What a Sista Should Do (2 page)

Troy looks at me as if I’m speaking Greek. I know he saw my note. I posted it on the bathroom mirror before I left for work.

“I guess I was just too busy working, honey. I’m sorry about that.”

I don’t know how one person could be so selfish. I just roll my eyes and walk out of the room, because anything that comes out of my mouth right now is going to be ignorant.

Troy calls after me. “Wait a minute, Pam. Before you do that, I want you to listen to this track. Tell me how you like it.”

Despite the looks of starvation on my children’s faces, I go back into the living room/studio. I wouldn’t want anybody to think I’m not supportive of my husband, because as much as I complain, that is simply not the case. If anything, I want him to blow up worse than any of these weed-smoking teenagers propped around my living room. Troy plays the song that he’s apparently been working on all day, and everyone in the room is bobbing their heads. I can’t really get into it myself. Hip-hop soul is not my cup of tea. Give me some gospel, some old-school rhythm and blues, or even some of these neo-soul artists.

“That’s tight, ain’t it, Pam?”

“Yeah, Troy. It’s really hittin’.”

I cannot stand the way Troy talks when he’s around these young wannabe superstars. He acts like he isn’t thirty-three years old and a grown man. What I really want to tell him is that the song sounds just like all the other songs he writes.

It takes me all of two minutes to make bologna and cheese sandwiches for the girls. I guess I could make them something warm like a can of soup, but they seem to be satisfied with what they’ve got. Actually, they look grateful. I’m still wondering when they last ate.

Troy pokes his head into the kitchen. I know he’s about to ask me for something. It better not be money. All I have anyway is my tithe, and husband or not, he is not about to get the Lord’s money. I made up my mind on that a long time ago.

“Honey, we have a show on Sunday evening. Are you going to be able to make it?”

“Not this time. I’ve got evening service.”

Troy looks disappointed, but I don’t care. He knows full well that I spend all day Sunday in church. Why would he schedule a show on Sunday if he wanted me to go to it?

“You mean to tell me that Jesus is going to be mad if you miss one service? Come on, Pam. You’ll still be saved.”

“I know I’ll still be saved. I don’t need you to tell me that,” I say. “That’s not the point. Sunday is the Lord’s day.”

Troy responds sarcastically, “When do
I
get a day?”

I can’t believe my ears. “How’s Monday through Saturday sound?”

“What? Oh, you mean the days I share with the usher board, the nurse guild and Bible class and prayer meetings. You mean those days? It sounds like the whole week belongs to Jesus. Seems like after you went and got yourself saved and all, you forgot all about me. Am I right?”

I’m not even going to respond to Troy, because he is just allowing the devil to use him. I walk right past him and on upstairs to our bedroom. This is my sanctuary. The comforter may be five years old, and the flower print faded, but it has the alluring scent of my favorite fabric softener. Everything is in order in this room. The mostly empty perfume and lotion bottles on my dresser are lined up neatly, and there’s not a speck of dust to be seen. I lie across the bed and let the last of the day’s sunlight cover my body.

I hear myself sighing out loud. Why does he always have to throw church up in my face? I’ve got plenty of things to throw right back at him, like his chronic unemployment—or his phantom music career, for that matter—but I don’t.

It’s true, I do spend a lot of time at church, but so what? It’s not like he misses me around here. He’s always got company. If I was home, he probably wouldn’t even notice me. He’s got a lot of nerve. He should be grateful that I go to church so much. It’s the only way I’m able to put up with his sorry behind.

I go to the master bathroom and turn the jets on in the Jacuzzi tub, which is, by the way, the best investment I’ve ever made. I missed a lot of hair appointments and passed up on several new outfits for this little treat. A grown woman needs to indulge herself sometimes. I’m getting relaxed just looking at the water swirl around.

I can feel a whole day’s worth of tension melt away as soon as my entire body is immersed in the scented water. I close my eyes and travel to my fantasy world, the one where I’m a world-famous novelist and socialite. I’m young, beautiful, high-school-senior thin and single. I’m sitting in my luxurious boudoir waiting for my maid to bring me breakfast. She knocks at the door.

“Come in, Olga,” I say.

The knocking continues, and suddenly I’m jerked back into the real world. Someone is actually knocking on the bathroom door. It never fails.

“Who is it?”

“Mommy, it’s me, Gretchen. I have to pee.”

Chapter 2

Taylor

I
never, not in a million years, thought that I’d ever be someone’s baby’s mama. A wife and a mother I could envision. That was the plan. But a baby’s mama?

But no matter how I look at it, that is just what I am. I have a beautiful baby boy, but I am not married to his father. So what does that make me? Yes, I know. A baby’s mama. I need to just accept it, I guess, but I cringe every time I hear it.

Why does it seem that every time I need to get somewhere in a hurry, the traffic works against me? Right now it’s bumper-to-bumper on I-480. Today we were graced with one of Cleveland’s own afternoon snowstorms. It’s the first one this year, but since it’s only November, I doubt that it will be the last. I think I’m a good driver, but I always get anxious on the highway when the roads are slippery, and if the salt trucks were out, I sure can’t tell.

I’m almost one hundred percent sure that I’m going to be late picking up Joshua. I can’t afford Sister Lang’s late fees, and she knows that. Perhaps today she’ll have pity on me and not charge. It would be a miracle, but stranger things have happened.
Lord, please, touch her heart.

I guess I thought I was in love when I got pregnant with Joshua. I bought all of the lies, and it didn’t even take a lot of convincing. I think I was just ripe for love . . . or ripe for a man. Either way, when Luke told me, “Taylor, I do not love my wife,” I believed him. When he said, “One day we’re going to have our own family,” I believed him. He had to be telling the truth, or else I was an idiot and this man was just using me for sex. Well, it turns out that I was an idiot.

Now, I’m not one of those women who would try and trap a man with a baby. From what I can see, the woman is the one who ends up trapped. So, no, I did not get pregnant on purpose, although Luke might tell you otherwise.

I kind of hoped that he’d be happy to know that he was actually able to father a child. He said that he and his wife had been trying to have a baby for almost twenty years. That was one of his excuses for cheating: the stress of trying to get her pregnant. Yeah, it does sound pretty ridiculous now, but what does everyone say about hindsight?

When I told Luke that I was pregnant, he was not thrilled—at all. The first thing he did was ask me to get an abortion. I was floored! This man is a minister in our church. I can’t even believe he came to me like that.

After he realized that I would not agree to murdering our child, he presented another request. He asked that I never reveal, to anyone, my son’s paternity. For a while it seemed reasonable for me to keep his secret, but now that my son is two years old, I don’t know if it was such a good idea.

I remember going to my pastor, telling him that I was stepping down from my various auxiliaries because of my pregnancy. Of course, Pastor wanted to know if the father was someone in our church. Let me just say that although I never understood it completely in my high school English class, I now know what
The Scarlet Letter’
s Hester Prynne was going through. The only difference between Hester and me is that she loved her baby’s father. At that point, I was ready to sell mine out completely.

I kept my promise, though, and to this day I haven’t told anyone. My grandmother used to say, “What’s done in the dark always comes to the light.” I truly believe that. Every day, Joshua looks more and more like his father, and I know that Luke can see it. I catch him looking at Joshua from time to time, out of the corner of his eye.

Lately, I’ve started to think of his wife. Of course, I never did when I was sleeping with Luke, because that was more than my conscience could bear. She’s my sister in Christ, but I had to think of her as a cold fish of a woman who only wanted to have sex to get herself a baby. Though it wasn’t any real justification for what we were doing, I clung to it for dear life. The illusion that I was bringing the happiness that he could not find in marriage was enough to fuel my illicit lust.

“Illicit lust” may sound like a harsh term to some people. Why not use a less biting synonym such as “affair” or “tryst”? Well, to be honest, I had to get real with myself. When Luke told me that we were over, I was truly devastated. I even prayed for a solution that would allow us to be together. As crazy as it sounds, I prayed for another woman’s husband. Thank God for deliverance.

It’s been almost three years since I’ve even held a conversation with Luke. No, he has never apologized for taking advantage of my stupidity. No, he has not even acknowledged my child’s presence. He has not offered one red cent, and he’s got plenty.

Being a single parent is no joke either. It’s difficult going through the financial crises and money situations (public assistance has never been and I hope will never be an option for me). But I find even more trying the times when Joshua does something cute or precocious and I don’t have anyone to tell. Not anyone who will care about it as much as I do.

And then there are those days that I just want a break. I want to read a book or watch a movie uninterrupted. As a single mom I’m always on duty. Joshua is always there. I love him to death, but sometimes (and I really hate to admit this) I resent my son. Or maybe I resent the sin that brought him here.

Whew! I pull up to Sister Lang’s house with two minutes to spare.
Thank you, Lord, for small favors.
It doesn’t take much these days to make me testify. On Sunday I’ll be saying, “I thank and praise God for getting me to Sister Lang’s house on time.”

Sister Lang, as usual, has my son packed up and ready to go. His winter jacket is barely warm enough for today’s temperature, but I have to wait until the fifteenth to get him a snowsuit. He’ll be warm enough going from the house to the car.

“Thank you for having him dressed, Sister Lang. It really helps me.”

“Oh, Taylor, it’s not a problem at all.”

“Well, thank you all the same.”

Sister Lang looks out her window, shaking her head. I already know what she’s thinking.

“Child, it’s cold out there. Is that little summer jacket going to be enough for Joshua?”

Sister Lang gets on my last nerve exaggerating like that.

“Sister Lang, he’ll be okay. We’re just going from the house to the car. The car is already warmed up.”

“I’ve heard of people getting frostbite in seconds.”

I smile instead of rolling my eyes. “I don’t think we have to worry about that today. I’m getting him a snowsuit when I get paid.”

“Humph. Can’t his daddy buy him a coat?”

I knew that was coming. I have virtually the same conversation with this woman at least once a week. Can’t his daddy get his hair cut? Can’t his daddy pick him up sometimes? She knows my situation.

“Well, Sister Lang, you know our story. Just pray my strength in the Lord, okay?” If nothing else works, this always shuts her up.

“All right, honey. I’ll do that.”

It takes me all of two and a half seconds to get Joshua to the car. He falls asleep as soon as his head hits the cushion on his car seat.
Thank you, Lord, for another miracle
. Some days Joshua’s toddler chatter nearly drives me insane. And I know that Sister Lang must be giving him sugar on his way out of her house, because he’s usually raring to go when I pick him up.

I see my sleeping son’s innocent, chubby reflection in my rearview mirror, and I can’t help but feel just a little sorrowful. Joshua is sleeping so peacefully. He has no idea that his life is lacking anything. He’s supposed to be able to roughhouse with his daddy and learn how to use the bathroom from his daddy. He’s supposed to learn from his daddy how to be a man too. How in the world am I supposed to teach him that?

Chapter 3

Yvonne

I
’m glad that my husband is saved. He is saved, sanctified and filled with the Holy Ghost. Hallelujah to God! It is such a blessing to be married to a man of God. So many of the sisters I know are married to no-good, low-down brothers. And the single ones are desperate to find a man. Any man. That’s why I started this support group called Sister to Sister. These women need somebody to tell them how to get a real man of God, how to treat a real man and how to keep him.

Now, I’m not saying that my marriage is perfect. I’d be lying if I did. Me and Luke have had as many problems as anybody else. We just have God in our union, and that’s the difference.

Sister to Sister is really just a prayer circle for women. We’ve got some married women that are having trouble with their mates (saved and unsaved). We’ve got single women that want to get married so badly they can taste it. And recently, a lot of single mothers have been joining us.

I invited Taylor Johnson to come to our meeting this week, and she looked at me kind of funny. That girl acts like she doesn’t need anybody, including her baby’s father. I mean, I’m not one to meddle, but it seems like if you know who the daddy is, then he should at least be helping out financially. She says that she knows, but maybe she doesn’t. That little Joshua is cute as a button too. I don’t see why the daddy wouldn’t want to be around. Some black men are just doggish, I guess. That’s what happens when you don’t do things God’s way. I’m glad I never had to go through those particular consequences and repercussions myself.