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The tears ran sideways down my face. Into my ears. My hair. I didn’t bother to wipe them away. Resistance was futile.
He leaned over that pew somehow because I could see the blur of him above me, but he didn’t leave his row. For that I was thankful.
“Just cut it out, okay? Please. Go home,” I said.
His fingers, long and slender, and always smelling like something good, touched the corner of my good eye. He didn’t try to wipe the tear away. He just touched it. His touch felt like a poker searing through my brain. Jasmine, my favorite scent, escaped his fingertips to torture me further.
“I am so proud of you, Dane. I’m sorry I didn’t say that this morning. It’s true though. When I heard you in there tonight, I couldn’t help but think that. How proud I am of you.” He traced the path of my tears to the top of my ear and then leaned back on his knees, safely restricted to his pew.
I lifted my head, more to let the tears drain out of my ears than to face him, but there he was. “I wish you hadn’t come in on that. It’s just—”
“I think you explained it very well.” He stacked his fists on the edge of the pew and rested his chin on top. “I get it. Trust me.”
Trust him? Hadn’t I tried that program before? “I guess I’ll have to. Trust that you understand, that is. It’s been so long that my mind plays tricks. We’re grown up now. Changed. I don’t know you anymore, not the man you are.”
That should get rid of him.
Adrian sighed. He pulled off his glasses, pinched the bridge of his nose.
Uh-oh.
“Don’t try that with me, okay? I’m not your Dad or Jordan. Or even Dahlia. I know I messed up. I should have called. I should have tried harder to connect with you, even when you wouldn’t respond. Still, it wouldn’t have been any easier than this.”
I stiffened at the mention of my brother and sister and at his quick deflection of the isolation tactics that worked so well with others. I sat up slowly, estimating the miles back to my apartment again. Couldn’t be more than six, maybe seven…
“She told me that she called you. Sandy, I mean.”
That struck me like a punch. Had she told him what she’d said, too? Had he come here for that? For me to “take care of him?” I hoped not. I could barely take care of myself. “She did call. I had hoped we’d talk again.” I paused to mop my eyes. “Tell me what happened with her exactly? I never could get the story straight from Rochelle. She said lupus, but I told her people don’t die from that.”
“Sandy did.” He stared off in front of us, to the cross suspended overhead. “Some women do. Black women mostly. They don’t always know why.” He whispered the last of it, as though he’d told me a secret, the way I’m sure I sounded when I talked about Mama’s stroke or other senseless things. My mother’s death had shattered me, and though God had healed so much of the hurt, made a mosaic out of my broken pieces, the jagged edges poked me still. Of course they cut Adrian, too, losing as he had: his father, his mother, his wife…
“You can stop rubbing your head,” I said as he started on his temples again. “The trouble won’t go back into your brain, no matter how big your mind is.”
He glanced up at me, then nodded with a chuckle. “I suppose it never did much good. Not then or now.” He reached for my hand. “Or maybe it does. Sometimes you think something’s a habit, but later you realize it was more.”
“Or less.” I pulled away, taking a second to focus on the cross myself. One day back and we were doing it already. Playing games.
“Right. Well, I’m going to get out of here. Need a ride?”
I considered it, but no Bible passages came to mind regarding rational interactions with sweet-smelling widowers. “I’ll pass,” I said, nodding toward the downstairs door. “They have to come up sometime. Thanks for asking though.”
Adrian shook his head. Laughter creaked through his lips. “You sound sincerely afraid of me.”
I didn’t crack a smile. “I am.”
“I’ll take two vanilla lotions, a shower tower of soap…lavender, a fruit cocktail mask and—”
I stared up at Renee, my assistant and default member of the Sassy Sistahood. Times like this I regretted indulging her request to join the loop. Too much information for coworkers. Well, then there was Tracey, who I’d worked with and lived with, but that didn’t count.
It was too Monday for this, especially after the weekend I’d had. Sure I was flattered that Renee wanted to order everything on my little product menu, but how many times had I told her to keep that stuff out of the office?
My desktop rebooted. “Renee, you’ll have to e-mail your order to me or leave it on my answering machine at home.” I dropped my voice to a whisper. “I’m on company time now.”
Raking a long purple nail across her chin, Renee nodded. “Naomi is gone. I made sure of that before I came over. Don’t worry. I got your back.”
Had my back? This wasn’t sixth grade. I turned back to my computer. “I appreciate that, Renee, but it’s not just about Naomi. It’s me, too. I don’t want any confusion. While I’m here, my mind is on S&S products, not mine.”
In theory, anyway. I could harness my transactions, but truth be told, my mind did wander back to my dining room and all my new supplies every half hour or so. At least.
Renee pursed her blue-black lips and ran a hand through her brunette hair, laced with skunk stripes of blond. “Oh. Trying to be Miss Clean, are we? Well, I won’t bother to close all those files you leave open every night with all your notes and recipes then.”
I opened my mouth to say something and shut it again.
“Gotcha,” she said, extending her index finger.
What could I do but smile? I didn’t mean to do that, scribble in those digital notepads, but when an idea came to me, I needed to write it down…didn’t I?
Do not work unto man, but as unto the Lord.
My chest tightened. Wasn’t it enough that I’d stopped taking home all the pens and folders? This Christian thing. There was always something else to work on. So far, I’d only mastered pants up, man out and a few other basics.
“You’re right, Renee. I’ll have to try and hold those thoughts until my break or—” As I pulled up my e-mail and scanned the first one, my breath slipped away.
From: SassySistah3
To: thesassysistahood
Subject: Whose turn is it?/Devotional
I know you guys said I could skip because of the honeymoon, but I needed to do it. Here goes. This should tell you where my head is. I’ve been a wreck since we got here. He’s been on the phone or on the computer since the first night. I walked the beach today with a bunch of strangers. Did I marry the wrong guy? (Dana, don’t answer that.) Please pray for me.
Tracey,
The Loveless Laptopper
“And a voice came out of the heavens: “Thou art my beloved Son, in Thee I am well-pleased.” And immediately the Spirit impelled Him to go out into the wilderness.” (Mark 1:11, 12, NASB)
God confirmed Jesus’ identity as the Son of God. What has God promised you? What are you waiting for Him to shout to the world on your behalf? Who does God say you are? Think over these questions and post to the list. And if you’re really struggling, you know what to do, pick up the phone and call one of your sistahs!
(Rochelle and Dana, be ready for a call from me. Things are NOT going well.)
PS. Hi Renee. Thanks for coming to the wedding.
Renee popped a bubble. “Ooh, yeah. I read that one. Real messed up, huh? She should cut him some slack, though. Everybody’s got to work. It paid for that fancy wedding, didn’t it?”
“I suppose it did.” But was it worth it? Could a price tag be put on love, or as Tad put it, “spiritual intimacy?” I sighed, wishing my bad feelings about Ryan hadn’t proved true, at least not this soon. I stared at the clock, figuring the time until I’d be able to call Rochelle.
Renee fluffed her hair with her fingertips. “You could learn something from that Tracey and her husband. Start your own business. For real, like in the mall or somethin’. Your stuff smells way better than the sorry mess we sell here. Why do you think Naomi stays on you so tough?” She smoothed her hairspray-soaked fingertips down her sweater.
Yuck.
“Shoot girl, your stuff is better than Fingerhut. And Lord knows I loves me some Fingerhut—”
The phone rang and I smiled, praying it was for me. Renee was my girl and all, but I just wasn’t up for a two-hour discourse on the merits of Fingerhut. Contrary to popular opinion, being compared to the illustrious catalog company wasn’t my idea of a compliment.
I held my breath, hoping I’d say the right words to Tracey. “Hello?”
“Hey.” Wrong friend. Rochelle sounded tired, like her after-hours self. “Did you get that e-mail?”
“Just got it.” Tracey’s e-mail made me sad, too, but nothing usually taxed Rochelle’s pep during working hours. She was on until the door swung shut at six. Right now she sounded like roadkill. “Ryan will have a lot of making up to do, but I’m sure they can work it out.”
That or I’d be flying to Hawaii to get her somehow. Was cocoa butter returnable? Why didn’t these things ever happen on a weekend?
I turned to Renee. “I’m going to take this in the break room, okay? Mark me for thirty minutes. If anybody needs me, I’ll be in there.” The “break room” was actually just Tracey’s empty cubicle, but it sounded good.
Filing at her nails as if trying to free herself from a glittery purple prison, Renee nodded.
A few steps and a punch of buttons brought me back to Rochelle. “Hang that up for me, please?”
“Done,” she shouted over the partition, reminding of just how little privacy I had. I’d have to concentrate on being quiet, or not saying anything incriminating. My assistant played dumb, but she was far from it. She had the sense to turn down my job and forgo the pleasure of working closely with my boss, not to mention the ingenuity to hang around until now she knew so much about me I could never get rid of her. She probably had one ear glued to the other side of this partition. This time, I didn’t care.
I clutched the phone to my ear. “So what’s going on with you? You sound as bad as Tracey.” Worse.
“Jordan’s back.”
My head shook in disbelief. This shot the Tracey thing right out of the water. Off the planet, even. Jordan. Back. We’d prayed for it, but what would we do now? Jordan was a lot easier to pray for than deal with. “Since when? Are you sure?”
“He called. Talked to Jericho.” Her voice trembled. I shivered at the fear streaming through her words. Even when Rochelle went into labor and Jordan went to the water fountain and never returned, she hadn’t sounded like this. With every contraction, a tear had trailed her cheek. Nothing more.
“Out of the blue? Where’s he been? Does he think he can just waltz in here and—” I paced the minuscule break room, squeezing my forehead, hoping Adrian was right and the movement had some power after all. “Is he married? Does he want you back?”
Rochelle paused before answering. “He’s not married and…It’s so crazy you’d never believe it. He’s been in Mexico…in a coma.”
I gulped for breath. How convenient. “If he didn’t want to say what happened, he didn’t have to. But to make up a story like that? I mean, come on…”
More heavy breathing. “It’s true.”
The cord twisted around my elbow as I turned in circles. “True? You’ve got to be kidding. That’s straight out of The Guiding Light. Don’t go back to being stupid just because he’s—” I caught myself but too late.
“So that’s what I was, huh? Stupid? You’re right. I was stupid to help you through school, to help take care of your mother, to raise Jericho alone…I was stupid.” A sob blared through the line. “Still am.”
Man, I’d done it now. “No, you’re smart. And strong. That was a mean thing to say. I’m just…confused. I don’t know what to think. There’s so much going on.”
“Tell me about it.”
“So what does this mean? Everything is just hunky-dory? He still abandoned you. Didn’t call for how many years? I don’t know when this other stuff happened, but he was still playing ball on TV for a long time.”
“Right. There’s still no excuse. He didn’t try and make any.” She laughed a little hysterically. “He didn’t need to. Jericho was ready to jump through the phone into his lap.”
Whoa. This was bad. Really bad. Rochelle didn’t mean to be, but she was a little greedy about her son. I couldn’t blame her. Jericho was all she had.
She has God.
God had me there. I tried to put a positive spin on things. “Isn’t this what you wanted, for Jericho to know his father? For Jordan to want a place in his son’s life?”
Another sob exploded through the phone. “Not like this. Jericho wants to live with him. Can you believe it? After everything I’ve done for that boy? Jordan didn’t even sign his birth certificate. He’s never even met him….” The tears strangled her words.
“I know.” I fumbled for something else to say, but nothing seemed right. For once, I let silence suffice.
She paused to catch her breath. I took a breath, too, figuring I’d need it before we were done. “I should have known when I got that letter from the people taking care of him a month ago—”
“A month? What letter? And why didn’t you tell me?”
She sniffed. “Tracey was getting married. You had that project at work. Adrian was coming…it didn’t matter.”
“Didn’t matter? Rochelle, what are you talking about? It’s been years. Long years. I’ve been going through this, too.” I grimaced. No wonder she’d been acting so strange. Why hadn’t I picked up on the signs? I thought she’d just finally cracked and gone man crazy with the rest of the world. Now I wondered if that wouldn’t have been better. That I could fix.
Is my arm too short to save? I can fix this, too.
“Can you talk to Jordan? Get him to understand that this isn’t a good idea?” I said the words and regretted them as the passed my lips. It was like asking if she could take a ride on the sun.
“Talk to him? Dana, come on. You know him. Better than anybody.”
The truth of it hit me like a brick. I knew him all too well. And I wasn’t proud of it. I rubbed my forehead and cradled the phone with my shoulder.
“How is it that I ended up with Jordan as a brother and you as a friend? It doesn’t seem fair.”
A dance of unsteady breaths was Rochelle’s only response.
Chapter Four
Thirty-one minutes. I’d tried to be careful, to watch the clock, to count my time, but the thought of my brother, calling after all this time, taking Rochelle through the pain of losing him all over again…As always, I’d be left to clean up the mess.
Renee appeared in the doorway. “I can’t believe him. Coming back now? And that Mexico thing? That’s rich. Really rich.” She picked her teeth with a miniature plastic sword, no doubt salvaged from her weekend.
Had she actually clicked in on the line this time or what? I didn’t even have the strength to ask. Her ears were like fine-tuned receivers anyway. “I really don’t want to talk about this, okay?”
As usual, she ignored me, this time stabbing at her lip with those ridiculous nails. “Do you think they’ll get back together? Now that would be a wedding. We could call it in for one of those reunion shows on TV. Keep me posted.”
My hands smoothed across my denim skirt. “Uh, I’ll try. I hardly know what’s going on myself. I haven’t even talked to him.” Why suddenly did that seem important, that no one had called or written me when I was Jordan’s sister?
She lingered, her hands on the doorknob. “Yeah, that’s pretty messed up. That he’d call them and not call you. Especially him being your only brother and all.”
I took a deep breath. Renee wasn’t going to get me stirred up today. “He’ll call me when he’s ready. But since we’re discussing family, how is your brother?”
My assistant’s eyes flickered, a bleak hopelessness replacing her haughty gaze. “He’s okay, they’re moving him to federal next week. I can visit him there. It’s closer.”
Why did I say that? Sometimes I could be bone cold. “Right. Well, if you need time, just let me know.” I hadn’t meant to go there, to remind her of her own problems, but I needed to get back to my desk before Naomi emerged with a stun gun or something. She popped up at the most unlikely times.
