Praise For Christmas Read online

  “Everything you do is in love, Mom,” Joy said as she leaned over and hugged Carmella.

  Renee joined in on the hug. “I love you, Mama Carmella, and I love your menu idea. Let’s do it.”

  ***

  There was a shift in the air. RaShawn Thomas felt it and wondered what God was up to. He had gone the distance, doing whatever was required of him during the seven years he’d spent as a missionary in numerous countries. But this last mission had taken a toll on him. For about six months now, RaShawn had been wondering if he was truly where God wanted him. He hadn’t seen his family in five years and hadn’t been able to develop any lasting relationships.

  This morning he picked up his mail from the post office and almost shed a tear when he read the Christmas card from his dad and Mama Carmella. It wasn’t so much the Christmas card that saddened RaShawn but the note Mama Carmella attached to it. From what she wrote, RaShawn gathered that all of his brothers were bailing on Christmas with the family and choosing to spend it with their in-laws this year.

  His father loved having his family around during the holidays; Carmella loved it even more, so he knew that they weren’t taking their new reality very well. But then again, they did have Renee’s wedding to worry about... another family wedding that he was going to miss.

  “Dr. RaShawn, come quickly. It’s Chima’s time.”

  ***

  Brielle bounced up and down in her highchair as Maxine took the sugar cookies out of the oven. She turned to her daughter and said, “I hope you don’t think you’re getting any of these cookies.”

  “Want cookie. Want cookie,” Brielle chanted as she continued bouncing up and down and banging on the table top of her highchair.

  “I have to decorate these cookies so Daddy can take them to his Christmas party at work.”

  “That’s right. I need those cookies for work,” Ramsey said as he entered the kitchen with his cell phone pressed against his ear. “You know you’re not right, Ronny. Dontae and I will be with the Dawson family on Christmas, watching Dontae explain why his and Jewel’s first child was named after Mama Carmella rather than Jewel’s mother.” Ramsey chuckled and then said, “So you know that Mama Carmella and Daddy want you to come home.”

  After several beats of silence while he listened to Ronny, Ramsey said, “Am I talking to Ronny Thomas or President Obama, because ain’t nobody as busy as you but the President of the good ol’ US of A.”

  “Want cookie, Daddy.”

  “Of course you do, my little princess.” Ramsey took one of the cookies off of the cookie sheet and handed it to Brielle. She beamed up at him as if he was responsible for hanging the moon.

  Father and daughter looked so cute together. Watching them play and laugh normally brought a smile to Maxine’s face, but today she wasn’t in the mood. “I hope you plan to brush her teeth after filling her full of sugar.” Maxine untied her apron, threw it on the counter and rushed out of the kitchen.

  By the time she made it to their bedroom, Maxine was feeling ashamed of her actions. She had been rude to Ramsey for reasons that had nothing to do with his giving Brielle a cookie. She got on her knees and lowered her head as she prayed to the Lord. “I’m so sorry for being angry and miserable lately, but You know the desires of my heart, Lord. You know that I am so grateful that I get to be a mother to a child of Ramsey’s seed. But I want more children and since my body won’t produce them, then I’m begging you, God, give me a baby. Thank You, Lord Jesus, thank You.”

  Tears were streaming down Maxine’s face as Ramsey opened the bedroom door with Brielle in his arms. He quickly put Brielle down as he saw his wife sobbing on the floor. Ramsey bent down and put his arms around her. He didn’t know what to say to comfort her, all he could do was hold her and be there for her.

  “Thank You, Jesus,” Maxine said again.

  “Are you all right, Mommy?” Brielle asked, touching Maxine’s head.

  With her free arm, Maxine pulled Brielle into their embrace. She kissed her little girl’s head, and tried to reassure the child of her love. With everything in Maxine, she dearly loved Brielle. She wished that the child Ramsey had with another woman was enough for her, but Maxine wanted to give Brielle a brother or sister. God, please help me, was her silent plea.

  Chapter 5

  “Ramsey, oh my goodness, come see,” Carmella called from their bedroom.

  Ramsey came into the room holding a tray. He set an egg white omelet with spinach, tomatoes, onions, green peppers and shredded cheese in front of his wife. “For my queen.”

  She kissed him. “Thank you, baby, this looks so good I can’t wait to eat it. But first I want to show you something.” Carmella lifted her blood glucose meter. The numbers displayed on the screen were 136.

  Ramsey took a flying leap off the bed and shouted right in the middle of their bedroom floor. He didn’t need music or a church building to get his shout on. “God is so good. I can’t believe that your numbers have come down a hundred points.” He rushed back over to his wife and kissed her again. “I’m a believer now... you’re healed. I’m just sorry that I doubted God in the first place.”

  Carmella lifted a hand. “I believe God and I know that I will be healed, but I don’t want to keep anything from you. Even though that number is a hundred times better than where I was first thing in the morning several weeks ago, it’s still too high and considered a diabetic number.”

  Ramsey sat back, a little deflated. “Then why did you show it to me?”

  “Because Ramsey, I believe that we are on the right track. I’ve been exercising with you twice a week and taking long walks at least two other days a week, while still eating right and God is rewarding us by letting us see progress.”

  “Progress is good, but I want to see an end to this disease. I don’t want you sick or living with the threat of kidney or heart problems.”

  “I received a good report from the eye doctor yesterday. She said I’m far sighted and my age is what has caused my recent eyesight problems. She saw no trace of diabetes in my eyes.”

  “Praise the Lord!”

  “Well, we were going to do that anyhow, but isn’t it awesome to have some good news to praise Him for?”

  ***

  “She’s going in and out of consciousness, Dr. RaShawn. What do I do?” the young midwife asked.

  RaShawn was more terrified than he let on. Chima had been displaying signs of high blood pressure and preeclampsia for the last three months of her pregnancy. He’d done everything he could to help her, but nothing seemed to work. All he could do now was pray. “Don’t pass out on us, Chima. I need you to push. Come on, let’s get this baby delivered and then you can take a nice long rest. I promise you.”

  Chima’s eyes fluttered and seemed to roll back in her head. RaShawn shook her. “Stay with me, Chima. Come on, push.”

  At that moment Chima seemed to find strength enough to pull herself up and grab hold of Dr. RaShawn’s arm. “Name her Abeni, because me and my husband, we asked for her.”

  “Push her out and you’ll be able to name her yourself,” RaShawn tried to encourage.

  “And promise me that you’ll take her to America, and find another family that has asked for her also... do you hear me? There’s another family out there that wants Abeni even more than I do.”

  “I hear you, now push.”

  Chima laid back down. She let out a loud, horrible scream as she pushed one final time. As the baby came out of her, Chima went limp.

  Holding the baby in his arms, RaShawn lifted his eyes to heaven. “What am I supposed to do now, God?” The baby’s father had died five months ago, after a hurricane had ravaged the town. He felt Chima’s pulse... nothing.

  Through tears, RaShawn smiled down at the baby and said, “I guess we’ll call you Abeni.”

  ***

  “I don’t like what this is doing to us,” Lance said as he sat across from his wife at the dining room table.

  “I just don’t understand w
hy you get so upset over the fact that I’m not ready to have kids yet.” Joy wished she could avoid this conversation for a few more years, but it was not to be.

  “We’ve been married for seven years. How much more time do you need?”

  “I’m worried about losing ground, Lance. How many judges do you know who have to play PTA mom or someone who has to leave work early to go pick up the kids?”

  Lance shook his head. “Don’t you think that being a wife and mother can be more rewarding than any judicial position you could ever obtain?”

  She wanted to say yes. Just tell Lance that she’d give anything to have his children and be a mother to them. But images appeared in her mind of her mother falling apart after her father left her when she still had two kids to take care of. Joy would not give up her job and become a homemaker while Lance went out into the world and became some big success. She remembered how her mother always stood in the background cheering Nelson Marshall to victory.

  But her father never appreciated all the things her mother did to make their home into precisely what he wanted it to be. Joy’s deepest fear was that Lance would one day take her for granted, and stop seeing her worth.

  “What’s the real problem, Joy? Tell me something, because I am beginning to lose faith that we will ever have a family.”

  She leaned over and let her fingers trail down his chin. “You’re so handsome, how could I not want to have kids with you?”

  “I’m not in the mood to joke around, Joy. I really want this. Tell me why you don’t.”

  Sighing, Joy closed her eyes, asked the Lord to walk her through this moment in time. Then, as she opened her eyes again, Joy admitted, “It’s not that I don’t want to have children with you, but every time I think about it, fear clinches my heart.”

  “What are you so afraid of, baby? Don’t you know that I’ll be here for you and our baby?”

  When she didn’t respond to that, Lance said, “I’m serious. I know that you still want to work. That’s not a problem for me. We could even get a nanny if that would make things easier.”

  “And you would approve of me hiring a nanny to help me out with our children so I could continue working?”

  “If it would make you happy.”

  Lance was so good to her. Once, when she’d had a problem with him representing a client who had harmed Dontae, Lance had turned the case down, even though taking the case would have boosted his career, he still walked away from it because she had asked him to. How could she continue to deny him, when she knew in her heart that he wouldn’t deny her anything?

  Chapter 6

  Renee made up her mind. She wouldn’t allow Marlin to have another minute of her life. She was going to go to the Bahamas with Jay and enjoy her honeymoon. The Bahamas was a beautiful place and beautiful things happened to her while she was over there. She’d gone to church and given her life to the Lord and she and Jay had fallen in love there... she would simply put that other event out of her mind. It was an outlier.

  “My bags are packed,” she told Jay as they stood at the altar practicing their wedding vows.

  Smiling at the news, Jay responded to the officiant and said, “I do.”

  Raven hugged her younger sister, Renee as she stepped down from the altar. “You two look so much in love. I’m happy for you.”

  Renee squeezed her sister real tight as she whispered in her ear, “I’m sorry that you have to be a bridesmaid again, but don’t worry. I will soon be a bridesmaid for you.”

  “I just wish I knew where he’s been hiding,” Raven said as they walked out of the church.

  After the practice everyone went back to her dad’s and Mama Carmella’s house for the rehearsal dinner. Even though Mama Carmella didn’t have her traditional Christmas cookies on tables all around the house, she had decorated the house. This year all the bulbs, flowers and ribbons were either burgundy or gold to match Renee’s wedding colors.

  “It looks beautiful in here,” Renee told Carmella. “Why didn’t you tell me that you were doing this? I would have come over to help you put all of these decorations up.”

  Carmella waved the thought away. “Your dad hired a decorator. I didn’t have to lift a finger.”

  Looking around the room, Dontae said, “Mom, I don’t believe that you let someone else decorate this house for Christmas... well and the wedding party, too. When we were kids you wouldn’t even let us help you.”

  “You just hand me my grandbaby and stay out of my business,” Carmella told her son as she lifted baby Cammie out of his arms. Hugging the baby tightly, Carmella added, “I’m so glad you and Jewel were able to come to the wedding so I could finally see my namesake in person.”

  “Yeah, Mom, why didn’t you go to Charlotte when they had the baby?” Joy asked. “I kept expecting you to ask me to ride shotgun.”

  “Like you would have gone.” Carmella gave her daughter a look that said, don’t even go there.

  “Well, I do have a huge caseload, but I’m not the grandmother and the baby isn’t named after me.”

  “Stop starting trouble, Joy,” Ramsey said as he joined the group. “Your mom and I have had a lot on our plate recently. But we are planning a week-long visit to Charlotte in the very near future.”

  Carmella handed the baby to Joy. “You just hold my grandbaby while I get the table ready for our meal.”

  Cammie started to cry as she was being passed from her grandmother to her aunt. Joy rocked her and sang to her. The baby started cooing and blowing little baby bubbles. Joy felt eyes on her, and looked up to see Lance standing in the back or the room staring at her as if the sight of her with a child in her arms brought pure joy to his heart. She tried to turn away from him, but their eyes locked and held.

  Dontae came up behind Joy and took his daughter out of her arms. “You and your husband look like you’re plotting to steal my baby. Y’all need to go make one of your own.”

  “Shut up, goof ball, don’t nobody want to steal something that poops and spits up. I’ll wait until you and Jewel potty train her, then you might have something to fear from me.”

  “You do know that diapers and throw up cloths are available for all babies, right? So you might as well go into baby training by changing as many of Brielle’s diapers as possible.”

  Joy had been smiling, enjoying the banter with her brother, but after he mentioned baby training the smile left her face. She grabbed hold of Dontae’s arm. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

  “Sure sis, what’s up?”

  She pushed him towards the kitchen. And while he played with and gazed at Cammie, only half listening to her, Joy said, “How did you do it?”

  “Huh? Do what?” Dontae finally took his eyes off the baby and looked at his sister.

  “I’m scared to death of having kids and then having my family bust up. But you don’t seem to be worried about that at all. I need you to give me whatever you’ve been smoking so I can finally make my husband just as happy as you are.”

  Dontae leaned his head back and laughed. He then put a hand on Joy’s shoulder and said, “Let me tell you a little secret... I still had doubts about happily ever after even while Jewel and I were headed to the hospital to have Cammie. But the minute I held my baby in my arms all the fear went away. She and my wife are the best things that ever happened to me. And I will be in her life for as long as I live.”

  “That’s easy to say now, but what if you get the itch like Daddy did after twenty-three years of marriage?”

  “Then shame on him,” Jewel said as she walked over to Joy and Dontae. She then reached out her hands and said, “I think she needs to be changed.”

  “I can do that,” Dontae said as he leaned over and kissed Jewel. Then he kissed Joy on the cheek and said, “Diaper duty calls, I must hurry.”

  “He’s so silly,” Jewel said as she watched her husband put Cammie under his arm like a football and pretend to be running for a touchdown. She sighed, “Some days I think he really misses p
laying football.”

  “Not as much as he loves you and Cammie.”

  “Oh I know that. My man loves me and I love him right back.”

  “I wish I was more like you, Jewel. But then again, your parents are still together so you have a perfect example of love lasting forever.”

  Jewel put her hands on Joy’s shoulder and turned her to face Carmella and Ramsey. They were in the middle of a kiss as they stood under the mistletoe. “So do you. If I remember the story correctly, those two loved each other since they were teenagers. They may have had their time apart, but they will be together until the end. I have no doubt of that.”

  ***

  Family and friends sat down to enjoy a scrumptious meal before Renee said her vows and left for the Bahamas the next day. Conversation was flowing as the food was being passed from hand to hand and then being scooped out of the bowls and put on each plate. The spaghetti squash casserole, green beans, mashed cauliflower and turkey and gravy. As each person began to taste the food, questions started swirling around the table.

  “Ma, these mashed potatoes are good, but it’s something different about them,” Dontae said as he continued to eat.

  “I used cauliflower instead of potatoes,” Carmella told him, smiling, clearly proud of the food she put on the table.

  Ram pointed at a section of his plate. “This kind of tastes like au gratin potatoes, but I know it’s not because of all the shredded stuff in it.”

  “That shredded stuff,” Ramsey Sr. said as he laughed at his son, “is spaghetti squash.”

  “Not bad,” Maxine said. “You’ll have to give me this recipe. I’ve been trying to eat healthier, but I only know about two or three different things to fix.”

  “Ramsey and I are planning to come visit you all in a few weeks, I’ll bring some recipes and you and I can get in the kitchen.”