by Aisha Graham
Once Evita reached Georgia’s floor, it was as if the apartment was a mile away and the hallway was dusted with tumbleweed. Evita could hear crickets and smell mildew as cobwebs dangled in the corners. She suddenly missed her hotel room and wondered if she’d ever feel that same type of peace again. After a large gulp of air, Evita proceeded down the hall and knocked lightly on Georgia’s door. It creaked slowly, opening a small gap for Georgia to peer through.
“Evita?” Georgia was startled to see her and closed the door.
“No wait!” Evita stuck her foot between the crack to stop the door from shutting in her face, “wait, I need your help”.
“Your father wouldn’t like me speaking to you”, Georgia explained. She was noticeably scared and had clearly heard about the big blow up. However, something else obviously occurred after Evita and Brennan drove away, unbeknownst to Evita.
“Please”, Evita begged. Georgia bowed her head in contemplation, and looked back up with glistening, watery eyes. Georgia immediately remembered lying to Evita as a child, and she never quite resolved the guilt of it all. The hold The Reverend had over Georgia, for the past three decades, was released as tears flowed down the sides of her plump, aged face.
Evita stood by the door with her arms crossed in front of her, and her perfect afro puffs standing at attention, still, with her foot stuck in the doorway’s opening. Georgia’s eyes held sympathy for Evita, and she genuinely complimented the hairstyle, and removed the chain latch from her door, allowing Evita to enter. Georgia nervously offered Evita a seat on the torn couch and squeezed her large, 70-year-old body next to Evita. She heavily inhaled and exhaled.
“Ms. Georgia”, Evita politely addressed the woman she once held discontentment toward, “I need you to answer some questions for me, and it’s okay if you’re afraid, but nothing will happen to you. You have to trust me.” Evita hadn’t even built enough trust within herself, so this was most likely a projection of some sort. While Georgia appeared nervous, she was also visibly open to assisting. She gave Evita a head nod, and wiped tears from her own face. “I need to know what really happened to my mother”, Evita insisted.
Georgia started bawling, letting out small squeaky sounds from her throat as she tried to catch her breath. Evita didn’t need any verbal confirmation after that, for what she assumed happened to her mother was obviously true. Georgia just shook her head from side to side and covered her face from Evita’s view.
“I don’t know.” Georgia mumbled through the cracks in her hands, as she still couldn’t bring herself to admit what really happened.
“Yes, you do!” Evita’s peace and patience were gone. “I know you do! I remember being here with you and then she was gone! What happened to her?”
Down in the basement, The Reverend and his wife stared at each other, wondering who would crack first. He reassured Vivian that no one would find out about his love child, and she reassured The Reverend that if she walked out of that basement alive, that everyone would. They screamed back and forth at each other, cuss words and questions with no real answers. The words were almost inaudible until The Reverend had enough and shouted “Shut up” so loudly it made their ears ring as it bounced off the concrete walls of the unfinished basement.
Evita was growing frustrated and stood on her feet, above Georgia begging for clarity.
“If I tell you”, Georgia began explaining, but she couldn’t even finish her sentence without sobbing.
“He’ll hurt you, won’t he?’ Evita felt a calm of understanding fall over her body and she sat back down next to Georgia
“Your father is a troubled man Evita. He always has been”, this response shocked Evita. She figured Georgia would begin to explain the truth, but Evita never thought she felt this way about her father. Evita always worried that, if anything, Georgia would remain too loyal to ever reveal the entire truth.
Georgia blankly reminisced on the past few decades where she assisted a man she referred to as “disturbed, depressed, misguided”, etc. She spent a full two minutes running down a list of negative adjectives that Evita had never heard anyone use in regards to her father, not even Vivian.
“I don’t want you going back there, Evita”, Georgia stated as she held Evita’s right hand in between both of her own. Evita had never felt much compassion from anyone other than Vivian and was surprised Georgia even cared in the first place. For the first time, Evita could grasp the true power of fear; it could mask every other feeling you had toward anything, including concern for a child’s well-being. Evita asked why she had never been forewarned.
“Whatever he did to your mother during her lifetime, he did much worse to me in the offices of that church”, Georgia looked Evita dead in her eyes, to assure her this was no lie. Georgia began to reminisce on the early start the church.
Georgia was a large woman for most of Evita’s life, but that hadn’t always been the case. When Carl first became “The Reverend”, Georgia was a shapely woman, but in-shape as well. She took good care of her French buns and French manicures and wore a different color pair of 3-inch heels with her pant suits every day to the church. She was dedicated to the first reverend who had passed away a few weeks before The Reverend arrived. Georgia was the head and heart of that church and was a nice piece of eye candy for God-fearing men, but then… came Carl.
The Reverend extended Georgia’s work hours, because the tasks where she used to only assist, became Georgia’s sole responsibilities. The Reverend showed up for sermons and made appearances throughout the week for events, mainly to scope his own eye candy. He was very hands off, and some would admit he was lazy and unvested, for a reverend. Georgia was raised in the church, and her father was a pastor as well. Her upbringing showed her a more honest example of what a reverend, pastor, or any man should be, whereas Carl, struggled to find that type of role model in his own life.
Georgia refused to let the church fall down in the pits with its new reverend, so she stepped up to the plate and took care of all the organizing and operational and business processes. All The Reverend had to do was show up. The stress weighed on Georgia, figuratively and literally. She began comfort eating and staying to herself inside the back offices of the church. She became less sociable, and The Reverend’s antics increased from questionable to disastrous.
Georgia could recall one evening where she stayed late to close out the month-end’s books and create the upcoming recreational schedule for the youth group. The lights were off in the rest of the church and her desk was lit by a single lamp. Georgia could hear the front doors slamming in the distance. The Reverend stumbled down the hallway, while the married woman he’d accompanied to happy hour awaited his return in the car.
The Reverend had forgotten his brief case in a hurry, which housed his condom collection. He burst through the office door almost tripping over his liquor-controlled feet. Georgia was startled, but was used to these incidents by now and continued what she was doing. This offended The Reverend. He expected Georgia to rise up and immediately address him and when she didn’t, he banged his fists on the desk and leaned over into her face, almost touching her nose with his. Georgia was frightened. She dropped her pen on the desk and scooted her chair backwards to the wall.
“Oh, now you’re scared? Give me my bag!” The Reverend yelled and laughed and yelled some more in a drunken rage, gesturing toward his brief case. Georgia handed him the luggage, assuming this would end his fury, but it didn’t. He called her names, insulted her weight and work ethic while threatening to physically harm her.
This had never happened before, so Georgia tried her hand at verbally defending herself against The Reverend, which didn’t turn out so well. He raised his hand to the ceiling and smacked Georgia so hard across her face that she fell to her knees. Georgia was in shock. She continued facing down toward the floor beneath her, hoping she’d been daydreaming or something. The Reverend snapped out of his trance and apologized while rubbing her back. Georgia q
uickly moved away. The Reverend grabbed his brief case, double-checked for the condoms, and left the church.
That night, Georgia sat in the front pew, crying and praying until she fell asleep. She was awakened the next morning by the choir director, who decided to stop by early to set up for practice that evening. She never told a soul what happened, just that she was dealing with personal demons. Evita could picture Georgia’s expanding physique curled up lying uncomfortably and painfully on a slab of polished wood.
“Has he hurt you recently?” Evita asked and Georgia silently replied with a facial expression that told it all.
“Why? When?” Evita’s anger was bubbling through her nose. Georgia shook her head back and forth again, wishing to decline an answer they both knew Evita would pry from her, regardless.
“Tell me, now.” Evita softly placed her hand on Georgia’s thigh.
“Yesterday he—”
“Yesterday?” Evita couldn’t understand how this happened so often, so violently, so painfully, without her father facing any real consequences. This man had been frolicking around, making illegitimate children, beating and imprisoning his wife, abusing his secretary. Who was safe?
“Evita, your father suffers from things, things that only he and God himself have the power to heal”, Georgia spoke beautiful, loving words, but they fell on deaf ears. Evita fiercely demanded that Georgia immediately show her any bruises, scratches, and marks. Georgia slowly rolled up her sweater sleeve, inch by inch, up to her large shoulder.
Dark purple bruises were swollen and bulging from under Georgia’s skin. Long scratches, red with dried blood ran down her entire left arm. She rolled up her second sleeve to reveal an almost identically bruised right arm. Evita couldn’t help but feel the pain within herself. She had been rude to Georgia most of her life, especially as a teenager, and to see what she was dealing with, in silence, was unreal.
“Why would he do this to you?” Evita questioned.
Georgia hesitated. “You.”
“What?” Evita hadn’t talked to her father in almost a month. She always pictured her father as someone who would strive in the face of adversity, built strong as stone and unbreakable; how could Evita have the power to make him do anything?
“He knows what he did to your mother was wrong, and he never expected you to know about it”, Georgia spoke with regained strength. Evita’s resilience to her father was inspiring. “He knows you’re not sure of the details, but also knows you’re smart like your mother, and determined like himself. He fears you’ll get your revenge.”
The Reverend had been stirring over what to do with his daughter since she left town. He had been living a peaceful life since Vivian was gone, in his mind anyway. He hadn’t been held accountable for anything he’d done and was not prepared to start now. All of the stereotypically strong women had been eliminated; Vivian, Lorraine, and even Michelle for being able to confront The Reverend as she did. When Evita turned eighteen, The Reverend was able to get rid of her as well, until now.
“I don’t get it”, Evita couldn’t understand what it was about herself that stopped The Reverend in his tracks as nothing else could.
“You’ve always been praised for your mother’s traits, but your father always saw himself in you.” Evita’s heart plummeted into her feet.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re the only evidence of any innocence in his life. You’re the version of himself he had wished to see, wished to enjoy, and tried to portray in this world. If he ever hurt you, he’d have to admit that he was hurting himself, and that he is the cause of his own pain. He could never do that”, Georgia explained as she held Evita’s thigh.
“Something as simple as you going out on your own at eighteen and living life the right way, not the easy way as he chose, is something to admire. You scare your father. You’re everything he didn’t think he could ever become.”
Evita never had much of a relationship with her father in the first place. Maybe this was why. She represented a realm he couldn’t reach and it made him feel inadequate. That type of mindset doesn’t work when you’re commanding the attention and admiration of an entire community. The
Reverend had to remain confident, as fake as it felt, and getting close to Evita could damage that, in his mind. He couldn’t weaken his stance.
To respect his daughter meant he’d have to respect other women, which would demolish any type of power he had ever known. Evita inquired about how Georgia could allow The Reverend to abuse her for so long.
“Because as a Christian woman, I understand the struggles we all go through. I allow him to take it out on me. And honestly, I’ve been too afraid to ever tell anyone, thinking they wouldn’t believe me, and he’d hurt me even more.”
“That’s not your burden to bare.”
“Better me than you.” For this statement, Evita had no comeback.
Evita didn’t feel right leaving Georgia by herself in this dark apartment. She asked if she could stay and clean. Georgia exuberantly accepted. Georgia slept on the couch while Evita spent her remainder of her day organizing, scrubbing, and vacuuming. She collected all the dirty laundry that had been tossed around in the back bedroom, and washed dishes that had been sitting long enough to grow mold. She spent five hours straight, cleaning the small dwelling.
Evita allowed herself no breaks, except for going to the bathroom once. Evita saved the task of filing the junky piles of papers and dusty desk for last. Georgia continued snoring like a bump on a log, she must’ve not slept in days. Evita organized the things she found no interest in first, the receipts and manila envelopes. She wiped the residue from the computer monitor and desk, which was thick enough to create a black pile of dirt on the paper towel, so large it fit like a ball in the palm of her hand.
Evita noticed another pile of small white envelopes on the bottom shelf near the floor. Evita’s gut pinched as she laid her eyes on the evidence. She knew there’d be more letters. Evita quietly sat down in the desk chair and peaked over at Georgia to ensure she was still snoring heavily. The letters were just as dusty as the desk had been. Evita finally reached a letter that appeared to be from Michelle. It was written similarly to the ones she found weeks before, and all it had was her father’s name. Evita sighed as she reluctantly re-opened the letter. It was dated a year after Vivian’s passing and also had a wallet sized picture of a small baby.
“Carl Thomas Jr. hopes to meet his father someday. – Michelle.” Evita’s hand covered her mouth to silence the gasp as Georgia continued to snore. The baby looked just like Evita’s father, and even favored Evita a bit herself. He had the same thin eyes, low forehead with strong forceful eyebrows, and chocolate skin. Evita started panting, taking deep breaths and fanning her face to prevent tears. She stuffed the letter and picture in her pocket. This was a start. Now, Evita knew the name of the mysterious child she had to find. Should she locate Carl, Jr. or proceed to confronting Carl, Sr.?
The sun had gone down by now. Evita sat frozen in the desk chair, staring at the floor. She couldn’t open anymore letters. She was paralyzed. Her stomach roared for food, but that wasn’t important. The snoring ceased and Georgia sat up.
“How long was I asleep? I’m sorry!”
“It’s okay, it’s no problem”, Evita replied.
“You cleaned all this up for me?” Georgia exclaimed. She hadn’t seen her floor in months, maybe years and was ecstatic.
“Yes, it’s no big deal”, Evita said as she flashed the type of fake, stiff grin her step-mother would wear.
“Are you okay? You can stay if you’d like.” Evita contemplated Georgia’s offer. It’d give Evita time to get her emotions under control and research the whereabouts of her brother. She assumed George might also slip up and provide some more information, so Evita accepted.
Georgia cooked spicy shrimp jambalaya and the smells triggered another flashback for Evita. She was with Vivian visiting Loraine and her home was
filled with similar aromas. Loraine’s home was the same as Evita’s recent visit, as Loraine cared deeply for her furniture and accent pieces. She dusted every other day, vacuumed and swept, washed her curtains regularly. Evita could see where Vivian got her homemaking qualities. As a small girl, Evita sat in the living room playing with Barbie dolls that wore handmade dresses, while Vivian assisted Loraine in the kitchen.
None of them watched much television, so the air filled with adult conversation and bubbling pots and pans. Evita could vaguely remember Loraine asking Vivian where The
Reverend was and why he never accompanied them on visits.
Vivian made an excuse, falsely claiming he was a busy man. Loraine sensed there was more to the story and continued to pry, so Vivian began to whisper, hoping that young Evita would never know the truth about her father.
Michelle wasn’t the first mistress, she was just the last, and the most vocal. Vivian was already aware of The Reverend’s intentions when Evita was very small, but when Michelle had called the house, that took things to another level they had never before reached. The Reverend’s mistresses were always kept at a distance, and Vivian liked to pretend it was out of respect for herself, Evita, and their household, when in reality the result was the exact opposite.
Loraine tried to warn Vivian. She explained to her daughter that she was still young, Evita was still young, and they were both at stages in their lives where they could leave to find better. Loraine made it clear that there was something more suitable out there, for the woman Vivian had become. The same curiosities Vivian had when she met Carl, were completely dissolved, now that she endured life with The Reverend.
“Leave and go where?” Vivian questioned. As confident as she seemed, Vivian had the one weakness where she associated her husband with her sense of security. This was her way of telling Loraine she was afraid.