Chapter 18
... Your lips have spoken lies; your tongue hath muttered perverseness.
Isaiah 59:3
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“Mr. Wright, you don't look well.” Job could feel Isabel shaking him, but his tongue wouldn't allow him to respond. He was surprised he had the ability to stand, given the devastation.
The house at 2333 Rong was a smoke-ridden façade. When he took a short stroll around either of its sides, there was a hull, a maze of charred studs and ashen adobe. The roof had caved in. Their furniture had been water baptized or incinerated. Monica's Camry looked fire-bombed. Nothing was salvagable. Their estate had been totaled.
Isabel continued ranting even though Job wasn't prepared to hear anymore. “The fire department's not sure when the blaze started, but they were still fighting it around three o'clock. Around the time you usually get home. Isn't that the time you usually get home?”
Our house, our house.
“And Monica's where?”
“County General. Thank goodness ...”
“What?”
Isabel looked around with her jellybean blue eyes. “I don't know if it's my place to say.”
Job had reached his patience-peak. He was aware that half her time was spent in somebody else's business while the other half was not in hers. “If you have some information I need to know, then you need to tell it.”
She swallowed. Her cheeks began to flush. “Fortunately, Larry and Fontella were available. They took care of Mrs. Wright. Followed her to the hospital.”
He understood Isabel's implication. She was right. He had been MIA.
“I told the Logans to go ahead; they should drive to the hospital. I stayed here in case someone tried to loot your home.”
Job raised his arms, slapped them against his side, and shook his head. “Nothing here to take.” He picked up a stone and hurled it toward an unbroken window. It shattered. “Now it looks like the front is burned, too.” He glanced at Isabel. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you.”
“Iâyour house is goneâwho knows how anyone would act in your situation. I'm fine, but, how are you?”
“I can't concentrate on me right now. Lemme get to the hospital.” He opened the car door, getting in. “I guess Monica can clue me in on what happened.”
“If she's able to talk. Mrs. Wright inhaled quite a bit of smoke. She was hoarse and semiconscious when the ambulance left here.”
“Don't tell me that.” Job slammed the car door and rolled down the window. “This is amazing. Will you watch out for us?”
Isabel assured him that that was one favor he didn't have to ask. He bet he didn't.
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After the front desk attendant pointed in the direction of Monica's hospital room, he wasted no time getting there.
He peeped inside, where a nurse was adjusting an oxygen mask, while Fontella fluffed a pillow.
Larry, who was bedside, caught Job's eye and swiftly made his way out to the hall, closing the door behind him. “Hey, my friend, take my advice.”
Job asked, “What's the matter?”
“Don't go in there, brother.” He looked back into the room. Whatever excuse you've got for being unreachable, she isn't hearing it right now.”
Job didn't concern himself with what others may have considered reasoning, no matter how sound Larry's advice might have been. “That's my wife in that room,” he shouted.
Larry didn't seem agitated by the outburst. He wrapped his arm around Job's shoulder and escorted him from the doorway.
“You can't be any more correct,” Larry whispered, “but take my word. Man to man? Let things cool off.” His warning had the strictest sincerity.
“I know we're having some troubles, but not wanting to speak to me after a tragedy like this is a bit over the top.”
“She's not the only one. Fontella's kinda hot with you right now, too. Of course, the women have one side of the story.”
“Of course.”
And I can't give my side.
“They found your wife unconscious on the front landing. Did you get any of your messages ?”
Job had listened to one of Isabel's, but had neglected the others. He gave himself a mental kick, figuring he could have pieced the sequence of events together had he taken the time to retrieve all the voice mails. “I was consumed with trying to get home.”
Larry's eyes preached suspicion. “Well, thank God Monica's life was spared. Possessions can be replaced. Things are just what they are. But the Lord saw fit to see her out of the house in time.”
Job planted his fingers against his eyebrows and squeezed. He sighed and then mumbled, “Yeah. Thank ... God.”
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While Monica was laying in the hospital bed, her line of sight was skewed, but that didn't affect her ability to hear Fontella. Although it was just the two of them inside a sparse hospital room, Monica felt a comfort there, and Fontella's calm demeanor was an antidote for her fears. Monica explained to her that responsible, married men can be contacted at any time during emergencies. So she had a question. Where had Job been?
Fontella had taken a seat on the vinyl chair that converted into a bed. She didn't offer any answer to Monica's question. She did say that, in all fairness, Job needed to be heard.
Monica nodded her head to keep from speaking aloud. Her throat had a flaming sensation, and her eyes kept tearing from the prescription drops she had been given.
“He's been here two hours now,” Fontella told her. “Larry can't keep him out of this room much longer.”
Monica lifted the oxygen mask away from her mouth, even though the elastic strap held it close to her head. “What kind of excuse ... could he give you?”
Fontella's brow furrowed. “Who, me? If it was Larry.” She inhaled through the mask and then swallowed. “Oh. Well. I don't know.” She pulled the bed's cover sheet taut. “But I know that listening to what your husband has to say could help you decide. Hear him out, and then make up your mind.”
Monica understood Fontella's point, but she knew that Job's explanation wouldn't give her any satisfaction. She was worn out, irritated, and sick. If Job loved her, he would wait until she could stand his presence.
Fontella rose out of the chair, moved over toward the bed, and began straightening the sheets. “If you love him, Monica, you'll agree to see him.”
“If he loves me,” Monica paused to take a breath, “he'll respect me, and not come in here.” She slanted her head sideways to look across the room.
“That's fine.” Fontella took a seat in the reclining chair and crossed her arms. She met Monica's eyes with a forceful gaze. “Now that it seems we're going to have some quiet, no nurses interrupting, I can talk to you.”
Monica lifted her free arm, palm up.
“You rest. I'll do the talking. I really want you to listen.”
There was a brief silence before Fontella sat back in the chair and continued. “I haven't known you two for very long. Somehow, I knew right off we'd be friends. So I'm gonna speak as a true, honest-to-God friend.”
Monica nodded. She was drugged, upset and weary, but curiosity kept her awake.
“I was born in a little place down South. Bunn, North Carolina. My grandmother still lives there, bless her country soul. Had this saying when I was a child. I could attract more bees with honey than vinegar.”
When Monica grunted, she fogged the mask, blurring her line of sight.
“I didn't understand it then. She was telling me that sweetness can get more out of a person than driving them to anger.”
Monica coughed. She pulled the mask, strap and all, away from her face, off her head. “Job isn't like that all the time. He can be sweet.”
“Not talking about Job.”
A moment went by. Memories of things Monica had said suddenly rushed to the forefront. “You have no idea what I've been through.”
“Maybe not. But if you love him, if you're trying to stay with him, you got to work with the brother. Give him a chance.”
“While ago, you were as angry as me.”
“I was. But not hearing the reason why you couldn't reach him is eating you. It's better to have his excuse out in the open. I'll pray for forgiveness about being angry. Later.”
Monica's eyes began raining the pain that her heart felt. Fontella had informed her that nothing was recoverable from their home. She almost lost her life, had it not been for her strength, her faith.
Thank you, God. You've kept me here for some reason.
Fontella told her that she should talk to her man. “There must be some good qualities in him. He's been patiently sitting outside. Think about it.”
Thinking was all Monica had been doing. Her brain was in a stressful overload and needed a release. At the moment, Job was all she had. She sniffed, wiping water from her face. “He can come in.”
“Will do,” Fontella said as she rose from the chair. “I'll wait outside.”
“Don't leave,” Monica told her.
“I'll be out in the hall. We're not going anywhere. Monica, I'm praying for his salvation. But I'm praying for your spiritâthat you get the answers you need.”
Monica didn't ask Fontella for clarification, but prayer was the only device that she felt would help her through the ordeal.
Job crept through the door and plastered himself against a far wall. Monica had seen lobsters in a tank more relaxed.
“I'm sorry, honey,” he said. “I'm so sorry.”
Surely, he wouldn't have thought a simple apology was all he needed to make. Monica did not try to hide her anger, but she strained to keep her frustration from going into overload. If she allowed herself to go over the top, it would show and Job would clam up; their discussion would come to an abrupt end. “Where were you?” she asked.
His lengthy hesitation made her curious. Job started air washing his hands in a taut, circular motion, like an obsessive compulsive. “Huh?” was his response, as though he'd forgotten what she had asked.
She shook her head. “Nobody could find you. Nobody.”
“I know, Iâ”
She raised her hand to cut him off. “Wonder what you needed to do that was so important.” Monica grabbed the oxygen mask, inhaled deeply, and then she let it down. “This isn't like forgetting to meet me at a restaurant. And even that would be bad.”
Job began to scrub his hands and shift his weight from side to side. “I never would've guessed you were home. I thought you worked all day.”
“I came home not long after talking to you.”
“I didn't know. Our house burning down was the last thing on my mind.”
“Home is a place where anyone would expect to find me,” Monica told him. She stopped for a moment because her temples began to throb. She lifted her hand in the air and fanned as vigorously as her strength would allow. It helped her get her thoughts on track. “But you're avoiding the question. Where were you?”
Job dropped his head and whispered, “I was off-campus at an after school meeting.”
She didn't believe him, and she didn't care if he could tell that she didn't. All she wanted to do then was prove he was lying. “No one could reach you, Job.”
“IâI had silenced my cell phone to keep from being disturbed.”
The air smelled thick, hard to breathe. Her heart raced. The moments of her escape from danger replayed in her mind. “Vibrate.”
Job bent away from the wall toward her. “What'd you say?”
“You could've put your phone on vibrate.”
Job didn't answer back.
“I feel like trouble follows us wherever we go. Now you've brought me out here to Phoenix, and you're doing a sorry job of protecting me. I'm just sick.” Monica couldn't hold the tears and hurt any longer. Between sniffling and coughing, she told him, “We're done talking right now.”
“There's no way we could anticipate a fire, honey. No way.” That was all he said, all he offered as an explanation. That was no explanation.
Monica twisted away from him; she couldn't stand another minute with his presence. “Go do whatever it is you have to do, Job.”