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  “You’re my wife, Cynda. I’m not only here to make sure you walk out of court without going to prison. I’m here till we part in death.”

  Her eyes rolled. “Keith, let’s be real. You don’t even want to have sex with me. How long do you think you can stay married to a woman you’re too good to touch?”

  He saw the pain in her eyes then. Putting his hand over hers he said, “I never said I didn’t want to touch you. My God, Cynda, just being in the same room with you makes me want to claim my rights as your husband.”

  “Then why don’t you?” she asked as if, for the first time, she was truly interested in what he had to say.

  “Because it doesn’t mean anything to you. You give away sex like it’s the toast you add with eggs for breakfast. When we make love, I want it to be a joining of two people that love and care for each other.”

  “You expect too much from me.”

  “No, I think you expect too little of yourself.” He scraped the container for the last of the chicken. “Like this whole drug thing. You’ve got a ten-year-old daughter you claim to love, but you’re a dope head.”

  She licked her tongue at him. “Sticks and stones.”

  “I’m not trying to fill you with guilt. I just want you to see how much you are putting at risk by doping up.”

  “I don’t do it everyday. I just need a pick-me-up every now and then.”

  “I’ll tell you what, Cynda.” He took his plate to the sink and rinsed it out. “Don’t do your drugs or invite old customers to our home. If you want to do something to help pay your way, try fixing dinner and keeping the house clean.”

  Cynda got up and started clearing off the table. “I can do that. Cleaning a house isn’t a big deal.” She put the leftover containers in the refrigerator and ran some dish water.

  Keith got in the shower and let the hot water sting his flesh. As he soaped up he asked the Lord, “What am I going to do with this woman?”

  Love her.

  “How, when she’s so -- so unlovable.”

  When no answer came he shut off the water and got out of the tub. He towel dried, and then put on his pajamas. Before walking out of the bathroom he noticed the black gown Cynda had been wearing earlier was in the trash can. It was ripped apart.

  He turned on the light in his bedroom, got in bed, grabbed his Bible, and began looking up scriptures on love:

  Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and everyone that loves is born of God, and knoweth God.

  Another scripture said, Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.

  About an hour into his study, Cynda appeared in the doorway. She leaned against the door and waited for him to look up.

  “I’m sorry,” she said when he finally looked her way.

  He put down his Bible. “What are you sorry about?”

  Wringing her hands, eyes downcast, she said, “For not being grateful for all you’ve done for me. I’ll try not to disrespect your home anymore.” She took her flannel night gown out of the drawer and went into the bathroom. When she emerged, she had on the gown he’d bought her. She walked over to the bed. “Do you want me to sleep on the couch?”

  Keith lifted the covers, inviting her to join him. For love bears all things, hopes for good things, but endures all that comes.

  16

  “Get out of my room,” Iona spat.

  Nina’s mouth dropped along with the basket she carried. Dirty clothes spilled out, mixing with the clothes Iona already had on the floor.

  “Did you hear me? Ya’ll put me on punishment. Said I have to stay in my room. Well that’s just fine with me. I don’t want to see any of you anyway. So get out of here.”

  “Look, little girl, I don’t know how you were allowed to talk to your mother, but we have rules of conduct around here,” Nina said. Iona rolled her eyes. “First off, no room in this house is off limits to me or your father. Secondly, if I feed you, don’t disrespect me. It’s just that simple.”

  “Whatever.” Iona rolled her eyes.

  Maury was blaring through the room. Pronouncing to a happy young man, “You are not the father.” Nina turned off the television, wondering where Maury was when she needed him.

  “Hey, don’t touch my stuff,” Iona said to her father’s wife.

  “You’re ten, Iona. You don’t have any stuff. So, I’ve got news for you; you are not allowed to watch my television for the rest of the day.”

  “I’m gon’ tell Isaac.”

  “Go right ahead.” Nina picked up the dirty clothes that had fallen out of her basket and onto the floor.

  “I hate you,” Iona said, sucking her teeth.

  “You want your telephone privileges taken away next?” Arms crossed, Iona stood glaring at Nina. “And that reminds me of something. I don’t want you dialing long distance until after seven in the evening, and use either Isaac’s or my cell phone to make the call.” Iona’s eyes were lifted to the ceiling as Nina looked around the room and said, “pick the rest of these clothes up and bring them downstairs so I can wash them.” Giving a little attitude of her own, Nina rolled her eyes and stormed off.

  Later that evening, walking past Iona’s room, Nina wished she had taken her phone privileges away as she overheard Iona on the phone with her mother before seven o’clock, as she had instructed. “Come get me, Mama. I’m tired of being in this house,” Iona complained.

  She must be tired of having three meals a day and a mother who doesn’t run the street. The child was backward.

  “I hate her. She makes me sick. She thinks she can tell me what to do. But she can’t. She’s not my mother,” Iona huffed.

  Nina put her hand on Iona’s doorknob. Time to show this knucklehead some love with a leather belt. But then she stopped herself. The way she was feeling, she’d probably kill the girl.

  Forget it. She was tired. Finished. Out of here. She went into her room and pulled her suitcase out of the closet.

  “What are you doing with that?” Isaac asked when he walked into their bedroom.

  As Nina pulled some clothes out of the closet, she told him, “I’m going to spend a little time with Elizabeth and her family. I think the trip will do me some good.”

  “So you’re just going to leave me again?” She kept packing. “What about till death do us part, Nina? Did you listen to the words the preacher spoke over us just last year?”

  Throwing a pair of PJs in the suitcase, she turned to face him. “What about love, honor, and cherish? Did you understand what those words meant?”

  He pulled her into his arms. She didn’t stop him, and even put her arms around him and squeezed a little.

  “I love you, Nina. Don’t do this,” he begged.

  “I love you too, but I have got to get away for a little while.”

  He lifted her head and looked into her eyes. “We can work this out, baby. Stay.”

  “That little girl is driving me up a wall.”

  “I need you, Nina.”

  “How can you say that? You can’t like the way I am right now.”

  “I’ll take you anyway I can get you, babe.”

  She squeezed his hand and then sat down on the edge of the bed with her head hung low. “You don’t think I see how I’m treating your daughter, but I see it, Isaac. And it sickens me.” She looked at her husband as tears filled her eyes. “I should be able to treat her better than this. I have more compassion for Ebony than I do for Iona.”

  “Look at me, Nina. I’m pasturing a church and I can’t forgive Cynda. I know it’s not right, but that’s where I’m at right now.” He sat down next to her and wiped her tears. “We all need help to overcome things. That’s why God sits on His throne and we don’t.”

  “But I’ve never had a problem with being kind. But the way I treat Iona…” Isaac put his hand in hers and allowed her to continue. “When that little girl ca
lled her mother – Isaac, she just sat there and talked about me as if I wasn’t in this house. As if I wasn’t feeding her.”

  “What if that had been Donavan on the phone talking about you to his friends? What would you have done then?”

  “I would have snatched his ungrateful behind off that phone and then I would have felt bad and sat down and talked with him to find out why he was so upset with me.”

  “So why didn’t you do the same thing with Iona?”

  “She’s not my child, Isaac.”

  “Yes, she is.”

  Nina let go of Isaac’s hand and stood. “Don’t say that to me. She is yours and Cynda’s child. She has no part of me in her.”

  “She’s your child also, because you’re my wife. Can you see that, Nina?”

  Just a few weeks ago, Nina thought that the only thing she wouldn’t do for this man was drink his dirty bath water. Now she would gladly drink that water, if only his prodigal seed would disappear. But was God showing her that his prodigal seed was his dirty bath water? Maybe that’s what her foster mother was referring to all those years ago – that she loved her husband so much that she was willing to take the dirtiness that life thrust upon them and help him clean it up. Oh God, teach me to love that way.

  “Look, Nina, we both know what the main issue is. It’s the same one that has been between us since we got married.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I don’t care if you have another child or not, Nina? I love you the way you are. You are the woman God gave me.”

  She opened her mouth to deny it, but before any words came forth, she decided to speak from her heart. “Isaac, I need to tell you something.” She squeezed his hand, giving her the strength to continue. “The day you brought Iona home, I had just come back from the doctor.”

  He pulled his hand from her grasp and stood. “Is something wrong with you, Nina? What did the doctor say?”

  She patted the bed. “Sit back down, Isaac.” He obeyed her command and she continued. “I had missed my period, so I thought I was pregnant.” She willed herself not to cry, not again. “But he told me that I was more than likely going into early menopause.”

  Isaac waved that away. “You were on your period last week, Nina. How can you be going through menopause?”

  “It was three weeks late.”

  “But it came.”

  “I’ve never been late before, Isaac.” She waved her comment away. “I don’t want to dwell on this subject. I’ve decided to trust God and let it go. The only reason I told you is because I want you to understand why it hurts so much every time I look at Iona.”

  “It doesn’t have to hurt, baby.”

  But it did hurt. Oh God, please take this pain away. “How can I change the way my heart feels, Isaac?”

  “Make Iona the most blessed child in the world. Give her two mothers to love.” When she didn’t respond, Isaac picked up her suitcase and dumped the contents on the floor. He turned back to his wife and said, “Stay.”

  She opened her mouth to respond, but he was upon her, covering her mouth with his. He moved her toward the bed and she allowed it to happen. As he stripped her clothes from her body she knew that she would love this man for a lifetime. Couldn’t let him go. She would enjoy her husband – just enjoy this moment. Kiss and make love to him. And then she’d go out there and drink his dirty bath water.

  17

  During the weekend Keith had set his mind to fast and pray for Cynda’s deliverance from drugs. Cynda had walked into their bedroom and found Keith on his knees calling out to God on her behalf. She then went over to the dresser and rummaged through the drawers, knocking things around, anything to distract him from praying for her.

  On Sunday morning when he got up and got ready for church Cynda asked, “Are you going to put my name in the prayer box?”

  Fixing his tie, he answered, “I think I just might do that. Corporate prayer is always a good thing.”

  She got out of bed and moved his hands from his tie and knotted it for him. “Don’t do me any favors, Mr. Williams. You told me you don’t want me doing drugs in your house, and that’s all you had to say.”

  “Are you serious? Or just too crazy to know you need God’s help?”

  “Keith, you were right. If I want to get my daughter back, I have to do it without drugs.”

  “But you don’t have to do it without God.”

  “I don’t need your God to kick my habit. And I’m going to prove it to you.”

  “Everyone needs God, Cynda.”

  Walking away from him she said, “Well, I’ll just show you, Mr. Doubting Thomas.”

  He grabbed her arm, pulling her back toward him. “You know something about the Bible? Where did that come from?”

  “I’m not completely ignorant, Keith. My grandmother was a God-fearing, Bible-toting Christian ‘till the day she died. For all the good it did her.” She walked with him toward the front door.

  “Why do you think it didn’t do your grandmother any good to serve the Lord?”

  She opened the front door and Keith stepped onto the porch, then she said, “My grandmother’s only child was killed by her pimp while she stood by, praising the Lord.” She closed the door and left him standing on the porch, stunned.

  At church Keith was yet again amazed as Pastor Norton stood behind his Plexiglas podium and preached from the seventh chapter of Luke. Pastor Norton explained that when a prostitute stood at the feet of Jesus, then washed his feet with her tears and dried them with her hair, and then anointed them with ointment from her alabaster box, the Pharisees became offended and accused Jesus of not being aware of the sins the woman had committed.

  “Then Jesus said to them, ‘There was a certain creditor which had two debtors: the one owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty. And when they had nothing to pay, the creditor forgave them both. Tell me, which of them will love him most’?”

  Pastor Norton studied the congregation for a moment, and then continued. “One of the Pharisees answered and said, ‘I suppose the one he forgave the most.’

  “Then Jesus said to him, ‘you have rightly judged. Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much.’”

  Pastor Norton closed his Bible and turned back to the congregation. “What I’m trying to get across to you all is this: don’t judge people by who they are today. Because the same person you condemn to hell, God may be trying to raise to glory, if only He can get you to pray for them.”

  Janet was seated next to Keith. She touched his shoulder with her newly manicured hands. Her hair was in one of those up dos with pin curls dancing around the front and back of her head. He liked it – it drew attention to her sparkling brown eyes. He liked brown eyes. His wife had fake hazel eyes, but Janet’s were real.

  “I’m praying for you,” she told him.

  Keith sunk back into the well-cushioned pew and turned his gaze away from Janet’s eyes. She was not the woman God had for him. Pastor Norton was preaching about the woman God gave him, and he would do everything in his power to love and treat her right.

  “Would you pray for my wife also, Janet? She needs to know the love of God,” Keith asked.

  Janet turned her attention back to Pastor Norton.

  As Keith continued to listen to the message, his faith grew. He had taken it upon himself to pray for Cynda’s deliverance from drugs. But did he think that the rest of her sins were too much for God to do anything with? Lord, forgive my unbelief. Please deliver my wife from all her past sins. Wash her whiter than snow.

  When the benediction was given, Jim came over to Keith. “Man, I need to apologize. Sometimes, I forget that God is still in control.”

  Keith patted him on the shoulder. “I know, I was just thinking the same thing,” Keith told him.

  “How’s Cynda doing?” Jim asked.

  “Will you two excuse me?” Janet said as she left them to join a group of women that were having a conversa
tion at the sanctuary door.

  “Not too good,” Keith told Jim. “But after today’s message, if I don’t know anything else, I know that God is still on the throne, my brother.”

  “I’ll be over tomorrow evening so we can finish putting this case together. We will know this week whether the grand jury has decided to indict her or not.”

  “What do you think her chances are? Be up front with me.”

  Jim put his hand on Keith’s shoulder. “They’ll indict. She’s looking at about ten years if she’s found guilty.”

  Keith went home with heaviness on his heart. His wife was a handful, but he didn’t want to see her in prison. He didn’t tell Cynda about his conversation with Jim. Her spirits were high. She was floating around the house talking about some TV commercial that told her how she could make millions of dollars working from home. He smiled and listened to everything she had to say. No way was he going to take her hope away.

  On Monday when he arrived home after work, Cynda had fixed steak and potatoes for dinner. “I would have fixed some salad with it, but all you had was tomatoes and green peppers in the fridge,” Cynda told Keith.

  “If you give me a list, I’ll go to the grocery this evening.” When they were finished with dinner and Keith was washing the dishes the doorbell rang.

  Cynda opened the door and let Jim in.

  Cynda and Keith sat down with Jim and he got right down to business. “I know you already gave your statement to the police, but I need to go over it with you again.”

  Cynda nodded. Keith put her hand inside his as she told Jim, “I spent the night here with Iona. I needed a place to lay low while we figured out what to do.”

  Jim had his notepad out again and jotted down something while talking to her. “Why did you need to lay low?”

  “I told you that already. Iona told me that Spoony wanted to put her on the street.”

  “Okay, so why’d you leave Keith’s house?”

  She gave Keith a sideways glance. “That morning, Keith told me that he knew who Iona’s father was. He tried to get me to admit it, but I denied everything. Then he told me that her father was coming to town that day. I couldn’t allow him to see Iona. I didn’t want him to take something else from me.” She lowered her head. “But he took her anyway.”