The Playboy's Redemption

by Vanessa Miller

  “Poor Shawn, he probably thinks that he’s getting ready to be a full-time dad to not just Imani, but all three of his children.” She started to laugh, but as she glanced over at Imani’s sleeping form, she remembered that the reason Shawn would now have his daughter was because her mother was dead—and that was no laughing matter.

  Isaiah’s phone rang. He looked at the caller ID on his cell and then told Lily, “It’s Ramona, I need to take this.”

  “Go right ahead, just hand me the remote.”

  He passed the remote to Lily and then answered his phone. “Hey baby, what’s going on? You missing me already?”

  Lily smiled as she changed the channel to the cooking network. Her love affair with Shawn didn’t work out, but she was always happy to hear the sound of love in the tone loving people used when talking to each other. As she watched a chef she’d never seen before on the cooking network, chop this and stuff that, she caught bits and pieces of Isaiah’s conversation.

  He and his wife were discussing the foundation that he’d set up. Lily thought that the members of the Morrison family were doing God’s work on earth by unselfishly giving up their birthright so that others could receive help in their time of need. Shawn had been the only hold out in the family. She simply didn’t understand why he would refuse to help the needy… when he already had so much.

  Isaiah hung up the phone and said, “Sorry about that. Ramona likes to run things by me before she makes the final decision on certain organizations that are in need of support.”

  “I think what you all are doing to help others is a wonderful thing. I just don’t understand why Shawn would refuse to do the same,” Lily expressed her opinion on the matter openly.

  “I haven’t been in a giving mood since the day you left me.” Shawn hobbled into the room with just one crutch under his left arm. He sat down on the sectional with the baby between him and Lily and said, “So, if you want me to do this wonderful thing, I suggest you come back home where you belong.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Once Shawn woke up, Isaiah and Lily spent a half an hour convincing him that Lily had nothing to do with Paris’s death. They then spent another hour trying to get him to agree to go back to the police station and tell them everything that occurred on the day Paris was murdered. The hold up on the agreement was not because Shawn didn’t want to provide any and all evidence necessary to find the person who killed Paris, but now that he was positive that Lily wasn’t involved, he wanted to milk this thing a little while.

  The agreement took place once Lily agreed to stay at his house and help him with the baby for three days… just long enough to give his knee a chance to heal. Shawn was also hoping that three days would be long enough for him to convince Lily that he was a changed man.

  Isaiah stood up. “I’ll call Melvin Cotrell and ask him to arrange a meeting with Detective Jones so you can help him with the investigation.”

  “Thanks man; just see if they can come to the house tomorrow afternoon.”

  “I’ll make sure that Melvin informs Detective Jones that you have an injured knee.” Isaiah then walked to the front door with Shawn trailing him on the crutch. When Isaiah reached the front door he turned back to his brother and asked, “So will we see you at Daddy’s eighty-fifth birthday party next week?”

  “So what are you saying? You actually want me there? When I showed up at Elaine’s birthday party, you acted like I stole something from you.”

  “You had,” Isaiah said without raising his voice.

  Shawn lowered his head. “I’m sorry about that, bro. I was young and stupid. But I never thought you were going to marry her. If I could take it back, I would in a heart beat.” Shawn and Isaiah had been very close. When he couldn’t turn to anyone else in his family, Shawn had always been able to tell Isaiah about the things that concerned him. That summer when he’d come home for a visit during his senior year in college, Shawn had wanted to tell Isaiah that his girl kept coming on to him. But somehow loyalty got misplaced by youthful lust.

  If nothing else, Paris dying so young had taught him that life was too short to leave things unsaid or undone. Shawn was now more determined than ever to redeem himself with Isaiah and Lily.

  When Shawn lifted his head to look at his brother and continued to plead his case, tears were streaming down Isaiah’s face and Shawn felt even worse. This was his big brother, a man who Shawn had always looked up to for his convictions and his strength… and he was standing in his foyer crying. “I never meant to hurt you, bro. You just don’t know how sorry I am.” Now tears were streaming down Shawn’s face.

  Isaiah grabbed his brother and hugged him. “I can’t keep letting this come between us. I love you, Shawn.”

  “I love you too, Isaiah. Please, please forgive me,” Shawn begged.

  Isaiah released his brother, stepped back and wiped the tears from his face. “You are forgiven, little brother. I’ll see you next weekend at the birthday party.” With that, Isaiah opened the front door and jumped into the waiting cab.

  Shawn stood on the porch waving goodbye to Isaiah. He kept waving until the cab had turned out of his long driveway. Coming back into the house, he closed the door and leaned against it. His brother had forgiven him. Just the thought of what occurred in his foyer brought fresh tears to his eyes.

  “That was beautiful.”

  Shawn quickly wiped his eyes and turned to see Lily leaning against the wall. In a playful mood, he smiled and said, “If I would have known you’d be lurking around, sticking your nose in my business, I wouldn’t have asked you to stay.”

  Lily smiled back. “Oh you didn’t just ask us to stay, you practically blackmailed me. But if you don’t want us here, me and the boys can make our way home.”

  Shawn grabbed his crutch and made his way over to Lily. “Oh no, baby, a deal is a deal. You are stuck with me for three days.”

  “I might have agreed to stay, but I didn’t agree to do all the work.” She lifted a bottle in the air. “Imani is ready to eat. So, big daddy, it’s time for you to get acquainted with your daughter.”

  They walked back into the family room. Shawn sat down on the couch and Lily put his little girl in his arms. “Wow,” Shawn said, “It’s been so long since the boys were this small, that I didn’t remember what a three-month-old baby felt like.” She was so cuddly that Shawn couldn’t resist bringing her up to his chest and wrapping his arms around her. It was at that moment Shawn realized that he hadn’t just wronged Lily and Isaiah, but in these last few months, he had been wronging his daughter every day of her young life. He turned to Lily and admitted, “I wish you were her mother.”

  Lily didn’t respond. She just handed him the bottle.

  He took the bottle and began feeding Imani as he continued speaking his heart to Lily. “I have no right to ask you to be a part of our lives, because I know I messed up—”

  “Yeah, you messed up all right, buster.” Lily cut into Shawn’s tender moment.

  Okay, she wasn’t going to make this easy. But he wasn’t going to give up, either. “Look Lily, you and I weren’t even together when I went out with Paris. You had walked out on me, remember?”

  “Oh, I remember. Do you remember the woman who claimed that you fathered her child?”

  “And I told you when the court papers came that I didn’t know that woman. You wouldn’t listen. Left me and when it was all said and done, the woman turned out to be some loon that had only dreamed about being with me.”

  “Okay, well that woman might have been crazy, but you also had to take a paternity test when we first got together. Do you remember that?”

  Imani was going to town on that bottle of milk. Shawn watched his daughter’s jaws work for a moment and then said, “You and I had just gotten serious when my ex-girlfriend claimed I was the father of her baby. I told you about the situation and you said you would stick by me.”

  “I was pregnant when Tracey claimed you were her child’s father. What did you expec
t me to do?” Imani was sucking air. Lily got up and took the bottle away from Shawn. “You can’t let her suck air.”

  “Oh, sorry about that Imani, girl. Daddy will get the hang of all this soon enough.” He had, too. Because as angry as Lily still was, he couldn’t promise his daughter that she would be getting a new mommy any time soon. He lifted Imani onto his chest and began burping her. At the same time he said to Lily, “I always thought you stayed because you loved me. I mean if it wasn’t about love, then what was it about, Lily—the money?”

  She stood back up, getting ready to let Shawn have it, when Shawnee and little Isaiah came barreling into the room, one driving a jeep and the other a Hummer.

  Lily watched her children having the time of their lives playing with toys that cost more than her monthly mortgage. And she had to admit, if only to herself, that Shawn’s wealth had played a part in how long she had stayed with him. “I’m going to the kitchen to make dinner,” she said as she walked out of the family room.

  In the kitchen, Lily was yet again reminded of the difference between the haves and the have-nots. From the granite island to the specially designed and handcrafted red oak cabinets, everything in Shawn’s kitchen spoke of his considerable wealth. Lily had grown up on food stamps and government cheese. Her mother had worked two jobs in order to provide for the four children her alcoholic husband had neglected to take care of when he left her for one of his coworkers.

  A devout Christian, Lily’s mother would pray continually about their situation and tell them that God was going to turn things around. But Lily wasn’t interested in the slow turnaround that her mother had been prepared to wait on. So as she grew up, and men became interested in her, Lily swore she would never fall in love with a man who wasn’t financially secure.

  Taco salad was on the menu tonight. Something quick and easy. She pulled the hamburger out of the fridge, put the meat in the skillet and then turned on the stove. Opening a cabinet, Lily pulled out a packet of taco seasoning. Before closing the cabinet door she looked around and noted that the cabinet was full to bursting with canned goods and bags of rice and beans of numerous variations.

  When Lily was a kid the one thing she hated most was beans. She’d sworn that she would never eat any of those nasty beans her mother was always fixing. But one day hunger pains ripped through her body and sent her to the kitchen in search of something, anything to eat. The cabinets were bare in her house. She couldn’t simply take a pack of meat out of the fridge, because there wasn’t any food there, either. The only thing to eat in the house that day was a pot of red beans that her mother had fixed. Feeling as if she would die if she didn’t put something in her stomach, Lily grabbed a bowl and scooped some of those beans into her bowl. She sat down at the kitchen table, took a huge gulp while trying to convince herself that red beans wouldn’t kill her.

  She dipped her spoon into the concoction and then brought the spoon to her mouth. Her stomach moaned from hunger again, so she opened her mouth and swallowed the dreaded beans. But once her tongue got a taste of the beans, Lily realized that she liked them. She ate the entire bowl of beans and then went back for a second and third helping. By the time her mother opened the back door and entered the kitchen, Lily was turning the pot up, draining the juice out of the empty pot.

  Her mother had laughed and told everybody she could that, ‘the girl who doesn’t eat beans, not only eats beans, but will clean the pot afterwards’.

  Her mother had thought the whole ‘turning the pot over, and scraping the juice out of it, just so she could fill up after going hungry for two days’ thing was funny. But in truth, that incident had set Lily’s find-a-rich-man plan in motion. By the time she was sixteen, Lily flat out refused to date any guy who didn’t have a job and a plan for getting out of the low income neighborhood they lived in.

  When none of the neighborhood guys could measure up, Lily began looking for men in other circles. She’d met Shawn at a party that a lot of groupies and well connected women attended, hoping to land a rich guy. Shawn Morrison had everything Lily had been looking for: He was handsome, famous and rich. To guarantee that she would never go hungry again, Lily would have married him in a heartbeat. The only problem with her plan was that she had fallen in love with Shawn, and he had broken her heart over and over again.

  Funny thing was, now she would gladly take a poor man, if only he would promise not to break her heart.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Sunday morning, which was the second day that Lily had agreed to stay at Shawn’s house to help him with Imani while he rested his knee, she got up and went to church, just as if it was any other Sunday. God was her source and Lily would never lose sight of that fact again.

  After leaving Shawn and then giving her life to Christ, Lily had struggled with thoughts of being poor and praying for food to feed her children just as her mother had done so many times after her father left them with nothing. But God had lovingly shown her scriptures, such as Psalm 37:25, which states: I have been young, and now am old; yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.

  That scripture, along with so many others, had given Lily hope and now as she sat in church listening to her pastor preach from Psalm 49, Lily was reminded about something else. She was no longer fearful about living in poverty, for she had found her source of joy. And now she understood how her mother could look at bare cabinets and an empty refrigerator, bow down and pray for food and then get up with a smile on her face. Because money isn’t the answer… trusting in God is what brings hope and joy to people.

  Lily now understood that as a child she only went hungry that one day she’d refused to eat those beans. But by day two when her hunger pains hit and she dropped her pride, her belly was full and satisfied. So, although her family may not have had everything they wanted, God had made sure that all their needs were met… and that was enough.

  After leaving church, Lily rushed back to Shawn’s house. She would be leaving to go back home tomorrow night, so there was no time to waste. Lily was determined to help Shawn understand her truth, why she no longer trusted in his riches, but in God.

  Shawn was in the family room with his leg propped up, watching the boys play with a train set he purchased for them last Christmas. Lily rushed into the room carrying her Bible.

  “Good morning,” Shawn said as she sat down next to him. “I didn’t get a chance to thank you for breakfast, or dinner either, for that matter. You made the best taco salad I’ve ever had and then scurried off before I had a chance to wipe my mouth and say thanks.”

  “I wasn’t in the mood for company last night.”

  “Are you in the mood for company this morning?”

  “Yes, but first I want to talk to you about something… show you something,” she said while handing him her Bible. “Can you please read Psalm 46:1-8?”

  “What’s this about?” Shawn asked hesitantly.

  “Well, I wanted to admit something to you.” Shame for the girl she once was crossed her face for a moment, but then she allowed the blood that Jesus shed for her to wash it away. “Last night when you asked me if I had stayed with you because of the money, I got offended.”

  “I should have never said anything like that to you, Lily. I know you’re not that kind of woman.”

  “You were right, Shawn. I had put up with a lot of things that you did to me because I was afraid of being poor. I grew up poor and didn’t want to live that way as an adult.” She looked over at her sons’ smiling faces as they laughed and played with things that she had only dreamed of playing with when she was a kid. She was thankful that they were on the other side of the family room and couldn’t hear what she and Shawn were saying, but even so, as she admitted her next sin, she lowered her voice. “I lied to you about being on birth control when we first got together. That’s why I ended up pregnant with Shawnee only three months into our relationship.”

  Shawn leaned back as if the wind had just been knocked out of him. “So
you never loved me? I thought you were different from Paris, but I was just a payday to you also, huh?”

  She shook her head. “That’s not true, Shawn. I don’t deny that I was over the moon because you were interested in me and you were rich… but I fell in love with you. I wanted to be with you more than anything. But you broke my heart over and over again. And that’s when I realized that money and wealth just weren’t enough.” And if you’ll read those scriptures, you’ll see what I’m talking about.”

  As Shaw turned away from Lily, anger and disappointment etched across his face. He lowered his head and began reading Psalm 49.

  Hear this, all ye people; give ear, all ye inhabitants of the world: both low and high, rich and poor, together. My mouth shall speak of wisdom, and the meditation of my heart shall be of understanding.

  I will incline mine ear to a parable: I will open my dark saying upon the harp. Wherefore should I fear in the days of evil, when the iniquity of my heels shall compass me about?

  They that trust in their wealth, and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches; none of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him: for the redemption of their soul is precious, and it ceaseth forever.

  Once Shawn finished reading those verses, he looked up at Lily with questioning eyes.

  “The day I decided to leave you, my mother had asked me to read those scriptures. And at that moment I finally faced the fact that you had not proven yourself worthy of all the trust I had placed in you.”

  “Don’t you mean, all the trust you placed in my money?”

  She didn’t deny his charge, rather trodded on. “I came to understand that only God was worthy of all my trust, because He is the only One who can redeem us from our sins.”

  Shawn rolled his eyes at that.

  “You don’t believe me? Then tell me Shawn, with all your greatness, how come you have never been able to mend the relationship with your brother until yesterday?”