My Word_Interior.indd

by Gizelle Bryant

  two days, I got her voicemail. But then, my phone vibrated

  with a text notification:

  I’m in the middle of something. But I’ll be home tomorrow.

  That was it. I picked up the phone to call her, but then I

  read her text again. Was she with Sharonne?

  I couldn’t take it, so I texted her that question.

  Right away, she responded: I can’t talk. Explain later. Flight is in the morning. Early.

  Leaning back, I closed my eyes and released a howl, trying

  to rid my center of all the anxiety simmering inside of me.

  I’d have to wait until morning? What was going on? Why

  couldn’t Dru just tell me.

  Turning on the car’s ignition, I rolled my car from the

  spot that said FIRST LADY and I prepared myself, for a

  long night without sleep.

  Chapter Eighteen

  When my cel phone rang and I saw Dru’s name on the

  screen, my heart had already started racing before I

  could tap the ‘Accept’ button.

  “Dru?” I asked as if I wasn’t sure she was on the other end.

  Her response: “Are you alone?”

  “I am, I’m home,” I said, her question not making me feel

  any better. “But Dru, what’s going on? You’ve kept me waiting

  and I can’t take it.”

  “I’m sorry, I’ll explain it all, but I just landed. We’re still on the plane, but as soon as I get off, I’ll hop in an Uber and be at your place in about thirty.”

  “No,” I said. “I’m alone now, but I don’t know for how

  long. Jeremy took the kids to the driving range and he’l

  probably take them to get something to eat afterward. But I

  have no idea and I don’t want us discussing this when he and

  the children come back.”

  “All right; where do you want to meet?”

  229

  230 | Gizel e Bryant

  “I’ll jump in the car and pick you up, but Dru, tell me, is

  Sharonne pregnant?”

  “Ginger, I know it’s hard, but I don’t want to talk about

  it over the phone.”

  “Damn it, Dru,” I said, raising my voice once again.

  Something that had never been part of my life was becoming a

  habit. “Do you know how long I’ve been waiting? Just answer

  that question. Is she pregnant?”

  “I’ll be outside the United terminal waiting.” And then,

  she clicked off the phone. My best friend had just hung up

  in my face. What in the world was this about?

  I wanted to call her back, but that would just waste too

  much time. I’d been dressed and waiting, so all I had to do

  was grab my purse and jet down the steps. I set the house

  alarm, before I trotted into the garage. My plan was to set a

  speed record with how many minutes I could shave off of this

  normally twenty-minute ride to Reagan National Airport.

  I had to get there before my head exploded from all of my

  anxiety. Why wouldn’t Dru tell me whether or not Sharonne

  was pregnant? There had to be only one reason why she didn’t

  want to tell me over the phone: It was not good news.

  Tears were already filling my eyes when I spotted Dru

  thirteen minutes later standing on the edge of the curb in

  front of Terminal 2. I eased my car to a stop a few feet away

  from her.

  I held my breath as she strolled to me, searching her face

  for any signs of what she was about to say. Why wasn’t she

  My Word | 231

  running to the car? Didn’t she realize the damage that had

  been done to my heart because I hadn’t heard from her in

  these past few days?

  “Hey,” she said, dropping into the passenger’s seat. “I

  know you’re mad that I hung up on you,” she started before

  I could go in on her, “but you’ll understand if you give me a

  chance to explain.”

  “Is she pregnant, Dru?” I asked, knowing that I wouldn’t

  be able to breathe if she didn’t answer my question—one way

  or the other.

  When Dru shook her head and said, “No,” all kinds of

  relief swept over me.

  Tears of joy seeped from my eyes. “Thank you, Father,” I

  shouted, but when I reached over to hug Dru, her expression

  did not match the celebration I wanted to have in this car.

  “What?”

  “She’s not pregnant because she already had the baby. Her

  baby’s nine months old.”

  My victory had been right there in my hands and Drew

  had just snatched it away. Now, I cried for a different reason.

  She said, “That’s what I didn’t want to tell you over the

  phone. Sharonne has a baby. A boy.”

  “Oh, my God.” I dropped my head onto the steering

  wheel. “Is it Jeremy’s?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know, but let me tell you she sure

  knows a lot about the two of you.”

  “Oh, my God.”

  232 | Gizel e Bryant

  “That’s why I didn’t want to talk to you while I was done

  there. I hooked up with Sharonne pretty quickly. Folks who

  don’t go far from home still hang out in the same places with

  the same people. So she and I ran into each other by,” Dru put her hands and made air quotes, “accident on Thursday when

  I went to the mall.”

  “Do I want to hear this story?”

  She was washed in sadness when she shook her head. “No,

  but you have to.”

  My heart was broken already, I figured. So, I motioned

  for Dru to wait as I shifted the car back into drive and

  maneuvered around to the cell phone lot. When Dru started

  this story, I didn’t want to be interrupted by vigilant cops who didn’t allow cars to stop for longer than thirty seconds.

  I’d barely rol ed my car into the last spot before Dru

  began, “So Sharonne is a manager at the Coach store in the

  mall and I just happened to wander in there. She recognized

  me right away, but then she got a little suspicious and asked

  me if I worked for you.”

  “What?” I leaned back to get a better view of Dru. “She

  knew that?”

  “Yeah.” Dru kind of nodded and then shook her head at

  the same time. “I don’t know if she knew it from our circle or from Jeremy. But when she kinda shut down after I told her

  that I did work for you, I had to come up with a new game

  plan. So I told her that I worked for you once, but I no longer worked for you ‘cause you were jealous, out of control, and

  over the top.”

  My Word | 233

  When I raised my eyebrows, Dru shrugged. “Look, I had

  to come up with something. I was trying to be her new best

  friend, if only for a couple of days. I walked into that store already knowing from a couple of our friends that she’d had a

  baby and if I wanted to get more information out of her, she

  was going to have to trust me.”

  “Because you wanted to see her baby.”

  “Yup. That’s why I made up all kinds of lies about you and

  she couldn’t get enough. We only had a chance to chat for a

  couple of minutes because she was at work, but I’d given her

  so much juice about you with promises of more to come that

  I wasn’t surprised when she invited me to come to her place

  afte
r she got off from work.”

  There was only one thing on my mind. “Did you see the

  baby?” I wasn’t sure why I asked that question; maybe, just to be sure there was a child. Sonya and Cecily had been wrong—

  so maybe Dru’s friends had been wrong, too.

  She nodded. “I did. I pretended I was shocked and told

  her I didn’t know she was married. She told me she wasn’t,

  but her baby’s father was.”

  I groaned. “Jeremy.”

  “She didn’t say.” Dru shook her head. “She never said it

  was Jeremy, and I’m not sure why since she knew that I knew

  you. I tried my best to get her to talk about him; I even hung out with her all day yesterday since Friday was her day off. I thought she would have said something, but while she talked

  about how she planned to be with the baby’s father and how

  he was going to leave his wife for her....”

  234 | Gizel e Bryant

  “I can’t believe this,” I whispered.

  “I didn’t push,” Dru said, “for two reasons. One because

  I wasn’t sure whether or not she was trying to play me and

  the second is I want to keep this connection to her open, just in case.”

  “So, that’s it?” I closed my eyes. This was not getting any

  better. “You didn’t find out if Jeremy was her kid’s father?” I sighed. “Your trip was a total waste.”

  “No, it wasn’t because we know a couple of things now. We

  know she’s not pregnant, we know she already has a child....”

  “Who may or may not belong to Jeremy.”

  “That’s true, but we’re going to find out.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think I can take it, Dru. I’m

  already on the edge. I can’t wait until you go back to New

  Orleans to try to get more information. I just can’t.”

  “You don’t have to wait.” When she reached into her

  purse, I frowned. When she pulled out a baggie, my eyes

  widened. “I got her baby’s pacifier and his brush.”

  “Oh, my goodness,” I said, slipping the baggie from her

  fingers. “How?”

  “I told you I hung out with her all day yesterday. Whew.”

  Dru leaned back in the seat like the thought of yesterday

  exhausted her. “When she’d asked me if I wanted to hang

  out, I thought she would be taking her son to the park or

  something. But no, that chick had me in her car all day long

  as she ran errands. And she got out of the car one too many

  times leaving me alone with her baby and the diaper bag.

  That’s when I came up with the idea to....”

  My Word | 235

  “Steal the child’s pacifier?”

  She nodded as if what she’d done was no big deal. “I took

  the pacifier and the brush because I wasn’t sure which would

  work better for DNA. I’ve never done this Maury Povich stuff

  before, but I kinda like it.”

  “I can’t believe you did this,” I said, looking down at the

  bag. “Look, desperate times call for desperate measures.

  She wasn’t giving up any information about the father and

  truthfully, even if she’d said it was Jeremy, this is what you’d need. You have to have a DNA test done so that you can

  know for sure. If he’s not the father, this will give you peace.

  And if he is, you need to go to him with more proof than just

  Sharonne’s word.

  “Locked and loaded,” I said.

  “Yeah, that’s one way to put it.”

  As I sat staring at the baggie, I couldn’t believe my life had come to this. First sitting in front of the house of a woman

  who might have been my husband’s jump off and now, I was

  holding a baggie with DNA stolen from a baby who may or

  may not belong to Jeremy. I hadn’t been raised this way, but

  I guess that wasn’t any kind of insurance policy from having

  to deal with this kind of reality television drama.

  Dru gently took the bag from my hands, as if she knew I

  was in a fragile state. “We have to do this, Ginger. You need

  to know definitively one way or the other. You need to know

  in order to make any decision. Because honestly, if it’s just

  Katrina, then....”

  236 | Gizel e Bryant

  “You think I should stay and work it out,” I said before

  she could finish.

  She nodded. “But this, a baby....”

  “Changes the game,” I interrupted her again.

  “It does, though I’m not saying that means you should

  leave.”

  “Are you kidding me? My husband fathers a child out of

  wedlock and I’m supposed to stay? You know who you sound

  like, right?”

  Dru shook her head. “No, I don’t sound anything like

  Sonya, Cecily, or the rest of them biddies. All I’m saying is

  that I’m not going to be the one to tell you what to do either way. I’ll be here to discuss it and pray with you, but....”

  “It’s all on me.”

  She nodded, then held up the baggy. “I’m going to drive

  this over to Silver Spring. I already did the research and there’s a lab there that can get results in forty-eight hours. They’re open today, but only until one.” We both glanced at the clock; we still had a little more than three hours. “But we’ll be able to find out if Jeremy is the daddy, okay?”

  Her question made my heart ache in all kinds of way. I

  was Ginger Williams, First Lady of New Kingdom Temple,

  one of the largest, arguably the most influential predominantly African American churches in the country’s Capitol. What in

  the world was I doing here?

  “Ginger?” Dru called my name taking me out of my

  descent into the abyss. “We just need one more thing.”

  My Word | 237

  What was Dru talking about? What else could she

  possibly need from me when she’d already taken my heart.

  She said, “We’re going to need Jeremy’s DNA,” she

  explained.

  Of course, I hadn’t thought of that, but I hadn’t thought

  of much. I nodded, then, turned on the car’s ignition.

  “Okay,” I said. “Let’s go to my house. Jeremy’s DNA is

  all over the place.” That was my attempt at humor, but all I

  wanted to do was cry. “And then,” I continued, “I’ll drive you to the clinic.”

  “No,” Dru shook her head. “You don’t have to do that. I’l

  handle this, Ginger. I got you.”

  “I know you do and I thank you for that. But I want to

  make sure this gets there myself. I don’t have to go inside the clinic with you; it’s a better idea that you handle it because I don’t want anyone to recognize me. But you and I will deliver

  this to the clinic and then, you and I will pick it up. Because like you said, when I go to Jeremy, if he is this baby’s father, there will be no way for him to deny that it was a mistake, that the envelope was tampered with, that someone got something

  mixed up; he won’t be able to say anything. If we find out that Jeremy Williams is the father, all of us are going to know this for sure.”

  Dru nodded as if she understood. She laid her hand on

  my arm, I knew to give me comfort. “It’s going to be okay. No

  matter which way this turns out, I got you, okay?”

  I leaned over to hug my friend and then, I prayed that all

  of this would be as easy as she believed.

  238 | Gizel e Bryant

  When we broke our
embrace, I looked into Dru’s eyes,

  wanting to ask her the final question. “What’s the baby’s

  name?”

  This was something I’d been thinking about. Women

  like Sharonne had a pattern when it came to naming their

  children after being impregnated by a man who belonged

  to someone else. I held my breath because if Sharonne had

  named her son....

  “Andre,” Dru said. “Her baby’s name is Andre.”

  I breathed, buckling with a little bit of relief.

  “But I don’t know what last name she gave to him.”

  “That’s all right.” I turned my attention back to the car.

  His name is not Jeremy.” And for a reason that I really couldn’t explain, that gave me a little bit of hope.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Mommy, Auntie Jada said she’s going to do my nails,”

  Jasmine shrieked.

  The way my daughter jumped up and down, her pigtails

  flying in the air, brought a smile to my face. For the first time since this drama began, I’d spent a morning smiling. It was

  because of Jada. My sister had just popped up in church this

  morning. Right when the praise and worship team made their

  way behind the altar, my sister had stepped in front of the

  pew and stood next to me.

  I hadn’t seen her at first. Didn’t even know she was there

  until I heard her voice:

  “I have a meeting in Hampton tomorrow, so I figured, I’d

  spend the day and the night with my favorite pastor and his wife.”

  I’d turned to her with a screech and a hug, holding her in

  an embrace so tight, I sent her intuition into high alert. She’d stepped back from me with a frown on her face and questions

  in her eyes, but before she could ask one question, the praise and worship team began singing.

  239

  240 | Gizel e Bryant

  I raised my hands to the Lord giving Him praise for so

  many things in that moment.

  Since that time, I hadn’t been alone. At least not long

  enough for Jada to corner, then question me. And really, she

  hadn’t been alone either; Jasmine had been her shadow from

  the moment she saw her auntie once church was out.

  “So Mommy, can Auntie Jada do it? Can she paint my

  nails?”

  I looked up at my sister as she joined me at the kitchen

  table. “As long as it’s a neutral color, it’s fine.”

  “Yay!” Jasmine sang, waving her hands in the air, her

  pigtails still bouncing. “I want hot pink, Auntie Jada.”