Authors: J. Jakee
"What are you doing here?"
The deaconess looked behind me like she was checking to see who brought me. Her hand was on her chest and the look on her face told me that she was surprised. Hell, I surprised myself when I drove by my exit on the way from FeliciTEA’s.
I was guided by the adrenaline of wanting to know why she left me so abruptly. In fact, I grew pissed that even with all that transpired from that last time I'd seen her, I STILL hadn't shaken the look on her face and the eerie feeling it brought me. I banged on her door with every intention of demanding her to woman up and explain, so that I could bereave my baby brother.
"I want answers."
"How did you get my address?"
"Answer my question, and I will surely answer yours. Who are you, and why do you know my father?"
"Lose the attitude. You want something from me, then you come to me with respect. Otherwise, you could march your tail off of my porch and back into your car."
"What are you, his mistress? You got a grown baby by him? Is that what it is? You a reformed hoe?"
The deaconess slammed her front door on my face.
I stormed off her porch and hopped in my Range. I started up the car, but I couldn't put it in drive. I was too angry. My hands shook. My temperature was risen. Mostly likely, she was Walter Victor’s side chick.
That's why she was being a coward
. I was angry for my mother.
The poor, faithful, soft spoken, formerly battered woman had been putting up with this monster for 32 years and he pays her back by sleeping around? I could possibly have half siblings!
I couldn't wait to tell my mother. But, first I needed details. I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.
This time I rang the doorbell. "I'm sorry for the way I came at you just now." I pressed my hands together. "I just really need to know what's up. It's been bothering me."
The deaconess stepped aside and invited me in. I followed her through the living room and into the dining area. "Have a seat."
I folded my arms. "I'm fine right here. Just get started."
"Would you like something to drink? I have lemonade."
"You are kidding me? I have no idea who you really are, yet you want me to sit and sip some lemonade with you? No, thank you. You're probably the enemy."
"Cookies?"
I grabbed my face. "Lady! Would you please stop?!"
"You have your father's temper. The way your eyes squint and your nostrils flare."
"So you're his mistress."
"I am his mother." The deaconess turned around and dug in the drawer of her china closet. The cabinets of the closet were covered with photographs of her and her apparent deceased husband, judging from the obituary that was posted up there as well.
"What the hell are you taking about? My father’s mother passed when I was a baby. What kinda game are you playing? Who the hell are you, and why the hell did you run out like that?"
"Watch your mouth!" she scolded from over her shoulder.
"Then ‘fess up and quit BS’ing me!"
"I am your grandmother." She turned around and handed me a photograph. "
This
is your father."
In the picture was a man who posed next to her. He was about her height. Short. Stocky. Medium brown skinned with a long beard and long locs.
"You're mistaken. I'm sorry you've lost your granddaughter, but I'm not her."
I tried to give her back the photograph, but she refused it. "Sit down and we will talk about it."
"No. You're crazy." I slammed the picture on the dining table and tried to leave.
She held my arm. "Your mother is Danielle Victor. Your father is Walter Victor. You have an older brother named Derrick Victor. I'd never lie about this Nola. God is my witness. I would never mess with you like this!"
I snatched my arm.
"I didn't want to believe it either. That's why I ran. She… She told me she terminated the pregnancy." Deaconess Camper reached for a box of tissues sitting on top her cabinet. She dabbed her damp face and continued, “I ran home, pulled up your paper work, saw your birthdate, and calculated the numbers... I fell on my knees, and I just cried and prayed ... cried and prayed."
I said nothing. I didn't know what to say. She was a wreck and convinced.
"They loved each other." Deaconess Michelle slowly sat at the table and blew her nose before she continued.
"Forbidden love. She was married to his lawyer... Elton had a drinking problem. Always in trouble for DUIs, and Walter was always there to handle it. Every time." She sniffled. "I told him so many times, 'Elton, this is so wrong. You can't steal that man's wife after all he's done for you,' but he was so stubborn, so determined, so in love."
I sat across from her. "I'm from Bowie..." It was statement but it came out sounding like a question.
"Conceived in Wilmington." The deaconess looked directly at me. "He'd bring Danielle around all the time. And sometimes little Derrick, too. She'd have dinner here and spend nights. We'd go shopping together. She was so happy. Full of life, very talkative. She and I would talk at this very table about anything and everything. From men to the stars in the solar system. A bright young woman. They'd have the funniest debates, she and Elton." Deaconess paused to giggle and wipe tears.
I wondered how she could she be talking about the same person. The Danielle I knew never debated, was usually timid, and had become a "yes" woman to my father.
She went on. "Then, one day everything went from risky to a complete nightmare. She got pregnant. Elton was excited and told me as soon as he found out, but your mother panicked. Two days later, the police were banging on my door, pushed me out of the way, and they arrested him. They charged him for rape."
There was a knot in my throat, and I swallowed hard to remove it. I looked down at the photograph laying between us. It was then that I realized that the man... Elton... was wearing a khaki prison uniform.
"Elton pled innocent, but they had evidence. Bruises on her arms, seaman samples..." The deaconess paused to hold it together. "He wouldn't have raped her, Nola. He would never violate her or hurt her. And, he would never lie to me."
"So you're saying my mother is a liar."
"They moved. Disappeared. She told me she terminated the pregnancy, and almost thirty years later, you are standing right here."
I felt my temperature rising... my breathing almost of out of control. I closed my eyes and spoke clearly and slowly. "Deaconess Michelle… Please watch what you are saying to me..."
“You look just like him. Your eyes, your..."
I raised my hand to stop her. "My baby brother just died... My best friend... he is DEAD. I have no one. I have absolutely NO ONE... And, you are telling me... four days after his death ....that my father... isn't really my father??"
I opened my eyes to see the deaconess sliding me the box of tissues. I touched my cheek. And I caught the first tear to fall since I was little a girl.
My mother turned away from the counter, still gripping the knife she used to chop the chicken breast. "What did you ask?"
I kept my eye on the knife. "That a weapon?"
"Of course not." She sat it down and wiped her hands with a cloth.
"I asked does the name Michelle Camper ring a bell."
My mother couldn't look me in the eye. "I know where this is going."
"Well, she lives right here in Wilmington, just less than fifteen minutes away. How could you not think I'd run into her?" I had my questions loaded and ready for fire. I had been preparing them all week only because it took exactly a week to get my mother and father home at the same time. A when I heard her preparing dinner, I knew right then was the best time to confront her: Cornered in the kitchen.
"We'd never cross paths. Her lifestyle is completely different from ours."
"How? She's a deaconess at Marley’s church... and she used to be your friend!"
My mother peeked her head out the entryway of the kitchen. "Lower your voice... Your father had a very stressful week... This is last type of discussion he needs to overhear."
The look on my face did the talking when I thought,
who gives a flying rat’s ass about that man you insist on calling my father
But, I chose to vocalize that at another time.
My mother paced the kitchen trying hard to avoid my interrogating eyes. She spoke lowly, "When I knew her, she was far from a deaconess. She was a drug dealer."
I was confused. "Michelle Camper? Who lives at 1445 Mulberry?"
Finally she looked at me. "You've been to her house?"
"So it's true. You know her address, so it must be true that Elton is my father."
"Nola, now isn’t the time to discuss this. It's a very touchy subject for me."
"What's a touchy subject?" Walter entered the kitchen with an unlit cigar hanging in his mouth. He walked straight across and had his hand on the patio door.
"Touchy for you?"
The nerve
. "I'm just discovering that my father may or may not be my father after almost thirty years. All I'm asking is for the truth!”
My mother said nothing. She just looked at my father.
My blood boiled. I yelled loud enough to rock the house, "IS IT TRUE??"
"YES, IT'S TRUE!" my father roared.
"Walter—“ My mother rubbed his arm.
"—Who do you think you are coming in here attacking your mother for something a monster did to create you? You're a bastard child who's lucky to be alive! You should've been aborted. You're an ingrate. A worthless piece of--"
"Enough!" That was the first time I've heard my mom yell at him.
"She's a moron for not questioning this sooner." He snarled at me, "Take a look in the mirror. Take a really close look at your skin, genius. You're not white."
I questioned my skin tone just once when I was younger. My mother assured me that everyone on her grandfather’s father side tanned darker. That I took after them.
I swung around and grabbed the knife my mother was using. Filled with rage. Encompassed with thoughts like,
Kill him. Just kill him. He ruined you and Dominic. He deserves to die."
I could taste the salty tears on my lips.
"Ha! She wants to end up in jail like her real father." My father was sweating. Even when he was afraid, he managed to be a jerk.
I moved in closer on in them. My eyes bounced back and forth from him to my mom—She deserved to go too.
My mother begged, "Nola. Please. Please put the knife down sweetie."
My father taunted me, "Now that you got it, you better use it!"
"WALTER SHUT UP! JUST SHUT UP!" My mother’s face was red. Her eyes were daggers, and from the look on my father's face they stabbed him much worse than what the knife in my hand could have.
"Nola. I know you are angry. Dominic is gone and now this, but hurting us will only hurt yourself." She pressed her hands together. "Sweetheart. Please put the knife down."
Right then my father rushed me. The back of my head hit the tiled floor. He and I both gripping the knife, swinging it aimlessly. I was kicking and screaming. He was cramming his elbow into my chest, his knees thrusting into my abs. My mother was shrieking with horror, "Stop it! Stop it!"
I bit him. Sunk my teeth right into his forearm. And then he smacked me. His thick white hands felt like plywood to the left side of my face. I dropped the knife. As I held my jaw, I felt blood dripping on my thighs.
He stabbed me! I'm stabbed!
But, I could only feel the pain from my face. Not even a second later, I heard my father yelp in agony.
"It was an accident, Walter." My mother was holding the bloody knife.
***
"It was no accident." My mother whispered in my ear and patted my head.
I hopped off the hospital bed, grabbed my purse, and shoved in the script for ibuprofen that the ER doctor prescribed for my swollen face. I had nothing to say to her. Twenty-nine to thirty years was much too long to try to come to my defense.
My mother touched my arm. With beautiful pleading and desperate eyes she said, "Please say something."
"Did Elton really rape you? Don't lie to me. I already know I was conceived before any of that alleged rape happened. Walter may not know, but I know." I tore off my hospital gown and tossed it on the bed. "So, did he beat you up that night or did Walter?"
She said nothing. Just winced and sucked in her beautiful pouting lips, perhaps tasting the very fallacious statements she once fed a courtroom. She swung her beautiful silky jet-black hair over shoulder and rolled her eyes to the window as if the truth was out there, drifting in the wind.
I waited for the answer for five, maybe ten, minutes before I realized that I wasn't going to get one. I threw the strap of my Chanel maxi purse over my shoulder.
"Go be with your husband. They say he's four rooms down."
"Nola—“
"Did Elton Camper rape you? Answer that flat out. Did. He. Rape. You??"
"I couldn’t get a divorce. I needed your father to help me through medical school."
"You are disgusting."
"I didn't want any of this to spiral out of control—‘
"You are so freakin disgusting! Don't speak to me. Don't ever speak to me!"
***
I felt like I hit rock bottom when I checked into the very hotel Marley’s bridesmaids used for the bridal shower. It was all I could afford. The concierge helped me lug all of my bags and boxes into the tiny hotel room. If I hadn’t been in a rush to move out of my parents’ house before they got home from the ER, I would have planned it better. At least found storage until I found an apartment. Anything was better than living in that house of lies. When the concierge left with a small tip balled in his fist, I plopped on the bed, slid off my sneakers, then got up to shut the shutters. I pulled out one of Dominic's trains from the box labeled Dom’s Locomotives and then gripped it in my hand. I sobbed. I sobbed. I sobbed until I sobbed myself to sleep.