The Morning After

She’d been separated from her family for so long that she sometimes forgot she had one. As far as Jennifer knew, both her parents were still living, but she was fifteen, pregnant, and scared out of her wits the last time she saw either of them. David and Phyllis Mays were in the middle of a messy divorce wherein they fought endlessly about their daughter. Not like normal, loving parents would though. David demanded that Phyllis have physical custody, and Phyllis insisted the same of David.

By default, Jennifer’s dad won when he walked out without giving notice to his wife or his only child. His move forced Phyllis to accept guardianship. But when Phyllis handed her daughter an ultimatum: abort the baby or get out, Jennifer opted for homelessness. She couldn’t kill her baby. She needed someone to love and someone who would love her back. The child growing in her belly was her last chance at finding either.

Ultimately, the frightened teenager was accepted into a group home where she was given prenatal care and a warm place to stay. For three years, she lived there with other unwed teen mothers from all walks of life. Despite their differences in race, social backgrounds, and family upbringing, all of them had at least one thing in common: parents that had disowned them, or no parents at all. Either way, they were on their own. Little girls who’d lost their innocence and their childhood to poor choices and unfortunate circumstances. Forced to be women way before their time.

At eighteen, each girl had to leave the nest. Ready or not.

Through hard work and determination, Jennifer made it. Worked her way from certain failure to become a college graduate with a good job who lived in a nice neighborhood. God had been good to her even when she had no real concept of who He was.

But in all of the favor she’d been granted in her life, Jennifer couldn’t understand how she’d come full circle. She still had the college degree, the nice home, and the good job. But the one thing she loved most in the world—her son—had once again slipped through her fingers. All the transformation that had taken him from gang activity to good grades, from being a child she feared to a child she admired; all of it was filtering down the drain.

“Where did I go wrong?” she whispered into the darkness. “I’m only trying to do what’s best for him. Can’t he see that?”

Jennifer hadn’t moved from the living room couch in hours. It was still afternoon when Jerrod stormed from the house in a rage after she’d tried to properly introduce him to Devon.

“Hi, Jerrod. I’m your dad. Good to meet you, son.” Those were the words Devon had said as he stretched out his arms to embrace Jerrod.

Jennifer had told Devon to be patient; to take everything one step at a time. Told him to let her do the talking and set the tone. But no. He had to walk into the house with his own agenda. If she had known that Devon would try to hug Jerrod or show any physical affection at all, she would have warned him differently. She knew her son better than anyone else. No way was he going to fall into Devon’s arms like he’d waited his whole life to meet him. Jerrod had lived through the struggles with Jennifer. He knew the whole story of how Devon cruelly abandoned them when he found out that she was pregnant. He had gone without because his father had chosen the easy way out. Jerrod probably wouldn’t have even shaken Devon’s hand, let alone hugged him.

“Who you calling son?” Jerrod had snarled as he asked the question, and he looked Devon up and down like he was prepared for a head-to-head match if it came down to it. “I ain’t none of your son. I ain’t nobody to you, and you ain’t nobody to me. Believe that.”

And it went downhill from there.

“Watch your mouth, boy.”

Jennifer was horrified at Devon’s commanding tone of voice. Didn’t he know that he was going to have to walk on eggs with Jerrod for a while? Jerrod was being disrespectful, yes, but Devon hadn’t yet done anything to deserve the boy’s esteem. He couldn’t appear out of nowhere and expect to take on the daddy role just like that. This wasn’t a fairytale movie, and it wasn’t a fictional novel. This was real life. And real life just didn’t work that way.

“Devon . . .” Jennifer thought she’d step in and save the day.

“I ain’t yo’ boy either.” Jerrod was the exact height of his father, and he stepped to Devon as if to dare him to repeat his words.

“Jerrod . . .” Jennifer wasn’t sure which of them needed rescuing most.

“Don’t worry, Jenny,” Devon spoke her name, but he kept his eyes on Jerrod. “Everything is gonna be just fine. Leave everything to me, baby. I got this. This boy ain’t been raised worth nuthin’. No wonder he ended up in gangs and foolishness. He ain’t had no daddy around to show him how to wear his britches, but that’s about to change. We fixin’ to be family now, and I’ma make sure he stay straight. He ’bout to be a star, and I ain’t gonna let him mess that up.”

Jennifer wasn’t certain what made Jerrod bolt from the house without so much as a good-bye. All she knew was that her son looked at her as though she’d spit in his face, and then he was gone. Jennifer hadn’t seen him since.

“What was he thinking?” Jennifer pounded her thigh with her fist. She couldn’t believe Devon didn’t put more thought and preparation into his entrance. When she confronted him after Jerrod’s departure, Devon promised her that the fresh air that the rain provided would do Jerrod some good, and that he would be back before she knew it.

That was nearly two and a half days ago, and Jennifer couldn’t rid herself of the sinking feeling that she had lost the only blood family that she’d had left. First her grandmother, to death. Then her dad, to divorce. Then her mom, to abandonment. Now Jerrod, to who knows what. Maybe another gang. Maybe drugs. Maybe jail. In his state of mind, there was no telling where he’d end up.

Over the past year, when she had problems with Jerrod, the one person Jennifer could always depend on was T.K.

T.K. The sudden thought of him sent warm tears spilling down her cheeks. She curled her legs beneath her body and leaned her head against the back of the sofa. She missed T.K.’s arms. Longed to hear him tell her that everything was going to be okay. Longed to hear him say, “Let’s pray about it. Then we won’t make a move until God says so.”

That was Jennifer’s last thought before she grabbed the crumpled blanket from the arm of the sofa, wrapped herself in it and drifted off to sleep.

“Lord have mercy, child, what you done gone and did?”

“Hmm?” Jennifer stirred at the voice, but she pulled the blanket closer around her neck and once again, found slumber.

“Ah-uh. You gon’ wake yourself right on up. I ain’t got but a minute to talk to you, so you best make the most of it. Wake up, girl.”

Two nudges against her legs and Jennifer’s eyes flew open. Her breaths came quick, and for a second, she could hear her own heart pounding in her ears. Jennifer lay completely still for a short span. Listening. Looking. But when she saw nothing but darkness, little by little, she relaxed. Chuckling softly at her own sleep-induced experience, she closed her eyes again.

“I ain’t gon’ tell you no more to wake up now.”

This time Jennifer shot up into a seated position. There was no question that she wasn’t alone in her home. “Huh? Who’s that?” She reached for something she could use to defend herself, but all that she felt were the decorative pillows on the sofa. They were too soft for anything except to smother someone with. That would take too long and be too much work. If she could dash to the kitchen for a butcher knife . . .

The echo of heartwarming laughter made Jennifer feel oddly at ease, but the familiar sound of it terrorized her equally as much.

“Calm down, child. It’s just me.”

Jennifer blinked in rapid succession and looked in the direction of the voice that came from a place on the sofa not two feet away. The room was pitch black. “Ms. . . .” She felt stupid even saying it. “Essie?”

“Ain’t you got a lamp over there somewhere? If you turn it on, you wouldn’t have to ask.”

With a trembling hand, Jennifer fumbled for the switch on the tall floor lamp that was only an arm’s length away. And when she switched it on and saw a living, breathing Essie Mae Richardson, sitting on the sofa beaming from ear to ear, Jennifer emitted a dog-like yelp and jumped to her feet. She cowered into the nearest corner, wanting to scream more, but was unable to find her voice.

Her horror was met with another unruffled chuckle from Essie. The grey-haired woman smoothed out her white dress and said, “It’s all right, Jennifer. You ain’t got to be scared.” She patted the surface of the sofa beside her. “Come back and sit down. It’s okay.”

Jennifer didn’t know what to do or think. Her widened eyes remained fixed on a woman who looked just like the one she’d helped to bury a year ago. This couldn’t be happening. Essie couldn’t really be sitting in her living room. Jennifer had been one of the five people who’d gathered in Essie’s bedroom along with the paramedics on the night the woman slipped into a peaceful coma. She’d been standing there at 3:57 A.M. when the medics declared her dead. Jennifer had suffered through the crowded funeral and listened to Pastor Owens eulogize Essie; sat at the gravesite right alongside other neighbors and friends and watched the mortuary service lower her casket into the ground. She’d kept Austin many-a-day while Angel cleared out the belongings that Essie had left behind in her home. It just wasn’t possible that the same woman was sitting on her living room couch looking as happy and healthy as ever.

“Girl, stop pinching yourself and come on over here and sit down. I ain’t got all night to be fooling with you.”

Jennifer hadn’t even noticed that her thumb and index finger were working hard, squeezing the flesh of her own thigh, trying to see if it was all a dream.

“Have I ever done anything to hurt you, Jennifer?” the woman asked, still patting the space beside her for Jennifer to occupy.

“N . . . No.” Jennifer could barely hear her own response.

“And I ain’t ’bout to hurt you now,” Essie assured her. “Come on and sit down so Ms. Essie can talk to you for a spell.”

A spell. That’s what Jennifer felt she was under as she inched toward the sofa, choosing to sit on the space closest to the armrest. It seemed to be a safe enough distance from the living dead woman who was talking to her.

Essie readjusted her position on the sofa so that she faced Jennifer. “Now I can’t deny that I ain’t the happiest camper right now. For one, I had to leave my Ben to come and see ’bout you.”

Jennifer wondered what all Essie knew. She tried to look as clueless as she could. “See about me? Why?”

Essie shook her head as if Jennifer’s dramatic act of innocence was the worst she’d ever seen. “Don’t play games with me, girl. Like I said in the beginning, I ain’t got but a little while to help you fix this mess you done got yourself in.” She looked around the room. “He ain’t came back home, has he?”

With downcast eyes, Jennifer shook her head from side to side and blinked back tears. There was no need in putting on false pretenses and she knew it. She couldn’t fool Essie in life, and apparently, she couldn’t fool her in death either. Jennifer’s fear was evaporating now. She still didn’t understand how Essie could be sitting beside her and be in the grave at the same time, but she was glad to have her there. She needed her. “He doesn’t understand that what I’m doing is for him . . . for us.”

“And how you reckon that marrying that boy is helping Jerrod?”

“Devon is his daddy.” Jennifer’s tone was frank.

“Child, you and me both know that Jerrod ain’t never had no daddy. Devon might have planted the seed, but it don’t take no real skills to do that. Being a daddy is a whole lot deeper that seed planting. He wasn’t never around to fertilize him, cultivate him, or help him grow up strong. You been the closest thing to a daddy that that child has ever had. At least, ’til T.K. And now, thanks to you, that’s in jeopardy too.”

Jennifer looked away. Was there anything that Essie didn’t know? “I . . . I, uh—”

“Been stupid,” Essie said. “That’s what you been. You been just plain stupid.” A year in the cemetery buried under six feet of dirt hadn’t changed her one bit.

Jennifer squirmed in her seat, wanting to say something in her own defense. But it was no use. Nobody understood that she’d made the changes in her life so that she could be positioned to receive the answer to her prayers. All she wanted was a husband for herself and a father for Jerrod. Was that so bad? Devon was offering both those things, and Jennifer just didn’t see why everybody was against her on this. What could be better than Jerrod’s actual father fitting the bill?

“Baby, let me tell you something,” Essie said, leaning forward with an expression on her face that said that all of Jennifer’s thoughts had been read loud and clear. “In the Word of God, there was a woman that acted just like you. Her name was Sarah. She was Abraham’s wife and had just about everything she wanted ’cept a baby. The Lord had promised her a baby, but she just couldn’t wait on Him to do it in His own time. So what she went and done?” Essie paused, giving Jennifer time to answer the question.

“Uh . . . um . . .” Jennifer rolled her eyes to the ceiling as she thought. She was certain she’d heard this story before, but the combination of the unexpected question and having a dead woman pose it to her, threw her off. Her overloaded mind couldn’t compute the answer quickly enough.

“Lord have mercy,” Essie moaned. “Is Reverend Owens still the pastor over there? Is he teaching y’all anything nowadays?” When Jennifer continued her oblivious pondering, Essie released a burdened sigh and continued. “Never mind, child. Don’t have no aneurism trying to think of the answer. Just sit back and listen.”

Jennifer scooted back in her seat, embarrassed by her biblical ignorance.

“Sarah went and picked out one of her handmaids, and like a fool, gave that gal over to her husband. Told Abraham to sleep with the hired help and have a baby wit’ her. Like that was gon’ be the same thing as him having the baby wit’ his wife. Like God needed her help to make His will come to pass.” Essie curled her lips and gave her head a slow shake, like Sarah had to be the biggest dummy in biblical history.

“So Abraham done just what she told him to do. Laid up wit’ Miss Hagar and had a baby. And just ’cause it was done out of God’s will, that boy couldn’t be blessed the way the Lord intended to bless Abraham’s seed. He had a plan for Sarah and Abraham to have a child out of their own loins, and ’til they did it like God said do it, they couldn’t receive the blessing. And you know what?”

Jennifer didn’t want to disappoint Essie again. “Sarah had a baby?” Her uncertainty resonated in her voice.

Essie laughed and clapped her hands at the same time, apparently pleased with her student’s answer. “Amen. Sho’ ’nuff did. When she got out of the way and allowed the Lord to have His way, everything worked it out just like He planned for it to happen in the beginning ’fore she stepped in and messed things up.” Essie’s face turned serious. “Jennifer, you got to get out of the way, honey. You ’bout to destroy everything that God planned for your life and Jerrod’s. The Good Lord don’t need your help, sugar. He knows what He’s doing. ’Fore I left to go join Ben,” she pointed upward as she spoke, “I taught you real good ’bout God’s perfect timing. I told you that He had a time and a season for everything in our lives. But we got to be willing to wait on Him.”

Jennifer searched Essie’s face in preparation to plead her case. “But Ms. Essie, I’m thirty—”

“And Sarah was ninety,” Essie cut in. “Age don’t mean nothing to God. He knew what you wanted ’fore you even asked for it, chile. But just ’cause you asked don’t mean He got to answer right away. Psalm 27:14 tells us to wait on the Lord. Sometimes God tests our patience to see if we really ready for the blessing that we asking for. And honey, you ’bout to fail big time. You so busy trying to play God that you destroying your son’s life, and you on the verge of destroying yours too, by trying to put something together that wasn’t never meant to be.”

Jennifer stared at Essie. What was she trying to say? “Are you saying that me and Devon weren’t meant to be?”

“What in the world ever made you think you were meant to be?”

Jennifer had to make her understand. “Isn’t he the obvious choice?”

“How so?” Essie challenged.

“We have a child together.”

“A child that he abandoned.”

“That was fifteen years ago, Ms. Essie.”

“Fifteen years and not a peep from him ’til now. Don’t that tell you something, baby?”

“Yes,” Jennifer nodded. “Better late than never.”

Essie popped up from the sofa with the ease of a teenager. She walked the length of Jennifer’s living room floor, and then returned to her original seat. “Think with your brain, girl,” she said. “My time is running out, and I need you to get this and get this fast.”

Shrugging, Jennifer asked, “Get what?”

“Father, help me,” Essie whispered the prayer through a heavy breath and with eyes turned toward the ceiling. She brought her sights back to Jennifer. “Where that boy been all this time?”

Jennifer suddenly felt dim-witted. She hadn’t even asked Devon of his whereabouts over the past fifteen years. “I don’t know,” she said, hating to admit it. “I guess he’s been in South Carolina where he grew up.”

“You guess?” Essie looked at her like she’d lost her mind. “You ’bout to marry some scoundrel who you guess been living somewhere?”

The mounting feeling of stupidity didn’t suit Jennifer. She squirmed again. “He’s only been back in my life for a few days, Ms. Essie. We haven’t had time to talk about all that.”

“But you done talked about marrying him. What kind of foolishness is that?”

“Ms. Essie—”

“Listen to me, Jennifer Mays, and you listen good. How did that boy find his way back to you?”

The last few days had been a blur. Devon’s reappearance into her life had happened so fast that she had trouble putting the pieces together. “I . . . I don’t know, really. He just called me up one day, out of the blue. He’d been looking for me for a while, and he finally found me.”

“Anybody believe that can stand on their eyelids.”

Jennifer ignored the sarcasm. “I don’t have a reason not to believe him, Ms. Essie. I may not know all the details, but I know it was an answer to my prayer because I’d been talking to God about my situation. Telling Him that I wanted a husband, and Jerrod needed a dad. Then Devon called and—”

“And you just assumed that he was the husband and father that you’d prayed for,” Essie interjected.

“Come on, Ms. Essie. It’s too much to be coincidental. You have to admit that.”

“Oh, it ain’t no coincidence. You got that right. But I need you to think deeper, honey, ’cause the devil knows you were praying too. And he knows how to try to trick you into believing that this boy is your blessing, when he ain’t.”

Jennifer’s eyes widened.

“Timing, baby, timing,” Essie stressed. “Look at the timing. See, God’s got perfect timing, but the devil knows how to make things look timely too. He knows how to counterfeit just about anything. He’s an evil little trickster and you got to be watchful.”

Jennifer was even more confused than before. Her heart thumped in an off-beat fashion. She didn’t know what Essie was about to say, but she knew it was something she didn’t want to hear.

“What happened right ’fore that boy contacted you?” Essie asked.

“Uh . . .”

“This happened, that’s what.” From nowhere, Essie pulled out a copy of the local section of last weekend’s edition of the Atlanta Weekly Chronicles newspaper. On the front page of it was a photo of a smiling Jerrod and T.K. A photo they’d taken at Benihana on the day T.K. made the announcement of Jerrod’s phenomenal speed on the track. The same day Jennifer thought that she’d be getting a proposal.

When Jennifer failed to make an immediate connection between the article and Essie’s accusation, the woman spoke again.

“That boy don’t love you no more today than he did near ’bout sixteen years ago, Jennifer, don’t you see that? He didn’t seek you out ’cause his heart couldn’t deal no more with being apart from you.”

Jennifer winced. Those were almost the exact words that Devon told her when they met for their first reconnection date. He said that he’d been looking for her for years because his heart was bleeding after she’d been ripped from it. He blamed his parents, saying that they were the real reasons he couldn’t be in her and Jerrod’s life. But Devon claimed that since the age of twenty-one, when he moved out of his parents’ home, he’d been searching for his long lost love and the child she’d had. Devon told her that he’d arbitrarily come to Atlanta, seeking a better job opportunity, and God allowed him to spot her name as he randomly opened the telephone book one day to look up the number for a job lead he’d been given.

“Lies, all lies,” Essie insisted like she’d heard those thoughts too. “This here is what brought that boy back in your life.” She tapped the newspaper. “He seen this and seen dollar signs. That boy been in Atlanta for years. This same newspaper, as well as the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, had plenty of stories in them when Jerrod was testifying at the trial of them boys who raped that teacher. You think Devon didn’t know y’all were here? You think he didn’t know that the Jerrod Devon Mays, son of Jennifer Mays, who was mentioned in all them articles was his boy? Yeah, he knew.” Essie placed the paper on the coffee table and slid it closer to Jennifer as if she needed a better view.

“You ain’t told that boy one thing about Jerrod’s track record,” Essie continued. “Am I right?”

Jennifer nodded her head slowly.

“Well then, how he know?”

“He doesn’t,” Jennifer defended. “Like you said, I never told him. So this can’t be the reason—”

“Oh, he knows,” Essie assured her. “When he was talking to Jerrod the other day, he said he was gonna make sure Jerrod stayed on track. Said he was ’bout to be a star. Remember that?”

Jennifer’s mouth dropped open. She was right. He did say that.

“I sho’ am right.” The thought-reader struck again. “Right as rain. Devon came back to you ’cause he knows that Jerrod’s gonna be a famous track star. He’s gonna make millions from endorsements and interviews. Devon knows now that what he gave up fifteen years ago was not only his child, but his blessing. It’s dollar signs, not valentines, that brought him back to you, baby. He don’t care nothing about you, and he don’t care nothing about his son either. Not really. But he knows that the only way that he can reap the benefits of what Jerrod is about to bring to the table is to pretend that he loves you and wants to make an honest family out of y’all. And if he can convince you of that before Jerrod starts making the money, then he know he’s in and it won’t look like a scam. But believe you me, that’s exactly what it is.”

All Jennifer could do was stare at the article with swelling tears and mounting regret. She wanted to second-guess Essie, accuse the old woman of not knowing what she was talking about, but deep down, she knew that every word of it was true. Devon was still the same smooth talker that he was as a teenager. She wiped away trickles of tears from her cheeks, ashamed of her own self. Ashamed that she wasn’t able to see through Devon’s mask. Ashamed that she’d so quickly left T.K., the one she truly loved, to follow a lie. Ashamed to know that her own selfish folly was the reason for her son’s disappearance.

She sobbed. “What am I gonna do now? I’ve just messed everything up.”

“Yes, you have,” Essie agreed. “But one of the good things about God is that when you serve Him, you serve the One who can do anything but fail.” She chuckled and then added, “I used to hear the church folks say that God is the only somebody who can unscramble scrambled eggs. That means that ain’t nothing too hard for Him.”

Between sniffles, Jennifer said, “I don’t know if Jerrod will ever forgive me. Let alone T.K.” Her heart sank a little further at the thought of T.K. “He must hate me right now.”

“Child, didn’t you just hear me say that God can unscramble scrambled eggs?” Essie clapped her hands again, rocking back and forth with glee. “If the Lord can put a black man in the White House, He can do anything. Who would have ever thunk it?” She stood to her feet again and used her hands to smooth out her dress. “If you pray and put your trust in Jesus, everything will be fine. Pray and wait. Remember those two things.” Essie sounded like she had no doubt in her mind. “Now, stand up and give me a hug. I gotta go.”

Jennifer rose to her feet and didn’t hesitate to accept Essie’s embrace, holding her as tight as she could. More tears fell. “Ms. Essie, I’ve missed you so much. Please don’t go. Can’t you stay a little longer?”

“No, child.” Essie pulled away and kissed Jennifer on the forehead. “Ms Essie’s got two men waiting on her. Jesus and Ben. And as much as I love all y’all, I don’t want to stay away from them no longer than I have to.” She wiped Jennifer’s cheeks with the palms of her hands. “Now, I need you to do something for me, okay?”

Jennifer nodded, noting how smooth Essie’s hands felt. Too smooth for a woman of her advanced years. They felt like hands that had never known work.

“First of all, you ain’t got to tell Jerrod that you saw me. He feels my presence all the time, and I’m always wit’ him, but my assignment don’t include a visit with him. But I want you to give him a hug for me anyway; okay?”

Jennifer nodded. She only hoped she’d get the chance to hug her son again.

Essie pointed. “What I need for you to do is to get that there blanket to Elaine.”

Following the direction of Essie’s finger, Jennifer noticed the blanket that Essie had finished knitting just a few days before she passed away. When Jennifer groped in the dark and pulled the cover over her before going to sleep, she hadn’t realized that she was covering herself with the same pink and blue blanket that Jerrod had brought home from Essie’s house.

“Get that to Elaine, now; you hear?” Essie reiterated. “I’m on a mission to visit all the daughters the Lord gave me, but in order for me to fulfill it, I need you to do that for me.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Essie pointed toward the sofa. “Now, you lay on back down and finish getting your sleep. You got a whole lot of work to do tomorrow, and your first order of business is to get that devil that you let back in your life, out.”

Jennifer sat down, but still held on to Essie’s hand. “But what about Jerrod and T.K.? I don’t know where Jerrod is, and T.K. didn’t even return my call when I told him that my son was missing. What am I supposed to do about them?” “Pray and wait,” Essie reminded her. “Pray and wait.”