Goodness and Mercy

by Vanessa Davis Griggs

  Just as the usher smiled and pointed to a satisfactory row for Gabrielle to choose any seat she desired, she handed her a program of the morning services. “Welcome to Divine Conquerors,” she said gleefully. “We’re so glad you’re here.”

  Gabrielle looked at the program, smiled, then handed it right back to her and politely strutted away.

  “Goodness!” she heard a man who looked to be in his sixties say as she walked past him. “Have mercy,” she heard a woman say in disgust as she passed her. “Mercy, you sure are something, my sweet sister,” a middle-aged man said as she walked into the vestibule prior to reaching the door to exit the building. “You’re not leaving us, are you?” She stopped and momentarily glared as he grinned and slightly gawked at her.

  Gabrielle decided she was just going to go home and ditch this church nonsense. But an uncomfortable feeling began to gnaw inside of her stomach. It felt like a knot forming, the way she felt when she was scared or nervous about something. That sinking feeling caused her to pause as she sat in her car trying to decide what to do now. She retrieved the brochure and opened it to the church section.

  And once again her attention fell on the name Followers of Jesus Faith Worship Center. She had originally looked at it, but the name had frankly intimidated her. First of all, she was not a follower of Jesus, and second, she wasn’t sure she ever wanted to be. But everything seemed to be pointing her to that church. She was familiar with the area where it was located so it wouldn’t be hard to find. And according to the brochure, they had two services. The second service would be starting in about forty-five minutes, giving her more than enough time to get there.

  As soon as she arrived, she was warmly greeted by one of the many parking attendants running around directing people as to where to park and where to go if you were new to the church. When she walked inside, the woman who greeted her inquired as to whether she was a first-time visitor. Acknowledging she was, Gabrielle was asked to fill out the information connected to a stick-on name badge. She gave the greeter the information and stuck the badge on the top of her dress.

  Inside the sanctuary, she was seated by an usher, without any fanfare, in a prominent spot three rows from steps that led up to where she was sure the pastor stood when he preached. Definitely close enough to be in the line of a camera, were they to also tape their services.

  No one there commented that the Nanette Lepore, black ruched spaghetti strap dress she was wearing was inappropriate for church. Or on the scarf around her neck, which her aunt Cee-Cee had given to her as a Christmas present a week earlier.

  “I asked myself, Cee-Cee, now what do you give someone who pretty much has everything, or at least is able to buy herself whatever she wants?” Aunt Cee-Cee had said after Gabrielle unenthusiastically opened the box and held up the scarf. “Well, I thought it was cute when I saw it,” Aunt Cee-Cee said when she noted Gabrielle wasn’t all that thrilled about it.

  What Aunt Cee-Cee failed to say was when she’d actually seen it, which happened to be when Angie, one of her children, had given it to her as a gift. She was regifting it to Gabrielle because she didn’t really like it that much, either, and she hadn’t bought Gabrielle anything for Christmas, but she had a need to see her. It would be tacky to show up at Gabrielle’s house at Christmastime totally emptyhanded.

  After Gabrielle left her aunt and uncle’s home upon graduation, or more correctly, after she was told to leave their home and find a place of her own following her graduating high school and upon her turning eighteen on May thirtieth, she didn’t visit their home much at all. Especially after the first two years of being on her own. It didn’t take Gabrielle long to see they hadn’t changed toward her at all, even with her being out of their house. The past five years, she hadn’t stepped foot near their home.

  “Now, just because you left our house”—Aunt Cee-Cee rambled on that Sunday night after Christmas—“doesn’t mean you can’t come visit us. The only time I see you these days is if I happen to come over here.” Aunt Cee-Cee scanned the den, where they sat watching a fifty-two-inch HDTV. “We’re over there struggling while you seem to be doing quite well for yourself, quite well—living in the lap of luxury. In spite of everything, you certainly did make something of yourself. But money has been hard to come by at our little place. And everything seems to be breaking down or falling apart.”

  Gabrielle looked without cracking a smile as her aunt continued to talk.

  “And President Bush seemed to have been asleep at the wheel. I tell you, I just don’t know about people. And then McCain had the nerve to say, back in September, that the fundamentals of our economy were strong. Humph.” She turned up her nose. “Maybe the fundamentals were strong at his house, but we’ve been struggling for some time at ours. And of course, all of our children are living at home. None of them seem able to keep either a job or a spouse, or a spouse with a job, for that fact. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Angie is expecting another baby. This will be number three for her. You would think she would have figured this out by now and stop having babies she can’t take care of. That’s just gonna add one more mouth to feed, placed on me and your uncle’s backs, of course. Another person we’ll have to take care of. I don’t know what I did wrong with those children.” She shook her head. “I just don’t understand.”

  Gabrielle sat back against her burgundy leather couch and continued to swing her crossed leg out as her aunt went on and on without any regard or input to or from her. She watched her turn up the can of cola to drain it of every drop, shaking it when it was obviously empty.

  “Would you care for another soda?” Gabrielle asked after at least five seconds of her continuing to shake and tap the turned-up empty can.

  Aunt Cee-Cee smiled and held the can out to her. “Yes, thank you. And you can carry this with you and throw it away.”

  Gabrielle couldn’t believe that even in her own home, her aunt, who, to her credit, did take her into her home after her mother’s death, was still treating her as though she were her personal maid. The few times Gabrielle had visited the family after she moved out, no one waited on her like she was company. Instead, they continued to command and demand that she get this and do that for them.

  When Gabrielle handed her the new can of cola, Aunt Cee-Cee took the napkin wrapped around the cold can and wiped the top off, even though she knew Gabrielle had already done the same.

  “But look at you,” Aunt Cee-Cee said, picking up the conversation right back where she’d left off, without missing a beat. “We must have done something right. Just look at how you turned out. You own your own home, drive a nice car, and wear the most beautiful clothing, when you’re not lounging around, that is. You certainly have made up for what you didn’t get growing up as a child. The clothes, I mean. And you appear to have money to spare. At least, you’re not asking me or your uncle for money like my children constantly do. Yep, you’re doing okay for yourself, kiddo. And I, for one, am proud of you.”

  “Thank you,” Gabrielle said, knowing full well where this conversation was heading.

  Aunt Cee-Cee tapped her index finger against the side of the can a few times. “Listen, Gabrielle. I know I already owe you money from the last time we found ourselves in trouble. But things haven’t gotten any better. Your uncle Bubba lost his job. And I really don’t want to ask this of you again, but I don’t have anywhere else to turn. Could we possibly borrow another thousand dollars from you? I know I still owe you two thousand, but I promise I’ll pay you this back, plus what I already owe. We’re going to file our income tax returns as soon as we can. I figure we should get back a hefty refund this year, what with all the dependents living in our house. And if that second government stimulus plan goes through that people have been saying is likely to be coming, we’re really going to be doing okay. They won’t have to worry about us when it comes to doing our part to stimulate the economy. We black folks know how to spend some money. Am I right? Most of us do, anyway. If they really want t
o get the economy going, all they need to do is put more money into the hands of black folks. They won’t have to worry about us saving it like they worry about other folks doing.”

  “What makes you think I have any money to loan you?” Gabrielle asked.

  Aunt Cee-Cee turned her now size 16 body squarely toward her. “You were always the smart one. When you were a child growing up, I saw something special in you. I know I never told you that, nor did I reinforce it very much. But I did see it. Look, Gabrielle, I admit I didn’t always do right by you. But when you had nowhere else to go—”

  “You took me in,” Gabrielle said, finishing the worn-out sentence for her. “Yeah, I know. I’ve heard that scratched CD all of my life. But the part you fail to mention, Aunt Cee-Cee, is that you received a monthly check from my mother’s social security benefits for me. Or what about that twenty-thousand-dollar life insurance policy her company paid out to you on my behalf as my legal guardian?”

  Aunt Cee-Cee smiled a phony smile. “You know, I hate you ever learned about either of those things, because now it makes it look like we mistreated you, when that was not the case.”

  “According to whom?”

  “According to anybody who saw how well you were taken care of. You had a roof over your head, you had a place to lay your head, clothes on your back, shoes on your feet, and—”

  “Food on the table,” Gabrielle said. “Yes, yes, yes, I know. I know how lucky I was to have had a family to take me in. I know that other children were being abused in foster homes, and at least I was somewhere where people really did care about me. ‘Do this, Gabrielle. Go get me that, Gabrielle. You move like you have lead in your behind.’ I know, Aunt Cee-Cee, that I should be glad you let me stay with you because people weren’t crazy about adopting or taking in little black children.”

  “I never said that.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “No, I didn’t. I never said people didn’t want to take in little black children.”

  “You told me that people weren’t lining up to adopt little black children,” Gabrielle said. “That’s what you would tell me over and over again. You let me know every chance you got that no one out there wanted me or would ever want me.”

  “No. No, what I said was that people weren’t lining up to adopt older little black children. I said that if they didn’t adopt a black child as an infant, you pretty much got stuck in the system. Now, that’s what I said. If you’re gonna throw your ingratitude back in my face, at least be accurate about what I said.” Aunt Cee-Cee sighed hard.

  “Listen,” she continued as she held her hands up in surrender, “I don’t want us to fuss or fight. It’s the holiday season—a time for people to put aside their differences. We have a new president coming into office next month. Why, he’s already working. Just like the black man—has to start working before he even starts getting paid. Then, they have the nerve to complain that he’s not doing enough. Give the man a break!” Aunt Cee-Cee shook her head quickly as though she realized she was getting sidetracked. “Look, I admit I made a few mistakes in raising you. I admit it, okay? But I did try. I did the best I knew how at the time. Your mama had just died—”

  “My mama was killed,” Gabrielle said with deliberate measure. “She didn’t just die. She was helped to die. My mother died against her will.”

  “Okay. Your mama was killed. And my brother was unjustly charged with her murder.”

  “No, your brother”—Gabrielle spoke slowly—“my father killed my mother.”

  “Honey, now I know that’s what you believe happened. But I have told you time and time again that that is not what occurred. You were three years old. Three—too young to remember or know what happened. Look, as hard as I try, I can’t remember anything much that happened in my life before I was five. Now, how could you, at the age of three, remember anything?”

  “My father beat my mother, and then he strangled her until she lay lifeless on the floor. She was not just asleep like he tried to tell me when he carried me out of my room to the back porch. She was dead! I saw it. I saw everything with my own two eyes. And I remember it.”

  “Gabby, if—”

  “I’ve asked you not to call me that! My name is Gabrielle. That’s what my mother named me, and that’s what I prefer being called.”

  “Okay. Okay. I’m sorry. I forgot. Okay, you don’t like being called Gabby. Fine. And Booker is no longer your last name, so you are therefore no longer a Booker, either.” Aunt Cee-Cee took a deep breath and released it slowly and with determined control. “Gabrielle, come on now. If it was your father that killed your mother, why were his thumbprints not found on her neck? Huh? The killer was wearing gloves. He had planned it all out beforehand. See, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. It was a setup. They set my brother up. They set your father up to take the fall for the death of your mother because they wanted to close the case and be through with it. That’s all that was. Those police didn’t care all that much about some black woman being murdered. And they cared even less than that about putting another innocent black man in prison as long as they got one.”

  Gabrielle stood up. “I saw him strangle her. Do you hear me? I saw him beat her as she pleaded for him to stop. She even pleaded for him not to do what he was doing in front of me. But he kept slapping her around, pulling on her, like she was nothing.” Gabrielle was crying now.

  “Okay, if he did it, then why weren’t his fingerprints found on her neck?”

  “I don’t know! Maybe because he was wearing work gloves!” Gabrielle knew she needed to calm down. “He had come home from work and hadn’t taken off his gloves. But I saw him strangle her. Then, when the police arrived, he was crying and acting like he was all torn up about having come home and found her like that. He told them someone had evidently come into our house and killed her. It wasn’t a forced entry, so she had to have known the person. Then he had the nerve to act like he hadn’t been able to find me when it was he who took me and put me outside on the porch next to that old washing machine. He told me not to say a word to anyone no matter what they said to me or they would haul me away. That I would never see either him or my mother again. Well, even with me not saying anything—not that I was able to anyway—that pretty much came true.”

  “You see, that’s what they put in your head. You were in shock. You barely spoke for over a year. I know you think all of this happened because they told you it did. You didn’t remember because it never happened. Your father told them her boyfriend must have done it,” Aunt Cee-Cee said. “You were mistaken. It was her boyfriend that did it.”

  “Then why didn’t they ever find any evidence of a boyfriend?”

  “Because your mother was great at keeping secrets. They couldn’t figure out who she had been cheating with,” Aunt Cee-Cee said. “I know you don’t want to hear this, and I don’t like speaking ill of the dead, but Gabrielle, your mother’s boyfriend was the one who did it. He’d worn gloves to keep from leaving his fingerprints in the house. You saw her boyfriend. Then, your daddy came home. Your mind mixed up the two events; it merged them together. I know you think you know what you saw, but you were three years old. Three! Your little mind played a terrible, terrible trick on you. I don’t blame you for what your mixed-up mind has you believing.”

  “No, it was my father. He told me that if anyone asked me anything, I was to tell them I had seen a stranger in the house. He said I had to do that to protect my mother or else she would be in a lot of trouble. But there was not a stranger in our house. There was only my father! My father killed my mother, and now he’s paying for it in prison. And no, I will not accept any collect calls from him. No, I don’t want to go see him in prison ever again. Not ever again. And I would appreciate it if both you and he would just leave me alone!”

  Aunt Cee-Cee stood up. She reached out to try to hug Gabrielle. “I know that’s what you think happened. The police and those social workers were the ones that put all these thoughts into you
r head. That’s why you believe that’s what happened. Come here. I’m here for you, Gabrielle. We’ll sort this out, once and for all. You and me.” She held out her arms for Gabrielle to come into, even though she had rarely hugged Gabrielle when she was growing up. “Come here.” She reached over and tried to pull Gabrielle into her embrace.

  Gabrielle snatched back. “Don’t touch me.”

  “Gabrielle, don’t be like this. I know it hurts. Look, I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry I ever said anything that would even bring this conversation up.”

  Gabrielle backed away from her. “You’re not sorry about anything.” She shook her head incessantly. “All you’re sorry about right now is that you need some more money from me and you realize causing me to be upset at this point doesn’t work in your best interest. All you care about is you and your bratty children. All you care about is yourself and that sorry excuse for a husband. That’s all you’ve ever cared about. Well, Auntie Cee-Cee, I don’t have any more money to loan you. All right? So you can get your purse and leave now.”

  “Is it you don’t have any more money? Or is it you don’t have any more money to lend to me?”

  Gabrielle laughed. “Good-bye, Aunt Cee-Cee. It was lovely seeing you again.”

  Aunt Cee-Cee slowly picked her purse up off the couch. “Gabrielle, I never meant to hurt you. I admit I’ve made my share of mistakes. I admit that. And if I could go back and do some things over again, I promise you I would. But please, please, I beg you; think about the good that I did do for you. Think about all those times I let you go over to Miss Crowe’s house even though it didn’t take me long to figure out she wasn’t working you all that hard when you went.”