One Sunday at a Time

by E. N. Joy

  A broken Tyson walked away, beat down and shattered. Deborah immediately felt so bad. She wanted to drop everything and go after him, but what was one more paragraph? To make up for it, she later told Tyson he could have whatever he wanted for dinner. She then apologized to him over dinner, which was a bowl of ice cream. After Deborah apologized, they talked and laughed while he finished up.

  That event was like a double-edged sword. Tyson remembered the experience of having dessert for dinner. But, unfortunately, he also remembered the reason why he’d been given the special treat—because Mommy was being mean. She wondered which side of the sword he’d recall when telling his own kids tales about his childhood with their grandma. Deborah cringed at the possibility of it being the latter.

  But right now the conversation she had to have with her son wasn’t about her being mean, but about trying to convince him that Lynox was not. It was safe to say, though, that in these past few months, Deborah had been pushing Lynox emotionally. Ironically, it was Lynox pushing her physically that she had to explain to Tyson.

  “Baby, let’s go to the swings. I’ll push you,” Deborah said once she got a good look at all the playground equipment at the park. This time when Tyson ran off, she didn’t stop him, since his final destination was clearly in view.

  “I want to go high, until my stomach laughs,” Tyson said, hopping on a vacant swing. Actually, all the swings were vacant. Since the kids had just gotten out of school, most of them were home, eating after-school snacks and doing homework.

  “High, it is,” Deborah said as she stepped behind Tyson and began pushing him. After four pushes, he was already screaming that this was high enough. Deborah giggled and then went and sat on the swing next to him. “Tyson, you know your father loves you, right?” she asked him.

  “Yes, but he’s still been acting mean,” he said as he pumped his feet to make himself go higher on his own. He had yet to figure out the rhythm needed to do so, so he wasn’t going any higher.

  “He’s not mean. He’s never yelled at you. He’s never hit you or anything like that, right?”

  “No,” Tyson said. “But he was mean to you. He made you bleed and stuff. I was scared. I was crying. When you hurt other people, you are mean.”

  “That can be true,” Deborah said, “if you hurt them on purpose.”

  Tyson looked over at his mother. “Did Daddy hurt you on purpose?”

  “No. That’s the thing I’m trying to explain,” Deborah said. “Your father loves me. He loves all of us. He would never do anything to hurt us on purpose. Actually, it was Mommy who was doing some mean things to Daddy. I was really, really, really upset. Daddy was trying to calm me down, and he accidentally pushed me while he was doing it.”

  “But the police had him, not you. Police get the bad guy.”

  Deborah sighed. “Son, the police did get me. They let me go get my head fixed first, though.”

  “Oh,” Tyson said as his swinging slowed down.

  Deborah could tell he was a little confused. If the police took her, then why was she sitting there with him? Even though Deborah could see all the questions swirling around in her son’s little head, she decided she’d answer them later. The day would come when she’d have to tell her son she’d been in jail. She didn’t want to dump it all on him at once. One thing at a time, and right now she had to get his father back on his good side. After all, if anything was ever to happen to her, Lynox was all he’d have besides her mother. But even she was getting up there in age. And with that court date still pending, something really could happen to Deborah, something that could make it so that it was just Tyson, Lynox, and Tatum.

  “Mommy isn’t mad at Daddy for the accident, and you shouldn’t be, either,” Deborah said.

  “So you’re not going to be mad and fight him?” Tyson said. He stopped the swing himself with his feet.

  “No, I’m not going to fight Daddy,” Deborah said, shocked he’d even ask her something like that. He’d never witnessed her getting physical with Lynox.

  “Well, you were fighting him last night. I heard you fighting him.”

  Deborah was horrified. Her heart just about stopped beating. There was no way Tyson could have seen her swinging at Lynox. Hadn’t the door been closed? Deborah couldn’t remember. She had to figure out how to ask Tyson what all he’d seen without leading him with her line of questioning.

  “Are you sure you saw us fighting?” Deborah said.

  “Yep.” Tyson hopped off the swing. “I’m going to go get on the slide now.” He ran over to the slide, leaving Deborah with a sick feeling in her stomach.

  Deborah gathered her bearings after being knocked out by Tyson’s words and then went over to the sliding board.

  “Weee,” Tyson said as he came breezing down the slide. “That was fun, Mommy. Can I do it again?” He jumped up and down.

  “Sure, baby.” Deborah watched as Tyson went to climb up the steps again. “So, Tyson, tell Mommy what you saw as far as the fight goes.”

  “I heard it. I heard you yelling at Daddy. You guys were fighting with your words.”

  Deborah felt some relief as Tyson reached the top of the slide and came floating back down again. Thank God he hadn’t seen her wind milling Lynox, not that it was much better that he’d heard her viciously attacking him verbally.

  “Yes, Mommy was fighting Daddy with her words,” Deborah confirmed.

  “And that’s why I thought he hurt you with his hands, because you hurt him with your mouth.”

  Deborah shook her head. “No, that’s not what happened, but just so you know, even if someone does hurt you with their words, it’s never, ever okay to hurt them with your hands. Do you understand?”

  “Yep.” He nodded. “One more time on the slide.” He ran to go down the slide again before Deborah even gave him the okay.

  “This is the last time, Ty. Then we have to go home.”

  “Okay,” he agreed, without putting up a fight. He knew better.

  As promised, Deborah let Tyson do the slide one last time before they headed out of the park.

  “That was fun,” Tyson said. “Can we do it again tomorrow?”

  “We’ll see,” Deborah said.

  They were exiting the park when Deborah decided, for good measure, to make sure that her conversation with Tyson had cleared up things. There was already a wedge in her and Lynox’s relationship. She didn’t want there to be one between Tyson and Lynox.

  “So, I want to tell you again that Daddy isn’t mean. He didn’t hurt Mommy, so you don’t have to be afraid or worried. Everything was an accident, and we’re going to be careful so that it never happens again, okay?”

  “Okay,” Tyson said. “I’ll tell my teacher, ‘Never mind,’ tomorrow, when I go to school.”

  Deborah stopped in her tracks. She had to; her legs had just about given out on her. She balanced herself with the little bit of strength she had. Her mouth dried up. It was a toss between whether she had sand in her mouth or peanut butter. Or both. No saliva to swallow, to lubricate her throat, to keep her from choking on her words if she dared to speak. It was as if something had her mouth jammed shut, and she couldn’t speak if she wanted to.

  Why in the world would Tyson have to tell his teacher, “Never mind”? Never mind about what? Lord, what had he told her that he would have to recant?

  “Ty . . . Tyson.” Deborah forced out the words, at the same time forcing her feet to step one in front of the other. It was a very hard and slow process. “Just what do you have to tell your teacher, ‘Never mind,’ about?” Deborah held her breath.

  “About you and Daddy fighting and him hurting you, the police, and everything.”

  A gasp erupted out of Deborah’s mouth. It was so loud that Tyson turned to look at his mother.

  “You okay, Mommy? Did the swing hurt your belly?” Tyson walked back and put his hand on his mother’s abdomen. “You look like you are going to throw up, like CJ did that day Mr. Charles made him eat spinach
. Mr. Charles told him he would like the creamy spinach, but CJ still threw up. Mr. Charles said he wished he’d listened when he had to clean it up.”

  Usually, Deborah liked Tyson’s cute little stories, but now every word he said went over her head. It was his earlier words that had landed smack-dab in her face. “Tyson, you told your teacher about last night? Why?” Deborah was oblivious to the fact that she’d raised her voice, enough to make Tyson draw back.

  “I was sad. She asked what was wrong.” Tyson began backpedaling toward their home.

  “But you shouldn’t have told her that. It was family business. You don’t discuss what goes on in our house with other people.”

  “I’m sorry,” Tyson said. “But I didn’t want to lie. At first, I was going to tell her nothing was wrong, but something was wrong, so that would have been a lie.”

  Noticing how afraid Tyson was starting to look, she changed her demeanor. She didn’t want to scare him. She wanted to get to the bottom of what he’d told his teacher and then figure out how to undo it.

  “You’re right, Tyson. You shouldn’t lie, but it’s okay to tell people you don’t want to talk about things, especially things that go on in our home.”

  “I didn’t know,” Tyson said sadly. “You and Daddy said I could always tell you anything. You said I can talk to Pastor and tell adults when something is wrong. I thought my teacher was a grown-up.” He put his head down, turned, and began walking home as if he’d just witnessed his dog get run over by a car.

  “Tyson, honey, wait a minute.” Tyson stopped, and Deborah caught up with him. “Mommy didn’t mean to make you sad or make you feel like you did something wrong, okay?”

  He shrugged. “Okay.”

  “I do want you to be able to tell Daddy and me and adults anything,” Deborah said, really wanting to add the word almost in front of the word anything. But now was not the time to be a hypocrite. Either she wanted Tyson to have open lines of communication or she didn’t. She never wanted him to feel as though his voice didn’t matter and couldn’t be heard. She wished his teacher hadn’t heard his voice on this particular matter. “So it’s okay that you talked to your teacher, and you don’t have to tell her, ‘Never mind.’”

  The last thing Deborah wanted was for him to try to correct the story he’d told the teacher. She could hear him now. My mommy said . . . The teacher would for sure think Deborah had put him up to recanting the story in order to cover up the truth, not knowing that the truth wasn’t exactly what Tyson had relayed.

  “Okay,” Tyson said, his spirits lifting somewhat.

  “Got any homework?”

  “I have words to learn and sounds to make in a minute, Mrs. Riker said.”

  “Okay. I’ll help you.”

  “Yeah. Because you’re good at words,” Tyson said. “You and Daddy, right?”

  “Yep, me and Daddy.”

  Deborah watched as Tyson went into the house before her. She grabbed the screen door real quick before it slammed in her face. She made a mental note that she’d have to talk to Lynox about teaching him to hold the door open for a lady. For now, though, they had bigger fish to fry, and she was none the wiser that it was the cook who was about to get burned by the hot grease.

  Chapter 19

  “Dinner was so good, Mommy,” Tyson said as he wiped the spaghetti off his mouth. “Can I have some cookies now?”

  Lynox jumped in and spoke for Deborah. “How about you eat a couple more bites of that salad?”

  “Aw, salad is yucky,” Tyson complained.

  “But cookies are yummy, and sometimes you have to go through the yucky to get to the yummy,” Lynox said.

  “Well put,” Deborah told her husband, having watched him interact with Tyson.

  She was so relieved that when Tyson walked through the door after school today, he went and gave Lynox a hug and a kiss on the cheek, like he’d done any other time he’d come home and Lynox was there. Her little talk with him had worked. After he had his after-school snack and did his homework, Lynox had had a little talk with him as well. Deborah had been present, but she’d let Lynox do all the talking. He had basically reiterated most of the things Deborah had already told Tyson.

  Tyson appeared to be good. As the family of four sat around the table, Tatum in his bouncer seat, they all appeared to be good. But there was still a great number of issues that Deborah and Lynox had to work out. Unfortunately, before they could even get to the middle of what was already on their plate, seconds would be piled on.

  “Okay, just two more bites.” Tyson held up two fingers. He then used those two fingers to pinch his nose closed while he gobbled down a bite of salad.

  “Boy, you are so silly.” Deborah laughed.

  The ringing doorbell interrupted her laughter.

  “Who in the heck?” Lynox asked with furrowed eyebrows. He wiped his mouth and finished chewing as he stood up and walked over to the front door. He looked out the peephole.

  “Who is it?” Deborah asked, coming around the corner.

  Lynox shrugged. “I don’t know. Some lady. I don’t recognize her. Maybe it’s for you . . . someone from church or something.”

  Deborah approached the door as Lynox opened it. It took her a few seconds to recall how she knew the familiar face on her porch, but once it registered, she thought all the spaghetti she’d eaten was going to come back up.

  The woman began to speak. “Ms. Lucas, I’m not sure if you remember me. . . .”

  “It’s Mrs. Chase,” Lynox said, correcting the woman in a not so pleasant tone. He hadn’t yet been able to ascertain exactly who the woman was, but he had a feeling she hadn’t come in peace.

  “Pardon me. Mrs. Chase,” she replied, correcting herself. “I’m Pricilla Folins with—”

  “Franklin County Children Services,” Deborah and Lynox said in unison. This wasn’t the first time either of them had come in contact with Ms. Folins.

  The last time she showed up on Deborah’s doorstep, Lynox had also been present. It was the time Pastor Margie had overheard Deborah interacting with Tyson in a very disturbing manner. She’d honestly felt that Tyson might be in trouble, so she’d reported the incident to Franklin County Children Services. Although initially Deborah felt as if Pastor Margie had betrayed her, she ultimately realized that God had used Pastor Margie to bring her destructive behavior to her attention. That was what had compelled Deborah to seek mental help. Had Franklin County Children Services not gotten involved and not threatened to take Tyson away from her, Deborah might not have ever gotten help and experienced the peace that came with it. Was God using the same tactic He’d used the last time to force Deborah to get help now? Why did He have to keep going through all that? Why couldn’t He help her Himself and get it over with?

  “I remember exactly who you are,” Deborah said. “But if someone reported an incident of alleged abuse against my son again, I will fight it tooth and nail, because no one in this home has been verbally or physically abusing either of my boys.”

  “That may very well be the case,” Ms. Folins said, “but this complaint deals with a more indirect form of abuse.”

  Lynox chimed in. “Indirect?”

  “Either a kid is getting abused or they’re not,” Deborah noted.

  “A child living in a violent setting, one where there is domestic violence, fighting, physical and verbal abuse going on, experiences a form of abuse. Children should not be subjected to that type of environment. It’s endangering a child. Children should be raised in healthy, safe homes.”

  “And that’s where both of our children are being raised,” Lynox countered.

  Ms. Folins shook her head and looked down at the clipboard she was holding. “Not according to this police report.”

  At the mention of the word police, a squad car driven by a female police officer pulled up to the house. There was a male officer on the passenger side.

  Fear took over Deborah’s face. “Lynox.” She grabbed his arm and held on for d
ear life.

  “What’s going on here?” Lynox asked Ms. Folins. “Why are the police here?”

  “I simply didn’t want any trouble while I did my interview,” she replied.

  “Interview?” Deborah asked, puzzled.

  “It’s routine procedure that if abuse is suspected and reported, we do interviews and investigate. We interview the parents and the children separately. If it’s determined that there is cause to remove the children from the home—” Ms. Folins said before Deborah cut her off.

  “Remove the children?” That was the only thing Deborah had heard, and that was all it took to set her off. Deborah charged toward Ms. Folins, who took a step back.

  Lynox grabbed hold of Deborah to hold her back. “I don’t understand, Ms. Folins.” Lynox tried to remain as cordial as possible, even though his blood was starting to boil. “Our boys are fine. I’m not sure why you’re here.” Lynox looked over Ms. Folins’s shoulder and saw the officers getting out of the car.

  “We got a report from your oldest boy’s school today,” Ms. Folins replied.

  “Oh, Jesus!” Deborah smacked her hand against her forehead. “Tyson’s teacher.” She shook her head.

  “What about Tyson’s teacher?” Lynox asked.

  “I told her about you and Mommy’s fight, her bleeding, and the police and stuff.”

  Everyone turned and looked at a spaghetti-covered Tyson.

  The police approached the door. A look of dread came over Tyson’s face at the sight of the police.

  “Oh, no. The police again.” Tyson immediately began crying and was on the verge of becoming hysterical.

  Tyson’s behavior was very disturbing to Ms. Folins, not to mention Deborah’s behavior. After all, the woman had lunged at her. Initially, she’d been there for a simple interview and investigation, but it looked as though that was about to change.

  Lynox raced over and comforted his son. “It’s okay, Tyson. Daddy is here. Everything is going to be fine.”

  “No, no, no.” Tyson shook his head. “Who was mean this time?”