Something She Can Feel (37 page)

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Authors: Grace Octavia

BOOK: Something She Can Feel
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“She's a trip,” Justin said to me.
“Yeah. You have to give her an ‘A' for effort.”
“What about Dad?”
“You couldn't expect him to come around just yet,” I said. “And maybe he won't ever really accept this, but I know he loves you.”
“I know that, too. I just wish he could at least look at me ... like he did when he could still pretend I was like him.”
“I think we've all had enough pretending,” I said. “It's time to live real life now.”
“You're right,” he said. “Maybe it's good that Dad and everyone else down here recognizes that little sissies who switch and put on makeup come from their towns, too.”
“And their families.” I paused and hugged Justin. “I meant everything I said about you. I'm proud of you for being who you are. I know that it's hard. I love you and I'll always be in your corner. Justin or whoever. You're always the baby.”
“I'll always be Justin, too. Just on the inside now.” He smiled. “Now the outside is going to be the baddest diva this side of the Mason-Dixon Line!” We both laughed, and then his voice got serious. “But inside, I'll always be Justin. Your baby brother. And I'm just as proud of you as you are of me. You stopped taking these people's shit. That's a lot to be proud of.”
After Justin and I hugged and said good-bye, I watched him walk toward the car and get into the driver's seat beside our mother. It would be the last time, I thought, I'd see Justin as my brother. And to be honest, I was eager to see the outcome. How he'd be born again.
“Journey,” my mother called me to the car as Justin backed up toward the steps.
“Yes?” I answered, standing on tiptoe to avoid the icy gravel that had been cooled by the night air.
“Go spend some time with your father today at the church.”
“But I'm not feeling—”
“I didn't ask you how you were feeling,” she said sweetly, but her position on the command was clear. “I told you. It's time for you to get out of this house and speak to your father. You can't hide forever.”
“Yes, ma'am,” I said and I could see Justin sticking out his tongue at me over her shoulder.
“Wonderful.” She blew a kiss at me. “I'll see you when I get back.”
Chapter Thirty
A
pparently, everyone in Tuscaloosa was following the story about Dame and me in Africa just as closely as my family. This was most evident when I walked into the lobby of the church and it seemed as if I'd arrived early to my own surprise birthday party gone horribly awry. The Red Sea splitting for Moses was far from me now. Instead, I was met with tight, pitiful smiles, weak well wishes, and a few unbroken stares. I supposed this reaction was what I should've expected. Gossip was gossip and because I was the major subject of the latest to hit our little community, I could expect to be the headliner for a little while. And while I'd tried my best to avoid the fake smiles and stares, my mother was right. The way this thing went was that I had to face all of the discomfort in order for it to subside. People would only be able to let it go if I was no longer a ghost or secret. I had to face the music.
“Jour-ney,” Sister Lenny said, breaking up my name into syllables as if I was a little kid at her first day of school. It was clear by her voice and smile that unlike the other ten or so people in the church bookstore she ran, who were staring at me with their eyes bulging, Sister Lenny wanted to help. “How are you?”
“I'm fine,” I said, trying to sound like it was any other Monday and everyone else in the store hadn't believed I was busy in Africa molesting one of my former students and killing folks.
“Well, I'm glad to see you're back. Are you looking for your father?”
“Yes, actually. Do you know if he's in his office?”
“I believe so.” Sister Lenny looked at her watch. “His office hours start at nine, so he should be in there.”
“Office hours?”
“Yeah,” she said. “It's a new thing we're trying to get members more access to the pastor. I think it was your mother's idea. We've just been doing it about two weeks. She has office hours here now, too.”
“Wow,” I said, remembering when we had lunch and my mother saying she wanted to find a way to get closer to members. “That's great.”
 
 
My father's office was the size of two of my classrooms put together. Inside, he had a conference table, counseling chair and couch, his desk, and a full library. It was huge and the floor-to-ceiling windows that stretched along the back of the room, showing off a man-made lake my father had built on the church campus, made it seem as if the space opened up even farther into the world outside.
“Daddy,” I said, poking my head in the door.
He looked up quickly and on his face was an expression of the same anxiety I'd felt about visiting him. I hadn't spoken more than three words to him since I'd been home. There was nothing I could say that I didn't feel gave him permission to have done the things he did. My mother could forgive him. Jr and Justin could keep their anger hidden so long as he stayed at a distance. But I wanted more. I wanted to understand how he could do something like that to my mother and then keep it from us all of those years. I wanted to know how he could do all of that and then just expect us to move on.
“Journey.” He waved me into the room. “Come in.”
I entered meekly and took a seat in one of the three chairs before his desk. Even seated, my father looked enormous, heavy. And while I was angry and wanted to curse and throw something, this was still the man I'd known as my father all of my life. If no one managed to evoke the fear of God within, it was him.
“I just wanted to come by ... Mama said—”
“You don't need an excuse to come and see me.” He closed a book in front of him and slid it to the side. “In fact, I always wished you'd spent more time with me ... here.”
“Well, you know, I was just always in the choir, so that was my place,” I said and what sounded like gibberish to me in my head echoed the same in my ears.
“Yeah,” he said blankly. “So, your mother got off okay with Justin this morning?”
“You know Mama's always on schedule. She had him running around the house at dawn.”
“Yeah, she has her way.”
“She does.”
We sat there nodding at my mother's abilities and I wondered if he knew, really knew how amazing she was. She had a long list of faults, but her heart was always in the right place. She loved all of us so much and sacrificed everything to make us happy. I wanted him to know that. To see that and somehow undo what he'd done to her. I could imagine how she must've felt all those years watching Jack grow in front of her, beside her. She was sharing a stage with my father's mistress and couldn't say a word. I wanted to be angry at her for cheating too, but I didn't know what else she could've done. Leaving, for her, wasn't an option. My mother was a lifetime giver.
Thinking of this made me weep a bit inside for my mother and before I knew it, I was crying.
“What is it?” my father asked, rising from his seat and rushing over to me.
“Why, Daddy?” I cried. “Why did you do it? You didn't have to do it.”
“Oh, baby girl—”
“No! Don't do that to me. I'm not a little girl anymore. I don't need you to try to make this all right. I need you to explain to me how you could do something like that to my mother.”
“There's nothing I can say ...”
“Try,” I growled. “You just try.”
“You want me to try?” he said and in his eyes I found frozen and unmoving tears. “I'm a weak man. Is that what you want to hear? I always have been. But I love your mother.”
“Then why would you do that to her? And then lie about it all these years?”
“A foolish man can't explain everything he does, Journey,” he said. “Most of what I did to your mother was chasing fool's gold. I thought I needed all those women around me to make me something. But as it went on, I just realized it wasn't but one in the bunch that really could.” He stood up and straightened his jacket. “When Jack was born, I knew I couldn't just turn my back on him and I didn't want to lose your mother and everything we were trying to build, so I did the best I could. I've been a father to that boy just the same way I've been a father to you and your brothers. Just like you ain't gone without, he ain't never gone without.”
“So does that make it okay? Are we supposed to just let it all go and be one big happy family because you paid for your mistake?”
“I never asked all of you to be a family,” he said, looking into my eyes. “And not one of my children was a mistake. Not one.”
“Does he know you're his father?”
“His mother and I told him when he came of age.”
I got up from my seat and walked over to the window.
Letting out a sad whimper, I noticed how still the lake outside looked. Not one ripple in it.
“So what about us? Does he want to be a part of our family?”
“He'd like nothing more, precious,” he said, coming over and standing behind me. I could see our reflections, connected and blending into one another in the glass.
“I can't imagine what it's been like for him. Knowing all these years.... And not being able to tell anyone.... And Jr. What this has done to Jr... . He's bent over backward and all this time I thought it was because he was trying to be you, when really he was angry and upset that he had to share you.”
“I've thought about that,” he said, turning me around to him. “And so many times I've tried to talk to your brother, but he's like a brick ... he won't hear nothing but what's in his head.”
“He's like you,” I said.
“Journey, I know I've messed this up. And I pray for forgiveness every day for what I've done to all of you. And the last thing I ever wanted was for you kids to take on my fight as your own. Me and your mama have been through this from every side and I just want you to let us handle it. Please. You don't have to forgive me. It's my sin. I just want you to let me have it. You go on and live your life. You live and let this thing go,” he said and finally the ice broke in his brown eyes and tears fell from his cheeks to mine as we hugged.
“I'm so sorry,” he kept repeating. “I'm so sorry.”
 
 
While Jr had been screaming about the church needing an entertainment director, it was clear that we needed another position filled—second executive assistant. Apparently, Daddy's first assistant had been so busy keeping his calendar together, managing church business, and organizing my mother's duties at the church that my father's files were a bleeding mess. Paper was shuffled everywhere. And in no distinct order.
After my father and I met in his office I had nothing else to do, so instead of driving back to my den at the house, I asked if he had anything at the church I could do to help out. Surprised and smiling, he forwarded me quickly to his assistant, Sister Davis. The woman, who I was sure worked harder than anyone at church, could hardly answer my query about needing something to do before she got up from her desk and led me to the closet where she kept my father's files. “I'd do this on my day off, but I don't have one,” Sister Davis said, sliding her pen behind her ear. She handed me the key. “Have fun.”
 
 
For three days, I kept dutiful vigil over my father's files, making labels and setting up a burgeoning follow-up list. I'd always known that much of what he did included counseling, but looking through the records of church members who'd come in and out of his office, I saw that more than anything, he was an ear to those in need. From women who'd cheated on their husbands and contracted diseases, to men who lost everything they'd had at the casinos, he'd been a comfort to them all. And meanwhile, he was also dealing with his own demons.
I worked late many nights and left for the church long before my father. It kept me busy and kept my mind off everything I wanted to avoid. Locked in that closet, I wasn't at home looking to see if there was more information about Dame on TV or shaking in my seat for fear that I'd run into Evan somewhere. I'm not foolish enough to call this progress, but it was okay for right now and right now was really all I could handle.
“Ms. Journey,” Ashley Davis, Sister Davis's daughter, said, poking her head in the windowless room where I worked. I had two piles of papers stacked high like skyscrapers on either side of the desk.
“Yes, Ashley.”
“You busy?”
I looked at the piles and then back at her.
“No,” I said. “You need something?”
“Dr. Sullivan gave me the lead on ‘Prayer of Jabez,' but he said I ain't getting it right. Can you help me?”
“Oh, Ashley, I can't,” I said, feeling a thin film of sweat surface on my hands nearly immediately.
She didn't ask again. She just stood there and looked at me with a load of “buts” on her face.
“I have to get all of this done,” I added, nodding to the piles.
Again, she said nothing. And not for a very long time. But I had nothing to say to fill up the space. I was out of excuses.
“You all in the practice room?” I asked.
“Yes, ma'am,” she replied with her cocoa face brightening.
I sat back in my seat and rolled my eyes at the papers and my resistance.
“Fine,” I said, pushing away from the desk. “I'll be down there in a second.”
 
 
Dr. Sullivan was the former gospel choir director of Stillman College. He'd been a member of my father's church for over ten years, had started eight of the choirs and still directed one—the church's select traveling choir that I belonged to before I left. He was a big, round man, whose love of God and music often led to him catching the Holy Ghost right there on stage as he directed the choir. And while it usually led to a spread of paralyzing tears in the choir loft, none of us minded. He was a smart leader, and even in our tears, we found that Dr. Sullivan had pushed us to another level of performance. Another, more compelling and personal way of delivering God's message to those seeking salvation.
When I arrived in the choir room to help Ashley with her solo, I realized that Dr. Sullivan was smarter than I'd thought. After reviewing the notes, he suggested the choir try singing the song through with me in Ashley's place so they could all get a feel for the rhythm and Ashley could hear the range, I somehow ended up standing at the microphone alone and Ashley headed back into the loft with a surprising smile on her face.
Not in a long time had I sung a song with the choir the way I had that afternoon. It was a prayer about increase, about seeking providence and shelter provided by God, and maybe I sang it the way I did, from deep within the pads holding my feet to the ground, because now I truly sought God's increase, his blessings and mercy. My eyes were open, but I was blinded by the blood rushing through my veins. My ears popped and my vocal chords strained as I struggled to be heard, to lift up my voice enough so that it could be delivered. I wanted to walk out and away from everything I'd done, the people I'd hurt, the people who had hurt me, and be allowed to move on with my life. To be blessed with a new life that could make me happy and, most of all, keep me happy.

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