Chapter Forty-one
Six weeks after Deborah's confrontation with her pastor, Deborah was feeling better than ever. Before leaving her pastor's house, the two of them had gone online and found a Christian psychiatrist. Deborah had returned home where she and Mother Doreen spent the night praying and reading scripture. Before Mother Doreen returned to Kentucky that next morning, she'd helped Deborah schedule her first doctor's appointment.
Mentally, Deborah had never been in a better place. She'd been going to church, Bible Study, the singles ministry meetings, and counseling sessions with her pastor. All of this had been very beneficial, including her weekly visits with her psychiatrist and the prescriptions he'd prescribed to her. Happy pills was what Deborah called them, but pure joy was what she called what the Lord gave her.
Renewed, refreshed, revived were just a few words to describe how Deborah had felt these past few weeks. Blessed was another word. And one blessing in particular was her case with Children Services being closed without any charges being brought up against her. Pastor Margie and Deborah's mother had joined her at a mediation-type hearing with the woman who had come to her door. If it hadn't been for them being there to support her, God only knows what could have happened. So paying it forward, in a sense, Deborah made sure she showed up at Helen's court hearing to support her. Deborah didn't think twice about going to the state prosecutor's office and telling them the truth about the incident at the diner. Deborah was their main witness, and after her giving them her latest statement, they knew their initial charges wouldn't stick. They ended up dropping the charges and advised Helen as to how to get the arrest expunged.
“That's the least you could have done,” Helen had told Deborah with a wink before the two shared a hug outside of the courtroom.
The charges against Helen being dropped meant that Helen's dream of owning her own childcare business was once again a possibility. And Deborah promised Helen her son would be the first to enroll.
Speaking of her son, Deborah had laid him down for a nap of couple hours ago. During his nap, she'd done something she hadn't done for quite a long time. She'd dusted off her book she'd started writing years ago and began working on it again. And it was pretty darn good, if she did say so herself. It would certainly give Mr. Lynox Chase a run for his money. But Lynox was no longer a factor in Deborah's world. The day he stepped out of her door and the social worker stepped in, her only focus became her son. And then she focused on getting herself better with her son. As much as her heart, mind, body, and soul craved Lynox, with as much as she was going through, factoring him in might have only made things worse.
Even though she hadn't wanted to, she blocked Lynox out of her life. Those two times he'd called her cell phone, she'd let the calls go to her voice mail. When she'd checked her messages and heard his voice, she deleted those messages as well. The e-mails he'd sent her had been deleted too. Right now, things were looking too good in Deborah's life for any setbacks. She knew the only reason Lynox was trying to reach out to her was to question her about her lies and then officially dump her. Well, her spirit couldn't handle that, so to avoid the drama, she avoided him until he finally got a clue and gave up trying to reach out to her altogether.
It wasn't easy though, but she managed to work her issues out in therapy, Lynox certainly being one of those issues. It was hard for her to get over him, but with time, distance, counseling, prayer, and God, she was able to see that she needed so much more than just winning Lynox to be happy and secure in life.
Besides, she figured he must have gotten over her real easy. In the past, Lynox had been much more persistent, but this time, he'd given up after only two phone calls, voices messages, and a couple of e-mails. That was proof alone that he was over her but had only been trying to contact her in order to ram the final stake through her heart.
Just as Deborah was about to wrap up her writing for the afternoon, her doorbell rang. She rushed from her office to the door before the person at the door could ring the bell again and perhaps wake her son. She was a second too late arriving at the door as the bell sounded again.
“I'm coming,” she whispered so low that whoever was at the door couldn't have been able to hear her. It was a nice summer day, so Deborah had left her front door open with the screen door locked. When she got to the door, words couldn't explain how she felt when she saw Lynox standing on the porch.
“Lynox?” she questioned, rubbing her eyes. She had to make sure they weren't deceiving her; that one of those side effects of her happy pills wasn't hallucinating.
“Deborah,” he said, standing there looking as suave and debonair as always, even in the outfit he was wearing, which Deborah recognized as the biking outfit the two had seen in the window of one of the stores at Easton. In each hand he had a cycling helmet. Over his shoulder, Deborah could see the wheels of bikes.
“What are you doing here?” Deborah asked from the doorway.
“What do you mean what am I doing here?” he asked, raising the helmets. “Didn't you get my voice messages?”
“Yeah, I got them,” Deborah replied. “I just didn't listen to them.” She was going to be honest from this point on, with herself, and with everybody else in her life. But was Lynox still a part of her life?
A crooked smile spread on his lips as he looked down. “I figured as much.” He looked back up. “And my e-mail messages?”
“Nope,” Deborah admitted.
“I see.” He nodded.
“Look . . .” both started. “Go ahead,” they both said to one another. “You first,” they spoke at the same time and then laughed.
“Okay, ladies first.” Lynox smiled.
“I'm sorry,” Deborah said. “I'm sorry I hid the fact that I had a son from you. I'm sorry for the charades, the games, the tricks, and the tension it all caused. I'm sorry I wasn't honest with you. You deserved more from me. While you were genuinely trying to establish a relationship with me built on trust, I was one big walking lie. And I hope you can forgive me.”
“I certainly can forgive you, Deborah,” Lynox said. “But I know I made it easy for you to lie by making all the comments I did about not wanting to date a woman with kids. I was wrong for that. I wasn't wrong for feeling that way, but I was wrong for the way I relayed it; making it seem like the plague or something. It's just that I have friends who have dated women with kids and I heard nothing but horror stories about their dealings with the baby daddy. Not only that, but having a child with another man means that dude showing up at the house to see the kid, and, who knows, maybe with underlying intentions to even see the mother. You know my ego can't withstand that.”
Deborah smiled, nodding her agreement.
“But I love you, Deborah. I love every part of you, and your son is a part of you.”
“But you walked away so easily that day the social worker came,” Deborah reminded him.
“I was in shock mode. You were snapping off. I just didn't see how my being there would benefit either one of us. I was hurt, angry, and confused. I kept asking myself, âWhat kind of woman denies having a child?'”
“And the conclusion you came up with?” Deborah was curious to know.
“A woman who loves me so much that she would be willing to put herself through the drama and the stress of doing such a thing.” Lynox stared into Deborah's eyes. “I know that had to be hard for you, Deborah. I can't imagine. I almost feel partly to blame. That's why I needed to apologize to you. I hope you can forgive me.”
It was as if Deborah could breathe again. No, she hadn't been holding her breath waiting for Lynox to run back to her, but she was glad he had. She was glad that he was even willing to take partial blame for a decisionâa wrong decisionâshe'd made all by herself. “Yes, Lynox. I forgive you.” Deborah nodded her forgiveness with a smile.
“Good. Now what do you say that we try this thingâme and youâone more time?” Lynox asked. “I hear the third time is a charm.”
Lynox's request was both shocking and music to Deborah's ears. The rejection, the official breakup she was expecting from him didn't happen. Instead, he was still willing, ready, able, and wanting to give the two of them another shot at love. It made her feel really good inside to know that he still wanted her in his life. But the fact also remained that there was someone else in her life.
“But what about Tyson?” Deborah asked.
“Who?” Lynox had a confused look on his face.
“Tysonâmy son.”
“Oooooohhhh,” Lynox replied while nodding with a smile. “So the little guy does have a name.”
Deborah nodded as tears filled her eyes. Tears that displayed the hurt of ever denying her son just because she wanted to be with a man.
Lynox took a step toward Deborah. He placed her helmet in the same hand as his was in, then took his thumb and wiped away her tear. “Don't cry. Tyson has a helmet too.” It was at that point that Lynox stepped to the side. There Deborah saw two bikes: a hot pink one and a royal blue one. No doubt the hot pink one had been purchased for her. And on the back of the hot pink one was a special seat made just for a toddler the size of Tyson.
“Lynox?” Deborah said in both surprise and shock. But she had a question mark all over her face as she looked back and forth from the bikes to Lynox. The unspoken question was asking him what all this meant. “Does this mean . . .” She couldn't even get the words out she was so choked up with hope. Couldâwouldâthe God she served, after all the mistakes she'd made, some twice (heck, others over and over again), really give her the fairytale? Would God really give her another chance at her heart's desire?
Lynox looked from Deborah to the bikes. “This means . . .” He left Deborah's side and walked over to the hot pink bike. He pulled something out of the toddler seat. It was a mini version of the helmet that matched the one for Lynox. “That we all have to take a chanceâtogether. That includes Tyson. If one falls, then we all fall together.”
Lynox quickly and intensely walked back to Deborah's side. “But we'll all get back up together again. But you never know . . .” His eyes and his index finger pointed at the bike. He then looked back at Deborah. “We may never even fall. Who's to say we can't ride this thing out? But we'll never know unless we try. I mean”âthe excitement in Lynox's voice picked upâ“so what, neither one of us hasn't done something like this in forever. Something in my gut . . .” He touched his stomach. “Something in my spirit tells me that I can do this.” He walked up as close as he could to Deborah. “That we can do this. I mean, so what if it's not trueâthat once a person learns how to ride a bike they never forget? But what I do know to be true, Deborah Lewis, is that once a person learns how to love, now that, they never forget. And after all this time, no matter how many miles away you were, I never forgot how to love you. I'll never forget how to love you. All of youâand that includes Tyson. Like I said, and maybe you missed it. But Tyson is a part of you.” He looked Deborah up and down while licking his lips. “And I want all of you, woman.”
Lynox wiped a falling tear from Deborah's eye as she listened intently to Lynox's words. “Your son is a part of youâthe woman I love. Any man who loves you, how could he not love that big a part of you? And God knows I love you. This entire situation . . . it's taught me something about myself and made me face an issue I'd just assumed I couldn't deal with. And that's the issue of being with a woman who had a child. I'd never given it a chance. I just had all these preconceived notions about baby daddy drama that I knew I didn't want to deal with. I know your situation is different, but I can honestly say from the bottom of my heart that even if Tyson's father were alive, I'd still want you as my girl.”
Lynox placed his hand on Deborah's cheek. “So, baby, will you be my girl?” And that was the end of Lynox's spiel, which he couldn't have written any better for a lead male character in one of his novels. This was straight from his heart.
Deborah wanted to pinch herself to make sure this was all real. So she did. And then she pinched Lynox.
“Ouch! What was that for?” He rubbed the spot on his arm that she'd just pinched.
“My pinch was to make sure I was awake and not dreaming all this. Your pinch was to make sure you were realâthat I wasn't imagining all this. Because you do know those pills my doc prescribed me have some side effects thatâ”
“Pills?” Lynox was puzzled until Deborah went on to explain about her counseling, therapy, and her happy pills. “Forget about those pills. Those are just temporary. The same way a person never forgets how to ride a bike or how to love, they never forget who they truly are inside. Or as you church folks would say, who God called you to be.” Lynox pointed to Deborah's heart. “She's in there, and with God's help, and mine, and Tyson's, you aren't going to need a pill to be that person. You got that?”