by E. N. Joy
Blake wiped away the tears caused by the pain of his past. He couldn’t even look in his wife’s eyes. Past memories were about to turn him into some kind of monster. Just the fear of losing Paige, of her never coming back to be with him, had triggered a reaction. It had triggered emotions he didn’t even know he had inside of him.
“And I’m not your father either, Blake,” Paige continued. “You don’t have to wait on me hand and foot. I can take care of myself. I mean, I definitely need your support. I want your support. Baby, I love your support, but I have to be strong and walk in my own healing. God is a supernatural healer indeed, but at the end of the day, He expects me to change some things in the natural world and not just spiritual in order to take care of my body. And that’s where you come in. I need you to stay on top of me, to hold me accountable.” Paige grabbed Blake’s hands and caressed them. “But I need you to do it lovingly.”
Blake nodded.
“You put your hands on me today in a way that made me feel uncomfortable, first at the church, and then just a few minutes ago.” Paige shook her head. “I’m not having that. You put me on a clock as to how much time I can spend with my friends.” She shook her head again. “Nuh-uh. I’m not having that either. I’ve never been in an abusive relationship, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know what one looks like.”
“Baby, I would never—”
“I know you would never, because I would never allow it. See, babe, I might be thick, and for years I might have even pretended to be okay with that, but I wasn’t. And no one, not even you, knew that about me. I feigned a confidence that deep down inside I didn’t really have. In other words, I faked it until I made it. And it took me almost losing my life because of this thickness to open my eyes. I don’t want to die. I see why the comedian Mo’Nique lost all that weight. God has stuff for that woman to do on earth, and she wants to do it. She wants to be able to take her child to the amusement park and fit on the rides. I feel her. And just because she lost the weight probably doesn’t mean that she really wasn’t happy with herself. I’m just speaking for me. But guess what? Thick, skinny, or medium build, I know I’m a child of the King and undeserving of any type of abuse, be it physical, sexual, mental, spiritual, and whatever other type of abuse there is.”
“You’re right, honey, and it will never happen again. I’m so sorry. I just…the fear of losing you the way I lost my mother—and my father, for that matter. It just triggered something in me. But I promise, it will never happen again.”
“I know it won’t, because we’re going to go to Pastor for counseling. We’re nipping that demon in the bud before he has a chance to fully rear his ugly head. Obviously there is something inside of you that you need to be delivered from and Blake, as long as that spirit dwells in you, there is always a chance that things could get worse. I love you, God knows I do, but it’s not a chance I’m willing to take. Not when I know the same God, who by His stripes I am healed. You are healed too. So, I guess this counseling thing will be like what the doctor referred to as an oil change—preventative maintenance.”
Blake stared into Paige’s eyes. She was worried about what his thoughts would be about counseling, but then a smile spread across his lips.
“Baby,” Blake said, “You da bomb-diggity.”
“I know,” she said, leaning over and kissing him on the lips. “So, I’ll call Pastor and see when we can start our counseling sessions.” She got up to go get the phone.
“No, wait. Don’t.” Blake grabbed her wrist. Not wanting her to think he was being aggressive, he let it go. “It’s just that…why don’t you call Pastor afterward?”
“After dinner?” Paige questioned.
Blake stood up with a sensual look in his eyes and said, “No, after dessert.”
Paige’s lips formed into a huge smile. “I’ll get the whipped cream.” She winked before the husband and wife enjoyed one another like never before.
Chapter Thirty-nine
When Tamarra pulled up to her parents’ house, she couldn’t believe all the cars that were parked in the driveway and in front of the house. She could never recall her parents having many friends. She couldn’t recall them having any friends at all. As a young girl, she realized why after a while. Having friends around meant there was a chance the family secret could get out. Friends were sometimes nosy, meddlesome. Or sometimes a person could just get so close to another person that they’d be inclined to tell them all their secrets. Tamarra’s parents didn’t want to take that chance. So now, where in the world had they mustered up so many caring friends?
Tamarra turned off the car and sat for a moment. She had to get it together. She’d cried practically the entire way there. Her emotions were mixed with those of a pregnant woman and one going through menopause: they were unpredictable and all over the place. As if what she was about to face weren’t enough, she had the bright idea to stop by Maeyl’s apartment before hitting the expressway to Maryland.
When he had answered the door, what she really wanted to do was slap him across the face for being the man who made a fool out of her big-time for the second time in her life.
“I’m sorry,” were the words he’d mouthed, knowing that Paige had run straight over to her house to tell her about him and Sasha. “I know Paige probably told you—”
“No, I want to hear it from you. I want to hear it from you, Maeyl,” Tamarra had insisted.
“Can you step inside?” he offered, opening the door wide and stepping aside.
She shook her head. “That won’t be necessary. All I need is to hear you say it, and then I’m on my way.”
Maeyl swallowed and then told Tamarra what she’d come to hear. “Sasha and I are going to…we’re, uh, going to try and, you know, raise Sakaya the right way. We’re going to try to raise her as a, you know, couple.” Maeyl coughed.
“Man up, would ya? Just say that you and Sasha are back together. Wow, after only what? Not even a full day after breaking off our engagement. And I really thought this was because of my feelings toward your little girl, while all along it was because you wanted to get back with your baby’s momma.”
“Now, wait a minute. That’s not true. I didn’t plan to go to Sasha’s house that night, but after leaving the hospital, after seeing you in the arms of your ex-husband, you telling him how glad you were that he was there, I just felt…” Maeyl couldn’t even describe the way he felt.
Tamarra was taken aback by this new revelation. “You mean you came to the hospital to see me?”
“Yeah, but when I got there, your ex was there. I recognized him from the few times he’d shown up at New Day with you back in the day. I waited outside the room for the right time to enter, but that time never came. And as I drove away from the hospital, I just kept seeing you in his arms, him being the one to comfort you, and the words I heard you speak to him. You were telling him how glad you were that he was there. I couldn’t understand why you’d call him up there for support and not me. Then I realized that maybe you didn’t feel the way about me like I thought you had. After all, you’ve just been so distant, like there is something you aren’t sharing with me. I feel that if you love and trust me as much as you say you do, then there should be nothing you can’t tell me. And I knew it wasn’t the distraction of planning a wedding, because it wasn’t like we were having this really big wedding or anything. Then on top of all that, your relationship with Sakaya. I just…”
“Edward keeps the books for Family Café. He just happened to be there when I passed out. I didn’t call him to come see about me. It was you I wanted there,” Tamarra wanted to say, but she didn’t. She knew it was useless. On top of that, she was tired and defeated. Besides, Maeyl might not have been right about her and her ex, but he was right about so many other things.
Even so, there was still one thing she wanted to know. The woman in her needed to know. “Did you sleep with her?” she asked Maeyl. “Did you leave the hospital, run into Sasha’s arms, and have sex with her?�
��
“Tamarra, does it really matter?”
She let out a nervous little laugh. “You’re right. It doesn’t matter, does it?” She touched his cheek. It was almost comical, because when she lifted her hand, he flinched as if she were going to deck him. But all she did was rub his face. She just wanted to look into his eyes and touch him one last time, because she knew that unless in passing, she’d never be that close to him again. She’d never be at his place again, and she certainly was never going to step foot in New Day again. She wouldn’t be able to bear watching Sasha live the life with Maeyl that Tamarra had so badly wanted. Tamarra removed the engagement ring from her finger and gave it back to Maeyl. “Good-bye, Maeyl.” Tamarra smiled, got in her car, and headed toward her parents’ house.
Now here she sat parked in front of her parents’ house, hesitating to go in, though she knew she had to. So, she got out of the car and walked up to the door. She raised her hand to knock, all the while her stomach doing cartwheels in anticipation of what awaited her on the other side.
“You must be Tamarra,” an older woman said after she opened the door.
Tamarra peered over the woman’s shoulders. “Yes, I am.”
“Sister Evans has been expecting you. And, ooohhh, girl, you look just like your mother. My, my, my.” She let Tamarra in the house, closing the door behind them. “She’s, uh, your mother is in the kitchen. She’s been keeping busy. I been telling her she needs to slow down and grieve properly; that way she ain’t actin’ a fool at the funeral tomorrow morning. You know what I’m saying?”
Tamarra just nodded as she followed the woman to the kitchen. She passed several people and assumed they were church friends. After all, this woman had referred to her mother as Sister Evans.
“By the way,” the woman said before they entered the kitchen, “I’m Elder Butler, a member of Saints Alive, the church your mother attends here and there. She’s been trying to get your father to come visit, figuring if he liked it and started coming, she could come more often. He never would come, though. Looks like he’s got no choice now.”
She opened the swinging kitchen door for Tamarra to see the back of her mother busy over at the refrigerator. She could tell that her mother had lost weight since the last time she’d seen her, and her hair was thinned out. She was wearing it in a salt-and-pepper bun, pulled tightly to the back of her head. But still, Tamarra could tell her hair wasn’t as thick as it used to be.
“Sister Evans, look who’s here,” Elder Butler said with enthusiasm as though she were introducing Jesus himself.
“Huh? What?” Tamarra’s mother said, slowly turning around. She looked as though she’d lost her breath when she laid eyes on her daughter. “Tamarra, honey, is that you?” She pulled her glasses down from the top of her head and squinted through them.
Tamarra gasped upon seeing her mother. She looked old. Well, she was an older woman, but she looked really old. Almost made a lie out of the cliché “Black don’t crack.” Tamarra couldn’t believe the bags under her mother’s eyes. Worry lines etched the outer corner of her eyes, eyes that were so sad. Crow’s footprints sat at the corners of her mouth.
“Ma?” Tamarra said, not knowing what to do next. She and her mother had never been the touchy-feely type with one another, but considering the circumstances, Tamarra didn’t know what else to do but go and embrace her mother. After all, she sure didn’t know what to say to her.
Mrs. Evans opened her arms to receive her daughter’s embrace. Tamarra was surprised at how good it felt being held by her mother. She closed her eyes. Her mind wandered back to her being a little girl. She pictured herself hugging a younger version of her mother, her mother kissing her on top of her head, and telling her she loved her. The two baked cookies and drank lemonade while they sat at the kitchen table talking about stuff—nothing in particular, just stuff. Stuff a mother would talk to her little girl about.
“Well, I’m going to leave the two of you alone,” the women heard Elder Butler say before they heard the swishing of the swinging door.
It was Elder Butler’s voice that brought Tamarra’s thoughts back to reality. Now feeling a little awkward for some reason, Tamarra pulled away from her mother. “So, how are you doing, Ma?”
“As well as can be expected, I suppose,” she said, closing the refrigerator door, forgetting what she’d been looking for in the first place. “I… I can’t believe my baby is gone.”
Tamarra cringed to hear her mother refer to the deceased girl as her baby. Try as she might, she couldn’t recall a time her mother had ever referred to her as her baby.
“Raygene was so smart, so beautiful. I… I just wish you would have…at least gotten to know her.” Mrs. Evans looked up at Tamarra with pleading eyes. “She really wanted to have a relationship with you, Tam—”
“Look, Mom,” Tamarra said as she walked over to the kitchenette table and sat down. “I… I really don’t want to get into all that. Not now. I just want to pay my respects and—”
“Pay your respects?” Mrs. Evans was on the verge of becoming indignant. “You act like she’s just some old friend you went to elementary school with or something. Whether you like it or not, Raygene was your—”
“Mom!” Tamarra shouted. “Please, don’t do this to me right now.”
“If not now, then when?” Mrs. Evans asked. “I mean, she’s gone now, for Pete’s sake. What damage can claiming her now do?”
“Ma, you just don’t understand.”
“Oh, I understand just fine. You’ve been living a life as if her father didn’t even exist, so surely you’ve been living as though she didn’t exist either.” Mrs. Evans looked at her daughter with disdain and said those awful words any man or woman of God hates to hear: “And you call yourself a Christian.”
She continued, “Well, I don’t know what they teaching you at the church you attend in Ohio, but here in Maryland they teach love. They teach forgiveness. And poor Raygene never did nothing to you, so there wasn’t nothing you needed to forgive her for. All you had to do was love her, and you couldn’t even do that.” Mrs. Evans shook her head.
Tamarra stood and said, “The nerve of you, woman. Who are you, of all people, to stand here and criticize me? All you had to do was love me, and you couldn’t do that. Oh, but you loved her. You loved that…that monster’s child.” Tamarra didn’t know where such evil words were coming from, but she couldn’t stop them. “You raised her and took care of her and protected her far better than you ever did me. How do you think that made me feel? Huh, Mother, how?”
Now Mrs. Evans stood. “So, is that what this was about? You being jealous of Raygene? You jealous that I raised her? Well, what did you expect me to do? Someone had to take care of the girl.” Mrs. Evans tightened her lips and stared right into Tamarra’s eyes. “Her own mother sure didn’t want to.”
Tamarra got right up in her mother’s face. “Can you blame her? Who wants to take care of a child that belongs to a rapist? Even worse, a child that was conceived through rape?”
“But it wasn’t the child’s fault. It wasn’t Raygene’s fault, Tamarra. Can’t you see that? And all she ever wanted to do was have a relationship with her mother. That’s all she ever dreamed of, talked about, ever since the day I told her that you were really her mother and not her aunt. That’s why she came to Ohio. She wanted to be close to you. She figured if she was there, right in the same town with you, then you two would be drawn together. And then her dream would come true. That’s all she wanted, Tamarra, was to be close to you…her mother.” Tears trickled from Mrs. Evans’ eyes.
“Stop it!” Tamarra yelled. “Stop it. Don’t you dare put this on me. Once again, you’re blaming me. Well, how about, for once, you place the blame on the person who it really belongs to? Raymond. All of this is his fault. If he’d never raped me, then I never would have gotten pregnant!” Tamarra shouted.
“Hold your voice down,” Mrs. Evans ordered through gritted teeth. She looked to make sure n
o one was entering the kitchen.
Tamarra followed her mother’s eyes to the kitchen door. “Oh, so you ain’t told the good folks over at Saints Alive that your son raped your daughter, and that when your daughter told you about the rape, all you and Daddy did was a fake a divorce and live in separate houses so that my brother and I wouldn’t be in the same house. So that he couldn’t creep into my bedroom anymore. Then when your son got old enough and moved out on his own, you two suddenly reconciled. And did you tell them that not only did he rape me, but he got me pregnant? That I was just this young girl having a baby, a baby that tore the insides of me up so that I could never have another baby again? The only child I would ever carry in my womb was the one that belonged to that monster, my brother.”
“But she wasn’t a monster,” Mrs. Evans spat back. “She was a baby: your baby! All the more reason why you should have taken care of her, showed her love so that she’d grow up knowing that she was loved. That’s all she wanted was love… just like you. She didn’t ask to be conceived the way that she was, but you insisted on singlehandedly punishing her for the way she came into this world by acting like she didn’t exist. Acting like you’re the only one in the world who deserves God’s love.” Mrs. Evans paused for a moment before continuing. “Well, God did love Raygene. She was His daughter, not some scar of Satan like you’d like to see her as, and one day you’ll realize that you made a mistake when it came to that girl. Sure, I made many mistakes regarding the situation, mistakes that I can’t take back, but the one mistake I didn’t make was having the heart and decency to raise Raygene when her own mother wouldn’t.”
“Then you shouldn’t have made me keep her,” was Tamarra’s comeback. Sure, she felt convicted by her mother’s words, but her flesh still felt the need to justify her actions.
“Then you shouldn’t have hidden your pregnancy for so long,” her mother retaliated. “You were already three months by the time we found out. Besides, I know a woman of God like yourself is not suggesting we should have allowed you to get an abortion.”