In Love with Ezra (Love Unaccounted Book 2) (38 page)

I grabbed my water from the table as I rolled my eyes.

“‘In love’ is rubbing it on thick, ain’t it, Mary?” I murmured as I faced ahead.

I refused to play in bullshit. Seeing her handled by Marva like that, oddly wounded me.

“Lex,” she sang, smile unwavering. “There’s lots of ground we have to cover. You don’t know me, even after the Nurses Ministry meeting.”

I turned into her. “No disrespect, Mary, but after that, I’m not sure I want to. I know I don’t come from much, but at least we have pride. I can’t participate in that lifestyle, neither can I accept it, not even from a nice woman like you.”

“Are you going to listen while I explain?” Mary adjusted the fine diamonds on her wrists, making a show out of it with her manicured nails splayed on both hands while doing it.

Mary was behaving fancily. That’s when it hit me. Mary was a damn diva! Tonight she was caped in a mermaid gown herself. The top, at her breasts was a stark white satin cut into a V, dipping slightly into her cleavage. The gown was divided just underneath the breast and transformed into black satin, framing her hourglass figure down to her peep-toe shoes. The light-handed makeup she sported was in good taste and notable allure. Her hair was up in a neat chignon, exposing glistening diamonds in her ears, on her neck and wrists. She didn’t wear the modest gold wedding band set she did when I saw her casually, like at lunch in West Milford when she dressed as a quintessential first lady. Tonight, Mary could be a seductive cougar.   

I sat back in my seat and stretched out my arms quickly. “I’m all ears. But if you waste one breath, trying to convince me this lifestyle is for me, I’m walking out of here without parting words.”

I choked on that last word, my true feelings pushing forward. My life was still off kilter after that wild discovery. It pissed me off so bad, I took it out on my husband prematurely. I almost spit in his face! And although he spoke cordially to me, Ezra still hadn’t laid a hand on me since then. It was similar to how he treated me after I almost hooked off on him the first time he spanked me. That shit tortured me. It fucked with my head how needy I was for not just his touch, but his approval. I got none of it since learning of the fucked up relationship with Mary, Sylvester, and Marva Graham.

“I love my son, Alexis,” Mary informed as her dashing smile turned into a leer. She was feeling my sass toward her.
Good!
“My family has been a delicate balance almost from the time my son could speak. Ezra has been a blessing and curse to Sylvester and me. He’s always been an extremely bright boy with unlimited potential. Any sport or social club we enrolled him in, he’d mostly come out as one of the best if not the best. And in school”—she blew through her mouth—“sometimes I thought we did him a disservice with the route we chose for him. Maybe we should’ve sent him away to a boarding school like Sylvester used to always demand. There was nothing Ezra couldn’t grasp, pick apart, and make better. Including my awful marriage to his father. He saw right through us since he was a child.” She smiled, bashfully as she turned away from me in shame. She turned back to me with less confidant eyes than before. “He knew Sylvester had given me nothing but grief and my Ezra.”

I swallowed hard, fighting back my emotions. Ezra, a young and discerning child? Why did that not surprise me, no matter how much it thrilled me to gain more insight into the man that ruled my universe more than I was willing to admit? Ezra had captured my heart. I could no longer play dumb to the fact.

“The problem—as you saw on the deck that day—is that Sylvester and Ezra are of the same gene pool, but are two completely different men. Sylvester is experiencing life, year by year, and Ezra could write a manual for his father and it would be a better course than Sylvester could choose for himself. Crazy thing is… Sylvester resents his son for it.” She swallowed a cry. “How can you hate your own child?”

Mary looked away again, shrugging her shoulders.

“And I didn’t help, because without many words, I’d always side with Ezra. Sylvester resented that.”

I sucked in a breath. “So you use that as a reason to be okay with his open cheating?”

Mary repeated the action. “No!” Her brows furrowed and mouth twisted unpleasantly. Then she exhaled, rolling her eyes. “I’m just giving you the general dynamics. I can be clear on the fact that Sylvester has always been a pig. He’s always wanted Marva, even when her husband George was alive. Sylvester and Marva grew up together in Warren County, North Carolina. He migrated north for employment opportunities and found his way to
Redeeming Souls for Abundant Living in Christ
when my father was the presiding pastor. Sylvester took a liking to the ministry and…” she faltered. “Well, I took a liking to him.”

My eyes widened. Mary giggled, smitten with the memory. With her elbows on the table she quietly smacked her palms then extended her fingers.

“What can I say? He was charming, with a dense and confident build that trapped all of us girls. But I was the biggest fool of them all because I fell for it.” She leveled her eyes with mine. “Lex, honey, when I was coming up, you married for life. I was the Bishop’s daughter and was not expected to make a shallow decision or careless mistake in marriage. When Sylvester proposed and I agreed, that was it.” She smacked her hands together to demonstrate finality.

Mary chuckled in the air again. This time with dry humor.

“My daddy didn’t like Sylvester. He said he didn’t trust him, but worked with Syl because the Bishop had no sons. I had me a country boy with charisma and manners. And he was sexy.” Her eyes roved over to me. “Yes, young lady. Young Sylvester is who gave my Ezra that body structure that I know you can’t ignore.” Her eyes squinted similar to her son’s when he was communicating something of importance, only hers didn’t sparkle for me.”

My eyes fell and went about the room.

“Anyway,” she sighed. “Sylvester didn’t make much. Was piss poor on our terms: we always had money as leaders of the church. But I didn’t care. At some point, when he got settled with his own place, Marva came up. I still haven’t worked out if he sent for her or if she came of her free will. But when she did, she didn’t come alone. She came with George, and they were married. Those two—Sly and Marva—were strange from the get go, but I didn’t pay attention. We got married and those two got even closer years after.”

My face wrinkled and Mary drew closer to me.

“That’s all I ever knew of my husband…for him to be so close to that woman. Her husband saw it, too. I guess that’s when I sealed my fate by allowing them to just…be.” She shrugged with her neck. “I was in community college right after we got married and didn’t spend so much time around him. After that, I got pregnant with Ezra. Two years later, Marva worked her way into several auxiliaries we had at the church, right next to my husband. So for years I wondered if Sylvester made that baby girl with Marva until her features turned her into George’s twin.”

My eyes went wide again.

“Yup. It was
Peyton Place
at
Redeeming Souls
.” Mary shook her head in shame. “My daddy was so disappointed in me. My momma died around that time and had her suspicions, too, of what was going on. My daddy cured his feelings about it by falling in love with Ezra. He laid claim on that boy the day the doctor took him from me. My mother had just passed and my father was at the hospital with us. I think that’s when his feelings for Sylvester changed. He was getting old and loved some
thing
that came from that ‘slick fox’, as daddy would call him.”

Mary’s face fell, pain struck in every inch of it.

“He never looked at me the same after Ezra was born. But he didn’t have to; he looked at Ezra. He spent so much time with him, teaching him, listening to him, molding him…loving him. When daddy passed the church down to Sylvester, I still believe it was because he was blinded by his love for Ezra. He would take him on weekends and school breaks. They’d go up there to Jersey, doing only God knows what in those woods. But one thing was for sure: they bonded like the son daddy never had.”

I sighed, shaking my head to snap out of trying to see Ezra as a child. Mary painted him as magnetic to his grandfather, an aged man. That’s how he’d always been to me.

“Daddy died when Ezra was around twelve and I was scared for him. I had every right to be. Ezra and Sylvester always fought, and I never did, on this issue with him and Marva. I found my own world, lived against their ‘bond.’ When George died a little more than twenty years ago, Ezra and Precious gained a relationship. I still don’t understand the nature of it. Then…” she shook her head, almost ghostly. “Ezra changed. It was like he snapped. When we flew out to California for his graduation from college, he didn’t look the same…didn’t talk the same. Over dinner, he told us he was leaving for Jerusalem the next day. My heart crushed. It was such a surprise. Sylvester and me thought he would come home and continue the ministry. Ezra had other plans. He was…angry.”

Mary sat back and shook her head, visibly caught up in the haunting memory of losing her son to his first pilgrimage. I knew there were more after that one. He’d told me.

“Listen, Lex,” I realized I was lost in my own thoughts when I heard her demanding tone. “That was just the start of Ezra’s peculiar behavior. Since then, he did countless things that confused me and infuriated his father. Although I kept in touch with him, Ezra left me lonely to deal with his father. And I withdrew from my marriage, creating my own little world.” Her painted fingers feathered out, gesturing the room. “Then came some health issues that I’ve taken on alone. But I fought to stay on top of Ezra’s whereabouts. I received him every time at the airport when he was forced to come home for residency purposes or funerals. Each time I prayed he’d stay. Each time he’d break my heart when he left.”

She sighed, and her deep dread swarmed my skin.

“One time he and Syl got into it and Ezra said he didn’t know if he believed in God anymore. That tore his father to pieces, made him mad. It hurt me to my core. What was he out there doing to make him say something so crazy? What demon had hopped into my child?” Her eyes were wild, reliving her pain. “He would be gone for long periods, to places I ain’t never heard of. Some of them he admitted were dangerous. The worst times were when he didn’t call regularly because he couldn’t call. The worst fear is believing your child is in danger or dead. He could have been killed out there!” She shook her head, trying to regulate her volume.

“Ezra always marched to the beat of his own drum. Even when he came home, he didn’t date. Never looked twice at a woman. Poor Precious just bided her time, waiting on him. I didn’t like her for him. Hated the idea,” she spit with a screwed face. “It reminded me of her mother. I may have accepted Syl and Marva together, but I didn’t want that for my child.”

Anger surging my veins again, I blabbed, “Well, why do you think I should be okay with it? Do you guys really think it’s cool, sharing a man? Ezra doesn’t.” At least it was what he’d told me.

“I didn’t.” She shook her head again emphatically. “I just didn’t know if he was okay with it, and that if he was, you’d be okay with it. I was going to tell you about it sooner when I was trying to reach out to you. You know…have some girl chat and give you the heads up. I didn’t expect you at the meeting. Ezra called me this morning and made it very clear that I am not to even speak of my marriage with you.” Mary grabbed her forehead, exasperated. “The thing with Ezra is nobody can reach him. Not since my father, his grandfather. No matter how much I’ve tried over the years, I couldn’t get through to him or influence him. I could only hang on to his every whim. Whatever Ezra wants to do, he’ll do. He lives up there in the woods where he does karate in his backyard. He has all that education, but decides to work in a laboratory. And yes, he’s a therapist, but I feel like he does that more for…fun. It’s not for money. My son isn’t the most social being.”

She shifted toward me. “I need for him to take over
Redeeming Souls
and set it back to the high standards my daddy left it in. No more politics. No more fraternity activities. Bring it back to the sodality that God would honor. My Ezra can do that.” Mary cracked a smile. “I believe in him.”

“And me?” I asked with laced sarcasm. “What does your wish have to do with me?” I was still lost on that.   

“You were just as unexpected as all of his other wild risks in the past, but you—him getting married—resembled something normal that I can identify. Usually I can never predict his decisions or understand them. I’m sure it’s not easy being married to him, but I want this to work. I need this for Ezra. Him marrying you, no matter how quick it was, for me it was a sign of him being normal.” Mary hit me with pleading eyes, grabbing my hand gently for measure. “I just want what I can identify as normal for my child and right now, you’re it.” 

And that’s when I got it. No, I didn’t understand Mary being okay with her husband cheating on her and basically duplicating her role as his wife, but I understood her feelings toward her son. She recognized his contrary and sometimes perverse nature. Beyond his nature, she didn’t know her son. She couldn’t find him underneath the multitude of masks he wore. This disclosure didn’t reveal anything more about my husband, but I now didn’t feel as alone trying to figure him out and wanting to take desperate measures to satisfy him. This woman was going to try to coax me into a lifestyle that was sinful according to her very own religion. It was disgusting and unacceptable in my book. But Mary was willing to try to satisfy her son. A son she didn’t even know was appalled by her lifestyle.