Mom's the Word (7 page)

“Anyway,” Fallon screamed over the whir of the blender creating the awful-looking green mango-spinach drink she loved above all else. “Steve and I got to talking about this Jesus thing and he was saying how sometimes he wondered about everything, too. You know, God and all?”

She stopped and lifted the lid of the Vita Mix, stirring things around. “He's getting old, you know. Even rich men start thinking about God when they realize they're not Him. It's always a shock, I think. Anyway, I told Steve about how Jesus brought me through when my husband took up with that girl and left me, how He helped me get through school and showed me how to write books to help folks…and he got real quiet. Sort of like you are right now.”

Dyanne was quiet. She loved Fallon, but the way she could just disarm herself and strip bare, unloading her life in front of strangers, or worse yet, people she knew, like Steve Chaise, made Dyanne crazy.

And yet, backstage at that Gospel Broadcasting set, Dyanne had found herself swaying into the curtains with teary eyes, feeling weak and emotional. She'd wondered then if she wasn't already pregnant. It'd be an easier explanation than her show of feeling. She wondered if she'd ever be pregnant now. Fallon still had a bomb to drop, and Dyanne wasn't sure that she'd be able to catch it this time.

Fallon reached up and got two goblets and poured some of her Green Mama as she called it into both glasses until they were half-full. Dyanne took a sip without a fight, knowing that it always tasted better than it looked. Besides, the last pregnancy book she'd read had said that nutrition six months before conception was as important, if not more, than nutrition during pregnancy. Maybe there was hope of a baby after all since she was still thinking about such things.

“Steve and I talked about it and we agreed that I should write an inspirational book. You know, what I normally do, but with Bible verses and my testimony. He has some big people lined up for the launch of the Christian line evidently and he wants this book—”

Dyanne managed to swallow. “What book?”

“The one I came here to write. Pay attention, girl. It has to be done by the end of the month and then we're off on tour. Surprise! Now, where's my bed?”

After clutching the counter, Dyanne tossed back her whole glass of green mush, swallowed hard and pointed upstairs. It was all she had the strength to do.

 

“It's not so bad. It might even be fun having Fallon here,” Neal said the next evening while caressing Dyanne's back. “Look at the upside, you'll probably get a juicy bonus out of this and you didn't even know what was going on.”

Dyanne sighed and lowered her voice to a whisper. “That's just it. I still can't believe this. Maybe you're right. Maybe this vacation from work, this house, maybe it isn't realistic. I'm gone less than a week and Heather, who I trained and felt totally comfortable with, almost loses the author that keeps my department's lights on? Then the author calls the publisher and has a ‘chat' with him? Do you know how that could have ended? Things are out of control.”

“Out of your control, you mean.” In the moonlight filtering through the window, the lines of Neal's body were even sharper, with deep cuts between the muscles on his back and down his legs. Fallon had made Dyanne forget about her ovulation timeline, but the silhouette illuminated by the moon was unforgettable. She reached out and traced his spine with her fingernail.

When he sighed with pleasure, Fallon happened to be walking by on her way to the room closest to them. She'd rejected the guest room at the end of the hall; too small she said. Besides theirs, it was the biggest bedroom in the house.

Dressed in a purple caftan and munching grapes, Fallon lingered in their closed doorway. “That's right, Dee Dee. Make him holler. You'll get you a baby yet. It's good for the skin, too,” she said, laughing into the folds of her nightgown.

Dyanne slid under the sheets, covering her face in shame while Neal had another laughing fit. As usual, he found Fallon's brashness comforting. His wife did not.

“Mind your own business, woman. Aren't you supposed to be writing a book?”

“Feisty tonight, huh? I like it. Ain't you supposed to be getting a baby? You tend to your business and I'll tend to mine. The moon is on the wane, but I think you can still squeeze something out of it. I love my room. Did you know I can see straight in your neighbor's upstairs? Those kids are something funny. Been waving at me all night. Their parents probably don't even know they up. I've got to go and meet them tomorrow.”

Brilliant! Maybe they'd all keep each other out of trouble. “Go for it,” Dyanne said, wondering if this was going to happen every night. At least the children next door were warming up to Fallon. Progress at last. “Those kids are something wild, especially that little girl.”

“Good! I can't stand all these little fake kids people have now, small adults running around. If I'm going to spend time with children, I want them to be just that. Remember that when you ask me to babysit. Now go on, act like married folk. Good night. I'm turning on my music….”

True to her word, instrumental jazz replaced Fallon's voice a few minutes later, the latest intruder into their tranquil bedroom.

At least she warned us.

The sultry crooning of a bass guitar was just loud enough to be heard, but not too distracting. Neal must have liked it because he went after Dyanne with both hands—and a full heart.

“I love that woman,” he said, going in for a kiss.

Me, too, Dyanne thought. “You'd better be concerned about loving this woman,” she said, returning his playful yet passionate kisses. Still, she was relieved that Neal seemed happy about having Fallon around.

Once before, Dyanne had spent a week alone with Fallon on a huge rewrite and it wasn't pretty. There were still shards of Swarovski crystals in the carpet of their old apartment from the vase Dyanne had broken after throwing up her hands one time too many.

Things had been tight enough with just a month to get this house in order and finalize the book tour. Being successful in the African-American market meant making—and keeping—relationships. And that wasn't always easy with tight deadlines and high personnel turnover. For every bookstore owner, university official or organizational chairperson, there were keep-in-touch gifts, e-mails and calls and down-to-the-minute checking and just-in-case plans.

Even then, many of Dyanne's contacts worked on what her grandfather had called “colored people time,” an entirely different construct than the European concept of planning down to the last second. Dyanne's grandfather had explained that the African sense of timelessness was the one thing that couldn't be beaten out of them. What some thought was laziness was a virtue of watching people over clocks. “The sun, moon and stars told us what we needed to know. And our bellies of course. When you're hungry, it's time to eat.”

Right.

Unfortunately, publishing—or the rest of the world for that matter—didn't run by sundial. To compensate, Fallon traveled with pop-up tables (“Someone is using the table now, but if you come back at four…”), extra books (“We ordered them, but they didn't come in”), media contacts (“They did a press release, but nobody called…”) and all that was just for the regular stores. Once they hit the “chitlin circuit” as Fallon called the drive to the black bookstores, lodges, gymnasiums, historically black colleges and now more than before, churches, it would be Dealing with Divas 101 time. The thought of it all made her tired, but excited, too.

Neal was kissing her elbows now, totally erasing her train of thought. She let out a contented sigh of her own. Maybe this was enough, the two of them. Maybe this wasn't the time to have a baby. What would she do with a kid the next time Fallon showed up needing a month—or two—of attention?

Trust Me.

It wasn't a voice or anything flaky like the experiences her father talked about, but the words were impressed on her mind, overflowing Dyanne's heart. All she could think of was how hard she'd prayed for her parents to stay together, for her mother to keep the baby boys she'd miscarried again and again, each time taking her mother farther from them into her own little world.

Though Dyanne couldn't deny that God had been good to her, the one time she'd needed Him, truly trusted Him, He hadn't come through. She couldn't make that mistake again. Her father had spent the past few years trying to teach her about God, but the first lesson he'd taught her about Him still held true—the only person a woman can trust completely is herself.

As if he'd read her thoughts, Neal's hands and lips stopped moving. “You really want this, don't you? This baby?”

Dyanne nodded slowly, surprised at the vulnerability in his voice. For months, she'd tried to get her husband here. Who'd have thought that Fallon Gray would be what brought him around? Never one to miss an opportunity, Dyanne reached over and clicked on the light.

Neal shielded his eyes. “What are you doing?”

Dyanne tiptoed to her briefcase and produced her master-piece—the baby proposal.

Speechless, her husband flipped through the pages of flow charts, family cost predictions and couldn't believe what he saw.

“You got an endorsement from the doctor who wrote all those baby care books? You've got to be kidding me.”

She wasn't kidding. Mr. Chaise—Steve—had snapped up the doctor in a five-book deal last summer and Dyanne had spent over an hour talking to him about children. He'd made a few quotes in the conversation and when she'd asked later, he'd given her permission to share them with her husband, although he said he didn't recommend it. Now, watching the look on her husband's face, she wondered if he hadn't been right. “Just read it. I did a lot of research. It's all there.”

He slammed the folder shut just as he reached the best visual in the whole thing. “It's not all here, Dyanne. This is a business proposal. Babies come from love. I wanted to believe that this was about love, but as usual it's about something else. I'm not sure what quite yet, but I don't think I want to find out. No baby for the immediate future, and that's my final answer.” He stormed off down the hall, not stopping until he reached the guest room that Fallon had turned down earlier.

Fallon. She'd probably heard all the yelling. In a strange way, Dyanne almost hoped so. She wanted to throw herself in Fallon's arms and have a good cry, but she couldn't. She wouldn't. Work was work and home was home. No matter how close they seemed right now, they had to remain separate. Dyanne hoped that she and Neal wouldn't remain separate, too. His negative response to her proposal had sent her reeling, both with its quickness and its finality. What guy didn't want a baby?

Maybe he just didn't want one with her.

Trust Me.

Dyanne turned out the light and wrapped herself in a sheet before following her husband. She didn't know who to trust, but she was running out of options.

It waits for me at the edge

Of laundry baskets,

Holding my best hopes.

Hungry, it swallows possibilities

Spitting reality at my feet.

“Never,” it whispers, blowing

through the pages beneath my bed.

“Enough,” He says, this

Brightness with no darkness

At all.

I awake, dancing

On the curve between night

And morning, hearing

Only, “Never enough.”

 

—Karol

Upon waking after dreaming about mangoes and

Ferris wheels

“T
hey got company over there,” Karol's son Judah proclaimed at the dinner table. “She looks old, but not boring old. Fun old, like Grandpa.”

“Don't call people old. That's rude,” Karol said.

Ryan shrugged. “Not really. We're all going to get old. Why are people so touchy about it?”

Karol didn't know quite what to say to that. Or maybe she did, but she didn't want to hear it. She'd seen the hybrid SUV pull up and the tall woman with a teeny-weeny Afro get out of it. The lady had looked familiar in a way that made Karol catch her breath, but she didn't think much of it. She'd exhaled like that the first time she saw Hope, too.

She took a breath at the thought of Hope and Singh. She'd picked up the phone a million times to call Hope and apologize about what Rob had done. Why her husband would have asked her best friends to consider moving away still eluded her. Granted, she and Hope may have been closer than was healthy. Karol could see that now. Why wouldn't Rob have just said that? She'd have listened.

No, I wouldn't have. I'm not listening now.

The thought hit hard. She'd dreamed of fruit and carnivals and the guest next door. Probably too much pizza, but sometimes it turned out to be important. The new woman seemed important somehow, more than the new neighbors even. Some people just had that way about them, as if you'd known them before. At first, she thought it might have been Dyanne's mother, but somehow she didn't think so. Instead it was probably a friend—the one thing Karol didn't have right now.

That's silly. You have loads of friends. You could call any woman in the church directory right now and she'd love to hear from you. Other mothers from the children's school, people you used to work with…

Maybe. Maybe not. After her little trust God speech the other Sunday, the same mothers who had thronged around Hope had barely waved at her during the last service. And Karol really didn't care. The thought of finding another best friend, telling all the stories, breaking down all the walls…Just the thought of it made her stomach hurt. She couldn't imagine anyone else getting her corny jokes or having a husband who got along with Rob as well as Singh had. Outside of the new guy next door—and that was just being neighborly—Rob hadn't been spending time with anyone new, either.

Rob was right. We were too close. All of us.

She piled another pancake on Judah's plate, grateful that the younger ones were quiet this morning. They seemed too tired to talk.

Be afraid. Be very afraid, she thought. Silence always had a deeper meaning, with these kids at least.

Karol put down the syrup and headed for the bar where the children were sitting. She checked their heads for fever one by one.

“They're not sick,” Ryan said. “Just sleepy. They were up half the night playing Flashlight and ‘I See You' with the new lady next door. I told them to cut it out, but you know how they get.”

Boy, did she.

With a smile, Karol served the last pancake and offered warm syrup to the boys after pouring Mia's. Prevention was ninety percent of the equation with that girl.

Ryan took the bottle himself and looked a little offended that his mother was still trying to fix his pancakes. He grabbed his knife and moved it to the other side of the plate.

“Just in case you get any other ideas,” her oldest son said, looking weary as usual of the error that his mother usually realized too late.

Karol tried not to laugh and turned her attention back to the younger children. They were harder to keep up with but easier to figure out. “When that happens, come and let Mommy know, okay? Even if it's the middle of the night. Things were fine when Rob—Dad—and I came to tuck you all in. I didn't hear a thing.”

Mia rested her head on her fist, fighting to keep her eyes open. “The lady started it.”

Judah nodded. “I didn't know that any grown-ups knew how to play Flashlight.”

Ryan rolled his eyes. He was growing up and the antics of his younger siblings embarrassed him more than amused him these days. “These pancakes are awesome, Mom. Did Dad make them?”

He had made them. Rob had slipped out of bed and made the pancakes before work, leaving breakfast and a love note behind. Things were still a little shaky between them after his admission of being behind Hope and Singh leaving. Even now, Karol wanted to call Hope to discuss it, but something held her back. During her Bible reading time, God had given her the scripture to confirm it. One she'd read on many other occasions but never with such a personal meaning:

“…as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness…”

 

“Yes, Dad made them. I just heated them up.”

Judah shrugged his shoulders. “Figures. Your eggs are good, though. The best.”

Except for Dad's omelets.

Ryan held up a finger. “Except for Dad's omelets, but still…”

Karol had to laugh. She'd prayed to have a husband like Rob, a sensitive, caring man. She wondered now if she hadn't forgotten along the way that no matter how sensitive Rob was, he was still a man. Her mother, Faith the Second, had her shortcomings, but she always saw Rob as the man he was, even if she didn't always treat him kindly.

She decided right then to make Rob a cake for dinner—7-Up cake, his favorite. And after dinner, once the kids were asleep, she'd offer him something much better than her cooking. Until then, she had a day of parenting—no, discipleship—ahead of her. It was time for Karol to let go of Hope and come into her own as a mother, even if it meant starting all over again to find her way.

After breakfast, Karol and the kids did something they hadn't done since their neighbors moved away. They had Bible time together.

“It's not the same without Eden doing the voices.”

“Or Bone barking.”

They were right. It wasn't the same. Though Hope and Singh taught their children at home and Karol's children went to public school, they'd all gathered each morning for prayer and Bible study in the tree house that Dyanne had torn down. Hope had chosen the stories, usually ones she and her children were studying during their other subjects.

Karol's job had been bringing whatever supplies were needed for the day's illustration. She generally brought whatever Hope recommended on the list she gave Karol on the weekends. If there was a project with the story, all the children worked on it together once the boys were home from school. During the day, Karol and Mia went back and forth between houses. Her daughter often came home with a “school” paper of her own, custom made by Hope on her computer. No, Bible time wasn't the same. It never would be. But it was theirs.

“How about we do the voices? All of us. Just follow me. I'm not Miss Hope, but I'm your mom, and I love you. And God loves you, too. I'm sure that Miss Hope would want us to find our own way to have time with God's Word.”

“Do we have to go outside?” Mia asked.

Karol shook her head. “No. We can do it right here. We can even sing if you want.”

Karol's younger son, Judah, raised his hand. “Can I do that part today? I learned a new song at church on Sunday.”

And on it went. Ryan headed up the prayer time, even stopping to take requests. Judah led them all in a beautiful, off-key worship song and Mia acted out the story—voices and all—as Karol read it. At the end, instead of the usual short sermon that Hope used to give, Karol went another route. She let the kids ask questions.

They stared at her, stunned. “We can ask things?”

“Sure,” Karol said, wondering if Faith the Second wasn't right about their creativity being stifled. Had Karol been so caught up in preserving the status quo that her children didn't think that they could ask her questions about life? About God? Karol hoped she was wrong, but she filled in the silence with her own questions for them until they worked up their nerve.

When their curiosity kicked in, the children's queries were more numerous and complex than she anticipated. More than once she had to admit something they rarely got to hear from their mother's mouth: “I don't know.”

They seemed glad to hear it. So did the tall, beautiful woman visiting the people next door. Unlike the new neighbors, who always approached cautiously, tiptoeing around the edge of the yard, this big, beautiful woman cut right across the lawn and up to the front door. And she didn't ring the bell, either. She knocked a rhythm that sounded like music. Like a secret.

Karol's little disciples scrambled away from the table to meet her as though they'd been expecting her all along. Mia made it to the door first, swinging it open without asking who it was. Karol frowned, pushing herself up and following behind. Even if they'd watched the woman approach through the window, the lady was still a stranger. Karol would have to get on her daughter about it later. At the moment, though, she was as excited about the visitor as the kids were, only she couldn't figure out why.

“Hi! We were hoping you'd come over,” Mia said, taking the lady's hand as though she'd always known her.

“Well, of course I was coming over. We had such a good time last night. I had to come and meet you all. Your mom and dad, too.” She reached out to shake Karol's hand. “I have the funny feeling that I've met your mom already. I just can't put my finger on where.”

Karol's breathing quickened as she took the woman's hand. So it wasn't just her imagination. She stared at the lady, squinted even. “Did you have long hair before? Locks maybe? I'm Karol, by the way. Karol Simon.”

The woman's eyes narrowed. “Yes. I cut my locks a few weeks ago. You may have seen me speak somewhere. I'm Fallon. Fallon Gray. It's not my real name, but it's sort of stuck on now. Just like your face.

“I'm not placing Simon, but your eyes are familiar. Very familiar. You look like Eric Ware, a professor I once knew from Morris Brown College. Do you know him? I'm reaching. You've probably never heard of him. He teaches—”

“Anthropology. He's my father.”

Ms. Gray, the embodiment of self-assurance and poise, crumpled a little. She patted Mia's hand and then her own. When she spoke again, her words came at half the speed and volume. “You're Eric's daughter? He talked about you so much…” Like an intake of breath, she came back to herself. “Come here, girl. You 'bout like family. Where's your mama? Or is she still calling herself Faith number two?”

Karol was too stunned at first to respond. She was still hung up on hearing her father's name so many times on this stranger's lips. Eric. She'd said it all in one breath each time, as if it really meant something.

“Faith the Second,” Mia corrected, holding up two fingers. “She brought clothes. Drove a big car. You just missed her.”

The visitor sat down on the couch and slipped off her Etienne loafers. Mia jumped right into her lap.

“Imagine. Dee Dee moves in next door to Eric Ware's daughter. God certainly has a sense of humor. And irony, too. Always with the irony. People miss that about Him.”

Karol didn't miss it. She didn't miss a thing. “Dee Dee? Do you mean Dyanne?”

“Uh-huh. She goes by that, too. I call her Dee Dee Thornton. She's my publicist. Oh, I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm supposed to be telling you why I came over. Your kids were so cute in that window last night and I had a dream, you see…”

Karol stiffened. Her own dreams were one thing, but she didn't go around telling people about them.

Fallon continued. “I dreamed about mangoes and Ferris wheels. It's not the first time, either. I had that dream when I first started writing and sometimes I get it when I'm about to meet somebody important. Folks that stick. Always people. Do you all know what I mean?”

The children nodded furiously. Karol nodded slowly, trying not to cry.

“Well, anyway, see. The devil messes with us all, tells us we're not good enough, that we'll never be good enough and God sends us always people, folks who always know what to say and do to make us feel better. Mangoes make me feel better. And I'm terrified of Ferris wheels. Sometimes I dream of big, juicy beautiful things that I can't afford to be scared of. I think one of those things is you, Karol. Or maybe all of you.”

After a moving, emotional silence, Judah farted.

All of the kids squealed. Mia threw a pillow at him.

“Sorry. I ate my pancakes too fast. Now I'm hungry all over again.”

Their visitor laughed a long throaty laugh. “Don't be sorry, baby. I thought that was me. We can do lunch together. Your place or mine?”

Before Karol could answer, Mia threw up a fist. “Our place!”

Fallon Gray threw back her glorious, glossy head and laughed again. “Lead the way to the kitchen.”

 

When she'd left this morning, Dyanne had asked only one thing of Neal—to keep an eye on Fallon Gray. And that was the very thing he'd failed to do.