Secret Smiles and Three Little Words Pt. 39

Just a quick correction, in the last update, I mention Mean Joe Green as a linebacker...as a Miami Dolphin fan I should know better. He actually was a defensive lineman. Small detail, true, but an import one. I should know better. Also, I keep spelling "Pittsburg", It's actually Pittsburgh. Again a small detail mistake but one I shouldn't be making! Huge thanks to Biglefty for the help in catching these mistakes, it helps when I go to my editing when I do go mainstream with this series. Thanks!

CJT

Chapter 54

"Jack, how are you?" the Bishop asked embracing him.

"Not good sir," Jack admitted with a tired sigh.

"What can I do to help?" the Bishop offered sitting in a chair next to Jack.

"I need...guidance," Jack told him softly.

"I'm here," the fatherly man said putting his hand on Jack's shoulder.

"I lost a member of my church...there in my church," Jack told him carefully. Just mentioning it brought the full vision of her to his mind and he struggled to keep himself together.

"I heard,"

"I can't stop thinking of her," Jack said putting his face in his hands.

"I think that is quite normal, don't you?" the Bishop asked.

"Dan," Jack sat up and blew a heavy breath out. "I'm seeing her in my dreams."

"Again, quite normal," Dan told him gently.

"I'm seeing her when I'm awake as well," Jack admitted knowing how that sounded.

"Jesus Jack," Dan said shaking his head. "The woman died in your arms! If you weren't troubled by that? Oh my God, I would be worried!" Dan got up and walked around his big wood desk and pulled out a card.

Coming back around he handed the card to Jack and the priest looked at it.

"That is Father Sybian Woundi," Dan told him tapping at the card. "He is a psychiatrist and he deals with these types of things."

"I'm lost Dan," Jack admitted with a cracking voice. "I think I should leave the church."

"Jack, Jack, Jack," the Bishop shook his head. "No, I'm not going to allow that right now. I need you to talk to Sybian, I need you to work on yourself. I know you have been through a lot...Jack, prayer isn't the only thing you need. You have been through a traumatic experience. Seminary doesn't prepare you for what you went through."

"Dan," Jack wanted to admit all to him. To confess his sins of not only his dream but his feelings for her.

"Jack," Dan said softly, interrupting his intention. "Wait...right now you are lost...but God will guide you. If, and I mean if, your destiny lies outside the church then I will handle the details."

Jack nodded as he held the card. He didn't have much faith in anything right now. God? He was not taking his calls evidently. If He was, He would have saved Livy. Instead God took her and left him with the monumental guilt he was suffering.

***

Marylyn sat at the table, the bible open in front of her. Krista and her husband were at work, Trevor had gone out with friends. Alone in the quiet of the house she stared at her coffee cup and thought of it all. Her husband's heart attack. Her daughter's suicide. Her impending divorce. It all weighed in on her, crushing her. She got up and dumped her coffee in the sink and looked out into the back yard.

The sorrow of all that had happened these last few days weighed her down, her sleep wouldn't come and when she attempted to contact and talk to Rev. Sellers he was always busy. She needed his guidance. She needed his help and comfort.

She picked up her keys and walked out to her car. Driving to the hospital she didn't know what she was going to say to him. Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. Krista had gone to talk to him but she said he wasn't up to talking yet so she didn't broach the subject of going home. She didn't know that was a lie. Krista didn't have the nerve to tell her that Alex was adamant that she wouldn't help her mother at all. That she was content to let her parents' marriage fail. That it wouldn't be broached until Al was better.

While she was out and seeing how she was going in that direction, she thought it might be a good idea just to check on the house and make sure the doors were locked and the windows were shut. She knew Al would be in the hospital for weeks so it was best to make sure everything was secure.

Pulling in she got out slowly and walked up to the door, her key in hand. The doorknob turned in her hand easily and it caused her to frown. She must have forgotten to lock it when she left, so she patted herself mentally on the back for a good decision to come check on the house. Something she was wondering if she could make now a days.

Opening the door she almost ran into him.

"Gavin," she said her mouth going dry. "What are you doing here?"

"Marylyn," Gavin attempted to smile at her. "Al offered to let us stay here instead of the hotel."

"Oh," she nodded. "I didn't know." She looked around apprehensively.

"She's gone to the store," he told her about Alex, reading her fear easily. "It's just me and Nora." It was fairly obvious she didn't want to lock horns with her youngest daughter today. Or maybe any day.

"Oh," Marylyn nodded. "I just came by to make sure the house was locked up."

"How are you?" Gavin asked her. She looked up at him shocked at his kind demeanor. She expected him to be standoffish or maybe even mean, but he wasn't.

"Not well," Marylyn admitted. "How is Al?"

"He's doing better," Gavin told her. "The tests are coming back better...still not out of the woods, but it looks better."

"So he is going to be ok?" Marylyn asked.

"Yes," Gavin said resolutely. "Time. It fixes a lot of things." The double reference was not lost on her.

Nora came downstairs and saw her grandmother and froze on the stairs.

"Hello baby," Marylyn attempted. Nora said nothing, she glared at her then turned and ran up the stairs, stomping her feet loudly to express her feelings. Marylyn brought a quaking hand to her lips. She bowed her head and let the tears that were blurring her vision come out.

Gavin took the woman gently into his arms and held her. She was shocked, she was expecting coldness, but Gavin was anything but.

"C'mon," he nudged. "Let's go outside and talk for a bit."

She let him guide her out and towards the rockers she and Al had used on many occasions on warm summer nights.

"You must think I'm a horrible person," she began after they sat down.

"No," Gavin shrugged. "I really hardly know you at all."

"I'm sure your opinion of me isn't all that great!" she coughed out a laugh to mask her sadness.

"Marylyn," Gavin began slowly. "How about I just reserve judgement for a while?"

"How is Alex?" she asked him.

"Devastated," he admitted.

"Is this my fault?" she blurted out with her tears. Gavin looked at her for a moment before answering. But the moment seemed like an eternity to Marylyn.

"There is enough blame to go around," he told her gently. She couldn't think about Livy without breaking down in tears and Al was tough to talk about as well. So she shifted her conversation to something that wasn't so painful.

"When will you give Nora back to Don?" she asked him sitting up and wiping her eyes.

"What?" he asked her.

"Don, her father, when are you going to let him take her?"

"I guess you haven't heard," he said, caution in his voice. "Livy's will stated Alex is to have custody of Nora."

"What?" she gasped. "Over the biological father?"

"He lost all rights to her when he sighed her over for the house," Gavin explained.

"She belongs with her family," Marylyn told him firmly.

She could only imagine what the church would say when they heard that not only was Don, a fellow church member, not going to get custody of his own daughter but he was losing her to a woman living in sin in the devil's lair! What would they say about her when she would be powerless to stop Alex from taking her, as there was no way Alex would listen to her mother!

"She is with family," Gavin said coolly, his eyes narrowing on Marylyn. "She is with Alex."

"I meant she should be with her father," she tried to justify catching the tone he was talking to her with. It was obvious he was on board with Alex keeping Nora. There was no division in them. Something she found surprising and a little refreshing as there was always some sort of bickering or division amongst her other daughters and their spouses.

Just then a silver Mercedes SUV pulled up and Marylyn swallowed hard. Alex's cold angry eyes leveled her from the driver's seat. She sat there in her car for a moment before getting out, debating on what to do. The first thought was to put the car in reverse and back out, call Gavin and tell him she would return when the bitch had left. She looked to Gavin and his eyes warned her not to start anything. She got out of the car, expressing her mood with an angry slam of the door.

She walked up with a resolute purpose, her eyes focused on the door of the house.

"Alex," her mother said softly stopping her. Alex didn't look at her, instead she stood staring at the door. She was afraid to look at her mother, the concern she would not be able to control her temper if she had to talk to her mother. "How are you going to work visitation for Don?"

"I'm not," Alex said still staring at the door. The words snapping off her tongue letting her mother know this conversation should be kept to a minimum if she was smart.

"Alex," her mother tried. "This family has been ripped apart enough."

"Yeah?" Alex snapped. "And just who is to blame for that?"

"You can't blame all of this on me!" Marylyn barked standing up. Alex head turned slowly. It reminded Gavin of Linda Blair in the Exorcist. He was sure it was going to do the full turn.

"I can't?" Alex scoffed once she leveled her mother with her angry eyes. "Shall we tally up the score on who is responsible for what?"

"Alex," Gavin's voice was one of caution.

"Fuck that," Alex hissed at him. "She deserves all the guilt she is feeling!" Gavin shook his head at her.

"You want sympathy?" Alex asked her mother. "Try your Goddamn church! It's been your rock...your salvation...your guide! It's led you this far and done such a stupendous job, surely it can give you all the sympathy you need! Not enough? Try the dictionary...in between shit and syphilis!"

With that she threw open the door and stormed in, slamming the door behind her.

"I guess you should be made fully aware of just exactly what you are marrying!" Marylyn said dropping her head and wiping a tear with a shaky hand.

"I know exactly who Alex is, where she has come from and where she wants to go," Gavin assured her. "Love is the great detective, it makes you seek."

"Love," Marylyn spit out. "Sin."

"Only in your eyes," Gavin said calmly. "Love is the eminent domain of God...you know that...it is a blessing only he can bestow. The devil has no concept of love, his only concept is misery...betrayal...hatred...anger."

"Or don't they teach you that at your church?" Gavin asked her as he made his way inside to make sure Alex wasn't throwing a major temper tantrum. Marylyn sucked in a breath at the verbal punch Gavin threw. It struck a painful nerve.

He found her in the kitchen putting away the groceries she had just bought.

"Between shit and syphilis?" he asked her covering his smile with his hand. "I haven't heard that since junior high!"

It was a short knock on her somewhat childish behavior on the porch. She stopped what she was doing and stood there.

"I'm sorry, I was so pissed I couldn't think straight!" she told him. "I said the first thing that came to mind!"

"Shit and syphilis," Gavin said again moving up behind her. She could feel his barb.

"Kiss my ass," she said defiantly with a soft huff of a laugh.

"Hmm," he said nuzzling her neck. "Is that an official offer?" She barked out a laugh and put her arms around his as they encircled her.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"No need to apologize," he told her squeezing her tightly from behind. "But know this...hatred will devour you...it will consume you whole and taint everything you touch. At some point you will have to forgive."

"Forgive her?" Alex scoffed. "After what she has done?"

"If you don't," Gavin began softly. "It will not only consume you...but it will also consume Nora. She doesn't deserve to begin her life with that much hatred!" He pulled his arms from around her and left her there in the kitchen.

***

Marylyn walked into the hospital, she figured if Alex was at the house it would be a safe time to see Al. To try to salvage their marriage. Pushing open the door she looked in on him, he had a private room now. Now longer in the ICU, which made her happy. In ICU she wasn't allowed to see him because she wasn't on the list of allowed visitors. That had cut her to her very core. She wasn't allowed access to her own husband.

When she asked who had told them that, she assumed either Gavin or Alex had made the request as she hadn't. The nurse apologetically replied that Al had. The number of visitors was strictly followed as they didn't want Al to get overworked and upset. Now in a room, there were no lists to adhere to.

Al turned his eyes from his book to her, looking at her over the rims of his glasses.

"Hello," she said to him, closing the door behind her. "You have a private room?"

"Yeah," he said gruffly pulling his glasses off. "I didn't want it, but Alex is hard to argue with. I was hoping Gavin would help out but he didn't. He said he liked to pick and choose what fights to lose." Al smiled and set his book to the side and put his glasses on it.

"How are you feeling?" she asked him sitting in a nearby chair.

"Like I had a heart attack," Al said dryly.

"Al," Marylyn began to break down in tears as the emotions swept over her. "You have to forgive me!"

"I don't have to," he told her. "You want me to, I want to...but I don't know if I can."

"It wasn't my fault!" she tried again.

"It was," Al told her sharply. "Livy was so fragile, I thought her divorce alone would break her, but she managed to squeak through...then you decided to push her even more! First with the ignoring her, treating her like shit. Then concerning yourself with Don over your own flesh and blood!"

"I know that wasn't because you liked him better or you thought he was right," Al told her. "But more because that is what your precious church thought was right, and in turn, it would look better on you."

"You didn't care about what was best for Livy," he continued harshly. "The child we created together. A child that should never have to doubt her parent's love!"

"I never meant to hurt her!"

"What did you think was going to happen when you told her that she was responsible for my heart attack?" he asked her in disbelief. She sucked in breath, she didn't know that Al knew about what had happened before Livy fled the hospital. If Al knew, then Alex most certainly knew. Now she truly began to fear, the slap across the face may only be the beginning. She tried to maintain her stance, to trust her faith and Rev. Sellers.

"The sin of divorce brought the devil...,"

"Save that shit for Sunday," Al cut her off. "I don't buy it for one second!"

"Rev. Sellers...,"

"Ha!" Al barked out. "The man is a charlatan!"

"He is our preacher," she corrected.

"No, he is yours!" he countered. "Your church!"

"Is all I have left evidently!" she said to him becoming more and more resigned to the fact Al was going to continue his stance on the marriage.

"Yes," Al said softly causing her heart to break as he told her the worst possible news she could think of. She was hoping he would correct her and say that their marriage wasn't wrecked, but evidently Al had other thoughts. "I warned you, time and time again, you chose to not heed my warnings. You chose to push me aside for the teachings of your church. You chose to destroy your relationships with two daughters and your husband. All for your church."

"Keep in mind, my love, this is the same church that abandoned Livy when she needed it most. The same church that ridiculed her, hounded her and blamed her when she lost her marriage," Al continued to hammer away at her.

"What are you saying?" Marylyn asked him with a quaking voice.

"What are they going to do to you, when you lose marriage? I mean if they turned on Livy because of her divorce and she had a good reason to divorce that piece of shit...how are they going to treat you when your marriage ends and you don't have the excuse of infidelity?"

"You aren't going to go through with that!" she told him. "Al! Thirty years of marriage! Do you know how that will look?" Her brain scrambled at the idea of what the church would say, she knew what they would say! She had been a part of the little circle of people that would stand around and ridicule others. She was one of those that shunned members who went against the church belief at Seller's suggestion.

"See?" Al asked her, bringing her back from all that the members would do to her. "What is the first thing that popped into your mind? It wasn't thirty years of love, like I have been thinking. For you it was thirty years of marriage, and then the thought of how that would look...you are so vain! Only caring about appearances in your church!"

"Please!" she begged.

"Please what?"

"Forgive me!"

"Like you did Livy? Like you did Alex?" the words caused Marylyn to clutch her stomach. If she had eaten anything that morning it would have come up by now. The pain of what was happening pounding her like a heavyweight fighter, with bone jarring, breath taking blows that made her ache from every angle.

"I have done nothing to either of them! They chose their lives!" Marylyn tried to defend.

"You haven't done anything to either of them?" Al repeated. She shook her head. "Should I ask Alex, or Andromeda?"

"What?"

"Did you think you could beat Alex and there would be no repercussions? That I would never hear of it? That Alex would forget it? Is there anything in her childhood that indicated Alex had a short memory?" he asked her.

"What are you talking about?"

"Oh my God! You beat her for her art!" Al suddenly raged, running his hands over his tray and knocking the items on it to the floor in Marylyn's direction causing her to jump. "You beat her and beat her...and beat her! Then, you had the nerve to wonder why she ran away so fast? Why she doesn't come home? Why she will probably never forgive you?"

"I only did it because she was doing pornography!" Marylyn defended.

"You are completely clueless!" Al gasped. "What you call pornography...the rest of the civilized world, including me, calls art!"

"That picture she drew was magnificent! You wondered how she got into one of the most prestigious art schools in the country without us having to pay a penny? It was because of the pornography you detested so much! That one picture had the Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art singing her praises! A man that would know art from pornography! To this day, he still has her drawing on his wall!"

"Art is a gift from God and Alex has it in spades!" Al told her sitting up his voice rising. "Let's compare lives shall we?"

"Alex, has found a man that loves her, she is successful in her art. She has friends that support her, friends that came from Chicago to be with her in her time of need. How many friends did you have from the church? She is utterly happy! Are you saying all of that is the hand of the devil?"

"How about you? Your marriage is nearly dead, you have a daughter who refuses to talk to you...one that takes her own life and a granddaughter who hates you! You have nothing...that's what God gives?"