The Truth Is the Light (18 page)

Chapter 37

G
abrielle went back and visited with Aunt Esther the following day. They were only going to be in Chicago one more day after this before they would be heading back to Birmingham. Both she and Zachary had to be at work Tuesday morning.

Aunt Esther's face lit up when Gabrielle walked in. Gabrielle returned the smile. Zachary had brought her, but told her he had to go check on something, so he would drop her off and come pick her up later. Gabrielle knew this was his sly way of giving her and her mentor some time alone together. It was things like this that made her love Zachary even more.

“Book-er,” Aunt Esther said. “Gabrielle,” she further said. She smiled. “See how much that prayer worked. My speech is getting better already. And look.” She lifted one leg up off the bed, circled it around, then did the other. “I blew the therapist away when I first did that this morning. She asked what happened. I told her . . . it was God. All God.”

“Yes, Miss Crowe. Every good gift and every perfect gift comes from above. It's all God. God brought you back into my life, and I'm so thankful to Him for that.”

“Sit,” Aunt Esther said, patting her bed.

“Are you sure? I can just pull up the chair close.”

“Sit,” she said, patting the bed as she pushed herself up straighter. “I want to be close. It been a long time. It's been a long time.” She smiled, getting her
s
on the word
it's
. “See, I'm getting better with each moment. I may get well enough to go home.”

“Just don't overdo it,” Gabrielle said as she sat down next to Aunt Esther.

“You don't believe God can fully heal me?”

“Oh, I believe God can do anything. That I believe. He took me and changed me and my life. There's nothing too hard for our God. If you believe, I believe with you.”

“I believe,” Aunt Esther said. “Tell me what I missed? Did you go to Juilliard?”

“No, ma'am. I didn't. I didn't get to go anywhere but to work.”

“What? I don't understand. You were supposed to go to The Juilliard School to learn dance.” Aunt Esther was getting upset.

“Miss Crowe, don't get worked up now. It's all right. Things still worked out for me okay.” Gabrielle wasn't telling the whole truth, since she did have a hard time at first. “You know what? I recently danced for this one lady who owned a dance studio. She was so impressed by me that she asked who taught me how to dance. I told her nobody but you. When she heard your name, that's when I learned how famous you were. I didn't know you were that well known.”

“But I arranged for you to go to The Juilliard School. I paid for it. I thought you'd gone. I didn't hear from you, and I wondered why you didn't come by to tell me of all your experiences. You didn't go?”

“No.” Gabrielle frowned. “I didn't know I was supposed to go.”

“I sent a letter. I spoke with folks. That was my surprise to you. Remember I had a surprise? That was my surprise. But you didn't go? You never heard from them at all?”

Gabrielle put her arm around Aunt Esther and hugged her as she brushed her hair down with her hand. “You did that for me? You really were my angel.” She began to cry.

“We need to find out what happened. You were set to go. Everything was paid for. You were going to shine, my little floating dandelion. I'll find out what happened.”

“Don't you worry yourself about it, okay. You were the best gift God ever gave me, after my mother. Things still worked out. No matter what bad Satan may have been up to, God still used it for good. I've been in a pit, I've been sold away to slavery, I've been a prisoner, I've tried to do right and have had folks to lie on me and to me. But in the end, I'm still standing. And I'm here with you now. I love you for all that you did for me and all that you were to me. And Miss Crowe”—Gabrielle pulled back and looked in her eyes—“God is not through with either of us yet.” She smiled. “He's not through. We have much more work to do. There's so much more God requires of us. I believe that.”

“You're a gift. Don't let anyone keep you from your dreams. God has you . . . in His hand.” Aunt Esther held out her hand, then did a dance move she'd taught Gabrielle early on with her hand. “No one.”

Zachary came in and found the two of them sitting on the bed together. He smiled. “Sorry, Auntie, I had to run an errand. Did you two have a good visit?”

“Yes-s-s,” Aunt Esther said, holding the
s
.

Zachary bent down and kissed her on her cheek.

Aunt Esther smiled as she looked up at him. “Thank you,” she said to Zachary. She then turned to Gabrielle and said, “No one.”

Chapter 38

A
ngela had gone back and forth about what she should do. She had convinced herself that it was best she keep this to herself. At least, until she could talk to Ransom Perdue. Therein was her problem. How should she approach him? What should she say? How do you begin a conversation where you ask an elderly man if it's possible he might have slept with your great-grandmother? No, that definitely wasn't the way to approach it.

Just the thought of it was hard—her great-grandmother possibly in love and acting just like young people act who are in love today. That was not the great-granny she knew and loved. Great-granny was grounded. She was deliberate . . . slow to speak and slow to make angry. She always had sage advice. She could knock you down with her words and pick you up in the same sentence. She was honest. But a woman who might have done what this was suggesting and leading her to was incomprehensible for Angela.

She had seen Johnnie Mae the week after Ransom had gotten to meet everyone at her house. Johnnie Mae told how special everything had been. Gramps, as she called him, had such joy meeting and hugging his daughter after all those years of thinking about what may have become of her. Angela could appreciate how that felt.

But Angela had been preoccupied with her own thoughts at the time. She'd met Ransom Perdue. Johnnie Mae had never seen her grandmother. Arletha still didn't care to visit Followers of Jesus Faith Worship Center. There were just some things her traditions would not allow her to accept. She didn't go back to her old church, either. Especially after she learned that when she was in the hospital not one of them cared enough to come see her or to find out how she was. She'd settled at Divine Conquerors Church. And she was one of the few members who didn't care to come to the afternoon program when she learned Pastor Landris would be preaching at Divine Conquerors.

Angela saw the resemblance between Ransom and Arletha instantly. Even Brent confirmed she wasn't just making things seem the way she wanted them to. He thought the photo she'd shown him did remind him a lot of Arletha. If it really was a picture of a young Ransom Perdue and not Samuel L. Williams (which to Brent was still a possibility, since there really wasn't a name anywhere on the picture), that person was more likely than not Arletha's father.

But other than the photo and the few lines she'd found written in the journal that could possibly be referring to a
real
Ransom and not just a dream, Angela had nothing. If she went to talk to Ransom, should she just tell him what she was thinking? Should she come at it from a different angle in case he was inclined to deny Arletha?

But if he
was
Arletha's father, wouldn't he want to know about it? Would he actually deny his paternity as though he owed child support or even back child support? Surely, if there was a possibility that Arletha was his child, and he didn't know it, he would embrace the news as happily as he'd welcomed his other children. And if she wasn't, Angela could put this nonsense behind her and be thankful she hadn't stirred up anything by sharing her thoughts and findings with Arletha.

She began to pray. “Lord, please guide me. I don't know what I should do. You know everything. You know our risings and our lying down. You know what's around the curve before we ever get there. I don't know what to do. Please direct my path. Guide my feet and my tongue. Please.”

Chapter 39

“G
abrielle, I just want you to know that I think you're a wonderful young woman,” Leslie said as the two women sat in the house alone on the white couch in the living room. Zachary had gone to visit one of his friends, as had Queen. Leslie had sent Zechariah to the store to bring back some milk since he had just drunk the last of it and she needed milk to make mashed potatoes.

“Seeing you dancing like that the other day . . . it was anointed and powerful,” Leslie said. “That's all I can say.”

“Thank you. I appreciate that,” Gabrielle said. “But as Mary Mary's latest song says, ‘It's the God in me.' God gave me this gift. I'm just glad I'm able to use it in His service, hopefully to point someone to Jesus by doing it.”

Leslie released an exhausted sigh. “Listen, I really do like you. I really do.”

“But—” Gabrielle said, supplying the word for her.

“
But
. . . I don't think you're the right woman for Zachary. He needs someone who can challenge him from time to time. Zachary can be strongheaded. Sometimes he wants to do a thing before he thinks the whole thing through. He needs a woman who will let him know when he's about to go over the cliff, then stop him before he can do it.”

“And you don't believe I can do that? You don't believe I can love him enough to be that person who complements him . . . who adds to the best of all that he is or can be?”

“I won't lie to you, because God in Heaven knows my heart. I don't believe you can be what my son needs. He's finished with medical school and his internship. He's just begun his own practice. Zachary has a ton of bills in the way of student loans due to his lengthy college education. Becoming a doctor isn't cheap by any stretch of the imagination. People see the amount of money a good doctor can make, but they have no idea what it cost to get there. There's the cost in time, and the cost of money, the cost in sacrifices. Zachary has made great sacrifices to get where he is today.”

Gabrielle smiled. “And you think him being with me will hurt him?”

“I think you could be the cause of him losing out on some things and benefits he might otherwise enjoy if you weren't in his life.” She shrugged. “I'm not trying to hurt you. I promise you that's neither my personality nor who I am as a person. It's hard for me to say these things to you . . . hard because I
do
like you so much. But I love my son. Dearly. He's not thinking things through. Someone needs to have a level head. Zachary is merely caught up in the moment right now. A moment that I think, given time, will pass. But right now Zachary is in love with you.”

“Oh, you think he's in love?” Gabrielle said.

“I know he is. Trust me: he wouldn't have brought you here for us to meet if he wasn't deeply in love with you. My son, the doctor, loves you.”

Gabrielle stood up and walked toward the fireplace mantle, away from where Leslie was sitting. “But we haven't known each other long enough for him to be in love with me like that. And he only brought me here to see Miss Crowe again.”

“It's never taken Zachary long to know what he wants. That's how he's made. He's a sharp thinker. Impulsive, yes. But sharp, nevertheless. I suppose you can say he gets that from me. And yes, bringing you to see his aunt again was a part of your trip, but it was a double bonus. My son loves you. There's so much of me in him.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I knew I loved his father the first moment I laid eyes on him. Fedora hat cocked to the side. Seeing him, as I stood on that next to the last step at that house party that night . . . he practically took my breath away! Sure, we dated for a while. But my love just increased from that first time I saw him. We were merely going through the motions of what other people expected we should do before we could set a date to be together forever. Honestly, now, if you don't date for a certain amount of time, does it really mean you can't possibly be in love?” Leslie shook her head. “Can you learn more things about that person in time? Sure. But then you can also marry someone and still find there are things you didn't know. That's all a part of life.”

“Well, I don't think you have to worry about me and Zachary getting married anytime soon. It's like you just said. He has a new practice going. He's trying to unwind from having been in school for so long. He barely knows me.”

Leslie stood up and walked over to Gabrielle. “And he loves you anyhow. And I believe he plans to ask you to marry him soon. But if you love him at all, if you have any feelings of him having the best in life, then walk away. Give him a chance to breathe and maybe think about things a little more. I'm sure he's probably also dealing with hormones when it comes to you. Wanting to be with you, but then you having cleverly told him there will be no sex without marriage.”

“That wasn't a clever tactic. The Bible tells us not to fornicate. I'm trying to live by that. Zachary said it's what he wanted to do as well. I didn't trick him into this with an ulterior motive.”

Leslie took Gabrielle by the hand and pulled her back over to the couch. She sat down, bringing Gabrielle down with her as she held both her hands. “Gabrielle, I might not be saying everything right. And believe me, if Zachary knew I was having this conversation with you, he would be furious with me. But if you love him, if you truly love him, let him go now before either of you get in too deep. Love him enough to let him go.”

“What if
I
love him and I'd like to spend the rest of my life with him?” Gabrielle felt a tear make its way down her cheek. She freed one of her hands and brushed it away. “What am I supposed to do with my feelings? What am I supposed to do about a hurting heart?”

Leslie squeezed her hand. “This is hard for you, I know it is. But I also believe you have a lot of love inside of you. I believe you're going to think about what I've said, and you're going to see that I'm right. God may have forgiven your past, but the world will still bring it up when it wants to bring you down. I would hate for all of Zachary's hard work to be brought down from something he didn't even do. And you and I both know there's a good possibility someone is going to bring up your past as a dancer or as a maid, and they'll somehow twist it to make him look bad. How will you feel then?”

Leslie stood and pulled Gabrielle up. “All I'm asking is for you to consider what I'm saying. If you believe I'm out of line or way out there, then dismiss it and keep on going regardless of whom and how much it might hurt later. But if you let someone go, and things happen where that person comes back to you, then it means it was meant to be. That's all I'm trying to say. That's all I'm trying to say here.”

“What all are you trying to say?” Zachary said to his mother as he strolled into the living room. “What are my two favorite women in here talking about?”

Leslie looked at Gabrielle and smiled as she hugged Zachary. “You,” she said. “We were talking about you. But it was all good. Isn't that right, Gabrielle?” Her eyes seemed to actually twinkle as she winked at Gabrielle.