Divas of Damascus Road Read online

  “It’s Joyce Ann,” Dianne blurted out. “It’s about Joyce Ann.”

  “Who’s Joyce Ann?” Keisha asked, never having heard the name.

  “It’s my... my mother.” Dianne fell into Juanita’s arms, drawn almost magnetically to her shoulder.

  Keisha looked at Juanita above Dianne’s head quizzically. When Juanita’s face went blank, they both knew that it was time to pray. Juanita helped Dianne to the living room and sat her down on the love seat. “Slowly, Dianne, tell us what’s going on.”

  “It was my fault.”

  “What was your fault?” Keisha asked softly.

  “My sister died.” Dianne closed her eyes and, piece by piece, strung together the line that separated her existence into two parts. For the first time in her entire life, Dianne told somebody what happened that awful day.

  The sewing machine stopped humming long enough for Joyce Ann to reposition the fabric. Her sewing was fluid, automatic. Somewhere in the part of her mind that operated involuntarily, she made split-second calculations, adjusted the fabric at angles no sewing book could describe. Each of her crafts was a work of art. Regardless of her mental state, Joyce Ann’s gift for sewing was never in question. She could sew a masterpiece on her worst day.

  “Mmm,” Joyce Ann hummed, too involved to hear the doorbell.

  If you had been a better mother, it wouldn’t have happened. You’re the cause of Shannon’s death, you know?

  “Yeah, you right.” Joyce Ann placed her foot on the pedal and stitched another row.

  Well, you can’t stay here under Gloria’s thumb forever. She’s married now. Her husband ain’t gonna put up with this for long. She’s gonna send you back to the funny farm.

  “I sure ain’t going back there. I’ll leave before I let that happen.”

  What you waitin’ on?

  “I don’t know. I guess was hoping I could see Sugarbee.”

  Please! Sugarbee ain’t thinkin’ about you. What makes you think Dianne wants to see you again? After what you did, you really don’t deserve to live. You should have ended it a long time ago.

  “Maybe.”

  It’s not too late.

  “Well, I’ve got to finish this order at least. Gloria May got me this job. I don’t want to leave her name in the mud.”

  Why you worryin’ about Gloria? She never worried about you! You two made a huge mess out of everything!

  “I said I already know that. Didn’t you hear me?”

  Regina rapped her knuckles on Joyce Ann’s bedroom door and entered cautiously. “Aunt Joyce Ann?” Regina saw her aunt and searched the room for a visitor.

  “Ya.” Joyce Ann didn’t look up, kept her eyes on the ruby taffeta.

  “Were you talking to somebody?”

  Regina could have sworn she heard Joyce Ann talking to somebody. Regina dismissed the situation with a sigh and forced the invitation out of her mouth. “Momma told me to come down and let you know that we’ll be eating in about half an hour.”

  “Is everybody already at Gloria’s?”

  “No. I don’t think Yo-yo’s coming.”

  “Why not?”

  “She found out about her father yesterday.”

  Joyce Ann froze at the machine. “Oh. I guess... I guess it was about time.”

  “You knew?”

  “Of course I knew. Your mother and I were close once upon a time.”

  Regina wanted to ask: So what’s wrong with you now? But there was no use. Furthermore, she didn’t want to sit around here any longer, exposing herself to whatever toxic smells Joyce Ann might have floating around the rent house.

  It was beyond Regina why her mother would put up with Joyce Ann and all her issues for all these years. People like Joyce Ann, who spent their whole lives feeling sorry for themselves and not doing anything about their problems, made Regina sick. Granted, the way Regina fixed her own problems might not have been the safest method, but it worked for her. Why couldn’t Joyce Ann get her act together and do one of two things: spend the rest of her life begging for Dianne’s forgiveness or spend the rest of her life back beneath whatever rock she’d been under for all these years? Really, it was all Regina could do to remain in the presence of a woman who had abandoned her child.

  Regina gladly left Joyce Ann and walked the short trek back to her mother’s house, soaking up the good that came with memories of the old neighborhood. Miss Doublin’s dog barked its usual squeaky little bark as he’d done for probably the past fifteen years, putting Miss Doublin on gossip alert. Three seconds, maybe four, before, Miss Doublin cleared an inch between the curtains and the wall to see what was going on outside.

  Chapter 28

  Yolanda was glad to work a few hours for Brookelynn on Sunday morning. Working gave her an excuse to miss Regina and Kelan at church and skip dinner with the family. She couldn’t sleep or eat, barely could think, and her heart ached from something she couldn’t describe. Whether she was better off now that she had a father was anybody’s guess—assuming Bernard Livingston was still alive.

  Who was she kidding? She couldn’t assume anything. If she couldn’t even trust her own mother, where did that put her? Just one more testament to the fact that people couldn’t be trusted.

  Then there was this whole thing with Kelan. The plain truth: she missed him. Maybe if she’d never started dating him, she wouldn’t have known how it felt to look forward to his call or share a banana split with him. She wouldn’t have all these burdensome happy memories. Now that she was temporarily estranged from her family, all Yolanda had was God—and really she hadn’t talked to Him in a few days.

  “Thanks for covering.” Brookelynn breezed into the pharmacy at a quarter after twelve. “I hope you haven’t missed your meal with your family.” She was obviously running on caffeine, her voice a squeak above a bird’s.

  “Oh, I’m not going.”

  “I’m sorry,” Brookelynn apologized, her eyes artificially alert. “I tried to get here in time for you to make it.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I wasn’t going anyway.”

  “Is everything okay?” she asked.

  “No, it’s not.” Yolanda thought she might as well put it all out there. If Dr. Hamilton knew, there was bound to be someone else out there in the field who knew more about her heritage than she did. “I just found out yesterday that my dad wasn’t my dad.”

  Brookelynn’s face was a big hole. She asked tentatively, “Is that... I mean, is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

  Yolanda laughed. “I don’t know.”

  “Who is your dad?”

  “Someone named Bernard Livingston.” Yolanda shrugged like a preschooler lost in an amusement park.

  “Where does he live?” Brookelynn sat down at the computer and clicked on the Internet icon.

  “Parker City, but that was a long time ago.”

  “We’ll look him up online. There’s a site I subscribe to. I think I told you about it. They do a background check. It’ll tell us everything about him.”

  She got busy entering all they knew. “Okay, they’ll e-mail me the results of the search in a couple of hours. I’ll call you. Will you be at home?”

  “Where else am I gonna be?” Yolanda smiled.

  “With your Prince Charming.” Brookelynn sat up straight and batted her eyelashes.

  “Kelan and I are through.” Yolanda gathered her belongings, not wanting to discuss the matter further. “I’ll be at home, waiting to hear from you.”

  Yolanda returned the messages left on her answering machine, starting with Dianne’s. It had been a while since they talked, so Yolanda pulled a sandwich and chips to her side for fuel throughout the conversation. She had a lot to tell Dianne, now that they had so much more in common than they ever imagined.

  “Girl, I got your message.”

  Dianne took in a deep, cleansing breath and then let it out. She’d had quite a few of those breaths since laying down her burdens at Keisha’s house the night before
. Sharing the terror of her memory seemed somehow to divide the load, as though she’d given pieces of it away, never to own them again. “I just wanted to thank you. I know you and Regina and everybody back home have been praying for me. I got a breakthrough last night.”

  “With your doctor?”

  “No. With the Lord. He prescribed confession the same way a doctor prescribes medicine.”

  “Bless God, girl. And thanks for telling me. I really needed to hear a praise report today.”

  “Why? What’s up?”

  Yolanda could hardly get the words out, but she explained the situation to Dianne, including how she ran across the clue that blew her mother’s secret.

  Dianne couldn’t imagine her aunt Gloria would deceive them all since childhood. It wasn’t like her to lie—but on second thought, it was like her to guard her girls at all costs. “Maybe she just wanted to protect you.”

  “Protect me from what? From having a positive male figure in my life?”

  “How do you know he’s positive? He can’t be too positive if he doesn’t even check up on his own child.” Dianne thought of how she’d dismissed the thought of her father from her mind many years ago. From what she understood, he was way too old to be dating her mother in the first place—in his thirties when Joyce Ann was a teenager. Probably should have been locked up. The thought of him disgusted her, but for some reason Dianne had released him from her anger long ago.

  They talked for another half hour, with Dianne assuming the strong role. Yes, her heart still ached, and she still had miles to go before facing Joyce Ann, but the prayers of the righteous availeth much. Keisha and Juanita had laid hands and prayed over Dianne until the power of the Holy Spirit comforted her, buffered her against the razor-sharp memories. The facts still remained, but they didn’t jab with quite the same severity as before. She was ready to resume sessions with Dr. Tilley.

  “Hold on,” Yolanda said to Dianne as she broke their conversation to answer her other line. “Hello.”

  “Yo-yo, where are you?” Aunt Toe demanded.

  “I’m at home.”

  “Why aren’t you over here at your mother’s?”

  “I’m not coming today, Aunt Toe.”

  “Oh, yes, you are,” Aunt Toe contradicted Yolanda as though Yolanda had no control over her own life. “We’re all waiting on ya.”

  “Y’all might as well go ahead and eat, Aunt Toe, ‘cause I’m not coming today.” Yolanda couldn’t quite believe she’d just said that to Aunt Toe. She almost expected to see a belt pop through the phone.

  “Chile, I do believe I just saw your life flash before my eyes. Now, I say you’re coming over to eat with your family, and I mean you need to get your behind over here like yesterday. You hear me? I got a lot to say to all of y’all, and I mean for you to hear it, too.” For as much as Aunt Toe wanted to drum up sympathy for her great-niece, it just wasn’t happening. People had lived through worse than this, and Yo-yo would be no exception. Granted, this wouldn’t be one of her better days, but Yo-yo had far more good days than bad in her life.

  Yolanda rolled her eyes in dismay, wondering if she really had to do what Aunt Toe said. She’d never crossed her great aunt before. There was something about her aunt that commanded obedience—as though, if you didn’t do what she said, something bad might happen to you. Not a curse, more like a prophecy. Or maybe it was just that Gloria had so thoroughly trained them to respect their elders, disregarding Aunt Toe seemed irreverent.

  Yolanda sidestepped the issue for now. “I’m on the other line with Dianne.”

  “That’s even better. Tell her you’ll call her back when you get here. I need to talk to all of y’alI. I’ve got some things I want to put in motion in this family.”

  Aunt Toe rolled herself back to the kitchen. She was so mad at the devil, she could eat scorpions. She’d been thinking about her girls. Looking at them, seeing them suffer over the past several months. Seemed like since Gloria’s wedding, they’d all been on a downward spiral. Aunt Toe had made a decision to fast until three in the afternoon twice a week, and from what she heard, Dianne might be getting better. But there was still Regina. And now Yo-yo and Gloria were at odds. Lord, if I die and come to heaven now, it’ll take another two generations to straighten out this mess.

  “Is she coming?” Gloria set the Crock-Pot to warm, holding the dial and her breath.

  Yolanda clicked back over and let Dianne know that she’d call her later. “Aunt Toe’s about to give me a beatdown if I don’t get over there. And she says she wants to talk to you, too. I’ll call you when I get to my momma’s.”

  “I’ll be here. Bye.”

  Yolanda put the phone down and bunched up her face in a frustrated scowl. She stomped her feet. Well, Aunt Toe didn’t say what time she had to be there. Yolanda decided to boycott the dinner for another ten minutes, which is how long it would take for Aunt Toe to call back.

  Ten minutes passed, and Yolanda grabbed her keys from the kitchen counter as the phone rang. She just knew it was Aunt Toe. Yolanda stood over the answering machine, fully aware that she’d better not let Aunt Toe catch her still at home. Yolanda danced over the machine, sticking out her tongue like a child whose parent just disappeared behind the bedroom door.

  “Hi, Yolanda, it’s me.” Brookelynn’s voice halted the dance, and Yolanda couldn’t help but laugh at herself.

  Yolanda fumbled the receiver for a second. “Hey, Brookelynn, I’m here.”

  “Oh... well, um, I’ve got information on Bernard Livingston. Do you want it?”

  Do I want it? Exactly what am I supposed to do with it?

  Yolanda grabbed a pencil and wrote down the information Brookelynn gave her, as if performing a professional task. After recording the address and phone number, she thanked Brookelynn for the search.

  “There’s more. Do you want to know?”

  “I guess so.”

  “He owns a small bookstore there in town. His residence is valued at one hundred forty-eight thousand dollars, and he owns two other properties in Parker City. Hmm, pretty good credit. He’s been married once, divorced several years ago. Um, files taxes quarterly, no dependents, never been arrested. He’s lived in Parker City since he left Dentonville thirty-two years ago.”

  “Brookelynn!” Yolanda’s mouth was wide open.

  “What kind of a stalker-friendly Internet service is this?”

  “I told you, it’s a background check service for the single woman. You can never be too careful these days,” she warned.

  “This is crazy, girl.”

  “Well, are you gonna call him or what?” Brookelynn asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Oh, please, Yolanda. I think this is so awesome. He’s an old man who’s never claimed any dependents, which means that he probably doesn’t have any kids. And here you are— Dr. Yolanda Jordan—finding the father you never knew you had. This is like a movie of the week.”

  “Well, it definitely is a bunch of drama, all right,” Yolanda agreed.

  “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “I know, Brookelynn. Thanks for your help.”

  Chapter 29

  Yolanda trudged into her mother’s house with an attitude in tow. If she could just eat and leave, that would be great. Highly unlikely, but great.

  Gloria hadn’t slept much. After telling Yolanda the truth, she’d told Richard. He wasn’t angry, just puzzled. He wanted to know if there was anything else she hadn’t told him. All Gloria could do was look down at the hardwood floors.

  “Honey, I love you. But you need to come clean,” was all he could say. He spent the night in the guest room. They sat next to each other at church, but no words had been said. And now he was noticeably absent from Sunday dinner. Said he was going to ride around, clear his head.

  Though Orlando was back in the house, he and Regina still weren’t speaking.

  And Joyce Ann had just come out on the losing end of a two-hour bitter argument with th
e voices of accusation.

  The clang of pots and pans rang through the house, but Yolanda sat herself right down on the couch in the living room. Were it not for Aunt Toe’s evil eye, she might have stayed there. She knew better. Yolanda plodded into the kitchen to help with the remaining preparations. The sooner they got finished eating, the better things would be. She dropped her purse on Richard’s new lounge chair in the living room and made her way to the kitchen. The table was spread with all things unhealthy—and some that were meant to be healthy but got smothered in oil and salt in the traditional southern cooking process.

  “When are we gonna have some healthy stuff to eat for Sunday dinner?” Yolanda asked.

  “When you start hosting Sunday dinner at your house,” Gloria replied, giving Yolanda that don’t-mess-with-me look as she removed the ham from the oven.

  “I don’t even understand how you can have an attitude with me right now.” Yolanda was doing her best to keep from exploding.

  “I’ve got an attitude with myself right now, too, Yo-yo. Join the club.”

  Yolanda stuffed her mouth with a dinner roll to keep herself from going all the way off.

  Regina nudged Yolanda out of her way, reaching past her to place a steaming hot dish of macaroni and cheese on the table.

  “You could say ‘excuse me,” Yolanda said, stepping aside. Regina didn’t respond.

  The doorbell rang. “Make yourself useful.” Regina looked at Yolanda.

  Yolanda rolled her eyes and left the kitchen.

  “It’s me,” Joyce Ann sang.

  Who invited her? Regina wondered.

  “Hey, Yo-yo.” Joyce Ann hugged her niece’s neck tightly.

  She smelled of Shower to Shower packed on top of body odor: powder on funk. Yolanda held her nose and thought to herself, This is ridiculous. She needs help.

  Joyce Ann had enough sense not to get too close to Aunt Toe. A little wave, and she was off to the kitchen.