The frosting bag in Carmella’s hand dropped, as her hands went to her mouth. She had no idea that she would be this devastated to hear that Nelson had gotten another woman pregnant. “Oh my God,” she said as she started backing away from the table. She wanted to run to her bedroom and lock the world out as she digested this news.
“Mom, wait,” Joy said, as she grabbed hold of her mother.”
“I just need a moment, Joy. I’ll be back, okay?”
“No, I don’t want you to go.” Joy hugged her mother. “It’s not true, anyway. Jasmine isn’t pregnant, so don’t get upset for nothing.”
Carmella pulled away from her daughter and then glanced over at the radio. “But they just said—”
“I gave that information to the media. I never told them that she was pregnant, but I insinuated it.”
Carmella sat down. She lowered her head as she inhaled and exhaled. As she calmed herself, she turned back to her daughter. “Why would you do something like this, Joy?”
“Instead of asking me why I would do what I did, why don’t you ask him how he could have done all this to you?”
“You had no right to put our business out there for everyone to hear. How do you think this makes me feel? Now I have to go to this party tonight and face all of these people while trying to get business from them.” At this point Carmella wanted to call Rose and cancel. If this event had been for anyone but Rose, she would have done just that. She took a deep breath, decided to put one foot in front of the other and move forward.
Carmella got back to putting the frosting on her items. She tried her best to ignore Joy as she floated around the kitchen. But alas, Joy would not be ignored.
“I’m sorry, Mom. Don’t be mad at me.”
Carmella shook her head, still steaming at what Joy had done.
“I did it for you, Mom.”
Carmella gripped the edge of her prep table as she told Joy, “I never asked you to humiliate me. Nor did I ask you to lampoon your father’s chances of getting re-elected.”
“He doesn’t deserve that job. He’s a hypocrite.”
Carmella blew out an exhausted breath. “Joy, one day you are going to have to find a way to forgive your father. I don’t want you going through life bitter and unyielding.”
“I’m not bitter and unyielding,” she declared.
Carmella held up a hand. “I don’t have time for this right now. Let’s just finish getting everything together and get through this event.” Before turning back to her pastries, Carmella pointed a stern finger in Joy’s face, “But I’ll tell you right now, Joy Lynn Marshall, I’m going to make sure that you are the one passing out the pastries tonight. I’m going to stay at my station and let you handle all of the people who want to tell you how sorry they are about your dad.”
“It’s the least I can do for you, Mom. And again, I’m sorry that I embarrassed you. I hadn’t thought about the other side of this story when I was passing it on to the media.”
***
Rose’s party was fabulous. And even though Carmella worried about receiving pity comments from the guests at the party, no one bothered them. She passed out her business cards and received orders from five of the guests. As they were driving home, Carmella’s phone rang.
It was Deidre. Carmella pushed the phone button on her steering wheel and said “Hello?”
Deidre’s voice traveled through the car as she said, “I have good news. Nelson signed the divorce papers.”
Joy rolled her eyes.
“Are you kidding?” Carmella said, “I thought he didn’t want to sign until after the election?”
“Apparently, having everyone know that he’s living with his girlfriend without the benefit of a divorce from his wife is a big problem for his career goals,” Deidre said.
“Okay, well thanks for letting me know.”
“You don’t seem happy,” Joy said with a worried expression on her face.
“I doubt if anyone is happy when their marriage comes to an end. And I had been married to your father for twenty-five years.” A tear flowed down her face as they pulled into the driveway. “I’ll be all right,” she told Joy as they got out of the car.
Carmella went to her bedroom, took a shower, threw on a pair of pajamas and then climbed into bed. She turned on the radio next to her bed. Let the Church Say Amen by Marvin Winans was playing and Carmella thought the sound was fitting for that evening. God had indeed spoken, her marriage was over and all she could do was say, “Amen”.
Joy ran into her room. “Mom, turn on the news.”
She turned the television on. Joy hurriedly put it on the news channel and Carmella saw Nelson being interviewed by a reporter, and he had the nerve to say, “Look, what could I do? My wife hired a lawyer and made all types of demands for a divorce. We’d been married for twenty-five years, but since she seemed ready to divorce me, I had no choice but to move on… and just for the record, I do not have a pregnant girlfriend.”
“Can you believe him? He’s putting the divorce on you, as if it was your idea.”
“He’s trying to save face. But it doesn’t bother me. Now let me make a quick call and then get some sleep, okay?”
“Are you sure you’re all right?”
Carmella nodded.
Joy left the room.
Carmella picked up the phone and dialed the number she’d wanted to dial from the moment she heard that she was a free woman. Life had thrown her for a loop, but thank God she was confident that she would be landing on her feet.
Ramsey answered the phone and said, “I’m so glad you called. My fingers were itching to call you, but I wasn’t sure if that was the right thing to do or not.”
“Well, did you pray about it?” she asked, holding her breath, waiting for the answer.
“I’ve been praying about us for a few weeks now. I’ve already gotten my answer; I’m just waiting on you to get on board.”
“Nelson signed the divorce papers, Ramsey.” She was a bit breathless as she made this declaration. Carmella could hardly believe the excitement growing in her at the thought of beginning again… with Ramsey.
“So, how about dinner,” Ramsey said.
She could hear the smile in his voice again. This time she wasn’t about to do anything to remove that smile. “I’d love to go to dinner with you.”
“Okay, let me make the reservation and I’ll let you know where we’ll be eating. Is tomorrow night okay with you?”
“Tomorrow is perfect.”
Carmella put the telephone back on the receiver and turned up her radio. They were playing Take Me to the King by Tamela Mann. Carmella pulled the cover over her body, exhaled as she laid everything at the feet of her King and then went to sleep, excited to see what tomorrow would bring.
Epilogue
After only three dates, Ramsey asked Carmella to marry him. But she said no. Perplexed by the matter, Ramsey took Carmella’s hands in his and said, “But we love each other. I can see it in your eyes, Carmella. You never stopped loving me.”
“I do love you so very dearly, Ramsey. You are the man of my dreams, but I’m on a journey with God right now, and I don’t want to stop until it’s finished.”
“You and I have so much in common, especially our love for God… Let me go on this journey with you.”
She pulled her hands away from Ramsey’s, and lightly touched his beautiful face. Carmella wanted to marry this man like she wanted to get up every morning and sing praises to the Lord. But she loved Ramsey too much to accept his offer at this moment in her life. “I can’t ask you to fix what another man has broken. I need to spend this time with God to heal myself and my children; can you understand that?”
Reluctantly, he nodded, leaned his forehead against hers and asked, “So what do we do now?”
She was tired of crying, but tears formed in her eyes anyway. “I have no right to ask you to stick around, or to wait on me to resolve my issues, but I sure wish you would.”
He kissed her, and then held her in his arms, not wanting to let her go. “I’m not going anywhere,” he told her.
Carmella was comforted by Ramsey’s words, but there was another man on her mind who she very much wanted to go somewhere, but it appeared as if his life had stalled on him. Dontae had received his acceptance letter from Princeton. Then a rejection letter came from Yale, but most importantly he then received an acceptance from Harvard, his father’s alma mater. But neither the acceptance nor the rejection moved him. Dontae seemed stuck. Carmella kept praying, but she was at her wits’ end as to how to get him to move forward with his life.
But one day while she and Joy were working on a pastry order at her prep table, Dontae came running into the kitchen, full of smiles and all bubbly as if he’d just been put in the running for the Heisman trophy. “Mom, you won’t believe,” he told Carmella as he grabbed her arms and swung her around.
Carmella grabbed a towel and wiped her hands off. “Boy, what in the world has you in such a state?”
He had to catch his breath, but when he did, he said, “A scout for the University of Alabama came to my football practice today. They want me to play, Mom. They’re going to give me a scholarship!”
Joy started jumping around the kitchen now. “Oh my God, Dontae, I’m so happy for you.”
But Carmella was puzzled. “We never discussed Alabama. I thought you were going to pick between Harvard and Princeton. Both those schools want you. Even if you don’t want to go to your daddy’s old school, why not go to Princeton? Do you know how many kids spend their lives wishing and praying for this opportunity?”
A little bit of light went out of Dontae’s eyes as he turned back to his mother. He shook his head. “I don’t want either of those opportunities, Mom—at least not for my undergrad. I want to play for the Crimson Tide, and they want me. This is the best news I’ve received all year long. Can’t you just be happy for me?”
What was she doing? Hadn’t she asked God for a miracle for her son? How had she been so boneheaded as to think that the miracle had been when Dontae received acceptance letters to two colleges that he didn’t want to go to in the first place? The miracle was standing right before her, his excitement about being able to play football for his favorite college team. Carmella would not be a foolish woman and continue arguing her point. She was just going to say Amen and get out of the way. “Well, I guess I’ll have to sell a ton of cakes and pies so I can fly to all of these Alabama games.”
At hearing those words, Dontae and Joy began jumping around the kitchen, again, giving each other high fives and doing dances that Carmella didn’t recognize. She stepped back and watched her children. Nelson had left them, but God would never leave. This was why happy moments like the one they were having now were still possible.
“One down and one more to go,” Carmella silently said to God as she lovingly glanced at her beautiful, big hearted, but bitter daughter.
Later that night as Carmella and Joy sat in front of the television watching the Cooking Channel, Carmella noticed that Joy wasn’t as interested as she in what the chefs were doing and she made a decision. Carmella turned to her daughter and said, “I want to thank you for helping me get my business started.”
“It’s been fun; don’t worry about it.”
“You’re fired,” was all Carmella said next.
Joy had been slouching on the sofa. She shot up. “I’m what? How can you fire your own daughter? And on what grounds? I have been a model employee… and if I haven’t been, you never told me anything was wrong.”
“Listen at you… arguing your case. Don’t you see, Joy? You weren’t meant to follow my dreams. You have to follow your own, and I know that you love the law. You’d be an excellent lawyer.”
Joy shook her head. “That was Daddy’s dream for me.”
“No, baby. Your father might be good at a lot of things, but he can’t put something in your heart that’s not already there.”
Joy’s fists curled as she punched the sofa, bitterness ruling her life. “I can’t do it. Daddy gets everything he wants. He won the election, even after I told the media how horrible he has been to you. If I finish law school, he’s won, and I don’t want that.”
Carmella wagged a finger in her daughter’s face. “Now you listen to me, Joy Lynn, you let the good Lord handle your daddy, because you can’t live with all this bitterness pumping through your veins.”
Joy shrugged, not caring how childish she appeared.
“And contrary to what you believe, your not finishing law school does not make you the winner… you’re the one losing out, because it’s the thing you want more than anything.”
They sat in silence for a while, Joy rolled her eyes and harrumphed a few times, but in the midst of it she must have been mulling things over, because when she finally spoke to Carmella again she said, “If I did go back to law school, maybe I could practice family law and help women like you when men like my father try to do them wrong, the same way Deidre helped you.”
Carmella nodded. “You could do that, if that is truly where your heart is.” She stood up and handed her daughter the remote. “I’m going to bed.”
“You mean, you’re going to call Ramsey,” Joy said as if her mother was a teenager and she was the parent.
“I’m going to mind my own business and I suggest you do the same,” Carmella told her as she headed upstairs to do exactly what Joy had said. She missed hearing Ramsey’s voice and had to know that he was still there for her. As she picked up the phone, Carmella realized that she had had three love affairs in her lifetime.
She’d loved Nelson for over twenty years, but now that love affair had come to an end. Ramsey had been her first love, and he was back in her life to stay this time, she hoped. But the third love affair had turned out to be the most important of all; it would be an enduring one, forever after. She didn’t have to wonder or guess about this love, because it was the love she shared with her Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ… all else would be secondary from here on out in the Marshall household.
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If you enjoyed the first book in the Praise Him Anyhow Series. Check out the preview of the other books on the following pages...
http://www.vanessamiller.com/ebooks
Joy Comes in the Morning