The Perfect Christian

by E. N. Joy

  Being the yes-man that he was, Willie simply nodded, followed by a soft, lying, “Yes.” What else could he have told her? That he’d been on a honeymoon with his new bride? The bride that he was legally able to marry because he’d legally divorced Doreen. He divorced her without her even knowing. Thanks to Brother Carl, he learned that getting a divorce was as simple as one spouse filing and alleging that they didn’t know the whereabouts of the other. Since they didn’t know the other’s whereabouts, they couldn’t serve them divorce papers. What they could do, though, was list it publicly in the newspaper and hope and pray that the defendant didn’t see it and respond, or worse, contest it.

  Obviously, all Willie’s hope and prayers had paid off, because Doreen was none the wiser that she was no longer legally Willie’s wife.

  “I’m counting the days, Willie,” Doreen said. “I’m counting the days when I can get out of here and live as husband and wife with you again.”

  Willie thought he was about to turn beet red. Was Doreen messing with his mind? Did she know something? She always did have what he referred to as women’s intuition, but what she referred to as a spirit of discernment.

  “I, I, I can’t wait either,” Willie stuttered before their conversation was plagued with heavy silence.

  “Well, you been thinking about where you want to move to when I get out of this place?” Doreen picked back up the conversation.

  “Uh, well, uh, you know with all the work I’ve been doing, guess I just didn’t have the time to stop and think about nothing.”

  “That’s all right, because I have.” Doreen’s eyes lit up. “I heard about some little town in Ohio called Malvonia.”

  Willie scrunched his nose up. “Malvonia? I ain’t never heard of that place before.”

  “Right! And neither had I. That means probably nobody else has either. And even better, if we ain’t heard of Malvonia, then it probably ain’t never heard of us. And that’s just what we need in order to be able to do this thing right. So what do you say, Willie? Why don’t you start looking into things and setting up shop? Even if you’ve got to go without me and be away for a while, I don’t care.” Doreen began to sound desperate—look desperate. “I just want to start fresh again, just like you promised.”

  Willie smiled on the outside, but on the inside he felt sick. He’d made a lot of promises lately; some to Lauren and some to Doreen. His only dilemma was which ones he was going to keep . . . and with whom.

  Chapter Forty-two

  “Arrrre, are, okayyyy. Youuuuu okay?” Lauren asked Mother Doreen.

  “No.” Mother Doreen was being honest. “Actually, I’m not okay.” She looked down at her wedding ring that rested on her trembling hands.

  “You not know. Didn’t know?” Lauren figured as much by the expression on Mother Doreen’s face and the way she’d paused as if she’d swallowed a frog when she heard about Lauren and Willie’s nuptials. “He never told you he divorced you and married me, huh?” Although she’d stuttered and stammered some, Lauren’s words were becoming clearer.

  All Mother Doreen could do was shake her head. “I had no idea. No idea.” She paused for a moment. “That means that the first year we were in Malvonia together, we were living in sin.”

  “You mean the entire time y’all was living in Malvonia together it was in sin. He wasn’t married to you. He was married to me,” Lauren corrected.

  “No, no, because he married me. Willie married me again. Well, he said it was just the renewing of our vows. But now I know it was something more than that. It was him marrying me all over again because he knew we weren’t. That son of a devil’s bride.” Mother Doreen chuckled bitterly. “Heck, I guess you could say I was the devil’s bride, ’cause I’m really starting to feel like for all those years that’s exactly what I had done—married the devil.”

  Mother Doreen just sat there shaking her head for a minute. The longer she sat there, the more the words she’d read and had heard Lauren speak sank in. And the more they started to puncture her heart, and those puncture wounds hurt . . . like crazy. Before she knew it, her eyes began to water. But right as Mother Doreen was about to start her woe-is-me campaign, she looked at Lauren. It was clear that Willie’s lies had done far much more damage in Lauren’s life than it had in hers.

  “Oh my,” Mother Doreen said, covering her mouth. “Here I am about to cry a river that’s long been drained, and look at you.”

  Lauren stared at Mother Doreen puzzled.

  “I mean, I dealt with it. The good Lord, who is an all-knowing God, knew exactly what I needed to know and what I didn’t. God knew I would not have been able to bear knowing Willie had divorced me and was married up with you. I would have lost my mind. Just like—” Mother Doreen swallowed her words.

  “Go ahead and say it,” Lauren urged. “Just like me? That is what you were going to say, wasn’t it? That you would have lost your mind just like me?” Mother Doreen’s eyes confirmed it. “Well, go on ahead and say it, because it’s the truth. That’s exactly what happened. When I woke up that Saturday morning to find Willie gone—not just from my bed but just gone period—words can’t describe how I felt.” Lauren looked over at the journal Mother Doreen had laid beside the Bible. “Well, actually, maybe words can describe.” She nodded toward the journal, and then said to Mother Doreen. “Get it. I want you to finish reading it. I want you to read the end.”

  Hesitantly, Mother Doreen stood up and went to retrieve the journal from beside the Bible. She returned to the chair, and then looked down at the journal. She opened it to the page where she had left off. She continued to read the last few pages of the journal, which would be the last reflections of Lauren with a sane mind. But after reading the final installment, Mother Doreen had no idea just how sane she could remain.

  Lauren ran into her house that looked as though a cyclone had hit it. She’d torn that house up looking for Willie. Looking for Willie or anything that belonged to him. Just something—something to show that he was coming back. Something he’d left that she knew he would come back for, but there was nothing. Not even his toothbrush. She even went to the old place he and Doreen used to share before she was carted off to jail. It had been sold and was bone empty. That’s where she was just coming back from. Her own home might as well have been empty as well without Willie there.

  “He’s gone. Oh God, he’s really gone.” Lauren wrapped her arms around her stomach and began to caress herself. She caressed herself like she would have wanted Willie to—like he’d done for so many nights.

  “This can’t be. This just can’t be.” Lauren jumped up off the couch and started pacing. “Maybe he’s gone back to visit his peoples in Kentucky. Yeah, that’s it. He said his momma hadn’t been feeling well lately. Yes, that’s where he’s gone; to see about his momma. And that’s a good thing, right?” Now Lauren was talking to herself and expecting answers. “A girl wants a man who’s gonna look after they momma. That means he’s gonna look after her too. So it’s all right that Willie done went to see about his momma. I’ll just wait here. I’ll wait right here until he gets back. I’m not even gonna go chasing after him like that ex-wife of his used to do. No. I’ma trust my man to come back to me.”

  Lauren looked around the house. “Oh no, but Willie can’t come back to this mess. No. What man wants to come home to a filthy house? None. Girl, you betta get this place together, and fast, if you want your man to come back.”

  Lauren began cleaning the house like never before. For three days straight, without taking a rest, without food and without water, she cleaned that house spotless. She stripped the floors. She bleached down the walls, every doorknob, every light switch, and every electrical outlet. She cleaned the refrigerator and stove. She cleaned out closets, threw out clutter, and cleaned the basement. Everything sparkled—the windows, the mirrors, and the countertops. She’d taken all the curtains down, cleaned them, pressed them, and rehung them. By the time Lauren finished with that house, it could have appeare
d on the cover of a Better Homes and Gardens magazine. Lauren had cleaned and cleaned until she couldn’t find a dirty thing in that house. Unfortunately, though, after three days, she still didn’t find Willie either.

  On day four, Lauren sat on her couch waiting—just waiting to hear Willie’s key turning in the lock. Waiting to hear the phone ring and Willie on the other end saying he was coming home. By day five, Lauren was up and down off the couch every five minutes running to the picture window in the living room. She wanted to see if she could spot Willie coming up the drive. She never saw him. By day six, she was picking up the phone every five minutes to make sure it still had a dial tone. But the phone worked just fine. At least every time Lauren’s mother called to check on her it was working.

  “Ma, I can’t talk right now. I’m ’spectin’ Willie to call. I can’t be tying up the line talking nothing with you.” Before her mother could protest, Lauren had slammed the phone down in her ear.

  On day seven, Lauren’s mother couldn’t even get her to pick up the phone anymore. That’s when she broke down, pulled out her walker, and had her neighbor’s son drive her over to the house. She knocked and knocked and knocked, but there was no answer.

  “Oh, dear God, I ain’t got a good feeling about this,” Lauren’s mother had moaned after five minutes of knocking.

  “You want me to get inside and see if there’s any foul play or anything going on?” the neighbor’s son offered.

  “Naw, you ain’t gon’ be able to. Her doors are locked. I done tried ’em.”

  He cleared his throat. “Ma’am, uh, if you want me to get in there, I can.” His eyes cast downward.

  “And just how do you plan on getting in a locked house?” Lauren’s mother asked as she watched as her neighbor’s son looked everywhere but at her, and then began to whistle. “Oh, you youngins always up to no good.” She sucked her teeth and shook her head. “Well, go on, then. Use that evil trade of yours for somethin’ good.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” And on that note, he went to the trunk of his car, came back with a bag of tools, and went to work like a pro until he got Lauren’s front door opened in less than three minutes flat. “There you are, ma’am.” Still, he couldn’t look the old woman in the eyes.

  Lauren’s mother tightened her lips. Balancing on her walker with one hand, she took the other and slapped the twenty-two-year-old boy upside the head. “And don’t you even think about doing something like this to my house. I’m telling you now, before my husband died he left me a mound of bills. But he also left me a shooting gun that will split a man’s wig, if you know what I’m saying.”

  “Ye . . ., yes, ma’am. I knows what you saying.”

  “Now help me on into my daughter’s house.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He helped the old woman into the house.

  “Lauren,” she called out, thinking she’d have to cart around the house in search for her only child, but that wasn’t the case. Lauren lay right there on the couch, sleeping, looking like an angel in her spick-and-span clean house. Nothing looked out of the ordinary—except for the blood surrounding Lauren all over the couch.

  Chapter Forty-three

  Mother Doreen dropped the journal. Or it slid from her hands. She wasn’t sure. All she knew is that it was no longer in her hands, and she felt as though she was no longer in her right mind. This was all just a nightmare, and she was going to wake up any minute now.

  She was going to wake up, and she was going to be walking toward the altar back at the New Day Temple of Faith sanctuary. At the altar her future husband would be waiting. Their ceremony would go on as planned and there would be no interruptions. Nuptials would be exchanged, and she would become Mrs. Wallace Frey.

  “Arrrre . . . you okay? Do you want me to call the nurse?” Lauren pushed her water toward Mother Doreen. “Would you like some water?”

  Mother Doreen shook her head in the negative. She didn’t dare speak. If she did, she knew her voice would crack like an egg left boiling with no water in the pan; and then just explode.

  It took a couple of minutes, but Mother Doreen managed to get herself back together. “Oh dear, I’m sorry,” she said about the journal that lay splat on the ground. She bent over, picked it up, then extended it to Lauren.

  “But you’re not finished,” Lauren said, slowly taking the journal.

  “I, I can’t read anymore. I mean, what’s left to read anyway? Your boy told me all about how Willie and me changed the course of your life. And I can see here for myself that he wasn’t lying. I don’t need this journal to tell me the wrong I’ve done and that I owe you an apology.” Mother Doreen took in a deep breath. “Matter of fact, that’s why I’m here anyway.”

  Mother Doreen leaned in and extended her hands to Lauren. “Lauren, this is long overdue, and it doesn’t even seem sufficient, but dear God, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry for what I did to you at that motel room all those years ago. I’m sorry for what I did to your baby. Now I know this doesn’t change things, but I promise you I had no idea you were with child at the time. If I could take back what I did, I surely would. But I can’t. For years, I didn’t even want to face the wrong I’d done to you. It was like a part of me I wish never existed; a part of me I wish I’d never known. I made sure that no one else ever knew that part of me again.

  “Not too long ago, I finally shared the truth with some folks I trust. God’s forgiven me, and I’ve forgiven myself. But in order to put complete closure on this thing, for me, anyway, I need your forgiveness,” Mother Doreen pleaded her case. “Can you find it in your heart to ever forgive me? Even if it’s not right now, not at this moment, to just know that one day God will put it on your heart to forgive me is all I can ask. So will you? Will you forgive me?”

  Lauren looked down at Mother Doreen’s hands while Mother Doreen waited with bated breath for Lauren to respond. Finally Lauren shook her head. “I . . . I can’t.”

  A gasp came out of Mother Doreen’s mouth as if she were a balloon that someone had just let the air out of. She dropped her hands, and they began to tremble as her eyes moistened.

  “I can’t forgive you,” Lauren started, “unless you can forgive me too.”

  Tears dropped from Mother Doreen’s eyes as she looked at Lauren stunned. “Huh? What?”

  “I need your forgiveness too, for what I put you through. I had some wrong in all this too,” Lauren admitted. “I had no business sleeping with a married man in the first place, but there was just something about Willie. I don’t have to tell you that, though. I’m sure whatever it was that had me tailing after a married man was the same thing that had you to marry him in the first place. It was like an addiction; an obsession that I couldn’t let go of.”

  “I know how you feel. Willie had what these young folks call swag—swagger—something like that. But it’s still no excuse for how I acted.”

  “And it’s no excuse for me clutching to him like he was an available man.” There was a few seconds of silence, and then Lauren spoke again. “So, what we gon’ do here? We gonna forgive each other or not?” Lauren extended her hands.

  Mother Doreen looked down and smiled as she grasped Lauren’s hands. “I’m sorry, and I forgive you.”

  “I’m sorry, and I forgive you.”

  At that moment, Mother Doreen could have sworn she felt and heard shackles and chains dropping off of her body and on to the floor. It was loud. Even after all the weight had been shed, she continued to hear the sound of chains hitting the floor. Those must have been the ones that had Lauren held in bondage for all these years.

  Mother Doreen couldn’t help it; the next thing she knew she’d released Lauren’s hands, jumped up out of that chair, and got her Holy Ghost dance on, lifting her hands and her voice, giving praises unto God.

  Lauren sat up in the bed clapping and smiling at Mother Doreen’s display. “That’s right, girl. You go on and praise Him for me too.”

  After a few minutes, out of breath, Mother Doreen plopped back d
own in the chair. “Whew, child, I’m too old for this.”

  Lauren cracked up laughing. “No, you’re never too old to praise the Lord. I might have turned my face away from Him all these years, maybe even stopped believing. But I reckon it’s never too late to send up praises to Him.”

  “Yeah, I know that’s right.” Mother Doreen took a deep breath. “Child, I think I will take some of that water after all.”

  “Help yourself,” Lauren told her.

  Mother Doreen helped herself to one of the several Styrofoam cups the nurse had brought in. She then filled the cup with some water from the pitcher the nurse had brought in as well. She gulped it down and felt refreshed. “Thank you, I needed that.”

  “No, I needed that.” Lauren shook her head. “Look at us; once two young foolish girls, now old wise women breaking the chains of the past. Hallelujah!”

  “Glory to His name,” Mother Doreen cosigned.

  Lauren stared off for a minute, and then spoke. “I could kick myself for giving up on life all these years. But when Willie left me, I just felt dead, so I just gave up on life. I felt that I couldn’t breathe without that man. That I couldn’t live without him.”

  “Is that why you tried to kill yourself?” Mother Doreen asked.

  “Kill myself?” Lauren was confused.

  “Yes, that day your mother and her neighbor’s son found you lying in blood, what had you done? Slit your wrist or something?”

  Lauren stared at Mother Doreen for a moment, and then burst out laughing. “Now Willie was all that and then some, but not worth killing myself over, that’s for sure.”

  Mother Doreen waited for Lauren to settle down from laughing before she asked, “Then if you hadn’t tried to kill yourself, what was all the blood about? What happened?”

  Lauren stared at Mother Doreen for a minute. “You really have no idea, do you?” Mother Doreen shrugged. “Here, honey,” Lauren nodded toward the journal for a final time. “I really think you better read that last page.”