Chapter Twenty-five

“Willie, oh God, Willie?” Doreen cried just as soon as the guard walked her out to the visiting room where Willie was waiting on her. “A hundred thousand dollars? That judge set my bail at a hundred thousand dollars.” Doreen hadn’t even sat down yet when she started going on about the high bail the judge had set. “Can you believe that? I’m never going to get out of here. Oh, God, Willie.” Doreen buried her face in her hands and bawled.

At first Willie just stared at his wife. He didn’t really know what to say. As he watched Doreen weep he searched for some comforting words. “Come on now, Reenie, you know I could never stand to see you cry. Don’t do that now. Everything is going to turn out just fine. I done hired that law firm to take care of you. Everything is going to be all right. You’ll see.”

Wiping her eyes and calming down, Doreen looked up at her husband. His words, although try if he might to make them tender and sincere, weren’t. Willie was just going through the motions, and Doreen knew it. He was just saying what he thought a husband should say. The look in his eyes didn’t match his demeanor. He sat in the chair like the strong, supportive husband, but his eyes were full of hurt. They were full of pain. It wasn’t worry and heartache that he should have felt for his wife. No, he was feeling something else for somebody else. Doreen could discern it.

“Little girl, you’ve got the gift of discernment,” her father would always say to her. “God done blessed you to just get a feeling about people, places, and things. To just be able to tell things by strong feelings.”

That indeed was true. Doreen could sometimes just tell things weren’t right. That’s why she’d popped up out of Bible Study that day and went to the juke joint. That’s how she was able to catch that floozy in Willie’s lap. She had a feeling. That same feeling that sent her to the juke joint was the same feeling she ignored in her gut when she knew she should have walked away from that motel room.

“That gift of discernment is special,” her father had continued to say. “Make sure you tune into it real good. It can help keep you out of trouble. It can help keep you away from the wrong people, places, and things.”

If only Doreen had followed her father’s advice. Speaking of her father, Doreen asked Willie, “My daddy and my mama—did you call them? Do they know?”

“Naw, I, uh, figured I’d let you be the one to do that. I mean, I didn’t even know if you wanted them to know. I guess I was figuring you’d just do like some of the folks do back at home when they get out of line and Pops has to call the man on them. They usually just spend a night or a weekend in jail and that is that.” Willie put his head down. “But it ain’t looking like that is gonna be the case.”

Once again, Doreen observed how Willie appeared to be more broken in spirit than she was.

“So do you want me to call your folks?” Willie lifted his head.

“For God’s sake, no!” Doreen was quick to say. “No, don’t do that. There is no way they can find out about this. It would destroy them and possibly ruin their ministry.” Doreen thought for a moment. “. . . and my little sisters . . .” her eyes filled with tears. “My little sisters can never ever know their big sister done gone and got herself thrown in jail.”

Willie pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and slid it to Doreen. He didn’t even look up at her when he did.

Feeling a coldness coming from Willie, Doreen picked up the handkerchief while looking at him in a peculiar way. She wiped her tears away. “I tried to call you while I’ve been in here. I never got an answer.”

Willie repositioned himself in his chair. “Yeah, well, I, uh, probably was out.”

“Oh,” was all Doreen said—at first. “Where were you?” she asked on second thought.

Once again, Willie repositioned himself in his chair. “At the hospital.” His words were hardly audible, but Doreen had heard them. Still she wanted to make sure she’d heard Willie say what she thought he had.

“Where?”

This time he straightened himself up in the chair and spoke louder and more clearly. “I said I was at the hospital.” Now he was looking at Doreen. His eyes were almost daring her to ask why he’d been up at the hospital.

Never one who was big on dares, Doreen couldn’t let this one slide. “At the hospital for what?” she chuckled nervously.

“I needed to be there with her—to see what was going on with her and the baby.”

“Oh, I see.” The fact that Willie had been sitting up at the hospital with his mistress stung a little bit, but Doreen played it off. “How is she doing?”

“Not good. She’s all messed up in the mind.” Willie shook his head as if he was trying to shake away the tears that were forming in his eyes. “It was a boy. He was almost eight pounds. He was light as a feather too.” That last comment had brought a slight smile to Willie’s face as if he was reminiscing on something nice.

Doreen did a double take. Was this the same Willie sitting in front of her getting all emotional over the loss of another woman’s baby? The same Willie who had acted like he couldn’t have cared less when the two of them had lost their own baby just months ago? Although Doreen had been thinking it, eventually she spoke it to Willie and waited on him to respond.

“This was different. This was a full-grown baby pretty much,” Willie reasoned. “He could have lived and functioned outside of this world if you hadn’t of . . .” Willie’s words trailed off. He sniffed and wiped a tear that hadn’t made it as far as the corner of his left eye.

All Doreen could do was sit back in her chair feeling like the monster everybody probably thought she was. She felt like a monster because at this moment, she honestly couldn’t have cared less about that woman and her baby. All she cared about was why her husband cared so much. With the right questions, she was hellbent on finding out.