The Things We Do for Love, page 17
“You think I’m being flippant, huh?” The hunch of his neck and the intensity of Earl’s stare told me he took offense. “How flippant would you feel if one of your loved ones, maybe that pretty boy husband of yours, was missing right now?”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I just want you to understand that God stands ready to comfort you in this time, and you can appeal to Him for help in finding Adrian. You don’t have to wait until your brother is back to consider the Gospel message—”
Earl smiled suddenly, but there was a slyness that set off a flurry of butterflies in my stomach. “Oh, you trying to save my soul, Reverend?”
I wasn’t yet ready to face my feelings, so I ducked my head like a nervous schoolgirl. “My calling is to save souls, Earl. I’m here as a minister.”
He smirked, in a way that I could tell was beyond his control. “I’ve embarrassed you, beautiful. I’m sorry.”
Beautiful? I guess I’d been so focused on ministering to teens and now white folk, the idea of a client finding me attractive was a little jarring. That didn’t keep me from giving as good as I’d got. “Now you’re just being cruel, playing with a mousy church girl’s ego.”
“Okay,” Earl replied, chuckling but not backing off his eye contact. “If that’s how you wanna laugh a brother off. You may as well know, Reverend Law, you won’t be gettin’ me to walk no aisles with you until we get to know each other better.”
A grin leapt across my face—though I suspected Jesse wouldn’t be laughing if he overheard this exchange. “My husband should probably be witnessing to you—is that what you’re saying?”
“Let’s not go there,” Earl said. “We’re already playing with fire as it is—a mutual attraction, plus the fact your hubby’s boy probably knows where my brother is.”
It was time to pull this car over. “You’re focusing on the wrong suspects,” I said, ashamed at my inability to convincingly deny his comment about our shared attraction. “You can’t keep harboring ill will toward Coleman when he’s already told you—”
“Well, that’s what I intend to do,” Earl said, slamming his mug against the table suddenly. When he saw me jump reflexively, he slapped the side of his head. “I’m sorry, I’m a fool. I know you mean well, Rev.” He composed himself, eyed me more closely. “You got a legal document for me to sign or something? Something to keep me far away from your crazy girlfriend and her confused hubby?”
I bit. I shouldn’t have, but I went for it. “What are you talking about? Suzette’s not the same out-of-control woman who attacked Adrian, Earl. She’s grown these past few weeks.”
“Yeah, well, you can keep preaching at me, but you better believe I’ll be keeping my eyes on her,” he replied. “You tell her that too. Maybe it’ll encourage her to clean up her act in the meantime.”
I sighed. “I’m not prodding you for gossip,” I said, gathering my purse and keys. “Call me if you want prayer, or if there’s anything I can do to help find Adrian, okay?”
“I’m just saying,” Earl said, a wicked chortle in his throat, “I can’t prove your girl did anything to Adrian yet, but she’s definitely doing something to someone besides her confused hubby, probably to a brother who knows he likes women. People talk, you know.”
The imagery that raised—Suzette laying up under some mystery man—nearly made me nauseous, but had the ring of truth. I knew based on my girl’s confession that she was heartbroken with suspicion about Coleman’s ability to truly love, or at least lust after her, but I didn’t want to believe she was already cheating on her husband. I certainly knew she hadn’t played a role in Adrian’s disappearance.
“You’re lashing out, I understand,” I replied slowly. “We all probably deserve that. Look, you know how to find me—”
Earl nodded toward my purse and I suddenly recognized the purring. “That ain’t my phone sounding off.”
Sighing and realizing I’d have to fight another day for Earl’s soul, I answered the phone without checking caller ID. “Hello?”
“Dionne!” Jesse was yelling, the sound of rushing wind engulfing his voice. “Hey, baby, it’s time!”
I turned away from Earl, who still eyed me like a conflicted predator. “What?”
“The agency just called,” he said. “Vanessa’s water just broke! Samuel’s on the way, baby, and Vanessa wants us there.”
“But,” I stammered, my life’s greatest desire rushing at me unexpectedly, “she’s n-not due for another couple of weeks.”
Jesse just laughed, as if he’d known all along the exact moment Vanessa would deliver. “Just meet me at the hospital, ‘Mommy.’ I love you so much.”
22
Dionne
I couldn’t stop crying. My baby son, Samuel Emmanuel Law, was nearly twelve hours old, but I still couldn’t believe he was actually here in my arms, and so absolutely, unquestionably perfect. “Thank you, Vanessa,” I said for what had to be the twentieth time as I cradled him from the comfort of a rocking chair near the foot of her hospital bed. My vision blurred from streaming tears, I managed an embarrassed glance toward Samuel’s birth mother. “I really mean it.”
Vanessa, who had just returned from a trip to the bathroom with the nurse’s help, eased back against her inclined mattress and smiled narrowly. “Dionne, I should be thanking you. I’m not equipped at this phase in my life to raise that beautiful boy.” Her voice caught in her throat for a minute, but she quickly pressed forward. “I’m sorry for expressing doubt about you guys when the controversy over Jesse’s group broke. I’m confident you two will give Samuel all the love and care he needs.”
“Okay,” I sighed, my gaze dropping back to Samuel’s bald, circular head and keen, arresting chocolate-brown eyes. “I was afraid I was overdoing it saying thank you so much, but now you have me beat. You know we’re not perfect beings, but trust me,” I said, leaning down and planting a long kiss on my son’s satin-soft cheek, “we’ll lean on God every day to give him the best possible life.”
“I know you’re not perfect,” Vanessa replied, chuckling. She rose up slightly in the bed. “Speaking of that, where is Jesse, anyway?”
“He went downstairs to get some breakfast,” I said. I checked the clock on the wall, realizing my husband had been gone for almost an hour. “He should have been back by now, though. He probably started calling more family and friends with the news. Our cells seem to get better reception downstairs. He probably got carried away with conversation.”
Vanessa frowned and reached for the hospital phone on her nightstand. “What’s his cell number?”
I ticked it off for her as I held Samuel closer and sniffed his sweet, Similac-soaked scent with the fervor of a drug addict. In the back of my mind, it felt a little odd to have another woman calling my man to task—but with my hands tied, who was I to argue?
“Hey,” Vanessa said into the phone when Jesse had apparently answered. “You get tired of your son that fast? People are looking for you.” She paused as he responded, her expression darkening a little for some reason. “Dionne was wondering where you are too,” she said defensively. “Wait any longer and Samuel will be wondering where his daddy went to.”
“I’m sorry if I’m acting impatient,” she said to me as she set the phone back into its cradle. “It’s just, I’ve pressured the nurses and my OB to fast-track my checkups and clearance so I can get home as soon as possible. So there’s only so much time for me to tell you both some things that have been on my mind.”
“Vanessa,” I said, slowing the pace of my rocking as Samuel’s eyes shut and he began to snore, “I told you we’re not leaving until you’re officially cleared to go home as well.”
Vanessa looked like she was struggling to keep the game look on her face. “No, Dionne, I already said you guys can leave as soon as the baby’s cleared.”
“I’ll tell you what, let’s wait until Sharon gets back,” I said, referring to our social worker, who was due back before noon to ensure the adoption process moved forward smoothly.
“Fine,” Vanessa replied. “I just need to say my piece while this is on my mind, though.”
“I won’t stop you from that much. What is it you want to share?”
“It’s about Samuel’s birth father. There are some things you deserve to know, Dionne.”
“What type of things?” The rush of his words, the urgency in his tone, startled me, and I turned to see Jesse standing in the doorway, his narrowed eyes dancing from me and Samuel to Vanessa. His cell phone hanging loosely from his right hand, he marched over to me and held his arms out. Taking his signal, I leaned forward and slid the baby into his arms. Standing back to his full height, Jesse put Samuel over his shoulder and ambled toward the room’s large window. His words coming from over his shoulder, he repeated his question: “What things are you sharing with us, Vanessa?”
Vanessa’s eyes turned toward the ceiling. “Things about the man who got me pregnant with Samuel.”
The silence emanating from Jesse was heavy with indifference, and I resisted the urge to get up and slap him in the back of the head. I was pretty sure of the emotions filling Vanessa right now. Here she had signed away rights to the beautiful baby Jesse now held in his arms, and if she wasn’t tormented over that decision, she wasn’t human. Talking out loud about the loser who had helped make Samuel, and then fled the scene, was probably therapeutic, a way of validating her decision to give away that man’s child.
“Take a good look at the baby’s features,” she said. “I mean, a close look. Most newborns, from what I’ve seen, come out looking pretty bland, pretty indistinct. Maybe some day they’ll be fine as Denzel or as fly as Halle, but it’s usually hard to guess at that during their first few days of life. Then we have this baby, who already has raised little cheekbones, a perfectly proportioned little nose, and eyes that you know will someday make one woman after another act a complete fool.” Vanessa’s tone had nearly turned mirthful, but now it darkened again. “His father had all those qualities and more. To be honest, he looked an awful lot like you, Jesse.”
With Samuel’s blissful, sleeping face staring at us over his shoulder, Jesse kept his back to us. “Why do we care what the man looked like, Vanessa?”
“Jesse!” I resisted the urge to hop from my chair and confront my husband for his tone, choosing instead to calm the increasingly tense atmosphere from where I sat. I was having a hard time recognizing the increasingly callous man sharing this room with Vanessa, Samuel, and me.
Less than twenty-four hours before Sharon had called with word of Vanessa’s labor, Jesse and I had enjoyed one of our most enriching spiritual conversations in months. I had finally completed a tough-talking draft of the “antigay” sermon Pastor Norm had commissioned from me, and as usual I’d asked Jesse to help me edit it. Before we’d known it, we had not only cracked open our Bibles in order to compare the Scriptures that seemed to speak most clearly to the issue of homosexuality, we’d gotten to sharing the misgivings we had about how to minister on such a personal, controversial issue. Jesse had helped me moderate some of my message’s application points, while agreeing with me that this was not an issue from which the Church could shrink. We’d even come away convicted enough to each vow to check in on friends or loved ones we knew who were struggling with their sexuality, including our nephew Larry Jr.
This man in the hospital room, though, was nothing like the man with whom I’d had that edifying conversation. Staring at Jesse with irritated wonderment, I chastised him for disrespecting Vanessa. “She’s sharing from her heart, and it certainly doesn’t hurt for us to know something about Samuel’s biological roots. Someday he may insist on meeting his blood relatives. We should have some facts ready for him, some insights.” I turned back to her. “Go ahead, Vanessa.”
“My point about what he looked like,” Vanessa said, “is that he was one of those biracial, mixed, pretty-boy types accustomed to women throwing themselves at him. And as you know, it takes a man of strong character not to take that as license to treat women as disposable, interchangeable goods.”
I stood and moved to Vanessa’s side, placing a hand on her left shoulder. “Was it a loving relationship?”
“I thought it was headed that way,” she said, and her eyes flitted past me toward Jesse and Samuel. “He was technically in a long-term relationship with another woman, but things were rocky. He pretty much convinced me after a few weeks that he was about to move out and get serious with me.”
“Let me guess,” Jesse said, finally turning around and facing both of us as he switched Samuel from one shoulder to the other. “He wound up staying with the girlfriend.”
“Yes,” Vanessa replied, “even before he knew that I was pregnant. I guess that’s why I knew better than to hold out hope that me having the baby would change anything. As soon as my doctor confirmed I was expecting, I knew abortion or adoption were my only realistic options.”
I stroked Vanessa’s shoulder lovingly. “Did you ever give him the chance to help with the baby?”
“I finally told him, once I was about two months along,” she replied, wiping tears away with one hand while accepting a tissue I offered from my purse with the other. “Can you believe he had the nerve—the disgusting nerve—to suggest I let him raise Samuel with his girlfriend?”
“Oh Lord,” I said. The cruelty of men who let flesh take rule never ceased to amaze me. “What a heartless . . .” I let my silence communicate what a four-letter word might have otherwise accomplished.
Jesse had walked to the other side of the bed now, a hand massaging Samuel’s back as the baby began to coo. “I’m sorry, Vanessa,” he said, his voice increasingly husky and hoarse. I was surprised to see tears glistening in his eyes. “Dionne and I are both sorry you had to endure such a humiliating request. We’ll make sure Samuel grows up to be a better man than his birth father.”
Vanessa sniffed back tears and glared at Jesse. “You make sure of that.”
23
Jesse
Less than an hour after Vanessa had nearly lifted the veil of our deception, I was back in the hospital cafeteria. In the hours since the baby’s safe delivery I had shared the happy news directly with my mother, four of my siblings, dozens of friends, and Joe, Men with a Message’s manager. That conversation, however, had short-circuited my desire to speak with anyone else in the group, especially Coleman or Micah.
“Jesse, you got to level with me, son,” Joe had said around midnight when I’d first reached him with the happy news. “I couldn’t be more overjoyed for you and Ms. Dionne, but my phone’s been blowing up with calls all night. Cable news is going crazy with this story.”
“What story?”
“Oh, just a little yarn starring that gay group—GET UP, whatever—and Men with a Message!”
I had slid into a seat at the nearest cafeteria table, my mind rushing to insist Joe was exaggerating. “Calm down—what’s the story, exactly?”
“Apparently, these activists circulated press releases alleging that DC police have made an arrest in the disappearance of Coleman’s boyfriend.”
“Joe, stop it.”
“Whatever you wanna call the boy,” Joe said, “the issue of his disappearance is not going away. The gays claim the cops arrested a well-known gangbanger from PG County. Brother’s name is Dante ‘D-Boy’ Holmes. Apparently, they ran DNA testing on Adrian’s home, found evidence that ole D-Boy was there recently. Supposedly, a search of his car found blood consistent with Adrian’s DNA.”
“What?” My brain was too battered by the sudden emotional shift—from the euphoria of seeing my son born to learning Adrian may have been killed—to process all this, but I held the phone.
“You waitin’ for it?” Joe inhaled. “The gays say—”
“Joe, you mean GET UP, right?”
“So, like I said, the gays say that D-Boy just so happens to be a high-school classmate of Coleman’s, and that other witnesses claim they saw Coleman hanging out with the banger a couple of weeks before Adrian’s disappearance.”
It sounded bad, and a quick trip to my car later that morning, to catch some cable news on my satellite radio, confirmed my fears. Numerous press outlets ran quick hits on it as a developing scandal, and it didn’t take a genius to do the math: politics, sex, “down-low” allegations, celebrity, and now potentially murder. News hounds found the story irresistible.
The knowledge of the brewing storm had clamped itself to my shoulders, but I refused to let it steal my joy over Samuel. I was determined not to tell Dionne about it until we were settled at home with the little guy, but I couldn’t let everything fester without my involvement. That sense was confirmed the minute I caught Micah on the phone. “He’s going to take us all down with him,” he said as soon as he heard my voice.
“Coleman’s not doing this,” I said. “He’s at the mercy of these activists, and a media that loves to catch Christians in hypocrisy. You and I both know he would never harm anyone—”
“Jesse, stop.” Micah’s tone was a tank, rushing insistently over the phone line. “You’re a father now, man, so I shouldn’t have to spell this out for you. Coleman has put Men with a Message in an impossible position. This story is officially out there now, and he’s never accepted our offer to clear the air.”
I can’t explain why, but at that moment something deep inside me snapped. I found myself speaking feelings that had knocked around inside for weeks. “You mean your insistence that Coleman take back his claim to being born gay? As a man who was definitely born straight, Micah, I can tell you that was no ‘offer.’ You’re asking the man to lie and say he chose being that way. Why, in our Lord’s name, would a man born straight look at how society treats homosexuals, and choose that attraction?”
