“Do tell.”
“And I don’t know, something just went all through me.”
“Sounds like the Holy Ghost to me.”
“That was it, Miz Ida. A brighter day is coming and I realized that part of my brighter day is my Todd. I want my husband back. I love Todd, but I don’t know how to fix it. I’m the one that made the decision to walk out. What am I gonna do, just show up and say, ‘Honey, I’m home’?
“And I want to break it off with Trench. I’m through with that in my life. I told him not to come back after the last time I saw him. I know I let him back in after he hit me, but this time I told him that was it. Not that I haven’t said that before. Somehow I feel I need to tell him that it’s really over, so we can have closure. But if I call him—or leave a message with his momma—that’s going to be just like sending him a greeting card. He’ll come over and the whole cycle will just start over.”
“You can break the cycle, though, baby. You don’t want Trench—that was the old Michelle.”
“I know, Miz Ida. That’s why when I heard that song, I just starting singing in my heart. And I started praying right then. I did like you and Tonya do sometimes—I kept my eyes open and my mouth closed, but I started praying like crazy:
‘God, I need a brighter day. Lord, give me a brighter day!’
” Michelle began to sing the chorus again.
Miz Ida’s fanning arm went into second gear. “My goodness gracious! Things are turning around.”
“Well, that ain’t all, Miz Ida. When I got home this evening, I was flipping through that Bible Tonya gave me and I found something written in there called
Change Your Mind.
Wait a minute; let me read it to you.” Miz Ida could hear Michelle rustling and moving about in the background. Soon she returned to the phone.
“Here it is, Miz Ida. Listen.” Michelle began to read. “‘When I was a child, I was taught that it is a woman’s prerogative to change her mind. If you have become accustomed to a thought or a habit you should get rid of, stop what you are doing and change your mind.’
“Miz Ida, there was the answer! I could just change my mind. I made the decision to leave my husband. I knew when I was leaving—I knew a long time ago—that I had made a mistake, that I shouldn’t leave or that I needed to go home. I just didn’t know I could change my mind. Here it was written down—God was using a man I didn’t know to tell me it was my prerogative: I could change my mind.
“Then I started thinking, it’s not as easy as all that. What if I’m too late? But, I kept reading. Listen to this! ‘I know it isn’t easy, but it is so necessary. It will help you immeasurably to speak to yourself and say, “I am better than this!” You don’t have to change the other person’s mind. You just need to change your own.’
“Miz Ida, it was like every thought I had, the Lord was speaking right back to me.”
Miz Ida’s fanning arm had shifted to third. “Well, do tell. God is just good like that. Yes, He is!”
“Then I thought about Trench, again, Miz Ida.” The old woman’s fanning arm slowed back to second while she listened. “I don’t love him, Miz Ida, but I know him. He seems familiar to me. Why was I gonna risk losing Trench for a maybe with Todd?”
Michelle began to read again. “‘Be careful what you get used to. If you don’t watch out, you can become accustomed to negative things, things the Father never wanted you to have, like pain or abuse. Some people have become used to poverty. Some have become used to fighting. They feel at home in pain. They cleave to it because they understand it.’
“Miz Ida, it gave me chills. God was using this man to tell me my own story.”
Miz Ida’s arm had shifted back up to third. “It never fails to amaze me, Michelle, that God who sits so high still looks low and is watching over every little thing we do.”
“Then I thought, but what about Trench?”
Miz Ida’s arm slowed again. All of this stopping and starting was going to wear out her gears!
“I need to come to closure. I need to make peace with Trench about this—even as I know every time I invite him back in, there will never be peace. So, I kept reading. ‘Real victory occurs when you change your own mind. The power of choice is a great power. Be careful that you do not give that power away. It is your right to choose how you want to live. Even God respects that right.
‘Instead of asking an abuser if he has had enough, you must ask yourself if you have had enough. This is always the greater question. Others may not ever get their fill of abusing you. If you have judged within yourself that abuse is not God’s will for you, why are you asking someone else to choose? The greater question still is, “Do you, as a daughter of the King, want to live in this circumstance?”’
“What was written was right, Miz Ida. Trench was never going to get enough. What was going on was working for him. It was serving his purpose. God was trying to tell me He didn’t want to talk to me about Trench. He was trying to talk to me about me.
“What I read told me that God wasn’t a bully, that He didn’t force His will on anyone. It told me that God has all power, but He loves me enough to give me free choice.”
“Wonderful Savior!” Miz Ida’s fan was back at third gear.
“I am a child of the King, Miz Ida.”
“Yes, you are, Michelle.”
“And my daddy loves me so much He wants to protect me. He doesn’t want me hurt anymore, not on the inside or the outside. He loves me so much—even with all I’ve done—God wants me to come back home.” Michelle began to cry.
“Don’t you be ashamed to cry, baby. You give God thanks for those tears. They just show that God is giving you a new tender heart. And that’s a good thing.”
Michelle cleared her throat. “Then I thought, ‘God, what if I do all this and it’s too late? What if I do all this and Todd won’t take me back? No man in his right mind would take me back after all I’ve done to him.’ Then I read to the end, Miz Ida. ‘By God’s rich grace, you have the power to see a miracle. Don’t forfeit it or forsake it. You can change your situation whenever you get ready.’
14
“Miz Ida, I just started shouting like I used to see you do. I’m scared to hope, but I’m going to do it anyway—I’m not giving up my chance at a miracle! So ever since this afternoon, I been praying. And I just keep singing to myself. And I keep thinking, a brighter day is coming!”
Miz Ida’s arm was moving so fast, the magazine was a blur. “Michelle, honey, I tell you something is about to turn around. Something happens when women start thinking and praying. Girl, you just hold on to your hat and get ready, get ready, get ready! It’s going to be a brighter day indeed!”
M
iz Ida had just settled herself down for the night. She had on her blue terry-cloth robe, her favorite yellow threadbare cotton nightgown, her pink satin nightcap with the red lace hanging off of the rim, and a pair of white socks. For some reason, she just felt like sleeping on the couch, so she grabbed her pillow and threw a quilt over herself. Whatever came, she was ready. But she was counting on a good night’s sleep.
Just when the lights were out, just when she got her head and neck adjusted right on her pillow, that’s when the pink princess began to scream again.
“Hold on there, now.” She and the pink princess were getting quite a workout lately. She peeked at the clock. It was almost twelve. Thank goodness for the glow from the telephone dial pad. She and the pink princess were very well-acquainted, but a body could break her neck feeling around for her phone in the dark.
Besides, who would be calling at such a crazy hour?
“Hello, Miz Ida.” It was Michelle again. “I called him.”
“You called who?”
“I called Todd and I had to call you back to tell you what was going on . . .”
Michelle felt so nervous and giddy, as though she were thirteen. At least she figured this was what most thirteen-year-old girls must feel like: tongue tied and embarrassed. She had rehearsed over and over again what she was going to say to Todd when she talked to him. But when he answered the phone, Michelle’s planned speech left her. She should have known it wouldn’t be as easy as she had imagined.
It had seemed like such a good idea. She had felt so confident before she called him.
It won’t be a big deal. I’ll just say something real smooth-like: “Daddy, order in, Mama’s coming home.”
She had imagined herself saying it so cavalierly, and with so much feminine confidence. Maybe she would say it like Angela Bassett—with mocha-colored sassiness, passion, and an overcoming attitude. Or maybe she would speak to Todd with the quirky, befuddled charm and ardor of some romantic klutz in a paperback novel.
But when she heard her husband’s voice on the other end of the line, she did neither.
“Hello.” Todd always sounded so calm and steady. Michelle missed that. She missed laying her head on his chest and listening to him breathe. She missed him, but for some reason—probably the thirteen-year-oldness of it all and the vulnerability of putting her heart into the hands of a man that she had wounded so deeply—Michelle just could not speak.
“Hello. Hello? Is somebody there?”
Click!
She hung up!
“You did what, Michelle?”
“I just hung up on him, Miz Ida! What was on my mind? No, I know what was on my mind: nothing.”
Miz Ida shook her head. “Oh, baby. Oh my, goodness. Well, baby, it’s not the end of the world.”
“I know it’s not, Miz Ida.”
“It could happen to anybody. You probably just got so nervous.”
“That’s what happened, Miz Ida.”
“You’ve come so far. You know the Lord is with you. You can just get up your nerve and call him back.”
“I already did, Miz Ida. That’s why I had to call you.”
Todd sounded a little more businesslike, like he had a little less patience to deal with foolishness, when he answered the second time. “Hello?”
Michelle still couldn’t speak. She could hardly breathe.
Todd’s voice took on that sound that men use when they’ve lost patience. It was the sound that said,
All right, don’t mess with me now. I’m not your mother.
“Hello,” he said again. Then, “Look, whoever this is, I don’t have time for—”
“Todd, it’s me. It’s Michelle.” She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, you must think I’m crazy.”
He was quiet on the other end.
“I know it’s getting late. I don’t mean to bother you. I just wanted to talk to you—I just needed to talk to you.”
His voice sounded guarded. “It
is
a little late, Michelle.” She could hear in his voice, though he tried to cover it, how deeply she had hurt him. “I guess I can talk a few minutes.”
“I miss you, Todd.”
He didn’t say anything. He wasn’t making it easy. Or maybe he was too vulnerable to respond.
“Todd, I was thinking . . .” What was she going to say?
I was thinking that even though I’ve batted your heart around like a hockey puck, I want to come back home.
“I was thinking that I’d like to go to church with you on Sunday.” Where had
that
come from? It hadn’t been part of what she’d practiced saying, but it was something she had been thinking about. It was one of her new fantasies—to be sitting next to him again. She wanted to sit with him in joy now where she’d sat so many other times full of resentment. “I think I’d like to go to church.”
He was quiet for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was subdued. “Michelle, what’s going on? Do you need something? Because if you need something—you don’t have to play games with me. You don’t have to mess with my head to get me to help you.”
It was like a knife in her chest, the knowledge of how badly she had hurt him. It was so clear, now, how deep she had cut him. The pain in his voice spoke volumes about the trust she had violated.
“Todd, I’m sorry. I don’t need anything. I just . . . I just want to start over. I just want . . . I want to say I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to feel sorry for me, Michelle. I’m a grown man. I can handle it.”
“That’s why I’m calling, Todd. You don’t have to handle it anymore.”
He cleared his throat. “Look, Michelle, do you get some kind of freaky kick out of being cruel? Why would you call me in the middle of the night to tell me that you’re divorcing me? Why would you call me and tell me you want to go to church with me? Is that my consolation prize?”
Michelle thought of all the times that Todd had bared his soul to her. She thought of all the times he had stood before her emotionally and spiritually naked. It was time for her to get naked herself, to uncover the woman that she truly was.
“When I heard Todd’s voice, I knew that I had to stop hiding.”
Michelle’s voice sounded so sad on the other end of the line. Miz Ida wanted to just wrap her in her arms. She wanted to hold Michelle as she had held her when she was a child. “Oh, baby, I wish I could just hold you.”
“You know what, Miz Ida? When I heard the pain in his voice, I remembered how I used to feel as a child. I remembered how unloved and rejected I felt. I remembered how I kept trying to offer my mother love, how I kept chasing after her affection. And I realized that I was doing the same thing to Todd that she had done to me.
“I always loved Todd. I was just too afraid to show it. I was too afraid to put my heart in his hands. I was too afraid to trust him with my love. When I heard Todd’s voice, I realized that my mother was afraid to love me. She was afraid to show me that she loved me, to risk putting her heart on the line.”
“Glory to God, baby. You finally see it.”
“It’s so sad, Miz Ida. Todd had to let his heart be broken in order to heal mine. When that thought came to me, I realized that all this time Todd has been giving me sacrificial love. Todd has been loving me all along—as the Bible says—like Christ loves the church.
“He took me with spots, wrinkles, and warts. Todd stood in front of me and covered my sins. What greater love is there than that, Miz Ida? He laid down his heart for me. He trusted his precious love in my hands, even though he knew—even if I recovered from my wounds—that I was most likely going to hurt him. Todd took me on and paid the price for things other people did to me, sins he didn’t even commit. What greater romance is there than that?”