It had been almost two years since Jack died. She had spoken at his memorial service, though it had not been expected. She had risen from the front pew, stood in the center of the altar, and said, “Courage does not always roar. Sometimes it is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, ‘I will try again tomorrow.’ My name is Thandywaye Mbeki Malone.”
She smiled at Etienne.
“He saw past my imperfections and told me I was perfect. He was my friend, when I could not be a friend to even myself. He was my confidant, my constant companion. He was and is the love of my life.”
Etienne closed her eyes. In the few days since the fire, she’d spent hours with Thandy planning the memorial. She was still angry, yes, but even she had witnessed her husband changing—for the better. He left here too soon, she thought as she hugged her boys.
Sloane had been almost too shaken to deliver the eulogy. Montana stood up, walked to the pulpit, and took hold of his hand. He drew his prepared remarks from his suit jacket and put on his glasses. He kissed her cheek and began. Midway through his remarks, Sloane took off his glasses again to dry his tears and stuffed the paper into his pocket.
“I just want to say what’s in my heart. Today isn’t only about Dr. Jackson Gabrielle. It’s about Thandywaye Malone. Thandywaye Mbeki Malone is love personified. We witness this in the way she loves her child. In the way she keeps fighting even when the world seems to get the upper hand. We see this in the way she loves us all. It is like witnessing a miracle unfold before our very eyes. But more than anything, I know that she loved her Jack.”
Sloane stopped, composed himself, and continued. The sanctuary was silent.
“I am governor today because people like Jack and Thandy Gabrielle believed. When one finds herself faced with darkness,” he whispered, “there are but two choices. Let it define and consume you, or embrace its meaning and live beyond it. Thandy has spent her entire life living beyond it. Without question, Jack was a better man because of her. He learned how to let somebody love him.”
It was almost dark when Thandy and Montana left the cemetery, but they were in no hurry to leave Jack. They slowly made their way back across the green to the road.
“I want to come home,” Montana said.
“Why?”
“Yale is too far away.”
“You have to finish school.”
“I’m transferring to Emory. If it’s okay with you, I’d like to stay at home.” She gave her mother a strong hug and said, “I want to be with you.”
The caretaker watched as they drove away.
Judge Mary Moulton was not sympathetic. After months of sitting in a four-by-four cell awaiting trial, Angel pleaded guilty to one count of arson and one count of manslaughter. To spare the trouble and expense of a trial, the district attorney had agreed to drop four counts of attempted murder in exchange for Angel’s plea, but Moulton was not satisfied.
“Miss Delafuenta,” the judge said.
Angel stood up with her attorney. She was dressed in a simple blue suit and white blouse. On advice of counsel, her hair was pulled into a tight bun and she wore little makeup. Stephanie, who was sitting several rows back, almost didn’t recognize her. Risa sat in the row behind the defendant’s table. Thandy, Phillipa, and Sloane sat across the aisle. Etienne sat alone a few rows back. Angel’s chin was pressed to her chest.
“Miss Delafuenta, I understand that you have entered into a plea agreement with the DA’s office.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I am not inclined to agree. I’m not certain you understand what you’ve done.”
Angel swallowed hard. The defense attorney had warned that the agreement might not stick. There were children in the house. A man was dead, burned until his skin rolled like scarred butter from his bones. Angel had been arrested several days later while having a leisurely lunch with Stephanie. She didn’t seem to have a care in the world then.
“You didn’t just set a fire. You were so angry, so full of vile, that you broke into a private home and deliberately placed sleeping young children in danger. Do you understand that?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You also understand that a man in the house died that night and you should be facing first-degree murder while in the commission of a felony?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Under state law, that would dictate the death penalty. I don’t like your deal with the DA and it is my sole discretion to honor it. I do not see one reason why you ought to walk the streets a free woman again. I will not honor the agreement before me.”
“Your honor, Miss Delafuenta admits to setting the fire,” her attorney interrupted. “If you will not honor the plea agreement, then I must advise her to go to trial.”
“You don’t want to test this with a jury, Counselor. You do understand that her admission will be entered into evidence?”
The attorney whispered something to Angel, who turned to look at her mother. Risa nodded her head firmly.
“Your honor, if I can have a moment with my client.”
“Court is adjourned until one p.m.” Moulton banged her gavel. The courtroom emptied.
Risa approached Thandy near the rear doors. “Our family is very sorry for your loss.”
“We appreciate that, ma’am,” Thandy answered politely.
“I don’t think she wanted anyone to die.”
Thandy turned away.
When court reconvened, Angel was sweating.
“Your honor, my client will plead guilty to one count of felony arson and one count of second-degree murder. She does not want to put the family through a trial.”
The judge sighed. “You do understand what this means, Miss Delafuenta?”
“Yes, your honor. I do.”
“Before I issue a sentence, do you have a statement?”
Angel rose, adjusted her dress, and took out a slip of paper. “I just want to say that I am sorry. I never meant to hurt anyone. I thought he took everything from me. I was wrong. Because of what I did, I will lose everything I love. I just want to say that I am sorry.”
“Very well. Will there be any statements from the victims?”
Thandy stood up. “No, your honor.”
“Angel Raquel Delafuenta, I hereby sentence you to serve the remainder of your natural life at the Georgia Correctional Facility for Women at Hardwick. Further, you will pay restitution to the victims in accordance with your ability.”
Thandy had been satisfied with the sentence.
She sat alone in the den, picking through a stack of mail she hadn’t checked in over a week. There was a letter addressed to Montana from her father.
She had been blessed to be loved twice, she thought.
It was January again and the heavens gave her the light blanket of snow she wished for—just in time for baby Jonah’s birthday. Learning just weeks after the fire that she was carrying Jack’s baby had given Thandy the strength to go on. “In every blessing there is a curse, a curse in every blessing,” Cump would say.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I am an insatiable bone collector. I prayed of the “bones” of my own life, the miracles and disappointments alike, the fruits of my personal truths, to give birth to this story. I simply blew the dust off the bones and called them to life. They sprang from the fertile red clay that cakes my imagination like a biblical Lazarus.
I know that somebody somewhere will ask if any of the characters are real, did any of this happen, are you Thandy and if so, then who is Jack (and is he that good looking)? Kinda, sorta, in a way, can’t tell you, and dear Lord, yes.
Indeed, there was a man whose very name I once thought divine, who, for better or worse, once upon a time owned my heart—lock, stock and barrel. I swear the sun didn’t rise until he opened his beautiful brown eyes each morning and placed his perfect toes on the floor. The story of our near decade-long love affair would be downright hysterical if it weren’t so painfully tragic.
Early on, when I started writing, I used the dec
ayed vestiges of the life we used to have as cartilage and tendons as I began to reset the bones where I thought they should be. And then something almost magical happened. The more I wrote, the more those old bones started doing for themselves. Even though their spirits reside deep within the “temple of my familiar,” the story and the people who inhabit these pages, including Thandywaye and Jackson, are indeed works of fiction. They are what the bones decided to do. I dutifully took dictation. In the end, the fictional Jack Gabrielle didn’t want to be the “Jack” that I knew and Thandy Malone didn’t find being me so interesting. Although I begged to differ, she won out. They didn’t even like our friends and family, so they politely introduced me to theirs.
But truth be told, Thandy and I have many similarities, including—but not limited to—an endless love affair with snow, missing a less-than-perfect father, and a cantankerous grandfather. However, in the interest of full disclosure, my “Jack” would never be caught quoting Shakespeare (although he’s tried it since this book came out). It did take him ten years to figure out that he loved me, but by then I was long gone. If he hadn’t stepped out of the way, there may never have been the most incredible friendship I’ve ever known.
The most important, enduring romance is the one that I have with myself. If there is one truth to Thandy, it is that she reflects my renewed spirit, the stronger sense of self I gain with those experiences and the ability to live, love, and laugh everyday with someone who deserves every piece of me.
Any other similarities to events, circumstances, or persons—living or dead—are unintended and incidental by-products of a bonesetter’s work.
September 2007
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Trouble don’t last always,” Miss Alice used to say. “Joy,” she said, “comes in the morning.”
Alice Robinson Cole was my maternal grandmother, the one who took me over her knee when I committed one misdeed or another and made me laugh as she checkered Bible verses with expletives. She was the one who bathed my little brown behind in Ivory soap until it was clean and the one who slathered my chest with Vicks VapoRub when I was sick from eating snow. As I put the final draft of this work to bed on New Year’s Eve 2005, I turned to her picture, perched on the top shelf of my bookcase, and thought back on all of the wonderful lessons she’d imparted. She taught me to say “thank you” and to appreciate the blessings and mercies of God, to watch the miracles unfold. In my life, I have been incredibly blessed with so much and known the goodness of His mercy. I have lived a life replete with miracles.
Over the years, there was a cast of family, friends, and colleagues who kept reminding me that morning was coming. They brought bucket loads of encouragement, pushing me to find and live out my personal truth. I begin with my mentor and friend Don Logan, former Chairman of Time Warner Media and Communications Group. I am especially grateful for your calm, assuring voice when various storms were tearing through my professional life like hurricanes through a straw hut. I owe you a margarita!
I am blessed to have a mother, Mary Alice Taylor, who encouraged me early on, when we were still living in the projects, by buying mail-order books on her meager salary. She couldn’t teach me how to bake a perfect sweet potato pie; but she taught me something about living with integrity and honoring my calling. Besides, Auntie Geraldine taught me what to do with a short rib and studied the leaves as I learned to clean turnips over the kitchen sink.
This book might never have been started in the first place without Carol Mackey, editor in chief of Black Expressions Book Club. I will never ever forget the “henhouse” lunch where this book was born. We laughed about our own foibles, the men who have come and gone, those who stayed far too long, and how we loved them almost in spite of ourselves and even when they proved less than deserving. How even then, when we thought we had nothing else to give anybody new, somehow there was always more. We’ve been sisters in spirit every single day since.
The characters in this book were inspired, in part, by some of my closest friends. Dr. Millard J. Collier and Honorable Terrell L. Slayton, I am so very grateful that our roads met. To everything there is a season. You were always ready with shoulders to lean on when I turned up rain-soaked on your doorsteps. But no shoulders were broader or stronger than those of Elgin Clemons—my lawyer, my friend, a giant among men. It is with reverence and gratitude that I say thank you for all that you’ve come to mean in a short period of time. You didn’t just listen to the words, but you heard the spaces between them.
I deeply appreciate the confidence and support of my friend Larry Kirshbaum, and Karen Thomas, my editor at Grand Central Publishing. Together, you meant the difference between hoping for a writing career and realizing my fondest dreams.
To DeBorah Wilson, who read and reread every draft. You are my very own personal angel. Because of you, I kept fighting to write, to love, and to live. There are others to thank, including Hal Logan and Etienne LeGrand (thanks for lending me your name), Mark and Darlene Trigg, Larry and Linda Hart Johnson, “Professor” John Simley, Dr. Will McDade, Howard Spiller, Rich Coleman, Reuben McDaniel III, Scott Sillers, Larry Norvell, Lisa May Evans, Sheryll Campbell, Clay Merrill, Sylvester Monroe, and my sister-girl Vicki Brown. If I thanked you each a thousand times apiece, a thousand times a day, for a thousand years, it would never be enough.
To my three incredible teenagers: Katherine, Joshua, and Haley. Thank you for lighting my path. Of all that I am, I am most proud to be your mother. Even if, from time to time, you are proof positive indeed that God has a sense of humor.
And finally to Cornelius, to whom this book is dedicated: When you look at me, I feel like the sum total of every woman in the world, capable of anything, truly worthy of everything. A girl should be so lucky. I cannot begin to count up the ways you have blessed me; they number the stars. You are my partner, my best friend, my confidant, a gale force wind at my back, my island in rough seas. “Swim, pimp. Swim!”
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. What about Thandy’s childhood do you believe informed her choices as an adult?
2. At the start of the book, Jack is called “a man of exteriors.” Does this change? If so, when does it occur?
3. Extramarital affairs are prevalent in today’s society. Why do you believe Jack was unfaithful to Etienne?
4. Yvetta and Thandy were estranged for much of the novel. What lessons does their relationship hold for mothers? For daughters?
5. Etienne is not a major character in the novel. Why do you think the author did not include more about her?
6. How is Thandy’s behavior at work similar to that of her personal life?
7. Why do you think Thandy forewent calling the police after the theft by an employee was discovered?
8. Why do you think Etienne gave Thandy money after the fire? Would you have done the same?
9. Did Jack love Thandy?
10. Did the people in the story get what they deserved?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
GOLDIE TAYLOR, a former broadcast and print journalist and Fortune 500 public relations executive, started her career as a public affairs officer and journalist for the U.S. Marine Corps. An alumna of Emory University and the Defense Information School, she has been featured in Black Enterprise, Cincinnati Enquirer, Jezebel, PR Week, Atlanta Business Chronicle, and Marie Claire and has made appearances on CNN and Good Morning America. She has been a guest columnist for the Atlanta Journal, Atlanta Tribune, St. Louis Post Dispatch, Ebony, and Creative Loafing.
She is the author of In My Father’s House, which is currently being adapted for a feature film. This, her second novel, was featured as a Black Expressions Book Club Exclusive and Main Selection/Bestseller. She is currently working on her third novel.
Taylor lives with her three teenaged children in Atlanta and New York.
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