“Eat, Woman… I can handle this child as long as you need; eat, and go take a nap. I’ll join you once he gets back to sleep and the groceries are put away.”
Calico stood, taking a bite of her sandwich. Should she at least offer to put the groceries away? She glanced back at Romeo, who shook his head at her and pointed down the hall. “Food and sleep. Now, go.”
She took a few steps toward the hall; turned around again. “Go,” he said again. “Because I love you.”
Thirty Nine
Pendleton, Oregon… August 3, 2020
Lovan stretched as he sat up from a long night of sleeping in the car he’d inherited from his grandmother: a Green Gray Metallic-colored 2013 Subaru Forester.
Not that he’d get to drive it for another three years, nearly.
He sighed and looked at his girlfriend’s father, Luther, pleased and thankful that the man been willing to drive him; thankful, too, that he’d been willing to hold the vehicle in his name until Lovan was sixteen.
I can’t believe he done talked me into coming back again so soon, he thought, irritated all over again at having driven half of a Sunday to arrive early to see his father. Not like showing him photos from Grandmama’s funeral gonna help him anyway; all its gonna do is cause a meltdown, maybe, and then I’d have to stay overnight all over again in order to talk to him.
Lovan had thought about staying in a hotel, but what would the point be?
He didn’t have the extra money if he needed to be here more than one night, anyway. It was bad enough he had to pay for most of the gas to get here and back. The money his grandmother had left him was dwindling faster than he expected… another five hundred dollars left, and the rest was college money.
Luther Simengwa stirred and awakened as the alarm on his phone began to beep. He slowly stretched and put on his seat belt, requesting Lovan do the same.
“We should maybe go to the Denny’s over on Tutuilla and have something to eat before they opens, yes,” the man suggested, his wide, square face, black as a cup of coffee – no creamer – crinkling into a smile.
The man’s voice was deep and crisp; the words carefully spoken; articulate, with a thick accent that always put Lovan at ease.
The Simengwas – part of the Lambya people – had immigrated to the United States from the highlands of Lusongo Ward, Kyela District, in the Mbeye Region of Tanzania, near Lake Nyasa – or Malawi – nine years prior. It had taken Luther, his wife Abayomi, and their daughter Kanoni more than three years to get their passports and have enough for passage together to America.
Lovan, for one, was thankful they had.
Once he and Luther got to Denny’s, they ate a quick breakfast and headed back toward the Eastern Oregon Correctional Institute. They passed through the gate at the checkpoint, parked where they were told, and Lovan got out on shaking legs.
“Do you want that I should wait inside for you,” Luther asked him gently, his voice still gruff-sounding from little sleep.
“Naw. I think it’ll be…”
He paused to get the photo album, only half-glad to have remembered it. “I think I can do this one on my own. We early enough it shouldn’t take a very long time, unless my Father gives me another long wait like last time.”
“As you wish,” the man said, beaming at him, his big dark eyes shining. “I will read, then. This will occupy my time.”
Lovan nodded and, walking away, went inside to wait his turn to see his father, clutching the photo album to his chest most of the time.
When his name was finally called and he’d gone through the familiar sequence of doors, he was escorted to the glass-partitioned area.
Thank God for that, he thought, finding a seat toward the back wall where his father would see him quickly. Though it meant Quentin had gotten himself into trouble, for Lovan, it meant they might get through the album in a day instead of waiting yet again for another time.
He waited patiently for about ten minutes, and then, his father appeared.
He warily picked up the phone receiver as Quentin grabbed his own, and said hello.
“So, I brought photos from Grandmama’s funeral and memorial service,” he said, lifting the album into the air for a moment. “I know you’d rather see them up close, but-”
“It’s fine, it’s fine,” his father said curtly. “Jus’… jus’ set the phone down an’ flip the pages. If I gots quest’ins, I’ll keep ‘em ‘til you done.”
Lovan lifted the album again, with care, and set the bottom edge of it on the narrow elbow space the prison provided for visitors.
Opening the book, he counted to ten in his head for each page turn to give his father time to see everything, shut the album again, and picked up the receiver.
Finally, he met Quentin’s eyes, allowing the silence between them to thin out before trying to speak.
There were tears between them, a film to blur the film of the window.
Tears in his eyes, as well as his father’s.
“Thank you,” Quentin finally said, his voice s frail as broken glass. Had Lovan ever heard his father sound like that?
“It’s-”
“I mean it, Lovan, thank you. Will you go back and read them Bible verses fo’ me?”
“Okay,” he replied, his heart slamming in his chest, his eyes watering even more. He could feel a trickle of sweat forming at the back of his neck where he had tied off his braids with a shoelace.
Opening the album again, he found the program from Grandmama’s service and began to read:
“Alright, this first one is from Job, it’s chapter nineteen, verses twenty-three to twenty-seven: “O that my words were written down! O that they were inscribed in a book! O that with an iron pen and with lead they were engraved on a rock forever! For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!””
Lovan stopped to think for a moment, but his father interrupted him.
“What’s the other one?”
He quickly turned to the next page, thankful that his father was even listening to something from the Bible… anything from the Bible. Especially when it was newer than the more antiquated King James Version.
“Actually two more,” he told Quentin. “One in Romans, and one in Revelation.”
“Let’s have ’em then, Lovan. Come on, time’s wastin’.” His father glanced at the clock, then back toward him as Lovan began to speak.
“Well, the one in Romans eight… it looks like… verses fourteen to twenty five. It says: “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.””
Lovan paused for a moment, trying to calm his racing heart before continuing.
How is it, at thirteen, I have to be the adult in this relationship? He be my Dad and I be his son, but why’ve I got all the responsibility? Why he go and do all this stupid….
He caught himself and cleared his throat in an attempt to redirect his thoughts, then allowed the words he read to flow through him. Maybe they were meant for himself as much as for his poor Grandmama. They were her favorite verses, and yet, he had hated them growing up.
““I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the gl
ory of the children of God” he read. “We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.””
He paused to shift his position before resuming. Took a deep breath; let it out; and then a second breath before he continued.
““For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.” And the last one,” he said, “is from Revelation twenty-one, the first seven verses.”
“Well, go ‘head, boy,” his father told him, tears in his eyes again.
“Alright, well, here goes,” Lovan said as he readied for the last passage, trying to keep his own tears in check. “This is some other version. Something called the American Standard Version.”
Why was it he always cried like some baby when he saw his father? Maybe not always when he was meeting with him, but either before, during, or afterward… often all three? It just isn’t fair, God, he thought as he began to read.
““And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth are passed away; and the sea is no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven of God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of the throne saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he shall dwell with them, and they shall be his peoples, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God: and he shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and death shall be no more; neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain, any more: the first things are passed away.””
He paused for a moment to get himself in check before continuing.
““And he that sitteth on the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he saith, Write: for these words are faithful and true. And he said unto me, They are come to pass. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. He that overcometh shall inherit these things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.””
For a few moments, both he and his father were silent as he closed the album again and set it next to him on the floor.
“Thanks, Lovan. I really appreciate it…. Hey,” his father asked all of a sudden, startling him. “How you be getting’ here, anyway, this time and last?”
Lovan hesitated, clearing his throat.
“Hey, um… how’d you get here, anyway, Lovan? A bus? A friend? What?”
“Um… the Dad of a friend, really.”
“Please tell me it isn’t Edward Stuart.”
Startled, Lovan’s eyes widened. “Why would it be Uncle Edward?”
“Uncle Edward,” his father asked him, sneering now. “Seriously? You call that man your uncle?”
“Well, since he’s married to Auntie ‘Loma,” Lovan began.
How could he explain to his father how much Edward and Paloma had done for him? How they had treated him as well as their own children, and made sure he knew Jesus Christ? How they had prayed with him for Quentin, himself, time and again, without any qualms?
How could Lovan explain that he saw Edward as more of a father than the man sitting in front of him would ever be to him?
“Well, whatever. No skin off my nose, that be fo’ sho,” his father replied, suddenly shifting in his seat. “Anyhow, glad you came; thanks, ag’in for showing me the photos. Maybe send a few copies for me, awright?”
Lovan nodded, trying to hold it together.
“Guess I should let you get on outa here. Not like you want to see your ol’ man like dis, anyways, right? All lock up an’ wearin’ a jumpsuit behind no glass?”
Before Lovan could answer, his father hung his side of the phone up and stood, nodded to a guard and went to stand by the door. An officer on his side of the glass tapped him on the shoulder.
“You done here,” the man asked.
He was bald, pot-bellied, with pockmarked skin and kind green eyes.
“Yeah, I guess so,” Lovan said, retrieving the photo album.
Within minutes, he was back in the car with Luther, pulling on his seatbelt, and telling him they could leave.
“Everything is alright,” Luther asked him, his wise eyes seeming to peer right through him.
“Yeah,” he said after a few moments. “Just Pops being Pops. Hasn’t changed a bit, and don’t know that he’s learned anything other than how to live in there,” he continued. “But at least he let me read him some Scriptures this time without naggin’ on me to stop.”
Forty
Perpignan, France… August 9, 1702
Galya awakened to the sounds of an owl near her window, startled from her dream. Her body glazed in perspiration, she gently shook off the coverlet she’d used in the earlier part of the night.
Daylight was approaching, but had not yet risen over the horizon.
A skitter nearby made her freeze.
Was someone else in her room? Her heart began to race, and she pulled the coverlet back on, quickly covering herself again.
“Oui,” she asked, not knowing what else to say that would be understood.
A giggling nearby set her mind to rights.
The children, again? The youngest two had three times come to her room, but it had always been in daylight.
“Oui,” she asked again.
Footfalls came nearer, and she forced herself to open her eyes. she watched as two small forms came to stand at the edge of her bed, their pale blonde hair tumbling over their shoulders in whisps and tangles. She could still hear their giggling; see now their occasional doubling over.
“Come,” she told them, and they jumped on her, laughing loudly now.
Amabel and Adele, who seemed about five and seven, respectively, curled up against her, one on each side, and she sighed.
They had been in her dream, but it was already slipping away. What had then been doing, and why were their faces so gloomy? There had to be an explanation, but she couldn’t formulate it in her mind. She closed her eyes, praying for insight, and lay still as the children fell asleep before succumbing to it, herself.
Sir Gaspar watched Galya as she helped the children gather their chairs into a circle in preparation for their tutoring lesson, and smiled. As happened every Wednesday, they met for their longest day of the week with Alain-Basile before he headed home to spend Thursday and Friday with his wife.
“Galya,” he called to her, trying to figure out the words to say… wishing his mouth spoke as a harp, so she would understand.
The woman moved toward him, her long dark hair a pool around her; loose and unencumbered.
“Oui,” she asked him, smiling hesitantly, her eyes glimmering joyfully to match.
He offered her his hand, and after a moment of hesitation, she took it.
This would be their time. The ten minutes or so before Alain-Basile was ready, but after the chairs were set for lessons.
And each day, she hesitated, took his hand, and smiled.
Today, at least, she smiles before hesitating, he thought, moving her in the direction of his desk, where he had pulled an extra chair up nearby. A vast improvement over the confused smile of the first three days she was here.
During their time, he would write her name and his, and have her write them down afterward. Occasionally, if there was more time, he’d write a word she had learned the day before and have her write it a handful of times to help place it in her memory, as well.
Alain-Basile was good with language, but had made clear to Sir Gaspar at the onset he would not teach an adult woman how to write and spell. “That, Monsieur, will be up to you if you care for her to learn such things. She need not write, as a woman. Especially if she is to wed someone who reads and writes already.”
The words had infuriated him at first, but challenged him, as well. They had set his heart ab
laze with a passion to see Galya learn in whatever ways he thought beneficial to her in the future. If she was ever to be his wife, he knew that reading and writing – even if only a little bit – might well save her life should there be an emergency.
And deep within - perhaps seen in his eyes by others, as much as he tried to hide it – he wished for her to become just that: his wife.
The more time he spent with her… or watching her from afar… the more he became certain of it.
A soft wind was blowing when Sir Gaspar stepped outside to try to calm himself. Alain-Basile was still working with Galya and the children, but was being less than his gentle self today.
There was something going on that he couldn’t quite pinpoint… something that made his insides feel raw and exposed. Ever since Marguerite and her father had left, he’d had a sense that someone in his life was watching him. But was there?
Or was it just his imagination?
Gaspar sighed as he meandered in the direction of the river, glancing up now and again to watch for riders or others who might be out walking. The heat often brought many outside, but this evening as he strolled along, he passed a mere two riders ahorse and nothing more.
Riders on their way, they said, to see about fieldwork in towns close by. Did he know of any?
He didn’t, he’d sadly informed them. “Mais je vous souhaite plein succès dans vos efforts,” he’d told them.
And it was true.
He wished success to each who sought to better themselves with work and therefore become more sufficient in themselves, God-willing.
As he neared the water’s edge, his thoughts turned once more to Galya. She and Marguerite were so different from one another, and so different from Miss Roisin, that he was having difficulty seeing what it was that connected them. The three women he’d truly been attracted to, through and through, were as different from each other as an olive from a turnip.
The Angels' Mirror Pack 2: Books Four through Seven Page 23