The Other Side of Divine (13 page)

—Psalm 106:6

 

 

 

P
aris went to her parents' house the day after her disastrous dinner run-in with Darius. She was glad her mother was gone and her father was there alone.

“Okay, I know something's up, Paris,” Lawrence said. “Your mother is worried about you. I've tried to reassure her, but it's obvious something is wrong. Now, I know you generally share things with your mother and not me. Whatever is going on, you're not even talking to her about it. So I need you to talk to me.”

Paris started crying. “Daddy, I don't know what to do. I've talked to someone about it and her advice was for me to tell Andrew. But I can't. I just can't.”

“Tell Andrew what? What's so awful that you have to keep it in and it's clearly tearing you
up
inside. I've never seen you like this before.” Lawrence took his daughter's hand and held it. “Your mother says your sudden outbursts of tears are likely hormones and connected to the changes babies can cause. Now, I do have a little experience when it comes to being around a pregnant woman considering your mother blessed me with three beautiful children, one of them sitting before me right now.”

“Oh, Daddy,” Paris said. “You always know what to say to make me feel better. I just don't know if you can fix this. I messed up. And I can't seem to bring myself to tell you, Mom, and especially not Andrew. I'm just so ashamed.”

Lawrence chuckled. “Excuse me, but are you saying this to the ultimate mess-up in town? In case you haven't heard, which could only mean you've been living under a rock somewhere, but I have a child out of wedlock that caused me to have to give up one of the things I love doing the most: being a congressman.”

“Daddy, I don't mean to be cruel, but you were going to lose your seat anyway. You didn't have a chance of winning as a black Republican, not in Alabama, and you know it.”

“See, it's small-minded people like you that see things that way. White folks really liked me. And contrary to what people think, they would have voted for me even though I was black. And right now, there are more whites voting than blacks.”

“Daddy, I truly don't want to debate or rehash politics today. I'm so
sick
of it,” Paris said.

“You're right. I'm sorry. I was only trying to address the point that I've messed up myself, that I know what it feels like to have done things you don't want anyone to know,” Lawrence said. “That's where I was going. Do you think I wanted to ever tell your mother or even you children, for that matter, that I'd not only had an affair essentially with a teenager, albeit she
was
eighteen and an adult at the time, but a child out of wedlock? Do you really think I was on my head to ever tell
that
?”

Paris rocked as she lowered and nodded her head. “I know. And I understand a lot better how you felt and what you must have gone through.” She looked up at her father. “I do. And even though I was the first to judge you, I've discovered we really need to be careful in doing things like that. Because we
just
might find ourselves in the same or a similar predicament where someone is now in a place to judge us.”

“It's like that scripture that talks about not judging because the same way we judge, we'll be judged. You know I'm not the best when it comes to quoting scriptures, but I'm sure you know which one I'm referring to,” Lawrence said.

“Imani is the one who knows the scriptures like the back of her hand. That girl kind of scares me, but in a good way. If I didn't know any better, I would wonder if she was adopted; she's nothing like any of us.” Paris chuckled a little.

Lawrence smiled and nodded. “So, baby girl, I need you to come clean with me. You know I love you, right?”

Paris squinted her eyes as she smiled. “Of course, Daddy. I know.”

“Okay, then. Let's have a judge-free zone right here, right now. You tell your old daddy what's going on, and I promise it won't go any further than between the two of us. I won't even mention a word to your mother if you don't want me to. I promise. And who knows: Maybe I can shed some light and we can make it right.”

Paris released an exasperated sigh and took her hand out of her father's. “This is between you and me and you and me only, right?”

“Cross my heart,” Lawrence said as he made a cross over his chest where his heart resided.

“You know what they say about like father, like son?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I have a new one for you. How about like father, like daughter?” She forced a smile.

“Okay, I know folks say you and I are alike in more ways than probably either one of us cares to admit. Although, I'm going to say right here that I'm proud you're so much like me. It makes me feel good to know you've taken after me, at least with some of my better traits.”

“Yeah, well, it's not just the better traits. It looks like you and I have other traits that neither of us is all that proud of.” Paris looked up sheepishly at her father.

He nodded. “Just tell me, and we'll go from there.”

“I cheated on Andrew.” There, she said it.

Lawrence continued to nod without any physical outward reaction.

“You don't appear at all surprised by my revelation,” Paris said.

Lawrence stopped nodding, smiled, and looked deep into her eyes. “Do you honestly think I didn't know that already?”

Paris continued to look at her father. Tears rolled down. She tried to smile, but the corners of her mouth trembled. “I suppose I didn't. You never said anything.”

Using both thumbs, Lawrence wiped the tears from her face. He got up and brought over a box of tissues. “I think I should buy stock in these things,” he said referencing the box of tissues. “Looks like somebody is always crying these days.”

Paris yanked several tissues from the opening of the box. “I know I certainly have. And I know I've caused more than a few people to cry. I guess I'm merely reaping now what I've sown.”

“We all make mistakes. It's part of life. It's part of being human.” He gathered her up by her shoulders. “You understand? None of us is
always
going to get it right. Not me, not your mother, not you . . . not even that little one you're carrying. That's how life is. We're in it and we just have to deal with it the best way we can. But for sure, none of us is going to come out of this life without something or other we regret doing or having done.”

Paris nodded as she dabbed her eyes. “So how long have you known?”

“Pretty much the morning after you and he slept together.”

“Then you also know it was Darius?”

He snickered. “Daughter, please. I saw that train wreck coming a mile away. I was hoping you would come out unscathed, but you're grown. And you sure didn't want to hear
or
listen to anything I was trying to tell you during that period of time.”

“No lectures today. Okay?”

“This is not a lecture. What I'm saying is that I knew Darius was no good. I probably share the blame because I was so desperate to try and tamp down both you
and
your efforts against Gabrielle that I placed you in the position of eventually finding yourself this way.”

“Like you could have kept me and him from destroying ourselves,” Paris said as she turned squarely to her father and grabbed both his hands. “Look, Daddy. I was determined to have my way. Darius was there willing and able to help me in any way that he could. Had we not worked together for your campaign, I was going to find a way, and he and I would have been together working on what I wanted regardless. Working for you likely slowed the timetable of when I was set to self-destruct.”

Lawrence shook her hands along with his. “You're being a bit hard on yourself. You thought you were doing something right and noble. You thought, as it turns out rightly so, that Jasmine was my daughter. You wanted our family to stay intact, even knowing that one daughter of mine was illegitimate. How can I be mad at you for that? It's actually the kind of woman your mother and I raised you up to be.”

Paris pressed her lips together as she shook her head. “No,” she said. “That's not a completely accurate description of me
or
my actions. I wanted to get back at Gabrielle. I hated her so much, I wanted to make sure she didn't end up with that little girl, whether Jasmine was your daughter or not. In truth: if there had been indefensible proof that Jasmine was not your child, I still would have gone hard after Gabrielle to try and take her away. That was despicable of me. And in the end, my hate and pettiness has done more damage than I ever could have imagined.”

Lawrence nodded. “I'm not going to lie, now. There was some true fallout that came from all that you did. Had you just walked away like I asked . . .” He let that train of thought go. “Hey, who can really say what would be different now? It is what it is. Now we just need to see where we are and where we need to go. Okay, so you and Darius slept together. It happens. Have you asked God to forgive you?”

Paris laughed. “Yes, Daddy. Did you ask God to forgive
you
?”

He laughed. “Yes, daughter. And I asked your mother and you and your brother and even Imani, who still doesn't know that Jasmine is her half-sister.”

“You know you're going to have to tell her, and soon. You don't want her to find out from some other place,” Paris said. “There have been too many secrets surrounding all of this as it is. Imani will never forgive you if she finds out some way other than from you and Mom.”

“I know. But Imani is sixteen, a lot younger than you and your brother. She may not take it in the way the two of you did. And Imani put herself out there for Jasmine in a way that neither of you did—she gave bone marrow to Jasmine,” Lawrence said. “If she finds out she did that essentially for her half-sister and not just some stranger, you know she's going to want to go to her immediately and start up a sisterly relationship.”

“I know. We've had this discussion as to why you can't do it now. I'm just telling you of the disaster that lies in wait if Imani finds out some other way.”

“Well, right now I'm adhering to Gabrielle's wishes. She wants to wait until after her wedding in June. She says Jasmine has endured a lot these past two years and your mother and I agree with that. Jasmine was extremely sick. Her adoptive father died. She had to fight for her life. When she finally gets a reprieve with a bone marrow transplant that still put her out of commission as her body and immune system mended, her mother, or the only mother she knew, is diagnosed with cancer and dies. Then the poor child had to deal with being an orphan, only to learn that she was originally adopted and that the person stepping up to adopt her was her birth mother.”

“Go ahead, Daddy, and say it. And I made things worse by being the villain to tell it so she could overhear that her birth mother, as I said it so clearly, didn't want her and essentially threw her away.
I
did that.
I
shattered that little girl's world. And why? Because I hated Gabrielle just that much. And I hated her even more when I discovered that my wonderful and devoted husband, who wouldn't stand by me as I launched my heroic crusade against the evil queen—the ex-exotic dancer better known as Goodness and Mercy—to rescue a damsel I perceived to be in distress, was legally representing
her
against
me
.” Paris nodded and dabbed her face with a dry tissue. “Well, I guess I showed everybody, didn't I, Daddy?”

Lawrence grabbed her hand and squeezed it. “Paris, I have to ask this. You know what I'm about to ask, don't you?”

She leaned her head back, then straightened it again. She nodded. “You want to know if there's any chance this baby I'm carrying is not Andrew's but Darius's.”

Lawrence grabbed hold of her other hand and held them both.

Paris looked at her father as tears slid down her face. “Yes, Daddy. Yes, there is a chance. And I'm terrified that this baby is really Darius's and Andrew is going to find out the truth. Then he's going to leave me and the baby. And after everything that I've done, my child and I will be left all alone merely because Darius is a jerk. He now ignores the fact that there's a chance he might be the father—”

“So you've talked to Darius about it already?”

“Yes.” She frowned. “Within the first few weeks of me learning that I was pregnant. I asked him to participate in a procedure with a short window where a paternity test could have been done. It's called prenatal paternity. But to do it, the father has to contribute his DNA. As you can imagine, I couldn't go to Andrew and ask him to participate to confirm that he was the father without him figuring out what was going on. Even if it the results had confirmed that Andrew definitely was the father, there would have been a lot of tension following that entire revelation.”

“That's putting it mildly,” Lawrence said. “Although Andrew really loves you. I'm sure the two of you would have worked through it though.”

“Yeah, but too much stress during pregnancy is not good on a developing baby. I can't say for sure how Andrew would have reacted. He might have turned into a totally different man if he knew what I'd done,” Paris said. “So I couldn't involve him at that point. I did, however, contact Darius and inform him of all that was going on. I asked him to submit to the prenatal DNA paternity test.”