Chapter One
Women and rain don’t mix. It’s a hair thing, and when the first drops fall, we’re often dashing for cover, frantic to protect our ’do.
But three winters ago, as I stood on the banks of the Canal Walk in downtown Richmond, Virginia, with the rain pelting my face and the biting wind piercing my leather coat, I didn’t care. I understood for the first time what led some people to kill themselves.
I had never considered myself self-righteous. But that night, I felt like a biblical Pharisee, who for years had been judgmental of others about the right and wrong way to live. I had never seen any gray areas in the Scriptures: Either you followed God’s Word to the letter, or you were being disobedient. I didn’t beat people over the head with my beliefs, but for me, they were as critical to my existence as breathing.
Do unto others as you’d have them do unto you. Honor thy father and thy mother. Thou shall not commit adultery. Yield not to temptation.
Now here I was, the very offspring of false piety. The sins I had pinpointed in others had been shadows in my own life. They had reared up and slapped me in the face.
If the principles in God’s Word were so concrete, what happened when we didn’t live up to them? What happened when we tried to hide our sins from others so we could appear to be something we weren’t, instead of asking for forgiveness?
I knew I wasn’t going to jump into the partially frozen river that night, but the shame and the hurt that enveloped me left me wondering how to go on. My heart hurt. I felt as if I’d been hit by an Overnite Express truck crossing the Manchester Bridge at breakneck speed. I felt worthless, even stupid.
How many people had known the truth about my life while I didn’t know? How could I not have guessed in all these years? I turned my wet face upward, wishing the answers would drop from the sky with the pelting rain.
A sliver of moon escaped the smoky clouds as the rain continued to fall. It hit the cold earth and sounded like marbles pinging back and forth in a pinball machine, only at a steadier pace. Somehow, the sound comforted me.
I knelt on the brick-and-concrete pathway that bordered the canal, oblivious to the puddles in the crevices. The moisture quickly soaked the knees of my pants.
I saw, but didn’t see, the disheveled man who kept casting looks my way as he shuffled past me, with his ski-cap-covered head slung low. He gripped the rim of a bottle covered by a weary paper bag like it was a cherished possession.
Usually, my senses would have been heightened to danger. I would have quickly moved toward my car. But that dreary night, I didn’t budge. I didn’t care about whether he would try to hurt me.
Looking back, I can’t believe I had ventured into a deserted area of downtown Richmond alone at night. Any other time, at the first sign of questionable characters like this obviously strung-out man, I would have zoomed away in my locked car.
That night, though, my fear-and-flee radar wasn’t turned on, or if it was, the alarm was being muffled by the other emotions assaulting my spirit. Whatever I was projecting prevented the man from bothering me. So I knelt there, shivering, and let my thoughts wander. The rain washed away my tears, but not the lead that saddled my heart.
I wondered if I would ever again be able to look people in the eyes with the self-assured focus I’d always had. Despite the challenges I faced growing up with a single, widowed mother, I had never doubted that I was special, that I belonged, that I mattered. But in the short time it took a few truths to cross my mother’s lips and reach my ears, that confidence had begun to crumble.
I would always remember that day as the best and the worst of my life.
The pace in the marketing department of the children’s software company where I was a long-term temp employee had been hectic. We were preparing for a charity fund-raising gala, and there was much too much to do.
By the time I arrived home, I decided to quickly prepare some stir-fry and spend the rest of the evening doing absolutely nothing. Those plans changed when I checked my mailbox and found a single letter awaiting me. The envelope was thick, so I knew.
Still, when I opened it and read the words inviting me to enroll in Boston University’s graduate program in advertising, I couldn’t help myself. I screamed a “Thank you, Jesus!” so loudly that the angels napping in heaven must have been startled awake.
The noise led Callie, who lived in the apartment next door, to knock and ask if everything were okay.
I was dialing my mother’s work number when I heard Callie’s soft tap at the door. I set the cordless phone on the kitchen table and sprinted the few steps to the door. When I opened it, she was standing there, wide-eyed with concern.
Callie, an elementary school teacher who spent most evenings walking her cocker spaniel or grooming her cat, had said little to me in the eighteen months I’d lived next door to her. I chalked it up to her shyness. She rarely made eye contact and generally walked with her head lowered.
I also soon realized that because I was a recent college grad, she had expected me to move in and start hosting loud parties. She thought I was going to be like the women she regularly watched on HBO—the Sex and the City crowd with a twenty-something flavor. Or maybe she even ventured to Showtime and watched episodes of Soul Food to try to understand me better. I would muse about her musings and laugh to myself.
Shortly after I had unpacked, the assistant manager of West End Forest had called and asked me to be respectful of my neighbors. She hinted that a concerned resident had sought assurance from her that the unit we lived in would continue to be a nice, quiet place to live. Since the only other neighbor on our third-floor level was a single man in his thirties who was rarely at home, it didn’t take much detective work to figure out who the “concerned” culprit was.
I hadn’t done anything to alarm Callie yet, but she still seemed wary. She’d say hello and glance away, sometimes sweeping a piece of stray blond hair from her eyes when we encountered each other, but offering nothing more. She had seemed surprised to see me leaving dressed for worship service on most Sunday mornings, and I had surprised her again by giving her homemade chocolate chip cookies for Christmas.
But when Callie knocked on my door that fall afternoon and inquired about my scream, I didn’t think about any of those things. I was so happy that I hugged her. My words tumbled over themselves as I shared the news of my acceptance to BU, and her green eyes brightened. For the first time, I saw her really smile.
“Good for you, Serena,” Callie had said and gently patted my arm. “It must be exciting to know your hard work is paying off. When I was a girl in West Virginia, I never dreamed I could go into a field like advertising. Teaching, social work, or being a full-time wife and mother were my safest options.”
Callie paused, as if startled by her own frankness. “I love teaching, of course, but it’s really nice to see women making strides in other fields.”
I squeezed her hand and thanked her for her kind words.
As soon as she left, I dashed back to the kitchen table to call Mama. I sank into the beige sofa, stretched like a cat, and smiled as I waited for her to pick up.
She was at the daycare center manning the phones as usual. Before she could recite her routine greeting, I blurted out my news.
“Are you ready for an advertising guru in the family, one with a graduate degree from BU?” I asked and giggled.
“You got in!” was all I heard from the other end. I knew what the silence that followed meant. My mother wept when the good cowboy died in old Western movies, at sappy television commercials, and at anything in between. She still got teary-eyed when she talked about the day I was born and my first day of kindergarten.
“Mama, don’t cry,” I teased. “This is a happy occasion, remember?”
She chuckled but didn’t respond. I shook my head and laughed as I waited for her to regain her composure. When she did, her words left me uneasy.
“Baby, I’m so proud of you,” she said softly. “Listen, I need to talk to you tonight. Come over for dinner?”
An hour later, I pulled into the driveway behind the cozy brick rancher in North Richmond that I had shared with Mama forever before deciding to get my own place. Mama met me at the back door with a grin that matched my own.
She swung open the door and stretched her arms wide. I fell into her warm embrace and received her squeezes. She was just tall enough for my chin to rest in the crook of her neck. Her familiar smell enveloped me as I leaned into her. She pulled away and kissed my cheek.
When I looked at her, I saw an older, more petite version of myself—smooth cinnamon skin, striking eyes, and high cheek bones that people said made her look regal. Mama’s graying hair bobbed at her shoulders, and she was dressed in a stylish, deep purple pant suit and black pumps. She had obviously rushed home from work and started dinner without changing into something more comfortable.
“I’m so proud of you, baby!” she said, tears dancing on the rims of her eyes. “I knew you’d get in.”
Before she could fully close the door behind me, I had unzipped my purse and pulled out the acceptance letter. I danced in place and waved it at her.
“Wanna read it?”
“Of course,” she said. I sauntered over to the breakfast nook and took a seat at the round table for two. It still bore the marks of my childhood paint projects and the tic-tac-toe tournaments I often held there with my favorite cousin, Imani. We used notebook paper but wrote so hard with our ballpoint pens that our marks would sometimes leave impressions in the wood whose varnish had long ago worn away.
Mama sat across from me and reached for the letter. Her eyes consumed each word. She seemed to be imprinting the sentences on her brain so she could recite them verbatim when she shared the news with my aunts and uncles and her friends.
Her gaze made me blush when she finally looked at me.
“You’ve always been one to set your mind to something and go after it,” she said softly, her deep brown eyes locking with mine. “This really doesn’t surprise me. It just gives me one more chance to tell you how proud of you I am.”
I reached across the table and grasped her hands. She was happy for me, but I could tell she was also jittery.
She stood and demanded that I stay put.
“You don’t have to help me tonight, baby. I’m going to serve you.”
I threw my head back and laughed heartily. My mother was a trip sometimes. No matter how old I grew, I would always be her baby.
We chatted about nothing in particular over my favorite “Mama-cooked meal”: chicken and dumplings, cornbread, and greens—all made from scratch, of course. She even had the nerve after I called her at work to dash home and also make a peach cobbler. We were eating our usual Sunday meal on a Tuesday night.
Later, once she cleared the table and refused my help with the dishes, Mama sat across from me again. She didn’t motion for me to join her in the family room, where we usually hung out after dinner to watch TV, play a quick card game, or just catch up on each other’s lives.
She sat at the table, tracing the grooves in the wood with her index finger and chatting about how quickly the weather had turned cold. By the time she took a deep breath and looked into my eyes, I knew something was up.
Still, I wasn’t prepared for her to wipe my history clean with a few sentences.
“Serena, I’ve always told you that you can tell me anything, and no matter what, I’ll love you.”
I nodded slowly and waited for her to continue.
“I hope that works both ways. Sweetheart, it’s past time for me to be honest with you about something that will be hard to hear, and harder to say—Herman was not your biological father. Melvin Gates is. I know I should have told you a long time ago, but Melvin and I felt that it was best to keep it to ourselves, for a lot of reasons . . .”
The rest of the evening was a blur. I remember asking Mama to repeat what she said, and I recall her saying that Deacon Gates wanted to pay for grad school. I don’t remember saying good-bye to her, leaving the house, or driving to the Canal Walk.
I felt dazed. How could my mother, a married woman with what I had believed all these years was a strong faith in God and an eagerness to live by his Word, have slept with a married man, conceived me, and then lied to me about it my whole life?
For twenty-four years I had been calling the wrong man Daddy and using the wrong last name.
For as long as I could remember, I had visited Evergreen Cemetery to honor the “wonderful man with such a kind heart” who lay in the cold earth and was supposedly my dad. He and my mother had still been married when I was conceived, but what no one bothered to tell me was that for all intents and purposes, they might as well have been divorced around that time.
Mama had alluded to the circumstances on that night when she had made her revelations. I don’t remember any details. If she had tried to offer them, I hadn’t heard her.
The man I knew as Deacon Gates, a respected and almost revered member of the church I had attended my entire life, was actually my father? As those words had quickly slipped through Mama’s ruby lips, like a bad taste she wanted to rid herself of, I thought I would lose my dinner.
Deacon Gates’s sons had attended high school with me. I almost dated one of them.
Memories raced through my mind that night as I sped away from Mama’s. Deacon Gates had always seemed to take a special interest in how I was doing in school and in my activities at church. He had always given me lingering but inoffensive hugs and a few dollars whenever we crossed paths after service. Now I knew why.
The one thing I do remember doing that night after dinner with Mama was calling information from my cell phone as I drove without really seeing the road. The operator gave me Melvin Gates’s home number, and I dialed it immediately, unsure of what I would say if anyone answered.
Mrs. Gates, the soft-spoken petite woman who always wore jazzy hats on Sunday and sat in the same pew three rows from the front in church, picked up on the third ring. It was all I could do to keep myself from screaming the truth in her ear. Or did she already know?
With as much composure as I could muster, I asked for Deacon Gates.
When he said hello, I pulled my Toyota to the side of the road. I was beginning to shake, but I had to do this.
“This is Serena,” I said slowly, between clenched teeth. “I know the truth.”
He didn’t respond. His wife must be standing nearby, I fumed. I heard a young girl in the background.
“Daddy, come on, I need you to read my bedtime story. Please?”
Daddy. To Kami, the little girl he doted on and called his special gift from God to anyone who’d listen. When his sons had gone to college, he and Mrs. Gates had begun serving as foster parents. They took custody of Kami when she was six months old and eventually adopted her. I heard her kiss his cheek while I held the phone. Was God twisting this knife in my heart?
Before Deacon Gates—Daddy Melvin—could speak, I hung up and tossed the cell phone into the passenger seat.
Minutes later, I found myself on the outskirts of downtown, at the Canal Walk, staring at images of Robert E. Lee and other Confederate heroes. Usually, I’d shake my head at the lack of culture and diversity displayed on the wall just above the James River, but tonight, only the trickling water spoke to me.
The property along the Canal Walk was being developed to offer the city a bustling nightlife venue, but on that night it still was isolated.
I went there intending to pray, but my heart was too bruised. Thoughts raced through my mind so quickly I couldn’t keep track of them.
Instead of words, tears flowed.
Come to me, my daughter, and I will give you rest.
For the first time since I’d given my life to God as a teenager, I felt empty. I didn’t know what to say to God. Was that really him I heard calling?
I had always been able to pray from my heart. The right Scripture had always surfaced at the right time to comfort or guide me. His Word had been instilled in me since childhood. And I knew from other trying times in my life that his presence was always with me.
But that night, the gentle voice I usually heard so clearly seemed distant. I couldn’t put into words what I needed from God, even though he seemed to be speaking to me and seemed willing to help me. I sat there waiting for the words, but they wouldn’t come. I remembered that God understands us even when we don’t talk, but that night, I felt cut off from his presence.
Somehow, I made my way back to my car. Shivering and damp from the night showers, I turned the heat on full blast, flipped on the windshield wipers, and drove toward home, barely noticing traffic signals or the cars in other lanes. For the first time in what had to be forever, I obeyed the speed limit without forcing myself.
Be still and know that I am God. Give me your burdens. Honor thy father and mother . . . Be still and know—
I knew God was reaching out to me, but I closed my heart. I blasted the music to turn my thoughts elsewhere, even though I wasn’t listening to the songs. On that twenty-minute ride to Henrico County, the suburb I called home west of the city, I decided that I didn’t want to “turn the other cheek.”
How was I supposed to honor a woman who had looked me in the eyes and lied so well for so many years? How was I to honor a man who let me grow up fatherless, while I longed to have a daddy like most of my friends?
I was furious at Mama and at any and everybody who had something to do with this, who knew the truth and helped hide it from me. I even felt a little angry with God.
If serving him all these years has led me to this, what’s the point? I bitterly asked myself as I drove more and more slowly. Why bother? Even the people I had considered the most spiritual were turning out to be hypocrites.
Singing in the choir didn’t matter. Neither did serving as a deacon, one of the church’s most trusted officials. Or, apparently, reciting Scripture from memory, as my mother often did.
As I turned off the interstate and merged onto the parkway that led to my place, I decided I needed a break. Right then. From everyone and everything, including my Mama. And God.
