by E. N. Joy
Lorain sighed. “That’s exactly how I feel.” She thought for a minute. “Well, kinda. I mean, like I said in my e-mail, he’s not a practicing Christian. He even smokes. But on the flip side, Sister Paige, he is such a wonderful man. He works hard. He works hard at his profession, which is a doctor. He works hard at being attentive toward me, even though we don’t have lots of time together due to him always being on call. He even works hard at being a good role model to my grandsons. And with their deadbeat daddies, you know that’s priceless. And Unique likes him. My mom likes him ...”
“What about you?” Paige asked. “How do you feel about him?”
Without even hesitating Lorain replied, “I love him. I love everything about him. He is the man God has made him to be right now; that’s how I feel in my heart. We as people always have room to grow. We are always changing. Yes, we get set in our ways, but God will always ultimately have His way. So if that means He has to change some things about us, then so be it.”
“I hear you, but what if Nicholas stays the same forever? What if God makes changes in you?”
“I ... I ... don’t understand.” Lorain was confused.
“Listen, Sister Lorain, I know what it is you want me to do,” Paige said. “You want me to tell you how I went from thinking I was married to the man of my dreams to trying to wake up from a nightmare. You want me to tell you what signs to look for in Nicholas that were there with Blake. I can’t do that, Sister Lorain. I can give you some signs of what to look for in an abuser. As a matter of fact, there are pamphlets laid out in the church lobby that list some signs. Sister Nita is head of the Swatc Ministry, so you might even want to talk to her.”
“Sheltered Woman and Their Children, yeah, I remember attending the meeting that one time.”
“Yes, so you know some of the things we discussed regarding signs of an abuser. But that’s not your real concern. You are not concerned with whether Nicholas is going to turn into a different person once you marry him. You are more so worried that you are going to turn into a different person once you marry him.”
That darn Sister Paige had hit it right on the money, Lorain had thought to herself. “You are absolutely right,” Lorain agreed. “When it really comes down to it, I’m so afraid that I’m not going to be the woman he desires now. What if I’m not everything he thinks I’m going to be as a wife? I’m not perfect, Sister Paige, but when I look at myself in his eyes ... Really, when I see the way he looks at me, it’s as if I am perfect; that I’m everything he could ever want, and more, in a woman. How can I ever live up to that? And then once he realizes that I’m not really that woman, what if he just ups and leaves me? What if he’s like Sister Tamarra’s ex-husband? What if he has a baby by another woman while we’re married? What if he’s like how Sister Deborah’s baby’s father was? Or Mother Doreen’s late husband or ...” Lorain stopped her thoughts.
“Or like Blake, my ex-husband?” Paige finished for her. “Go ahead, you can say it. After all, out of all the folks listed in the church directory, you picked me to contact because my marriage woes were the most recently public. I get it, Sister Lorain, but sister, if you don’t get it, you just might lose a man who really loves you. Now I might not be telling you what you want to hear. Who knows; after you hang up with me, you might have another list of women from church you are going to call up. Let me tell you something; don’t let the church have you end up being a single, lonely woman for the rest of your life. Because if you are going to base your life, your relationship with your man on what other women in the church have gone through, then that’s exactly how you are going to end up.”
Lorain remained silent as a tear fell from her eye. It wasn’t a tear of sadness, nor could it really be deemed as a tear of joy. It was a tear of revelation, of confirmation that Lorain needed to start living her life ... her life ... not fearing she’d end up living the life of other women. “Thank you, Sister Paige. Thank you so much. You have no idea of the release I just received from your words. I thank you for letting God use you.”
“No need to thank me. All God did was use me to confirm what He’s already told you ... or what He’s been trying to tell you anyway. You just wouldn’t listen until now.”
“And you are so right about that,” Lorain agreed. “Thanks, again, Sister Paige. See you in church Sunday.”
“Bye-bye,” Paige said before the women ended the call.
“Yes!” Lorain shouted out, nearly scaring to death one of her coworkers that was walking by.
“Lorain, are you okay?” the woman asked.
“Yes!” Lorain stood up and grabbed the woman by the shoulders with excitement. “Yes, I’m okay, and yes . . . I’m going to marry him!”
Chapter Five
Lorain could barely make it through her workday. Initially, she was going to skip lunch so she could leave an hour early, but she decided to skip work entirely, working only a half day. It would have been impossible for her to wait it out. In just that little bit of time she’d had to continuously pump herself up so that she wouldn’t talk herself out of what she was about to do. She figured if she didn’t leave now, by noon she would have chickened out.
Obedience was better than sacrifice, so she obeyed the traffic laws as she drove from her job to her house. Finally arriving, she pulled up in front of her place and jumped out of her car, not even closing the door. She knew she’d only be in her house for a second. All she needed to do was grab something really quick.
Once inside her house, she was moving so fast to her bedroom that it felt like only a half a second. So excited was she that she tripped over her own feet and fell at the foot of her bed before making it over to her dresser drawer.
“Girl, relax yourself,” she told herself with a chuckle, getting up off the floor and dusting herself off.
Once back up on her feet, she made her way over to her dresser and opened up the jewelry box she’d had ever since she was a little girl. Her mother had given it to her to keep her first pair of diamond earrings in that her father had bought her.
“Gosh, my mother!” Lorain exclaimed. The gift from her mother reminded her of her mother and the fact that she had the twins. She needed to call her to tell her she might be late picking them up. If things went as planned, she and Nicholas would be doing some major celebrating. But first things first.
Lorain grabbed the small box that held the engagement ring that Nicholas had proposed to her with ... twice. She opened the box and pulled out the ring. She didn’t know what was brighter; the sparkle in her eyes or the sparkle in that huge, beautiful diamond. “Well, here goes.” She took the ring out of the box and placed it on her finger. “Perfect fit,” she smiled ... and cried. She’d never, until now, even placed the ring on her finger. “Of course it’s a perfect fit. Why wouldn’t it be? Nicholas and I are a perfect fit.” She looked up. “He’s perfect for me, God, and I know—that I know—that I know he’s from you.” She paused before saying, “Thank you, God.”
She looked around the room and spotted the phone. “I gotta call Mom and tell her I might be late picking up the girls,” Lorain said aloud, and that’s exactly what she did. She dialed Eleanor’s phone. After answering on the first ring, Lorain quickly blurted into the receiver that there was a chance she would be picking up the twins late. She didn’t want her mother to worry just in case she was late.
“Why? Is everything okay?” a concerned Eleanor asked.
“Yes, Mother, everything is just fine. As a matter of fact, things couldn’t be more perfect. I’m going to marry Nicholas!”
“What? When? How? Who? Oh my God, baby, that’s wonderful!” Eleanor’s joy could be heard and felt by her daughter through the phone receiver. “Congratulations.” Now Eleanor could be heard sniffing.
“Thanks, Mom,” Lorain, told her, “but I gotta go, ’kay?”
“But I wanna be there. Why didn’t you tell me?” Eleanor began to question. “Are you eloping? Y’all going downtown? But I wanted to throw you a b
ig wedding.” Eleanor’s voice went from happy to irritated. “Now I really like that Nicholas, and I know he’s a busy man and all, but if he can’t find the time to marry my daughter with a proper—”
“Mom,” Lorain said, making her way to the front door. “I don’t mean we’re getting married right now. I mean that I’m going to tell him that I will marry him.”
Now Eleanor sounded concerned. “Hmm, I know Nicholas is a good man and all, but I just don’t think it’s right for a gal to be asking her beau for his hand in marriage. Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around? Doesn’t the Bible say that he who finds a wife—”
“Oh, Mom, there you go talking like you’re from the South again. Gal? Since when am I a gal? I thought I told you to cut that out once before. Besides, it’s not what it seems. Nicholas proposed to me, down on one knee, ring and all. It’s just that at the time I declined. I was confused. I ... I ...” Lorain sighed and went on to explain a little bit more about the situation and how she was about to show up at the hospital with the ring on her finger. “Look, Mother, I’ll tell you everything; I promise. But right now, I have to get to the hospital and find my husband.”
“That’s fine, dear, as long as he found you first,” Eleanor said, giving her blessing. “Because the Word says, ‘He who findeth a wife’—not ‘she who findeth a husband.’ So I just had to be sure everything was in order according to the Word.”
“Yes, Mother, now, please, I have to go. Kiss my girls for me and let them know that they are about to have a daddy.” Lorain hung up the phone and left her house. She jumped into the driver’s side of her car that awaited her with an open door and drove straight to the hospital.
Arriving at the hospital, Lorain parked in the visitor’s lot and headed to the ER unit. Most of the staff there was familiar with who Lorain was. Nicholas had introduced her to some of them on the days they shared lunch in the hospital cafeteria. She’d met others the time he’d given her a tour of the hospital, while she’d met the majority of them at the hospital’s Memorial Day picnic just that year. He’d invited her, and she’d brought the boys along. The twins had stayed with Eleanor. The boys had had the time of their lives there.
“Well, hello ... Lorain, right?” a nurse stopped Lorain and asked before she could get to the nurses’ unit.
“Yes,” Lorain replied, looking at the nurse’s face, trying to recall the name by face and not the name tag the nurse was wearing. “Jim, right?”
“That’s right,” he said. “Looking for Dr. Wright?”
Lorain had to chuckle inside. She was looking for Doctor Wright all right, never even realizing that God had made it plain and clear by sending her a man with the last name of Wright. Sure, it was a play on words, but God had a sense of humor; oh yes, He did. “As a matter of fact, I am looking for Doctor Wright,” Lorain confirmed.
“You’re in luck. He just got out of a surgery, so he headed outside to—”
“Take a smoke break?” Lorain finished the nurse’s sentence.
“Well, yes. I guess you know the good doctor very well.”
“Yes, I know all about the good doctor’s nasty little habit.”
The nurse leaned in and whispered in Lorain’s’ ear. “Try working on that with him, would you? Doctor Wright is an excellent doctor. I can see him having his own practice one day, and me working for him. But that’s not going to happen if the poor man dies of lung cancer. So try to get him to kick the habit, all right? My future and his are at stake.” The nurse stood up straight and winked at Lorain.
“I’ll do my best,” Lorain assured him.
“Good. You know where the lawn is?” The nurse pointed down the hallway. “Down the hall, go right, second door on your left.”
“Thank you, Jim,” Lorain said, then followed the directions he had given her to find Nicholas.
When Lorain walked outside, she spotted Nicholas standing beside a picnic table where a few members of the hospital staff sat. He was exhaling a puff of smoke. As she walked in his direction, he took one last puff, put the cigarette out, then threw the butt away, all without even noticing that Lorain had approached him.
“Boo,” Lorain said, surprising Nicholas.
“Lorain, honey, what are you doing here?” he asked, hugging her.
Lorain hugged him back, but only with one arm. Her left arm was unavailable, as her left hand was hidden in the pocket of her sky-blue dress slacks. She didn’t want Nicholas to spot the ring just yet. She wanted to tease him a little first.
“Is everything okay?” Although Nicholas was smiling, there was a worried expression somewhat hidden in the background.
“Everything is fine, sweetheart,” Lorain smiled. “I just ... I just decided to drop by to kill some time. Mom is keeping the kids a little longer today.”
“Oh, okay, well, what a surprise. I don’t have much time, maybe five minutes or so—”
“That’s all I need,” Lorain smiled.
Nicholas gave Lorain a peculiar look. “Babe, are you sure there’s not something else going on? You haven’t stopped smiling since you saw me.”
“I guess you just have that affect on me, Dr. Wright. Imagine if I could wake up every morning with a smile on my face.”
“Yea, imagine that,” Nicholas agreed, still not catching on to Lorain’s subtle hint.
Knowing that Nicholas’s time was limited, Lorain decided to just swoop in for the kill. She slowly began removing her hand from her pocket and rested it on Nicholas’s shoulder. “I have been imagining it—me waking up with a smile on my face every morning—and keep it there—all day long. And that’s why—”
“Dr. Wright! Dr. Wright!” a voice yelled from the doorway that Lorain had exited from to meet Nicholas on the lawn.
Every head turned to see Jim with a frantic look on his face. Just then, it was as if everyone’s pagers who were outside began to beep. As they began checking them, the hospital staff scurried inside like their lives depended on it. Obviously, someone’s life did depend on it.
“I’m sorry, baby, I gotta go,” was all Nicholas had time to say to Lorain as he rushed off with the rest of the medical staff.
“I’ll wait for you in the lobby,” Lorain shouted to him.
“Okay,” he yelled back. “I don’t know how long I’ll be though. We’ve got to go prepare for three patients that were just called in by the EMTs. They are on their way to the hospital now. I don’t know what’s going on or how long I’m going to be.”
“I’ll wait as long as I have to,” Lorain assured him before he disappeared behind the door. Just like that, every ounce of excitement Lorain had felt vanished. And just like that, doubt had managed to creep back into her mind.
She looked up. “God, was that you or the devil who interrupted my moment?” she asked. She looked down at the ring and let out a disappointed breath. Lorain figured that either one of two things was going on here; the devil was testing her to see if she would give up, or God was testing her to see if she would give up. Either way it went, as Lorain headed back inside the hospital and went to wait in the ER lobby, she was bound and determined to pass either test. She would not give up.
Chapter Six
“Will you please listen to me?” Unique yelled to the questioning detective that stood over her. “I don’t sell dope.” She looked around the small white room that had one table and three chairs. She’d seen this room before; not in person, but on that show, The First 48 that she’d watched a million times. But never, not ever in her lifetime, did she imagine that she would be one of the people being questioned and interrogated.
Could this really be happening? Is this a dream, or worse, a nightmare? These were the questions that kept attacking Unique’s mind ever since she woke up in a jail cell wearing handcuffs.
For the life of her, she could not recall how she’d gotten there. The last thing she could clearly recall was earlier that morning, her walking up to the crack house where her oldest son’s father hustled. Although it was
only around 10:00 A.M., it was never too early for a hustler to hustle.
She’d knocked on the door and Two-Step, her baby daddy’s flunky, had answered the door. Ironically, he’d been given the name Two-Step because he always remained two-steps behind her baby’s daddy. Unique knew of some pastors who didn’t even have armor bearers that were on the job as well as Two-Step.
“Girl, what you doing up in here?” Two-Step had asked Unique.
“You know exactly what I’m doing here.” Unique looked over Two-Step’s shoulder while scanning the inside of the house. “And so does that no-good baby daddy of mine.”
Two-Step flashed a crooked-tooth, gold-cap-wearing grin. “Which one?” That was his attempt at a low blow.
“Ask your momma. He’s her baby daddy too,” Unique shot back.
That comment turned his grin into a frown. “And you call yourself a Christian,” Two-Step replied, turning his lips up. “You go to church every Sunday and you talking like that.”
Unique put her hands on her hips. “Uh-huh, so if you think this is bad, imagine how bad I’d be if I didn’t go to church every Sunday.”
Two-Step just rolled his eyes while saying, “Wait right here.” He closed the door in Unique’s face but then five seconds later, it opened again and there stood Unique’s baby daddy.
“What’s up?” were the only words he had to say to her as he sucked on a toothpick and tugged on the brim of his Yankee cap.
“Fool, you know exactly what’s up, some money to take care of your son is what’s up.” Unique got loud.
Her oldest son’s father looked over his shoulder at his crew that was busting dominos, playing spades, smoking weed, and drinking alcohol behind him. “Look, don’t be coming up to my place of business trying to cut the fool, Unique.”
“Seriously?” Unique replied. “Your place of business?” She let out a laugh. “This ain’t nothing but a Columbus Metropolitan Housing Unit that some dumb broad and her six children probably live at, that you and your boys pay her to run drugs up out of here and probably run a train on her every now and then too.” Unique knew some awful things were coming out of her mouth, but being back in the hood, being in this atmosphere, being out of her element was starting to get to her. Her baby’s daddy lack of responsibility was starting to get to her.