“Strategize my you-know-what! Are you expected to let some floozy come into your church that you helped your man build, and mumble out a string of apologies while you walk away as dumb as a doorknob, only to find yourself in another precarious situation with an off-the-rocker Carlton sister?
“Honey, please. You need to wake up, Michelle. These sisters are out to get you,” she said as she dipped a tortilla chip into the spinach dip.
Taking a calmer approach, Lisa Hodges, the most shy of us all, who often got trampled over by the women in her congregation, said, “Michelle, I think that you are handling this well. There’s no need to get all in a frenzy. Especially with your being pregnant. I think you handled it with the class and poise that you should have.”
Shaunie, by this point, was irritated with the little-miss-perfect demeanor of Lisa. Lisa had been married for twelve years and had four children by her husband, Charles. Charles was the pastor of a very traditional Pilgrim Hall Baptist Church, where the members staunchly believed in the first lady claiming no authority, except as the president of the youth choir. Other times, she was to sit on the front row, wearing wide-brim hats the size of UFO saucers, and never mumble a word contrary to anything or anybody at Pilgrim. Lisa often went home in tears, wishing she had the nerve to stand up for herself, but the older members loved her passive personality. They thought it was fitting for what a first lady should be. She was scoring points with them, but losing the game with herself.
“Well, since none of y’all have asked my opinion, I figure I’d better chime in before we move on to something else,” said Delisa Promise, who we referred to as Dee-Dee. Dee-Dee was married to a very fine, smooth-talking, charming man, Stanley Promise. As a result, she had more trouble out of conniving women than any of us. Her battle to keep her sanity was ongoing, and a couple of times over the five years that they’d been married, she’d almost lost it. But her advice to us all, including Pam, was priceless. She had the man with the power, the extraordinary talents, pre-pastorate wealth, and the good looks in one combined package. She had dealt with females on every level.
Delisa continued on. “I just want to say this: Dawn Carlton is definitely up to something. She has to be. Why else would she be here? I wouldn’t be surprised if her sister sent her here and is planning to make a return so that they can double-team you.” She looked at me to see if I’d considered that as an option. I had not. “Michelle, you can’t underestimate anybody that’s willing to do anything to walk in the position that you walk in. If you do that, you’ll end up dead or behind bars.”
She took a bite of the Hawaiian rib eye the server had just placed in front of her. Between bites and enjoyment of pure culinary pleasure, she pointed her fork toward me. “This is a serious one. Don’t play with this one, Michelle.” She then dug the fork into her loaded baked potato. “That’s all I have to say.”
“Delisa, you can’t just leave it like that. What do you mean by what you just said? Do you think I’m in danger? Do you think this Dawn woman would go as far as to try and kill me or something?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Delisa said as she continued to eat. “I’m simply saying don’t take a relaxed approach to this. You have a baby on the way that you have to protect. Because I think by the time this is over, none of us would have ever imagined the outcome.”
That statement sent chills through all of us, and the rest of the evening was spent with each woman talking about what she’d gone through since the week before. I wasn’t able to concentrate on what they were saying or the oven roasted chicken I’d ordered. What if Delisa was right? What if Dawn Carlton came here to finish me off as some sort of revenge for her sister? What if Daphne was secretly conversing with Dawn to concoct a sure plan that would not only end my marriage, but my life? I thought about that dream I’d had. I couldn’t help but wonder if it really was a sign to come or if I was, in Darvin’s words, just being paranoid.
Again.
Chapter Twelve
Michelle
I walked in the house from my weekly meeting still consumed in my thoughts from the conversation with the ladies. Delisa’s comment bothered me most, and no matter how hard I tried, I just could not stop hearing her words over and over.
I placed my purse in its usual place by the phone in the kitchen, took my shoes off, and headed to my bedroom to change into something more comfortable. I’d called Darvin on my way home, and we had decided to watch some old movies together.
Once in my bedroom, I glanced at the clock sitting in total darkness on the nightstand, and the bold red numbers that showed it was eleven o’ clock.
I flipped on the lights and groaned because I was tired, worn out, and no longer felt that I could watch previews, let alone an entire movie. My eyes were practically closing as it was.
I walked into the closet and placed the shoe-curses that I’d been wearing back in their respective box. As I took off my dress, I noticed a sound coming from upstairs. I knew that I was sleepy and all, but it seemed as if the sound kept getting louder and louder. I froze in a silent panic, because Darvin wasn’t supposed to be home for another thirty minutes.
The bumping was getting louder. For a second, I debated whether I’d fallen asleep and was going into another nightmare, or if I was awake and somebody was really in my house.
I quietly walked out of my closet and back toward my bedroom when the bumping turned into a crashing sound. Somebody was definitely in the house and was obviously vandalizing it.
Paralyzed by fear and not knowing what to do next, I walked to my bedroom and prayed that Darvin had left the cordless phone on the charger. He had a habit of walking around the house on the phone and leaving the phone in whatever room he was last in.
Thankfully, the phone was indeed on the charger. As I moved toward it, I heard footsteps coming down the stairs. Afraid that the intruder might try to come into the room next, I quickly grabbed the cordless phone from my reading table and made a dash back to the closet. My heart was pounding at a rate that was causing my breathing to be labored, and beads of sweat rolled down my face faster than a New York minute. I pressed the TALK button and dialed 911.
“Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?” the nonchalant woman on the other end said.
“Yes, someone has broken into my home, and they’re still here.”
Silence.
“Hello!” I said as loudly as I could, without being heard.
“Ma’am, I’m here. Can you confirm your address?”
“Twenty thirty-five Country Lake Drive.”
Crash!
I jumped at the sound of glass breaking into pieces. “Ma’am, can you please tell them to hurry?” I was practically hyperventilating.
“Do you believe that the intruder is still in the home?” the woman asked.
“What, are you deaf and dumb? I already said that!” I yelled.
“Ma’am, just calm down.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down! You try having someone break into your house, being four months pregnant and don’t know if you’re going to make it out alive, and then tell me to calm down! Lady, you just don’t know.”
“I can understand your frustration. I have a team on their way to your location right now. Just try to remain calm and make sure you stay on the phone with me until the police arrive.”
If I could somehow reach through the phone and strangle the woman on the other end for acting as though my situation was just a number of many, I would have done so with joy. I’d only had to dial 911 a few times in all of my life, and each and every single time, the attendants were less than attending. They were almost downright rude. No sympathy or concern was laced in their voices, only impatience and aggravation.
Just as I was about to respond to the woman, the doorbell rang. Despite my disbelief that they would arrive before the intruder had a chance to get away or kill me, they made it in what seemed like record time.
“Ma’am,” the woman said, “the police should be there. Do you hear your doorbell yet?”
“I just heard it.”
“Okay, I need you to go to the door and let the police in.”
“Are you insane?” I questioned, hardly believing that she would even suggest I come out of hiding. “Do you really think that I’m about to go out there and face the intruder? Woman, please. I’ve seen plenty of movies where the police were able to break a door down, so if they want to get in tonight, they better give that door one hell of a kick.”
The woman sighed in frustration. “Okay. Let me try to reach the police on the radio. Hold one moment, please.”
I heard her mumble to the police officer something about having a difficult pregnant woman on the phone that was refusing to leave her hiding place in order to let them in. Well, I didn’t care one way or the other what she or the police officers thought about me. I was not about to leave my closet for all of the diamonds in Tiffany’s.
The woman came back on the phone. “Ma’am, is there any other way that the officers can gain entry to your home without having to kick down your door?”
I thought for a moment. “Yes. I can give you the garage door code and they can come in that way.”
“That would be great. May I have that code, please?”
“Two-nine-seven.”
“Okay. One moment while I relay that information to the officer.”
Once again, I heard her tell the officer the information that he needed to come in and arrest my intruder.
By this point, my head was spinning. Reality had finally set in that somebody had actually broken into my home. Could that somebody be Dawn? If so, how did she get into my house? Was she here to kill me? Look for something? Destroy my property? My thoughts were interrupted by the voices of the police officers, who had now gotten in and were taking down the intruder. All I could manage to hear one of them say was, “Stop right there!”
After a couple more minutes of me straining to hear what the officers were saying, the 911 attendant came back to the phone and said, “Ma’am, they’ve caught the intruder. Can you please tell me your location in the home? The police would like to speak to you.”
“I’m in the closet inside of the master bedroom just off of the kitchen.”
My voice was trembling. It was over.
She relayed the information to the police.
“Okay. Someone is on the way to your location.”
Sure enough, an officer shined a flashlight inside of the closet and saw me hiding behind several pieces of luggage.
“Mrs. Johnson? Are you all right?”
A single tear slid down my cheek in relief. “Yes. I’m fine. Did you catch them?”
“Yes, ma’am, we did. We have the intruder in the patrol car. If you’re up to it, we would like to see if you can identify this person and then help us complete a police report for what happened here tonight.”
At that moment, Darvin came rushing into the closet.
“Baby! Are you okay? The police told me what happened,” he said, sounding extremely worried. “I didn’t even stop to notice who it was. I wanted to get in here to you.”
I immediately came out of my hiding place and leaped into Darvin’s arms, the place where I felt most safe in the entire world. “Yes. I’m fine.”
The tears that came rushing down my cheeks proved otherwise. I released all of the terror, fear, and trauma that I had experienced since coming home.
Darvin held me until I had no more tears to cry, and the police officer, definitely being more sensitive than the woman I’d spoken to on the phone, simply just walked away and gave us our space.
I pulled myself together. I wanted to—no, needed to—know who had broken into our home, the place that was supposed to be my refuge. The place that was meant to keep me safe from harm.
Darvin smoothed a loose strand of hair away from my face and brushed away the residue of the tears with the back of his finger. “Baby, are you sure that you’re ready to go out there?” He paused and turned my face so that I could look him directly in the eyes. “Because you don’t have to do this now. We can go down to the police station a little later.”
I looked in the depths of Darvin’s eyes, trying to find the strength I so desperately needed. I looked away. “No, I’m fine. I would rather get this over with now so that I can go to bed and relax.”
We walked into the kitchen and found glass sprawled all over the floor. The crystal frame that was given to us as a wedding gift and that once held one of our honeymoon photos, was now broken into several tiny pieces.
That explained at least one of the crashes I’d heard. Why would somebody break a frame? The police motioned for us to step outside to try to identify our uninvited guest. The more steps I took toward the police car, the more weak my legs became. My feet froze like the ice in Alaska when I got close enough to see who was sitting in the back seat.
With her head held down, it wasn’t the woman I was expecting to see. It wasn’t one of the Carlton sisters, as my gut had anticipated. I closed my eyes and opened them again and again, greatly wanting to make the image of the woman vanish. No matter how much I tried to will her away, the woman sitting in the back seat of the police car was still there.
I looked over at Darvin, who was standing in disbelief. We were both thinking the same thing: Why would Twylah Andrews, my armor bearer of the last two years, break into our house?