“How can a name hurt you so deeply?” I tapped the back of my nails together.
Bubba sat for a long time. “You a Bible reader?”
“I am.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“My grandpa is a preacher.”
“Mine too,” I said. “My father also.” I smiled, glad to find common ground.
“Not my father, just my grandpa—my mom’s dad. You know anything about the begats?”
Surprised, I leaned forward. “You have just stumbled upon the reason I have a difficult time reading the Old Testament straight through from cover to cover. I have without fail,” I slapped my thigh with my right palm, “aborted every single attempt at plowing straight through the begats. Don’t tell my mother.” I shaped my face into a frightened look. “She’s practically memorized them, and I’m allowing her to believe I’m working on it.”
“You’re afraid of your mom?” He sounded surprised.
“You afraid of yours?”
We laughed. Oh, thank You, God.
“Looks like we have a couple things in common,” I said. “What about the begats? I don’t talk begats with many seventeen-year-old guys.”
“My grandpa says God thinks it’s real important what your name is and what your father’s name is. My grandpa talks about God all the time. He thinks about God more than he thinks about my grandma. That makes my mom mad. She says, ‘If my dad is so excited about heaven, I wish he’d go today.’ I just laugh at her.” He smiled. “I love my grandpa. I’d miss him if he went today.” He smiled again. “That’s what the begats are. A recorded history of who lived in the Bible, what ‘tribes’ they belonged to, when they had sex—I mean knew each other— what kids they had, and what name they gave their sons.” A full grin finally swept across his face. “My grandpa says women aren’t important enough to be named in the begats. Just the sons. It’s the sons and their names that are important.”
Well, give my regards to Grandpa. “Bubba, I’m impressed. That’s a basic summary of the Book of Numbers.” I gave him two thumbs up. “If you want to talk Bible, if you want to talk Old Testament, one of God’s commandments to us is that we should not kill.” I paused. “That includes ourselves.”
“I know. My grandpa told me. Do you know about the visiting sins?”
“Let me take a stab at this. The sins of the father are visited upon the sons. Does Grandpa talk about generational curses?”
“Yes, he does. That’s the other thing I wanted to ask if you know about. Since you do, then you understand the answer to your question about why a name can hurt so much.”
“Do you read the Bible yourself or just listen to Grandpa?”
“Grandpa.”
“Grandpa ever talk about the redeeming blood of Jesus Christ? Does he mention that we can become totally new from the inside out if we accept Jesus as the Lord of our life?”
Bubba shook his head as the clock kept ticking.
“Did he mention that we can choose to embrace the blessing and walk away from the curse of our fathers? Did he think to mention that you can choose to accept the heavenly Father as your father and live a blessed, happy, and fulfilled life? Did he mention God sets before us life and death and urges us to choose life?”
“No,” he answered honestly. “He’s one of those hell-fire preachers. He talks a lot more about people going to hell than to heaven. He never comes to our house without telling my mom she’s going to hell over something.” He shook his head. “I love him, but I wish he’d get off her case. Bo hates him because he makes my mom cry all the time.”
“Have you ever told your grandfather that he’s making you nervous and depressed about your life by quoting selective passages of the Bible?”
“No.” His face twisted as if he’d tasted something sour. “Grandpa just talks. He doesn’t ask me questions. And even if he did, he wouldn’t hear my answers. He walks in preaching.” He held up his arms as if he waved Grandpa on through. “And walks out praying.” He put his hands together piously. “Grandpa listens to God, not his kids or grandkids.” He shrugged and tipped his head to the right.
“Your grandpa sounds like an interesting man.” My left hand rose to my face, my index finger curled around my lip. “Maybe you could read sometime about the many people recorded in the Bible whose names were changed once they had a special experience with God.”
I didn’t usually preach in my treatment room. But the Bible was being used, whether intentionally or not, as a weapon against this beautiful young man.
“Really? My grandpa didn’t tell me that.” He sat up straighter and looked almost interested.
“What do you want to accomplish with your days on earth? It’s all up to you, bud. We can sit here forever and talk about a man named Robert Grey or even about your grandpa, but in the end, you possess the ability to decide what you want to do and who you want to become.”
The defeated look returned. “I don’t know.”
“If you did know, what would you want to do?”
He gazed out the window again. “Be happy.”
“What would make you happy?” Say, anything reasonable, Bubba, and I’ll do anything to help make it happen.
“To stop hurting.” His voice sounded small and quiet.
“What would make you stop hurting?”
“Believing I’m worth something.” He pulled his eyes from the window, looked at me again, and searched my face.
“You’re worth everything.”
He stared at me with empty eyes. Neither of us looked away.
“Is your father a good man?” he asked.
“Yes, he’s a very good man.”
“Any siblings?”
“Four. Three sisters and a brother.”
“Is your father good to your mother?”
“Yes, especially now that he’s older,” I said.
“Ever beat her?”
“No.”
“Then, how would you know what it’s like to feel worthless?” Bubba asked. “Your father stuck around. Sounds like he never raped you or your sisters. He never beat your mother.” He arched his brows. “So you,” he said with a point of his finger, “are in no position to decide how I should feel about anything.”
My next words came softly. “And you’re in no position to decide what I’m in a position to decide. I had a poor but nurturing childhood. I spent too many years as a child raising funds for small churches, but good still.” I crossed my legs. “I sold doughnuts, hot dogs, parched peanuts, and the notion that Jesus loves everyone. A notion I still believe.” I folded my hands together and rested them in my lap. “I learned discipline and how to sell anything to anybody. That skill has served me well. On occasion, I can sell a person on the belief that there’s hope after depression.”
He listened.
“I just described the first eighteen years. Some afternoon months from now when you’re not feeling too sorry for yourself to listen, I may tell you about the next twenty.” I paused. “For today, I will say that you’re not the only person in the world or in this room who knows about pain.”
“I don’t want to talk any more today.”
I looked at the clock. His time was nearly up, but I didn’t want him to know that. “Me either.” I waited until his eyes found mine again. “I don’t always pray with clients, but I’d like to pray for you.”
He leaned forward as if pulled by a wire. “Now?”
Chapter 18
“Yes,” I said. “No smoke or hellfire, just a simple prayer.”
He looked at his hands, then hooked his right thumb over his left to harness a slight tremble. “I guess so.”
I walked to the sofa, sat beside him then took both his hands gently into mine. His pulse drummed in his throat, the way it might in a frightened bird. Then, his hands relaxed.
I sat silent for a few seconds listening as the clock and his heart ticked. If I listened hard enough, they sounded like one.
“Fathe
r,” I began.
Bubba flinched. I knew he hated that word, but if Bubba were going to make it, he would have to make peace with the word. So I waited until his hands relaxed. “Father, settle Bubba’s spirit. Help him know that You love him. Help him not feel so alone. Let a spirit of peace be present for Bubba today. Amen.” I kept Bubba’s hands for a couple of seconds, keeping my head bowed, and my eyes closed. When I looked at him, his eyes filled with tears. He was trying to dot them on his shoulder without letting go of my hands.
He looked up. “Is that it?”
“That’s it.”
“You don’t pray anything like my grandpa.”
We both smiled. What a compliment.
“Keep working on your homework. Don’t skip questions. Take your meds. And don’t self-medicate.” My eyes held his.
“Got it.”
We stood. “Give me a hug, and I’ll see you tomorrow.” The smile on my face kept me from sounding didactic or parental. I hugged him.
He put one arm around my waist for a millisecond.
I smiled again, gave his hands a final squeeze, then released him.
From my treatment room, I heard Bubba stop at the front desk to reschedule.
I stepped into the foyer after he left. Alicia sat with her legs crisscrossed under her lap, facing her computer screen, entering dates of service and names of providers for insurance claims. She stopped pointing and clicking to smile at me.
“Girlfriend, I. Am. Out. Of. Here. I have a hot date with my little girl tonight.” I stretched my arms way over my head and arched my upper body, trying to push out some of the heaviness of the session with Bubba. “I will see you tomorrow.” Hunger pangs growled in my stomach.
Ali pursed her mouth into an “I-don’t-think-so.”
I knew that look. “What?”
“Tabbi called while you were in with Bubba. She and Bo want to see you tonight.”
“Not tonight. Any time besides tonight. I’m taking Bailey for pizza and a movie.” I stretched again. “I know I need to see Tabbi. I want to see her. I just didn’t expect she’d want to come tonight.” I shook my head. “And you know I don’t usually see clients on Thursdays.”
She grinned. “So you keep saying.”
“I came in to see Bubba because I consider him high risk right now,” I explained as though I had to.
“I already explained to her that you don’t usually … well, that you don’t always see Thursday clients.” Alicia said, rolling her eyes. “But she told me they had to come tonight. I tried to put her off a day or so, but she ended with, ‘We’ll be there at six.’”
“Ugh,” I said.
“If you weren’t such a bleeding heart, you might have more hot dates.” She smiled and grabbed the ringing phone. “Main Street Clinic,” she said as she looked at me and mouthed, “Sorry.”
“I have dates. I’m just not having pizza or seeing a movie,” I said to the back of Alicia’s head. I looked at the wall clock. Five-fifteen. Nothing to do but suck it up. So, I visited the bathroom and freshened up. I’d just enough time to look in the mirror and note that I was starting to show my age. E-gads. I’d always thought my mom to be pretty, but I found it unsettling to see her face in my mirror so soon.
The extra half hour, I spent in the playroom laughing with Bailey.
“I’m sorry about our date,” I said.
“It’s okay. We’ll go tomorrow night.”
“You’re a sweetheart.”
“I just love you.”
I leaned and gathered her into my arms as she colored, while struggling. “I love you too, girlie.”
Alicia stood behind us. “I can stay here during your session or take Bailey with me.”
I looked at her. “What’ll it be, peanut?”
“Go with Ali’sha, but come soon.”
“You know I will.” I looked at Ali. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.” She took Bailey’s hand in hers.
I pointed to the small, round table. “I’ll pick up here.”
My girl blew kisses all the way out the door.
At six o’clock, Bo announced himself coming down the hall as only, I would soon learn, Bo could—on a breeze of beer, tobacco, and Old Spice. Knowing he’d accompany Tabbi that evening, I pulled out some old tricks to prepare my treatment room. Aroma-therapy candles and soothing music greeted the couple as they peeked inside where I waited. I motioned them in.
To share his lack of appreciation for my amenities, Bo sniffed and rolled his eyes. “Smells like a brothel.”
Usually, I entered the room after the client, but not that evening.
“And you can kill that elevator music,” Bo said.
Bo Phillips swaggered across the room to my sofa. His gray hair was sprinkled with faint traces of nearly-forgotten black strands. He’d slicked it back with hair oil—like my grandfather had done twenty years before. He wore clean faded jeans and a western-style short-sleeved shirt tucked neatly at his waist. Black cowboy boots with silver-tipped toes matched a large silver belt buckle. Bo stood rail thin. A heavy-drinking-man-emaciated-kind of thin.
“Bo?” Tabbi said as she put her right hand on his knee and glanced up at him.
He sat beside her. “I said I’d come. I didn’t say I’d be nice.” Bloodshot eyes raked over all of me.
“The music is for me.” I smiled as best I could. “I like it.”
“What I came here to say won’t take much of your time no how. It can be said with or without candles and music. This ain’t no party, and it ain’t no anniversary of nothing.” He paused to see if I intended to interrupt him.
I didn’t. I didn’t turn off the music either.
“We ain’t telling Bubba nothing different than he’s been told.”
Tabbi cried softly beside him.
“Do you understand?” He looked both angry and drunk.
“I heard what you said.”
“So you understand?”
“I heard what you said,” I repeated.
Tabbi urged, “Tell her why.”
He glared at her. “We don’t owe her no explanation. I just came here to tell her no one is telling Bubba nothing.”
“Catherine …” Tabbi’s eyes told the story of a second all-nighter. She would end up in the hospital soon herself if something didn’t change. “I know you want us to tell Bubba that Robert is not his father, but Bo … we decided that it’s not in his best interest.”
“For now?” I asked, looking at her.
“Ever,” Bo said. His threat seeped in like a poison.
“Tabbi?” I looked at her. The dark-sensitive light broke through the darkness outside my window.
“Catherine.”
“Matthew Gladstone is no better option than Robert as a father figure for Bubba. We don’t understand how you could think he is.” I could hardly understand her.
“Tabbi,” I spoke slow and with deliberation. “It’s not that I think Matthew is a better option—I covered the only good things I knew about him with you earlier. His name wasn’t pulled from my hat. Matthew Gladstone is Bubba’s biological father. The truth is the truth. I can guarantee nothing. Bubba would have to decide what he wants to do with the information. He simply deserves to hear the truth about himself from his mother.”
Tabbi yanked at her hair—pulled it straight back from her forehead, revealing a perfect widow’s peak.
“Is there some logic to your insanity?” Bo asked.
“Bubba is tormented by the paternal contribution to his perceived genetic structure. The structure is a lie. I want him to be set free.”
“If we could cut through the bull,” Bo struggled to say without slurring, “what you’re saying is telling Bubba his momma is a whore and a liar is gonna help him out.”
Tabbi dropped her face into her cupped hands and pulled at her hair again, wracked with sobs.
Bo looked at the wall over my head.
I left my chair and knelt on the floor in front of Tabbi a
nd put my arms around her without saying a word.
“Get away from her right now,” Bo barked.
But she leaned into me, resting her weight on my shoulder.
“Are you deaf, lady? I said get away from her.”
She never moved.
Neither did I.
“Catherine,” she mumbled into my neck, “if we tell Bubba that Robert is not his father, that would make Corey—the person in this whole world that Bubba loves most—his half-brother. That’d kill him.”
Bo stood. “You ain’t telling nobody that Bubba’s momma is a whore.” Hardly balancing himself, he created a spectacle moving to the chair beside the sofa. He fell into it, mumbling a string of curses.
“Tabbi,” I pleaded, “telling Bubba the truth would not make Corey his half-brother. Corey is his half-brother. Their relationship does not need to change. They are brothers on the half that counts. You are the mother of both sons.” I kept holding her. “You are a wonderful person. A hard worker. You are the solid pillar in your extended family. Your mother owes her life to your care. You’ve spent many years developing as a mother, a daughter, a sister, a wife, a friend, an employee, and a person.” I pulled back and tried to look at her, but she kept her head down. “You were a desperate child when Bubba was conceived. No reasonable person would hold that lie against a little girl.” I breathed into her neck. “But you’re grown now, with the ability and courage to make decisions in the best interest of your son. You told what seemed to be a harmless lie at the time. Now you know it’s hurting Bubba.” She trembled against me. “Repetition of a lie doesn’t convert it to the truth. I know you well, and you have the courage to face the truth.”
I still clung to Tabbi. I did not know or care what portion of my words Bo heard. I would gladly have addressed them equally, had he chosen to come to my office sober and approachable, but he’d chosen otherwise.
She pulled at me. “Can you help Bo understand?”
There was nothing to say. I kept holding her.
She raised her head and looked at her husband. “Bo?”
“We’re getting out of here right now. I ain’t never coming back. Ain’t nobody telling Bubba nothing. Is anybody in this room unclear about this?” He found the floor and stumbled from the room. He tried to slam the door behind himself but opted to invest his energy in standing upright.
The Children of Main Street Page 17