“Sometimes people just need someone to listen.” John Short
After Khalil left, Fancy took a long hot bubble bath, climbed in her bed and prepared to relax her mind. She called the nursing home, like she did most nights, to check in on Hezekiah. The nursing staff always assured her that he was doing fine. They gave him a mild sedative nightly to help him sleep through the night.
Fancy curled up in the king sized bed, pulled the covers up around her neck and turned on the television to watch one of her favorite reality shows when her cell phone started ringing. She picked it up from off the nightstand next to the bed and looked at the number.
“Ummm, who is this calling from a 346 area code? Probably a telemarketer.” She shrugged her shoulders and decided to answer it anyway. “Hello.”
“Fancy?”
“Yes, this is Fancy.”
“Hi, it’s Stiles.”
“Stiles? Stiles Graham?”
“The one and only,” Stiles quipped.
“How are you?”
“I’m good. The question is how are you and how is the family? You know word gets around pretty quickly in the church realm, which is the reason for my call.”
Fancy positioned herself comfortably in her bed by propping three fluffy pillows behind her back. “I guess I was wondering when I would hear from you.”
“Well, it’s not from lack of trying. I’ve tried calling Hezekiah, but I think his phone service is off. I left a couple of messages with Khalil through his church voicemail and I called you a few days ago and left you a voicemail.”
“I’m sorry that I haven’t gotten back to you. It’s just that so much has been going on. I feel like I’m being yanked and pulled in a million and one directions sometimes. Please forgive me.”
“Believe me, I feel ya. So how is Xavier?”
“He’s having a rough time dealing with the repercussions from the accident. His best friend was severely injured; probably will never walk again.”
Stiles listened and heard the hurt and concern in Fancy’s voice. “I’m sorry to hear that. And what about Hezekiah? How is he?”
Fancy spoke slowly like she was weighing her next words carefully and cautiously. “I…I had to put him in a rehab and nursing home facility. I had nurses coming to the house but he still wasn’t getting the around-the-clock care he needed. Plus, he had become mean, moody and—”
“And what?”
“And violent,” she said after pausing for several seconds.
“What do you mean violent? Towards you? The nurses? Who?”
“He was mean toward the nurses. Short tempered with them but with me it was that and more. He even ran me down with his electric wheelchair. Almost fractured my ankles,” she cried.
“What?”
“That’s when I knew I had to do some things differently. I just couldn’t take it. I’m tired, Stiles.” Fancy continued crying into the phone
Stiles listened to her as she released her tears. He knew his decision. He was going to Memphis. “Don’t cry, Fancy. Everything will be all right.”
“I don’t know. It’s just hard. And I don’t know if you heard, but Khalil is the senior pastor of Holy Rock, at least until Hezekiah returns. I don’t know when that will be or if he will ever grace the pulpit at Holy Rock again. But Khalil is doing a great job so far. It’s like he was made for this.” She reached over on her nightstand and pulled out a couple of tissues from the tissue box, wiped her tears, and a small smile formed on her face.
“That’s good to hear. Although I must say that I am a little shocked that Khalil assumed such a giant role. Being a senior pastor is not easy, and overseeing a church the size of Holy Rock makes it even tougher.”
“Yes, I know, but I know a lot of what goes on behind the scenes, and so does Khalil. He worked closely with me and Hezekiah before all of this happened. And you know he was youth director before this,” she explained.
“Yeah, but being a youth director and a senior pastor is like trying to compare apples to oranges.”
“God is gracious and he’s showing favor on my son.”
Stiles detected some irritability in Fancy’s tone so he backed off from that subject. “Listen, I’m coming to Memphis in a couple of days.”
“Oh? Do you have a speaking engagement or are you coming to see your father?”
“No, I don’t have a speaking engagement and yes I’ll see Pastor when I get there, but the main reason I’m coming is to see you, Hezekiah, and the boys.”
“But why?” Fancy didn’t understand the reasoning behind Stiles’ decision to come to Memphis. Hezekiah hadn’t spoken to him since Margaret went on her murdering rampage. So what was his real reason? Did he think he could come and get Holy Rock back? If that was what he had planned, he was in for a rude awakening because she was not going to let anything or anyone steal that crown from the McCoys of Holy Rock!
“Fancy, you’re family. You need me there. And before you think that I have some ulterior motive, let me assure you that my motive is to get closer to my family, especially my brother and my nephews. You need someone there for you, someone who understands what you’re going through. And believe me, you know if anybody understands, it’s me.”
Fancy listened to Stiles. She began crying all over again. “Unfortunately, you do understand. You’ve been through so much. And I do need someone. I mean, Khalil is here for me, but between him being the pastor now and trying to live his own life, he shouldn’t have to be worried about me. He’s been such a blessing.”
“Look, don’t you worry about a thing. Give me a couple of days to get things straight here. You know we had a huge hurricane not too long ago and we still have some people staying at the church, but I’ll work all of that out.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t think to ask you if you were affected by the floods. I read that it was pretty bad down there.”
“Yeah, it was. But it could have been worse. My place was spared and so was the church. We experienced very little flooding, just a lot of rain.”
“Good. Thank God for that. Many people weren’t as lucky as you.”
“I know and that’s why we immediately opened our church doors to accommodate as many people as we could, given the size of our church. We are a small congregation and a small church in building size, but God is multiplying that small space. We’re housing people in our fellowship hall. At the height of the storm we had close to a hundred people.”
“Oh my, Lord,” Fancy said, still sniffling but wiping away the last few tears.
“We’re down to about seven people who still require our assistance. We’re working to find them housing.”
“God bless you. In light of all that you have going on, please don’t come here, Stiles. I can manage. You have your own congregation and your own life there in Houston.”
“But I have my family in Memphis. I’ll call or text you sometime tomorrow to let you know when I’ll be leaving out. Now get you some rest. Oh, and I don’t think you need to mention to Hezekiah that I’m coming. I don’t want to get him upset.”
“Don’t worry. I had no plans to tell him anything. He’ll see you when he sees you. And don’t worry about a place to stay. You can stay here. We have plenty of room.”
“I don’t want to impose on you so I plan to stay with Pastor and Sista Josie, or I can easily get a hotel.”
“I insist that you stay here. Like you said….we’re family.”
Stiles grinned. “See you in a couple of days.” They ended the call.
Fancy nestled her head back against the pillows and smiled. A sense of relief mixed with anticipation flooded her heart and her spirit. She laid her cell phone down next to her on the bed, closed her eyes, and allowed sleep to overtake her.
Stiles held his cell phone in his hand as he got up off of the couch in his man cave and retreated to his bedroom. His phone rang. It was Kareena’s ringtone.
“Hi there. To what do I owe the pleasure of this phone call?” He chuckled.
“Just thought I’d check in on you. At church today you were having a pretty rough day. Have you given any more thought about going to Memphis for a visit?”
“As a matter of fact. I have. I was going to talk to you about it tomorrow when I got to the church. I just spoke to Sista McCoy.”
“How did that go?”
“Actually far better than I expected, but then again I’ve known her and Hezekiah since they first came to Holy Rock. She’s always been a cool person. It’s her husband who can be, well let’s just say he can be difficult to get along with.”
“Yeah, he was the associate pastor when you were there.”
“That’s right. Fancy is a good person. After talking to her, I knew more than ever that she needs somebody. I mean, she’s basically like me. She has no family other than her sons in Memphis. I’m not sure where her parents or other family members are. I assume they’re still in Chicago.”
Kareena listened as Stiles discussed several things he wanted her to handle while he was away. They talked for the next twenty-five minutes, taking moments to laugh and talk about things outside of Full of Grace before ending their call.
The following day, Stiles went to his church, talked with his associate minister and Kareena, and then visited and prayed with the remaining guests staying at the church. Afterwards, he called Pastor and told him about his plans. Pastor agreed that it would be a good thing for him to come see his family.
“I didn’t know anything about that boy taking over,” Pastor told Stiles. “He’s just a child.”
“I can’t believe it myself,” Stiles replied. “Fancy said Khalil officially announced it a couple of Sundays ago. Maybe that was the Sunday when you and Josie visited Community of Faith. I remember you saying that y’all had been invited to their pastor’s anniversary service around that same time.”
“Maybe so. Seems like somebody from Holy Rock would have called and told me or Josie; they tell us everything else.” He sounded a little perturbed.
“Joe called and told you,” Stiles heard Josie saying in the background.
“Joe ain’t told me nothing,” Pastor retorted.
“Hold up, Pastor it’s no need to argue with Josie about it. It’s okay. We all forget things sometimes.”
“I didn’t forget a darn thing. Joe hasn’t called here, and nobody told us anything.”
“Okay, Pastor. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that I would be there later this week. Sister McCoy extended an invitation to me to stay at their house.”
“You be careful about that, son. Hezekiah is still upset with me and you. I don’t know why he’s got it in for you when I’m the one that’s his daddy. I understand him being upset with me, but I’ve tried to make things right. He won’t have a thing to do with me, so all I can do is pray for the man. Give it to the good Lord. Did you know he hasn’t preached in God knows when?” Pastor stated, sounding agitated.
Stiles crinkled his brow. What in the world was Pastor saying? He knew full well that Hezekiah hadn’t been able to preach or attend church since his stroke. “Well, Pastor, hopefully when I get there I can make arrangements for him to attend one of the church services. I’ll have to check with Sister Fancy and the rehab staff first, of course.”
“What rehab staff? What you talking about, son?”
“I guess you didn’t know this either. But Hezekiah’s in a rehab facility because he needs around-the-clock care.”
“Why would he be at a rehab facility? Did he have some kind of accident or something?”
Stiles was growing concerned now. Pastor acted like he didn’t know that Hezekiah had a stroke. Was his memory failing him or what? “Pastor, remember. Hezekiah had a stroke some time ago.”
Pastor was silent for a few moments. “Stroke? Oh, yeah. Of course I remember that he had a stroke. What do you think, that I’m crazy or something?”
“No, Pastor. Look, I’ll call you when I get to Memphis. Okay?”
“Okay, son.”
“I love you. Kiss Josie for me. See y’all soon.”
“I love you too. Goodbye”
Ending the call with Pastor, Stiles pushed back his concern about Pastor’s sudden memory lapse.