Abundant Rain Read online

  15

  When they reached the house, Kenneth relaxed a bit. Who was he kidding? If this was a house, then the little cottage he was living in must have been a shoe. This was a sho-nuff-I-done-arrived-y’all mansion. Elizabeth’s mother was at the house waiting on them. “Lillian Edwards,” Elizabeth whispered to him. Kenneth didn’t remember her either, but that didn’t stop Mama Edwards from jumping up and down and falling on her knees in praise to the Lord.

  She took off her blue-framed glasses, squinted at him, put them back on and stood shaking her head. “Kenneth Underwood, if you ain’t a sight for these tired old eyes.” She opened her arms to him. “Come here, boy and give your mother-in-law a hug.”

  Kenneth obeyed and Elizabeth let out the breath she was holding.

  Michael told his mother that they needed to go to a hotel so Kenneth and Elizabeth could have some time alone. “That’s fine,” she told her son as she kissed Kenneth on the cheek. “I made dinner, so y’all just relax and eat whenever you get hungry.”

  Elizabeth had kept most of Kenneth’s clothes and hung them in the bedroom closet of her new home when she moved from Dayton to Atlanta. So she laid out some clothes for Kenneth to put on after he showered. She then whisked his daughters into the sitting room to have a your-daddy’s-not-really-dead talk with them.

  After he showered and changed in the guest bathroom, Kenneth stood in the foyer looking up at the winding staircase. In his mind’s eye, he saw a different staircase. He was running down the stairs with keys in hand. Elizabeth was at the bottom of the staircase waiting on him.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” she asked him.

  “Out.”

  “Kenneth, if you open that door, I’ll… I’ll -”

  “Elizabeth, why can’t you accept the fact that we just don’t work anymore?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with us. If you would quit sleeping around, you’d have time to work on your marriage.”

  He laughed. “Work on my marriage? Elizabeth, I don’t want my marriage – I don’t want you.”

  His hand on the doorknob, he heard his wife say, “Well, guess what, Kenneth, I don’t want this.”

  “Nooo!” Kenneth screamed as Elizabeth and his daughters walked out to greet him.

  The smile disappeared from Elizabeth’s face.

  “We had a staircase like this one in another house didn’t we?” he asked.

  She looked at the staircase. “Yes, we did. It’s one of the reasons I bought this house.”

  “You busted up the vase my mother gave us.” Elizabeth’s mouth dropped. “See, I remember you.”

  He walked pass her. Elizabeth grabbed his arm and turned him back toward her. “We were happy, Kenneth. We were in love.”

  “Your kind of love I don’t need,” he told her as he snatched his arm from her grasp and knelt down in front of his children. “Hello,” he said. His voice cracked a bit as he hugged his children.

  The girls squeezed him tight. Tears ran down Erin’s cheeks as she stepped back a bit. Flashes of questions danced across her face. “Where have you been, Daddy?”

  “I’ve been away for awhile, baby girl,” Kenneth replied, wiping away one of her tears.

  Danae crossed her arms around her portly tummy. “Why didn’t you take us with you?”

  Instead of answering, he kissed them like he was trying to make up for two years of missed affection.

  Erin held on to her father. “I missed you, Daddy. You’ll never know how much I cried. I-I waited up for you so many nights.”

  “I know how you feel. I dreamed about you many nights, but I’m home now.” He wiped her tear soaked face. “You can stop crying, baby.”

  Danae put his face in her hands and turned him to the left and to the right. “Somebody scratched your face, Daddy?”

  He looked back at Elizabeth, sure that she would be giving his scars the once over. He expected a look of disgust. She was looking at his face, but she didn’t appear to be disgusted. He was momentarily struck by the look of adoration in her eyes. The force pulled at him. He struggled hard to pull away. If he continued to look at her, drinking in her beauty, he would want her. But, a devil in a blue dress with a pretty smile was no less potent than the one with red horns and a pitchfork.

  He turned back to Danae. “Yes, honey. My face was scratched and my legs were hurt when the building I was in fell down. The doctors tell me I’m lucky to be alive. So, I guess I can’t complain about a few scratches and a limp.”

  “Luck had nothing to do with it,” Elizabeth announced. “Your daddy’s alive because God wanted it to be so.”

  Danae left her daddy and walked over to Elizabeth. “God wanted you to live too, Mama.”

  Tears sprang to Elizabeth’s eyes as she took her youngest child into her arms. “God is good like that, baby. He wants the best for us, even when we don’t know what the best is.” Why she had considered suicide a better option than raising her children she couldn’t explain. But now, she knew that she would spend the rest of her life making up the last two years to her children. She hugged Danae closer to her with one hand and reached out for Erin with the other. Erin fell into her mother’s arms with fresh tears of her own.

  “I’ll make this up to the both of you. I promise,” Elizabeth cried.

  Erin lifted her head from Elizabeth’s shoulder and wiped her tears with the palm of her hand. “It’ll be okay now, Mama. You just missed Daddy more than you loved us. As long as he stays, you’ll be okay with us again.”

  Elizabeth lifted her eyes to heaven and cried, “Oh, God, please forgive me for what I have done to my children!” She grabbed them and hugged them tighter. She couldn’t deny Erin’s words. They had been right on point. How could she have put her children through such an ordeal? Nothing she could say would convince them that she wouldn’t fall to pieces if Kenneth were to leave again.

  She rocked them in her arms and whispered, “I’m sorry. I love you, Erin, love you, Danae. You don’t have to doubt my love.” More tears came and spilled over the backs of her children. “I’m so sorry. What else can I say?”

  Kenneth took the girls out of her arms. “Enough of that crying. Come on, show Daddy your room.”

  ***

  They sat at the dinner table. Erin sat to the left of her dad. Danae sat closer to her mom. One big happy family.

  “Ooo, Mama, Granny’s mac & cheese is off the chain,” Erin exclaimed, while stuffing her plate with a second helping of mac & cheese, sweet potatoes, collards, and fried chicken. All the good stuff that a heart attack is made of.

  Danae lifted her plate to Kenneth. “Can I have another piece of chicken, Daddy?”

  Kenneth looked at his daughter. Just as light-skinned and freckle-faced as he. His child, no doubt about it. He missed some vital years. Earlier, when they were in her bedroom, Danae had told him, “I’ll be nine in a couple weeks.” She pulled him down to her height and whispered in his ear, “But I won’t mind if you still want to hug me like you used to.”

  Ah, she had taken his breath away. Gave him staying power. He would do whatever it took to be with his children. He took Danae’s plate. “You want a leg?”

  She nodded and smiled.

  Kenneth smiled, put the crispy fried leg on his daughter’s plate and handed it back to her. He turned his gaze to Elizabeth. “What church do we attend?”

  Elizabeth frowned. “To be quite honest, Kenneth, my home church is still in Dayton. The Rock Christian Fellowship.”

  “How long have you lived in Atlanta?”

  She frowned again. “Over a year.”

  He pushed his plate away. “Are you serious?”

  “I’m not proud of it, Kenneth. I’ve been visiting the churches I sing at.”

  He turned his attention to Erin and Danae. “Are you full?”

  “Getting there,” they told him.

  After dinner, Elizabeth let Kenneth spend some time alone with the girls. She went into her office to have a little talk with
Jesus. Tell Him all about her troubles.

  “Thank You for being with me, Lord. Thank You for loving me through a really tough time in my life. I can’t thank You enough for bringing Kenneth home. You have given me everything. But I want to declare to You this day, that if You had given me nothing more than Your undying love, I would have served You anyhow. I have fallen in love with You, Lord. I like where I am right now.

  “Hard not to love a God as gracious and kind as You are. You know me, Lord. So You already know I have a few requests. Lord, please bring back Kenneth’s memory, if not fully, at least help him to remember the good times. Our good times. And Father, my final request for today is for Tommy. Don’t let Tommy leave this earth believing that You deserted him. Help him to walk upright before You. Help him to understand that You are holy, and You require holiness from Your people. Help Tommy to come to terms with the feelings he has for men. Give him the ability to love one woman, and let that woman be his wife. In Jesus’ name I pray, amen.”

  She read a little of her Bible, then went to the family room to claim her children. Kenneth and the girls were playing with the afro centric Barbie dolls Elizabeth purchased last Christmas. She smiled as she watched Kenneth dress Brandy in one of her shimmering bright evening gowns, while Erin and Danae played tennis with Venus and Serena. Their laughter bubbled up a river of joy. Come what may, this was her family. She was blessed indeed.

  The laughter stopped when Kenneth noticed her watching them. “Girls, your mother’s here.”

  He might as well have sung ‘Here she comes to wreck the day,’ as Jim Carey did in the movie Liar Liar.

  “Time for your bath,” Elizabeth said in an upbeat manner that her heart didn’t feel.

  “Nooo. Do we have to, Daddy?” Erin clung on to Kenneth’s neck. “I want to stay up with you.”

  Kenneth looked from Elizabeth to Erin and back again. “Come on, I’ll go with you.” He stood and grabbed his cane.

  Elizabeth was fuming. He had this I’m-calling-children-services look on his face. Like he actually thought she was going to harm his children. Maybe drown them in the tub like that lady in Texas did her five children. Or maybe he wanted to see if his children had any scars on them.

  “I don’t beat them on Thursday, Kenneth. Six days a week I beat ‘em like Tyson on Bruno, but never on Thursday,” she told him as she grabbed Danae’s arm and headed for the upstairs bathroom. The tap, tap, tap of Kenneth’s cane told her that he and Erin weren’t far behind. She didn’t turn to see if he needed help getting up the stairs. Let him get up the best way he can.

  Beloved, not this way.

  She bowed her head and silently told the Lord, I love You, Lord. I truly do. I don’t know how to get Kenneth to trust me again. He doesn’t love me anymore, Lord.

  Love him anyway.

  She received her rebuke from the Lord, then turned to watch Kenneth struggle up the stairs. She went to him, took the cane out of his hand, and replaced it with her arm. She felt his arm jerk. “Please, let me help you.” He submitted. Elizabeth told the girls to go on and get in the tub and put on their night clothes.

  After the girls bathed, Kenneth and Elizabeth tucked them in and kissed them goodnight. Elizabeth walked down the hall with Kenneth toward her bedroom. “I kept all your clothes,” she told him as she pushed open the door to her bedroom.

  They walked into the parlor. A cream-colored chaise lounge was placed catty-corner to the wall. A Pulaski leather butler’s table with a telephone was on the right side of the chaise and a ceramic floor lamp on the left. A brick fireplace was the focal point of the room.

  “This is the parlor,” Elizabeth told him as she opened the French door that led into the master suite. “And this,” she did a sweeping motion with her arms, “is our bedroom.”

  Awestruck by the massiveness of the vaulted ceilings, Kenneth’s jaw dropped. The walls were taupe. The crown molding was sage. Standing in the middle of this gigantic room, he eyed the four-poster king-size bed. He walked over and touched it. “Pillow top mattress, nice.”

  A life-size portrait of them hung on the wall, opposite the bed. No scars. No cane. “Did you burn my clothes before or after this picture was taken?”

  “Why are you being like this, Kenneth?”

  He smiled a wicked smile as he shrugged and pointed to the picture. “I seem happy with you in this picture. I just wanted to know if I was happy to have my clothes burned, or happy because I didn’t know I was going to have my clothes served to me as my evening meal.”

  “We were happy, Kenneth.” Elizabeth was frustrated, but she wouldn’t give up. She had to help Kenneth understand who they once were.

  His lips curved to one side, eyebrows arched.

  His look made her feel small, less important. “There was a time when we were very unhappy,” she admitted. “You did things to me, and I did hateful things to you. I changed Kenneth, and so did you. We learned to love one another again.”

  He turned from her soft words and looked around the room. “Where are my clothes?”

  “This is your closet.” She pointed to a door in the front of the room. “I have the walk-in closet next to the bathroom.”

  Kenneth laughed. “This bedroom is bigger than the entire house I had in New York.”

  “Would you like to talk about it, Kenneth?”

  Did she really expect him to tell her how he discovered that his own wife allowed her manager to pay someone to keep him out of the way? “Not tonight. I’m tired. I just want to get a pair of pajamas, grab a pillow and blanket, and find a place to sleep.”

  “You sleep in here, Kenneth, with me. Remember?”

  “I may have lost my memory, Elizabeth, but I know that I have never slept in this room with you.”

  “I didn’t mean this exact room,” she said. “We shared a bedroom together in every house we’ve had.”

  His visions had shown him a mean and hateful woman. However, the woman standing in front of him did not act like he expected. But if she wasn’t evil, why did she decide it was better to pay his kidnappers rather than to bring him back home? He put his hand to his head and rubbed his temple. “I don’t know, Liz. I’m trying to reconcile some things in my head. It might be best for me to sleep somewhere else for now.”

  Elizabeth gasped. “Kenneth, what about the girls? They’re going to think something is wrong with us.”

  He shrugged.

  Elizabeth sighed as she yielded. “At least sleep in the sitting room, Kenneth. That way the girls won’t know you were in a different room.”

  “So you’re okay with lying to them?”

  Elizabeth gave her husband a weary look. “Haven’t they been through enough, Kenneth? If we can minimize the trauma for them, I would appreciate it. That’s all I’m saying.”

  “All right. We’ll play the happy married couple in front of my children.”

  He took the pajamas that Elizabeth offered him and walked into the adjoining room. Before closing the door, he told her, “Maybe we should look for a home church on Sunday.”

  She nodded. “That’s a good idea.”

  He closed the door without saying another word to her.

  “We were happy,” Elizabeth mumbled to herself.

  16

  Kenneth’s homecoming was far from anything Elizabeth envisioned. She realized quick, fast, and in a hurry that God didn’t grant her a cookie-cutter lifestyle. She wished she could model her family after that old Leave It To Beaver show.

  God didn’t take requests like that, so she started praying. When she prayed for Kenneth to regain his memory, he would remember some other horrible thing she’d done to him. Elizabeth had spent countless nights on the phone crying to Nina; trying to find out what had happened to her life. Neither she nor Nina had any answers for her current situation, so Elizabeth kept on praying.

  Now, she sat on the cove of her bedroom picture window and looked out over her four-acre wooded lawn. Her life was in turmoil and she didn’t know how to
fix it. Lord, can You rewind his brain to a happy time? Come on, I can’t take much more of this.

  Ronda, the nurse from the hospital had invited Elizabeth to her church. So, that Sunday, just as Kenneth had requested, the Underwood family attended church.

  They were a half hour late because of hair, make-up and clothes drama. But inside, an usher smiled as he told them, “Pastor Lewis has already begun his message, but I can seat you in the back.”

  As Elizabeth sat down, she looked around. Stained glass windows encircled the sanctuary. Wall to wall royal blue carpet covered the floors. Faith Walkers was inscribed in the marble wall behind the pulpit where the pastor stood.

  “Turn in your Bible to Mark, chapter 4, beginning at verse 37.”

  Pages turned, then Pastor Lewis began. “A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, ‘Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?’ He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, ‘Peace! Be still!’ Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. He said to his disciples, ‘Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?’”

  The pastor adjusted his microphone. “Did anybody catch what Jesus was doing during the storm?”

  An old lady in a let’s-go-to-church pink hat with silk flowers, hollered, “He was sleep.”

  “Thank you, Mother Mannin. Yes, Jesus was sleeping. And that indicates rest.” Pastor Lewis smiled as he continued to address his congregation. “So why can’t you rest during the storms that come into your life? Knowing that all Jesus has to do is speak a word into your situation, and the waves troubling your life will be still.”

  Elizabeth closed her eyes, wishing she knew how to put her trust in God and let that be that.

  Kenneth nudged her. “I don’t think we need to visit another church, do you?”

  “You really like it here?”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  Elizabeth shrugged. “Let’s give it a try.”

  Kenneth relaxed in his seat and smiled.