Next, the doctor turned and looked at Robert. “Mr. Becton, whatever you can do to keep her calm, please do it.”
“Oh, most definitely. I told her that everything would be fine. She just has to have faith.”
“See, listen to this man,” the doctor said and laughed. “We’re watching you closely throughout this pregnancy. There are so many expectant mothers who don’t even know they have the disease. Those are the ones we’re really concerned about because they stand a chance of delivering a baby with neonatal herpes. But you, you’re educated about the disease. You know what to look for. That’s a huge plus for you and for your babies. So, please, if you do have another outbreak, I want you to call just like you did this time, and make an appointment. Okay?”
Rena nodded again and Robert held onto her hand as they both listened.
“You feel better, honey?” Robert asked when they left the doctor’s office.
“Yes, I guess. I just want our babies to be okay, Robert. I don’t want them to suffer because of my mistakes. God, I pray that they don’t.”
Robert started the car, but before he put it in gear he turned toward Rena. “They’re going to be fine. You’ll see. Our twin girls are going to be not only beautiful, but one hundred percent perfect in every way.” He smiled at Rena then kissed her on her lips.
She welcomed his soft lips on hers and instantly she began to feel relaxed.
◊
Robert and Rena had been talking to a lawyer about Rena adopting his kids. Robert hadn’t seen or heard from Isabelle and Robbie’s mother for almost three years. No one knew where she was or how she was doing, including her family. Rena hoped and prayed that the adoptions would go through.
She no longer gave a thought about Francesca or Stiles either for that matter. The condom incident was long pushed aside. She did finally tell Robert about it because this time she didn’t want to risk anything bad happening in her marriage. He told her to let it go, let the past remain in the past and move forward; that there was always going to be somebody who hates on another person.
Rena was endeared to Robert even more after that. Once again, he had displayed another part of him that reassured her that she had chosen the right guy.
She couldn’t understand why Francesca or Stiles would hate on her. She’d done nothing but love them. She loved Francesca in her own way and she was in love with Stiles. True, she had deceived him, but it wasn’t meant to hurt him. She didn’t tell him about the relationship between her and Frankie because she wanted to protect him, and plus she was ashamed of how she allowed her and Frankie’s relationship to get out of hand for so long. But now she had finally come to grips with her past. She’d forgiven herself the way God had done so very long ago. Rena could actually smile from the inside out.
She massaged her round growing belly and giggled when one of the babies kicked.
“Robert,” she hurried into his man cave. “One of the twins just kicked me. Feel right here,” she told him as she walked up on him. He looked away from the game that was playing on ESPN and gave his undivided attention to his wife.
Rena took hold of his hand and placed it on the spot where the baby kicked. Robert jumped when the baby kicked against his hand.
His laughter seemed to fill the air. The kids came running into the family room. “Come here, Isabelle. You too, Robbie,” Robert told them. They ran up and stood next to their father. “Here, feel this.” He took each of their hands and placed them on Rena’s swollen belly. “Now you have to be real quiet and still,” he said in a doting voice.
Robbie was the first to laugh. “It moved, mommy,” he said to Rena. He had been calling her mommy for close to two years. At first Isabelle called her Aunty Rena but followed suit shortly after Robbie started calling her ‘mommy’.
“No it didn’t,” Isabelle countered. “I didn’t feel nothing.”
“I didn’t feel anything,” Robert corrected.
“Hold on, give them a second. You’ll feel them kicking. Well, at least one of them,” Rena assured Isabelle. “Come on, put your hand right here.” This time Rena guided her hand. Isabelle placed her head against Rena’s belly too. Suddenly her head popped up and a big toothless grin spilled across her face.
“I felt her. I felt the baby,” she squealed with delight. The four of them became consumed with touching Rena’s belly. All was good in the Becton household.
◊
Isabelle and Robbie were asleep in their rooms. Robert pulled Rena next to him. His warm, passionate kisses covered her like a blanket.
“Baby, I’m so happy,” she managed to say as he gently caressed her. “I’m so happy.”
A flashback flooded her mind and she saw Stiles kissing her, and then just as quickly Robert’s face turned to the likeness of Frankie. What was going on? She shook her head.
“What is it?” Robert stopped midstream.
“Uh, nothing. It’s nothing.”
“Are the babies all right? Do you want to do this?”
“They’re fine. And yes, I want to do this,” she answered.
Rena looked at him with adoring eyes. Robert was so considerate and so thoughtful. He was always putting her needs or the needs of the kids before his own. He was definitely her knight in shiny armor, and every day she thanked God for giving her a second chance. A second chance at love.
“Honey, I’m fine,” she reassured her husband. This time she became the aggressor. She pushed thoughts of Stiles and Frankie out of her mind and snuggled against him, intertwining her legs with his. Her body melted against his and skin to skin they became one.
22
“Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it with the handle of anxiety or the handle of faith.” Henry Ward Beecher
The next several months passed by in a blur. Francesca had refused Pastor’s and Stiles’ calls. At first they would called almost every day, sometimes two or three times a day after she’d left Memphis. Even Detria called and left a few messages but Francesca didn’t respond to her either. She wanted nothing more to do with her family. After all, she wasn’t really a part of their family anyway.
This man named Jerry that Pastor talked about never wanted her, her mother didn’t want her, and Pastor, well in Francesca’s eyes he only kept her because it was too late for Audrey to do away with her, and he probably wanted to save face at the church.
The more she thought about everything, the more she started to become more relaxed. One, because she felt a sense of freedom in a way. Not truly being connected to the Graham family was her way out.
Two, sure, Stiles may have been her brother, but their relationship was totally severed now. Plus, he was too much like Audrey, and Francesca recognized that even more when she was in Memphis. Everybody thought he was a Mr. Goody Two Shoes, but Francesca was well aware of his darker side. Rena should have seen it for herself when he kicked her to the curb. And Detria, well, Francesca had a feeling that Detria had tasted a bit of Stiles’ venom too whether she would admit it or not.
Francesca couldn’t quite put a finger on why she felt that way about Detria, but there was something in Detria’s mannerisms and the times they used to talk on the phone, that caused Francesca to suspect that Stiles had shown his true colors a time or two.
As for Pastor, now that she knew he wasn’t her real father she didn’t feel like she owed him a thing. If anything, she’d given him a way out. He wouldn’t have to put on a sham any longer, pretending like he loved and cared about her so much. No wonder he didn’t stand up like a real father would have done after knowing his daughter, his only daughter at that had been molested and raped. He knew all along that she wasn’t his, and Francesca believed that no matter how he may have wanted to feel true love for her as his own, he could not. She was another man’s child. A man Pastor knew. His neighbor. A man who betrayed him by coming into his home, his sanctuary and bedding his wife.
And Audrey, well she still managed to have the last laugh it seemed. Even from her g
rave, she still held the trump card. What was the reason she left those newspaper clippings and that fake letter? Francesca toiled over it again and again. The only thing she could come up with was that Audrey always had to be the victim. She could never be the one to let sleeping dogs lie as the old folks used to say. If she wasn’t stirring up mess, then she wouldn’t be Audrey Graham. So even from her grave, she managed to wreak havoc. How could she say she loved anybody? How could Audrey even say that she loved Pastor when she could leave behind a letter riddled with lies? And Pastor, he had to be plain naïve or stupid. Francesca hadn’t decided which category he fit in best.
Tim told her that one day she was going to have to find it in her heart to forgive her family. It was the only way she could be forgiven, he told her. She believed that she could forgive Pastor, Stiles, Audrey and all the people who had wronged her in life, but she didn’t have to forget what they’d done. Maybe that wasn’t how God operated, but Francesca wasn’t God, she was a woman who had been hurt, whose spirit had been crushed by those who pretended to love her.
These last few weeks she told herself that Stiles and Pastor must have finally gotten the message that she didn’t want anything to do with them because the calls had stopped. Slowly, she got back into her routine of taking care of her health, her spirit, and her man.
“Tim, I can’t wait until tomorrow,” Francesca said with her legs propped up on his thighs.
“Me neither,” he said as they sat in their family room with a bowl of air popped popcorn on the table in front of them. They were posted in front of the giant flat screen TV mounted on the wall, and Tim flipped through the Netflix catalog of movies.
“Do you think they’re going to finally approve us to adopt a child?” asked Francesca.
“With God all things are possible.”
“Uh oh. That means you think they aren’t. I know I have AIDS but that doesn’t mean I can pass it on to a child. They shouldn’t be able to deny us because of it either. People need to be more educated about AIDS.”
“People are more educated,” Tim said, “but it doesn’t mean that we won’t go through a lot of red tape to get approved for adoption. Shucks, people who are perfectly healthy, squeaky clean and all, have a hard time. And really, I don’t blame the adoption agencies. They have to be sure they pair these children up with good parents. Think about that woman who adopted that little boy from over in Russia and then when he didn’t measure up to her misconstrued, twisted ideals of what a child should be she shipped him back with a tag pinned on his clothes.”
“What? I didn’t hear about that? When did that happen?”
“A few years ago.”
“That’s awful. But we’re not like that. We have a lot of love to give to a child. You know it and I know it.”
“Yes, we do, and that’s why I’m not going to worry about a thing. God knows our hearts, and He knows the desires of our heart. And because of that, I believe that everything is going to work out as it should.”
“You’re right. You’re always right,” Francesca told him and cuddled up even closer to him. They settled on a thriller movie to watch. They both loved a good thriller. Francesca reached for the bowl of popcorn, placed it on top of them, and they settled back as the movie began.
23
“The worst way to miss someone is when they are right beside you and yet you know you can never have them.” Unknown
Detria sat behind the desk in her office at Holy Rock reminiscing about the earlier rendezvous she’d had with Skip. She’d left the hotel an hour earlier and he was going to stop by his house, change clothes and come to the church. They’d decided to stop meeting at his house. It was too risky so they’d made one of the hotels out in the suburbs their new meeting place.
Detria tried to concentrate on the paperwork before her. She was actually proud of the job she’d done with the children’s ministry. It was rapidly expanding under her leadership. It wasn’t that she adored kids so much; well she actually really did like kids as long as they weren’t hers.
She figured she couldn’t love Baby Audrey as much as she wanted to because she didn’t love her ‘baby daddy’ as much as she hoped she would when she married him. She told herself she could love him easily. After all, Stiles was supposed to have been a good catch by her parents’ definition. He was a Godly man, a handsome man, a great provider and he treated her well. He was fairly good in bed, yet Detria felt like there was always something missing in their marriage. It was like Stiles never could quite give all of himself to her, and she sensed it.
Rena may have married Robert Becton, who Detria perceived to be a decent guy, but one that Rena probably didn’t truly love either. Detria believed that Rena still had feelings for her husband. At first, it used to hurt to know that her husband probably was still in love with his ex-wife.
Too bad things didn’t blow up when Detria sent those condoms to Rena. Detria couldn’t figure out what happened with that. Stiles hadn’t said anything to her about it, and Rena as far as Detria knew had never contacted Stiles. But then again, who knows, maybe they had talked. Detria didn’t trust either one of them.
Enter Skip. Detria hadn’t meant for them to hook up. But, as people say, things happen and she was a young, vibrant woman with needs. Needs that her husband was too busy to attend to because he was always at Holy Rock or on campus teaching.
She couldn’t help it if Skip and Stiles were good friends. And it wasn’t her fault that her husband didn’t touch her as often as she wanted him to, needed him to.
Things had started off so innocently between her and Skip. A smile here. A kind word there. An extra minute or two of conversation.
Detria couldn’t pinpoint when like for Skip had turned to lust, but ever since it did, there had been no turning back. She sat at her desk and daydreamed about their time together. They’d spent half of the morning in bed making love.
“Detria, we've been together for a while, and keeping this thing between us a secret is getting harder every day,” Skip said as he cradled her birthday suit body next to his. “Skip, I hear what you’re saying, and I hate that we have to do it like this, but it is what it is. I’m a married woman with a child. I’m the first lady on top of that, so I just can’t up and leave him.”
“But you said that you don’t think you love him anymore, so why can’t you leave him? The man doesn’t deserve you. He’s cool and all with me, but I know him. I know what kind of man he is when he puts down that Bible and steps from behind that pulpit. He was always out for himself. And he’s still like that.”
Detria propped up a little, turned to the side and looked at Skip. “What do you mean?”
“You knew Stiles back in the day. What do you think I mean?”
“I didn’t know him like that. I knew him from going to Holy Rock and he’s a couple of years older than me, so I didn’t hang around the same circles of friends he did back in high school. Back then, he was a jock, the guy all the girls wanted but couldn’t have. He went from one girl to the next. But I thought all of that changed when he went off to school and seminary.”
“If you thought that then you were just as naïve as those other females. Stiles did it up in college. He only settled down when he came back home and started preaching at his daddy’s church. Then he hooked up with Rena and ended up getting married. But he was still a pistol. You see he up and divorced her don’t you. Forget about what the Bible says, ‘cause he wasn’t thinking about the Bible when he found out old Francesca, Frankie, whatever she called herself was smashing his wife.” Skip chuckled. “Man that was wild.”
“I didn’t know you knew about that.”
“You’d have to be on another planet if you didn’t hear about that,” Skip said and started laughing.
Detria lightly hit him on his chest. “Don’t laugh, Skip. It’s not funny.”
“May not be funny to you, but it’s some funny stuff to me. The chick you love, and marry,” he added, “has been turned out by your o
wn sister, and you’re supposed to be a lady’s man? Yeah, that’s funny, but hey, you reap what you sow. He broke a lot of females’ hearts along the way. And you know what they say, payback is, well, I can’t say it how I want to say, so I’ll just say payback is something else.”
“It’s not my intention to hurt Stiles,” Detria explained. “All he had to do was love me back. I would have been in his corner one hundred percent. But he, he,” she stammered, “keeps part of himself on lock down or something. I can’t get through to him. And things got worse after I had his baby. I thought that would have brought us closer together but seems like it’s drawing us farther apart. All he wants me to do is stay home and keep a baby. I don’t want a life like that, especially if I don’t have the love and support of my husband. And sex, well again you know what I told you about that. He wants to do it when he wants to get some relief. He doesn’t think about fulfilling my needs. And then he’s violent. Sometimes I get scared of him, Skip. I mean really scared.” Detria laid her head back against Skip’s bare chest. “I never would have married him if I knew he had a dark side.”
“He was known to get a little rowdy with the females back in the day. But I know one thing if he ever hurts you, you better let me know and I’m going to do something bad to Mr. Preacher Man. Something real bad. I don’t take to a man beating up on his woman. That’s a coward.”
“He’s raised his hand to me, but thank God he’s never hit me. And if he ever does,” she said with force, “it’ll be his last time. I’ll have him locked up behind bars so quick, and he’ll never see his daughter again. Holy Rock will be a thing of the past for him because I’ll put him on blast so fast he won’t know what hit him.”
Skip turned slightly and kissed Detria between her eyes. “Like I said, it’s a coward who beats a woman. Me, you better believe that I’m no coward. I’m a lover, not a fighter,” he whispered as he planted another kiss between her eyes.
My Sister My Momma My Wife Page 16