by E. N. Joy
Nicholas chuckled as the two walked the hospital grounds. The cool, crisp breeze was a sign that fall was on the way. “Girl, do you know my momma would kill me if I ran off and got married and didn’t give her the opportunity to turn this thing into the biggest shindig ever? Trust me, as a daughter-in-law, she’d never let you live it down.”
Lorain knew Nicholas had a point. Eleanor would be fit to be tied as well if she didn’t get to have her say in the preparations of planning her only daughter’s wedding.
“I’ve got it.” Lorain snapped her fingers. “The two of us can just go ahead and get married on our own, but then we can still have our big reception as planned.”
Nicholas thought for a minute. “Ummm, not the same as having you walk down the aisle and say ‘I do’ in the family church.”
“The family church?” Lorain snapped. “I thought we were going to get married at New Day.”
“Oh, I just assumed since I have an extended family and a church family that could fill a football field, and since my church is bigger, we’d have it there.”
“But, but, it’s not even your church, not really. I belong to New Day. I’m an official member on the books. Don’t you think we should get married at the church at least one of us belongs to, even if that means we have to trim the invite list down?”
“Well, actually, I guess with so much going on I forgot to tell you.” Nicholas stopped walking and Lorain followed suit. “When you and I went through our little breakup, I realized something was missing; something besides you. And I knew that if my life was ever going to be whole, it was going to take more than me just getting a wife. I was going to have to know and learn how to keep a wife. Life itself is hard work when it’s just me to worry about.” Nicholas started walking again, and so did Lorain. “I knew marriage would be hard work as well. And even though I’ve never confessed and dedicated my life to God, I know I didn’t get where I am without Him. So just imagine how much better, and maybe easier, things could have been had I accepted Christ into my life and was under the complete direction of the Holy Spirit.”
Lorain nodded. She’d felt the same way many a time. She frequently imagined how different so many things in her life might have turned out had she placed God in her life earlier.
“All that’s in the past. I’m thankful and grateful for how far He’s brought me in life. But regardless, I know I can’t get to where I’m trying to go without Him,” Nicholas reasoned, “without accepting Him completely—all of Him.
“So, during altar call at my family’s church, I did it. I went down that aisle without hesitation and confessed who I know Jesus to be, and I dedicated my life to Him. Not because my family wanted me to, not because it was the right thing to do, but because I owed it to Him. He gave me my life, literally, so I owe Him mine.”
“Nicholas, that is, that is absolutely wonderful.” Lorain was completely overjoyed inside. God was doing this thing, and He was doing it big. The concern in the back of her mind Lorain once had about marrying a man who hadn’t dedicated his life to Christ as she had done was no longer a worry. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Nicholas started walking again. “Like, I said, so much has been going on. Not only did I get saved, but I joined the church as well.”
“Really?” Lorain was happy, but disappointed that he hadn’t joined New Day all the same.
“Yeah. I know I’ve had my concerns in the past about the size of the church and church folk mentality, but I’m learning that it’s not about me and what I’m comfortable with. It’s about Jesus.”
“Amen to that,” Lorain agreed. “I’m just so happy that you’re a saved man of God. What else can a wife ask for in a husband?”
“I’m glad I’m saved too. As a matter of fact, that’s why Sherrie and I were having lunch that day at the Olive Garden. She was kind of giving me the scoop on what to expect now that I’m saved.”
“Oh my, and I interrupted that, huh?”
Nicholas laughed. “Yeah, well, no worries. She finished it up via Skype from over in Japan.”
“Japan?”
“Yeah, I thought I told you her job sent her there for two months.”
“No, you didn’t. I guess there are a lot of things you didn’t tell me.” Lorain sounded disappointed. Here it was they weren’t even married yet, and already there was an issue with communication.
“Which reminds me, with Sherrie over in Japan, there’s no way we can get married. All my immediate family has to be there, whether it be a courthouse or a cathedral.”
Lorain sighed. It felt like a no-win battle, but she wasn’t about to give up. “Come, on, Nicholas, just think; we’ll be husband and wife. We won’t have to wait months to do husband and wife things.” She winked and shrugged her shoulder. “And besides, now the twins wouldn’t see you just coming and going. You’d be like a real daddy in their lives. You said yourself that over 40 percent of our children grow up in a home without a father. Why should Victoria and Heaven have to live another day as a statistic?” Lorain was going on and on, spilling off one reason after the next why she and Nicholas should forego the big wedding they had planned for next spring and just do it now on a whim.
“Hold up.” Once again, Nicholas stopped walking and shot Lorain a peculiar look. “Why is it that just weeks ago I couldn’t get you to marry me to save my life, and now, all of a sudden, you want to have a shotgun wedding?” He smirked. “You’re not pregnant and trying to set a brotha up, are you?”
“No, silly. Cut it out.” Lorain playfully nudged Nicholas in the shoulder. “It’s just that I realize what I’ve been missing and how we could have long been married now enjoying each other as man and wife. And it’s all my fault.” Lorain was really starting to get worked up as her voice began to crack.
“Oh, baby, come here.” Nicholas pulled Lorain into his arms. “Does this really mean that much to you?”
Lorain nodded her head.
“Then, I don’t know. Let me think about it. Let me pray on it, okay?”
“Really? You would do that for me?” Lorain perked up.
“I mean, the least I can do is just consider it,” he shrugged. “I mean, if it really means that much to you.”
“It does, Nicholas. It really does,” Lorain assured him, throwing her arms around his neck. He had no idea just how much it really meant.
Chapter Thirty-six
“You are free, Ms. Gray,” the judge said, “and this time, we mean it.” The judge winked while banging her gavel. “Court adjourned.”
“Is this really happening this time?” Unique turned and asked Jawan.
“You packed your stuff up before you even came to court, didn’t you?” Jawan asked as Unique replied with a nod. “That was one of the stipulations I made; that this time, you get processed and don’t even have to go back there, not after the devastation it caused the last time. Speaking of which ...” Jawan dug through her briefcase until she pulled out a business card and handed it to Unique. “Here, take this. It’s a friend of mine, a civil attorney. Give her a call once you get situated. I’ve enlightened her on your situation.”
Unique accepted the card, although she was puzzled about why Jawan would want her to contact an attorney. The case was over. Unique never wanted to have to hire another attorney or see another courtroom again as long as she lived. “Thank you, Mrs. Martinez.”
“Call me Jawan,” she insisted.
“Thank you, Jawan, for everything. I mean, I still don’t understand why you did all you did for me.” Unique looked down and shook her head while staring at the card.
“Hey, because us single, young mothers trying to raise all these babies alone have to stick together.”
Unique looked up at Jawan with a perplexed expression on her face. “But you’re not a single mother. You’re married.”
“Yeah, but I’m an alumni. I didn’t always have that fine husband of mine helping me raise my kids.”
Unique was shocked to be learning this inf
ormation about her attorney. All this time she’d pictured Jawan married with kids, never having to struggle a day in her life; never having to beg and do obscene things for child support. “Your kids are not your husband’s?”
“Well, yeah, they are now. He adopted them. The youngest of the children is his and mine together, but the other four—”
“Four? You have five kids altogether?” Unique couldn’t hide her shock if she wanted to, or that tongue of hers. “And I thought I was bad.”
Jawan poked out her lips at Unique.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for that to come out like that,” Unique apologized.
“But, yeah, girl, I started spittin’ ’em out when I was fifteen,” Jawan confessed.
“Wow, fifteen.”
“Yep, and had one every year thereafter like I didn’t have nothing better else to do. And like I didn’t have any sense on top of that.”
“That sounds like me.”
Jawan turned and grabbed Unique by the shoulders and got real serious. “I know it sounds like you. It is you. I am you and thousands of other young girls out there. I’m that chick who got called the ho, the whore, the baby maker; even by my own mother and father.”
“But at least you had two parents in the home.” Most girls Unique knew who grew up in that type of predicament came from single-parent homes.
“Girl, not only did I have two parents in the home, but my daddy was a minister. Okayyy?” Jawan, for the first time ever, was in sista-girlfriend mode with Unique. She knew this was the kind of talk Unique could relate to. And she wanted nothing more right now than to get Unique to be able to relate to her. “My family was fit to be tied when I turned up pregnant. Even tried to talk me into having an abortion a couple of times.”
“Not your father, with him being a Christian and all.”
“Humph, he was sailing the ship. Didn’t want me embarrassing the family and destroying his ministry. I refused to abort my babies though. When I refused to get those abortions, my mother and father tried to instill fear in me. They told me how much it would hurt delivering the baby, how much it would ruin my life, how I wouldn’t amount to anything, how me and my kids were going to live in lack for the rest of our lives, and how my children would repeat the cycle.”
Unique nodded at those all too familiar words. “I hear you. That’s how it is with my family. We’re all in the cycle, and we can’t get out. It’s hard to picture yourself doing something with your life when society tells you you’re nothing but a welfare mom freeloading off of taxpayers. And then when you look around and see the women in your family living the same life, you really start to feel there is nothing else out there for you.” Unique began to tear up. “It’s just this cycle, this curse that you get caught up in and you can’t get out.”
“That’s not true. You can get out, Unique. Look at me,” Jawan said. “I did everything everybody told me I couldn’t do. Heck, I didn’t even want to go to college, let alone go to law school and become a lawyer. But because nobody thought I could do it, I wanted to do it just to prove to them otherwise. Of course, eventually, law became my passion. I guess you could say it became my ministry, because it gives me the opportunity to share myself and my story with so many people, people like you, Unique. All of this that happened to you, baby girl, it wasn’t even about you. It wasn’t even about me. It was about that one thing, that something, that work God wanted to do in somebody. But all I know is that I’ve definitely reaped a benefit. I got to share my story with you, which I don’t do with just anybody now,” Jawan made clear.
“And it seems as though each time I’m led to share my story,” Jawan continued, “it’s like therapy. It’s like this release. It’s this reminder to let me know that I made it, but at the same time, to never forget where I came from. Because if I forget, then how can I tell it? How can I ever be an encouragement for that single mom out there struggling, thinking she’s nothing, nobody, and is never going to be anything?”
Jawan shook Unique gently by the shoulders. “Join me, Unique. Be a part of the story. Let your story be an encouragement to save the next one, and then the next one, so that they may be an encouragement too, if you know what I mean.”
Jawan stood straight up. “Look, I don’t care what anybody says about Fantasia’s song, ‘Baby Mama.’ There are plenty of times when I look back and feel too that it should be a badge of honor. But not until that baby mama does something with herself should she receive the badge of honor. Not until that baby mama gets off welfare. Not until that baby mama stops shacking up with men that are not her husband and having babies knowing they are going to be born in lack. Not until that baby mama has a degree under her belt, a job with career-oriented goals. Not until that baby mama and not some rapper chick becomes her children’s role model. Not until then should being a baby mama be a badge of honor.”
“Not until that baby mama is being who she wants her kids to be,” Unique finished.
“Exactly.” Jawan thought for a minute. “Hey, isn’t that a holiday now or something?”
Unique nodded, but then a tear fell from her eyes. “I hear you, Jawan, and I agree, but I’m not a mama anymore,” Unique reminded her attorney.
“Oh yes, you are. Those are your boys, and they will always live in you. So what you gon’ do, Unique? You gon’ get out of here and go back to doing the same ol’ same ol’? Or are you going to fight? Are you going to fight to be everything somebody told you that you couldn’t be?”
“I’ma keep fighting,” Unique promised.
“That’s my girl,” Jawan said, once again preparing to leave. “I know you can do it. I did it. With the help of God, I did it. And I know on every beat of every last one of my children’s heart that if God did it for me, then ...” Jawan couldn’t even finish her last words she was so emotional.
“I know, I know,” Unique said. “If God did it for you, then He can do it for me.”
Jawan shook her head. “No, God will do it for you. He will, Unique. He will.” Just then, Jawan’s phone vibrated. “It’s the office. I’ve gotta go. They are having a meeting to go over some things about the firm’s new partner.” A huge grin spread across her face. “Yours truly.”
“What? Are you serious? You made partner?”
“Not bad for a former baby mama, huh?”
“Not bad at all,” Unique smiled.
“Anyway, I think it’s safe to leave you this time, but if once they get you in the back and decide to arrest you for something else, you know who to call,” Jawan winked. “But seriously, you take care of yourself, girl.” Jawan gathered her things, and then turned to head out of the courtroom. “And, Unique?”
“Yes,” Unique replied before the guard escorted her away.
“Keep fighting. In the end, you win.”
Unique smiled and nodded as she walked out of the courtroom with the guard. She knew she had to keep fighting because the fight was far from being over. The fight wasn’t over until life was over, and she still had a long life to live. So as long as she was breathing, she was prepared to fight until victory was won.
Chapter Thirty-seven
When Unique was released from jail, there was not a single family member or friend waiting for her and that’s just how she wanted it to be. She’d asked Jawan not call anyone and let them know what was going on. She just needed a minute; some time to gather her thoughts. She didn’t need any of the infamous “Me Time.” She needed some “God Time.”
While in jail, she’d been praying up a storm, but she’d been doing all the talking. Not once had she stopped talking to God long enough to hear whether He had anything to say about her situation. She’d asked him “why” more times than she could count. All the while she thought He wasn’t answering, she simply wasn’t giving Him time to answer before she started yapping off again. But on this day, she would give God all the time He needed with her.
It was early Wednesday afternoon. Unique knew nothing was ever scheduled at the church on
Wednesdays due to Bible Study. More than likely only Pastor and the church secretary would be there, with the exception of any persons Pastor might have set up counseling appointments with. Still, Unique really didn’t want to go to the church either. She knew she could hear God from anywhere. So with the seventy-three dollars she had in her pocket that was left over on her books from jail, Unique went and got a room at the Red Roof Inn. After catching the bus there, she checked into a room, closed the door behind her, and went and took a long, hot shower. Wearing makeshift pajamas she made out of three towels, Unique lay on the bed. She didn’t turn on the television or anything; just lay on the bed feeling clean and refreshed.
“Well, God, I’m all yours,” she said, looking up at the ceiling. “Tell me where to go and I’ll go. Tell me what to do and I’ll do it.” And then she closed her eyes and waited. She waited until God spoke. By the next morning, she knew exactly what she needed to do.
“Unique! Oh my God, girl! What are you doing here? I just talked to Mama, and she said she was on her way up to see you.” Unique’s sister, Renee, was talking ninety miles per hour.
“I’m out. They let me out,” Unique informed her of the obvious.
After a brief moment of awkward silence, Renee pulled Unique in and gave her a hug. “I’m sorry about everything, sis. I’m sorry about everything I said on the phone that day, and I’m even more sorry for holding a grudge and not being there for you and coming to visit you and—”
“It’s okay. Everything is okay now,” Unique assured her. “Look, I, uh, was just wondering if I could still stay here for about a month or so.”
“You can stay as long as you need to,” Renee said, releasing Unique from the embrace.
“No, just about a month—two months at the longest. I just spent the morning filling out apartment applications at a couple of places that go by your income. I’m going to show them copies of my last couple years of tax returns that show the money I made from catering and Mary Kay and stuff.”