“Why do you think Zekia did it this time, Ezekiel?”
“I’ve gone over it in my head again and again. Zekia said she just felt like it. I didn’t want to push her too hard. The child is all broken up about what happened. Nikki thought I should let her be.”
“How was Zekia’s and Zeke’s relationship with Zeekie?”
“They were crazy about him. Zeekie was a handful, but he was the sweetest child God ever did make. He just loved on people. It was a gift he had.”
I’d experienced that poor baby’s gift myself.
Thunder’s eyes misted. “Zeekie was the light of my life. I wanted to do everything right with him. And I tried. God knows I did. He had so much energy—all boy. Nikki couldn’t handle him. She’s young. These young women, the first thing they want to do is give a child medication. She wanted to put him on Ritalin. Did he seem like he needed medication to you, Bell?”
A bolt of anger surged through me. No way did that child need medication. “No, he seemed like a wonderful, normal little boy.”
Again I got a little salty with God. Nikki Thunder wanted to drug her toddler into submission. She didn’t deserve that beautiful child. Why did that cow have a baby, but I didn’t? I tried to calm myself. I chastised myself for thinking of the woman as cattle again. I didn’t know Nikki Thunder. Mothering isn’t particularly easy. She may have been overwhelmed. Like Ezekiel said, she was young. I had no right to judge her.
But I did.
“Does she enjoy being a mother?”
“I think she does. Although it’s hard for her to deal with them all the time. She wasn’t mothered well. She didn’t have any good examples to draw from.”
“How is she with your other children?”
“My older children don’t care much for her. She’s younger than they are. Then again, they aren’t too thrilled to have me as a father.”
The corners of his mouth lifted in a sad, shy smile. I understood it. I had a smile just like it when I thought of my husband and the mountain of regrets I had concerning him.
“What about Zekia and Zeke?”
“They try to like her. Nikki has a strong personality. She’s been through a lot. It takes a while for her to warm up to people, and vice versa.”
“Didn’t take her long to warm up to you, did it?”
Whoops. That just came flying out. I’d embarrassed him, but he handled it.
“Like many young women who’ve had a rough go of it, she wanted a father figure.”
“Father figure, or did she want a sugar daddy?”
He shrugged. “She gave me something I needed. I gave her something she needed. It’s not real complicated, darlin’.”
“Don’t call me darlin’.” I tried not to think about what he needed from her. I needed to get back on task. I didn’t know how much time I’d have with him.
“Ezekiel, are Zekia and Zeke responsible kids?”
“Heavens, yes. They’re great kids. And they love their dad. I don’t deserve them.”
“How long have you and Nikki been married?”
“Five years.”
Nikki couldn’t have been more than twenty-five, and I doubted she was that old. I tried not to show my disgust that he’d practically married a child. I gave him my fake, professional smile. “How old was she when you got married?”
“She had just turned eighteen. I married her right after I found out she was pregnant.”
I couldn’t even muster a fake smile at that one. “You got a teenage girl—who you weren’t married to—pregnant when you were in your fifties?” You animal.
“I’m no angel.”
“I’m kinda noticing a ‘no angel’ pattern here.” I chastised myself for my judgmental words. Looked at him. “I apologize.” I sighed and waited for his response.
“My dear, a man can choose his sin, but God will decide the consequences.”
“Meaning?” I asked, as if my great-grandmother didn’t live by that saying.
“I felt like David must have when God took his baby. My punishment for cheating on Zekia and Zeke’s mother with Nikki was losing the baby girl Nikki was pregnant with.”
“I understand that kind of loss more than you know, Ezekiel.”
“The Lord told me that, darlin’.”
“But, enough about me.”
I cleared my throat, unnerved by him saying God had spoken to him about me. Why didn’t he have conversations with God about his own raggedy life?
Back on task. “So, you were married when you hooked up with Nikki?”
“I had a long, very loving relationship with my wife. She stuck by me during some hard times. She died shortly after our affair started.”
Convenient. For Nikki that is.
“How did you meet Nikki?”
“She came to work for us. I hadn’t planned on anything happening between us.”
“Don’t tell me. She was an intern.”
He snorted. “You’re very sassy, Bell.”
“Don’t call me Bell.”
He regarded me with a crooked smile. Like he admired me for disliking him. “I’m afraid there was no ministry to intern for at that time. We lived off the sales of my early books, and I did whatever odd jobs I could get. My wife hired her to help around the house. We didn’t have much. We only paid her a handful of dollars, but she needed the money. Poor kid had some tough breaks. Lived from pillar to post. My Toni took her in—she had a big heart like that. You’d be hard pressed to find a soul like Toni in the world. Salt of the earth. I didn’t deserve her.”
“I’m inclined to agree.”
“Don’t get me wrong. Toni and I had our problems. She was one of those women who thought she was too holy to make love with her husband. And Nikki—well, let’s just say she was precocious.”
“I don’t think ‘precocious’ is the right word, but go on.”
“She was happy to meet my needs, and being the wretched sinner that I am, I fell into sin. Toni found out and took to her bed. One day I went to look in on her and found her dead. I felt like I killed her myself.”
I felt like I killed her myself.
I had a few more nasty comments for him, but the painful reminders of my own moral failures immediately came to mind, and I swallowed my insults. His answers were becoming increasingly hard for me to listen to. I turned my head away from him, mulling his words “like I killed her myself” over and over.
“What did she die of?”
“I’d say she died of a broken heart.”
“That’s not quite the clinical answer I was looking for.”
“She languished for a while until she finally wasted away. The doctors said natural causes.”
A chill went through me. I realized once again how I thought too much like Jazz now. But I knew the high correlation between sick souls and bodies. People did literally die of broken hearts. Still, I found it odd that he’d said he felt like he’d killed her himself. Was that an unconscious confession?
“Where were you when Zeekie drowned?”
“I’d gone upstairs to an empty room for lectio divina. I do it every day at nine A.M.”
I raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think I know any fiery Pentecostals into lectio. Isn’t that practice a bit too high church?”
“Rocky introduced me to it.”
Rocky! Him and his Tony Jones books. He had a copy of The Sacred Way surgically attached to him.
Ezekiel looked almost shy about his lectio practice, like I’d discovered a dirty little secret. I wondered if he thought I was mocking him. “I take it that you don’t teach this.”
He smiled. “No. This is personal. The ancient traditions changed me. I’ve been slowly adding new practices to my life for the last five years. I know you don’t have much respect for me, darlin’, but this sinner is actually repentant.”
“You’re still a flirt.”
“Just around beauties like yourself.”
“I’m no beauty.”
“Ah, but
you’re wrong about that, darlin’. And it’s not just the outside that looks good to me.”
“I suck.”
He smiled at me. “Maybe that self-deprecating quality is just plain lovable. Bell.”
“Cut it out, Thunder.”
“Old habits die hard. My granny used to say, ‘When you see a pretty gal, if you don’t look once, you’re not a man, and if you look twice, you’re not a man of God.’ I’m trying to be a man of God. That’s the gospel truth.”
Like I could judge him. I stumbled through the ruins of my own sinful sexual past every day, trying to make my way back to God.
Lord, give me your wisdom. How would you deal with a man like him?
And then the awe-inspiring voice of God: The same way I dealt with you.
I hung my head, thoroughly chastised by the Lord. A few moments of uncomfortable silence passed, and I went back to his lectio practice. “So what do you do during your time in the empty room?”
“I spend an entire hour in a place where there are as few distractions as possible.” His excitement about the subject shone in his eyes. “You know there are four distinct movements? lectio, meditatio, oratio, and contemplatio.”
I nodded. I could see he loved the discipline.
“I take a passage from Scripture that I chose ahead of time, and I spend some time reading it, slowly. Several times.”
“What else do you do?”
“Then I meditate on it. I try to make it personal, see how it relates to my own life. If a particular word or two stands out, I meditate on that.”
Again, I nodded my encouragement, not that he needed it now. He had brightened like a child at Christmas.
“Next I respond to the passage. I open my heart to it. This is where the conversation with God begins.”
His voice had such a soothing quality. This was the most authentic talk I’d shared with him. His obvious connection to God through this spiritual exercise charmed me. “And then what happens as you open up to God?”
He took a deep breath, as if he were breathing in God’s Spirit. He released it slowly, like a sigh of pure pleasure.
“My favorite part is contemplatio. By now I’ve spent the better part of an hour getting my mind ready to meet God in this movement. I just listen to God, sissy.”
He called me sissy, the Southern endearment for sister, and I doubted if he’d noticed.
“I free my mind of my own thoughts. I don’t think about holy things or the cares of the world. Just me and my Father.”
I had to admit how much that impressed me—a former prosperity and deliverance preacher practicing lectio divina and loving it. He had a satisfied grin on his face. A spiritual romantic. No wonder women captivated him like they did King David. He was a lover at heart.
I had to focus, though. I didn’t want this man’s attractiveness to fool me into not seeing what he was—a suspect, until he was proven not to be. I thought about what he said about going into an empty room. To my knowledge all the rooms in the Rock House house were occupied.
“Which room is empty?”
“The attic. Rocky has been painting it, working on turning it into a nursery for Elisa’s baby.”
Okay. That shouldn’t have made me feel like he’d kicked me several times in the stomach, and yet…some strange noise burst out of my throat.
Ezekiel took my hand in his. “Are you all right?”
I nodded, still unable to speak.
“You do know that God has heard your prayer, darlin’? You have what you want.” He gave “have” an extra syllable. “Take care of your tumor, sissy.”
“It’s probably a cyst or something. I don’t know how you knew about that. Maybe you have some kind of gift. Maybe you’re just a great manipulator, but—”
“It’s a tumor, and it can hurt you.”
Honestly! He sounded just like he did on television. I cleared my throat. “You can drop the honey-coated voice of the prophet bit. We’re not on camera.”
He sat back. Grinned at me. “You don’t like me, do you?”
“I don’t know you, Mr. Thunder.”
“Maybe you should get to know me. You might find that we’re a lot alike, darlin’.”
I gave him a tight, fake smile. “I don’t think we are, Reverend. And don’t call me darlin’.” Again I reminded myself that I needed to stop attacking Thunder and get as much useful information as possible. “Who else was home when the accident happened?”
“Just my folks—Nikki, Lou, Joy, and the children. Rocky’s staff and Elisa had gone over to the church for a meeting. Rocky was…I’m not sure where he was.”
At my intervention. But I wasn’t about to tell Thunder about that.
“Did anyone else know you were in the attic?”
“I’m sure everyone did. Like I said, I do it every day at nine A.M.” The tone of his smooth voice only held a hint of irritation at my interrogation.
I didn’t say anything. Just cataloged the facts he gave me in my too fatigued brain.
“Bell?”
I looked at Ezekiel. I didn’t say he could call me Bell, but I suddenly felt too tired to play the name game.
Again, Ezekiel took my hand in his. “I appreciate your interest in my son, but this was nothing more than a tragic accident. If it’s anything other than that, I’m certain God will swiftly and mightily avenge my son’s death.”
This from a man who told the media he expected God to raise his son from the dead.
“Good luck with that,” I said.
I meant it, too.
I found Sister Joy milling around the kitchen. Her dress was casual today. She wore a simple denim jumper with a red turtleneck underneath. Her hair was pulled into a chignon; a few tendrils had escaped, grazing her neck. She’d made herself a sandwich and was turning away from the counter most likely to sit at the small kitchen table when she saw me. She started and her hand flew to her chest.
“Excuse me,” I said. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
“Child, you scared me half to death.” She fanned herself, though the room wasn’t hot.
“May I sit with you for a bit?”
“I’d be happy for the company. Get my mind offa…” She waved her hand in front of her face as if the gesture would halt the tormenting memory and threatening tears. She took a handkerchief from the pocket of her jumper and dabbed at the moisture brimming in her brown eyes. This honey-colored woman reminded me of so many women in my family. She could be my aunt.
We both sat at the table across from each other. When she set the plate on the table, I reached out and squeezed her hand. “I’m so sorry for your loss, Sister Joy. My name is Amanda. I sat behind you at the crusade Wednesday night.” I fought back my own threatening tears. Zeekie seemed to be a gift to all who knew him. I needed to be focused, or I’d never be able to help Zeekie as he’d cried out for me to do in my dream.
“Lorda Mercy!” she said. “I didn’t think I could cry so.”
“You must have been very close to Zeekie.”
She rocked a bit. “Honey, don’t you know, I loved him like he was my own child. I never married or had children. Zeke’s kids are about as close as I ever got to being a mama. I took care of that child since that girl brought him home from the hospital.”
Something about the way she said “that girl” gave me the feeling Sister Joy didn’t head up the Nikki Thunder fan club.
“You must have been with Ezekiel for a long time.”
“A long time,” she repeated, voice full of nostalgia.
“Tell me,” I said. “I love a good story.”
She pushed the plate toward me, offering half her sandwich. I took it and thanked her. There’s something about sharing a meal and a story, no matter how meager the meal may be. Maybe the heart opens with the mouth, as memories fresh and sweet as strawberries picked off the vine, still warm from the sun, spill out of souls.
“I grew up with him and, honey child, don’t you know, that boy was as slick t
hen as he is now.”
I feigned ignorance. “Slick?”
“Oh, yes, ma’am. You know he is.”
She grinned at me. Yes. I knew.
“Even as a boy, he knew how to charm the ladies. That was one pretty brown boy.”
Her wistful smile said so much more than her words. She’d loved him most of his life.
“Was he ever your beau?”
She lay her palms flat on the table. “Oh Lord, no. We were just friends, but I was always there for him. I was the girl next door. We went to each other’s birthday parties and to Sunday school together.”
She smoothed imaginary wrinkles off her jumper. I wondered if she’d counted the cost of loving him, even back when she was still a girl.
“How did his ministry begin?”
This time she smiled broadly. “We’d gone to revival under the big tent when we were fifteen years old, and he gave his heart to Jesus that night. Cried like a baby on a makeshift altar that was just a handmade bench on the grass at the front of the tent.”
Sister Joy sat quietly, hands crossed on her lap. She looked lost in reverie. I took a bite of the heavenly turkey sandwich she’d made—real turkey, not cold cuts. My taste buds rejoiced. I nodded, my mouth full, to encourage her to finish.
She touched her neck briefly. She didn’t seem to know what to do with her hands. “Wasn’t too much longer after that and he got to preachin’ and teachin’ himself. All the old folks said he was like a little prophet. Well, he loved the book of Ezekiel, and we got to calling him that. The old folks called him a son of thunder. He put them two together, and Ezekiel Thunder was born. That was his destiny.” She had a faraway look in her eyes, as if she really believed in his calling.
“What was his name before?”
“Norman Dickson.”
“Did you go with him when he went to pursue his destiny?”
“Wished I could have. But he’d always come back home, and I’d be there.”
I wanted to let her know how grateful I was for all that she’d shared with me. “This is the best turkey sandwich I’ve ever had,” I said.
She grinned and took a bite of her half. When she finished chewing, she blurted out what I’d already surmised. “I’ve loved that man since we were children.”
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