Strongholds

by Vanessa Davis Griggs

  “Yes.”

  “How was that for you?”

  “It was great. I remember my father, but just barely. He went away and never came home. I didn’t totally understand how that worked back then, but Motherphelia said we would understand it better in the by-and-by.” Charity’s eyes were closed. She seemed calm and really relaxed.

  “Tell me about that day.”

  “Which day?”

  “The day you walked in the room and that bad man was in there.”

  “Are you talking about Mr. Lucious?”

  “Was that the name of the mean man Hope talks about?”

  “I guess. He hurt my mother and he hurt me. He could be mean.”

  “Was he always mean to your mother and you?”

  “Stop it! Stop it! Don’t you do that!” Charity cried out.

  “Charity,” Dr. Holden said in a quiet voice, “what’s happening now?”

  “Don’t you tell! He said he would hurt us and our family if you ever told it!”

  “Charity? Charity? Charity…can you hear me?”

  Charity suddenly became calmer. “No, doctor. Charity is no longer here.”

  “Is that you, Hope?”

  “Two strikes. One more and you can’t help but to get it right.”

  “Faith.” He exhaled ever so quietly.

  “Right-o, Doctor H. Give the man a gold star,” Faith said as she popped open her eyes and grinned.

  “How are you, Faith?”

  She snickered. “Like you really care. Look, let’s not play games, Doc. I like you all right, but I am not fond of people who think I don’t see through their psychobabble education.”

  “Is that why you won’t talk to Sapphire?”

  “Oh, Sapphire’s not that deep. She’s not a real doctor, at least she’s not like you. Just a psychotherapist. Is that what she’s called? Anyway, I just don’t like her because she thinks she’s smarter than me. But she’s not,” Faith said. “Must I lie here, pretending I’ve been hypnotized or something, or can I get up while we have this conversation?”

  “You can sit up if you prefer.”

  Faith sat up and smiled. “I think Sapphire has Charity drugged too much. It’s difficult for me to do anything with so much medication flowing through this body.”

  “You do understand why she has to be on medication, don’t you?” Dr. Holden maintained full eye contact with Faith.

  She stood up and started walking around his nicely furnished office. “I understand you think everything you’re doing is helping Charity, when in fact, you’re really not.” She picked up a picture off his desk. “Your family? Cute,” she said, setting it back down.

  “Why do you think what we’re doing won’t help Charity?”

  “Because what happened was really bad, Dr. Holden. Really bad. You think she can handle it being a grown woman? I’d say you’d have a hard time handling this right now being a grown man with your fancy doctorate degree.” She touched his framed certificate hanging on the wall, then continued to casually stroll around his office, picking up and setting down things at will.

  Dr. Holden followed her moves by adjusting his body as she walked. “I believe not only can Charity handle it, but she can also work through it and be well on her way to a full recovery and a wonderful and productive life.”

  “She had a productive life before Sapphire stepped all up in our business and decided ‘we’ needed help. Now look where Charity is—in a facility that’s literally guarded twenty-four/seven. Oh yeah, that sounds like the good life to me. Before all this great help came along, we worked, provided for ourselves, had a home where we could come and go anytime we pleased without having to have somebody come ‘check us out’ and ‘bring us back’ or stop us when we want to go out and have a little fun. Now we’re praying for financial handouts here and there in order to pay the bills that don’t stop coming just because our income has.” Faith flopped back down on the chaise lounge after her short tour around the office.

  “Charity admitted herself for help and her own protection of her own free will.”

  “Protection? Protection from whom? From me?” Faith let out a menacing laugh. “I hate to break this to you, Doc. But you guys locked her up with the person you think you’re protecting her from. How insane is that? That’s equivalent to a person stealing from someone and you locking them in the same cell with their thief. Hope is in here.” She pointed at her body. “Charity is in here, and I’m in here. Do you really think I don’t have any power over what either of them does or remembers or says?”

  Dr. Holden wrote something down. “So do you consider yourself a thief?”

  She stopped and stared at him. “What?”

  “You sort of stole Charity’s body. And since you’re the only one who seems to totally recall what happened that day that caused all of this to transpire, I’d say you’ve also stolen Charity’s memories as well.”

  “Are you smoking something that’s frying your brains?” Faith asked.

  “I’ll take that as one of your jokes you’re famous for.” He waited a few seconds. “So, are you going to answer my question?”

  She folded her arms across her chest. “I didn’t steal her memories. These memories are mine, so I get to decide who can know and who can’t.”

  “No. Those memories belong to Charity and you stole them from her.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  “On that day, whatever it was that happened, you didn’t exist. And if you didn’t exist, then you couldn’t have had a memory to store those facts in. Therefore, the only person who existed at that time was Charity; thereby they were Charity’s memories. After it happened, you and Hope came along. And if I had my guess, I would say Hope came even before you.”

  Faith hunched her shoulders. “Okay. I’ll concede that. Hope did come before me, but Hope is never enough to do what all needs to be done. Sure, Hope will get things started for you, but in the end, it takes Faith to get the job done. Not everybody can go the distance. But now Faith, Faith will be there until things are manifested. You can believe that, Dr. H.”

  “And Charity?”

  “What about Charity?”

  “Where does Charity fit in the scheme of things?”

  “Charity, like love, can be—in my humble opinion anyway—somewhat wimpy. Charity allows too many people to get away with things they should have to pay for. I say if you do the crime, you should pay the time. I don’t believe in letting people get away with doing things. And there are some evil people out there, Doctor H. You know it’s true.” She held out her hand.

  “What?”

  “May I have some paper and a pen, please?” Faith said with a smile as she relaxed against the chaise lounge.

  Dr. Holden got up and went to his desk. He pulled out a stenographer notebook, took a pen out of the holder on his desk, and handed both to her. “Here you are.”

  She took them. “Thank you.” She flipped opened the notebook and turned it to a random blank page.

  “So what are you going to write?”

  “Oh, I just decided since you want to take notes on me, I’d take notes on you.”

  Dr. Holden sat back against his chair. “Why don’t you just tell me what happened that day? And if I think it’s too much for Charity to handle, we’ll just drop it and find another way to help her.”

  Faith started writing in the notebook. “If I tell you what you want to know, I’m out of here, aren’t I?”

  “Do you really want to stay?”

  Faith continued to write. “There was a time when I thought I did. Not immediately after this happened, of course. It was a lot for me to handle even if I do act like I’m so tough. Knowing what I knew, then dealing with it later, made me become this hard, seemingly heartless person. But that was the only way Charity could have survived. We all have that type of personality somewhere deep inside of us.” She turned the page and continued to write as she talked.

  “It’s just that most folks don�
��t have them to separate out the way Charity had me. Charity, when all of us were one, couldn’t have done what had to be done, I don’t think. But breaking me away from her the way she did, and me not having to deal with that love factor being mixed in with what needed to happen…I could do it. She knew that; she trusted me.”

  Faith flipped to another page as she paused a few seconds, then continued to write. “Doctor H., somebody had to protect us. Granted, I didn’t do a fantastic job. And unfortunately, Motherphelia died. But we were only seven, Charity, Hope, and I. Seven-year-olds don’t possess the tools to always plot things out to the very end. Seven-year-olds can only see so far ahead. We didn’t see past that one moment in time. We couldn’t see past that one day. We didn’t foresee what would happen a few weeks…months, even years down the road. Charity loved Motherphelia and Motherphelia loved Charity…deeply. After Motherphelia died and Charity realized she had somehow been the cause of it, she gladly allowed me to take possession of those memories.”

  Faith closed the notebook. She looked deep into his eyes. “Therefore, Doctor H., I did not steal Charity’s memories. Charity happily and willingly turned them over to me for safekeeping.”

  “Nonetheless, they are Charity’s memories, and it’s time things were set right.”

  “Of course you’d say something like that,” Faith said. “What do you have to lose? But me, should I comply with that, I’ll be history. No, not even history. A mental disorder, a mere figment of Charity’s mind, a make-believe person held over from a little girl’s childhood. No thanks. I refuse to go out like that.”

  “But you do realize that you don’t have a right to be here any longer? Charity desires to have her life back. She wants to be whole again.”

  Faith smirked as she looked at him. “And how would you know? You don’t know one blessed thing about Charity. You fancy doctors with your fancy degrees act like you know so much more than the rest of us, when in fact, all you know is what you’ve read and retained from a book. You don’t have a clue about Charity or what she’s been through. She’s not a mere case study to me. Charity needs me! She needs my protection. I won’t sit back and let people run over us. I won’t let people abuse or misuse us.”

  “Technically, you would still be a part of her, Faith. You just shouldn’t be the one in control anymore. Charity has the right to make her own decisions. But the fact is you are and you can’t help but be a part of her.”

  Faith laughed. “Oh, yeah? What part? The part, in your educated mind, that went bad? Poor Charity needs help because she has other personalities taking over her body. Faith is bad. Faith has to go.” Faith mocked what she felt Dr. Holden was trying to say.

  Dr. Holden was calm. “I don’t think of you as bad, Faith. In fact, I think you did what you felt needed to be done to keep Charity sane and safe through difficult times.”

  “You’re just saying that. I’m on to you. You’re trying to pull that bad cop, good cop routine. Acting like you’re on my side. But it’s not going to work. I’m not falling for any of your psychobabble or reverse psychology junk.” Faith opened the notebook back up and began writing again.

  “Faith, do you love Charity?”

  Faith stopped writing and looked at him, narrowing her eyes. “What?”

  “Do you love Charity?”

  “What kind of an asinine question is that? Of course, I love Charity.”

  “Then why won’t you cooperate? For these past months, Sapphire has been doing everything she can to help Charity get better.”

  Faith commenced to writing again. “I don’t like Sapphire,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because she’d like nothing better than for me to completely disappear. She wants me destroyed. She doesn’t care about Charity. She only cares about how she looks.”

  “I believe she cares,” Dr. Holden said. “And she cares about you as well.”

  “Yeah, okay.” Faith flipped several pages and wrote some more, slower now.

  “No one wants to destroy you, Faith. But it’s time for you to give Charity back her life. She’s not a little girl anymore. I’m certain you helped her more than anyone will ever know. But it’s time for you to let go.”

  Faith looked at him with a softer look. “I did help her, you know. Everything I’ve ever done was for Charity.” She looked back down, turned the page, and tilting her head slightly, she continued to write in silence, her body no longer as tense as it had been.

  Dr. Holden sat back against his chair. “Faith, Charity is ready to move forward with her life. Her life. And it is her life. If you really care about her, I mean if you truly want to help her, then why wouldn’t you give her what she needs in order to do that?”

  Faith relaxed completely on the chaise lounge. “If Charity really wants her memories back, then fine. She can have them, as far as I’m concerned.” She continued to write, tapped the page with the point of the pen, closed the notebook, then stuck the pen in the spiral portion. “Tell Charity I really am sorry. Hope has resolved herself to leave. But like I’ve always said: Hope is good for getting you started, but it takes Faith to bring you to the door of actual manifestation.” Faith closed her eyes. “Tell Charity that all of us did what we thought was right at the time.” Faith’s voice was beginning to fade. “All of us. Tell her I only hope she has the faith to walk in love after all is said and done.”

  Dr. Holden studied Faith as a strange but peaceful look appeared to overtake her. She was serene now. “Faith?” Dr. Holden called her name gently. “Faith?”

  Her eyes began to flutter. She opened them. “Dr. Holden?” She looked around the room. “What happened?” She pressed her fist against her forehead.

  “Faith?”

  She placed one hand over her face and breathed in deeply, then removed it. “No. It’s Charity. Don’t tell me—Faith never showed up, did she?” Charity looked at him.

  Dr. Holden reached over and helped Charity as she sat up. “She showed up.”

  “Did she tell you anything? Did you get what you needed from her?”

  Dr. Holden shook his head. “She told me some things. And she also told me to tell you she was sorry for everything. But no, she didn’t tell me what happened.”

  Charity popped her lips. “Figures.” She ran her hand over the closed notebook she still held. “So what is this for?”

  “Just a notebook. Faith insisted if I was going to take notes on her, she would take notes on me. She is quite a personality, I will give her that much. The classic ‘mess with another person’s mind’ game.”

  Charity handed the notebook with the pen stuck in the wire part back to him. “Well, I suppose we can try again another time. Unless you think it’s useless and we need to try a different approach. Maybe you can hypnotize me to try and remember.”

  There was a knock on the door. Sapphire peeked inside. “Is it okay if I come in?” she asked.

  “Sure,” Dr. Holden said. “As you probably saw from the monitor, Faith came, but she’s gone now.”

  “Yeah. I saw and heard. I guess it was a good idea to put a camera in here during this session. Do you think she knew I was watching, and that’s why she didn’t cooperate?”

  “With Faith, who knows? Maybe she never intends to tell us anything. Faith likes the game,” Dr. Holden said as he stood up. “We can’t hate the player. We’ll just have to pray about this and try something different.” He took the notebook and lightly tossed it onto his desk. Glancing at his watch, he said, “Well, ladies, I hate to have to rush you out, but I have another appointment in less than five minutes.”

  “Oh sure,” Charity said. “I just appreciate you for seeing me with your schedule.”

  Sapphire nodded to Dr. Holden as she started out the door. “Thanks anyway.”

  “We’ll talk later, okay?” Dr. Holden said to Sapphire. “Take care, Charity.”

  They left. His secretary was waiting to bring in his next patient’s chart. He picked up the notebook Faith had wri
tten in, wrote her name and the date on the outside of it, and placed it in his desk drawer to possibly review later. He wasn’t certain whether or not he even wanted to read the observations Faith had made about him. It’s a different matter when someone turns the tables and starts analyzing and observing you.

  He felt bad that he hadn’t been able to get more out of Faith. They all would need to pray mightily about what to do next. But at least Charity wanted to be helped. The question now was how to do it?

  Chapter 28

  Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me.

  —Micah 7:8

  Johnnie Mae was unpacking a cardboard box when she ran across a cigar box that looked familiar but she couldn’t remember where it had come from. As she peeled off the gray-colored duct tape and opened it, she realized it was the box Angel Gabriel’s great-grandmother had given her. Opening it, she began to flip through some things that at first made no sense to her. There was information on a child recorded in a book Johnnie Mae assumed was done by a midwife—one lonely entry. Johnnie Mae remembered Pearl had been a midwife, as had Pearl’s mother. But Johnnie Mae didn’t have a clue why Pearl had thought it important to give this book to her. There was also other information pertaining to the child, a little girl, inside that box.

  Johnnie Mae picked up the phone and called Angel. “Hi, Angel. This is Johnnie Mae Landris.”

  “Hi there. It’s been a few weeks since we talked.”

  “Yes, it has been a while. Everybody is so busy these days.”

  “So what’s up?”

  Johnnie Mae looked at the midwife book as she spoke. “Do you remember that box your great-grandmother left for you to give to me?”

  “Vaguely.”

  “Well, I guess what I really want to know is did she happen to tell you why she wanted me to have it?”

  “No. She just asked me to give it to you and said you would know what to do with it,” Angel said.