Nineteen
I grabbed my temples. Could this day get any worse? “Hello, Bishop Walker. Yes, I just finished watching the news.”
“What should I do?” He sounded nervous.
“Nothing yet. There’s not enough information to even worry about making a statement. If anyone contacts you, just say you don’t know what’s going on.”
“Can you figure out what’s happening? Isn’t there anyone you can talk to so you can get more information before the whole story comes out in the press? I want to be prepared.”
“Is there something you need to tell me, Bishop? Something you know that you haven’t bothered to share? No need to keep any secrets from me. You have no reputation to protect as far as I’m concerned.” I know you’re pure evil through and through.
He hesitated for a second, letting me know he had at least one secret he wasn’t trying to share. Probably more.
“I can’t help you if you don’t tell me everything, Bishop. It’s just like a lawyer trying to defend a criminal. If some surprise information comes out during the trial and the lawyer didn’t know, he doesn’t have an opportunity to prepare a defense for his client. If you know something, you should tell me. Now would be a good time, so I can prepare for it.”
“No, there’s nothing to tell.” He said it too quickly. I knew he didn’t completely trust me to keep his dirty little secrets. As well he shouldn’t. One word from Monnie, and I would spill everything so fast his head would swim.
“Well, if that’s all then, Bishop, I need to go. I’m in Baltimore at the hospital with my mother. I’ll make some calls, but I may be out of pocket for the next few days. She was deathly ill when we arrived at the emergency room today.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Please know I’ll be praying for her. You know God is faithful to heal her.”
I chuckled. “Don’t bother to pray, Bishop. You and I both know it wouldn’t do any good.” It was amazing that he was so used to saying the right thing at the right time, even though he didn’t mean it. I guessed it was a preacher reflex.
“Well, then, Ms. Michaels. I’ll be expecting to hear from you as soon as you know something.”
It was weird, this amicable animosity we shared. Being pleasant for the sake of it, but both being willing to do whatever we had to do to take the other out at a moment’s notice should the need or occasion arise.
I walked back into Moms’s room. She had changed the channel. She patted the edge of the bed, and I sat down next to her. “Everything okay, Tree?”
I nodded. “I’m good.”
“You took your old job back so you could pay for my health insurance and bills?”
I nodded.
“You have to make that man look good because you’re trying to take care of me?” Moms grabbed my chin and forced me to look at her.
“It’s not like that, Moms. It’s—”
“Call the doctor to take this tube out. I’m going home to die. There’s no way I’d let you do that for me. No wonder you can’t sleep and you losing more weight than when you was in Africa. Tree, you know I’d never want you to do anything like that for me. I know you love me, baby, but I wouldn’t want you to sell your soul to the devil when I’m gon’ die anyway.”
She reached around her back, trying to grab the tube. I grabbed both her hands. “Stop it, Moms. Have you lost your mind?”
“No, you have. You know I wouldn’t want you to do anything like that. Let me go. When you get so grown to be manhandling me?” She tried to wrestle her hands out of mine, but I was too strong for her in her weak and tired state.
“Old lady, if you don’t stop it, I’m gonna tell the nurse you’re agitated and make her give you some drugs to make you behave. Is that what you want?”
She stopped struggling with me. “What I want is for my daughter to have some peace. Baby, just let me die, and you go on back to Africa and marry that angel man. Forget all this here and go where you can be happy. That’s what I want.”
I put my arms around her gently, so as not to disturb the tube. “Moms, I love you. I can’t let you go without my best fight. I can’t imagine my life without you. I need you at my wedding. I need you there when I have my first baby. And my second baby. I can’t let you die.” I let the tears flow down my face.
She pressed her face against my cheek, mixing her tears with mine. “Tree, baby. Death is a part of life. I’m making peace with it. I wish you could too.”
“I can’t, Moms. Not when I know you don’t have to die. I’ve seen miracles. If you would just let me pray for you.”
She pulled back and kissed my forehead. “Tell you what, when I die, you pray, and let God raise me from the dead. If I wake up, I promise the first words out of my mouth will be ‘Jesus, save this poor black soul.’”
I laughed and kissed both her cheeks. “Deal, Moms.” We shook on it. I hoped that was an indication she would soften and let me pray for her before it got to that point.
“Now you call that lady back, and tell her you’re quitting that job.” Moms folded her arms and stared me down.
“I can’t do that. I promise I have a reason other than the money.”
“Does it have anything to do with Monica?” She narrowed her eyes at me.
“Huh?”
“Don’t ‘huh’ me. I saw Monica’s face that day when we was watching it on the news, and then you jumped up and turned the television off and wrapped that skirt around my head. I ain’t crazy. You got to wake up pretty early in the morning to get something over on this old bird.”
I laughed.
“See, that’s what I don’t understand, Tree. You expect me to believe that God can heal me of cancer, but you can’t believe Him to provide for you well enough that you wouldn’t have to take this job that’s sucking the very life out of you. I mean, if He can raise me from the dead, surely He could get you a decent job where you ain’t got to shake hands with the devil every day. You Christians don’t make no sense to me.”
I felt like Moms punched me in the stomach. I sat there for a few minutes not knowing what to say.
My cell phone rang. I recognized Tiffany’s number and answered it. “Tiffy, where are you?”
“I’m at Stacy’s. I got your message. Is . . . is Moms okay?” Her voice sounded funny. Thick.
I frowned. “She’s okay now, but it got crazy for a second there. Are you on your way up here?” I looked at Moms, wishing I hadn’t asked Tiffany that in front of her, just in case she said no.
“I can’t get no ride, Sissy. Moms is okay? Is she . . .”
The way Tiffany slurred the word Sissy let me know what was going on. “Tiffy, are you . . . what have you and Stacy been up to today? You didn’t come home last night.” I looked over at Moms.
I started to get up and leave the room to give Tiffany a good tongue lashing, but Moms grabbed the phone out of my hand. “Tiffany, it’s your mother. I’m doing just fine, thank you so much for asking. Still alive enough to beat your tail for whatever it is that got your sister lookin’ like she seen a ghost. What’s wrong with you? Where were you all night? Better not be laying up under some man.”
Moms listened to Tiffany for a few seconds then her eyes flew open. “You drunk? You been drinking, girl? I oughta get out this bed right now, get in the car and come down there and beat some sense into you. You done lost your mind?”
I had to push Moms back down into the bed and point to the tube to remind her she needed to be still. I tried to grab the phone away from her, but she pushed my hand away. “What is wrong with you? I didn’t raise my girls to be no alcoholics or drug addicts. You think I worked hard all them years for this? Let me tell you something. You better—”
I pulled the phone away from Moms and walked out of her reach with it. I pointed to the tube and made a mean face in hopes of threatening her to stop moving around. The tube looked stretched enough to come out, and God knew I would pass out if that happened. “Tiffany, I’ll call you back in a minute. You better answer, you hear me?” I closed the phone and walked back over to the bed.
Moms fussed like Tiffany was standing right in front of her. “Think I worked two jobs, working my tail to the bone so you could have everything you needed and go to college and have a good life, so you could end up being an old drunk? I didn’t raise you like that—”
“Moms.” I held up the phone. “She’s gone. I hung up. Calm your nerves.”
“Calm my nerves? Did you hear her? She sounded high as a kite.”
I picked up the nurse’s call button. “Either calm down, or I’m calling the nurse to bring you some happy drugs. I mean it.” I held the button in front of her, threatening to push it.
She was still for half a second, then got herself in a flurry again. “You knew about this, didn’t you? That’s what you two got into a fight about, wasn’t it? Why you keeping things from me, Tree? You not supposed to keep things from me.”
“I’m not supposed to keep things from you?” Now I was the one almost screaming. “You get diagnosed with lung cancer and start chemotherapy and you got me over there in Africa, having a wonderful time, falling in love, thinking everything’s okay. Don’t you tell me nothing about keeping things from people.”
We were both quiet, staring each other down. She finally burst into tears. “What’s wrong with my baby, Tree? Why she getting drunk?”
I sat on the side of her bed and held both of her hands in mine. I reached up and rubbed her arm until she stopped crying. “Moms, I think we both have to face the fact that anything that’s wrong with Tiffany is both our fault. We spoiled her, gave her everything she wanted, overprotected her—just ruined her. We never gave her a chance to be strong because we were too busy being strong for her. So like you said earlier, she’s dealing with it the best way she knows how.”
“My baby.” Moms shook her head. “God, help my baby.”
“Was that a prayer, Moms?” I chuckled. “Just like black folks. Ain’t got no use for God until you need something. Then you want to call His name.”
She pulled her hand away from mine to smack my arm. “You need to stop playing so much, Tree.” She stared out the window for a second. “You get God to help my baby, and I’ll believe.”
I looked at her. “That’s a promise. If God saves and fixes Tiffany, you’ll believe and accept Him for real, and not just to make me happy?”
“If He can help my baby, He’d be worth believing.”
“Okay, deal.” We shook on it.
Tiffany just moved up to number two on my intercessory list—right up under Moms. I needed to pray hard and fast for Tiffany’s life to turn around quick, fast, and in a hurry. I looked at the tube leading to the suction canister which was already half full.
Seemed like I didn’t have much time.