Tomorrow they would be moving to Lakeland to begin their new life together. She would not have her parents around anymore to protect her. Could she trust Barry to be there for her? She needed to talk to someone. She shook him again and said his name, but her husband continued to snore. She said to the darkness, “Barry, I love you. Do you love me? Barry? Barry? Barry!”
The snoring was replaced by a low, grumbling sigh. “What is it now, Peachie, honey, sweetie, dear wife of mine?”
There was that tone again, which she ignored. “Do you love me, Barry?”
“I married you, didn’t I?” he quipped. “And I am sleepy. We have a long drive ahead of us tomorrow.”
“It’s only 12.” She shifted her abdomen carefully so as not to hurt the baby and stretched her arms across his bare chest. She put her face against his neck. “I think,” she said, “that we could love each other more. I think there are things we could do so that our love would be the perfect love that King Solomon wrote about in the Song of Solomon. Our love could be a shining example to the Faithful.”
“Example,” he snorted. “We sure started out on the wrong foot.”
“Is it wrong to fall in love?”
“It’s wrong to fornicate.”
“Is that all it was to you?”
He snorted again, dismissing her. “A woman should remain a virgin for her husband. It’s in the Bible. Read it. Now I’m sleepy, Peachie, honey, sweetie, dear wife of mine.”
“Then go to sleep, knucklehead.” She pushed away from him and got up from the bed.
“Where are you going? Come back to bed. Peachie!” he called, but he did not even bother to get up to attempt to follow her as she left the room. He put the pillow over his head and rolled over, grumbling, “A wife. This is some wife. I need this, right? Heavenly Father, what did I get myself into?”
She did not slam the door because Brother Philip, Barry’s college roommate, was sleeping on the couch in the living room. He was there to help with the move in the morning. She walked quietly through the living room past the packed boxes stacked in twos, the large, polishedmarble coffee table, the upright piano she had been trained on, and knocked lightly on her mother-in-law’s door.
“Sister McGowan,” Peachie whispered. The tears were already falling. She felt so alone in the darkness. She had to talk to somebody. She just had to. “Sister McGowan!”
Sister McGowan opened the door in a housecoat she held closed with one hand.
“I’m not going to Lakeland. I can’t.”
Sister McGowan took the girl’s hand and drew her into the room.
Peachie continued to blubber: “I’m sorry I messed everything up for everybody. I’m sorry I ruined Barry’s life. I can’t go up there to Lakeland. I have to stay right here in Miami.”
Sister McGowan let her talk it out. Only once did she let go of the girl’s hand and that was to get tissue from the nightstand to wipe her eyes. Sister McGowan felt like crying too, for the girl, for Barry, for herself.
She had known Peachie Gregory since she was only one of many little girls with ponytails reciting Bible verses in the beginner’s Sunday school class she taught. At eight, Peachie came right here to this house and became her piano student. She lacked natural talent, but she was a hard worker who eventually became one of the most reliable ministers of music at the church.
Sister McGowan had always liked Peachie, and perhaps that was the problem. She had missed Peachie’s sneaky side. The girl had seemed to like Sister Parker’s boy, Elwyn. Perhaps she had only pretended so that Sister McGowan would let her guard down and leave her alone with Barry. And she had left them alone together too often. Barry had denied it, but she believed they had enacted their carnal union a few times right here in this house behind her back.
What a shame it was for her to lose a son this way, especially after her own experience with Barry’s father, Dr. Leibnitz, her choir director at the University of Miami, who used her for his own pleasure and then abandoned her. Dr. Leibnitz had had that same sneaky look, as he praised her for being the first black girl to sing lead soprano in the school’s world-famous chorus, as he held her hand, as he touched the small of her back. It was right on his face all the time, but she had missed it back then too. It was the late ’50s. She chided herself for always being too easy, too trusting—and now her son was stuck with this girl. Sister McGowan felt like crying, but she held up.
When the girl’s rambling quieted, Sister McGowan said, “You’re such a pretty girl. I see why Barry fell in love with you. I was worried you were too young, but I see you’re smart. Barry needs a smart woman to watch over him. He can’t do it without you. You must help him build his ministry. You go up there, Peachie, and you play that piano just like I taught you. In time, you’ll come to love him.”
“But I do love him,” Peachie replied. “I don’t think he’s happy. I thought we would be happy if we did the right thing.”
“But did you do the right thing? Girls nowadays are so smart. They do it, and they never get pregnant. So when they get pregnant, you have to wonder why they didn’t do something not to get pregnant.”
“What could I have done?”
“You don’t know?”
“Well, after we would do it, then I would stand up and shake … you know—”
“My Lord, you’re just like I was. They never teach us anything. We have to learn the hard way.” Sister McGowan dabbed at the girl’s tears with the tissue and started to hate her a little less. “You’re married and you should be happy. You deserve to be happy, you poor thing.”
Peachie sobbed, “My husband doesn’t love me.”
“He loves you, I’m sure, but he’s angry too because you got pregnant and made him look bad in front of the others. He’s a good boy. He’s always done the right thing. He wouldn’t be with you if he didn’t love you.” She brushed back a strand of the girl’s hair, which had fallen across her face. She really was a pretty girl. At least their children would be pretty. “Stand behind your husband. Show him that you are a good wife. You go up there to Lakeland and help our boy build that church and everything will work out just fine, okay?”
“I will.”
There was a sound from outside.
Sister McGowan whispered, “I’ll bet you it’s Barry and Brother Philip with their ears pressed to the door.” A mischievous twinkle came into her eyes. “Let’s give them something to talk about. You put on one of my housecoats and you and me’ll go have some fun.”
“To eat?”
“Yes.”
“Egg salad.”
“You like my special egg salad.”
“There’s still some left in the fridge,” said Peachie, warming to the idea. “And we need some ice cream.”
“We have vanilla.”
“What about licorice-flavored?”
“I don’t have that,” Sister McGowan said, adjusting the sash on her housecoat, “but we could go get some. The Dairy Queen is open all night.”
So Peachie and her mother-in-law, decked out in housecoats and slippers, opened the bedroom door and strode without a word through the living room to the front door, past Barry and Brother Philip, who could only sit quietly mystified