The Other Side of Goodness

by Vanessa Davis Griggs

  Lawrence looked up at the ceiling again. “You know . . . that’s probably the best plan. Because if I am a match, we’d really need to keep this as hushed as possible,” Lawrence said.

  “Yeah. And if you’re a match and end up qualifying as a donor for her, we could easily manufacture a business trip for you while you have the procedure done and the time you need to recuperate.”

  Lawrence nodded. “Good looking out. But if they say I’m not even a potential candidate to proceed any further and we need to involve my children to satisfy Gabrielle and keep her quiet with what she knows, then we’ll enact Operation Become a Possible Donor.”

  “Hey, I like that: Operation Become a Possible Donor.” William walked to the door and opened it. “I like that.” He closed the door as he left.

  Lawrence retrieved the card Gabrielle had given him with the special number connected to the child in need of the bone marrow transplant, picked up the phone, and made an appointment. He then called Andrew and told him he needed to see him again, sooner rather than later.

  It was on now.

  Chapter 24

  Gather yourselves together, yea, gather together, O nation not desired.

  —Zephaniah 2:1

  “Thank you,” Gabrielle said after she and Zachary stepped into the foyer of her house.

  “No problem,” Zachary said.

  Gabrielle turned to him. “I know you want to know.”

  Zachary smiled slightly. “Know what?”

  “Look, Zachary, I saw how you reacted when you heard that I knew Andrew.”

  Zachary took Gabrielle by her hand and led her into the den. He sat down, pulling her down alongside him. “All right. Let’s get this out of the way once and for all.”

  Gabrielle looked toward the ceiling.

  Zachary touched her chin. “It’s not like that.”

  She lowered her head and looked at him. “You’re telling me that you’re not upset? Seriously? After all that tall talking you did making Lawrence believe we harbored no secrets between us, and then you get blindsided with that information.”

  “Listen, Gabrielle, you and I are just getting to know each other. We don’t know everything about each other yet. In fact, even if we were married, I’m sure there would be things we still wouldn’t know,” Zachary said.

  “But the thing is, Zachary, this was something that just took place. I should have told you that I knew Andrew right after it happened.”

  Zachary took her hand and placed his fingers in between hers. “And when might you have done that? Come on, think about it. Your friend Paris—”

  “Paris is not my friend.”

  Zachary nodded. “Okay. Paris and her husband came over to us, and her husband never let on that he knew you.”

  “If you knew Paris the way I do, you’d understand why.”

  “Then help me understand. What kind of a person is she?”

  “She’s selfish and quite possessive.” Gabrielle turned her body squarely toward Zachary. “It’s like this: Paris had a boyfriend. When I stayed at her place for that short time, he came over a few times. She thought her boyfriend and I were trying to hook up behind her back.”

  “Is that why she put you out?”

  “I don’t know why she put me out. That could have been why. I wasn’t quite sure what set her off. I’d gone to pick up a few things from the grocery store and when I returned, she was blowing a gasket, yelling and screaming that I had to get out. I asked her what had happened to get her so upset. She never really told me. Just kept saying that I knew what I’d done. To be honest, I thought she’d found out about me and her father. He’d just learned that I was pregnant a few days earlier, and he definitely hadn’t been happy about the revelation. He was telling me I had to get rid of it and I had to do it right then. He gave me money to have the abortion. Said he would help me in whatever way I would need to get on my feet after I got rid of the baby. Then a few days later, here comes his daughter giving me a few hours to get all of my stuff and leave. What was I to do? I had nowhere to go. But I got my stuff and started walking.”

  “Wow,” Zachary said. “It breaks my heart to hear this. I can only imagine what it must have been like for you.”

  Gabrielle stood up while hugging herself. She began to walk toward the window.

  Zachary stood and went to her. He grabbed her by the arms that were still hugging her. “I’m not upset about anything, do you hear me? I just want to do whatever I can to help you now.”

  “Yeah, but you were standing up for me. And you got hit with something that I could have told you myself . . . I should have told you myself.”

  “Okay, so would you like to tell me now about you and this guy Andrew . . . Drew, whatever his name is?”

  “It’s Andrew Holyfield. And, yes, we did know each other. He was Paris’s boyfriend’s friend at the time.”

  Zachary laughed. “That’s a mouthful.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay. But if her boyfriend and Andrew were friends, why would she not know that you two had met prior to her introducing you the other day?”

  Gabrielle walked back over to the couch and sat down. Zachary followed and did the same. “She didn’t know I had met him. It was before the two of them even met, most likely. You see there was this time that Cedric, that was Paris’s boyfriend, brought Andrew over to the apartment with him while I was there. Paris had already left for the club she liked going to. I’m not sure about the details; I don’t know if the real deal was that Cedric didn’t own a car or that his car only ran half the time, because Paris seemed to be the one having to always pick him up. I’m not sure what happened this time around; she didn’t exactly ever confide in me. She must have been mad with him, so he got Andrew to bring him over. When he saw me, he must have thought it would be a neat idea if the four of us hung out or something. Who knows?”

  Gabrielle crossed her legs at the ankles. “I later learned from Drew that Cedric hadn’t presented that idea to Paris before deciding to do it. Paris called him on his cell phone while we were on our way to the club. When he mentioned the idea of me and his friend, the four of us, hooking up at the club, she reportedly had a fit. Apparently, Paris hadn’t made it clear to Cedric that I wasn’t a friend or much of anything in her eyes. All I did was kept the place clean and cooked in exchange for somewhere to stay. That was it. I was not someone she cared to be seen out in public with—ever.”

  Zachary pulled Gabrielle into his arms. “Wow. Paris sounds like she was a real piece of work back then.”

  “Oh, it was fine. I knew she and I weren’t really friends or anything like that. But when you have nowhere else to go, you do what you have to do to survive. I was just thankful she was kind enough to let me stay with her. But what she told Cedric about me was misleading. I gave her money for half the rent. The rest that I did was pretty much what I’d been doing pretty much all of my teenage life: cooking and cleaning up after other folks who sat around like they were kings and queens.” Gabrielle flicked a tear from the left side of her face.

  “So Paris didn’t know you’d met Andrew?”

  Gabrielle shook her head. “No. Cedric wasn’t going to tell her then that he’d just been to the apartment and convinced me to come with them. Not after Paris let him know that I was neither welcomed nor worthy to be in her presence outside of the apartment. So Drew dropped Cedric off at the nightclub and brought me back to the apartment. Drew and I talked for a little while. He’s really a very caring guy. I suppose he thought I’d been treated badly and he was trying to make it up to me. About a month later, everything pretty much went south for me, and then crossed the border.”

  Zachary squeezed Gabrielle tight. “You know I have a lot of questions swirling around in my head after hearing all of this.”

  “Yeah.” Gabrielle broke from his embrace. “So here I was being thrown out on the streets for the second time in three months with nowhere to live. I had money in my purse for an abortion, from the father
of my baby, with strict instructions to get rid of the baby, and the knowledge that he wanted nothing to do with any child of mine. So I’m walking down the street pulling two large suitcases behind me, trying to decide where to go while I figure out where to go, when this car pulls up alongside me.” Gabrielle looked toward the ceiling and smiled before looking at Zachary. “It was Andrew Holyfield.”

  “Great timing.”

  Gabrielle let out a short laugh. “Yeah. That’s what I thought when he rolled down the passenger-side window and asked if I needed a ride somewhere. But since I’d met him only that one time, I really didn’t know him well enough to be sure I could trust him. I wrestled with whether I should get in the car with him or not.”

  “That was smart. At least you stopped to consider the possibilities of what could happen.”

  “Yeah, but I was pregnant, walking down the street, with nowhere to go, and no way to get there.” Gabrielle looked at Zachary so she could better gauge his reactions to everything she was saying. “I did decide to get in, which really could have turned out badly, but thank God, it didn’t. Andrew asked me where to. And that’s when I lost it and broke down completely, right there in his old Chevy.”

  Zachary gathered her back into his arms.

  Gabrielle pulled away again. She didn’t want him holding her while she told him the rest of the story. “He didn’t know what to do; he wasn’t that kind of guy.”

  “But still he took you to his place,” Zachary said resigned.

  Gabrielle smiled. “Oh, yeah. He took me home to his place.” She let out a short laugh.

  Zachary nodded. “It’s okay. I understand.”

  Gabrielle touched Zachary’s arm softly with her hand. “No . . . you don’t understand. Andrew lived at home with his mother. He was working and attending college, studying to be a lawyer. His mother was such a sweet woman. And she was a Christian who didn’t play that ‘playing house’ stuff. But she welcomed me into her home with open arms after Drew told her exactly what was going on.”

  “Did he know you were pregnant? Did you tell him about the baby?”

  Gabrielle shook her head. “No. That was something I’ve pretty much kept from everybody all of these years . . . everybody, that is, except for you. Oh, and Johnnie Mae Landris. Andrew only knew that I had nowhere to live. He knew about my aunt and how she’d shown me the door the day after I graduated from high school. And he knew Paris had just put me out.”

  Gabrielle stood again and cupped her neck with both hands before sitting back down. “I didn’t know what to do next. I knew I couldn’t stay with them for long. I would be showing soon. I had no job anymore, no home, and a baby I was determined I wasn’t going to abort. I had no one to turn to for answers. So for the first time in my life, I looked toward the sky, and I said, ‘God, please help me. I don’t know what to do.’ I didn’t know it then, but God absolutely heard me and He answered my prayer.”

  Zachary smiled at Gabrielle, then nodded.

  “By some divine intervention, I saw a promo on television about a home for unwed mothers who didn’t want to get an abortion. It was advertised as a caring place. So I took down the number and called. I visited them and decided to go there.”

  “And you told no one.”

  “Who did I have to tell? I was there with Drew and his mother for ten days, not enough time for them to figure out I was pregnant. I told her I had found somewhere to stay. She asked me to let her know once I was settled.”

  “So did you?”

  “I called when I arrived at the home to let her know I was okay. After giving birth to the baby, I called once more just to say hello. That was the last time I spoke with either her or Andrew.”

  “So there’s no way Jasmine might be Drew’s? I mean, if there’s even a remote possibility, then you should let him know so he can be tested to see if he’s a potential match.”

  “Paris would have a fit if she even thought that Drew and I hooked up, especially now that they’re married.” Gabrielle laughed. “She never knew he’d come to her apartment. I certainly never told her, and I’m pretty sure Cedric never said a word.”

  “Wait a minute. You did say that Drew was her boyfriend’s friend. I wonder how the two of them hooked up and ended up married.”

  Gabrielle shrugged. “Beats me. But if I know Paris, when she met Andrew, she decided that Andrew was a better catch than Cedric and merely dumped him like two-week-old spoiled milk. Andrew had goals; Cedric seemed content in merely hanging out and having fun off of other people’s money. Whatever happened that brought them together as a couple, I guess Andrew never mentioned anything about having known me to Paris, which is fine by me.”

  Zachary’s pager went off. He pulled it out and looked at it. “I have to go. There’s a badly burned patient en route to the hospital.” He stood up.

  Gabrielle hated when Zachary’s pager went off like that because usually he had to leave quickly. She also knew this was a part of his world, thus a part of hers now. She’d once asked Zachary why they all continued to use pagers in a world of high-tech phones and gadgets. He’d said that pagers were still more reliable than cell phones. In certain places, like even the basement of a hospital, you might not be able to receive a signal from a cell phone, but pagers still worked. As a burn specialist, every second counted.

  Because Zachary had to leave so quickly, she didn’t get to answer whether or not she’d ever slept with Drew. Whether it was the night he’d been so caring and brought her back home after she’d been dismissed by Paris (which would make it possible that Jasmine could be his child) or during those few days she’d stayed at his home.

  She’d made a promise to herself to be totally honest with Zachary about everything, no matter how difficult the truth might be. She refused to harbor secrets between them.

  So the next time they talked, she would need to give him an answer. She never again wanted him to be blindsided like he’d been today.

  Not if she could help it.

  Chapter 25

  And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil.

  —Matthew 15:22

  Gabrielle walked into her office at the church. She’d missed some normally scheduled time at work from those times she’d tried catching up with Lawrence. This last time of lost time, she and Zachary had gone together. She finally felt she may have made some headway in getting Lawrence to at least see if he could be a possible match for Jasmine’s bone marrow transplant. She fully planned to make up for the lost time. So she was more than concerned when she read the note, front and center on her desk, from Pastor Landris requesting to see her in his office as soon as she received the message.

  Nervous now, she didn’t even put her purse away as she quickly made her way to his office. Someone was already in there, but his secretary said he wouldn’t be too much longer and told Gabrielle to have a seat. Apparently, he’d given instructions for Gabrielle to wait, should he be busy when she came to his office. This sober realization caused Gabrielle’s stomach to really turn somersaults. She certainly didn’t want to lose her job, not here . . . and especially not this one. Sitting there, she began to replay in her mind what she’d done and how she’d done it to be sure she’d kept in line with the terms of her employment as the director of the dance ministry.

  The person in Pastor Landris’s office came out twenty minutes later. Pastor Landris’s secretary must have electronically sent him a message telling him Gabrielle was out there since Pastor Landris also appeared in the doorway and said, “Gabrielle, please come in.”

  Gabrielle’s hands were clammy now. Her heart was beating fast. She forced a smile as she stood up and walked into his office.

  “Please, have a seat,” Pastor Landris said in his usual welcoming voice. The man she’d been surprised to learn once sported dreadlocks, even as a pastor, now wore his hair cropped low to his head. His mo
ustache was always perfectly trimmed.

  Gabrielle sat down. She didn’t know what to say since he’d been the one to request this meeting, and she wasn’t exactly sure why. She waited for him and, even though it was only seconds, it felt like it was taking him an eternity to say anything.

  “So, Gabrielle, how are you?”

  Gabrielle knew he hadn’t called her into his office merely to find out how she was doing. Pastor Landris was too busy of a man for that. Everybody pretty much wanted him to counsel them when they had a problem, even though it was continuously emphasized that others were on staff capable of doing it just as well as he. As director over the dance ministry, she was experiencing only a taste of what he had to be dealing with, and she couldn’t even begin to imagine how he did it all.

  “I’m okay, Pastor Landris. How are you and the family . . . Johnnie Mae and the children?” Gabrielle hadn’t done more than to wave at Johnnie Mae, Pastor Landris’s wife, in passing in the past weeks. The last time she’d been close enough to have a conversation with Johnnie Mae was at the one hundredth birthday celebration of Ransom Purdue, her friend Clarence Walker’s grandfather, when Clarence asked her to dance to a song he sang.

  Johnnie Mae had come to her after she finished dancing and hugged her, telling her how powerful and anointed that dance had been. Gabrielle broke down in Johnnie Mae’s arms, wanting so much to just stay there until all of her hurt had melted away. No one had a clue she’d just learned she wasn’t a match as a donor for Jasmine. And that what she would have to do next was not going to be easy.

  “I’m fine and Johnnie Mae is doing well, as are Princess Rose and Isaiah. I’ll tell her you asked about her,” Pastor Landris said right before locking his fingers together and leaning forward. “I suppose you’re wondering why I asked you here.”

  Gabrielle swallowed hard, then tried to smile. “The question has presented itself a few times in the last twenty-five minutes.”

  Pastor Landris freed his fingers and sat back in his high-backed chair. “You’ve come up in my spirit quite a few times, in the past week in particular. I wanted to ask you what’s going on. I’ve been praying for you, but God prompted me that I needed to talk to you face-to-face. So, tell me, Gabrielle, what’s going on?”