One Prayer Away (15 page)

“Hey, Mitch,” Chris said after being prompted to leave his message. “Where are you, man? A brother could be
over here dying. The least you could do is come by and check on me. Good thing I got Lisa, 'cause you ain't a bit of good. She's here now, working in Chris's Kitchen, preparing the soup of the day.”

Chris tried to laugh at his own joke, but instead he had to battle with a spell of coughing. When he gathered himself, he continued. “Sorry. Just wanted to call to let you know that Lisa will be at the office helping you again tomorrow. I'm going to call Barbara and tell her to take another day. If she's feeling anything like I am, she'll be happy to hear it. I told Lisa about the file purging that we never finished, so let her work on those if the phones are quiet. I'm gonna try to get well enough to come in on Friday. Peace.”

He had barely returned to his position lying on his back when Lisa walked into the room with a steaming bowl of soup in one hand and a large cup of orange juice in the other. She balanced them with care while she used her foot to pull Chris's tray closer to the bed. Sitting on the edge of his bed, Lisa took several moments to carefully mix the combination of soups with a spoon. She then pulled her mask away from her face and blew on the portion that she'd scooped up. Chris admired her every move and couldn't help but smile as he dragged his still-tired-and-sore body into a seated position. He didn't like being sick, but he loved the way Lisa took care of him.

“You're a jewel,” he whispered as she brought the spoon toward his mouth.

“And don't you ever forget it,” she whispered back.

Thirteen

H
e said
what
?” Beverly's tone was demanding as she placed her coffee cup down and leaned across the dinner table as if she thought she'd misunderstood the end of Virtue's story.

It had been almost nightfall by the time Virtue completed the outline of her Christmas choreography. In her experiences as a dance instructor for the school she'd taught for back in Detroit as well as her position as the leader of the praise dance troupe, Virtue had found it to be more of a challenge to choreograph a solo piece than a routine for a group. But today, the difference in the techniques wasn't the reason that she'd struggled to get through. After Fynn left her to herself, it had been a battle for Virtue to get her thoughts together and concentrate on crafting the routine. Eventually, she'd had to step away from her computer and have a private talk with God before she could regain her focus. In time, she did manage to get her work done, but it hadn't been easy.

Before she left her office, Virtue had made the decision
that the disturbing conversation that she'd had with Fynn would remain only between the two of them. She thought that she'd been successful in hiding her mental anguish from her mentor, but by the time Beverly was clearing the dishes from the dinner table, Virtue knew better.

“I'm gonna get these dishes in the dishwasher and then bring us something to drink to go with dessert,” Beverly had said more than half an hour ago. “Maybe after you get some of my apple pie in you, you'll be ready to talk.”

On one hand, Virtue had been glad for the opportunity to get honest feedback from the older and wiser woman, but on the other, she dreaded reliving the moment. For more reasons than one, she found talking about her impromptu meeting with Fynn disturbing. Virtue sipped from her mug of hot chocolate while Beverly pounded the table in annoyance.

“Now, see? I always liked Minister Fynn, but he has truly bothered me with this one. Honey, that's the devil right there,” she said. “And sometimes when people are letting the devil use them, you can't be sitting all nice. You got to put the devil in his place. He'll leave you alone then.”

“Then why haven't you put Renee in her place yet?” Virtue challenged.

“Don't try and turn the tables or change the subject,” Beverly said. “Renee will get hers in time, believe you me. But we're talking about Minister Fynn right now, and you'd better listen to me when I tell you that he needs to be put in his place.”

Virtue was surprised by the magnitude of Beverly's disappointment. After all, she had been the one who encouraged Virtue to accept the preacher's invitation to accompany him on a first date back in early spring. In her sales pitch, Beverly had used words like “worthy mate,” “respectable man of God,” “great catch,” “model Christian,” and other convincing phrases. Now, after hearing a
rerun of what had taken place in Virtue's office that afternoon, Beverly had completely switched gears.

“I was just so thrown by his suggestion that I marry him without being in love,” Virtue thought out loud. “I wonder if those types of marriages really take place in Africa, and I wonder how many of them work.” When she pulled her mug from her lips after taking a long sip, she found Beverly looking at her in disbelief.

“You're not thinking of taking him up on this insanity, are you?”

The frightening truth in Beverly's words was the biggest reason that Virtue was troubled by her discussion with Fynn. When he'd first suggested that she marry and learn to love him, Virtue had been appalled. She couldn't believe he'd been so bold as to say the words; but after he'd left her there, she began to feel perplexed, then found herself comparing the pros and cons . . .

“Virtue?” Beverly interrupted her thoughts.

“No,” Virtue responded. Knowing that it was a lie, she came back with, “I don't know. I mean, I definitely don't love Fynn, but he made a pretty good argument. Love isn't enough to sustain a marriage. My failed marriage and the thousands of others before and since it are proof. And like he said, we aren't born loving God. That is something that we learn to do along the way.”

“Stop it, Virtue!” Beverly snapped. “I can't believe what I'm hearing. First of all, I can't believe Minister Fynn would use God's Word to try and convince you that love is not a prerequisite to marriage. And secondly, I'm even more bewildered that you would give something so ridiculous a second thought. I know you know better than this, Virtue.”

Virtue remained quiet. Embarrassment crept in, and like a child, she wanted to burst into tears or run to the nearest bedroom and lock herself inside. She wanted to deny giving Fynn's awkward proposal any serious consideration, but she couldn't, at least not in honesty. And Beverly had proved
time and time again that she couldn't be easily deceived.

“Did I ever tell you what I did before becoming a counselor at HCW?”

Virtue shook her head in silence. Almost everything she'd known of Beverly's life had taken place in the ten years that Beverly had worked at the center.

“Well, let me tell you now,” Beverly said. She took another sip from her coffee cup before placing it to the side. “I worked as a high school teacher in the social studies department. Doggone kids just about ran me crazy,” she said, seeming to drift from the subject at hand. “I knew that I either had to find another profession or be willing to go to jail for hurting somebody's flip-mouthed child. I taught in the classroom for sixteen years. I knew I should have stopped at fifteen, because that last year almost got the best of me.

“For the last four years of the twenty years that I worked in the public school system, I was a guidance counselor. That was better, but not by much. What most of those raggedy children needed was a good whipping. I can't tell you how many times I had parents in my office crying and saying things like they had already spent ten thousand dollars or more to get professional help for their teenager's unruly behavior.
Ten thousand dollars?
Honey, if they'd have given me just ten dollars, seven days, and a two-by-four, I could have straightened that child right on up.”

Beverly had been serious during her rant, but the tone of her words and her distorted facial expression drew laughter from Virtue. The humor was lost quickly when Beverly began talking again.

“Right about now, I need a two-by-four for you, Miss Thing,” she said with a finger pointed in Virtue's direction. “Before you go gallivanting off and making stupid decisions that you'll regret for the rest of your life, you need to pick up a book and read it. I remember us studying
Africa during my teaching years in Houston's public school system. We studied everything from their cultures and their religions to Africa's weather, crops, and the landscape. What Minister Fynn said to you is true. The parents do choose husbands for their daughters. Sometimes those daughters are as young as twelve, and they are forced to marry these sometimes-much-older men whether they want to or not.

“In Minister Fynn's family's homeland, they have close to a 60 percent rate of girls who are
forced
to marry between the ages of fifteen and nineteen. They are more like servants to their husbands than they are wives. Yes, our forefathers were forced from their native land and brought to America and turned into slaves. But now we are not under that same bondage. There are still plenty of prejudiced people around, but we have freedom here that doesn't exist in much of Africa. There, many of the women are treated as less than second-class citizens, and they remain in a different kind of bondage, forced to live lives they had no option of choosing.

“I listened to you talk about your conversation with Minister Fynn, and many of the words he said to you are a direct link to what he has been taught. He may not realize it, but he still has the mentality of his father and grandfather. Coming to America may have changed his family's physical addresses, but it didn't do much to change their mind-set. Just the mere fact that he would suggest that you marry him without loving him proves it. That should make you wonder what other traditions he holds on to. It's not uncommon in Niger for men to think women should not be educated or even think for themselves. Domestic violence is commonplace if a woman disagrees on any level with her husband, and I know how you feel about that subject. Fynn may have made it all sound attractive, but don't you underestimate love, girl. I may have been hurt by it, and you may have been hurt by it, but love identifies
God. The Bible says that God is love. That's just how powerful it is.”

Having finished her mini-sermon, Beverly sat back in her chair and resumed drinking her coffee. Virtue felt like a little girl who'd just taken a whipping from her mother. She sat with her eyes glued to the half-eaten apple pie in the saucer in front of her, saying nothing for fear of what she might say.

“Do you want to marry him, Virtue?”

Beverly's words brought Virtue's eyes from their downward stare. Shaking her head, she answered, “No. I don't want to marry anybody, Beverly. Fynn's words just had me thinking, that's all. He made it sound like our getting together was God's will and somehow I was allowing my own hang-ups to serve as a hindrance to something that had been divinely orchestrated. I guess I was just confused for a minute. I should have just dismissed everything he said.”

“Maybe not everything,” Beverly said. When Virtue looked at her in bewilderment, Beverly continued. “You said that he suggested that you were intentionally holding on to your past for some reason. I happen to think he's right about that.”

Virtue sat up straight in her chair. “What? What do you mean, you think he's right?”

“Mitchell has reached out to you at least twice since your accidental meeting in Dallas. Have you returned his calls?”

“No. And I'm not going to.”

“Why?” Beverly challenged.

“How many times do we have to go over this?” Virtue said with a raised voice. “I've explained this to you before. I don't want to talk to him. He said everything I needed to hear when we parted ways in Michigan.”

“Except maybe ‘I'm sorry.'”

“I don't want to hear his apology, Beverly. It's way too
little, way too late. If I never see Mitchell Andrews's face again, it will be too soon for me.”