by E. N. Joy
She couldn’t believe this man, after the atomic bomb he’d so casually dropped on her, asking her what was wrong.
“What do you think is wrong?” Deborah shot.
“Baby, I don’t know. What happened? What did I do? What did I say?” Elton sat on the floor next to her as he coaxed her to speak by rubbing his hand up and down her back.
Why did his hand have to feel so good, so comforting on Deborah’s back while she was so angry at him? Huh? Why?
“Elton, am I going crazy, or did you just mention something about having to finalize a divorce? Your divorce?”
“Yeah, honey, but that’s nothing. It’s been over between Lonna and me for over a year now.” Elton’s nonchalant tone was like nails down a chalkboard to Deborah’s ears.
“Then don’t you think you should have made sure it was officially over before you came back into my life and got me to sleep with you?”
“It is official”—he tapped on his chest—“in my heart. And that’s all that matters. I haven’t been mentally connected to Lonna since I can remember, and we haven’t been physically connected for even longer than that. And to top it all off, we’ve never been spiritually connected. Not like you and me, Little Debbie.” He rubbed his hand down her cheek. “Please don’t hate me. I’m sorry. Yes, I should have told you, but honestly, all I could think about was you. Lonna was the last person on my mind. You were the only woman on my mind. You’ve been the only woman on my mind since I can remember.” He continued caressing her cheek. “I never should have married Lonna. I wronged her by doing so. I’ve never loved her, never been in love with her. Not the way I loved you.”
Deborah didn’t know a romance author alive who could even create a leading male character as smooth, as kind, as loving, and as convincing as Elton. But Elton was real, a real man before her. He wasn’t some made-up person on paper. And maybe no author could create anything like him, but God had, and He’d created him for her. This was her Boaz, her prodigal fiancé, all in one. God couldn’t count it against her for wanting to be with him. They were practically already one anyway. They were soul mates. And as far as her sleeping with a married man, she didn’t know. She hadn’t known she’d been giving herself to another woman’s husband. God couldn’t hold that against her…could He? How she saw it, if God hadn’t wanted it to go down, then He should have warned her.
“I love you too, Elton, and I’m going to stick by your side through the divorce.”
“Thank you, baby. I’m going to need the support.” Now it was as if the roles had flip-flopped and Elton was the one who needed comforting. “Lonna’s been fighting it. Won’t agree on the offer my attorney has presented. Gold digger. This entire marriage was a trap just for her to get what she wanted: to get up out of Malvonia, live in the lap of luxury over in a country where she could be someone else, anybody but the chicken head everybody here knew her as.”
A lump formed in Deborah’s stomach. “Are you talking about Lonna-Lonna? Sang-in-the-New-Day-church-choir Lonna?” She asked hesitantly because she wasn’t sure she really wanted to know the answer.
“Yeah, that Lonna,” Elton said, full of shame.
Deborah shook her head in disbelief. “Lonna Mason?”
“Well, it’s Lonna Culiver right now, but not for long,” Elton assured her.
Deborah was still in a daze. “The Lonna-who-was-supposed-to-sing-in-our-wedding Lonna?”
Elton went to touch Deborah’s arms, but she pushed him away and stood up. “But, when…how…? I don’t get it.”
“Listen, Little Debbie—” Elton started as he stood.
“Don’t you Little Debbie me, Elton. I can’t believe what I’m hearing.” Deborah put her hands on her forehead in pure disbelief. She walked back and forth, but then halted in her tracks. “Is that why she just up and left without even telling Pastor or her own mama that she was leaving? Sister Mason was worried sick for three days straight. Fasted and prayed and even shut in at the church until she finally got a voice message from Lonna telling her that she was okay, that she’d fallen in love, gotten swept off her feet, and was getting married.” She looked into Elton’s eyes. “It was with you? You were the man who swept her off her feet?” Deborah started doing the math in her head. When Lonna went missing, it was shortly after Deborah had paid a visit to the clinic.
“It wasn’t what you think,” Elton told Deborah.
“What I’m thinking is that while I was laid up in an abortion clinic, ending our child’s life, you were starting a new life with Lonna.” Deborah’s lips trembled as she waited on Elton to confirm what she’d just said.
After a pause and deep breath, Elton did confirm her suspicions—and a lot more. “You don’t understand, Deborah. I… I wasn’t ready to raise kids, especially not two. And you were willing to get it done…and she wouldn’t…and I didn’t know what else to do. I had to do the right thing and marry her, to raise our son together. But in the long run, having two parents who don’t love each other did Junior more harm than good.”
Now Deborah’s head was spinning. The knot in her stomach was doing a climb up her intestines and into her throat. Was Elton saying what she thought he was, that while he’d convinced her to have an abortion, he’d allowed another woman to have his son? A woman who, from the sounds of it, was pregnant at the same time she was? A woman who was supposed to sing at their wedding, but instead, had been sleeping with him on the side? This couldn’t be happening. This was all a nightmare, and she was going to wake up. Soon, hopefully.
“You…you have a son?” Deborah managed to ask as she held her stomach—her empty womb.
“Yes. Elton Junior.”
“How…how old is he?” Deborah swallowed hard, but the lump wouldn’t go back down.
Elton hesitated, as if he knew what his answer would mean to Deborah. “He’ll be five on his next birthday.”
That’s all Deborah needed to hear. She brushed past Elton, racing to the bathroom. She’d barely gotten the toilet seat lifted when all the contents of her stomach made an escape to the toilet bowl.
“Deborah, you okay?” Elton asked as he bent over her, holding her locks so that they wouldn’t fall into the commode.
Deborah couldn’t answer, not because she was getting sick, but because she just simply didn’t even know what to say…what to think. A couple of minutes went by before she stopped puking, but she still remained in her position over the porcelain bowl. Now tears were pouring into it: big tears and lots of them. All that pain she’d been delivered from seemed to be coming back; only now it felt seven times worse.
Elton just stood there, holding her hair, allowing her to get it all out, allowing every tear that needed to fall to do just that. After a few minutes, Deborah went from her knees to her bottom. She wrapped her arms around her legs and just rocked while shaking her head in disbelief. Finally, Elton stood up and got her a cup of water.
“Here, drink this,” he told her.
She pushed it away, making him spill some down his hand. “I don’t want anything from you,” she told him without looking him in the eyes. “Not even this ring.” She snatched it off and threw it. Neither was too concerned about its landing.
“Come on. Get up off the floor and let’s talk about it.”
Elton pulled Deborah up. She resisted at first, but knew she couldn’t hide out in the bathroom forever; although she wished she could. She wished she could crawl inside the toilet bowl and be flushed away with its contents.
Elton filled the cup with water again and then handed it to Deborah.
This time she took the cup, swishing the water around in her mouth then spitting it out in the sink. After all the water was gone, she just went ahead and brushed her teeth, hoping to get the bad taste out of her mouth. Afterward, the bad taste of the throw-up was gone, but still, there was a bad taste in her mouth that she knew would take more than toothpaste to eliminate.
Elton stood behind her over the sink. Something in him was afraid to leave
her in the bathroom alone. She looked as though she didn’t even want to be here on earth anymore. He needed to stay by her side until he was certain her mind was right. “You ready to talk to me?” he asked once she’d dried her mouth on her towel. She didn’t answer, but she headed toward the door, so Elton took that as a yes.
“Why don’t you lie down and rest while we talk,” Elton suggested, pointing at the bed.
She shook her head in the negative. “I’d rather stand.”
After taking a deep breath, Elton told Deborah what he knew she wanted to hear. “First off, you have to know that I had never, ever cheated on you before in our relationship. Lonna was the first and the only.”
Well, so far his words weren’t any comfort to Deborah.
“I can’t even really remember how it happened.” He shrugged in an effort to downplay it. “I think she came by my place because she wanted me to hear the song she wanted to sing in our wedding. She began to serenade me. One thing led to another, and…” His words trailed off until he could catch up with them. “Ugh,” he said in frustration at just the mere thought of the huge mistake he’d made. “You and I had just agreed to stop having sex and live a celibate life until we got married. Her timing was just all bad, all wrong.”
“So, it was her fault?” Deborah halfheartedly chuckled.
“No, I’m not saying that. I take full blame. I’d made a commitment to you.”
“I was your fiancée!” Deborah shouted as she brushed tears away.
“I know, baby, I know.” Elton walked toward Deborah, but she backed away and went and sat on the bed. “We ended up getting together a couple more times, but I broke it off the day before I left to go to Chile. It was just sex with her, and I was committed to you.”
“So, let me guess: you two had breakup sex?”
Elton nodded in shame.
“Wow, you are some piece of work.”
“I’m sorry, Litt—”
“Just keep going.”
“Well, she got pregnant that last time we were together. I didn’t know, though. I didn’t find out until I came back to the States. She’d been leaving messages with my mom that she needed to speak to me about something urgent. Moms just thought it had something to do with her singing in the wedding or something. That she was bailing on us. Well, once I got home, before I came over to see you, I called her, and that’s when she told me she was pregnant. I couldn’t even think straight after that. She was due any day pretty much.”
“I guess that explains why she up and quit the choir months before she ran off. She didn’t want anyone to know she was pregnant,” Deborah concluded.
“When I got off the phone, I just began to holler out to God,” Elton continued. “Moms came in the room, and I had to tell her what was going on. She just prayed and prayed, then listened and listened, until she got a word from God. The word was that I needed to do the right thing by both you and Lonna. I needed to marry her and raise our child together and break things off with you.”
“Your mother never did really like me that much,” Deborah shot.
“Oh, come on. You know Moms loved you,” Elton told her. “She just loves God more and wanted me to do the right thing in His eyes. She didn’t want her grandchild to be born out of wedlock.”
“So, you were actually coming to break up with me that day I told you I was pregnant?”
“Yes, but before I could, you told me that you were pregnant too. It was like a nightmare. That couldn’t have been happening to me. I couldn’t marry two women, and I didn’t want a child born out of wedlock, and with Lonna being due practically any day, she wouldn’t hear of an abortion, adoption, or anything. So, the only thing I could think of was to get you to terminate…to end the—”
Deborah helped him out. “It’s called abortion. You let her keep your baby while you forced me to kill mine?” she spat as she cried.
“Wait a minute now. Forced you? I didn’t have a gun to your head, Deborah. You agreed. It was your body. You didn’t have to do anything you didn’t want to do.”
Elton’s words stung with truth. The stinging hurt Deborah’s heart. “You’re right,” she told him. “I could have kept my baby. I should have kept my baby. Oh God, what did I do?”
Elton went and sat beside her to comfort her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I didn’t mean to make you feel bad. It was my fault too. Getting rid of the baby was the last thing on your mind. I planted the seed and watered it down until you were drowning in it. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I should have stopped you. I shouldn’t have left town knowing what you had to do, what you had to go through. And believe it or not, I couldn’t live with myself. I felt awful. I didn’t know what to say or what to do. I knew I couldn’t face you, though. I couldn’t talk to you. I wanted to tell you the truth about Lonna, but after what you’d gone through, I knew I couldn’t. So instead, I just started a new life with the mother of my child.”
He became very intense and serious as he grabbed Deborah’s arms and forced her to look in his eyes. “But you have to know that that’s all she ever was to me. I never loved her like I loved you. I was never in love with her, Deborah. You stayed on my heart, stayed on my mind to the point where it was no longer fair to her. And believe it or not, I told her I wanted a divorce even before I injured my leg, before I came back to Malvonia, before I saw you again. I love you, Deborah. I want you to be my future, so please, I’m begging you, woman of God, don’t let the past destroy our future. Forgive me, forgive me just as Christ instructed. Forgive me just like God has forgiven you.”
Deborah broke down into Elton’s arms as his words first penetrated her ears and then her heart. “I forgive you, Elton. Oh God, I forgive you.” How could she not? He’d reminded her of Christ’s instructions on forgiving, and how God had even forgiven her. Who was she to deserve forgiveness and not Elton?
Deborah threw her arms around Elton and he kissed her passionately. Just as Elton gently pushed Deborah back onto the bed, the phone rang.
“Let it ring,” Elton said, barely coming up for air from the kiss.
“Okay,” Deborah moaned as she closed her eyes and returned his kisses. Then the phone rang again, and again. Deborah opened her eyes and managed to look at the clock. “It’s after midnight. It must be important for someone to be calling this late. Let me just answer it.” Without Elton giving his say-so, Deborah slid from underneath him and answered the phone. “Hello.”
“I don’t know why,” the caller spat out, “but the Lord woke me up out of my sleep and told me to call you. What in the world is going on over there, child?”
“Mother Doreen?” Deborah said, sitting up and grabbing something to cover herself with as if her elder, mentor, and counselor could see her through the phone. “Uh, I, uh, nothing. Uh, what’s going on?”
“Unh-uh. That was my question to you. Now you’re stuttering and you’re stammering, which means you’re lying or you’re about to lie. It’s late, and I don’t have time to play with you, child, so talk to me, because evidently you ain’t been talking to God, or He wouldn’t have woke me up to get to you.”
Deborah was speechless. She didn’t know what to do or what to say.
“Hmm, got nothing to say for yourself now, do you?” Mother Doreen surmised. “Then that means only one thing: either the cat’s got your tongue”—she paused—“or the devil does. So, which is it?”
Chapter Thirty-five
For the past couple of days, Paige had been so consumed with reading up on her diagnosis, learning the do’s and don’ts of having the disease, that she didn’t have room in her mind to even think twice about Norman, or any other man, for that matter—any other man except for her husband.
After almost losing his wife, Blake was shaken up. He realized how awful he would have felt if Paige’s car accident had been fatal. He thought about all the times he could have spent with her instead of work. He was still a hard worker and still worked longer hours than most, but for the past
week, he had made it a point to be home every night by at least seven o’clock, so that he and Paige could have dinner together.
After spending two days in the hospital, Paige was a little disappointed on the morning of her release because Blake had been an hour late picking her up. She’d waited down in the hospital lobby in a wheelchair, feeling ridiculous. The hospital was a full house with that swine flu in full force attacking people, so they needed her room.
He just couldn’t stand not to go into work, Paige had thought while she sat in the hospital fighting back tears of anger. He’d called her and told her that he’d gone into work early that morning to tie up some loose ends and was running a little late. It wasn’t until he showed up in a limousine with three dozen flowers and a box of sugar free chocolates that her anger subsided.
“I’m going to start treating you like the queen you are,” Blake had declared when he showed up at the hospital and kissed Paige on the lips—a long kiss—not caring who was watching.
Paige was beside herself even more as they rode home in the back of the limo and Blake told her he’d taken the next couple days off from work to cater to her. And that’s just what he did. He waited on her hand and foot. Well, actually, he paid Flo, their new maid, to wait on her hand and foot.
“Tomorrow is not promised. I’ve worked hard all my life; now it’s time to start putting all those hard-earned dollars to use,” Blake had told Paige.
Between the limo, the maid, and the brand new Lexus Blake had waiting in the driveway the day she came home from the hospital, Paige’s self-esteem was immediately catapulted. That and the fact that her husband gave up what she thought he loved most--work--to spend time with her. The same effort he’d spent trying to close big deals, he now spent on handling his home affairs. He’d accomplished a great deal in only two days.
The day after she got out of the hospital, Blake assisted Paige in going through the refrigerator and every cupboard. They trashed anything that didn’t fit into Paige’s new diet: the sweet snacks, the sugar-loaded cereals, the regular soda pop, the frozen dinners, and more. After that they went grocery shopping together, purchasing all the things that were on Paige’s “can eat” list.