The Truth Is the Light (17 page)

Chapter 35

G
abrielle couldn't wait to see Miss Crowe. She felt fluttering activity in her stomach. Would Miss Crowe know her? According to the family, Miss Crowe's mind seemed to be fine. It was the quickness in which she did things, and getting her words to come out the way she wanted them, that was the problem. They felt she would likely remember Gabrielle even if it had been ten years now since she'd last seen her.

When they arrived at the home where Miss Crowe was being taken care of, the family felt it best that Gabrielle not come in with them in the beginning. They would prepare Aunt Esther, not fully telling her about Gabrielle, just that someone from her past was there. Everyone was curious to see whether she would know Gabrielle when she saw her, and if not, whether she would remember her when they told her who she was.

Gabrielle stood just outside Miss Crowe's room. When she heard the first sound come from Miss Crowe's voice, she almost lost it. It was indeed her mentor and friend. She began shaking her right hand as though she were trying to flick something off of it.

“Auntie,” Zachary said, “we have a surprise for you. It's someone you used to know a long time ago. She's here to see you. Is it okay if we bring her in now?”

“Yeah,” Aunt Esther said with no enthusiasm or excitement.

That was Gabrielle's cue to come in. She came through the door and looked at the frail woman in the bed. “Hi, Miss Crowe. Do you remember me?”

Miss Crowe began to squint. “Come,” she said, holding up a crooked finger, “closer.”

Gabrielle walked over to the bed. Zachary moved over so she could stand in his spot. Gabrielle smiled at the woman she'd known as Miss Crowe.

“Closer,” Miss Crowe said.

Gabrielle leaned down, her face only about a foot away from Miss Crowe's face.

“Book her,” Miss Crowe said, tears beginning to stream down her face. “Is it really you?” The words were slightly slurred but clear enough. “Is it really my Gab, my Gabrie, my Gabri . . . elle?” she finally managed to say.

Gabrielle started to cry. She nodded. “Yes, Miss Crowe. It's really me. It's really your Gabrielle. Oh, Miss Crowe.” Gabrielle broke down and hugged her as she cried even harder. “I'm sorry, I don't mean to cry. But it's so good to see you. Oh, Miss Crowe, I love you so much and I'm so glad to see you. Thank You, Jesus. Thank You for letting me see her again. Miss Crowe, I love you, and I thank you for so much! So much.”

Miss Crowe raised her hand slowly, something her family had not seen her do often. She put her hand on Gabrielle's back and began to first pat, then rub her. “There, there. It's all right,” she said, slurred but clearer than her other words. “I luv you, too,” she said. “You are even more beautiful than last I saw you.”

“Miss Crowe. I didn't know what happened to you. Nobody told me anything. I've thought about you so much, I can't tell you how much.”

“There, there. God had us in His hands. God is good,” Miss Crowe said.

Gabrielle stood upright and wiped her tears away with her hands. Queen pulled tissue out of the box near the bed and pushed some into Gabrielle's hand.

“You still dan . . . dan . . . dance?” Miss Crowe said, stammering somewhat.

Gabrielle smiled as she nodded. “Yes, Miss Crowe. I still dance. And I dance for the Lord now. I just got hired as the director of the Dance Ministry at our church.”

“Oh, that good,” Miss Crowe said, having a time getting the
s
to join with the word
that
in her sentence.

Gabrielle took Miss Crowe's hand and held it. Zachary pushed the chair up to the bed and indicated that Gabrielle should sit down. Gabrielle did without taking her eyes off Miss Crowe.

“You in church now?”

“Yes, ma'am. It took a while and some doing, but I made it.”

“I pray . . . pray . . . prayed for you,” Miss Crowe said. “God has an . . . ans . . . answered my prayers.”

“Thank you for praying for me. Thank you for believing in me. Thank you for all that you did that made my life good. I just want you to know that in the end, your labor was not in vain. And I praise God through dance now.”

“You still good?”

“She's still good,” Zachary chimed in. “I joined that church after I saw her dance for the Lord,” he said. “She's real good.”

“You two friends? What?” Miss Crowe said, directing her attention and question to Zachary.

“We are . . . together, Aunt Esther.” Zachary beamed. “We're seeing each other.”

“God is good,” Aunt Esther said. She began to cry. “Only God can do.”

“Yes, Auntie, God certainly is good. Look how He brought all of us here today.”

Aunt Esther closed her eyes. Gabrielle took a clean tissue and wiped Aunt Esther's tears away.

“One day,” Aunt Esther said, opening her eyes, “Jesus gon' wipe all our tears away. God is so good.”

“Well, Esther,” Zechariah said. “We don't want to tire you out. Zachary and Queen brought Gabrielle all the way from Alabama just to see you.”

“Dance for me,” Aunt Esther said to Gabrielle.

“Miss Crowe, why don't you get some rest, and I'll come back tomorrow. If you still want me to, I'll come and dance for you tomorrow.”

“All I do is rest. Years of rest. I tired of rest . . . ing. I want to see you dance. Find some music and Gabrie . . . Gabrielle, I want to see you dance. For me. Dance. Please.”

“Okay, Miss Crowe. Whatever you want.”

There wasn't a radio in her room. Aunt Esther hadn't really cared much about music or listening to chatter . . . until now.

“I'll go check with the nurses' station and see if I can borrow a CD player, radio, or something from one of them,” Zachary said. His father nodded.

“Miss Crowe, while Zachary is going to find some music for me to dance to, would you mind if we pray?”

“Prayer is the key,” Aunt Esther said. “Faith unlocks the door. Pray. I'd like that a lot.”

Gabrielle and the rest in the room held hands with Aunt Esther as Gabrielle prayed. There was such an anointing in that room as she did. Everybody felt the charge that flowed from hand to hand, and it was all in the atmosphere. Zechariah was crying by the time Gabrielle finished. He patted Gabrielle's hand, hugged her, then hugged his sister.

“Esther, I love you,” Zechariah said to her, releasing her from his embrace. “God is doing something miraculous right now. I can feel it. Something is happening right now. Healing is going forth by the power of God, in the name of Jesus! Right now.”

“I believe,” Esther said, then she smiled.

Zachary came back inside with a radio/CD player. “One of the nurses had this. She said we could use it. I asked her if she had any gospel CDs. She had a few. I got the one with Karen Clark Sheard's ‘God Is Here.'”

Gabrielle smiled. That was the song she had danced to for her audition for the Dance Ministry. By the power of the Holy Ghost, she knew they were going to be blessed by the Lord with this song and dance.

Zachary put in the CD. They sat Aunt Esther completely upright so she could see Gabrielle's every move. Zachary turned on the music.

And Gabrielle danced with a joy she had never quite known before. She danced, she leaped, she bowed, and she praised.

And when she finished, there was not a dry eye in that room. In fact, one of the nurses had stopped by, and even she was wiping her eyes and giving God praise.

“God is good,” Miss Crowe said. “He so good!”

Chapter 36

M
elissa Peeples had been hired to put together a one-hundred-year birthday party on November seventh by the daughter of the centenarian. Zenobia had heard nothing but praise for Melissa's skills as an event planner and was glad she'd secured her early.

A lot had happened in the past few weeks. Zenobia had just learned that she had a sister she didn't even know existed. She and her family had met Memory and her daughter Lena and Lena's husband, Richard, along with granddaughter Theresa; her husband, Maurice; and great-grandchildren Mauricia and Maurice the Second, whom they called M-double-G. Just like that, their family had grown expeditiously, and life as they'd known it had changed.

Zenobia's other two brothers and their family would all be here for their father's birthday celebration. Zenobia had gone online and sent the appropriate e-mail to Willard Scott to have their father highlighted on his
Today
show segment. Melissa had also sent media releases to the television stations about his birthday, which was officially November fourth. They had decided to hold his party on the seventh so it would be on a weekend and allow more people to be able to come.

They'd put down a deposit on the ballroom, so that was all done. The ballroom contract prohibited outside food from being brought in, so they had already contracted with them to have a full course meal provided at twenty-seven dollars a plate. That was a lot of money, especially when you're preparing for about two hundred guests, but Zenobia felt her father was worth a great birthday celebration.

After hearing about what happened in his earlier life—almost being lynched, falsely imprisoned for ten years on trumped-up charges, especially back during that time when black men really had it hard—she felt his life deserved to be celebrated in the highest form of fashion.

Everything was set and on schedule. Zenobia had called the venue and left a message that she'd need to amend the number of guests, now that their family list had grown. Memory insisted she would help with the cost. After all, this was her father, too.

So getting a callback three weeks out from the event, telling her she would have to find another venue, was not something Zenobia had wanted to hear. The cancellation was due to some mix-up. Apparently, the person who'd taken her reservation had not completed the paperwork properly. It had not been entered into the system, and so when someone else had called for that same day, the ballroom had been rented out to them. It was human error, and unfortunately, there were no other rooms that size available. The woman who called Zenobia to tell her this was devastated. But Zenobia could tell she was more upset about the six thousand dollars they would be losing on just the food she was set to buy from them than for the inconvenience Zenobia would now have to deal with.

The other person who had rented the room was only having a political rally. There would be no food and no table or chairs set up since it was a standing event. She had tried to convince them to take another room, even offered to give them a break on the rate. They would be standing anyway, so it wouldn't matter if they were in a smaller area.

But this was an elected official who was doing a campaign fund drive, and he wasn't hearing it. He made it perfectly clear that it didn't matter to him if this was a celebration for the oldest living person in the world and media from everywhere was coming to document the blessed event. He had a re-election campaign to run and an office to keep, and he wasn't about to give up the best room in the building for nothing or no one, end of discussion. The bigger the room, the more people he would be able to pack in.

So Zenobia was left, at the last hour, to find an available place. And there appeared to be nothing anywhere. She decided to call Clarence.

“Clarence, we need a place to hold Gramps's birthday party,” she said.

“I thought you had a place already. In fact, you told me you just got back the invitations, and you were about to mail them out.”

“I did, and I did. So now the invitations have the wrong information printed on them as to where it will be held because it's not going to be there now.” She jotted herself a note to add that expense to her list of reimbursements from the ballroom's cancellation.

“What happened?”

“Human error. They double booked the ballroom. I booked it back in March, and they just discovered they didn't enter my information into the system. They've booked the room out to someone else.” She sighed hard. “So now I need to find somewhere to have Gramps's birthday celebration. And at this late date, there's nothing nice left. If I don't find somewhere soon, we might have to use your place and try to fix it up quickly.”

“Mom, you know I wouldn't mind you using the place. And I'm working on having it converted to something that would likely be more perfect for something like this. But if I can be honest with you, I'm not there yet.”

“What do you mean you're not there yet? Are you already trying to backslide? You haven't been on this faith walk but about a month and you're already looking back?” Zenobia said.

“That's not what I was talking about, Mother. I meant the building has a lot of work to be done to make it more acceptable to the clientele I hope to have patronizing it. There's still that high stage, the bar, and of course those nasty little poles gracing it. Even if I wanted to let you use it and we just did some temporary cosmetic things, I believe people will notice the bar and the poles.”

Zenobia laughed. “Yeah, I suppose you're right. Plus, a lot of people probably won't step foot into the place as it stands now, worrying about what someone will say or think about them.” She shrugged. “I don't know what I'm going to do. We need a place, and we need a
nice
place. This is my daddy's one hundredth birthday, and I want it to be one he'll remember and cherish.”

“I'll tell you what: let's pray about it, and see where God leads us,” Clarence said.

“Oh,” she said, fanning her face quickly with her hand. “God is so good! My baby boy just suggested we pray.” She looked toward the ceiling. “God, now I
know
You can do all things! Oh, Clarence, I just wish you were here so I could hug you right now.”

Clarence laughed at his mother, and then he prayed.