The Other Side of Goodness (17 page)

Read The Other Side of Goodness Online

Authors: Vanessa Davis Griggs

BOOK: The Other Side of Goodness
5.05Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
She'd made a promise to herself to be totally honest with Zachary about everything, no matter how difficult the truth might be. She refused to harbor secrets between them.
So the next time they talked, she would need to give him an answer. She never again wanted him to be blindsided like he'd been today.
Not if she could help it.
Chapter 25
And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil.
—Matthew 15:22
 
 
 
G
abrielle walked into her office at the church. She'd missed some normally scheduled time at work from those times she'd tried catching up with Lawrence. This last time of lost time, she and Zachary had gone together. She finally felt she may have made some headway in getting Lawrence to at least
see
if he could be a possible match for Jasmine's bone marrow transplant. She fully planned to make up for the lost time. So she was more than concerned when she read the note, front and center on her desk, from Pastor Landris requesting to see her in his office as soon as she received the message.
Nervous now, she didn't even put her purse away as she quickly made her way to his office. Someone was already in there, but his secretary said he wouldn't be
too
much longer and told Gabrielle to have a seat. Apparently, he'd given instructions for Gabrielle to wait, should he be busy when she came to his office. This sober realization caused Gabrielle's stomach to
really
turn somersaults. She certainly didn't want to lose her job, not here . . . and especially not
this
one. Sitting there, she began to replay in her mind what she'd done and how she'd done it to be sure she'd kept in line with the terms of her employment as the director of the dance ministry.
The person in Pastor Landris's office came out twenty minutes later. Pastor Landris's secretary must have electronically sent him a message telling him Gabrielle was out there since Pastor Landris also appeared in the doorway and said, “Gabrielle, please come in.”
Gabrielle's hands were clammy now. Her heart was beating fast. She forced a smile as she stood up and walked into his office.
“Please, have a seat,” Pastor Landris said in his usual welcoming voice. The man she'd been surprised to learn once sported dreadlocks, even as a pastor, now wore his hair cropped low to his head. His moustache was always perfectly trimmed.
Gabrielle sat down. She didn't know what to say since he'd been the one to request this meeting, and she wasn't exactly sure why. She waited for him and, even though it was only seconds, it felt like it was taking him an eternity to say anything.
“So, Gabrielle, how are you?”
Gabrielle knew he hadn't called her into his office merely to find out how she was doing. Pastor Landris was too busy of a man for that. Everybody pretty much wanted him to counsel them when they had a problem, even though it was continuously emphasized that others were on staff capable of doing it just as well as he. As director over the dance ministry, she was experiencing only a
taste
of what he had to be dealing with, and she couldn't even
begin
to imagine how he did it all.
“I'm okay, Pastor Landris. How are you and the family . . . Johnnie Mae and the children?” Gabrielle hadn't done more than to wave at Johnnie Mae, Pastor Landris's wife, in passing in the past weeks. The last time she'd been close enough to have a conversation with Johnnie Mae was at the one hundredth birthday celebration of Ransom Purdue, her friend Clarence Walker's grandfather, when Clarence asked her to dance to a song he sang.
Johnnie Mae had come to her after she finished dancing and hugged her, telling her how powerful and anointed that dance had been. Gabrielle broke down in Johnnie Mae's arms, wanting so much to just stay there until all of her hurt had melted away. No one had a clue she'd just learned she wasn't a match as a donor for Jasmine. And that what she would have to do next was
not
going to be easy.
“I'm fine and Johnnie Mae is doing well, as are Princess Rose and Isaiah. I'll tell her you asked about her,” Pastor Landris said right before locking his fingers together and leaning forward. “I suppose you're wondering why I asked you here.”
Gabrielle swallowed hard, then tried to smile. “The question
has
presented itself a few times in the last twenty-five minutes.”
Pastor Landris freed his fingers and sat back in his high-backed chair. “You've come up in my spirit quite a few times, in the past week in particular. I wanted to ask you what's going on. I've been praying for you, but God prompted me that I needed to talk to you face-to-face. So, tell me, Gabrielle, what's going on?”
Gabrielle began to cry. She was crying because she hadn't said anything to anyone about this, other than to Zachary. And here was God Almighty, her Heavenly Father, in His supernatural and loving way, relaying to her spiritual father here on earth that she was having problems.
What a mighty and loving God!
Pastor Landris yanked tissues from the box on his desk and, leaning forward, handed them to her. She took them and dabbed her eyes as she tried to pull herself together. What she loved about Pastor Landris was how, at this moment, he wasn't pressing her while she cried. He allowed her to pull herself together at her own pace.
“I'm sorry, Pastor Landris,” Gabrielle said, dabbing her eyes with a now soggy ball of tissue.
Pastor Landris pulled out more tissues and handed them to her. “It's quite all right. When you're ready, if you want, you can tell me what's going on with you.”
“I know I've missed some of the time I had scheduled to be here working in the office.”
“Oh, I wouldn't know anything about that. However you set your office hours and schedule is on you, just as long as you're not cheating the church out of the time you agreed to. So that's not why I asked you here at all. I just felt there was something going on, and whatever it is, I want you to know that I'm here to listen
and
to help, if possible.”
Gabrielle groaned slightly. “I'm not sure how much you'd be able to help with this. But there is
definitely
something going on. I don't know if what I'm doing is the right thing to be doing or not.” Gabrielle reached over and pulled several tissues from the box he'd pushed toward her, and wiped her tears before patting her face dry.
Pastor Landris smiled. “Do you need any water or something to drink?”
“Water would be good.”
Pastor Landris got up and went to a small refrigerator in his office. Returning with a bottle of water, he handed it to her and sat back down.
Gabrielle twisted the cap off the bottle of water and took a few sips before replacing the cap. “I know whatever I say to you will remain between us.” Gabrielle said it as a statement. But the way it came out, it could very well have been a question.
“Whatever you say here won't go any further than us,” Pastor Landris said. “I won't share or divulge anything you don't give me permission to share. You have my word.”
Gabrielle nodded. “There's a little girl. She's eight years old, nine on March thirtieth, in need of a bone marrow transplant. And if she doesn't get a match soon, and I'm talking about possibly weeks now, she'll likely die.” Gabrielle began to cry again.
“It's all right. Take your time; I'm in no huge hurry,” Pastor Landris said.
“I was tested to see if I was a possible match, but I'm not. She can't die, Pastor Landris. She just can't.”
“I'm sure they're going to find a match for her. But this sounds rather personal. So what are you
not
telling me?”
“It
is
personal.” Gabrielle swallowed hard. If she was going to do this, she needed to go on and tell him everything. There was no reason to have God care enough to lay on Pastor Landris's heart to talk to her, and she hold back. “Pastor Landris, the reason this is
so
personal for me . . . the reason I'm so emotional right now, is that eight-year-old little girl . . . the little girl in need of a bone marrow transplant . . . she's my biological daughter.”
Pastor Landris didn't act like hearing that was a shock to him, although Gabrielle was sure it had to have taken him by surprise. Had to. Unless, of course, God had
already
revealed
everything
to him. “She's your biological daughter?”
Gabrielle nodded. “Yes. I know you must be trying to figure this out since you didn't know I had a daughter. Daughter may not be the best way to describe this. But you see: I gave up a child for adoption over eight years ago. Honestly, I wasn't expecting to even be having this conversation with
anyone
at this point in my life. I figured she may come looking for me after she turned eighteen, but not now . . . and especially not like this.”
Pastor Landris stood up and walked around to where Gabrielle sat and sat in the chair next to her.
Gabrielle looked over at Pastor Landris. “She's sick, Pastor Landris. Really sick. Her adoptive mother sought me out, hoping I'd be a match. But I wasn't.” Gabrielle wiped her eyes with her hands. “For the past few weeks, I've been trying to get in touch with the man who fathered her.” She looked up and smiled. “Her name is Jasmine . . . the little girl's name . . . it's Jasmine.” Gabrielle was calming down now.
Pastor Landris reached over and pulled out more tissues and handed them to her. “So have you met the child . . . have you gotten to meet Jasmine?”
Gabrielle shook her head, not actually saying no, but conveying her disbelief of everything that had taken place in the past few weeks. “In the beginning, I didn't. But we met her last week.”
“We?”
“Yeah. Zachary and I. Zachary went with me to the hospital.”
“So does Jasmine know everything? Does she know you're her birth mother?”
Gabrielle shook her head again. “No. She thinks I'm a friend of her mother's.”
“So, have you been able to locate the birth father yet?”
Gabrielle nodded. “I did. And he denied the child could even possibly be his.” She made a side to side motion with her head. “He thinks I'm trying to run a scam on him or something. At first he didn't even believe there really
was
a child.”
“After close to nine years?” Pastor Landris shook his head in disbelief.
“I admit that some of his doubts are my fault, and founded,” Gabrielle said. “He never knew I gave birth to her. He thought I aborted her. Unlike me, he had no reason to ever expect a child to possibly someday come in search of him. He didn't know I'd had the baby and given her up for adoption.”
“Well, if you ask me, I'd say he needs
real
prayer. He got you pregnant and, in all those months of you being pregnant, he never checked on you? If he had, he would have known you didn't have the abortion.”
“That part is a long story, but suffice it to say that after he learned I was pregnant and gave me money to get rid of the baby, as far as he was concerned, that's what had taken place. Also, he was married with a family of three children.”
Pastor Landris nodded. “I see.”
“But things are different now. Now, it's a matter of life and death. Jasmine is barely holding on. She doesn't have time for us to waste or to play games. And I'm not sure, in spite of all I've said to him, if he really will go see whether he's a possible match or not.”
“Well, I'll tell you what we can do here at the church. We can let the congregation know a child is in need of a . . . bone marrow donor, is it?”
Gabrielle nodded as tears flowed. She picked up a used tissue from her lap and dabbed her eyes again.
“We can let the people here know that a little girl is in need of a bone marrow donor and encourage folks to see if someone might be a match.” He tilted his head.
Gabrielle wasn't expecting this. “You would really do that?”
“Of course. No one needs to be privy to the particulars behind
why
we're doing it. It can just be something our church takes on to do what we can to help.”
Gabrielle began to really cry. Pastor Landris allowed her to put her head on his shoulder. When she'd gotten her tears under control, she looked at him. “Thank you
so
much for this. I don't know what to say.”
“You just get me the information needed to put this into play, and we'll get right on it. You said there's not much time, so the sooner—”
“Absolutely!” Gabrielle nodded excitedly. “I have all the info needed in my purse here.” She gathered the used tissues from her lap, stuck them in her purse, retrieved the information, and handed it to him. “Folks can even do this anonymously, if they want. There's a special code assigned exclusively for Jasmine, so people don't even need her name.” Gabrielle covered her mouth with her hand, then took it down. “God is so awesome! Oh, my goodness! I'm just in awe of His goodness and mercy!”

Other books

If I Close My Eyes Now by Silvestre, Edney
Murphy (The Skulls) by Crescent, Sam
Rigged by Jon Grilz
A Little Scandal by Cabot, Patricia
Sphere Of Influence by Kyle Mills
Forbidden by Karen Erickson