Don't Blame the Devil (15 page)

From a distance Delilah watched the deacon with a confused look. What had she done? So what if she came to church and then changed her mind about going inside? Wasn't that a feminine prerogative? Where was the threat of violence against her coming from?

But whether she looked spanked like a little child or not, this time the deacon was not willing to give in to Delilah's feminine wiles.

The feeling of resentment he'd finally acknowledged and the vise grip Sister Marty had recently placed him into with her time limits and such, it went against all he held holy; and he'd blamed it all on Delilah's demons that started the bitterness ball rolling. All he'd ever preached and testified or witnessed to others—telling them nonstop to not think lesser of themselves than God does—soured. Delilah's sudden appearance had caused Jessie's unbearable pain and Tamara's total confusion.

His heart felt as though it pushed through his chest as he pounded it in anger. “What do you want from me, Dee Dee?” With determination, and despite several of the church members now looking on, the deacon hurried on toward Delilah. He was now on the verge of tears and his lack of decorum was on full display. “Where can I go to get away from you?”

Just as he neared Delilah, and before she could finally answer to his cold, hard facts, they heard a voice sing out. The sound stopped them cold.

It took her a moment, but Delilah rose slowly from off the hood of the car where she'd finally rested. She knew it had to be Tamara.

Although the deacon had heard Tamara's gifted voice on many occasions, there was something different this time. It was still spiritual and yet a bit sad; Tamara was singing a prayer and he knew it. She was singing Cindy's song, “I Go to the Rock.”

And just for that moment in time, just long enough for Tamara to finish her prayerful song of praise to God, Delilah and Deacon Pillar stood quiet and reverent.

Note for note, Tamara's soulful melody crept upon them. Their common love for her allowed a quiet peace to pick the lock to their stubborn hearts. Captured in that moment were unfulfilled promises they'd made decades ago, and it didn't matter.

From inside the church Tamara would never know how much she'd shamed them.

“I'm sorry, Thurgood. I never meant to bring that much pain back into your life.”

“I know, Delilah Pillar.” The deacon hadn't called her that for quite some time and the absurdity of it caused him to smile.

“You called me Delilah Pillar?”

“How about that.” The deacon's laughter came easily and was welcome. “Calling you Delilah Pillar and me going off like that—I felt almost like I'd taken an enema.” He stopped and patted his back pocket. “Gal, I feel relieved and pounds of frustration lighter.”

“You sure have a romantic way of expressing yourself.”

“I've always had a way with words. You should know that.”

“So what are we going to do now?”

“Well, I'm sure some of these church gawkers who are still peeping at us and trying to act like they're not can't wait for us to go inside.”

“I haven't changed my mind about not going inside. In fact, believe it or not, I'm a bit embarrassed. Aren't you?”

“Dee Dee, right now I've got so many emotions running through me I feel like I'd only bring spiritual confusion to Tamara's rehearsal. I certainly don't want to face Jessie right now. He's in the board room in a meeting.”

Delilah nodded in agreement. “So then it's settled. We won't bring any more confusion to Tamara's rehearsal. But we can't just leave and not let her know what's going on.”

“That wouldn't be right, so I'll call her.”

The deacon called Tamara on her cell phone. He'd been right when he'd figured Tamara would turn it off during a rehearsal. So the deacon left a message. “Hey, baby girl, something's come up and I need to take your grandmother to handle some important business. Let your father know, too. We'll take a cab.”

Of course, he wasn't about to leave a message that it was her beautiful voice that had kept him from doing another bit in jail. He'd never tell Tamara that he'd been about to beat her grandmother to a pulp.

“We still have the keys. How's she gonna drive?”

“Jessie keeps a spare with him. They'll be okay. Are you hungry?” Deacon Pillar asked. He thought he'd take Delilah somewhere quiet and they could talk. They might as well eat, too.

Delilah nodded her consent. “Are you paying?”

“Do you ever pay?”

They laughed as they walked to a nearby taxi stand where they grabbed a taxi and headed toward a Boulder Creek Steakhouse in the Gateway section of Brooklyn. It wasn't too far from the church, but they weren't going to walk it.

It was their second try at eating in a restaurant since the Blue Fish fiasco. This time it was different, except the deacon was still dressed like Christmas and Easter had collided with Halloween. They ordered their food and ate like two old folks with some sense. The deacon chewed a little slower because his mouth was a little sore. When they finished, they put their cards on the table.

“Thurgood,” Delilah said, “we've got to come clean. I saw how much hurt Jessie is in. It's not right what we're doing.”

“At least we agree about that.” Deacon Pillar stopped and grabbed a toothpick from his shirt pocket. He took a moment to yank out a piece of steak before he continued. “What we have to do is find a way to break it so there's the least amount of collateral damage as well.”

“Collateral damage—what do you mean?” Delilah wasn't too certain where he was going with his thoughts. “Explain it.”

“I'm talking about the pain it's going to cause the others involved. Telling Jessie that you and I are married and that I'm his daddy…” The deacon winked, but he was serious when he added, “We did agree that I'm his daddy, right?”

Delilah almost broke her silverware in half. But she was cool. “Yes, Thur-no-good, we agree on that.”

“That's good, because that means that I'm also Tamara's grandfather. I hope baby girl can forgive me. And then there's Marty….”

“What about Marty?” Delilah let the venom drape each word.

“No matter how you feel about her,” the deacon continued, “she loves them, too.”

“She's not going to be hurt by this. What's she gonna lose—bragging rights?”

As if a lightbulb had gone off in her head, Delilah folded her hands and pointed at the deacon. “You haven't told her that Jessie's your son? I thought you two were so chummy, and almost ready to race down the wedding aisle once you got divorced.”

“Can I get something else for you?” the waiter interrupted, asking in such a manner as to let them know that there were others waiting for the table. Delilah and Deacon Pillar didn't argue. He paid the bill. They caught another cab and went at it, back and forth, all the way to his apartment.

By early evening Delilah and the deacon hadn't reached an agreement on how to handle their situation, but they were still at it. Only they weren't going at it the way Delilah had wanted, so she could finally get the upper hand by leading him around by his “old reliable,” as he called it.

Even the heat from the blazing sun filtering through the venetian blinds in the deacon's bedroom couldn't compete with the heat Delilah gave off.

She sat, now fully dressed, on the edge of the bed. “Thur-no-good Pillar,” Delilah hissed, “I can't believe this.”

“I'm sorry, Dee Dee.” He'd come to apologize so often where she was concerned until he looked like a small child placed on punishment. He wanted to toss his failures out onto the sidewalk as he stood by the window. “I didn't plan for this to not happen.”

“Apparently you did. Are you trying to tell me that you can't rise to the occasion? Is it because you go to church?”

“Hold your tongue, woman.” He wasn't going to take another slap at his manhood. The deacon raced across the room to where Delilah sat. “Since you've been back, you saw for yourself that time we danced at your place, that I can still raise this soldier's flag.”

“Well, then I guess I should assume that you couldn't complete the mission 'cause you don't have protection nowhere in this place.”

She searched the deacon's face for a hint of guilt or an idea that she'd snooped through his medicine cabinet earlier while he'd taken a quick power nap. Instead, he acted like he didn't have a clue.

So Delilah tossed him another hint. “Why do you have a rubbers box in your medicine cabinet and yet earlier, you old fake, you pretended you didn't have any?”

“Condoms, Dee Dee. They're called condoms. With all the folks I know our age that's got that HIV, you think I sit up and just think only about sex? And besides, Miss Snoop, I keep money in that box.”

“Say what?”

“That's right,” the deacon replied, “I'm hoping most crooks, like you, will assume it's a condom box if they try and rob me. Nine out of ten they won't snatch a condom box.”

“Whatever, Thurgood.” Delilah turned away from him and added, “You ain't nothing but a tease. Ain't nothing worse than a supposed-to-be-all-that church fella that won't take care of his husbandly duties.”

“Stop rewriting history, Delilah Dupree Jewel.” The deacon bent over and turned Delilah back around by her shoulders before adding to her list of last names. “Pillar.”

“Just shut up, Thurgood. For God's sake, just shut up.”

“You're so ungrateful, Delilah. You were back then and I married you anyhow, and you still are now.”

“Who's ungrateful?” Delilah hissed. “I gave you everything I had back then and you threw it away.”

Just that quick she was in revision mode, and the deacon would not let it go. “How in the hell did I throw it away, Dee Dee? I married you, and then I went to prison so you wouldn't have to leave Jessie.”

“You could've pled down, Pillar. You didn't have to accept the first sentence they offered you and leave me alone.”

“Woman, are you listening to yourself? A plea down? How in the world was a black man supposed to plea down facing some white injustice?”

The deacon could feel his blood pressure rise. At a moment like this he needed to pray just about as much as he needed to get everything off his chest. Once more she'd brought him to the brink of laying his Christianity aside, but this time he wasn't trying to step back until he'd had his say again.

“Delilah, I'm telling you once more: You were supposed to stay with that boy. If you weren't gonna do it, then you should've told me. I would've kept Jessie and you could've gone to prison like you should have in the beginning.”

“But you were my husband. You shouldn't have left me.”

“And just like I said before, I was Jessie's daddy, too! Wasn't I supposed to protect him?”

A
little earlier Tamara, as usual, felt the pangs of hunger. She wasn't about to try cooking and burn down the house for real. The choir rehearsal had been both joy and pain. She'd found so much comfort when she'd sung her mother's favorite song. For a brief moment during the rehearsal, she could almost hear Cindy harmonizing along with her. In her mind, she'd pictured her mother performing in the background, like Nat King Cole had in his daughter Natalie's video.

Right now she wanted to keep that feeling for as long as she could, so she tried not to dwell on her hunger pangs. Tamara read through the latest issues of
Jet
and
Sister 2 Sister
magazines, while she waited for her father to return from the pizza shop.
How long could it take to pick up a pizza?

She could've probably gone upstairs and waited around with the deacon, but she'd already heard Delilah's irritating voice earlier. With Delilah in the mix, that was out of the question. Delilah still brought out the worst in her, and she couldn't allow that to happen; not on this day. And if she knew anything, she knew God wouldn't be pleased with her feeling like that.

And then she heard them arguing upstairs. She knew better than to eavesdrop, but they were so loud. She tiptoed up the steps and barely laid her ear against the door when she heard their confessions; truths that made her head swim and her feet buckle.

“But you were my husband. You shouldn't have left me.”
She'd clearly heard Delilah whine and make the accusation. But what did Delilah mean by it?
Protection, what protection
?
Husband, whose husband?
There was no one other than Delilah and the deacon inside. She was certain of it. But the deacon, what was he talking about?
“I was Jessie's daddy, too! Wasn't I supposed to protect him?”
he'd said. Those words and that declaration—they were his words. She'd know his voice anywhere.

Question upon question clawed at her. Her mind felt like it was in a vise and the deacon and Delilah kept tightening it.

There was only one conclusion she could think of. If Deacon Pillar and Delilah were married, was Deacon Pillar really her grandfather? A man who'd lived over their heads and hovered over her and her father. An old man so sweet and so loving, and yet wouldn't he say something if what she suspected was true? But he'd never said a word. A real grandparent wouldn't do that.

It was just another blow she didn't need. They must've been talking about something or someone else. Tamara decided to return to the tranquility of her apartment. She'd probably never know why she made the next move, but she did. At the same time she turned to tiptoe down the stairs, she tried to pull up the halter strap that'd slipped off her shoulder. She misjudged her step and tumbled down the stairs. In an instant she'd twisted one foot. “Ow!”

Her scream brought the deacon and Delilah spilling out into the hallway. They almost tripped up one another as they scrambled down the stairs to reach her.

Both Deacon Pillar and Delilah stood over her with obvious looks of panic fixed upon their faces. Before Tamara could gather her wits and pull herself to her feet, they'd both extended their hands to help her.

“Baby girl.” The deacon's reach was longer than Delilah's and he had no problem pushing her hand aside. “What happened?” he asked as he helped a reluctant Tamara to rise.

“Sweetie, you scared us.” Not one to rattle because she'd heard a scream, Delilah looked like a pop-up toy as she hopped from one foot to the other. Ignoring the deacon's slight, she rushed around him and stood by Tamara's side and asked, “Are you alright?”

“I'm fine,” Tamara snapped. As much pain as she was in at that moment, she showed she was truly Delilah Dupree Jewel's granddaughter: stubborn as a mule and in no mood to forgive. She was determined not to have Delilah standing any closer than necessary. As much as she didn't really want to do it, she quickly shoved the deacon's hand aside. “I don't need no help! I can make it inside by myself.”

“Baby girl.” He backed off as she requested and watched her wince in pain. It took all he had, but he exhaled and said softly, “I think you hurt your foot.”

Deacon Pillar found strength he didn't know he had. Even with an arthritic back and knees to match, he took the same hand she had used to swat at him, and gently pulled her to him. He then lifted Tamara off the ground. He carried her inside as though she were a feather.

Where was all that strength before?
Delilah thought. But the jealous thought was fleeting because she truly was concerned about Tamara.

“Dee Dee,” the deacon barked. “Woman, don't just stand there like a statue. Make yourself useful and run some warm water in the bathtub or in a pail.” He swung his head toward the hallway and hissed, “It would be the room that has a toilet in it. It's a couple of doors down on the left.”

Delilah was about to correct the deacon's attitude. But the sight of him showing so much tenderness with Tamara stopped her cold. She turned her head away so no one could see the pain that lately had repeatedly almost caused her to double over.

With her head drooping slightly, she sadly recalled how Deacon Pillar had once acted that same way with Jessie when Jessie was a toddler. Before a tear could fall from Jessie's eyes, the deacon would smile and say with such confidence,
Come here, little man. Let me take care of that.

And whatever “that” was, the deacon handled it with such care, while at the same time showing the young boy how a man should react.

The memory of lost times opened the floodgate to more self-recrimination.
What mother would've done what she had? What mother would've stayed away from her child and husband without explanation, and for so many years? I don't see how I can expect Jehovah God to forgive me. I truly messed up.

The deacon and Tamara never saw Delilah's tears. They didn't notice the way her shoulders slouched, making her appear even shorter than she was as she left to get the water for Tamara's foot.

Having dispensed Delilah to get the water, the deacon turned his attention fully upon Tamara. He laid her gently onto the couch and asked, “Baby girl, do you have any Epsom salts?”

“Yes, it's in the bathroom cabinet under the sink.” The pain in her foot quickly outweighed her anger toward the deacon, although she'd certainly make sure it was temporary.

“Dee Dee, look under the sink when you find the bathroom,” the deacon yelled. “There's some Epsom salts. Bring it back with you, unless you know how to pour it into the water without messing that up.”

Deacon Pillar turned back to face Tamara. Gentleness replaced his annoyance with Delilah. “Tamara,” the deacon said softly, “baby girl, you came upstairs for a reason. What did you want?”

Tamara tried to blink back emotional and physical tears. She couldn't. Her breathing came in spurts but she managed to answer, “I came upstairs because I heard you and Delilah arguing.”

“Oh my goodness”—the deacon slapped one thigh—“I forgot how voices carry in this house.”

It was only a second, but to Tamara time suddenly stood still. It was just enough time to allow her anger to return full blast.

“That's not all you forgot.”

He tried to scratch a patch of loose conk, as though it would kick-start his memory. “I'm pretty sure it was—”

“You also forgot to tell me that you were Delilah's husband and you're my grandfather.”

Her revelation sucked the air from the room.

And for the first time in quite some time, Deacon Pillar had no words of comfort, or wisdom, or any other snappy reply. He dropped his hands and his head. He couldn't stop the bombshell if he'd wanted to.

He needed Tamara and so he pulled her to him. The deacon didn't care if she slapped him silly or shot him dead.

Tamara didn't resist. She couldn't.

He held and rocked her as though she were a newborn. “I'm so sorry, baby girl. I'm so sorry. When Dee Dee comes back in the room, we'll try and explain things to you.”

Tamara quickly withdrew from the deacon's arms. “Do we have to include her?” Her emotions ricocheted. Inwardly she was still angry, but at the same time, and in that moment, she was somewhat happy. She'd always loved the deacon anyhow.

How her father would feel was another matter. That was a bridge to cross later.

As soon as Delilah entered the room and saw Tamara nestled in the deacon's arms, she beamed. She'd recovered while out of the room; delighted she could almost feel the peace in the room despite the chaos that'd come just before it.

“You two look cozy. The water's running in a small vat I found, and I've poured the Epsom salts in it and set it in the tub.” She stopped and for a moment she thought she saw the smile slide from Tamara's face, replaced with a scowl. “What did I miss?”

“Only twenty-one years of my life,” Tamara said as she slid farther onto the couch. She pointed to the deacon. “And even more years of being with your husband standing here.”

“Damn it, Pillar, you can't keep nothing.”

“Don't blame the deacon,” Tamara snapped. “I overheard it from your own lying lips.”

Delilah's mind was a web of confusion; even more so than ever before. Words seemed to fly around inside her brain, each word crashing into another, and none of them making their way to her mouth. So Delilah did what she always did when confronted with the truth. She fled.