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Authors: Grace Octavia

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BOOK: Something She Can Feel
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Jr's words were so cold I wasn't sure if it was even my brother. I stood behind him, shocked and waiting for May to say something, but she just stood there. Tears started falling from her eyes and she covered her mouth with her hands.
“Enough,” I said to him. “That's enough.”
“You wanted to know,” he said with his eyes mad and still set on May. “There it is. Everything. So now you can go and get back in your car”—he started pushing her toward the car—“and drive home and wait for me to get there when I'm done.”
“Jr,” I called, but he didn't stop pushing her.
“No!” May shrieked, and then she just jumped on Jr, wailing and screaming, “No!”
I leaped to try to pull her off Jr and then I felt Kim on my back, trying to pull me off. We all fell to the ground, three women, piled on top of Jr, wrestling and crying.
“You devil,” May cried, pounding her fists into Jr so hard that I could hear it when each one landed.
“Get off my man,” Kim yelled, pulling at my hair.
And I had one arm around May's belly to try to get her up and another swinging at Kim. And then, just when we all got tired enough, I heard a little voice calling from the door.
“Mommy! Daddy!”
We all froze and looked up. Inside the frame of the door was a little boy, red as Jr, standing there, holding a little blue blanket.
“Jr,” Kim said. She hopped off me and ran toward him, fixing her clothes along the way.
My stomach flipped and turned as I struggled to get up. I felt light-headed. Like this was all too much for me. I needed my mother there. My father. Somebody to carry some of this. It was simply too much. And I couldn't imagine what May must've been thinking and feeling at that point.
Jr ran over to the boy and Kim and got on his knees.
“Why did you get out of bed, buddy?” he asked the boy, who couldn't have been more than three years old.
“I heard screaming,” he said, and I stepped over just enough to see that he had my mother's honey-colored eyes.
“Hi,” he said softly, waving with his little fingers curled a bit.
“Baby,” Kim said, “this is the nice woman we always see at the church sitting near Daddy. She came over to say hi to us.”
I turned to see May looking at the boy. Heartbreak was spilling out of her eyes. I could see her chest sinking in.
“This is your son?” She looked at Jr with clear contempt, hate in her eyes. “The son you wanted.... The son you made me ruin my body for? This is your son?”
“Come on, Jr,” Kim said, picking the little boy up and walking into the house. As they headed down the hallway in the direction of my old bedroom, I watched as the boy's blanket hit the floor and he waved at me one last time.
“How could you do this?” May asked. “I haven't done anything to you. This is evil, Jr. Evil.”
The light came on next door and I saw Mrs. Matthews, who'd lived next door to us all my life, come outside.
“You kids okay?” she asked.
“Everything's fine,” Jr said. “Just had an emergency with the tenant.”
“Hmm,” she muttered, but it was apparent she knew what had been going on over at the house. I wondered how many other people on the block, at church, in town, had seen Jr's car there and knew what was going on.
“Look, it's clear you two have a lot to talk about,” I said. “But this isn't the place for it. Mrs. Matthews is probably calling Mama right now.”
“Let's go,” May said sadly. “There's nothing here for me.”
 
Every light was on in the house. They shone bright and rude in the middle of the night and I could see them before I even turned onto the driveway in May's car. They looked angry. Almost accusatory. And as May and I parked and walked to the front door, I felt like a teenager returning home to her father after sneaking out.
“Where have you been?” Evan said, pulling the door open with my key still in it. He had on the slacks he'd worn to work that morning, shoes, and his undershirt. His face was bright red. “I've been—” he charged, but then he looked at May, who was standing behind me and then back at me. “What's going on?”
“May and Jr had a fight,” I said.
“But I've been calling you all night.” He held up his cell phone. “Why didn't you answer?”
“Evan, I apologize,” May said softly. “She was just trying to help me. Jethro and I had a fight and luckily Journey was there to help. We're—” May's voice waned and she lowered her head.
“Look, let me get her situated in the guest room and I'll come and talk to you,” I tried, both wanting to comfort May and needing more time to think of what I was going to say to Evan. I knew he'd have more questions and I didn't want to lie to him. I hadn't done anything wrong. But I knew that at 3 a.m., the little I said would be acceptable. Even with May there.
Evan closed the door behind us and I patted May's back as we walked slowly to the guest room. She was quiet, but I could tell by how she moved her lips, she was already praying.
“Do you want me to call Jr to come—” Evan called behind me.
“No.” I quickly cut him off. “She's fine.”
After making May some tea and helping her calm down enough to just lay down, I walked through the house nervously, listening for sound coming from my bedroom. There was silence. Evan was waiting for me.
The last light, the one in the foyer before the front door, led me to my purse. I slid my cell phone out to place it on the charger and looked to see that I had twenty-seven missed calls. All were from Evan. The last two came with alert pages—PLEASE CALL HOME.
“I was worried. Really worried,” Evan said when I walked into the bedroom.
Anything I could say sounded flat here, so I waited for him to go on.
“You never stay out that late. I didn't know what happened to you. When I came home and you weren't here, I called and you didn't respond.”
“The ringer was off. I had it off since I was at work. I forgot to turn it back on. I didn't know you called.” I sat down on the bed, eased my shoes off and began undressing.
“And then John called, saying he saw you joyriding downtown with some thug,” he said, pulling off his undershirt. John was his assistant.
“Some thug?” I was frozen now. The mention of John, joyriding, and downtown made me afraid to move. I'd forgotten about this possibility. That someone had seen me. Someone I didn't see. Of course they had. But they hadn't seen anything. I hadn't done anything. But that was easier to think than say.
“Yes. He said you were driving down University in the front seat of a pickup truck with some thug. But I knew it couldn't have been you,” Evan went on. “But he kept insisting—”
Evan was walking around the room and then he stopped to look at me.
“Wait ...” He came closer. “Was that you?”
“I wasn't joyriding with
some thug
.” When I said this, I wished so hard that that was what it was—some drug dealer, a hustler, a pimp who'd kidnapped me. Anyone but Dame, because now I had to explain.
Evan's next question came as no surprise.
“Then who was it?”
I exhaled and thought again that I had nothing to hide.
“It was Dame.”
These three words splintered into the room like buckshots. They were loud and fast, ricocheting off the walls and hitting Evan and me so hard that months from now, I'd know that we never recovered from that very moment.
“Dame? What would you be doing in a pickup truck with your former student? Riding down University ?” Evan's questions came carefully, but there was confusion attached to each one.
“He came to the school,” I started.
“Again?”
“No ... well ... yes ... It was to see me. He wanted me to hear a song he'd written and I just went with him.”
“You went with him? Why couldn't he have played the song at the school? Wait ... and why did he need you to hear it?”
“He's doing some work with the organ and he wanted me to hear it in the truck. He has this whole sound system thing.... And I just went with him.” I tried to make the situation sound as simple as possible. As simple as it was.
“Why didn't you call home and tell me this?”
“Everything was happening so fast. I was just going to listen to the song and then I lost track of time and then there was the whole thing with May.”
“Journey, you're a grown woman. You don't lose track of time. You call your husband. That's the bottom line.” Evan's voice was tightening. He started walking around the room again. “And you can't just go riding around with that kid.”
“He's not a kid,” I said. “And what do you mean, I can't just go riding around?”
“John saw you. Who else do you think saw you? What do you think people are going to say? This could hurt us,” he rattled off.
“Don't you mean hurt
you
? Last week, you said no one was looking at me. You put me in front of him. I didn't even want to do it,” I said. “And now you say I need to think.” I popped up angry and started taking off my clothes.
“I asked you to pose for some pictures and accept a check, not listen to his music like you're some teenager and parade him through downtown,” Evan shouted.
“I wasn't parading.”
“I don't want you to see him again,” he directed. “You had no relationship before and there's no reason to have one now.”
“Don't you think that's a little paranoid?” I asked. “He just wanted me to hear a song.”
“I'm not going to say it again. I forbid you.” These words rolled from Evan's mouth so easily, it seemed he'd spoken to me in this way all our lives.
“Forbid?”
“I'm not discussing it.” He sliced the air with his hand at each word, sealing his point. “And May has to go home in the morning.”
“May?”
“Whatever happened between her and Jr needs to stay in their house. That's your brother's wife. Don't turn his fight with her into your fight with him.”
“Evan, he's cheating and he might have a—”
“I don't even want to know what's happening in that man's house,” he said sternly. “I know what's happening in my house. And I know I don't want someone else's drama coming in here.”
I was still putting on my nightgown when Evan turned the lights out and got into bed. I didn't say anything. I didn't have the energy to fight for May or even for myself.
 
 
The moon and I were sleeping with our backs to one another. I couldn't find it outside the windows of the French doors as I lay in bed that night, so I turned and closed my eyes to pretend that nothing had changed. As I tried to rationalize my behavior, I realized that most of what Evan said was right. I should've called my husband. I shouldn't have gotten into that truck. I hated that Evan had the nerve to think he could forbid me to do anything, let alone seeing Dame. He sounded like my father. Like my brother. But then, with the word “forbid” echoing in my mind, I realized I was doing just the opposite. Because I was thinking of Dame. In a secret place inside my mind, one that I was even ashamed to visit, I wondered where he'd gone when he left. What he thought of the time we'd spent together. And if I'd ever see him again.
Chapter Thirteen
“J
ourney, I'm asking you nicely. Just stay out of it,” Jr said. We were standing in the holding area behind the stage after my father's sermon. Jr hardly looked at me throughout the service, keeping his eyes glued on the pulpit and his hand rested on top of his Bible, which he conveniently placed in May's empty seat. She'd gone to stay with her mother in Northport after she left my house and asked me to bring some of her things from her house.
“How can I stay out of it? She's like a sister to me,” I said to him angrily. Jr still hadn't even admitted that he'd done anything wrong. He was busy blaming May. I wasn't even sure he'd told our parents why she wasn't in church. It was like he'd expected her to just come back and everything was going to be okay. “How could you do this to her? And is that really your child?”
Jr furiously grabbed my arm and pulled me into a corner, out of the way of a few people who were walking by.
“That's none of your business.” He gritted his teeth.
“None of my business? It's a human life. You can't just pretend he doesn't exist. If he's your son, he's my nephew—Mama and Daddy's grandson,” I said.
“You don't know what it's like to be a man, Journey. And to be married to a woman who can't have your child,” he said, pointing at me. “I wanted a son.”
“You could've adopted. You could've kept trying. There are dozens of things you could've done, Jr. And none include having an affair and letting some ... some woman lay up in your parents' house.”
“That's my house, fair and square, and Dad is in no position to give me any pointers about dealing with my wife.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked.
“Oh, please stop the innocent ears routine you play. Just listen to what's going on at the top of this church and you'll see where your father's loyalty lies.”
“You mean Jack?” I asked. He looked so angry that it appeared he would spit at any moment. “Look, I'm not going to let you spin this around so you can focus on yourself and whatever little pissing contest you have with Jack. You need to be thinking about your wife for once.”
“May ain't gave a damn about how I felt in years. Her head's so stuffed in that Bible, she can't even make love to me.”
We both smiled nervously and nodded at two deacons who walked by.
“Maybe you need to be reading your Bible, too,” I whispered before walking off.
Evan was just as harsh as Jr when I told him I needed to go see May after church. As we rode home, he kept repeating how he knew what Jr had done wasn't good, but that he and May were adults and perfectly capable of handling their own business. We were happy and there was no sense messing up our thing with their drama.
“I'm so tired of hearing you say that,” I fumed when we pulled into our driveway.
“Say what?”
“About how we're so ‘happy' and we shouldn't bother ourselves with other things,” I said. “May's family and we can't just pretend this isn't happening. Can you imagine how she feels?”
Listening to Jr and Evan reminded me of how these men saw it as being so easy to put their feelings first. What they wanted. What they needed. It was about survival and at the top of their charts was a great big old picture of one of them. Women found ways to live with pain. But men developed crafty ways of finding comfort. Even in my own doting husband, I knew this was true. The love he gave to me was really love he gave to himself.
“She'll be fine,” Evan said. “She'll be fine and she'll go back to Jr. And have you ever thought of what will happen with your relationship with Jr after that? You two will still be fighting because of how you acted and they'll be back together.”
“Jr and I have been fighting since I was born. That's nothing new.”
“Damn, Journey.” Evan hit the steering wheel. “Why do you have to be so flippant? Why can't you just listen to your husband?”
“
Listen
to my husband? You sound like my father.” I opened my own door and turned to get out of the car.
“Wait.” He took a hold of my arm before I could get all the way out. “I didn't mean it like that. I just meant that maybe I know best here.”
“I hear what you're saying, but I need to be there for May. I'll be back by dinner.”
 
 
May's mother lived in a cute, white house in the suburbs of Tuscaloosa. Her name was Ms. Sunshine and she was known for baking cakes for local diners. Like her mother and grandmother, she'd never been married and May was her only child. She never even told May who her father was. But in spite of this story, which led to a lot of people saying their blood line had been carrying a curse, she was as sweet as the cakes she made and so lovable that just one smile from her made you want a hug. She wasn't nearly as spiritual as May, though, and had never joined a church. Apparently, May's Christian upbringing came on account of Ms. Sunshine's mother taking May to the old evangelical tent revivals with her when May was a child. The goal was to get May saved, so she could break the curse.
“Hey, baby,” Ms. Sunshine said, standing in the doorway of her house as I managed the steps in my church shoes and two bags of clothes hanging from both of my shoulders. I'd rushed over to Jr's house in my church clothes after I left Evan at home. I didn't want to risk running into Jr and fighting with him again. I'd been worn down.
“Hello, Ms. Sunshine,” I answered.
“You always look so pretty.” She smiled and opened the door farther, so I could get inside. “Got that good Indian hair from your father's people.”
“I guess so.” I walked in and immediately dropped the bags on the floor. Ms. Sunshine and I hugged and I could see the kitchen from over her shoulder. Pots were everywhere. She was making Sunday dinner.
“You cooking?” I asked.
“Oh, I was just trying to make some dinner to cheer up my May. She been back there in my mama's old prayer closet for hours this morning. She's finally out. You want a plate?”
“I'll have one before I go,” I said. I wasn't hungry. My belly was too full of confusion. But I knew that it was just as rude in Alabama not to feed company on Sunday as it was to turn down a plate. People cooked because they expected company and sometimes, for the poorest families, they'd use the last of their groceries to show their guests how grateful they were to have them. It was an insult to their sacrifice to say no.
“I'll get a plate ready for you.” She smiled gleefully. “Even fix some for Evan, too. I know how much he likes my cobbler.”
“Thank you. I know he'll love that.”
“Well, May's in her room.” Her voice turned sad. “She's real sad, you know? And hurt. I've tried to get to her, but something tells me ain't nothing but time gonna help her through this. Jr really done a number on that girl.”
I couldn't say anything. I felt almost like it was partially my fault.
“You can go on back there, baby,” she said. “I'll bring her things in later.”
Pictures of May from the cradle to her wedding day dotted every table top and surface of the walls in the house. She was smiling in some, praying in others, and sometimes just looking up at the sky.
“Hey, there,” I said when I reached May's room at the end of a short hallway. The house was very small and Ms. Sunshine's room was right across the hall. Her TV was on.
May was sitting in the middle of a full-sized bed that seemed to have the same pink, ruffled comforter on it that might have been there when May left for college. A Bible rested in her lap.
“Journey.” She smiled awkwardly and reached for me.
“How are you?” I asked, after hugging her and sitting beside her on the bed.
“I'm good. Just been here thinking. Trying to get myself together.” Her eyes were red and nearly bulging out of her head.
“I understand.”
“How did Jr look at church?”
“Jr's Jr. You know how he is. Have you spoken to him?”
“We were on the phone all last night. He said he wants me to come home.”
“Come home?” I dropped my purse to the floor. “After what happened? He has some nerve. I mean, what did he say? Does he love that woman?”
“He said she's just some woman from the church. She's been chasing behind him and he got caught up. He was upset about us not having a baby ... and she was there.”
“That's bullshit. All these years he'd been lying to you ... to his family because he was upset about not having a baby?”
“Your brother is really sensitive. He struggles with a lot.”
May's voice was sad but a little sympathetic in a way I hadn't expected. Here she was, being made a fool of and she was still thinking of Jr's feelings.
“And so do I,” I said. “It hasn't been easy for me either living in my family, but I've tried.”
“There's a lot of stuff going on that you don't know about. Jr's protected you.”
“He's just been lying,” I said. “He's a selfish man. Always has been and—”
I stopped myself. I realized I was sounding angry and probably making matters worse. I didn't want to burden May.
“So, what about the baby? Is it his?”
“He thinks it is. Say's he'll take a paternity test if I come home.”
I sighed and fought so hard not to curse. Jr had some nerve.
“Do you want to go home?”
May was quiet. She slid the Bible closer to her and closed it.
“I don't know.” She paused. “You know, I never thought Jr would even marry me—didn't think anyone would. When I met him, I thought he'd find out who I was and then just dismiss me. Jr's so particular and with my family's past—you know how people can be.”
I nodded my head. Even in 2008, after most myths had subsided, a lot of people still secretly believed in these things. They didn't say it, but they thought it.
“But Jr was always so impressed with my walk with the Lord,” she went on. “He said I was the kind of woman he needed by his side. In love with the Lord first and him second. I was overjoyed when he even asked me out. Thought maybe the reason I'd gone to church with my grandmother and learned my Bible so well was finally paying off. I had a real good man. Someone who had his faults but loved me and wanted so much to be good. We could make something together. Start our own church even.”
“I remember you telling him to do that,” I said.
“But he wouldn't leave your father, and he just kept cracking, trying to make your father happy. I knew I lost him when it was obvious I couldn't have babies. Wasn't no shot gonna fix that. It's the Lord's will.”
“You can't tell me you believe that stuff,” I protested.
“It's in the Word, Journey.”
“There ain't nothing in that Bible that says a bunch of stuff that happened before you were born will make you unable to conceive.”
“Jr deserves a child.”
“And you deserve to be happy. We all do.”
“I know that. And sometimes I get so angry at myself. But I can't change this. Jr is my husband.”
“So, you're going back?” I couldn't believe Evan was right.
“He doesn't want a divorce.”
“But what is he going to do with that woman? And the little boy if you find out it's his? What is he going to keep playing house? And you're supposed to just take it?”
“He said he'll end it with her and if the boy is his, we'll get custody.”
“That's crazy,” I said. “May, I know you are a decent woman.” I reached out to her and held her hand. “And you're always trying to do the right thing. But you deserve better than this. You deserve to be with someone who can love you no matter what. I know you're going to do whatever your heart tells you, but think about that before you sign up to raise someone else's son.”
BOOK: Something She Can Feel
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