by E. N. Joy
The next thing everyone heard was the clinking of the officer slamming the cuffs around Helen’s wrists.
“Still gotta take you to jail though,” the officer told Helen, then looked to Deborah. “I’m going to go take her statement. Gonna need you to okay it and make one of your own. So, don’t go too far.” On that note, he escorted Helen out of the restaurant in cuffs.
Deborah just stood there, frozen, knowing that could have been her. It should have been her. But God had spared her. He knew she wouldn’t be able to withstand two encounters in one day with Children Services. God didn’t want to see her in jail and risk losing her son. At least that’s what Deborah told herself to excuse why she wasn’t stepping up to the plate and sparing Helen from a trip to the slammer.
“Mommy!” Her son’s voice brought her out of her deep thoughts.
“Oh, my baby.” Deborah scooped up her son from Zelda’s arms. “Thank you, Zelda. Thank you,” she said in between kisses to her son’s face.
“It’s not me you owe a thanks to,” Zelda said with venom. “Had that been me, your butt would have been in the slammer and your boy downtown. Because if that’s the wakeup call you needed from the Mighty One, then who would I be to stand in His way? And a wakeup call is just what I think you need.”
Zelda had been known to speak her mind, even during her days when she used to attend New Day. Deborah had never been on the receiving end of Zelda’s lashing though; that was, up until now.
“What’s the matter?” Zelda shot. “Ain’t got nothing to say now? What, and with all that mouth you got,” Zelda seethed. “You should be ashamed of yourself. Acting that way in front of your child, Deborah . . . really?” Even though she wasn’t known to, Zelda looked like she was holding back. “There is so much I want to say to you right now, but unlike yourself, I respect the presence of your son.” She looked at Deborah’s son. “I feel sorry for him.”
Deborah was wrong and she knew she was wrong. But she was sick and tired of people judging her relationship with her son. “Look, Zelda, I said thank you—thank you for looking after him. But you needn’t feel sorry for him. My son is going to be just fine.”
“We’ll you can certainly believe I’ll be praying for such. Go on and get him out of here. I’ll have your bill ready the next time you come back in here.” Zelda looked around at the mess in the diner. “For the food and the damage.” She then walked around Deborah in order to go clean up the mess.
Deborah just stood there and waited while Zelda cleaned up the mess she’d made in the diner, and outside of the diner Helen covered for her other mess.
Chapter Thirty-seven
“I figured the least I could do was bail you out of jail,” Deborah said as she twiddled her fingers. She began inspecting her nails and picking at them. She was doing anything to keep from having to look Helen in the face.
“You’re right, it is the least. I can think of a whole lot more you can do, but right now I’m ready to get out of this place, get home, take a shower, and eat a decent meal—since I didn’t get to eat my meal at Family Café,” Helen added sarcastically as she headed to the exit doors of the jailhouse.
Helen had every right to be upset with Deborah and then some, but Deborah still wanted to make peace with her. She followed Helen out of the jail building. “My car . . . it’s parked around the corner,” Deborah called out to Helen, then lightly jogged in order to catch up with her. “Pastor was up here to take you home. I told her I would.” Deborah chuckled. “You should have seen her face. She said she couldn’t believe she was up here having to get yet another one of her church members. She’s starting to think someone put a word curse on the members of New Day, or that God’s got a strange way of telling her to start a prison ministry.” Deborah laughed again.
Helen stopped in her tracks. “You think this is funny? Do you think my going to jail so that your raggedy butt wouldn’t have to is funny?” Helen was outraged. She was breathing hard and her eyes filled with tears.
“No, I don’t,” Deborah said. “I don’t think it’s funny at all. I think it’s brave, courageous, generous, and it was undeserving on my part.” She continued, “I know what you did for me and I take it very seriously. I know why you did it. I’d already been spouting off about Children Services being called on me. You knew if they got involved again with this incident, I’d be risking my boy getting dumped into the system. In spite of me and all of my ugliness, you didn’t want to see that happen to my boy. I appreciate that. And that means a lot to me, Helen. It really does. And I promise that no matter what I have to do, I’ll make it up to you. I’ve already repented to God, but I need you to—”
“So is that how you get by?” Helen asked, cutting Deborah off.
Deborah wasn’t quite sure she knew what Helen was talking about, so she needed clarification. “What do you mean?”
“Is that how you get by with doing the things you do over and over again? You mess up and just run to God and repent and figure since you have a clean slate, you can mess up again, and since God forgave you the last time and all the times before that, it’s okay to mess up again because you know that, once again, all you’ll have to do is go to God and repent and everything’s going to be okay?” Helen had said it all in one breath, confusing Deborah even more as Deborah stood there with a question mark on her forehead. “Just forget it!” Helen threw her hands up and started walking away again.
“Please, I know you have every right to be good and pissed off at me right now, but I’m going to make it up to you—someway and somehow.” Deborah walked behind Helen even though they were going in the total opposite direction of where Deborah’s car was parked. “I’ll help you out in children’s church. Heck, when you open up your childcare center I’ll write all the press releases, slogans, and—”
“What childcare center?” Once again Helen stopped walking and turned to face Deborah. “I have a record now. Didn’t you read the statement on the police report? I attacked a woman who was with her child. I assaulted a woman and endangered her child.” The tears that had been frozen in Helen’s eyes spilled out. “There won’t be any childcare center.”
For the first time, Deborah realized the magnitude of what Helen had done for her. She was speechless. “You . . . you gave up your dream for me. You gave up your life.”
“Yeah, I guess I did.” Helen shrugged in a sarcastic way, downplaying what she’d done for Deborah. “But I’m sure that doesn’t mean much to you. You’ll be cussing me and fussing me out next week.” Helen let out a “tah,” and walked off.
“Helen, you’ve got to believe me, I’m changed. After what you did for me, how could I not be a changed person?”
“Taxi!” Helen yelled out at the yellow car that was driving down the street. The taxi pulled over to the curb where Helen stood. Before getting in the taxi she looked at Deborah. “You’re a funny woman, Deborah. I mean you have to be a real comedian if you want me to believe that after what I did for you, you are now willing to change your life.”
“It’s not a joke, Helen. I mean it,” Deborah said with all the sincerity in the world.
“Oh, yeah? Then you’re lying to yourself.” Helen opened the taxi door, but before getting in and riding away she said to Deborah, “Why would I think for one minute that you are serious about changing just because of what I did for you? Especially when after all Jesus did for you didn’t seem to do the trick?”
Deborah didn’t know how long she stood on that street, stunned by Helen’s final words to her, but she knew she had to get back to Family Café and get her son. Zelda had probably stuffed the poor boy with rolls. Zelda, as a matter of fact, had been the one who suggested that Deborah go bail Helen out of jail. She volunteered to watch her son while she went and did it.
By the time Deborah made it back to the diner, it was closed. But Zelda and a couple other staff members were inside cleaning up. Deborah walked up to the locked glass door and knocked. Zelda was in the middle of wiping down a tab
le when she stopped to go let Deborah in.
“How’s Helen?” was the first thing Zelda asked when she opened the doors.
All Deborah could do was put her hand on her forehead and look away.
“Your boy is sound asleep,” Zelda shifted the conversation and said. She started walking toward the back of the diner. She turned and nodded for Deborah to follow her.
Once in the back, Zelda led Deborah to a little room off the kitchen. In the small room, there was a little cot, a table with a small television on it, a three-tiered bookshelf with books, a metal folding chair off in the corner, and a shelf with an alarm clock. Deborah couldn’t tell whether the room felt like a college dorm or a prison cell.
On the cot was where Deborah found her son sleeping like the sweet, innocent child he was. She didn’t know what it was, but just seeing him lying there caused her emotions to just explode as she burst out crying. She tried to hold it in, but she couldn’t. Zelda stepped out of the room for a few seconds and then returned with a couple of tissues in hand.
Zelda handed the tissues to Deborah. “You see what you’re doing to him, right? God just showed you?”
Through tears, Deborah affirmed with a head nod.
“They said God will meet you right where you are.” Zelda looked at Deborah. “Sweetheart, face it—this is where you are. Now the questions you need to ask yourself are, is this where you want to be, and do you want to stay here?”
Prison—that’s what the room felt like. It wasn’t a college dorm with a youth with a fresh outlook on life about to conquer the world. For Deborah, it was the prison of a girl who had entrapped her own self with the decisions she’d made and continued to make in life. Jesus could have died on that cross a thousand times for her to be made free, but she insisted on choosing captivity. Would she ever choose freedom?
Chapter Thirty-eight
When Deborah heard the knock on her front door, she had to calm the butterflies in her stomach. She’d been expecting her guest, but was still nervous all the same.
She exhaled and looked down at her son. “Well, here it goes, kid.” She then went and opened the front door. “Mom, thanks for coming over,” Deborah said after opening the door.
“Thanks for calling me up and inviting me,” Mrs. Lewis said. “I’ve missed you. I wanted to call you up and talk to you.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
“Nah, I knew things had to be on your timing. I didn’t want to push. I want a good relationship with you, Deborah, I really do. I don’t want to force it on you, though. When I push, it doesn’t seem to do anything but push you away. We were far enough apart as it was.”
“I agree, and I don’t want us to get any further apart than we are now. If this right here is all I’ll ever get, then I’ll take it. Just don’t want to get any further,” Deborah said and then continued. “And we won’t, Mom. I promise.”
Deborah hugged her mother and whispered, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” She pulled away from her mother and looked at her. “I’m sorry that I’ve waited this long to tell you that I’m sorry and really meant it, and I’m sorry that I never accepted your apology, truly accepted it, until now. Mom, I forgive you. Being mad and holding a grudge about my childhood has done nothing but imprison me. It’s like poison, while at the same time it’s also like a security blanket.” Deborah got teary-eyed. “I feel like if I don’t have this pain to hold on to, then what else is there? Being angry and holding a grudge is like that old Buddhist saying, drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.”
“I know, baby. I know.” Mrs. Lewis pulled Deborah in for a hug. “Let’s just look toward the future. Please, for once and for all, let’s not concentrate on who we used to be, but who we know God called us to be.”
Deborah pulled away from her mother. “Whhattt, you preaching? Oh, Lord, God must be in the midst of this reconciliation. Now that I think about it, here lately, you’ve been doing a lot of talk about God and praying.”
“If it took all this to bring me to a better understanding of who God is and who I am, then so be it. Guess it’s all been a blessing in disguise.”
“I guess it has.” Deborah smiled.
Both women laughed and hugged.
“Ganny Ban Banny,” they each heard a little voice say. Both women looked to see Deborah’s son charging at them.
“What took you so long to come see about me?” Mrs. Lewis asked, scooping her grandson up off the ground. “Give me some sugar.”
Upon request, Deborah’s son poked out his lips and leaned in toward his grandmother. The kiss grandmother and grandchild shared belonged on a greeting card. At that moment, Deborah honestly no longer cared how her mother had treated her growing up. The way she was now treating her son made up for it. Deborah could see that her mother was sincerely treating her son the way she probably wished she had treated Deborah.
“Thank you, Mom,” Deborah said. “I know I’ve told you a million times that you weren’t the best mother to me, and I know that probably hurt you. But I hope what I’m about to say can serve as some type of healing balm.” Deborah continued, “You are the best grandmother my son could ever have. And if I died tomorrow, I’d be resting perfectly in my grave because in my heart, I know you would probably be a better mother to him than I ever could have been.” Deborah burst out crying.
“Don’t say that, baby,” Mrs. Lewis said. “You’re not a bad mother.”
“And I sure as heck ain’t a good one. That’s obvious, otherwise, someone wouldn’t have called Children Services on me.”
“Speaking of which, did you ever find out who, in fact, did call Children Services?” Deborah’s mother asked. “Because I promise, baby, I would never go behind your back and do something like that and not own up to it.”
“I know, Mom. I know you wouldn’t,” Deborah told her. “I think I have an idea of who did it though. I mean, she says she didn’t. But I still think she did.” Even though Helen pretended not to know anything about Deborah being reported to Children Services, Deborah didn’t 100 percent believe her. Sure, Helen had jeopardized her own future by taking the rap for the fight at Family Café. Deborah felt it was guilt that had moved Helen to do something like that for her. She figured that Helen felt so guilty about reporting Deborah that taking the fall for her was her way of making up for it. That made sense to Deborah, even though there were still a lot of other things that didn’t. But Deborah was willing to forget about it all and just let it go. She was tired of holding on to mess . . . to poison. And she was darn sure tired of drinking it.
“Well, just know that I’m here to support you no matter what,” Mrs. Lewis told her daughter.
“Thanks, Mom. Lord knows I’m going to need your help and anyone else’s God sends me.”
Just then Deborah’s doorbell rang. She got up and opened the door. Standing on her doorstep was someone she hadn’t expected. She was absolutely surprised. But something told her that God wasn’t surprised at all. As a matter of fact, He’d probably hand delivered her guest to her doorstep.
“So we meet again,” Mrs. Lewis said to her daughter’s unexpected guest.
“And it’s so good to see you again, Mrs. Lewis. As much as I adore your daughter, I haven’t had the pleasure of really getting to know you. ”
“True, but I hear all kinds of good things about you,” Mrs. Lewis complimented the guest. “So the three of us will definitely have to get together and have lunch or something. Anybody who has played as big a role in my Deb’s life as you have is somebody I might want to take the opportunity to have in mine.”
“Well, thank you. The next time I’m in Malvonia, we’ll have to make that happen.” She turned and glared at Deborah. “But this time I’m only here for a spell. And something tells me I’m going to need every minute I have to take care of why I’m here.”
“Speaking of which . . .” Deborah finally joined in on the conversation. “Exactly what is it that brings you to this neck of the woods?”
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“Oh, you know me,” Mother Doreen replied to her prodigy. “When God gives me an assignment, I don’t ask too many questions. I just up and go.”
Deborah shot Mother Doreen a knowing look. “Pastor called you, didn’t she?”
“Yes, perhaps she did,” Mother Doreen said and then leaned in with a serious look on her face and whispered, “But, child, when are you going to realize that God called me first?”
Deborah smiled nervously, unable to detect if Mother Doreen was friend or foe. Was she more help sent from God? Or was she here to perform a verbal exorcism on Deborah? Only time would tell.
Chapter Thirty-nine
“I like your mother. She seems like a wonderful woman.” Mother Doreen took a sip of the lemonade Deborah had prepared for the two of them along with a salad. Mrs. Lewis had taken Deborah’s son to her house. Since she hadn’t been spending as much time with him lately, she wanted him to stay the night with her. Mother Doreen had mentioned that she would only be in town for the night. So this left some time for Mother Doreen and Deborah to catch up on things.
“My mother likes you too,” Deborah replied.
“Today was the most I’ve ever really talked to her. I got to get to know her a little better, and should I say I was pleasantly surprised. She’s not what I imagined her to be like after hearing you talk about her for all these years.”
“Yeah, I know, but people change,” Deborah replied. “And my mother has definitely done some changing. I guess I’ve just been too selfish to recognize it and give her credit for it.”
“Umm, hmmm, I see, and what about you?” Mother Doreen ate a forkful of salad. “You done any changing?”
“What do you mean?” Deborah played stupid, but she knew there was no fooling her confidant and mentor. Mother Doreen had a spirit of discernment that would put any fortune teller or psychic to shame. God shared things with her about a person. She was like this walking piece of confirmation He’d use to set people straight. Well, Deborah was just as crooked as a broken bone. She just wished God had given her a little anesthesia to help limit the pain before He’d sent Mother Doreen to come straighten it out.