Unexpected Dismounts (34 page)

But her eyes were someone else’s. Someone who had hope.

“I done missed the big footwashin’, Miss Angel,” she said. “But my Sisters and Miss Liz been washin’ mine all week.”

Liz squeezed my arm, exuding heat she couldn’t contain.

“But they tol’ me only one person didn’t get they feet washed.” Zelda’s look was wide. Unslitted. “And that’s you. So if you’ll let me, I’d like to wash them now.”

Some of the pain eased from me, leaving just the right space for me to say, “I would be honored.”

So my feet were washed by the woman who’d stood in the muck of West King Street and slashed my face with her desperate claws. The one who had slammed my head into hers and spit at my back because I made her think of God. The woman who taught me I wasn’t the only one who could heal people.

And that same night I shared in the symbolic body and blood of the one who washed everybody’s feet, all the time. I shared it with everybody, except young Ophelia. She stood back while we partook in the reenactment of the Last Supper. She wouldn’t even look into my eyes when I offered her the cup. But I could feel her pain. God’s pain.

India, on the other hand, showed me all of her pain. She caught up to me when Desmond and I were walking down the front walk at the end of the evening. Her face was drawn so tight, no amount of elegance could smooth it over.

I handed Desmond the keys. “Wait for me in the van, okay? And do
not
start it up, or you’ll never see another Oreo for the rest of your life.”

India watched until he was out of earshot, though for Desmond that could mean Miami Beach.

“What am I supposed to
do
now, Allison?” she said. She curved over her folded arms. “Hank told me about the DNA, and I tried to break it gently to Ophelia, but she just fell completely apart. She still says she’s telling the truth and she doesn’t see how she can stay now.”

“Oh, India, no,” I said. “We can’t let her go. Do you want me to talk to her?”

“No—no, no.” India brushed her hand against my cheek. “I don’t want to hurt your feelings, honey, but you are the last person she wants to talk to. She’s convinced you think she’s a liar. And here’s what I’ve been thinking. Just because we know it wasn’t your Kade, that doesn’t mean the real rapist isn’t still out there. Are we going to stop looking now?”

I shook my head firmly. “Definitely not. Nicholas Kent is still on it, although without more information, he’s sort of at a dead end.”

I thought of the officers on the take, but I didn’t say anything. India probably wouldn’t have heard it anyway. Her face was a wreath of grief.

“How do you do this all the time, Allison?” she said. “I feel like it’s happening to me. I don’t know if I can take it.”

“Okay, look.” I curled my fingers around her wrists and pulled her closer to me. “This is Ophelia’s pain, so don’t take it on. Just let it speak to you.”

“I don’t understand.”

I wasn’t sure I did either, but I let it unfold the rest of the way.

“This isn’t going to end for her until she gets it all out. You said it yourself—she gets the dry heaves, she wants it out of there so bad.”

“Right …”

“I think those memories are in there. They didn’t find any trace of drugs in her body the night of the rape, and her blood alcohol content was only point zero eight. I don’t think it’s that she can’t remember what happened. I think she just doesn’t want to because it’s too painful.”

“So you want me to try to get her to go in there and pull it up?” India put her hand to her throat. “What if she can’t handle that?”

“Don’t do it alone. Get Hank to be there, or Nita. I would, but—”

“No, no—honey, you have enough going on. We’ll take care of Ophelia. Oh, Allison.” She put her graceful arms around my neck. “I love you. I don’t understand you and I don’t know if I ever will, but, honey, I love you.”

“I love you,” I whispered. I hugged her back and looked over her shoulder at Sacrament House. A lone figure sat just outside the shaft of light from the porch lamp. Ophelia. Still wrapped in God’s pain.

And what about your pain?
That was the question I asked hours later, after Desmond was in bed and I was on my side porch in the swing, smelling Miz Vernell’s gardenias, missing Chief, missing the vision that had seemed so clear to me, missing the certainty that Desmond was going to be mine.

You told me to speak through it and I would give birth
.
But he’s the only son I want.

I pushed the swing harder.
I gave up one son. Please don’t make me give this one up too. If there’s any other way …

I couldn’t think anymore. Through the screen door I heard Desmond whimper in his sleep. Across the side lawn, Miz Vernell’s porch light winked out. She was done observing the crazy lady for the night.

“Maybe I am crazy, Miz V,” I said out loud. “Maybe all this pain makes a person do and say crazy, crazy things.”

Someone sighed. The long, slow breath was almost out before I realized the someone was me. It left me limp and drowsy on the swing.

“All right, then, God, so be it,” I said. “Crazy it is.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

When Desmond and I arrived at the courtroom Good Friday morning, there was standing room only in the hallway outside. The first people I picked out of the crowd were the Sisters, who were hard to miss, gathered in a circle holding hands. After I got over the fact that Jasmine, Mercedes, and Sherry were within a mile of anything connected with the judicial system without being in handcuffs, I found Hank, who
wasn’t
hard to miss among the HOGs.

“What’s going on?” I said.

“Support, Al,” she said. “We thought you could use some.”

“What are the Sisters doing?”

“Holding a prayer vigil. They’ve been here since the doors opened.”

I felt my face starting to crumple. “Leave it to you to think of that.”

“I didn’t,” she said. “It was Zelda’s idea. She said them praying for her at the jail kept her from—how did she put it—”

“Flipping her stuff all the way out?”

“That’s it.”

There was so much I wanted to say to Zelda. So much I wanted to ask her. Where did she get the stolen car? Did she know Marcus Rydell? Was he the Satan she was talking about? Did he give her the drugs? And why on earth would he do such a thing?

But it wasn’t just about that. I wanted to know how it felt to her when she knew God was there. I needed to know that. For Ophelia.

Later, though. For now, it was all about Desmond.

“You know what, Mr. Chief, we got a lot more room here than we do at home. You have got to get you some
bad
pipes on this thing.”

Desmond was rolling Chief toward us, making engine sounds en route. I knew he
would
pop a wheelie in this venue if I didn’t intervene.

“I’ll take over,” I said.

“I’m going to sit out with Desmond until they call him,” Chief said.

Anxiety lapped at me.

“Kade’s got it handled, Classic.”

He was Chief-right. Although Kade had bags under his eyes the size of small carry-ons, the eyes themselves were bright when he greeted me at the table.

“Were you up all night?” I said.

“What night?” He glanced at the still vacant judge’s bench. “We only have a minute, but I just need to make totally sure you want to go this route.”

“Yes,” I said. “I know that makes it difficult.”

“Big Al,” he said. “Step back and watch me work.”

He tucked his mischievous grin away as Judge Atwell took the bench. When the preliminaries had been dispensed with and Kade stood up to speak, he was pure professionalism.

“Are you prepared to convince me that Ms. Chamberlain has the mental stability to raise a child, Mr. Capelli?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then you’re going to give me a rational explanation for this prophecy situation.”

“No, sir.”

Judge Atwell drew his chin toward his chest. “This is not a game, counselor.”

“I fully respect the court, Your Honor,” Kade said. “I am completely serious.”

“Your client claims God speaks to her, tells her what to do. That does not sound like mental stability to me.… That sounds like—”

“She’s submitting her will to a higher power?” Kade said. “Because that’s what Miss Chamberlain does.”

“My concern is what happens if this higher power one day tells her to send the boy back out on the street where she found him.”

“Miss Chamberlain gives up the power of the
will
, sir. Not the power of the mind. That is what we hope to show you.”

Mr. Quillon made a noise that may have been a laugh. Judge Atwell lowered his chin at him. Quillon’s next noise sounded like strangulation.

“I’ll hear what you have to say, Mr. Capelli. Just keep in mind that my purpose is to decide what is best for Desmond.”

Kade gave him a respectful nod, and called Henrietta D’Angelo to the stand. Once in the chair, Hank set him straight on the name thing, mouth twitching. Kade asked her to explain her relationship with me.

“When I first met Allison, she didn’t know she was a prophet.” Hank looked at Judge Atwell. “Like you, Your Honor, she considered the possibility that she was hallucinating. But the effect of her paying attention to what she felt was God was so positive, she finally accepted her role.”

“So she was reluctant at first.”

“She still is at times. Allison is very conscious of being overwhelmed by God, but she’s able to respond sanely.”

“An example might help,” Kade said.

Hank folded her hands in her lap. I relaxed in spite of myself.

“God’s Nudge has led Allison into some of the darkest corners in this city. She has seen the women she reaches out to overdose on cocaine and heroin, she’s nursed them when they’ve been beaten and raped, she’s held one in her arms in an alley while she died from a gunshot wound. She has suffered shock most of us would crumble under, and yet she heeds the call to effect change. That is what separates her from a psychopath.”

Kade nodded his thanks and turned to the judge.

“Do you have any questions, Mr. Quillon?” Judge Atwell said.

“No, Your Honor,” Quillon said. “I’m just enjoying the show.”

The judge’s face came to a severe point at his chest. “There will be none of that here, sir. You will respect the dignity of this court.”

“I apologize, Your Honor. I didn’t realize that’s what we were doing.”

Quillon just received a look this time, one that would have cut me in half. It only served to make Quillon adjust his tie. The jackal.

Hank patted my shoulder going by. Kade was announcing our next witness.

“I would like to call Mercedes Phillips.”

I startled in the chair as Mercedes made her way to the witness stand. She wore a black skirt that shivered at her knees, and her hands clasped and unclasped inside the cuffs of the white blouse someone had pressed for her. She couldn’t possibly have done it herself, not without losing control of the iron from perspiring palms. Hers had to be sweaty; mine were oozing through my slacks on her behalf.

When she’d agreed to tell the truth and sat stiff as a ruler in the chair, she found me with her eyes. I prayed my hands under my chin. She prayed hers back.

Kade spoke softly to her, as if he were taking care not to upset the tenuous balance she was somehow maintaining. “Has Allison Chamberlain ever told you she was a prophet?”

Mercedes shook her head.

“We’re going to need you to speak your answers, Miss Phillips,” Judge Atwell said. “Just for the record.”

She nodded, and then said, almost inaudibly, “No.”

I hoped Kade didn’t have too many questions. What was he thinking, putting her through this?

“She doesn’t talk about her gift of prophecy?” Kade said.

“No. She don’t have to. It’s not about what she says, it’s about what she do.”

“Have you ever seen her do anything that you thought was crazy?”

Mercedes rolled her eyes at Kade. “No. I’ve known me some crazy people in my life, and Miss Angel—Allison—ain’t one of them.”

“How do you know that?” Kade said.

“If she was one of them crazies think they prophets standin’ on the corner wavin’ signs sayin’ the world gonna end tomorrow, she wouldn’t be able to do what she do with us.”

Her voice was headed for the courtroom ceiling, and she was wagging her head back and forth. I rested my chin on my hands. Mercedes was taking charge of the room.

“And what is it that she does?” Kade said.

“Miss Angel teach us not to be afraid, not by what she sayin’, by her whole attitude in what she doin’.” Mercedes slanted forward and planted her hand on her chest. “She can do that because she feel what we feel. I just don’t see nothin’ crazy ’bout savin people’s lives.”

Kade smiled at her. “Thank you, Miss Phillips.”

Mr. Quillon stood up. “Your Honor, if I may.”

My backbone bristled. Chief might regret not being here to hold me back. When Judge Atwell nodded Quillon on, I saw Mercedes set her jaw. I wasn’t sure if I was more nervous for her, or for him.

“Just one question,” Mr. Quillon said.

He didn’t ask if he could call her Mercedes. At least he wasn’t a complete moron.

“It’s a point of clarification, actually,” he said. “Did I hear you refer to Allison Chamberlain as Miss
Angel?”

“I don’t know if that’s what you heard, but that’s what I said.”

“So, she is not only a prophet, but an angel, too?”

Mercedes gave him a look that should have shriveled him inside his Armani suit. “It ain’t like she sprouts wings. She just does what angels do—and that’s the will a God.” Mercedes looked him up and down. “Seem like some other people could take a lesson from that, now.”

Mr. Quillon looked at Judge Atwell with mock helplessness. The judge nodded at Mercedes.

“That will be all, Miss Phillips. Thank you for your time.”

But it was Kade she looked to for permission to go. When he smiled at her again, I expected her to bolt, and I wouldn’t have blamed her. She stood, however, with the grace of the magnificent creature she was and walked out carrying the courtroom dignity she had brought in with her.

I was still gazing at the image when Kade called Desmond’s name. My eyes went directly to Priscilla Sanborn.

All morning I’d avoided looking at her. Her face had registered very little of anything the day before, even when she was on the stand, so I hadn’t seen the point in trying to read her when Kade or Hank or Mercedes was speaking. Even now she was staring at the wall behind the judge as if all of this were an extreme waste of her time. But I had to see how she reacted when Desmond entered the room.

He came down the aisle with his usual swagger, and although he grinned at Stan and pointed at Rex and gave Erin O’Hare a one-sided high-five, he didn’t stop to exchange fist bumps with Ulysses or tackle Liz Doyle with a hug. Chief must have coached him well. Even now Chief followed Desmond down the aisle in his wheelchair, leg stuck out at the boy’s behind.

While Kade got Desmond settled and sworn in, I looked again at Priscilla. She was watching Desmond, I had to give her that. And there was something other than disdain on her face. Her head tilted a few degrees, and she drew the penciled-in eyebrows together inquisitively. She had come halfway around the world to rescue this nephew, and the most she displayed was curiosity.

And who was the crazy person here?

Kade was already into his first question. “So, you remember, Desmond, that later on you’ll have a chance to tell the judge your feelings about being adopted by Allison Chamberlain.”

“I got that,” Desmond said. “I
don’t
get why I hafta wait, but I get that we ain’t goin’ there right now.”

“Fabulous,” Kade said.

Any minute now they were going to be smacking each other in the head and saying, “I love you, bro.”

I loved it.

“You’re here so you can help us clear something up,” Kade said.

“Right. Which is that the judge think Big Al might be crazy, and I’m here to tell him she ain’t. Isn’t.”

“Excuse me, son,” Judge Atwell said. “When you say, ‘Big Al’—who are you talking about?”

Desmond pointed to me and grinned. “My mama. Miss Allison
Cham
ber
lain
.”

The judge looked at me. “Miss Chamberlain, I wonder that you can remember your own name.”

“That’s easy,” Desmond said, looking around the courtroom as if for a vote. “I call her Big Al, Miss Hankenstein just say Al, Sisters call her Miss Angel, and Mr. Chief, he—”

“Thanks, Desmond,” Kade said. “So, about Big Al being a prophet. Does that ever scare you?”

“
Scare
me? No. She don’t scare nobody don’t need scarin’.”

“You want to tell me what you mean?”

“She don’t even yell at people that’s messed up. She just makes ’em feel sorry ’bout theirselves. Makes ’em wanna do better, like clean up they act. It’s like she know if they
see
how messed up they are, they gonna turn their self around.”

“You ever see that happen at all?” Kade said.

“Yeah, I seen it happen,” Desmond said in falsetto. “I seen it just about every day, even in me. “ He jabbed his thumb at himself. “I ain’t nothin’ like I used to be, all runnin’ the streets and sayin’ the H-word and the S-word and the—”

“Got it. Thanks.”

“But I will tell you what scares me about Big Al, now.”

Kade looked wary. This evidently wasn’t in the plan.

“What scares me is when she catch me with my sorry hand in the Oreo cookies. She can give you some looks make you want to run under the table
real
quick.” He grinned at me. “Jus’ kiddin’, Big Al. I ain’t scared a that neither.”

Kade stuck his fist out and Desmond met it with his and started to get out of the chair. Quillon stood up.

“Question, Mr. Quillon?” the judge said.

“Your aunt and I were just wondering, Desmond, how do you feel about Chips Ahoy?”

Desmond gave him the why-do-you-have-two-heads look. Judge Atwell’s expression wasn’t much different.

“Chips Ahoy,” Mr. Quillon said. “The cookie?”

“Yeah?” Desmond said.

“Never mind, son. It was just a joke.”

“I don’t see nothin’ funny ’bout no Chips Ahoy,” Desmond said to Kade.

Laugher rippled through the courtroom, and Judge Atwell halfheartedly rapped his gavel. I checked to see if Priscilla Sanborn was capable of humor and found her whispering furiously into Quillon’s ear. He straightened and looked at Desmond.

“I know that your mother didn’t give you what anybody would call a normal life.”

“You talkin’ about my first mama,” Desmond said.

“All right. That’s one way to put it. And the life you have now probably isn’t like the life most of your friends have with their families, would you say?”

“I don’t know,” Desmond said.

“You don’t go to your friends’ houses to spend the night?”

“You askin’ me if my life and Big Al’s is normal, right?”

Mr. Quillon smiled so sweetly I wanted to slap him. Just slap him.

“Yes, son, that’s what I’m asking.”

“Then let me jus’ tell you, it’s normal for me. And if God was talkin’ to you all the time like he is to Big Al, which God obviously is
not,
you wouldn’t seem like you was normal neither.”