From Sinner to Saint

by Jones, Janice

  Trina suggested it was God talking to Antonyo through his dreams, insisting his initial decision to stay out of the lives of both Clarke and the baby was wrong. Antonyo, having no solid relationship with God, was unsure if it was Him or not. He only knew the dream shook him to his core and rocked loose his previously solid notion of simply cutting out on Clarke and the baby. Perhaps it was God. It seemed to Antonyo that God did have an odd way of getting his attention. For instance, the way He used the absolutely lovely Minister Keisha Hearn to get him to hear the things his own mother could not.

  While he would never admit this to Trina, he had started attending church services with his mother more often over the past few months because he was sure this was the one place he would run into Keisha. Coincidentally, Antonyo saw Minister Keisha for the first time on the same day Clarke announced her pregnancy to him. He wondered now, as he thought back, if God had anything to do with the way that worked out.

  During his time in Sunday services, Antonyo would scope out Minister Keisha within the sanctuary and spend a majority of his time focusing on her rather than on Pastor Mitchell’s message—although it became obvious after service that he had actually heard more of the lesson than he realized. During the ride home with his mother and sometimes Clarke, he was able to hold up his end of the discussion regarding the sermon.

  Antonyo often fantasized about being with Keisha, then found himself feeling guilty—condemned, if you will—for having such thoughts about a woman of God. Antonyo did not attend church every Sunday like his mother did, but he made it his business to be there every second Sunday, which was Youth and Young Adult Sunday, just so he could hear Keisha either preach or be in charge of the services in some way. On the Sundays she did actually give the message, Antonyo always felt as if the Word she delivered had been written especially for him.

  One message in particular, where she preached about presenting one body as a holy, living sacrifice to God and making reference to treating one’s body like a temple, especially pricked his soul. On this Sunday, Keisha quoted one biblical scripture after another about sexual immorality and God’s view on the like. Antonyo sat in his seat that morning feeling pretty unaffected by the moral lecture, yet still unusually fascinated. He wanted to believe Minister Keisha knew his character and had designed her message to let him know she had been paying special attention to who he was and what he was about. The two had been introduced by his mother at the previous week’s service.

  For the first time in all the years since he had become a self-proclaimed player, Antonyo found himself doubtful as to whether he could actually woo and win the attentions of a female. Keisha Hearn was strong, intelligent, and clearly saintly, the latter quality being the major cause of his skepticism. Minister Keisha Hearn was the first female Antonyo had met that he actually considered out of his league. Antonyo believed Keisha to be very dedicated to the work she did for God, leaving very little space for a sinner such as himself. Until he gave himself to the Lord and changed his lifestyle, as his mom had so eloquently put it over and over again, he could forget about getting next to the beautiful minister on any level. He had decided to be content with simply ogling her from his seat in the sanctuary.

  But just because he could not get next to that one woman didn’t mean his desire for women other than the mother of his child had waned. As his time spent living with Clarke had increased, so did his longing to leave. Too afraid, however, to be looked at as a clone of his irresponsible father, Antonyo continued to cohabitate with Clarke. That soon became as far as his commitment to her would go.

  During the wee hours of the morning when Antonyo finally made it to the bed he shared with Clarke, an overwhelming guilt consumed him. He slept fitfully and his dreams were initially filled with visions of Sheldon grinning, giving him the thumbs-up sign, and singing, “That-a-boy, my son.” Then suddenly, those dreams were replaced by the calming voice and beautiful face of Minister Keisha saying, “God will forgive you and give you peace if only you just ask Him.”

  Antonyo awakened that morning feeling thoroughly conflicted and confused. On the one hand, he wanted so desperately to be out of this commitment he had made to Clarke. On the other hand, he never, ever wanted to be anything like Sheldon. And then there was God. On what hand was he supposed to put Him? Antonyo thought about seeking the advice of Minister Keisha on a purely spiritual level, but only for a moment. He quickly rejected the idea because he knew before long into any counseling session they may have, he would be flirting with her. Astonishingly, even to him, Antonyo had too much respect for Minister Keisha to disrespect her in that manner. It was another first for him to be attributed to the attractive woman of God. To himself, though, he pondered about God and what it was He expected from the likes of him, until he finally fell back asleep.

  For a few weeks after this dream, Antonyo again tried to remain on the straight and narrow. He went to work, came home and gave Clarke his undivided attention. The attention may not have been devoted, but undivided nonetheless. Then a ghost from his recent past resurfaced, enticing him with both her beauty and her material goodies.

  Antonyo, needing some time away from his self-suffocating commitment, decided to take a drive to his favorite relaxation spot, Belle Isle. He parked his car away from the busy strip where he would usually go to flirt and meet women, and instead chose a spot of serenity facing the river and an absolutely beautiful view of Canada.

  After he had been sitting for about an hour, someone knocked on the car window. He was so deep in deliberation about his current state of discontent that he didn’t even notice the interruption. The second knock startled him from his muddled thoughts. The familiar face framed by the glass, smiling broadly, brought about a frightened reaction. He reflexively recoiled.

  “Lynn! What the—? Are you stalking me?” Antonyo asked after he rolled down the driver’s side window.

  “Man, ain’t nobody thinking about you like that. I just happened to see your car parked over here while me and my girls were on our way over to the strip,” Lynn said as she gestured toward her Mercedes filled with three additional attractive women. “I figured it would be rude to not stop and at least say hello.”

  While Antonyo could never accuse Lynn of being a flat-out liar, she definitely held the heavyweight title in the scheming manipulator category. Because of this, he could not be sure if this intrusion was chance or planned.

  “Sure. Whatever you say, Lynn. What do you want?”

  “Ugh. What a nasty attitude you have this afternoon. What’s wrong? Trouble at home with the little lady? Or perhaps I should say big lady, since she is with child.” Lynn was so multi-faceted. One moment she could be “ackin’ skrate ghetto,” and in the very next moment, she could become the picture-perfect image of class and sophistication. Then there were the times like now, when she could combine both worlds.

  Antonyo rolled his eyes at his former lover’s comments, wishing she were not so dead on point. “Lynn, just go away. It looks as if your girls are over there anxiously awaiting the opportunity to hit the strip so they can get their ho on,” he said as he gestured with his head toward the car full of women.

  “Ugh again. My girls are not hoes, Tony.” Lynn then did what Lynn did best; she became assertive. She boldly walked around the car, opened the passenger’s side door, and flopped her tail into the front seat of Antonyo’s car. “Look, Tony, I know we are no longer hanging out or kicking it like we used to, but I would like to think we are still friends. Or at least we could be. So tell me what has you so down that you are hanging out by yourself at Belle Isle over here instead of over at the strip, chasing tail like you normally do.”

  “Lynn, I am not hanging out on the strip because I am no longer interested in chasing tail. You may act a little slow, but I’m sure you remember that I have a woman now.” His sullen tone said more to Lynn than his words conveyed.

  Suddenly, she hopped from his passenger’s seat, announcing quickly, “I’ll be right back. Don
’t move.” Lynn raced to her car, spoke a few words to her girls, then raced back to Antonyo’s car as one of her friends hopped from the passenger’s side into the driver’s seat of her Mercedes and drove away.

  When she got back into his car, Antonyo asked, “Why did you send your girls away without you? You should have left with them, Lynn, because I am really not in the mood to deal with you right now.”

  “Poor, pitiful Tony. See, I told you when you made that whack declaration of monogamy you would end up miserable without me.”

  Antonyo wanted badly to refute Lynn’s statement, but he could not. He truly was miserable. If he were totally honest with himself, he would have to admit that, in part, Lynn was correct in stating that he missed her. Antonyo knew that devilish temptation fueled what he now thought, but did Lynn actually look more beautiful than the last time he’d seen her?

  “Lynn, you are right about my missing you.” He would not concede to being miserable, but in order to get back in her good graces, he figured he should at least throw her a bone.

  Lynn smiled as if Antonyo had just crowned her Miss Black America. “I miss you too, boo, and I’m available any time you need me to help wipe that sorrowful look from your beautiful face.”

  Man, Antonyo thought. He still had the magic. Jumping right back in the proverbial saddle, and also Lynn’s bed, would be a lot easier than he could have imagined. Though feeling a slight pain of guilt and hearing Minister Keisha’s voice of warning in his head, Antonyo decided to follow his own mind and jump right back in to a full-fledged affair with Lynn.

  From that moment until just a few hours ago, he would be with Lynn and help her spend her plethora of loot while doing fun-filled and exciting activities together. She was also generous enough to spend quite a bit of dough on his then pending and now newborn daughter, LaToya. Nearly every time he came near Lynn, she presented him with something new and wonderful for his child. Antonyo had, of course, passed the beautiful gifts off to Clarke as things he had purchased himself.

  But now, as he stared at LaToya, the gorgeous little mini replica of both him and Clarke, his heart broke. His soul ached because his baby would never know the security found in a two-parent household. Antonyo would never fall in love with Clarke, and he knew it beyond a shadow of a doubt. In fact, he doubted he would ever fall in love with any one woman. So, in fairness to himself, and heck, he rationalized, even to Clarke, he would have to walk away from the commitment he had made. It just would not be right to go on living with Clarke simply for the sake of baby LaToya, while cheating on Clarke the entire time. Now was as good a time as any to tell Clarke, he figured.

  “Clarke, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for my precious angel of a daughter. She has instantly become the love of my life,” he began as he continued to gaze upon his child.

  Clarke smiled broadly at Antonyo’s admission. She felt her heart open to receive the love she knew he would establish for her once their daughter was born. Clarke had put up with the pain of knowing that Antonyo never truly loved her in the beginning only because she knew this moment would eventually happen. She braced herself in her bed, anxiously anticipating the words she had longed for since meeting Antonyo.

  Antonyo looked in Clarke’s eyes. The pure joy he saw there made him hesitate. Did he really have it in him to destroy the woman who had just given him the greatest gift he had ever received? Maybe, just maybe, he could hang in there for a little while longer, perhaps until his daughter at least turned a year old. He mulled the possibility over in his head for a few brief moments. He looked down at his daughter and then said, “Clarke, I want out of this relationship. I have tried to do the right thing by you by being in this commitment with you and living with you, but it has just been too much for me, for who I am as a person. I am simply not ready to be in a monogamous relationship.”

  The pain of Antonyo’s words severed Clarke’s heart in two. The force of the blow he delivered rendered her unable to speak. She sat silently in the hospital bed, grateful that she was not holding her daughter. She was completely shaken by Antonyo’s admission. Still, there was more for her to hear.

  “I feel I need to be honest with you in fairness to us both. I have not been faithful to our relationship. There have been a couple of times that I have been with other women, and for a while now, I have been hanging out with Lynn.”

  This latter part of Antonyo’s disclosure did not surprise or even further devastate Clarke. This she suspected. This is how it started out for them. This she was used to. But what had happened in the short span of time between his initial holding of his daughter and just a few seconds ago? Clarke had been two-hundred percent sure that when Antonyo thanked her for his child he had also opened his heart to her. Obviously, she had mistaken his outpouring of gratitude for a non-existent seal of his love for her. Now she felt utterly foolish. The proof of her stupidity began flowing from her eyes.

  Antonyo had never felt this bad for a female in his life, not even Claire, and he had slept with both her and her daughter. Clarke, however, was the mother of his own daughter. He wondered if this new emotion this woman evoked in him could be equated with love. No way, he realized quickly. What he felt was an overwhelming sense of guilt. Plain and simple!

  “Clarke, I apologize. I do. I hate seeing you cry like this, but if I stayed, I would only cause more pain for both of us. I’m not happy, and I can’t make you happy. You deserve better than what I can offer you. I hope you won’t let this affect my building a relationship with my daughter, because I love her more than anything. I know I have a lot of nerve asking for anything from you right now, but please don’t do that to her or to me.”

  Clarke’s pain provoked in her a strong desire to retaliate against Antonyo. She saw how much he loved his child, and that provided an easy avenue for her to be vindictive. Maliciousness had never been her style, but then again, neither had gullibility—until she met Antonyo. She warred internally between what she wanted to do and what she knew she should do; between who she was, who she had become, and who she wanted to be.

  Never bothering to check the raw pain that flowed from her eyes, Clarke gestured for Antonyo to hand her the baby. She stared at her daughter, the child whom she thought could seal happiness for her, and realized that she would be a horrible parent for stealing any happiness from her. Clarke loved Antonyo, but she was an intelligent, goal-oriented woman before she met him. With or without him, she recognized, she could be that again. LaToya represented in her something that had changed her forever. No matter where her daughter lived, no matter what her daughter did, no matter if her daughter loved her or not; even if her daughter died, Clarke would now and forever be a mother.

  “All right, Tony. I get it. It’s over between us,” Clarke stated while still crying audibly. “As you can see, it hurts to accept it, but I do. I have my daughter to buffer my pain. I have to move on and learn to be okay because I owe her my best. I believe that God has given her to me for just this reason.”

  Antonyo bristled at the mention of God. He was certain of two things more consciously at this moment than at any other in his life: one, he loved his daughter and would do all in his power to be a better father than Sheldon, and two, God was not pleased with him right now. He also harbored a little confusion in the awkwardness he felt. When had Clarke become so tuned in to God?

  His concerns remained unvoiced. Clarke continued to speak. “It is also obvious that being a father has sparked a positive change in you, so I won’t stand in the way of you having a relationship with our daughter. It is probably better that she start her life with the routine of our co-parenting in separate households than you walking away from us after she has gotten used to us being together as a family.”

  Antonyo was elated with Clarke’s decision. He was prepared to fight her tooth and nail to have a relationship with his daughter if he had to, but at least for now, that would not be necessary. Gratefulness covered his features. “Thank you, Clarke.”

&nb
sp; “Thank you too, Tony.” Her tears had lessened, making it easier for her to continue in their conversation. “Tony, I want LaToya to spend a lot of time with your mother. I want her to grow up learning about God and building a relationship with Him from her earliest understanding. I don’t want her to be deprived for as long as I have because she didn’t know any better.”

  “I’m sure my mother would love to spend time teaching her granddaughter all about God,” Antonyo said as he reached for the baby to hold while he spent just a few more minutes in Clarke’s hospital room.

  “Clarke, you can keep the apartment. The lease is paid for the next five months. I’m sure you can find a job by then to cover the rent, or you can move out if you want and find a different place. I will help you financially with LaToya, so I know you will be able to manage.” He handed the baby back to her mother just as the nurse walked in, needing to check on Clarke. “I’m going to go now and get some stuff to take back to my mom’s, but I want to come back later to see her. Hopefully I will get a chance to feed her. I’ll also be here to drive you both home when they release you.”

  “That should be tomorrow morning, sir, as long as mother and baby continue to do well,” the nurse interjected.

  “Okay, cool. I’ll see you both later.” Antonyo left the hospital room feeling lighter and freer than he had in months. Guilt still hung around just a bit because he knew he had caused Clarke a great heartache. It had, however, released its suffocating hold on him, choosing instead to just squeeze his hand every now and then.

  Clarke watched him leave, knowing that, while she still felt an incredible pain, she, too, was somehow lighter and freer as well.