67

            They went to a nearby Waffle House on Memorial Drive.  Sitting in a corner booth apart from the other diners, they ordered coffee, and Danielle lit a Newport and began to talk.        

            “It all started with this girl I was going to school with, freshman year,” she said.  “Yvette Taylor.  We had a few classes together, so we became cool, eventually.  She was real sweet and smart—good people.  She spent the night at our house a couple times, for slumber parties.  You remember her, Junior?  She had a lil’ crush on you.”

            “Is that right?” Lisa asked, and gave Anthony an inquiring look.

            He shrugged.  “I don’t remember her.  But at that point, you and I were sort of in our own little teenage worlds.  I was playing three sports, and you were hanging out with these girls who you seemed to spend every waking hour with on the telephone.”

            “Anyway, Yvette and her family went to this church in Austell,” Danielle said.  “New Kingdom.  Her folks lived in Decatur, like us, but they would get up early every Sunday to make that long-ass drive all the way across town to Austell.  Yvette said it was the most amazing place—it was really big, and you’d go there feeling broken down and walk out blessed.  It was worth the long drive to them.   

            “She’d talk about it so much that I started to get really curious.  I liked going to our family church, but we’d grown up going there, and it was small.  I wanted to see something different.  So Yvette had a slumber party one Saturday night, with me and two of our other girlfriends.  The next morning, all of us got up and went to New Kingdom with Yvette’s family.”

            “Did Mom and Dad know about this?” he asked.

            “Of course they did.  They thought it was fine, since I was with Yvette’s family.  They’d met her folks and thought they were cool.  They didn’t have a problem with me going to a different church, broadening my horizons.        

            “Well, the church about blew me away.  It wasn’t anywhere as big as it is now, and they didn’t have the entire campus all built up, but it was still something incredible to me.  It was so organized, and the people were all like Yvette and her family, really nice and friendly.  They made me feel at home.

            “That first service I went to, Bishop Prince gave the sermon.  He was . . . the only word I can think of is ‘electrifying.’  I actually cried listening to him preach the word, and I never did that.”

            “He’s a very charismatic speaker, no doubt about it,” Lisa said. 

            “And I thought he was the finest man I’d ever seen in my life,” Danielle said.  She blew out a ring of cigarette smoke and shook her head.  “So tall, with this chiseled face and killer smile.  He just looked . . . perfect.  Like the ideal man, if that makes any sense.  He must’ve been about thirty-five then, way older than me, but I didn’t care.  Before the service was over I was praying to God to send me a man like him to marry one day. 

            “So after the services, he would go in the lobby and meet everyone in the congregation, right?  I was too nervous to meet him, but Yvette insisted that I go talk to him.  She said he was down to earth, not intimidating.  She convinced me to get in line to shake his hand.

            “We must’ve waited in line for like ten minutes.  We finally get up to him, and I was about to hit the floor, I was so anxious.  He was so huge.  But his eyes were mesmerizing.  He actually knew Yvette’s name—she said he knew the name of every single member.  He shook my hand, asked me my name, and thanked me for coming.  He said he hoped he would see me at their Youth Conference, the following weekend.  I babbled something about promising to go.”

            “Did you go?” Anthony asked.

            “Shit, you kidding?”  Laughing bitterly, Danielle tapped ashes into a tray, sipped her coffee.  “Mom and Daddy couldn’t have kept me from going.  I ran my mouth about Bishop Prince all week, and by the weekend I think they were happy to let me go just so I would get out of the damn house and they wouldn’t have to hear me say his name any more.”

            “Did you tell me?” he asked.  “I don’t remember hearing anything about him.”

            “I’m sure I did.  But you were all into your stupid sports, remember, you didn’t pay me any mind.”

            “Typical of the eldest sibling,” Lisa said to Anthony.  “I’m the oldest of three sisters—I’ve been there, honey.”          

            “So Yvette and I went to the Youth Conference that Saturday morning,” Danielle said.  “Workshops, games, seminars, that kind of stuff.  Bishop Prince made the opening remarks, and I swear, sometimes when he would look around the room, he would look right at me.  It gave me chills.”  Although her hand was curled around a hot cup of coffee, she shuddered, remembering.

            “After his talk, some of us went outside to the field to play games.  Some kind of fellowship building thing, I don’t remember what exactly.  But after a little bit, I had to go to the ladies’ room.  Yvette stayed outside, she was flirting with some boy, so I went inside the church building alone to find the restrooms.

            “On my way out of the ladies’ room, I see the bishop strolling down the hallway, coming in my direction.  Alone.  I was so nervous I literally froze in place.  But he smiled at me, and started to talk, and he actually remembered my name.  I couldn’t believe it.  He said he was glad that I’d kept my promise to come to the conference.  ‘God makes promises to us, just like that, and he keeps his word, too,’ he told me.  Or something like that.  I was so dazed just by talking to him I barely heard what he was saying.

            “The next thing I know, a few minutes later, we ended up in his private office.”

            Danielle took a pull on her Newport, exhaled a raft of smoke, and looked out the window, eyes glassy.   

            Anthony knotted his hands in his lap.  He had a sudden, irrational urge to break things, to turn over the table, to strike out at  . . . something.  Bishop Prince would have been an acceptable target for what he was feeling. 

            Sitting beside him, Lisa touched his knee, as if sensing his rage and cautioning him to keep it at bay.  He blew out a deep breath and drank some coffee, but barely tasted it.

            “You know what’s sad?”  Danielle smiled, but it was a melancholy expression, full of old hurts.  “I wanted it to happen.  All week, I’d dreamed about being with him, even prayed for it.  I remember thinking, when I was with him in his office, that God had answered my prayer.  How fucked up is that?”

            “It wasn’t your fault,” Anthony said.  “You were only fourteen, Danny, a child.  The sick sonofabitch took advantage of you.”

            Danielle sniffled, wiped her watering eyes with the back of her hand.  Lisa pulled tissues out of her purse and handed them to her, and she accepted them gratefully.

            “He said it would be between us, and God, our little secret,” Danielle said in a fragile voice.  “He said God was going to bless me for accepting his divine seed.”

            “His divine seed?”  Anthony clenched his hands into fists.  “Are you kidding me?”

            “That’s so disgusting,” Lisa said.

            Danielle blotted her eyes.  “I didn’t tell anybody what happened.  But the next day, Sunday, I went to church with Yvette again.  After service, when I met the bishop in the receiving line, I thought he would give me special attention, but all he said was, ‘Good morning, Danielle, thank you for visiting today, be blessed.’ Or some lame shit like that.  Like . . . like nothing had ever happened between us.  He was the first person I’d ever been with.  I gave him . . . something special . . . something I’ll never get back.  And that was all he could say?  Thank you for visiting, be blessed?” 

            Almost angrily, Danielle dried her eyes with a tissue.  She lifted her cup, found it empty, and snapped at the waitress for a refill. 

            “Sorry, she’s had a difficult time,” Anthony said to the waitress, by way of apology for Danielle’s outburst.  The waitress shrugged, as if such rude behavior were normal, and refreshed their mugs.

            When the woman had left, Danielle said, “Anyway, after he gave me the cold shoulder, I was really depressed.  I thought there was something wrong with me, that I wasn’t good enough for him or something.  I remember Mom knowing something was going on with me, but I wouldn’t tell her what it was.  A couple weeks later, though, I missed my period.”

            Lisa reached across the table and found Danielle’s hand, and Danielle clasped it tight.

            “Did you tell anyone then?” Anthony asked.

            She shook her head.  “I guess some part of me was still thinking about what Bishop Prince had said about his divine seed, and how I was carrying it inside of me.  In spite of how he’d dissed me, it made me feel special, like I had a little piece of him growing in me.  I know how dumb that sounds, but . . .” Her words trailed off.  She ground out her cigarette in an ashtray, and lit another.  

            “Anything you felt back then is understandable,” Lisa said.  “You were so young, so innocent.”

            “Hmph.  I wasn’t innocent enough to be up front with my parents.  When I started showing, I started wearing my clothes extra baggy, and I made up some shit to keep from having to go to gym at school, ‘cause I didn’t want other girls to see me.  The baby was my secret.”       

            Anthony tried to recollect what his sister had looked like back then, and couldn’t.  He remembered little about Danielle during that period other than the fact that she spent so much time with her giggly girlfriends.   

            “When did Mom and Dad find out?” he asked.

            “When I was about four months along.”

            “Four months?” Lisa asked. 

            “I might’ve hidden it even longer, but I was in the bathroom one morning, taking a shower, and Mom walked in to get something out of the cabinet.  She took one look at my belly, and . . .”

            “She lost it,” Anthony said, remembering how emotional his mother had tended to get.

            “For real.  She made me tell her how it happened.  Then she told Daddy.  Daddy called the church, told someone there what had happened, and demanded a meeting with the bishop, or else he was going to the police.”  Her eyes dimmed.  “Bad move.”

            “What did they do?” Lisa asked.

            “Let me guess,” Anthony said.  “They warned him to keep quiet.”

            “In so many words, yeah,” Danielle said.  “The church security people, whoever they are, they didn’t threaten to hurt us, exactly, but they basically said that if we went to the police, it would be a bad move on our part, that they had contacts in the police department, judges in their pocket and a team of top lawyers, and they’d drag us through the mud, totally mess up our lives.”

            “I can’t believe all of this was going on in the house, and I was totally unaware of it,” Anthony said. 

            “I asked Mom and Daddy not to tell you—shit, not to tell anyone,” Danielle said.  “When I saw Mom and Daddy so upset, it finally started to sink in how wrong it was, how sick Bishop Prince was.  I was embarrassed.  I mean, why would I want the whole world to know that some pedophile pastor had gotten me pregnant?  Why would I want you to know, Junior?  Hell, what could you have done, anyway?”

            Silent, Anthony dragged his hand down his face, wiped away a film of stale sweat.   

            “A few days after Daddy called the church, he said someone came up to him after work and gave him a briefcase full of money,” Danielle said.  “Something like twenty-five grand.”

            “Hush money,” Lisa said.

            “But Dad didn’t take it,” Anthony said.

            “You and him, you’re a lot alike,” Danielle said.  “You get something in your head about doing things a certain way, doing the right thing, and you won’t let go.  Daddy turned the money down and started trying to dig up dirt on the bishop.  You know he worked at the newspaper.  I guess he figured to write an investigative report, an expose or something.”

            Anthony recalled his father’s mood that fateful morning on the lake.  Dad had been withdrawn and contemplative, unusually so.

            Finally, he knew why.

            “We all know what happened later,” Danielle said.  “The church warned Daddy to quit what he was doing.  He wouldn’t.  So they made him quit—and then they made it look like an accident.”

            Anthony closed his eyes and pressed his fingers firmly against the lids, to hold back the tears that wanted to flow.  A few escaped anyway.  

            “Maybe a month after the funeral, Mom took me out of school,” Danielle said.  “I was really starting to show by then, couldn’t hide it any more, and we didn’t want to deal with the questions from everyone.”

            “I vaguely recall when Mom told me you were pregnant,” Anthony said softly.  “I don’t remember having much of a reaction at all.  After I saw Dad die . . . I was like a zombie for a while.”

            “We made up a story, told people some boy from school had gotten me pregnant.” Tears glistened in her eyes again.  “I love my child with all my heart, but Lord help me, sometimes I feel like he’s here to punish me.  To remind me every day of what I did . . . and how I let my daddy get taken away.”

            “No,” Anthony said.  “No, you can’t blame yourself, Danny.”

            “But it’s all my fault.”  Tears coursed down Danielle’s cheeks, and she grasped Lisa’s hand as if Lisa were her only anchor to sanity.  “I wanted to go to the church in the first place . . . I flirted with the bishop . . . I got Daddy killed . . .”

            No wonder she had given up on life to float on an endless series of marijuana highs, he realized.  It was probably the only way she thought she could cope with the guilt.

            “That’s not true, Danny,” Anthony said gently.

            “You were the victim, sweetheart,” Lisa said, rubbing Danielle’s hand.

            “Mom and I, we were too scared to tell anyone the truth,” Danielle said.  “Going to the cops was out of the question—the church people talked like they owned the damn cops.  We just never talked about it any more.  Ever.  And I think the pain of it all, of losing Daddy, cut at least thirty years off Mom’s life.  She was never the same.”  She looked at Anthony.  “None of us were.”

            A hush fell over them.  Beyond their booth, diners were talking, laughing, eating.  Anthony felt completely isolated from them, as if he were enclosed inside an impermeable bubble that separated him and his family from the rest of the world, hermetically sealed inside a private universe of sorrow and angst.

            Earlier, he had wanted to break something.  Now, he wanted to scream.  He fought back the urge by reminding himself that screaming would do nothing.  Had it helped him that morning on the lake, as he’d screamed and screamed while stuck in a boat with his dad’s dead body in his arms?

            He buried his face in his hands.  His lungs burned, as if he’s swallowed molten lead. 

            The waitress stopped by and asked them something.  He looked up at her, blinked fuzzily.

            “You know, food,” the waitress said.  “Want to order some?”

            “We’re fine, thanks,” Lisa said.  She shifted to Danielle.  “Does Reuben know who his father is?”

            “Hell, no,” Danielle said.  She shook her head fervently.  “Until you came to me this morning, Junior, I wouldn’t so much as speak that evil man’s name.” 

            “But does Reuben ever ask about his father?” Anthony asked.  “Because he asked me, once, and I told him that I didn’t know anything about his father—because I didn’t.”

            “He used to ask.  I’d tell him that his father lived somewhere far away, and I didn’t know how to reach him.”  She shrugged.  “Maybe three years ago, he stopped asking.  It’s just better that way, him not knowing and all—even though he looks more like his father every day.” 

            Anthony glanced at Lisa, and read in her eyes that she was thinking the same thing as he.  He went on.           

            “Reuben’s going to find out the truth,” he said.  “I’ve been working to bring the bishop and his whole church to its knees, to expose everything they’ve done over the years, including what they did to Dad.  We’re going to get justice.”

            “You sound just like Daddy,” Danielle said with a sad, broken grin.  She stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray.  “Always got to do the right thing.”

            “It’s what Dad would want,” he said.  “Mom, too.”

            “I know,” she said, a faraway look in her eyes.  Then she blinked, fixed him with a stern glare.  “I wanted to ask you: how the hell did you find out about all this?  We never told anyone.”

            “Someone on the inside of the church clued me in and has been feeding me info.  We’re close to a major break.”

            “I hope you bring ‘em down,” she said.  “Him, especially.  I know I can’t be the only one that sick bastard’s touched.”

            Anthony thought about Kelley Marrow.  How many more Kelley Marrows and Danielles were out there, suffering the consequences of Bishop Prince’s perverse desires?  How many promising young lives had been cut short, or wrecked?  How many families destroyed?

            “I’m going to bring this to an end,” he said.  “I promise.”