“I think that’s the problem, Momma. We don’t both have to be in the same situation for things to be ‘even.’ This isn’t a competition. It’s life.”
“Yo-yo, you are so much smarter than I was when I was your age. If I knew then what I know now, things would have been different. If I’d had someone thirty something years ago to tell me what you told me just now, I wouldn’t have spent so much time running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to handle things I needed to turn over to God.”
Yolanda hung up with her mother with a whisper of His promise of peace in her heart.
Sunday evening’s Bible study was preempted by the annual young adult choir’s musical, and Yolanda dressed for the service. She’d had some time to think about what Aunt Toe had said. Kelan was valuable, and she didn’t have any business throwing him away. Miraculously, she saw him on the monitor and took note that he’d come to the service without female companionship. She could only hope she wasn’t too late.
It was almost dusk, and Yolanda was hoping she wouldn’t miss him on his way out the door. She rushed to the main entrance, hoping Kelan was a creature of habit who would enter and exit using the same doors as when they had attended church together. But as the masses pushed through the doors, Yolanda realized her efforts were futile. No way could she distinguish him in that crowd.
She walked on toward her car.
The bright red metallic paint of his pickup truck seemed to call her name, not three rows over from where she stood. Thank you, Lord. Yolanda waited for him.
Okay, be calm, Yo-yo. And she was calm—right up until the moment she spotted him, his shoulders, squared and broad, his tie flapping in the wind as he moved steadily toward her. Aside from the beautiful, caring person that Kelan was on the inside, he was also something very nice to look at. Why didn’t I see all this before?
She gave him an awkward wave, signaling a truce. Yolanda expected him to stop and wave back. Say hello or something. But he just kept coming. Walking, striding toward her with certain, purposeful paces. He got right up on her, towering above.
“Hi,” she barely whispered, staring up at his expressionless face. All at once, she was confused and afraid. Was Kelan angry with her? He had every right to be, of course, but was he?
Yolanda looked down and found herself face-to-face with the third button on his shirt. White. Round. Four-holed. Once again I’ve made a fool of myself. Her defenses jumped to the forefront, and she pulled out an attitude with her usual quickness, crossing her arms and looking up at him again. “Kelan, we need to talk.”
It took him only a second to tear down her wall. And he did it with a quick, endearing kiss to her cheek. Yolanda closed her eyes and let the rush spread throughout her whole body.
“I’m sorry, Kelan. I’m sorry for pushing you out.”
Without a word, he ushered her to the passenger side of his truck and then walked around to his side. For once, it didn’t matter to her that Sunday morning’s newspaper was underneath her feet instead of in the proper recycling bin. She was in the car with her man—well, she hoped he was her man. He’d kissed her, all right, but she knew better. Kisses didn’t have the power to turn back time, allow people to pick up right where they left off.
He got in, turned the key slightly, and let the windows down. A brisk breeze blew through his window and out hers. Yolanda slid her heels off and rested her right arm on the door panel.
“I just want you to know, Kelan, that I had some other issues I had to deal with,” she explained. “I didn’t grow up around men. Only women. So having you in my life is... it’s weird. It makes me feel weak. It makes me feel like I have to depend on you and I don’t like it.”
“So why are you here?” he asked.
She thought about the question, considered pulling the handle and jumping out of the truck. But isn’t that the problem now? “I’m here because... because I think being vulnerable has its rewards. Closing the door keeps me safe, but it also keeps me from being loved. Keeps me from enjoying you, enjoying my life. You showed me that. I was wrong and you were right, okay?” She sighed heavily and threw her hands in the air.
“I never wanted you to be wrong. I just wanted to love you,” Kelan said as he squeezed one of her hands and repeated, “I just wanted to love you.”
“That might mean being hurt.” Yolanda couldn’t look at him.
“I know exactly what you mean.”
Yolanda realized he was referring to the pain she’d caused him. “I’m sorry, Kelan.” Yolanda reached over and hugged him. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I just got so scared.”
“I know, I know.” Kelan relaxed his hold on Yolanda but reinforced his efforts when he realized she was holding onto him now. “What’s the matter?”
“Willie wasn’t my father. My father is alive.”
“What!” He slid back to read her face.
“He’s alive. He lives in Parker City. It’s a long story.”
“Well, I knew something was going on. I’ve been praying for you and your family.”
“Why would you do all that for me?” she asked.
As if he read her mind, Kelan answered, “Because I love you whether you’re right or wrong—perfect or not, Yolanda. Sometimes I think I love you in spite of you.”
“Hmmm...” She reveled in his words. “Thank you.” She wiped her face dry.
Another gust swept through the car.
Kelan, can we... I just want to... spend time with you again. I miss you.” Yolanda knew exactly what she was feeling, but she’d gotten so used to suppressing her feelings that she wasn’t even sure how to express them anymore. The words pittered out of her like a toddler speaking its broken first sentences.
“I’ve missed you, too,” he assented.
“Do you think that maybe we could go somewhere and talk? The bookstore maybe?” She strapped on her seat belt, the adrenaline from their embrace still pumping strongly through her body.
He looked away from her and adjusted his rearview mirror. “Actually, I have plans for this evening. But I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Plans? What plans? She unlocked her seat belt, shocked that he’d declined her invitation. She knew Kelan well enough to understand he wasn’t one to play games. He really did have something or someone more important than her baby-I’m-back self on his agenda.
Yolanda wanted to cry, but she knew it would only make things worse for both of them. She, too, was beyond games. Maybe things weren’t going to work out for them after all. She’d have to settle for a call. “I look forward to hearing from you.”
“Okay.”
He walked Yolanda to her car, got back into his vehicle, and waited for her to pull out of the parking lot ahead of him. He followed her all the way to the highway and then went east as they approached the ramp. He honked his horn twice and sped off to wherever he was going.
Yolanda let a few tears escape on the way back home. Maybe she was too late. Maybe she would have to live with the fact that she’d loved and lost. The thought was unbearable. Yet she had to admit: If she had it to do all over again, she would choose love.
That night Yolanda tossed and turned in bed. Who was Kelan seeing? Where had he been? What if she lost her one big shot? She played hide-and-seek with sleep for two hours and finally gave up the chase. She couldn’t sleep without praying. She slid out of bed and approached her Father, the One she had known and depended on all her life. And, like always, He was there.
Unlike most of her prayers, where she felt she knew all the answers before she even went to Him, Yolanda knelt at the throne in utter confusion. “Lord, this is one big mess I’ve ever created for myself. I know it’s not fair, I know it’s not right. I should have asked you sooner, but I didn’t, and I’m sorry. Would You please show me what to do?”
And, just like Paul, the scales fell from her eyes.
Chapter 30
Get up! Get up!
Joyce Ann bolted straight up in Regina’s old bed. It t
ook her a second to recognize her surroundings. She wasn’t at the rent house. She was in Gloria’s home, but the voices had followed her. They were everywhere.
Get up before they come get you!
Joyce Ann scrambled out of bed, obeying the instructions as they came. Her clothes, her purse. The phone number.
Put you on some clothes and go get your stuff from the rent house. Shhh! They gon ‘get you!
Joyce Ann carefully slipped out of her sister’s house and jogged barefoot down the street under the blanket of darkness. She had to leave before they came to get her.
Miss Doubun’s poodle appeared behind the curtains of her front room and barked as Joyce Ann passed by. His high-pitched yapping was one thing Joyce Ann wouldn’t miss.
“I gotta go,” she chanted with the voices. “I gotta go.”
Joyce Ann pulled the key from her purse with the intent to rush into her bedroom and pack in ten minutes flat, as she had done so many times before. But this time things were different. When she opened the door, the entire house was furnished. It was filled with all the things she and Otis had purchased. Everything was just as it had been, back then. Yellow shag carpet so long and stringy, she could feel the fibers between her toes. Gold elephants, a lime green lava lamp. Two little pairs of shoes on the tile so they wouldn’t track mud through the house.
Startled by the illusion, Joyce Ann dropped her purse at the door. Shannon? Sugarbee?
Joyce Ann rounded the corner to the kitchen, calling, “Shannon! Are you here? Sugarbee? Are you here, baby?”
The kitchen glowed red, flaming hot, pulsing like a lake of fire. It breathed, in and out, in and out, the walls expanding and contracting right along with Joyce Ann’s breath. She had seen this in her dreams, this dwelling that had taken her life away. These walls, this space. It had stolen her essence, snuffed out her soul.
Kill it! Kill this house!
Joyce Ann made a dash toward the bedroom, plugged in the hot plate, and turned the dial to ten. “You gonna die tonight, house. Die tonight.”
As she waited for the hot plate to reach its maximum heat, Joyce Ann threw her things into the only constant in her life: the chest. Her purse went in last. And there was the phone number she’d managed to get from Yolanda’s purse, sticking out at her like a finger of accusation.
936-555-8725. Sugarbee. Call her and tell her what a stupid thing you’ve done! Tell her how you hope she can live with the guilt for the rest of her life! Tell her the truth about Gloria! Leave Gloria May with the bags for once!
Again, Joyce Ann obeyed the voice of damnation. She dialed Sugarbee’s number. But when she heard Dianne’s voice on the answering machine, she couldn’t say the words the voices gave her. Though Dianne was a grown woman, there was still that sweetness in her tone, that innocence. Joyce Ann left a different message.
The plate was hot enough now. Joyce Ann grabbed the plate’s plastic platform and held it to the bottom of the drapery. Smoke first. Then the spark came, brought a smile to Joyce Ann’s face. It was time for the house to die.
She watched the flames lick their way up the draperies and then onto the walls. A beautiful dance of yellow and orange butterflies fluttering. Captured the imagination, carried it higher inch by inch. This force, this element of life. Watching it flow was hypnotic. Were it not for the smoke, she would have marveled longer.
Stay! Stay a little longer!
Joyce Ann covered her face with both hands, closed her eyes for a second because the smoke was starting to sting her eyes, nose, and throat. She groped the floor for her bag but couldn’t find it in the darkness. Every time she tried to get a view of the floor, the smoke overcame her and she shut her eyes tight again. She needed her purse for bus money so she could be gone before Gloria found her.
But she couldn’t find it now. And the room as too hot.
Joyce Ann crawled out of the house with nothing but the clothes on her back. Gloria would wake up soon and everything would be gone. She had killed the house and now she’d have to face the music. There was nowhere to hide in Dentonville. Nowhere she could go that Gloria wouldn’t find her.
The sewing machine! Gloria got that for you! You have to go back and get it!
“What!” Joyce Ann stopped in the middle of the street. She shook her hands like a rag doll’s, and screamed, “The sewing machine! The sewing machine!”
And she went back to get it.
Yolanda was awakened by the phone’s piercing ring. At first she thought she was dreaming, suspended between fantasy and reality. But by the third ring, Yolanda realized she was in real time. As she read the digital number on her alarm clock, “1:38,” a wave of anxiety coursed through her body. No one called at 1:38 in the morning with good news.
“Hello?”
“Yo-yo!” Gloria screamed and then yelled out something else inaudible.
“What? Momma, what are you saying?”
She sobbed uncontrollably. “Joyce Ann, Joyce Ann! It’s Joyce Ann!”
“What’s wrong with Joyce Ann?”
“It’s burned down in the rent house!” Gloria cried, her thoughts obviously jumbled.
“The rent house is burning?”
“Yes! And Joyce Ann! I can’t find her! The rent house—I think she burned it down.”
“Is she okay?” Yolanda asked.
“No! I don’t know—I said we can’t find her!”
“I’m on my way, Momma.”
Chapter 31
“Hello?”
“Dianne.”
Dianne knew the voice and the tone right away. It was Yolanda.
“It’s about your mother. There’s been an accident.”
“She’s killed herself, hasn’t she?” Dianne said.
“Well, no, she’s not dead. We’re not sure what happened. There was a fire at the rent house, and—”
“She tried to kill herself?”
“We think so.”
“Is anybody else hurt?”
“No.”
“How is Joyce Ann?”
“Your mother is burned pretty badly, but the smoke inhalation is the biggest problem.”
Stop calling her my mother.” Dianne shook her head as though Yolanda could see her.
“She is your mother, Dianne.” Yolanda accosted her with words. “She needs you. We all need you here with the family. Just yesterday we’d agreed to get her some help, and now... I don’t know. You’d better hurry and get here, Dianne. They’re saying she might not make it through the night.”
“Let me ... I’ll call you back.”
“You have my cell number?”
“Yes.” Dianne fumbled to turn on the night-light. “I’ll call you back.”
“Hurry, Dianne.” Yo-yo’s last words resounded in her soul’s ear like a pair of clashing symbols. Hurry, Dianne. Hurry, Sugarbee.
Dianne called Dr. Tilley’s answering service and asked them to request a callback. She’d never requested a callback outside of office hours the way she imagined only the most troubled, close-to-the-edge patients did. But who was she kidding? Her toes were hanging over the edge. What if Joyce Ann dies?
At first the anger was diminutive, like the aftertaste following an unsweetened beverage. But the more Dianne chewed on the thought—tasted the news, swallowed what she feared was the truth—the more revolting and infuriating it became. How dare she kill herself. After all she owed me!
Dianne opened the top drawer in her bureau and pulled out a handful of undergarments, stuffed them into an overnight bag. She heard herself mumbling, “You think you can just die, Joyce Ann? You don’t deserve to die.” She bundled up a pair of jeans and a few long-sleeved casual shirts and threw them in on top of her tennis shoes. “You don’t get to die—not after what you made me live through.” Dianne reeled off a list of cuss words she hadn’t used in a long time.
There’s something about losing someone, even if it’s someone you can’t stand. Dianne was so far into her own thoughts she almost missed Dr. Tilley’s ca
ll.
“Dianne?” Dr. Tilley’s voice sounded woozy. “What’s going on?”
“I have to cancel tomorrow’s appointment.”
“Dianne, I thought you said you were ready to continue. What’s really going on?”
“My crazy—Joyce Ann.”
“Your mother?”
“What kind of mother tries to kill herself before apologizing to her child? She’s Joyce Ann, not my mother,” Dianne told her quite frankly. She didn’t appreciate Dr. Tilley referring to Joyce Ann as her mother. They’d discussed that plenty of times in session.
“I’m sorry, Dianne. Joyce Ann. What happened with Joyce Ann?”
“She... she might be dead. She might have killed herself in a fire. I’m not sure.”
“Are you sure about any of this—about the fire, about whether or not she’s alive?” Dr. Tilley seemed to be grasping for a handle on all this.
Dianne didn’t have one to give her.
“I don’t know. My cousin just called me and told me what she knows. Joyce Ann is hurt. She’s in the hospital, I guess. I’m going to Dentonville in the morning,” Dianne rattled off what she knew, wondering if she had done the right thing by calling Dr. Tilley. All this talking was wearing down her anger.
“Dianne, listen to me. If she is dead, you have to know that who you are and what you are has nothing to do with Joyce Ann. You are a wonderful, vibrant, divinely created child of God, and there’s nothing anyone can say or do to cancel what God did when He gave you life.”
The empty hole in Dianne’s heart opened wide and almost wrung her through from the inside out. “But why?” Dianne slammed her backside against the closet door and slowly sank to the floor, inch by inch. “Why didn’t she even say good-bye? That’s the least she could have done.”
“Maybe she didn’t know how, Dianne.”
“She could have said good-bye,” Dianne cried, her behind finally hitting the bottom of the floor.
“What would that have meant to you, Dianne?” Dr. Tilley’s voice softened.
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