Chapter Thirteen
Michelle
It was well after 2
A
.
M
.
before I was finally able to even think about getting into bed. After accepting the fact that Twylah had broken into our house, and going to the police station to give a formal statement, I was beyond the normal level of exhaustion. I was still in a state of shock, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t understand why Twylah would invade our home when she could come in whenever she got ready.
Twylah had moved to Atlanta a few years ago, and we’d met in one of the aerobics classes in the gym. We’d hit it off instantly. We became friends and spent almost every Saturday shopping, getting manicures and pedicures, and eating Mexican food until heartburn forced us to stop. She had grown up as an only child, just as I had, and in our minds, we were to each other the sister that neither of us had.
We would spend countless hours talking about Rodney Landers, the man who had stolen and broken her heart all in the span of one year. She’d waited all twenty-three years of her life to give her virginity to a man, and when she decided to take that step (against her moral beliefs), she did so with the wrong man. Rodney had chased her, wined and dined her, wooed her, and everything else that would make a woman fall in love. And Twylah had fallen hard. Real hard. She became so depressed when their relationship ended that not only did she have to leave Charlotte, her birthplace, but North Carolina altogether. She couldn’t even bear to be in the same state with him. Especially not with him and his new wife—a white woman.
So, initially all of our conversations were about the life and death of Rodney Landers and Twylah Andrews.
Finally, one day over cheesecake, she swore to never let another day go by crying over a man who didn’t care about her in the first place. She decided to move on with her life and on to better things.
Reflecting back on all of the things that we’d shared, it was hard to imagine, yet alone grasp, Twylah doing something like this. She was the prime example of what my grandmother used to refer to as a wolf in sheep’s clothing. No matter how hard I tried, I could not think of anything that she ever did that would point to her doing something like this. Sure, she had little bouts of jealousy when it came to me asking Chanice for more than I asked her, but that certainly was not enough to justify this behavior. But one thing I’d learned in my thirty-one years of living: it’s common conduct for the devil to sneak up and catch you off guard. First, Daphne. Second, Dawn. Now, Twylah. Who and what was next?
Shortly after we acknowledged to the police that we knew who she was, I’d gone upstairs to survey the damage. Just as I’d imagined, she’d broken several of my crystal vases. Not just any vases, those vases had been heirlooms in my family, and Twylah knew that they were dear to my heart.
Tears had slowly begun to fall as I surveyed what used to be my great-grandmother’s fiftieth wedding anniversary vase and the matching diamond-encrusted plate that it sat on, broken into pieces finer than sand and strewn on the floor of my office. In searching the other rooms, I found one crystal heirloom after the other, demolished from the brutal attack of Twylah. The thing that baffled me most was that she had also broken every frame that held a picture of Darvin and me.
I was too tired to put any more effort into thinking about it. I resigned to deal with it later, and headed to the bedroom. Shortly after, Darvin walked into the room with the evidence of stress residing underneath his eyes and fatigue claiming his body. Darvin was unlike most men. He had a heart for people and a genuine concern for even those who abused him. I knew that he would wrestle for the remainder of the night, trying to determine what was going on in Twylah’s mind when she decided to raid our privacy.
Unlike me, he’d been leery of her from the beginning because of her baggage, but, I’d reassured him that her baggage was going to remain with her and would not have any bearings on me. After some time, he began to trust her, and his initial suspicions had been replaced with an authentic love for her and her well-being.
As much as I didn’t want to, I knew that I had to talk to her in order to get some answers. Something had to be wrong. The woman that I’d grown to know was not the woman who would do something like this. There had to be some sort of explanation.
“Baby, you still awake?” Darvin asked as he began to shed what was once a neatly starched shirt and creased dress slacks.
“Yes, honey. Can’t seem to fall asleep.”
He sighed. “I feel you. I don’t know how I will sleep tonight myself.” An understood silence lurked in the room as Darvin took his place next to me in our bed. It wasn’t long before he broke it. “Baby, I’m going to look into hiring twenty-four hour security for you. I know that’s not something that you’re fond of, but I just can’t trust anybody anymore. You could have been hurt tonight, and considering all that we’ve been through, I think it’s time to take another approach to our safety.”
I didn’t even have the energy to fight him, even though I’d always said that pastors with security were just going overboard.
Before marrying Darvin, I’d had my share of gossiping with my fellow hair salon associates about pastors and their wives and how arrogant—not to mention, unreachable—they were. I’d always complained about how you had to go through a secretary to get to talk to a pastor, when in the old days, it was common to see a pastor hanging out and having dinner at a member’s house on any given day. But things had changed, and it took me wearing the shoes to understand. After stretching ourselves from one end to the other trying to get around to every dinner, every funeral, every hospital, every birth, every family reunion, and every other social event in the lives of our congregation, we soon realized that we couldn’t do it all. We realized that if we wanted to live long, productive lives and see our children grow up, we’d better slow down and allow some things to be delegated. Now, every appearance request for us had to go through our respective assistants, and “our” time was “our” time. No matter what. Darvin called it “First Church.” After all, God created the institution of marriage before the church was created.
So, regardless of what I previously thought about pastors, their wives, and their methods of doing things, here I was staring their same mountains in the face. And like it or not, this was the life we had to live.
“Darvin?”
“Yes, baby?” From the sound of his voice, it was obvious that sleep was trying to settle in.
“Do you think that God is trying to tell us something with all of these things happening to us?”
“I don’t know. Why do you think that?”
“Well, I can’t help but wonder why it seems that we can never just find peace. It’s like when we get over one thing, something else comes along.” I paused. “It’s like we’re cursed.”
Darvin rolled over onto his side to face me. “Michelle, you know that if the devil isn’t after us, then that means we are no threat to him.” He sat up on his elbows to further drive in his point. “He knows where God is taking us, and he has waged war on us. We’ve just got to be strong and weather this storm.”
I released a deep sigh. “But I’m tired of weathering storms. Every time I turn around, I’m hearing the same thing. You’re coming out. This is your year for a breakthrough. And to be honest, I’m sick of coming out. I want to be out.”
“Baby, do you think that we’re exempt from trials?” He didn’t wait for my response. “Because we are not. We are just like every other Christian, but because of who we are, the warfare is stronger. Because we are called by God for His work, the devil’s assignment is to take us out, and if he can’t do that, he will try to get us to take ourselves out.” He rested on his back.
“The worst thing we can do is give up now. You don’t have to tell me that you’re tired. I know that you are. I’m tired. But I have to keep pressing. I have to be determined to press on, no matter how much I don’t want to.” He touched my hand. “I need to know that I can count on you, Michelle. I need to know that you aren’t going to throw in the towel.”
Darvin was unaware of the tears streaming down my face. Some of my tears were for Twylah. Some were for my own situation and fatigue. And some were for my husband, who sometimes didn’t know how to stop being the pastor. I knew that he was exhausted, yet he was preaching to me.
As he kept talking, I closed my eyes and partially listened. There was one part of me that wanted to get excited about the trials we were going through because I knew that after every great storm, there is a great calm, a season of peace. A season of tranquility. But the other part of me was raging at the havoc in my life, wondering when it would all end. Just when I thought things were looking up, situations sent me downhill again.
And the new issue with Twylah was an entirely different problem. It wasn’t so much that Twylah had broken into our house. My concern was if someone as close to me as Twylah could cause such devastation, what could someone who wasn’t as close do? People didn’t understand how hard it was for pastors to trust people. It was hard to discern when someone had your best interests in mind, or when they were just trying to get in your business in hopes of getting some dirt on you to expose.
For Twylah to do this meant that I’d missed something. As hard as it was for me to trust people, somehow she’d gotten past my spiritual radar. I shuddered at the thought. Here I was focused on the enemy outside of the camp, when there was a mole inside of the camp all along. And God only knew how much damage she’d really done.
“Babe, are you asleep?” Darvin asked.
“No. I don’t think I’ll be getting too much sleep tonight.”
He leaned over and put his hand on my stomach. “Listen, I know it’s hard for you to do, but I don’t want you to worry. I’m going to take care of this and make sure that you don’t ever have to go through anything like this again.” He rubbed my stomach gently. “We have a baby on the way, and I need you to make sure that you stay as stress-free as possible. I want you to get some rest. It’s not good for you or the baby.”
I put my hand on top of his. “I know, sweetie. I’m trying. I don’t want to do anything to hurt the baby.” I allowed my eyes to close, and imagined our little one. “I’ve wanted this baby for so long, and I just can’t do anything to jeopardize this.” At that moment, the floodgates reopened.
As if he could see in the dark, Darvin gently smoothed away my waterfall with the stroke of his finger. I savored his touch and allowed myself to rest in the comfort of the moment. For a split second, I allowed myself to forget about the drama and embrace the blessings that God had given on us.
Yes, things were a little bleak in our lives, but God had still been good.
And no matter what, I knew I had to survive this.
Chapter Fourteen
Michelle
The Fulton County Jail was overcrowded with inmates and baby mamas. Staff members were trying to get a handle on the multiple situations that were going on. I felt a twinge of apprehension as I was being escorted to the room where Twylah was waiting for me.
Darvin was livid the next morning when I’d told him that I wanted to see Twylah. But I explained to him that my need to speak to her to attain closure was something that I had to do. I had to try to get some sort of explanation to make sense of it all.
The guard led me into a room where several inmates sat and talked to their respective family members, friends, and attorneys. Some inmates sat with looks of regret on their faces, and others with demeanors that could not be interpreted.
My attention suddenly focused on a young woman sitting in the back of the room with a shred of light beaming on her sandy-colored hair from the slit in the wall too small to be considered a window. Twylah seemed so downtrodden, I’d almost forgotten the reason she was incarcerated in the first place.
I squirmed as I felt my heart experiencing a tug of war. One side was pulling against her, almost happy to see her miserable in a place filled with criminals such as herself. The other side was pulling for her, silently wondering how she could be helped and released. The battle continued as I got closer to the table where she was sitting. The closer I got, the more I felt that my feet were in chains, making each step harder and harder to take.
Once at the table, I nodded to the guard, thanking him, and slowly took my seat across from Twylah. She sat with her head down.
“Twylah?” I spoke softly. She kept her head down with no response. “I know that you’re probably embarrassed by your actions, but I just want to talk to you.” I wrung my hands together as if I were squeezing water from a sponge. Realizing that Twylah wasn’t about to offer any words, I continued.
“I’m not sure what happened last night, but I’m here to talk to you as your friend, not as your first lady.” I shifted in the metal chair that was provided for visitors to sit in. “I know that the person who broke into my home last night was not the person who I’ve come to know. So I guess what I want to know is . . . why did you do it?”
Twylah lifted her head with not a single tear in her eyes or an ounce of remorse on her face. Without having to check my compact mirror, I knew that confusion was etched on my face. Here I was, sitting across from a woman who’d nearly tried to destroy my house, and she had the audacity to sit in my presence and show no sorrow?