Been There Prayed That (9781622860845) (13 page)

“Oh, just get out of here already before I change my mind and make you try on ugly shoes.” Paige rolled her eyes playfully.

“Thanks again for understanding, Paige.” Tamarra was now headed for the exit. “Oh, and will you pick Pastor something up for me? I'll pay you back.”

Paige gave her a stern look. “You're pushing it, girlfriend.”

“Okay, okay. I'm gone.” And just like that, Tamarra was gone, out the mall doors and headed to her car. Once in her vehicle, she drove just as quickly to Maeyl's house to restore their relationship, as she had on the day to sever it. But this time, just like always, she hoped that he would be forgiving and make amends with her.

About a half hour later, Tamarra pulled up to Maeyl's place. She was glad to see his front door open since she hadn't bothered to call to make sure he was home. Upon knocking on the screen door, she waited patiently. The multiple voices inside let her know that she wasn't the only company Maeyl had. The high pitched giggle let her know that she wasn't the only female company that Maeyl had either.

A few seconds passed when Tamarra looked through the screen door straight into the kitchen and saw a little body appear in the kitchen doorway. It was that little girl, Sasha's little girl. But the words that flew from the child's mouth told Tamarra that she was someone else's little girl as well.

“Daddy?” the small child called out.

“Yes, dear?” Tamarra heard Maeyl's voice, but she didn't see him.

“That woman from church is at your door.”

Lorain literally had to drag herself out of bed in order to prepare for the Single's Ministry meeting that was less than two hours away. She'd already called off work that Friday morning, in addition to having called off Monday as well. She thought the three days in between would have allowed her to recuperate from the sudden shock and anxiety attack she'd suffered on Saturday. She was wrong, dead wrong. Now today, almost a week later, she had the right mind to just lie in bed until canker worms began to nibble away at her flesh. But she wasn't in her right mind. She hadn't been since last Saturday after storming out of her mother's house without even saying so much as a good-bye.

She'd left her mother's house in a complete trance. She didn't even know how she'd made it home she was so shaken up after seeing Mr. Leary standing there in her mother's dining room in the flesh. After all the years of never even bumping into him in the grocery store, post office, or anything, she had been so sure he was dead by now, or perhaps even in jail if there was such a thing as justice. But she could see now that he was alive and well. The only consolation Lorain got out of that was that now he was wooing older women, women his own age, instead of young, vulnerable girls like she had been twenty-three years ago.

The man her mother referred to as Broady, Lorain knew as Mr. Leary, her middle school counselor back in the day. She'd never known him by his first name, only his last. It was normal for kids to only know their school superiors by last names since, out of respect, that was the way they were taught to reference them.

Why hadn't she asked her mother the last name of the man she was dating? Perhaps knowing both his last name and the fact that he was retired from the school system, she would have been able to put two and two together. That way she could have prevented her mother from taking her relationship with that man any further. But even so, how would she have possibly done that without having to tell her mother something she should have told her years ago? If she couldn't tell her then, how could she tell her now? And maybe Mr. Leary had been right, maybe it was all her fault. After all, she was the one who used to sneak and change into those short little mini skirts once she got to school and plaster cherry blossom lip gloss on her lips, making sure she wiped off every trace before returning home.

She wanted someone to notice her. She wanted the attention, which is why she would transform herself from the Plain Jane look Eleanor would send her off to school in. So once Mr. Leary started showing her special attention, as he called it, because she was a special student, her mission had been accomplished. Lorain couldn't lie; at first everything about the way Mr. Leary treated her made her feel special and grown up. But she was a child. She wasn't supposed to feel grown up. And she certainly wasn't supposed to be engaging in the grown up things she eventually found herself engaging in with Mr. Leary.

Seeing that man again struck up a sheet of guilt that covered Lorain like she was a king sized bed. She didn't so much feel guilty for the acts she'd performed with the man, she felt guilty just thinking about how many other young girls he'd probably done the same thing with all because she never told. After several months of him pulling her out of her various classrooms for their special meetings, she informed him that it was time she told her mother about the two of them. He nearly went insane, grabbing her by her arms, shaking her and telling her how that would be the biggest mistake she could ever make.

First off, he told her that other people wouldn't understand how special she was, why he'd chosen her. He told her that instead they would be jealous and brand her as just a ho, a title that would follow her all the way to high school. He told her that if she told anyone, there was a chance he could go to jail and it would be all her fault. He made her feel as though she was even more to blame by accusing her of deliberately wearing those revealing clothes.

By the time Mr. Leary finished putting the blame on her, there was no way in the world Lorain could tell anyone about what her young mind had conceived as her and Mr. Leary's relationship. He was right, no one would understand. No one could ever know. There could never be any proof that she had been
one of them fast girls
, as her mother used to refer to some of the other neighborhood girls. And several months after that day in Mr. Leary's office, the one thing that threatened to be a tell all for sure, she'd gotten rid of.

With no proof of what Mr. Leary had done to her, even if she did tell her mother what had happened all those years ago, how could she make her believe her now? She could hear Eleanor now being upset with her for making such an accusation when she'd finally found her a man. As a matter of fact, she could still hear her mother's loud ringing voice in her ears from when she had fussed her out on the phone last Saturday.

When her mother had gone into the kitchen to retrieve a glass of water for her, Lorain had made a David Copperfield escape.

“How you gon' have me cook up a mess a food and you leave without saying good-bye, let alone taking a plate with you?” Eleanor had spat a few days ago into the phone receiver. It had been only seconds after Lorain had gotten into her car and driven away.

At the time, Lorain thought she'd accidentally put her cell phone on speaker because Eleanor's voice was booming so loud through the phone. “I'm sorry, Mom, I just—” Lorain hadn't even had the strength to finish the lie.

“Sorry? Is that all you have got to say for yourself? Runnin' out of here lookin' like a fool. Even worse, making me look like a fool for raising a fool.”

“Mom, I'm sorry. I just wasn't feeling well all of a sudden.” That had been the truth. She'd become almost sick to her stomach at the sight of her old school counselor. Although he'd aged, she recognized him well. But he appeared not to recognize her at all.

“I said I was going to get you a glass of water,” Eleanor had reminded her. “Child, I been coming up with instant remedies for your illnesses since you were born. What made you think I couldn't have done the same this time around? On a day that was supposed to be so special? All I had to do to that water was add a drop of—”

Lorain had sat with the phone to her ear, no longer attentive to her mother as Eleanor began to rattle off all types of concoctions she could have mixed up with items right there in her kitchen. Lorain knew there was no use in listening. She knew that there was nothing her mother had in her house that could cure what had come over her. There was nothing she could go out and buy either, except maybe a .22 automatic. Lorain had quickly shook that violent thought from her head the minute she was convicted by the Holy Spirit for even allowing it to infiltrate her mind. So once again, she had tuned back into her mother's words.

“We'll since you don't have nothing to say, I'm not going to sit here on the phone wasting my time begging and pleading for you to come back,” her mother had told her. “But you owe me, Lorain. You owe me big time for making me look like a fool in front of the man that's going to be your step-daddy.”

The phone went dead. Eleanor had hung up in her daughter's ear.

For the next hour, Lorain had driven around, searching for a gun store that might waive the two week waiting period.

“Three months my foot!” one woman called out. “Three months is three months too long to wait to introduce your children to the person you're dating.”

Just as Unique had suggested during her and Lorain's meeting at Lorain's house, they'd decided to discuss the matter of single parenting at the Single's Ministry meeting. The topic at hand was how long a person should wait before introducing their children to the person they are dating. It seemed to be getting quite heated.

“If I had kids,” the woman continued, “the first time the man came to pick me up for a date, when I opened the front door, my kids would be standing right there beside me, ready to meet him.”

“But what if it's just that, a date? What if nothing else comes of it, and the very next week you're out on another date?” Maeyl asked as he sat next to Tamarra who had been silent during the entire discussion, flipping through her Bible, pretending to be searching out scripture. “Are you just going to keep bringing all these men to your doorstep and going out with them for your children to witness? I mean, what type of impression would that leave on them?”

“Yeah, he's right,” someone agreed.

“I don't want my kids seeing me going out with a different man every other week,” Unique chimed in. “I feel that by three months, a person should know whether or not the relationship has potential to grow, and if it does, at that point, the children should be weaved into the scenario. If not, three months is still early enough for everyone to cut their losses without anyone getting hurt.”

“More importantly, the children don't get hurt,” an older woman added. “Because single folk have to realize that when they date someone and they bring their children into things, the children, in essence, are dating this person too. The children have feelings and could really grow to like this person. So when you break up with them, the children have to break up with them too.”

“I still say three months is too long to begin to include the children,” the woman who'd replied first said, standing her ground.

“I'm going to have to agree with Sister Unique,” Lorain stated. Everyone looked at her as though she was Chris Brown showing up at Rihanna's birthday party. Thanks to the church secretary, everyone was pretty much privy to Unique and Lorain's issues with one another. The last person they expected to agree with Unique was Lorain. Even if she did feel the same way, they still never imagined she'd vocalize her agreement, even if not doing so was just to spite Unique. But it was time for Lorain to be an example at New Day, to show her fellow saints that it was just as easy to love each other as it was to love God. At least it should be.

Of course, for Lorain, it had taken praying and fasting to be able to get to that point, to realize that God had to change her, not the people she came into contact with. If she couldn't tolerate and get over herself in order to deal with her neighbor, then how on earth was she going to be able to deal with the devil? And if her mother truly had intentions on getting serious with Broady, she knew she'd be battling the devil face to face. So she couldn't waste her energy cat fighting with Unique. She had to save her strength for the real enemy.

“I just don't think it looks good for a man or woman to be dating all kinds of people and introducing them all to their children,” Lorain concluded, looking at Unique, who smiled, feeling good to have Lorain's support. Lorain only hoped to have that kind of support from her mother once she informed Eleanor that she didn't want her seeing Broady anymore, without actually telling her why.

“Who said anything about going out with these men?” the woman continued in her own defense. “See, children are the true test of character. I promise you all that God must have given them some kind of sixth sense, because children know a good spirit from a bad one a mile away. You can always tell the type of person you're dealing with by how a child reacts to the person. I guarantee that when your date shows up on your doorstep, you'll know by your child's reaction toward them whether or not you should even waste your time going out on a date in the first place.”

There were a few chuckles and giggles throughout the room. There were even a couple of Amens.

“Um, hmm, y'all know I'm right,” the woman nodded. “Either the child is going to be all standoffish and won't even say hi, want to hurry up and get out of the room and away from them, or, if you're dealing with a good spirit, even the shyest child on earth will at least let out a pleasant ‘hello' and might even blush or giggle a little bit. Am I right about it?” she asked as chatter began to wave across the room from people recalling situations that confirmed the woman's theory. “Y'all know I'm telling the truth.” She spoke as if she were speaking a scientific theory.

Unique even had to agree to some degree. “You might have a point, sista, because I know my kids won't even entertain someone with an ugly spirit. So if ever any of y'all greet my kids and they don't have no holler for you, now you'll know why.”

There was laughter throughout the room. There were two people who weren't laughing though. This sudden topic regarding single parents dating was just too soon for Maeyl and Tamarra to entertain. Too soon.

Tamarra sat there wondering why, of all the topics, God had decided to drop this one into the spirits of the ministry's leaders. She wasn't ready to talk about kids. She wasn't ready to talk about dating a man with kids. More specifically, she wasn't ready to even acknowledge that she now fit into that category, that she now found herself dating a man with a kid.

It wasn't fair that she would now have to learn an entire new set of rules. She had enough going on in her life. Why did God always have to pile everything on her all at once? Was God ever going to let her walk at least a mile weight free? She felt as though all of her life she'd had to carry a cross, sometimes not even her own. Now here she was again with the one her mother was making sure she carried, as well as the one Maeyl was now, in so many ways, asking her to carry.

Tamarra sat in the Single's Ministry meeting attempting to block out the discussion going on. She shifted from left to right every now and then as if she were uncomfortable. There was no ifs about it. She was uncomfortable. She was uncomfortable each and every time Maeyl's participated in the discussion at hand. She was afraid that people would start to wonder why he was so interested and involved in a topic that really didn't relate to him, well, as far as they knew. He rarely ever dialogued when at the meetings, and now all of a sudden he had plenty to say. Tamarra was afraid that someone would put two and two together and call him on it. As Maeyl added his last two cents, Tamarra's fear was about to come to pass.

“I think every one has a valid point, but I'm still going to support the idea of waiting at least three months to get to know someone before introducing them to your child,” Maeyl insisted, and then rested his case by resting his folded hands across his lap.

“Well, well, well,” the woman who felt there should be no waiting period stated. “You all heard brother Maeyl. Sounds like three months it is.” It was clear that the woman was perturbed about not getting everyone to side with her. She looked to Maeyl. “Hmm, and you're quite passionate about it too, Brother Maeyl. One would think you had a kid running around here.” Knowing that Maeyl and Tamarra were dating, the woman then looked to Tamarra. “Sister Tamarra, do you know something we don't know?”

By now Maeyl was livid by the way the sore loser was coming at him—and his woman. This was why he hadn't wanted to join the Single's Ministry in the first place, but nooooo, Tamarra just had to be persistent in talking him into it. He'd heard that the ministry was nothing but a bunch of women sitting around male bashing and gossiping, but figured if God had a resource for him to stay holy while he dated the woman he was in love with, he'd make the sacrifice.

Maeyl had to admit, outside of the tit for tat the women sometimes engaged in while trying to get their points across, he'd taken in a great deal of wisdom and knowledge. The information had definitely helped both him and Tamarra to date one another in a manner that was pleasing to God. Now, yet again, God was blessing him with some timely information. But for Tamarra, none of this seemed like a good time.

“Come on, Brother Maeyl, you can tell us,” the woman persisted, turning her attention from Tamarra back to Maeyl. “You got a child running around somewhere that we don't know about it?” She chuckled.

Maeyl's jaws tightened, his mouth salivated and his heart rate increased dramatically when he realized that the woman's question wasn't rhetorical. She, along with everyone else in the room, was waiting for an answer. Some just thinking the question was a joke and that Maeyl would quiet her up with a hand swoop and a playful, “No.” But as all eyes stayed glued on Maeyl, he knew he had to do something.

This, by no means, was how he'd intended on sharing the news with his church family of his three-year-old daughter. He wanted to give the woman the hand swoop and playful “No” that many were expecting, but something in him simply would not allow him to deny his daughter. He could deny the child no more to the mass of people that surrounded him than he could have denied her to Tamarra that day she showed up on his doorstep and heard the child refer to him as Daddy—and him reply.

That morning of the day Tamarra had come to his apartment, Maeyl had received the test results from the DNA test Pastor had suggested they take. It had been Maeyl's idea to counsel with Pastor the Sunday Sasha finally decided to acknowledge Maeyl as her child's father. She had told him that she'd known exactly who he was the moment she saw him standing in the center church aisle that day she went to the altar for salvation. Her intentions were never to hunt the man down whom she knew had fathered her child, but in her mind, it had to have been fate.

She shared with Maeyl how life had been a struggle for her in raising her daughter alone, but it was something she had prepared herself to do when she decided to keep the baby. It was a burden that she thought she was prepared to haul alone, but when her child was diagnosed with displaying signs of having autism, she knew it was more than she could bear.

As she sat in the lobby of the doctor's office crying after learning of her child's diagnosis, a woman just walked up to her. The woman, seeing Sasha clinging to her daughter, laid hands on both Sasha and her daughter and began to pray. She prayed that the devil's assignment on their lives be canceled. She also prayed that God would heal and deliver the child of any diagnostic or report from man that did not line up with the Word of God or His will for the child's life. Of everything the woman prayed, the words “Lord, your Word says that you will give this woman no more than she can bear,” stuck out in Sasha's head. Never attending church regularly as an adult, or even the same church twice for that matter, Sasha felt that at that point in her life, the Lord was her only chance at help.

The way Sasha saw it, God was bound and determined to apprehend her. When she exited the clinic, she saw a sign stapled to the telephone pole inviting all, the sinners and the saved, to Easter Sunday service at New Day Temple of Faith. Sasha was a sinner who needed salvation. She almost hadn't been able to make it on Easter Sunday due to her car breaking down with a flat tire, but she eventually made it after a Good Samaritan helped her change her flat. Upon arriving at New Day, she realized that it was one of the few churches she had visited in the past. When she saw Maeyl standing there that day in church, even though she didn't have a relationship with the Lord before walking down to that altar and giving her life to Him, she knew her help had come from the Lord in the form of her baby's daddy.

Now faced with the dilemma of denying or proclaiming proudly his daughter, Maeyl chose the latter.

“As a matter of fact,” Maeyl puffed out his chest and declared, “I do have a child. A daughter. Her name is Sakaya.”