Chapter 5
That I might make thee know the certainty of the words of truth; that thou mightest answer the words of truth to them that send unto thee?
—Proverbs 22:21
Lawrence began to shake his head. “So that’s how you’re going to play this, I see. Okay, who sent you?”
Gabrielle frowned. “What?”
“I want to know who put you up to these shenanigans.” Lawrence stood up. “Who sent you here and how much are you being paid?”
“Nobody sent me and nobody is paying me to come here,” Gabrielle said, standing now as well.
Lawrence walked around his desk to her. “Is someone threatening you or something? Does someone have something over your head and that’s why you’re here doing this? Is it about money? Do you need money that bad that you would come here and lie like this?” He was standing right in front of her face now. “Tell me why you’re here spewing this nonsense!”
“If you’ll go back and sit down, I’ll calmly explain everything. Look: We don’t have too much more time left. And we really don’t have a lot of time to waste.”
“What is this ‘we’ business? I’m not in whatever little scheme you’re cooking up here. Do you have a recording device on you or something? Is that why you’re in here lying?” He nodded. “You’re just trying to set me up so you can take something to my opponent. I get it. I say something here and you leak selective parts to the media to make things appear like there is something going on when it’s not.”
“Lawrence, please. Go back and sit down and let me explain. I promise this will all make sense when I’m finished.”
“No. What I want is for you to get out of my office.” He pointed at the door. “Now! Or I’ll call someone to escort you out!”
Gabrielle could see just how angry he was getting. She’d seen him like this once before. The day she’d told him that she was pregnant and she didn’t want the abortion he told her to have. He’d reacted almost the same way he was acting now. But she wasn’t that scared little eighteen-year-old who didn’t have a clue of what to do. And this wasn’t about her. It was about an eight-year-old little girl who possibly wouldn’t see nine if Gabrielle didn’t succeed in doing what she could to help her.
“Did you hear what I just said?” Lawrence was leaning in even closer now. “I told you to get out! Now if you force me to have to call someone, I’m prepared to do just that!”
“Not until you hear what I have to say!” Gabrielle shouted back, causing him to take a step back away from her. “And I’m not going to stop until you know everything. So I can tell it to you here, behind closed doors, with just me and you. Or I can tell it to the world. But I will tell it! And I will be heard! It’s that important. Now, go take your seat and hear me out. Or stand if you like. At this point, I don’t care.”
Lawrence stood with a clenched left fist. To Gabrielle, it appeared not so much that he wanted to hit her, but more like he was using his balled-up hand to hold on to something he felt he was losing.
Gabrielle acted like she wasn’t afraid at this point, but inside she was trembling. “Are you going to sit down, and we talk rationally without the yelling and screaming, or what?” Gabrielle tried hard to keep the corners of her mouth from quivering. “I’m sure you don’t want to be the cause of anyone overhearing us on the other side of that door.”
Lawrence nodded, sat back down in his oversized leather chair, and stared hard at her. “All right. Say what you have to say.”
Gabrielle eased down into her chair. She placed one hand over her face. This was much harder than she’d thought it would be, but this had to be done. She took her hand down and released a sigh. “Do you remember those last few times you and I saw each other?”
“Yes. So we don’t have to bother going over that again,” Lawrence said.
“Yes, we do. I told you that I was pregnant.”
“Yeah, and I told you that I didn’t believe that even if you were, the baby was mine,” Lawrence said.
Gabrielle couldn’t believe, even after all these years, how much it still hurt that he’d said that. She held her head up and looked boldly right back at him. “Well, whether you believed it or not, I was pregnant, and it was by you.”
Lawrence’s grin now was slightly sinister. “The operative word being ‘was,’ ” he said. “Because the last time I saw you, I gave you money to . . . take care of it. I never actually admitted to being the father of your baby. But I was gracious enough to give you enough money to help you during that time of need. And this”—he sucked in air as he raised a fist into the air before slowly releasing his breath as he gently brought his fist down and allowed it to rest on his desk—“this is how you repay me and my family’s, both Paris’s and my, kindness shown to you.”
“Lawrence, please don’t attempt to rewrite history. Yes, Paris was nice enough to let me come and stay with her. But if you want to know the real reason why she did it, it was mainly because she wanted someone to keep the apartment clean without having to pay them to wash her clothes and cook, which honestly, for me, was no different from where I’d left. So, no, I didn’t mind. And I didn’t have and never have had a problem with paying my way, which is precisely why, as hard as it was to get it, I also paid her half the rent those two and a half months I stayed there.”
“Actually, my daughter had pity on you and was trying to do something noble for someone who obviously is nothing more than a scam artist trying to get over on anyone foolish enough to fall for your sob story. You see I know for a fact that Paris didn’t take one thin dime from you for rent. And you know why? Because I paid the rent and all of the utility bills and for all of the groceries there. So my daughter wasn’t in need of any help from you, not when it came to paying any of the bills over there.”
“Listen, Lawrence, I didn’t come here to discuss or rehash what may or may not have gone down between me and Paris.”
“Yeah, that’s right. You came to try and take me down or shake me down with your deceit and, otherwise, lies.”
Gabrielle laughed. “You want to talk about deceit and lies. Do you really want to go there with me?” She pulled her body back and set her face hard. “I’m talking about you now. You know Mr. Blissfully Married, Proud Father of Three, Servant of the People, Deacon of the Church Simmons. A man of virtue and integrity who thought it was all right to sweet-talk, then sleep with an eighteen-year-old girl. Oh, let’s just come totally correct here: a just-turned eighteen-year-old girl who, as far as you knew or was concerned, was friends with your then eighteen-year-old daughter. And let me remind you that this was not once, not twice, but three times. So you can’t say it was something that just happened in the moment. Those next two times were deliberate.”
Lawrence let his head drop slightly before looking up and pressing his hands to his face. He removed his hands. “I was wrong. Okay? Is that what you want to hear? Is that why you’re sitting there saying all this other stuff about some child that you know is not true?”
“Wait? Are you talking about the baby I was carrying that you claim couldn’t possibly be yours? You know, the baby that caused you to call me out of my name because you were sure I had to be sleeping around, which, as I told you back then, I was not. I was a virgin, and you know that.”
“All right. I was wrong to have said those things to you as well.”
“Lawrence, I didn’t come here to torture you or to try and get you to apologize to me. I let go of all that a long time ago,” Gabrielle said. “And I truly forgave you after I gave all of my hurts over to the Lord after giving Him my life.”
“So you’re telling me that you’re a Christian now?”
“Yes, I am a Christian. I am a follower of Jesus.”
Lawrence smiled. “That’s wonderful. I’m happy for you. Welcome to the family of Christ. I guess that makes us sisters and brothers now.”
Gabrielle nodded one time. But she wasn’t finished with the conversation they were already having; she wasn’t going to let him skillfully change the subject. “You gave me money to get an abortion. I didn’t ask you for any money to do that.”
“I know you didn’t. But I felt it was the least I could do to help out.”
Gabrielle let out a single laugh, but not because anything was funny. “Are you serious?”
“Yes, I’m serious. How were you going to provide for a baby? You could barely provide for yourself. And other than at my daughter’s at the time, you didn’t even have a place to live. What on earth would you have to give a helpless baby? So you did what was best for you and the baby and got rid of it. I’m aware as a Christian, it doesn’t seem right. But it was the humane thing to do . . . for both of you.”
Gabrielle shook her head. “You know, you really are a piece of work. And you want to boast about how you’re pro-life working to protect the unborn.”
“My past is my past. What I did or believed in the past is not where I am now. From a pro-life standpoint, yes, I was wrong to have aided you in destroying a life. But my views have changed since that time. I’m a fighter of life.”
“Well, you know what? I’m glad to hear you are now ‘a fighter of life.’ Because that’s what I’m doing in your office right this minute: I’m fighting for a life that’s not had a real chance to live very much yet. Lawrence, I didn’t have the abortion,” Gabrielle said. “Aren’t you proud of me? Even as a sinner, without knowing how or why, I made the right decision. I let our baby live.”
Lawrence stood up, placed both fists on the desk, and leaned on them as he spoke through tightly clenched teeth. “Stop . . . saying . . . our . . . baby!”
“What? You don’t want to hear about the baby I didn’t abort?”
He shook his head, then stood back straight.
Gabrielle stood up. “I had the baby, Lawrence—a little girl. And I got to hold her for a few minutes before a woman came in and took her away. I gave her up for adoption, Lawrence.”
For the first time since Gabrielle began this part of the conversation, the corners of Lawrence’s mouth turned up into a slight smile. “So you’re telling me that you didn’t have the abortion and that you gave your child up for adoption?”
“Yes.”
“Then it sounds like everything worked out,” he said. “So why are you here putting me through all of this?”
Gabrielle eased back down and swallowed hard a few times. “Because our child, the child that you and I created together, needs a bone marrow transplant or she’s going to . . . die.”
“What?” Lawrence flopped down. “A bone marrow transplant? Or she’ll die?”
“Yes, Lawrence. When I decided to have her and give her up to be adopted, I moved on with no intentions of looking back. Yes, I’ve made some bad decisions along the way, but I’ve also made some good ones.”
“Well, that would apply to all of us,” Lawrence said with humanness.
“Yeah.” Gabrielle looked down, then up at Lawrence. “I won’t go into each and every detail here. Earlier this year, I received a call from the adoptive mother.”
“Does she know about me?”
“No. I’ve not told anyone about you. They tested me to see if I was a match to be a donor.”
Lawrence looked into Gabrielle’s eyes. “Were you?”
Gabrielle wiped her eyes as tears began to fall. “I wasn’t. That’s why I had to come find you. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here right now.”
Lawrence leaned over and handed her the handkerchief he kept in his suit coat pocket. Gabrielle wiped her eyes. “So what are you wanting from me?”
“A blood relative has a better chance of being a match in this case.”
“So you’re asking me to see if I’m a possible match?”
Gabrielle dabbed at her eyes. When she saw that his handkerchief had his last name embroidered on it (not just his initials as most do), she almost laughed. “Yes. I’m asking you to see if you’re a match. The medical personnel and adoptive mother have things set up so that no one will know who the donor is, if that’s what one prefers.”
“Well, that’s a good thing, I suppose. Giving who I am, the last thing I need is for something like this to get out. My political opponents could bury me alive with this information—the fact that I could have a child outside of my marriage.”
“Not could . . . technically speaking, you do.”
“According to you,” Lawrence said.
“You know what, Lawrence? You are more than welcome to have a paternity test done. In fact, I would welcome it. If you like, I can even have it initiated.”
Lawrence stared hard at her. “You would do something like that, knowing how it might affect my political career?”
“Lawrence, there’s an eight-year-old little girl who, in about four months, will turn nine. That’s if she gets the bone marrow transplant she desperately needs to make it to nine. We’re talking about her life. Do you get that at all? I know it was your intent for me to get rid of her before she got here. Well, I didn’t. And she’s here now. So if you think for one minute that I care more about your political career than the life of that child . . .” Gabrielle shook her head slowly as she smiled and frowned at the same time.
“Lawrence, I’m going to tell you something. There was a time in my life when I wasn’t saved. That person didn’t always do the right thing. She wanted to be nice to everybody but quickly learned not everyone out there played by those same rules. What you’re looking at right now is the other side of Goodness.” She was somewhat making a play on the name of Goodness and Mercy she’d once gone by. “Please don’t make me have to go back. Because I’ll tell you, on that other side, I learned how to fight and fight dirty if I had to. And I will fight if I have to, when it comes to this little girl’s life, I promise you: I’ll fight if forced. Don’t force me to have to go to the other side.”
Lawrence swallowed hard; she saw it as his Adam’s apple rose and fell several times. “And what if I’m not a match? Then what?”
Gabrielle stood up to leave. “Then what? Well, from all I’ve been told, the best matches are usually a sibling. I don’t have any more children; you do. So if it turns out that you don’t match, I pray you come up with a way to see if any of your other children might be. Because as I just told you: I’m not going to merely sit back and allow this child to die. Not if there’s anything I can do to help her.” Gabrielle started for the door, then turned back to a now standing Lawrence. “I promise: I’m not trying to hurt you or mess things up for you. I’m not. And if we can come up with a way for all of us to accomplish our goals on this, I’ll be happy to do what I can from my end.”
Mattie opened the door, stepped inside, and stared at Gabrielle. “I thought I heard voices in here,” she said. She then turned to Lawrence. “I’m sorry, Representative Simmons. I thought you were at lunch.”
Gabrielle smiled as she walked back over to Lawrence. “Oh, I almost forgot.” She pulled a blank square piece of paper off a pad on his desk and picked up the pen stuck in what appeared to be an inkwell. She wrote something and handed him the paper. “Here are my phone numbers so you can easily get in touch with me. I look forward to hearing from you, sooner, rather than later. Thanks.” She then turned and walked toward the door. “Bye-bye, Ms. Stevens,” she said as she passed by her. “And do have a nice day!”