Rain in the Promised Land

by Vanessa Miller

  He looked at Elizabeth. She was practically foaming at the mouth. He didn’t know how he would get her inside, let alone to anger management classes, but he would say anything to minimize the drama for his children. “Will do.”

  The officer unlocked the cuffs, took them off Elizabeth, and then turned her around to face him. “If I get another call about a disturbance at this house, I’m taking you to jail. Do you understand?”

  She rubbed her wrist and nodded her head. “I understand.”

  “Good.” The officer left and the Underwood family walked inside the house. Kenneth went to get the broom and dustpan to clean up the mess from the broken window.

  Elizabeth was tired and weary from the struggle. She stood with her back against the door, holding on to the knob.

  Kenneth started sweeping up the glass. Erin and Danae ran to him. Erin, the spokesperson for the duo said, “Daddy, please don’t put Mama out. She didn’t mean to break the window.”

  Kenneth moved his girls away from the glass. “Go play. I need to clean this mess up.” Kenneth watched his girls run into the family room and sit in the entryway, peeking into the foyer. He turned his cold, unyielding eyes on Elizabeth and whispered, “You take the master suite. I’ll sleep in one of the guest rooms.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Your generosity overwhelms me.”

  “I’m not being generous to you.” Kenneth peered around the corner and saw that Erin and Danae had scooted into the hall. “My children have been through enough. Just find a place to stay, Liz. I’ll pay for it until you can get on your feet.”

  “Oh, you’ll be paying long after I’m on my feet.”

  He kept his voice low, but his tone held purpose. “I don’t care, Liz. Whatever it takes to get rid of you, I’m willing to do it.”

  “Who do you think you are?” She pushed herself off the door and got in his face again.

  “Lower your voice.”

  She looked into the hallway and saw Erin watching her. She turned back to Kenneth and whispered, “I made you. Without me, you’d still be in middle management—somewhere being told what to do and when to do it. But look at you.” She waved her hand up and down his physique and sneered, “Mr. CEO, top dog. You think you’ve gotten big enough to forget the bridge that carried your country-behind over?”

  “Liz, I’m not going to tell you again, you need to back off of me.”

  Elizabeth was not intimidated. She pointed her index finger in his face. “If you think I’m going to let another woman come in here and enjoy the fruits of my labor, you’ve got another thing coming.”

  A bitter laugh escaped his lips. “If you think I’m divorcing you so I can have another woman, you’re crazier than I thought.” He sat the broom and dustpan against the wall and stood to his full height. He looked down on Elizabeth. “You, my dear wife, have cursed the institution of marriage. It’ll be a long time before I can even think about putting a ring on a woman’s finger without vomiting.” He turned away from her and walked into the kitchen.

  Elizabeth screamed at his departing form. “If you hadn’t cheated on me, we—”

  Kenneth turned on her. “I guess everything didn’t go the way you planned it after all. Must’ve been a real shock to your system when you realized that I don’t need you to survive, huh?”

  No, Elizabeth hadn’t figured on a lot of things back then. She was only grateful that the grace of God had allowed her and Kenneth to grow up and restore their marriage back to what God had intended it to be. Could she really put all they had built over the years in jeopardy, just so she could sell a few more CDs?

  “I need to talk to you about something that’s has come up. Do you have a minute?”

  “For you?” He gave her a wry kind of smile. “I bet I could squeeze in at least two.”

  Chapter 3

  Isaac and Keith clasped hands, then hugged. They hadn’t seen each other in over a year and the pain of that absence was etched on their faces. “Man, the last time I saw you, you were on the mend from open-heart surgery.” Pure joy exuded from Isaac’s entire being at seeing his friend among the living. They had been through so much together, and Isaac didn’t know what he would have done if he’d had to watch Keith being lowered into the ground.

  Yeah, he understood that death would one day come for both of them and they would enjoy worship and fellowship with their heavenly Father, but he wanted to ride this thing out a little while longer with his boo and them rock-head kids.

  “You’re a sight for these old eyes as well,” Keith told Isaac, with just as much joy in his heart. “It was close there for a minute, but I never stopped believing. Cynda kept telling me that God still had use for me on the mission field.” Lifting his hands heavenward, he added, “I told the Lord that if He could still use me, then I was available.”

  “And I know for a fact that the Lord has use for you, because He has given me an assignment that I can’t possibly complete alone.”

  Keith nodded. “That’s all Cynda and I talked about as we drove down here for Ikee’s graduation. Our boys are grown and thriving in their careers so Cynda and I have decided to move back here so that we can be right in the thick of things with you and Nina.”

  Isaac almost told Keith that he wasn’t sure if Nina was interested in being in the thick of things with him anymore, but he held his tongue. God was well able to make things right with Nina, so he was just going to trust God to do His job. “I can’t believe that you’re leaving Chicago. All I can say is, God just answered one of my prayers, bro.” They clasped hands again and then joined Nina and Cynda in the family room.

  “What are you two grinning about?” Nina, Cynda, and Iona were seated on the sectional. Nina held Judah, Iona’s first-born son, and Cynda held Joseph, the baby boy.

  Cynda was Iona’s mother and technically the grandmother of both boys. However, since Isaac and Cynda had dated many years before and conceived Iona together, Nina was the step grandmother. Iona loved both Cynda and Nina equally and thought of both women as her mothers. Few people could be so blessed to have two loving mothers when so many didn’t even have one that they could count on.

  Isaac had his arm on Keith’s shoulder; the two men had become so in sync with each other that they looked more like brothers than friends. “Keith just told me that he and Cynda are moving back here to help with our street ministry.”

  Nina’s mouth hung slack as she gave Isaac a dumb-founded stare.

  “What did I say?” Isaac asked, clueless as to why his wife appeared so puzzled.

  “Well, first I thought this street ministry was only going to be a local thing. Then you informed me of some plan to tour the nation with your street revivals this summer… okay, I accepted that. But if Keith is moving here to help with this street ministry, then this sounds permanent to me, and I’m just wondering when we will go back to simply ministering in the church that we spent all that money to build five years ago?”

  “Baby, I don’t know why you keep thinking of our street ministry as temporary. We discussed this when I was in the hospital, remember?”

  “Which conversation are you referring to, Isaac?” Nina handed Judah to Iona as she stood. “Did we have this conversation when you were in the hospital recovering after some thugs came to our house trying to kill you and Ikee? Or are you referring to the conversations we had when you were recovering from a bullet that a very disturbed young woman put in you because of the life you lead on the street? Or maybe we had this conversation when I was in the hospital recovering after another thug from your past tried to kill me and your first-born son, Donavan.”

  “You’ve made your point, Nina. Trouble does seem to follow me. But I never lied to you about who I was.” Isaac didn’t want this thing between him and Nina to play out in front of family like this. But she was bound and determined to be heard, so he was going to give her the floor. He sat down and asked her, “If I am not to continue with this street ministry, then can you please explain to me how I can serv
e God, but not do His will?”

  Nina huffed, “Who is going to take care of the church that we built while you’re consumed with this street ministry business?” She said ‘street ministry’ as if they were dirty words, then continued her assault. “You’re not going to lay all of the work of the church at Donavan’s feet. He has enough to handle with the youth ministry and he has a family who needs him at home.”

  “If this is God’s will for us, then everything will work itself out. Just relax, Nina, you’re stressing yourself out needlessly.” Isaac was saddened by Nina’s strong objection to their street ministry. But he wasn’t backing down… he couldn’t. Not even for her.

  Tears filled her eyes as she turned away from the group. “I need a moment,” she said as she escaped to the safety of her prayer room.

  Falling on her knees was not an uncommon thing for Nina, but falling on her knees to pray because she wanted to disobey a mandate from the Lord was something so foreign that she didn’t know how to broach the subject with her Lord and Savior. How could she give an answer to such a thing? They lived to serve God—that had been an indisputable fact from the moment they got married. Was she now telling him not to serve God, or to only offer God whatever service she deemed appropriate?

  Nina couldn’t answer that, so she just let the tears flow and wished that Jesus was right there with her so she could wash his feet with her tears. But she was here by herself, and she had to deal with the nagging fear that something terrible would happen to her family if Isaac kept up with this street ministry.

  “Lord, you know me,” Nina said when she was finally able to speak. “I desire to do Your will and I don’t like standing in the way of others as they do the will of God. But lately, I’m just afraid all the time. We are forever tormented by Isaac’s past, and I don’t understand that because You have cast our sins into the sea of forgetfulness and promised to remember them no more.

  But all of Isaac’s enemies sure seem to remember all of his past sins and they have made this family pay in ways that have simply devastated me. I know what I signed up for when I married Isaac, Lord, but I just didn’t expect it to be this hard.”

  The door to her prayer room opened and Nina heard Isaac say, “Baby, can we talk?”

  But she wasn’t ready to talk yet.

  ~~~~

  “If I didn’t know you better, I’d think you were asking me to dredge up the most horrific time in my life just so you could sell a few more CDs.”

  “You’re joking, right, Kenneth?” Elizabeth held her breath, praying that her husband would, just this once, do what was right for her. She had held off discussing this with him for as long as she could. But contracts needed to be signed and locations needed to be scouted out because there was no way that she was allowing cameras into her home on a regular basis. So today was D-day, and just as she thought, Kenneth was not in a cooperative mood.

  “This is no laughing matter to me, Elizabeth. I’m not going to relive my past just because some reality show producer thinks our life together is too perfect and drama free. Guess what? I like it that way, we worked really hard for many years to get to this point, and now you just want to blow that all up?”

  “I don’t want to blow our marriage up, Kenneth. Don’t be ridiculous. Only a fool would willingly tear down her own house.”

  He pointed at her as if to say ‘ah-ha’. “But we were just that foolish when we were younger. Don’t you remember my burnt clothes, and the two of us literally brawling over who would take the house, right in front of our kids? You might not mind reliving those times, but I don’t ever want to see the man I used to be.”

  She heard her husband and even understood his point, but she was getting frustrated. “Kenneth, you’re missing the point.”

  “And I can’t believe those people want to bring cameras into our shelter. The people coming into this shelter need to be able to trust that we have their best interests at heart, and how much trust would they have after being exploited by some producer who is looking to create sensational television?”

  Throwing up her hands, Elizabeth admitted, “I don’t know what else to do, Kenneth. My CD sales are lagging, so my producer thinks that my career needs the boost that reality TV can give it.”

  Kenneth got up from his desk and moved over to the window where Elizabeth stood gazing out of it as if something else she needed was out there. But she just didn’t know how to get to it. “I know how important this is to you and what it would mean for your career, but I think we both need to take a step back and consider if this is the right move for us.”

  “I feel like I’m losing ground,” Elizabeth told him as she turned to face him.

  Kenneth took her hand in his. “You are one of the top gospel artists in this nation. How on earth could you possibly lose ground just because you pass on a reality television project?”

  “Open your eyes, Kenneth. I haven’t been a top anything in the last three years. I’m happy for Tamela Mann and all the other gospel artists who are having great success right now, but I don’t want their success to cause me to fade away.”

  Shaking his head, Kenneth told her, “I can’t believe the words that are coming out of your mouth. You began singing gospel music for whom?” He put a hand around his ear, waiting on her response.

  “For God,” she admitted.

  “So what if another gospel artist sells more CDs than you? Does that take away from the fact that you sing to honor God?”

  Elizabeth had been told time and time again that her voice was made for gospel music because it was angelic. They’d told her that when she opened her mouth to give God praise, a hush fell over Heaven as God Himself listened to the sweet music as it drifted up to glory. Even though she understood that God wasn’t judging her based on sales numbers like the record executives did constantly, something within her still desired to get back on top and be that number one bestselling, Grammy award-winning gospel artist again. So, needless to say, her wonderful husband didn’t seem so wonderful at the moment.

  Chapter 4

  Isaac and Keith were at the church in the office making preparations for the street revival. Isaac hadn’t anticipated Nina objecting to the street ministry on the basis that it would affect the work of the church’s already established ministries. But the way he saw it, Keith couldn’t have come at a better time because he was now the official director of the street ministry.

  The two men shook on it, and then Keith said, “I never thought I’d be working for you again, my friend.”

  Isaac laughed at that. “At least this time we’re working in a legal enterprise.”

  “That it is… a most Holy and legal enterprise.”

  Just then, Isaac’s secretary rang in to tell him that Calvin Jones wanted to speak with him. Calvin Jones was the head man-in-charge on the streets these days. There wasn’t a deal that went down that Calvin didn’t have his hand in or hadn’t at least blessed, like some sort of honorary god-father.

  “Send him in,” Isaac said, then told Keith. “This one ain’t no joke. Watch my back.”

  “As always,” Keith said.

  The door opened and Calvin walked in. He was thin and only about 5’9. For a kingpin, Calvin didn’t look like much of a threat. But he wasn’t a kingpin because of his brute, the man was smart; he should have been a doctor or on Wall Street making his paper. But he’d been born to some dope fiends who could barely feed themselves, let alone send some kids to college.

  Isaac had been praying that Calvin would come out of the life before the Feds got tired of recording his conversations and filming his every move. He might be a kingpin in the street, but he’d be another man’s girl behind those bars.

  “Hey, Pastor Walker.” Calvin was all smiles as he stepped up to Isaac and shook his hand.

  Isaac wasn’t fooled by the smile. Calvin might not be much of a fighter, but he was hot-headed and let his pistol fight his battles. “This is Minister Keith Williams,” Isaac said, making the introd
uctions.

  Calvin turned to Keith with a grin that was almost too big for his baby face. “I finally meet the side kick who is just as legendary as the man himself.” Calvin clasped hands with Keith. “Good to meet you.”

  “Likewise,” Keith said, and then moved to the back of the room to wait and watch.

  What can I do you for, young man?” Isaac asked.

  “I’m not so young no more, Pastor. I turned thirty yesterday.”

  “Well praise the Lord. Not everyone in your line of work makes his thirtieth birthday.”

  “Don’t I know it. I buried two of my brothers last year. I got one more left, and he just went to prison.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. I lost a brother and many friends when I was in the life. So I know that kind of pain.”

  Calvin stepped back and looked Isaac over as he said, “You the only preacher I ever heard that talks so freely about being in the game.”

  Isaac shrugged. “It’s a part of my past… can’t do nothing about that, but my hope is that others will learn from my cautionary tale.”

  Keith was still leaning against the wall in the back of the room, watching the exchange and praying for the young man like he’d never felt the need to pray for any other hustler he’d come in contact with in recent years.

  “What’s so cautionary about it? You used to be the man. Didn’t nobody mess with you. You had it just like I got it on these streets, and then you just walked away from it all. And you still living large.”

  Isaac shook his head. “No, young man, I’m living for God. That’s it and that’s all.”

  Calvin lifted a finger as if he’d just remembered something. “That’s what I stopped by to talk to you about.”

  “Have a seat.” Isaac pointed toward the lounging area of his office. He then turned to Keith. “Why don’t you join us over here.”

  Keith nodded, then sat in the chair to Isaac’s left.

  Isaac smiled at his old friend. Even when Keith was his lieutenant, he had been a man of few words, preferring to listen and observe. This ability of Keith’s had saved Isaac’s neck more than once, so he let the man handle his business in the manner he saw fit.