"There is a God," Lyn said sternly. "There is no ‘if’ about it."
"Okay, okay, there is a God. Gimme the keys."
Lyn fished out the keys out of her bag and handed them to Regina. "You can leave them underneath the front mat when you are leaving."
"Thanks. Bonne chance, Lyn."
"What does bonne chance mean?" Lyn held onto her hand.
"It means good luck."
Lyn smiled. "Bonne chance to you too, Regina. I wish you all the best in the future."
Regina nodded and slipped out of church just when somebody announced that they were going to start praise and worship.
And despite her attempt at being inconspicuous, she was surprised at the door by Norma Kincaid, who was dressed in red from her broad, gaudily decorated hat to her four-inch high red heels, which had some sparkly things on the heels. Her son was behind her, his beady little eyes watching her, too, with a deadpan expression.
"Morning." Regina's attempt to pass swiftly by was aborted by Norma Kincaid.
"You!" Norma hissed in a condescending tone. "I hope you are not up here to create any more trouble."
Josiah Coke was walking through a side door with some papers in his hand and he paused, looking at the two of them with puzzlement in his eyes.
Regina's blood boiled. She had been prepared to let this evil creature continue to swan about like a generous Christian saint, but the disdain in her voice was almost too much for her.
"You are a hypocrite," Regina hissed, "a sick hypocrite and when I leave here I am going to tell the police all about you."
"How dare you?" Norma Kincaid growled. "How dare you speak to me like that, you filthy..."
"Ma," Jack was hanging on to her arm urgently.
"Oh, so the handicap can speak," Regina laughed, "imagine that. He is the one that is restraining you from blowing your cover. Whatever would the saints say when they see Norma Kincaid acting like a shrew right in the front of the church door?"
Norma's lips were trembling with rage. Her husband came onto the foyer, took in the tableau and walked up to his wife's side.
"What's going on here?"
"I don't know; your wife just attacked me." Regina shrugged. She saw Ruel and Ashley walking toward them from the side door, and she raised her voice a bit. "She is accusing me of stirring up trouble but I am not the hypocrite who watches child porn and may or may not have knocked up the pastor's kid. Maybe she should check with you about the trouble bit."
Owen recoiled in shock and Ruel's steps faltered before he reached the group.
Regina was on a high. She could really believe in this God business because Honey Allen had just parked her car beside Conroy Coke's in the church yard.
Honey nodded to Conroy stiffly and was advancing to the church foyer at a stiff trot, with Oliver behind her.
Conroy was trying to catch up to her and she walked even faster. All the players were in one spot. She put her hands at her side and watched as the group got bigger.
"Regina," Ruel was the first speak, "don't do this here. There is a right way to do things and this is not it."
"Wife killer!" Regina hissed. "Don't speak to me about the right way of doing things. You got rid of that violent nut of a wife as soon as you could, didn't you?"
"Regina!" Ashley gasped.
"Stop acting all shocked," Regina growled at Ashley. "I cared about you enough to warn you about him, but here you are, still with this clown. I got the message, Ashley my ex-lover. Why don't you leave this batch of hypocrites and come back to Kingston with me so that we can finally be together?"
Honey Allen was the first to gasp.
Regina chuckled. "Such deceit and cover-ups huh, Honey. Take you, for instance, you are not even married. You never were. You were living in sin with what's-his-name in Kingston, holding out for a ring.
"The name Allen is fake, to give you some element of respectability. You might not even know who the kid's father is, Conroy or that other guy. Whoever it is, please just give the kid his father's proper name. Every child deserves that."
Honey swung away from the foyer without a word.
"Don't leave, Honey," Regina chuckled, "in the whole scheme of things you are pretty respectable in this group. Norma Kincaid here is much worse than you. She is a human trafficker. She has her little storefront set up to look like she is an employment agency. Then she sets up the unsuspecting people with jobs that are nothing more than modern day slavery.
"I don't know what is worse, Ruel killing his wife or Norma selling poor people to the highest bidders or Owen Kincaid and Conroy Coke sleeping with the pastor's sixteen year old girl. You are all sick, the lot of you."
"Shut up!" Norma screeched. "Shut up now! Shut up this minute! Just shut up!"
That brought the attention of the few people were inside the church.
"You can't shut me up, human trafficker. I will be the specter on your backs, the conscience you can't quench," Regina said. "I will be leaving for now but let it be known that there should be some legal intervention for the lot of you up here and I may be the only one to do it. Ironic isn't it, the sinner getting help for the saints?
Are you coming, Ashley? For once choose me."
"Just leave, Regina." Ashley's voice was trembling. "Just go and don't come back. Ever!"
****
Silence greeted Regina's departure. And then, one by one, they turned toward their cars. No eye contact was made. The foyer, which was full a minute ago, was now empty except for Oliver, who was feeling stricken, almost as bad as his mother had looked, and Josiah, who was still clutching the papers in his hand.
They looked at each other and neither spoke.
"Good morning gentlemen," Pastor Nolan walked in the foyer with a happy smile on his face.
Oliver opened his mouth to say morning but couldn't.
Josiah recovered faster than he did. "Good morning, Pastor."
"It is scanty today, isn't it?" Nolan asked, still oblivious to the shattering exposé that just took place.
It had been gory enough for there to be some sort of physical evidence to follow in its wake, but there was nothing. Nolan went inside the church and Oliver moved closer to Josiah.
"Do you... er... could it...you think..." He couldn't formulate the rest of the question.
"No," Josiah said. He too was obviously having difficulty processing what just happened. "It can't be true. Obviously."
"Obviously," Oliver said doubtfully. "I should go home and check on my mom."
"Okay." Josiah nodded. "Want me to come with you?"
"No. I, ah...I have this." Oliver walked down the steps and then looked back at the foyer. Josiah was still standing in the same position with a frown on his face.
"You okay?" He felt obligated to ask.
"No," Josiah said, shaking himself back to alertness. "Not at all."
"You think I should go now?" Oliver asked weakly. He was not ready to face his mom yet.
He was afraid to hear Regina's story confirmed and ashamed to admit that if his mother denied it he would not believe her. Her face had looked guilty when Regina had so inelegantly and with flourish revealed her long-held secret.
"You want to?" Josiah took a kerchief out of his pocket and wiped his face.
"Not right now." Oliver walked back up the steps. "I think I will chill out here for a while, soak up some peace."
"Me too." Josiah inhaled raggedly. "Me too."
Chapter Fifteen
"Ashley, you know she is lying, right?" Ruel walked behind her. Desperation tinged his voice.
"What's going on?" Jorja asked, shocked to see them trotting back inside right after they left for church.
Ruel gave Jorja a look of disdain. "You need to tell us who your baby's father is, Jorja, and stop the games."
Jorja shook her head. "I am not ready to talk about him."
"Fine." Ruel walked toward the room. "I have bigger problems right now."
Jorja walked behind him and sa
w Ashley dragging clothes from the closet and throwing them into her bag.
"Would somebody mind telling me what's going on?" Jorja asked plaintively.
Ashley looked up from throwing her clothes in the bag. "Ask your father."
Ruel looked at Ashley helplessly. "I did not kill Rosalie. Her former friend Regina is trying to make trouble and apparently I am a murderer. I would never ever do something like that. Ashley, please look at me."
Ashley paused from frantically throwing clothes into a bag.
"Even if I did kill my wife, how would Regina know?"
"She had an investigator looking into all your lives. She has files on you."
Jorja gasped from the doorway. "Really?"
"Leave," Ruel said harshly. "And don't for one minute think that you are off the hook."
“But I don't think you killed Mommy," Jorja said. "Shouldn't that count for something? Unlike your loving wife, I know for sure that you didn't. I believe in you, Daddy."
Ruel looked at his daughter sharply. "You do?"
"Of course, Dad," Jorja said simply. "You wouldn't hurt a fly. I grew up with you and her. I know that Mommy was not the best person to live with and if you didn't kill her when she drew a knife on you in the church parking lot when I was seven or when she almost burned down the house when I was nine or when she..."
"Enough." Ashley sat on the bed and put her hand in her head. "Okay I get it. Ruel was longsuffering."
"And I didn't kill her," Ruel said simply, sitting on the bed beside her. "Regina is seriously poison. Something should be done about her, for her to spew all those lies about everybody."
Jorja frowned. "What did she say?"
Ruel looked at his daughter assessingly. "You tell me your secret and I'll tell you theirs."
Jorja moved away from the door. "I'll be in my room."
"Did you really sleep with Conroy and Owen?" Ruel asked, feeling angry all over again, but this time at his daughter.
Jorja backed away. "I'll leave you two to work out your ...er ...issues."
"Jorja! Get back here!" Ruel stood up and heard the room door slam.
"Can we go back to church?" Ruel asked Ashley. "Staying home is admitting guilt, and I am not guilty of what she is accusing me of."
Ashley sighed. "She outed me in front of those people."
"She said a lot of things about everybody," Ruel said soothingly. "Do you really believe that anybody from that group is now at home saying, ‘Sister Ashley had a girl for an ex-lover’?"
"Well, no," Ashley frowned, "but do you really think any of what she said was remotely true?"
Ruel shook his head. "I am not sure, but she did say she would be sending the law up here. That should send the guilty scattering."
****
When Oliver arrived home in the evening, all the lights were off. His mother's room door was ajar and she was lying on her bed in the same church dress from that morning.
"Mom." He advanced toward her to make sure that she was breathing.
"Oliver." She turned around on the bed slowly, like an old woman with creaky bones.
Oliver sat on the bed beside her. "Pastor Nolan preached today. His topic was Such Were Some Of You. His key text was 1 Corinthians 6: 9-11. You know it?" Oliver asked his mother.
"I don't remember," Honey said faintly.
Oliver chuckled. "Luckily for you, I remember things verbatim. It says, ‘Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.’"
Oliver said gently, "Even the early Christian church had problems and some of those things don't sound so good, do they? Like this morning’s list of sins in the church foyer.
"The point pastor made was so appropriate; you can't go to heaven and continue with these behaviors. It was a good sermon."
Oliver lay down at his mother’s feet and looked up into the dark ceiling.
"Pastor Ruel and Sister Ashley came back to church. Everybody else came back later in the day."
"Hmmm," Honey murmured.
"Do you think that Pastor Ruel really killed his first wife?"
Honey snorted. Her voice sounded rusty. "It's crazy... maybe."
"And Aunty Norma a human trafficker?" Oliver grunted. "That's unbelievable. And Uncle Owen a porn lover who may or may not have gotten Jorja pregnant and Uncle Conroy..."
Honey stiffened. "She was right about me, Oliver. That's why I didn't come back to church. I am as guilty as charged."
Oliver sighed. "Are you going to tell me what happened now?"
"I met Peter Scarlett when I was doing my internship at the university hospital. He was very handsome and charming. He was also the janitor on the second floor. I was in lust with him. Seriously in lust. I mean I had sex with him on the first date. It wasn't even a proper date. He bought me a patty and a box of juice on my lunch break. I was like an animal in heat."
"Mom!" Oliver squeaked.
"Yup, that was me. Two weeks after meeting him I moved into his poky little house in a very seedy area near the university. Me, a nurse by profession. The thing is, at the time I didn't care if he was a janitor or not. I was so blinded by sexual attraction that I would not listen to reason from anybody about what I was doing.
"A year after moving in with him, I got pregnant. An accident, really—I was on the pill and had a cold and it messed with the effectiveness of the pill.
"Regina was right, I really wanted him to marry me and finally when I got pregnant I expected a ring but no, that didn't happen. I had a difficult pregnancy and Peter was not very supportive. He had other women with me and gradually when the scales fell from my eyes and I was finally sober enough to listen to what others were saying about him, I heard that he had other children. One of them, a boy by the girl who lived in the shack next to ours, that child was born at almost the same time as you.
"So when I had you I got myself an apartment. Invented a name and a story and I've been living a lie ever since."
"Scarlett," Oliver breathed. "My name is Oliver Scarlett."
Honey had tears in her voice. "Oliver, please don't hate me."
"I don’t," Oliver said. "I am disappointed that you didn't tell me who he was, but I don't hate you."
"I might move back to Kingston after this." Honey sniffed. "I was thinking about it anyhow. I just can't face the rest of the community, not after this."
"Did you hear about the other people's stories?" Oliver asked. "Yours is not that spectacular and they all came back to church and nobody looked perturbed. Not even Aunty Norma, who is the so-called human trafficker. I heard her telling Uncle Conroy that Regina was a pathological liar and prone to storytelling."
Honey chuckled weakly. "She wasn't telling lies about me and I am through with pretending and living a lie. I am still leaving. Conroy and I are through. If he slept with that girl... there is no coming back from that.
"And to be in a paternity lottery with Owen Kincaid—I could never ever forgive that. And after hearing what I did, stringing him along for years, pretending I have a doctor husband in Barbados, he is probably thinking that I am the lowest of the low too. I think I should go overseas and work so that I can help pay for your med school. It won’t be cheap, even with a scholarship."
"Mom," Oliver groaned, "one thing at a time."
"Yes, that's what I am going to do," Honey whispered. "I have gotten several offers. I stupidly thought that once you were gone off to college I could come clean with Conroy and then we'd see where that leads. But thanks to Regina my lies are all out in the open. It feels good to be finally able to tell the truth."
"Tell me more about my dad," Oliver insisted.
"He is a liar,
" Honey hissed. "I don't know anything much about him that's true. The girl who had his baby from next door told me that he was from Treasure Beach in St. Elizabeth. She knew him from there."
"What was her name?" Oliver asked, getting excited.
"Sara." Honey sighed. "Sara something or other. She was not very attractive and she swore like a sailor. She had a boy too. Poor thing will probably grow up to be a criminal or something."
"You think my dad still lives there in the ghetto?"
"Maybe, maybe not." Honey sat up in the bed and turned on the sidelight. "He was a sweet talker and extremely good looking. Maybe he has conned some rich girl out of her money by now and is living in the lap of luxury somewhere else."
Oliver shifted on the bed. "I wish I could see a picture of him."
"I destroyed all evidence of him being in my life." Honey looked at Oliver lovingly. "You have his eyes, though."
"And I have a brother too. That's cool."
Honey snorted. "I am sure you have more than one sibling. If I were you I wouldn't get excited about any of them."
"And family." Oliver was not listening to his mother anymore. He was just imagining a line of family members who would welcome him with open arms if they knew about him.
Chapter Sixteen
Screams in the early part of Sunday morning. Bloodcurling screams that could be heard from as far back as Mango Hill, which was a good mile and a half away. Josiah was in the process of running up the hill when he heard them and tried to find where they were coming from.
Ruel was sitting on his veranda, a cup of tea in hand, contemplating his next move. He was going to lose Ashley and his job for sure when he came clean.
He rocked on the chair and thought about how many times he had lied and how many chances he had missed to come clean with the truth but he knew that the moment he did he would lose everything. He was so preoccupied with his thoughts that when Jorja and Ashley rushed out of the house and came on the veranda they looked at him, puzzled.
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