by E. N. Joy
“Look, son, I understand you’re angry. But you’re going to have to let it go. It was all in the past. Everyone has moved on.”
“She hasn’t!” Terrance yelled, gripping the picture of his mother. “She never did.” In a more relaxed tone he said, “She tried. For a minute there, she thought things were going to be better. When she got pregnant with me, she felt redeemed and restored.” He looked upward, and if she wasn’t mistaken, Mother Doreen thought she saw a fleeting smile on Terrance’s face. “Those were her exact words; redeemed and restored . . . whole again.” He looked at Mother Doreen, now with disdain on his face. “You know how I know?” He reached inside his suit jacket and pulled something out of his waist. “’Cause of this right here.” He held up a hardcover worn book that appeared to be a journal.
Terrance held the journal against him as if he was holding his mother. “Thank God she decided to even keep a journal. If she hadn’t, I don’t think I would have ever known why Momma is like she is. I would have never known why for years she’s been lying up in some place for crazy folks.” He looked down at the picture again. “No, she might not look like crazy, but she is.”
“She’s alive?” Mother Doreen sounded confused. “But I thought you said she was dead.”
“She might as well be,” Terrance glared. “She’s got no soul. Nothing inside of her. Just a shell of what once was. She’s not even in her right mind.”
Terrance walked up on Mother Doreen. “And you drove her to that state; you and that husband of yours. You walking around here all saved, sanctified, and Holy Ghost-filled while my momma can’t even get out of bed without assistance. She won’t pick up a fork and feed herself. She won’t even talk to me.” Terrance’s voice broke, and he quickly pulled himself together, but turned away from Mother Doreen so she wouldn’t see him becoming weak. “I have never, ever heard my own mother’s voice.” He sniffed, pulled it together, and turned back around to face Doreen. “I’m sure when I was just a baby she probably cooed at me, told me how much she loved me. But I don’t remember that. I can’t recall the sound of her voice then. And that’s okay, because it’s not then I’m worried about. I want to hear it now. I want to hear her say it to me now.”
For the last year, after getting everything off her chest about her criminal past, Mother Doreen had felt a hundred pounds lighter. She’d been able to completely forgive herself for her actions all those years ago. She’d been able to let go, let all of it go and not hang on to little pieces for souvenir’s sake. Prior to that, she’d been like a serial killer when it came to completely letting go of her past; she’d held on to little parts of it for memory’s sake. Over the years, she’d seen Christians with that serial-killer mentality when it came to their past. She’d watched them take pieces of it to the grave until the only time their past was truly buried was when it was buried right alongside them in that casket. Mother Doreen had made up her mind that she wasn’t going out like that.
Obviously, when she’d called herself handing over to God every souvenir that she had held on to, she’d dropped a few things. The devil must have been right there like a rat, chasing after the crumbs, gathering them up. And now here he was today to present them to her on a silver platter. Satan had reworked the crumbs though, turning them into a whole brand-new tempting delicacy; an attempt to lure Mother Doreen from her rightful place in God to the pits of hell.
It was working. The guilt was beginning to build up in Mother Doreen’s heart again. Terrance could see that too. So just like a good little worker being used by the devil, he kept going.
“‘Oh, boy, you know your momma loves you,’ is what my grandmother used to say to me,” Terrance said. “She had to raise me, you know—my grandmother. My momma couldn’t take care of herself, let alone a baby. But she was real good with me at first, my grandmother told me. She thought she was living the dream; that God had restored her life, replaced her dead baby with me. So for those first few months after I was born, she was happy. She believed everything he told her; every promise. But he lied. His word wasn’t worth nothing. But my grandmother used to tell my momma, ‘Once a liar always a liar.’”
“Terrance, I don’t know what didn’t happen that your mother wanted to happen. I’m sure God has His reasons. But God is not one to lie, so if those things didn’t come to pass, then it was for her own good.”
Terrance looked at Mother Doreen momentarily, and then started to laugh. “Oh, you thought I was talking about God being the one making promises and all that good stuff? Oh no. Let me be clearer. God’s not the liar.” An evil grin spread across his lips. “Your husband was.”
Chapter Thirty-six
Mother Doreen wouldn’t have believed it if she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes. After all, Terrance had been rambling on about a lot of stuff. But that journal—that journal had it all in black and white; in Lauren’s very own heartfelt words. Reading that journal had been like reading a script to a movie—a very sad movie. But this was real.
For a moment, Mother Doreen was so engrossed in the words she was reading that she forgot Terrance was even standing there. That was, until he spoke.
“That’s some deep stuff, huh?” Terrance asked. “You can almost hear her voice rise from the pages. That’s the only way I can hear my mother’s voice; imagining her speaking those words to me; telling me the story of her life.” He smiled. “I just sit and imagine that she’s sitting in a rocking chair in front of a blazing fire. I’m kneeling at her feet on a nice soft rug, and we’re enjoying cookies and hot chocolate. She’s telling me everything about her. The good, the bad, the bliss and the pain.
“Unfortunately, 90 percent of that journal is full of pain. Pain that left my mother speechless. Literally speechless. So much pain that eventually my grandmother had to commit her to a psych ward. So much pain that not even the smiling face of her baby boy could free her mind from the prison it’s been confined to. Pain caused by you and your Willie. Y’all did a real Bonnie-and-Clyde number on her, and I bet you never even knew it, did you?”
Mother Doreen could tell by his tone that it wasn’t a rhetorical question. He wanted an answer. So many answers. And Mother Doreen couldn’t blame him, because reading the words written by his mother, she wanted answers too.
“In all honesty, I had no idea.” Mother Doreen shook her head and closed her eyes. When her lids closed, tears seeped down her face.
“You had no idea what? That you’d caused my mother so much pain, or that your Willie wasn’t nothing but a liar?” He walked over and pointed hard at the journal. “Or you had no idea that while you were sitting up in prison, your Willie was still laying up with my mother? While he was probably telling you that everything was going to be all right, he was telling her the same thing. That he loved her. That they still had a chance at sharing a life together.”
Mother Doreen’s bottom lip began to quiver as she listened to Terrance repeat the words she’d just read. She’d read Lauren’s words about how Willie had barely left her bedside after she lost the baby. How once she was released from the hospital, he was at her home almost every minute that he wasn’t at work or something. While Mother Doreen was locked up in prison, surviving off of Willie’s words that he wouldn’t leave her or forsake her and that he’d be waiting on her when she got out—he had been playing house with Lauren the entire time.
“How could he?” Mother Doreen mumbled to herself, once again ignoring Terrance’s presence.
“He played you; played you like a fiddle,” Terrance laughed. “But he played my momma too. Looks like you got over it. Guess that’s because you had Jesus in your life, huh? What’s that scripture about being able to do all things through Christ’s strength or something like that? Guess somebody should have put my momma up on that one; reminded her about God, Jesus, and all that stuff. My grandmother said Willie became her God and Jesus. When he left her hanging, he pretty much left her for dead. My grandmother did all she could to get my mother back into church and to move
on in life. Didn’t work then, and it’s way too late now.” He looked at Doreen. “Maybe instead of beating my momma near death you should have preached the Good Word to her.” Terrance began clapping his hands, drawing invisible crosses across his chest and saying, “Hallelujah!”
“God will not be mocked, Mr. Terrance,” Mother Doreen said calmly.
“I know He won’t,” he spat angrily. “Not by my mother anyway, because she can’t mock God or anybody else. She can’t talk! She can’t do anything. She might as well be dead. And you . . .” Terrance pointed at Mother Doreen, “you should still be locked up in jail, because not only did you kill her baby, but you killed her too. My momma ain’t never been the same since she came across you and that man. But thank God that Willie met his karma, and now you need to meet yours. And some fairy-tale wedding, and then running off to be first lady just didn’t seem like karma to me.”
“So do you think your being here, attempting to ruin my life and any chance of happiness I might have, is going to make your mother well? Do you honestly think that’s going to make her feel good?”
“No, but it sure is gon’ make me feel some kind of good,” he admitted. “And who knows? I could leave here and go run and tell Momma all about your wedding day from hell and it might—it just might—make her feel a little better.” He held his index finger and thumb just centimeters apart. “Just a wee li’l bit of good.
“I mean, if after losing her baby, sweet-talking Willie could make her feel better, surely that might could. Yeah, I have to give it to that old husband of yours. His words to my momma was like poetry, wasn’t it? Go on, read it. Keep reading all those lies your husband was feeding my momma.”
Reluctantly, Mother Doreen allowed her eyes to fall back to the pages of the journal and continued to read. Her eyes filled with tears as she read the words of a woman deeply in love. Tears of anger. Tears of jealousy. Tears of anger. What bothered her most was not knowing why all these years later she cared. Willie was gone and buried. It wasn’t like she could confront him about it. But there was someone she could confront.
Mother Doreen looked up from the journal at Terrance, wiping her tears away. “I need to go to her,” she blurted out. “I need to go see your mother.”
Chapter Thirty-seven
“Did you hear me?” Mother Doreen asked after Terrance didn’t respond. “I’d like to go see your mother. Do you think that will be possible?”
“You need to go see my mother?” Terrance was in disbelief.
Mother Doreen nodded.
He let out a harrumph. “Why? So you can finish her off?”
“I know you don’t trust me, and from what you know about me, you have every reason not to. But that woman you read about in here . . .” Mother Doreen shook the journal. “That woman who did all those awful things to your mother so long ago; well, I’m not her anymore.”
“Oh, so you found Jesus and repented while in jail like every other criminal.” He thought for a minute. “Oh, wait a minute. That’s right. You had supposedly already knew who Jesus was when you did that to my mother. You were a preacher’s kid.” Terrance nodded and smiled. “I wonder what Mommy and Daddy thought about that—their precious girl committing a crime and getting locked up.” Once again, he paused. He then walked over to Mother Doreen and flipped some pages in the journal. He read a few lines, then began snapping his finger. “Ah, that’s right, you never told your parents. That was a pact you and Willie had made.”
Mother Doreen looked at Terrance surprised.
“Yep, that’s right; he told my momma everything. Some of the things you thought was confined to a husband-and-wife relationship only, well, Willie shared with my momma. That’s what people in love do—they share everything. And your Willie . . .” Terrance mocked Mother Doreen by crossing his heart with his index finger, “. . . God rest his soul . . .”
Mother Doreen didn’t think she could hurt anymore, yet every page in that journal was full of potential hurts. She felt in her heart that if she was going to stop all the pain and all the hurt for good, she needed to see Lauren. She needed to see her now. “Please, Terrance, can you tell me where I can find your mother and arrange for me to see her?”
He looked in Mother Doreen’s eyes. “Yous dead serious, aren’t you?”
“More serious than you’ll ever know.” Mother Doreen matched his stare.
Terrance turned his back to her and thought for a minute. After mulling over some things he turned and faced her again. “I, I don’t think that would be a good thing. I mean, Momma is bound to see you and really go deep over the edge.”
Mother Doreen stepped to him with anxiety. “The deeper the better. With the help of the good Lord, I can cast a pole that will bring her back into the shore of safety, for He has taught me to be a fisher of men.”
“So you want me to stand here and believe that you want to go see my mother so you can help her?” Disbelief laced Terrance’s voice.
“Yes.”
“Ha!” He started laughing. “You Jesus freaks kill me. Y’all really walk around believing that y’all can lay hands on somebody and by the power of the Christ and the Holy Ghost—bam—they’re healed.” He continued laughing. “Then what? You gon’ take up an offering?”
“That’s not what I’m talking about, but since you asked, yes. I do believe some believers have the power to heal. But the key element is ‘believe.’ Both the giver and receiver must truly believe in the power of God. There can be no doubt. Because you see, when it comes to the things of God, there is no room for doubt. There is no time for doubt.” Mother Doreen held out her hands. “Look at me. I’ll be seventy years old before I know it. I’m much older than you, I reckon. But that don’t mean a thing. You can walk right out of here and get taken out by a bus.” Mother Doreen snapped. “It’s over before you know it. Will you be ready for what’s to come next, Mr. Terrance?” She stepped in closer to him. “Do you believe?”
He nodded his head, but not in affirmation of the question Mother Doreen had posed. “Aah, I get it now. Now, just like the typical Christian, you gon’ try to scare me into believing in the works of God. Hell and damnation.” He flung his hands up as if he were running scared.
“I’m not trying to scare you, Mr. Terrance. I can think of a whole mess of other ways to make a believer out of you. But scaring you is not one of them. Now please, will you grant me permission to see your mother?”
Terrance was indecisive. “Wha . . . why? I don’t get it. There is nothing you have to offer my mother. There is nothing you can do for my mother.”
“Maybe not. But there is something she can do for me.”
“Her do something for you? What could my mother possibly do for you?”
Mother Doreen looked down at the journal, closed it, then said, “Forgive me—your mother can forgive me.” Mother Doreen extended her hands. “Please, will you take me to her?”
“You’re going where? With whom?” Bethany looked from Mother Doreen to Terrance. “Reen, have you lost your mind?” Bethany began pacing. “Oh, why am I even asking you that? Of course, you done lost your mind. You done lost your mind if you are thinking about riding all the way to West Virginia with this man. You done really lost your mind if you think I’m going to let you.”
“I understand it might sound crazy,” Mother Doreen told Bethany, “but God sometimes uses the ridiculous to confound the wise.”
“Oh, please.” Bethany shooed her hand. “I’m not trying to hear that right now. Somebody talk some sense into my sister, please.”
Margie stepped up to bat next as they stood in the dressing room. Everything in Mother Doreen wanted to let her pastor know that her words, if she tried to talk her out of visiting Lauren, would be in vain. She’d convinced Terrance to allow her to go see his mother, and that had been no easy feat.
“What’s in it for my mother?” he’d asked Mother Doreen. “I mean, I know what’s in it for you—you want forgiveness. But I don’t see how my mother woul
d benefit out of all this.”
“It’s hard to explain,” Mother Doreen had told him. “But sometimes when you forgive a person, you’re not only setting that person free, but yourself as well. Now, imagine if the only thing it’s ever taken to set your mother free—to free her mind—wasn’t a doctor or any kind of medicine or facility. What if it was just the simple act of forgiveness?” Mother Doreen could see the wheels churning in Terrance’s brain. “Wouldn’t you give anything, do anything, for your mother?”
“Of course, I would,” Terrance was quick to say, almost insulted that Mother Doreen would even think he wouldn’t.
“Then do this. Take me to her.”
After a few seconds of pondering her words, Terrance had agreed. And now she needed to get to moving before he changed his mind. But she knew that first she had to give her pastor the respect of at least listening to what she had to say.
“Mother Doreen, I understand your wanting to go see Miss Casinoff and your reasons for wanting to go, but you have to use wisdom.”
“I’m using wisdom and my spirit of discernment,” Mother Doreen told her pastor. “I got a feeling everything is going to be okay. Terrance here is harmless.” She nodded over at Terrance and shot him a brief smile—very brief—before turning her attention back to her pastor.
“Harmless? For real, Doreen? For real?” Bethany interrupted. “You really believe that? Anybody who comes up in a church, interrupting somebody’s wedding ceremony and spitting all kinds of venom is not a person I would call harmless.”
Terrance just stood there and allowed the women to talk about him like he wasn’t even there.
“Terrance came here for something. He came here for answers. He came here to hear the truth—not just read about it.” Doreen gave him a look, letting him know she understood his intentions. She then looked back at Margie and Bethany.