Chapter 31 Monk
THIRTY-ONE
Monk
The house is finally quiet. Mama dragged her sister out for the Black Friday sales.
God bless Aunt Jeannie, but better her than me.
Mama tricked me into that retail warfare once, and I promised myself I’d never brave those rabid shopping crowds again.
Yesterday was bedlam enough, with my brother and sister both bringing their families for Thanksgiving dinner.
Kids, small pets, a few neighbors, and some “strays” from church.
A herd of children stampeded through the halls and up the stairs.
The recipes passed down to my mother for generations scented the house with food and nostalgia.
Mama and her new husband, Ray, a deacon at her church, moved into this house after the wedding.
It’s good to see Mama out of that apartment, with plenty of room for all her bric-a-brac and her precious piano.
I’d offered to buy her a house more than once, of course, but she refused and told me in no uncertain terms she would not accept it.
I wanted to be the one to give her a new house, but Ray loves her, and I guess it means something to make this home with the man in her life.
I sit at Mama’s piano to distract myself from the temptation to call Verity and see how she’s feeling about the arrangement we discussed a few days ago before the break.
Without conscious thought, I start to pick out one of the songs Mama had the whole family singing yesterday after dinner here in the living room, “Goin’ Up Yonder.
” At first it’s just a few notes, and then Walter Hawkins’s familiar lyrics from my childhood pour out of me into the room’s quiet, taking me back to a time when songs like this filled our home; meant I was home.
Sitting at this old piano feels like catching up with a family friend, and my fingers flow seamlessly from one song into another and then another, until finally my hands find the notes I haven’t revisited since my grandfather’s funeral.
He was the real deal, his integrity never called into question.
He’d been an immensely gifted musician, and it reminds me how much talent is sometimes hidden and tucked away in small-town churches at the end of country roads.
In the last days of his life, Grandpa Bellamy had made his request known.
He wanted me to sing “It Is Well with My Soul” at his “homegoing.” I’d barely been able to get through the song that day, but the lyrics pour out of me strong and sure now, even though a bit of sadness will always shadow this song for me.
When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well with my soul.
It is well with my soul,
It is well, it is well with my soul.
“Sounds good.”
I stop playing abruptly and turn on the bench to face my father.
His eyes are somber, filled with the same emotion hearing that song, playing it again, stirs in me.
He and his father were incredibly close.
He would have been disappointed to see how Daddy failed God, the church, himself, and his family, but I have no doubt he would have found a way to forgive him.
Must be nice.
“Thanks.” I close the piano in case my father gets the bright idea to start singing and join me. We haven’t sung together since I was eighteen. “How’d you get in?”
“Ray was on his way out as I was coming,” Daddy says, walking over and sitting on the love seat a few feet away, crossing a leg over his knee. “I missed you the last few times you were home. Didn’t want that to happen again.”
“Huh,” I grunt, ignoring his subtle reprimand for how I’ve avoided him in the past. “What’d you do for Thanksgiving? Eat with the church?”
A strange look passes over his face. “I actually don’t lead the church anymore.”
I assume my shock shows on my face, judging by his satisfied grin. “Since when?” I ask.
“Few months ago.”
“Nobody mentioned it.”
“Well, I guess you haven’t shown much interest in the church for a long time,” he says. “Or in me for that matter.”
There’s no accusation or anger in his statement, and I don’t bother denying it.
“They finally kicked you out?” I ask, only half jokingly, since I thought they should have expelled him years ago when his infidelity first came to light.
“No, I retired. I’m teaching some theology courses over at the college.”
“Oh.” I nod as if that makes perfect sense, when it’s actually the last thing I expected. I thought they’d have to drag his corpse out of Hope’s pulpit. “You liking it?”
“Very much.” He fiddles with the tassel on his shoes, which are as polished in Mama’s living room as they would be for a Sunday service.
“Sometimes I think… well, maybe that’s what I should have been doing all along.
We all knew your mama was the real shepherd of Hope’s flock.
She loved on the people, connected with them like I never could.
I preferred the teaching, sermons, and all that. ”
“And yet it was her they abandoned when you cheated,” I say, looking at Mama’s portrait of Black Jesus on the wall instead of at my father.
“I guess that’s the way you remember it.” He shifts on the love seat and rests his elbows on his knees.
My eyes snap to his, holding his gaze with a boldness I never could manage when I was younger. “You saying that’s not how it was?”
“I’m saying that as a grown man, I hope you gain some perspective about things that happened when you were a child.”
“I wasn’t a child.”
“Oh, excuse me. That’s right. You were in high school. You understood everything.”
“Surely you not blaming Mama for your infidelity.”
“Not at all.” He lifts his eyes and gives me one of those penetrating looks I haven’t been on the other end of for years.
“I’m saying your mother didn’t want a church split.
She loved the people too much to fracture them that way; force them to choose sides.
Some folks never recover from that kind of thing.
They leave and don’t land in another church, give up on God altogether. ”
He pauses, searching my face.
“Is that what you did, son?” he asks softly. “Did you give up on God altogether because I made a mistake?”
“A mistake,” I snort disdainfully, giving him my back when I twist to lift the piano lid again and brush my fingers across the keys. “If that’s what you want to call it.”
“Would you rather I call it sin, because I—”
“I don’t care what you call it. Sin. Transgression. Mistake.” I face him again, my voice flat. “You fucked up, and Mama paid the highest price.”
In the silence that follows my words, the air throbs with the fury I’ve kept in check for years. At least it’s real. He and I haven’t had real conversations in a long time. He’s always tiptoeing around me like I’m a land mine, and I’ve had nothing to say to him. Or at least I thought I didn’t.
“Your mother’s happy now,” Daddy says. “Things happen the way they’re supposed to most times.”
“All things work together for our good, right? Your theology is always so convenient.”
“So you do remember your Bible after all. Once a PK, always a PK.”
“Not always, since you ain’t a pastor anymore.”
“You got me there, but you didn’t answer my question. Did you give up on God because of me?”
“I was always skeptical, but I didn’t give up on God. I gave up on you.” I heave a sigh, the respect for my elders ingrained in me sinking its teeth in and pulling back some of my ire. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“You probably did.” His mouth quirks to one side and he sits up, stretching one arm across the back of the love seat.
“You know Coltrane was at the lowest point, withdrawing cold turkey from heroin and alcohol, and attributed getting clean to the grace of God. A Love Supreme was his offering to God, out of his gratitude.”
“Oh, so you gon’ tell me about Coltrane?” I ask mockingly, brows winging up.
“He said he felt filled with the Spirit of God,” Daddy goes on without acknowledging my taunt. “When I first heard that, I thought of you.”
“Coltrane said A Love Supreme came from his spiritual awakening. I haven’t had one of those,” I say dryly.
“Yet.” Daddy grins. “And you love that album.”
I roll my eyes, not wanting to admit A Love Supreme, structured in four movements reflecting a spiritual journey, is my favorite of Coltrane’s.
“Your point?” I ask.
“Not sure there has to be much of a point. Just that God has a way of reaching us.”
“He knows where I am. I don’t have a problem with God. I had a problem with you.”
“You had every right to be angry, son. What I did was inexcusable. You gotta remember that your parents, no matter how old they are, can be young and stupid.” Daddy’s brows draw together and he turns his lips down at the corners.
“I’ve asked your mother to forgive me and I’ve learned a lot.
I just never wanted you to be lost because of my mistakes. ”
“I’m disinterested. Not lost.”
“Well, you’ll always be my son, and you’ll always be a child of God, whether you acknowledge it or not.” He nods to the piano. “That gift you got, you used to believe that was God-given.”
“I’m not exactly sure what I believe anymore, but I know most of what I learned growing up ain’t it. Church folk always sending everybody to hell till one of them makes a mistake. Then they deserve grace.”
“I’m not asking if you gave up on church,” he says, his expression grave. “I’m asking if you gave up on God.”
“I don’t know,” I reply honestly. “I don’t think about it.”
“Maybe you should.”
We stare at each other, at an impasse, the same stubbornness setting his jaw that I know sets mine. When it feels like the moment pulls so taut it might snap, he clears his throat.
“So you, uh, you seeing anybody?” he asks, steering us to what should be safer ground.
Verity’s face flashes in my mind, and my eyes wander over to the phone turned screen-down on the piano.
“No,” I say, and then shrug. “Maybe. Not exactly.”
Daddy’s brows lift, curiosity replacing the awkwardness. “Who is she?”
“A girl I dated in college. You wouldn’t rememb—”
“Verity?”
I stare at him. “You remember Verity?”
“She was the only girl you ever mentioned the whole time you were at Finley. Wasn’t hard to work out. You two dating again?”
“It’s complicated.” I sigh and thrum my fingers on the piano bench. “She cheated on me. Back then, I mean.”
I didn’t intend to say that. Daddy used to be able to get me to confess anything I did wrong with a glance. Mama always said that look was as effective as a shot of truth serum.
“I caught her kissing this other guy. We broke up, she left Finley within days, and we’ve barely seen each other the last twelve years.”
“So why now?” he asks, eyes narrowed as if he’s trying to work out a problem.
“She’s a screenwriter. A really good one, and we’re working on a movie together.”
“Dessi Blue?”
I lean back to rest my elbows on the piano. “How’d you know?”
“Saw it in Variety.” He looks slightly embarrassed, which is completely incongruous on my father’s face. “You don’t tell me about your life, so I have to read about it in the papers, watch it on TV and stuff.”
“Ahh.” I crush a kernel of guilt. “Well, yeah, it’s my friend Canon’s film. He’s the director and we’re both on his team.”
“And you realized you still have feelings for her?”
“Is lust a feeling? If so, yeah.”
“I wonder if you’re fooling yourself, ’cause you for sho ain’t fooling me. It’s more than lust and I think you know that. I’ve been the one to let you down before. You don’t forgive easily when you love.”
“I never said I loved her.”
“True,” he concedes, though he looks like he thinks he could win the argument if pressed. “So you’re considering… something with her again?”
It feels weird discussing our situationship with my father, the pastor, but it’s also oddly freeing. I haven’t talked to anyone about the havoc Verity has wreaked on my peace of mind since she reentered my life.
“We were taking the Thanksgiving break to think about it.” I shrug with deliberate nonchalance. “It’s not like it will be a serious relationship, but it could get messy, especially since we’re working together for the next few months.”
“You’ve always had a way of figuring out what you want,” Daddy says, smiling. “Maybe God will give you a sign.”
“So you saying God is thinking ’bout my hookups?” I laugh.
“I think He’s still involved in your life even if you don’t believe it. He has a way of showing us the way to go.”
“Like a sign?” I shake my head. “I’m not in the habit of looking for those.”
“You don’t have to look for signs,” he says, smiling in that way that used to reassure me when I was young, when I believed he could be counted on. “They have a way of finding you.”