And Now She's Gone(38)
“Cookies, doughnuts, ice cream … I’m trying to cut back, but…” Gray took an oatmeal-raisin cookie. Who was she to deny delicious desserts offered by one of God’s ushers?
“Isabel came down to the altar a few more times after that,” Pastor Dunlop continued. “Once, I talked about victory and making it through the valleys of despair—she cried during that. And then I preached about finding a path out of turmoil and to peace. She fell apart again, and while I consider myself a talented speaker…”
He tapped the spoon against the cup’s rim. “There was something happening with this young lady, and so, afterward, I pulled her aside and offered to pray with her. She accepted my offer, and … well…”
“Yes?” Gray sipped from her own teacup.
His eyes dropped to his hands. “Sister Isabel confided in me. She told me that she was being abused. I wasn’t shocked by the allegations per se—the church, unfortunately, is filled with forgotten women, women who’ve never once been treated right or treated with dignity. No, I was shocked once she told me about who had abused her. Her boyfriend, a doctor. She told me that he had forced her to deny her blackness, too, and even worse than that, he threatened to kill her. She told me that no one would ever believe her if she spoke up. And then she told me that all of this was her fault.”
The teacup in his hands was shaking. “And then she lifted her shirt and she showed me a bruise, here…” He touched his left rib cage. “Said that he’d slammed her into the dresser. And then she showed me finger-shaped bruises on her left bicep. When she was showing me this, there was this … look on her face. Defiance. Pride.”
Gray wanted to drop her head, which was heavy now with memories of bruises that had discolored her own body. She remembered the shame as nurses had iced her injuries and stitched the bloody, raggedy parts of her back together again. She’d never felt proud in those moments. Or defiant. Not ever. Not even now, years later.
What was there to be proud of? That she’d survived? Roaches would survive a nuclear war—they certainly didn’t deserve a parade.
Cancer. Tsunamis. Plane crashes. That shit came out of nowhere, and those people, they survived. She’d known that Sean was a vicious asshole with quick hands and a heart filled with mercury. Danger, danger, danger had always sparked off him, and once upon a time, that had made her wet and willing. And stupid—she’d been so fucking stupid. And to avoid her culpability, to keep from thinking about her stupidity and his violence and her fetish for his violence, she drank. And she stayed drinking. Maybe not drunk. Not all the time. But always drinking. All the time.
She didn’t sense those sparks with Ian O’Donnell, not that she was the ultimate Abuse Hunter. Still … not a single spark?
“Did she ask you to do anything?” Gray now asked Pastor Dunlop. Like help her with the big secret, the one that would destroy Ian O’Donnell?
“I asked her if she’d told the authorities. She said that they’d never take her word over a doctor’s. She didn’t want a restraining order, either—we all know that TROs and police can exacerbate the problem.”
“So?”
“So, I prayed with her, asked the Lord to protect her. I wanted to do more than that, but she stopped coming to church at the end of May, and Tea stopped coming about two weeks ago.” Pastor Dunlop’s shaky hand covered his mouth, and those warm eyes filled with tears.
Gray touched his arm. “She’s okay. I’ve been texting with her. I’m thinking that she left to avoid the worst. But I’m hoping for the best, too, okay? You keep praying. You stay faithful.”
Because some women did make it out alive. Some women did successfully escape. Yeah, they survived. And despite Gray’s reluctance, despite her disdain to consider herself as such, she—they—were survivors.
20
It was now moments away from eleven o’clock and Dulan’s had not opened yet. So Gray returned to the Camry and to Oleta Adams pressing her to just get there if she could.
Back at Isabel’s condo, filled trash cans still lined the curbs, and a black, late-model Chevy Malibu was parked where Gray had parked yesterday. The only other spot available was on the condo side of the street, in front of a beat-up Saab with Arizona plates.
Kevin Tompkins, the good soldier, exited the security gates. Today he wore blue jeans and a butter-yellow polo. He looked up and down Don Lorenzo Drive and then jogged to a gray Honda SUV parked behind the black Chevy. He lifted the rear gate, grabbed a Target bag from the cargo space, then wandered up the block. He stopped at a trio of trash bins in front of the next condo development over. He threw cautious glances up and down the street again, then opened the lid of the middle bin and shoved the Target bag deep into its mouth.
Nonchalant now, Kevin Tompkins strolled, la-di-da, back toward the entry gate shared by Isabel Lincoln and his mother.
“What’s in the bag?” Gray wondered aloud.
Blood rushed like fizzy water through her veins. This was unrelated to Isabel Lincoln’s case, but who didn’t like a good mystery? She’d always been the nosy kid, the Negro Nancy Drew. Maybe not asking Why?, but always wondering, always suspicious, always finding out … Like “finding out” that Mom Twyla and Auntie Charlene were girlfriends in the romantic way, kissing and hugging when they thought no one was around. Like “always wondering” why she’d been abandoned by the two people who’d created her. Like “always suspicious” of every person she’d ever met, including Nick, including herself, including Faye and Victor, who had finally adopted her and had saved her from the system.