harried disposition, had gotten stopped at the next traffic light.

  Dara caught hold of India’s arm. “You better not,” she warned India. “If you get yourself killed right now you’re going to miss out on your four and a half million, and I know you don’t want to go out like that.”

  “Child, please. I’m not thinking about that man. He’s probably late for work. Something that I’ll never have to do again unless I want to. I’m going to make that money work for me, even while I’m on my trip to Africa,” she said, and let out a shriek as if she were carrying a spear and wearing animal fur.

  Dara reclined her seat. She was going to let her money work for her, too. It was going to help her accomplish all the dreams that she’d penned during her devotion and dream sessions in the mornings. If this was the way God wanted to see the work He’d given her accomplished, who was she to argue with the means of how it had come about? Like Reverend Sullivan had said, Dara was going to need a word from God to stand on, and for her it was coming from Isaiah 40:31, her favorite scripture: “But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”

  Dara raised her arms above her head.

  “What are you doing?” India asked.

  “Mounting up on wings like an eagle,” Dara said.

  “Speaking of birds,” India said, “I want to stop and get a chicken sandwich.”

  “Well, hurry up because I have work to get home to.”