“I’m only just divorced. The ink’s barely dry. I still am figuring out who I am, what I want out of life, what I can do on my own. I need to love me before I can give myself to you. Fully and without doubt. It’s not about you. It’s about me.”
“That’s not what I’m hearing. I hear you saying that you don’t love me enough. Not yet.”
“That’s not at all what I’m saying.”
“Well, that’s what I’m feeling.”
“Dev . . .”
“What’s next, Dora? Tell me. What are you going to need before you say yes?”
“I don’t know. I . . .” She thought. “My starting work as a real estate agent is a big step closer. That’s good, right? I suppose the last thing I need is to be financially settled. Once that damn house sells in Summerville, I can pay off my debts and feel like I’m well and truly done with the past.”
Devlin furrowed his brows, listening hard.
“Dev, honey, I love you. I want to marry you. I just need to stand on my own two feet. I want you to be proud of me. Then I’ll wear that ring. I’ll hoot and holler and show it off to anyone and everyone. I promise.”
Devlin closed the top of the box with a snap. It sounded ominous to her ears. He tucked the box back in his khaki pants pocket, then rose from the table. “Well, darlin’, you put me between a rock and a hard place. Something’s got to give. I’ll put my house on the market. And I’ll put the cottage on the market. As planned. See what happens.”
She knew impatience, with herself and with him. “Fine.”
He pursed his lips and looked at her, as though holding back words. In the end he only looked toward the door and sighed. “It’s getting late. I have an early showing.”
Dora watched him walk to the door and grab his jacket from the hall tree. “Don’t leave mad.”
Devlin slipped into his jacket, stuck his hands in his pockets, and pulled out his keys. He looked at them in his palm, then lifted his head to her. “I’m not mad. I’m disappointed,” he said in a flat voice. “I just asked you to marry me and you turned me down.”
Dora lowered her head but didn’t respond., wincing as she heard the front door shut firmly behind Devlin’s retreating figure. There was nothing more she could say.
Chapter Four
Love . . . acceptance . . . forgiveness . . . commitment. These are the cornerstones of marriage.
The Reverend Atticus Green paused to smile warmly at the young couple before him at the altar of the Ebenezer Baptist Church. The young bride was swathed in white tulle. The groom was smartly dressed in a black tuxedo and gray waistcoat. Atticus winked at his best friend, Kwame, the groom.
Kwame was one of his basketball-team friends from their days at Howard University. Kwame was a big man with as big a heart, appropriately the team’s power forward. Beside Kwame stood a line of tall athletic men, handsome in their groomsmen suits. Marcus, whose long arms could sink a basket from any distance, was the shooting guard. Standing beside him was Beau, a bull both in frame and attitude. He was the small forward. Atticus, though neither the tallest nor broadest, was fast and clever. And like his idol, Michael Jordan, Atticus had a winning smile that endeared him to the fans and ladies alike. He played the team’s leader as point guard.
Atticus loved these men as brothers. He felt a rush of emotion at being able to marry Kwame today. It was a privilege and an honor. Clearing his throat, he lifted his prayer book and began the service.
“Love . . . acceptance . . . forgiveness . . . commitment. These are the cornerstones of marriage. We stand together, before God, to witness this couple pledge themselves to one another. Please, take each other’s hands.”
The over-the-top wedding reception was at the St. Regis, a five-star hotel in Atlanta. No expense was spared. There was mood lighting, tall silver candelabras blown out with flowers, and a seated dinner with prime rib and seasonal foods. Atticus didn’t want to think of the cost nor how much his church could have done with that money. He wasn’t being critical. Everyone had the right to the wedding of his or her choice. He’d held services at most every venue imaginable in the Atlanta area. Formal, like this one. In the country with horses, on beaches in bare feet, and even on boats cruising the river. Yet there was no evidence that a wedding that cost $100,000 could guarantee a successful marriage any more than a $10,000 wedding or, for that matter, an elopement.
As the hour grew late the guests thinned out and the music had changed to the soul funk he loved. Beyoncé, Estelle, Jill Scott—ladies who could really blow. The lights dimmed and people shouted over the loud music to be heard. Someone called out his old college nickname. Atticus cringed hearing it, hating it now as much as he did back then.
“Hey, Attaboy!” Beau called, waving him over.
Following the voice, he spied Beau standing beside Kwame with his arms around his groomsmen. Their ties and jackets were off and each had a drink in his hand.
“Big Beau!” Atticus called back.
“Get your ass over here and link arms. Forget the four cornerstones of marriage. We got to get a picture of the four cornerstones of the Bison basketball team.”
Kwame laughed, waved over the photographer, and said, “You got that right. We’re the four cornerstones of the Bisons.” Kwame opened an arm for Atticus. “Our team was the stuff of legends.”
Atticus laughed softly as he slipped off his tie and unbuttoned his shirt collar. They were ribbing him, borrowing his phrase “the cornerstones” from his service. It was true. The four of them were the power players for the four years they were at Howard. Atticus joined his basketball brothers, slipping arms over Kwame’s and Marcus’s shoulders, feeling the old camaraderie that he knew would always be between them. They’d all taken different paths in life. Kwame was a sports reporter for CNN. He was just married, wanted a family, he was on his way. Marcus had gone into medicine. Beau was a manager for a construction firm. His wife was at home, too far along in her pregnancy to come to the wedding. Atticus had taken a different turn after college and gone to Yale Divinity graduate school. In his black wool jacket and open-collared black shirt, he looked cool and available. No one would guess he was a minister.
He and his friends met on the basketball team their freshman year and were inseparable for four years. Though Marcus and Atticus had gone off to graduate school, after graduation they’d returned to Atlanta to work. It was quietly understood that they’d all stay in Atlanta . . . stay in touch. On weekends they played pickup games of basketball. They stood up for each other’s weddings and funerals. Atticus couldn’t have gotten through his mother’s funeral were it not for them. If all that wasn’t enough to bind them for life, the car accident the fateful night of their college graduation was. They were blood brothers.
The photographer did his duty and got the picture. Two of the bridesmaids, seeing the action, came running over, their high heels clicking on the wood floor.
“Wait,” one called out, arm waving. “We want a picture with us in it.”
They trotted up to the men, giggling and smoothing out their dresses, while the men gave them the once-over. The two women were young and sexy in their off-the-shoulder, silver-sequined gowns that reflected the light and accentuated their ample curves. Keisha, a sloe-eyed beauty, wiggled in beside Atticus, leaned her ample breasts against him, and pressed her cheek against his.
“That’s the way,” Marcus teased him, chuckling low. “Real close now.”
When the photo was done, Keisha turned in Atticus’s arms, her body close to his. “You’re Atticus Green, aren’t you?” she asked coyly.
“That’s me.”
“I heard about you.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. I heard you’ve got the most beautiful eyes. And know what? It’s true.” She pressed closer. “I could look in your eyes till kingdom come.” Her intonation clearly indicated that she’d look at them at least until morning.
“You like them blue eyes?” Beau teased her. “Them’s
white-boy eyes. Look at mine, deep, dark chocolate. Not too sweet. African grade.” He laughed.
Atticus smirked and said nothing. All his life his blue eyes had been the butt of jokes among the boys. And a magnet for the girls.
“Hey, Atticus,” Marcus said. His arm remained around the other bridesmaid. “Mattie and I are going out after the wedding. Come with us.”
“Oh, yes,” Keisha urged, wiggling closer.
“Can’t,” Atticus replied. “Sorry.”
“Why not?” Kwame asked, slapping his back. “Keisha wants to go out with you, don’t you, baby?”
She nodded. “Sure do.”
Beau complained, “Why aren’t you asking me to go out with you?”
“ ’Cause you’re married, fool,” Marcus shot back. “Your wife’s home about to have your baby.”
“So what? Don’t mean I can’t have a good time.” Beau laughed as Marcus slapped his back.
“Not with me you can’t,” Keisha said in his face. “Come on, Atticus. We’ll have a good time.”
“Wish I could, but I have a service first thing in the morning.”
“All work and no play makes Atticus a dull boy,” Keisha said, twiddling with his collar.
“I’m sure it does.” He gently removed her hands and kissed them before returning them to her. “Maybe another time.” He ignored the loud groans of disappointment from his friends.
“But don’t you be forgetting me now.” Keisha slipped a piece of paper in his pocket, then patted it. “Call me,” she whispered in his ear before slowly disentangling herself and strolling off with her friend.
“Are you crazy?” Beau asked him when they were out of earshot. “That was a sure thing. Back in college you never let an opportunity pass.”
Atticus shrugged. “I’m not in college anymore.”
“No. You’re a priest now,” Beau fired back. “Celibate.”
The men laughed at his expense.
“Not a priest.” Atticus gave them their laugh. “And not celibate. Just more choosy.”
Marcus gave him a gentle punch. “Yeah, right.”
“Hey, I get that,” Kwame said, wrapping both arms around Marcus and Atticus. “I knew when I found my Letitia, she was the one.” Kwame got teary eyed and looked across the room at his new wife. “Look at my bride. She’s so fine. Gentlemen, my days of trolling are over.”
Beau hooted and Marcus patted his shoulder. “That’s real nice,” Marcus said patronizingly. “Give it a few years. As for you . . .” He pointed at Atticus.
A roar from the crowd interrupted them as music for the Electric Slide broke out. Marcus let out a whoop and turned to dance his way to join the lines forming on the dance floor.
Kwame took off after him, looking for his bride.
Beau grabbed Atticus’s arm. “Come on, brother. Let’s show ’em how it’s done.”
The weather was cloudy and cool when Atticus got out of the pizza joint. The pizza was only okay, but the run-down restaurant was close to home and the only place still open. The warmth of the pizza felt good on his hands, and the scent of tomato sauce and crust floated up to him, making his mouth water. With his free hand he turned up his collar, hunched his shoulders, and began walking.
Seeing his friends again, feeling the pull of the bonds of his youth, left him feeling unsettled. Kwame, Marcus, Beau—they all seemed content with their lives; even Big Beau, who talked a good game but was devoted to his wife. They sensed Atticus’s loneliness, as best friends could. And knew that he’d changed after the accident. Sometimes, he felt they tiptoed around him. He caught the hooded glances they shot to each other when they were worried, such as tonight when he didn’t go out with Keisha. They were always trying to set him up, somehow thinking finding the right woman would end his searching. Atticus appreciated their concern, but didn’t they get that he wasn’t looking to get laid? He’d sowed more than his share of wild oats in college. He wasn’t the same popular and conceited kid he was back then. The car accident had changed him. A life-and-death experience did that to a person. And what bothered him most was that the conceited, skirt-chasing Atticus was the man his friends missed.
From far off he heard the high-pitched scream of car brakes. Atticus stopped abruptly, his head reared up, and his heart rate accelerated. In a flash he was back to that night eight years earlier.
It was another damp spring night, like tonight. The night of college graduation. It had been raining hard and they’d been drinking hard. Marcus and Beau were in the backseat of Atticus’s new BMW, a graduation gift from his parents. Kwame was in the passenger seat. Atticus remembered the new-car smell mingled with the scents of cologne and whiskey. It was almost midnight when they’d left the graduation party, and bored, they were headed to a nearby club. They were just a bunch of young bucks, feeling no pain, out to celebrate. The night was black and starless. He shouldn’t have been driving, but he was cocky and young enough to believe he was invincible. Back then, Atticus felt he knew better than his mother, his teachers, and, hell yes, his father. He’d found all the advice he needed in the lyrics of hip-hop, the heated whispers of girlfriends, the late-night drunken wisdom of his friends, and the amber magic he’d discovered in a bottle.
The last thing he remembered was losing control of the car as it hydroplaned across two lanes. The tree came out of nowhere. Suddenly there it was, looming large in the headlights. Atticus awoke days later. Blinking heavily, he felt as if he were swimming up from underwater. Sounds were muffled and he saw the world through a watery veil. Someone called his name, “Atticus, Atticus,” over and over, pulling him out from the depths.
“Mama.”
They said it was the first word he’d spoken in nearly a week. The police came to take his statement. His friends had been spared with minor injuries. The car was totaled. Atticus was the only one not wearing his seat belt.
By all accounts, Atticus should have died from his injuries. When the doctors found him to be in good health without resulting damage, it was generally accepted by all to be one of those rare occurrences in the medical world that could only be attributed to a miracle. The doctors said this tongue in cheek. They explained how no one knew the hidden strengths that lived in any individual.
Atticus knew in his heart that the doctors were right the first time. It had been a miracle. Something had happened to him in those days teetering between life and death. Images, voices that he could not yet discern because his earthly experiences could not relate to what had happened to him in that other realm. It was otherworldly, outside his nomenclature to explain. Yet as he healed, he felt the nagging sensation that he’d been granted some sort of reprieve. A second chance to make his life meaningful. Atticus tried to brush off the feeling, second-guessing the experience. He was only twenty-one. He didn’t want to change his ways, to take the hand held out to him. He didn’t want to go down that path.
Atticus sighed now as he walked the empty street, remembering the futility of his denial. He’d been pursued by the Hound of Heaven. A lost soul, racked with guilt and indecision. Peace only came to him once he’d accepted that he’d been called. The first thing he did was to accept that he had a drinking problem and begin his recovery. After he was sober, he applied and was accepted to Yale Divinity School. And he never again touched another drop of alcohol.
Yet despite all the positive changes made in his life, Atticus still felt an emptiness inside, a deep loneliness that going out with a girl tonight wouldn’t have filled. His mother had died a few months earlier, his father three years before her. It could be he was still mourning. But though he kept busy and loved his work, Atticus couldn’t shake the feeling that something was missing in his life.
He strode at a clipped pace west on Auburn past the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial park with its brick-and-concrete plaza, arch-covered walkway, and reflecting pool. Usually he walked through the garden, but it was late and the pizza was getting cold, so he pushed on past the Ebenezer Baptist Church, where
he served the congregation. At an older redbrick building near the church he rented an apartment made available at an affordable cost to him as one of the church’s young ministers. Pushing open the building door, he spied on the tiled floor a FedEx box waiting for him. He picked it up and, squinting in the dim light, made out that the package came from the law firm that had handled his mother’s estate when she’d died. He put it on top of the pizza box and climbed the stairs to the third floor, then balanced the boxes precariously while he unlocked the multiple locks on his door.
Once inside, he set the boxes on the dining-room table, then turned to relock the door. He couldn’t be too safe in this neighborhood. He rubbed his hands together, one warm from the pizza, the other cold, and looked around the small apartment, one typical for a bachelor of limited income. The apartment had come with furniture he was sure was donated to the church. Mismatched sofa and chairs were clustered around a wobbly wood coffee table in front of the television. The electronics he’d bought for himself. He was particular when it came to audiovisual. The decor wasn’t creative, but the place was clean and comfortable and would do until he finished his training and was assigned to a congregation permanently. He was barely in the apartment, anyway. His work kept him out all hours.
He’d tried to make it his own, however. His mother had collected art, especially African-American art. If only by osmosis he’d learned to appreciate fine art. He’d hung a few favorite paintings from his mother’s collection. Looking at them made the place feel a bit more like home. His bike leaned against the wall by the door, his books filled several shelves, and a silver-framed photograph of his parents sat in a place of honor on the mantel. His parents were all the family he’d had. And now they were both dead.
He shook out his damp, sleek raincoat and neatly hung it in the closet. Atticus was careful with his appearance. Growing up, his father, a successful lawyer, had taught him that “a man’s worth was noted not by the value of his suit or shoes, but by whether the shoes were polished and the suit pressed.” Baptist ministers didn’t wear the collar, but they were expected to wear somber attire appropriate for his profession. Atticus took pride in his appearance, and though he didn’t buy many, he bought quality suits and took care of them. He hung his black wool suit jacket beside his coat, then pulled out his phone and checked for messages.
A Lowcountry Wedding Page 6