Confessions of a Submissive Wife

CHAPTER 18

The unexpected visitor

2005

Now, this is when things took a turn for the worse...Things I thought I lost found their way back to me.

It was the summer of '05, one of the hottest summers I had ever seen. Like every summer, I wanted to hang out with my friends. We'd go to the park every Sunday after church. It wasn't nothing like going to Coalfield Park on Sundays. It was like a car show for all the local ballers. With each passing year, the girls were dressed less and less, just to attract the attention from a money making thug. This year was the first year my grandpa allowed me to have some freedom. When my dad was alive, he never allowed me to hang around a crowd like that.

It was the last day of summer school, I had volunteered to collect community service hours and Pam failed science so it made my choice to work at the school easy. At 17, all of my friends had fallen madly in and out of love numerous times. I totally understood since all the boys at my school lacked the fundamentals to carry on an intellectual conversation. I developed an allergic reaction to jerks, so I made it my business to remain unapproachable. I didn't wear the tight or revealing shirts that hugged my breasts or exposed my lady parts. Nor would I be caught dead in a tiny skirt, coochie cutters, or otherwise. I was a sweatpants wearing, high top All Star Converse, plain Jane. People could not understand why Pam and I were best friends; outwardly, we were the complete opposite. But there was much to our friendship that no one knew.

Pam and I met when we were in preschool; her dad and my mom were seeing each other. Problem with that is, both our parents were married to other people at the time. We were young and we even imagined being real sisters one day. Pam's dad was the pastor of Highway Church of God and Christ Jesus Apostolic Church, which made their affair even more twisted.

One day, Pam came to vacation bible school and she looked like she had been crying all night. I asked her what was wrong and she told me that she saw her dad punch her mom in the face. Being twelve years old, I didn't know what to say to make her feel better...all I thought to do was go and talk to my daddy. She was really scared and so was I, but we decided to skip school and catch the bus back to my house. Problem with that plan was we were broke. Pam, being clever and all, knew exactly where to get some from.

We raced down the street four blocks to the church. We snuck in the back door by the kitchen, hoping Brother Joe, the janitor, was not in there sleeping as usual. Just as we suspected, there he was with his dusty boots propped up on three emptied crates, snoring like a pig. We tiptoed past him trying not to wake him as Pam said, "Stay out here and watch while I grab the offering money." I stood there frozen in fear as she snuck into her father's office and grabbed us some money. She grabbed a bunch of tens and fives; she had a couple of twenties also. We needed some change so we stopped at our favorite pizza parlor, Mama Lucia Pizzeria, and we grabbed a few slices of pizza.

I felt bad about taking money from the church but Pam said, "Don't feel bad. Shucks, my daddy take money all the time."

It still bothered me, so I acted like I wasn't hungry as I watched her devour the extra cheese pepperoni pizza. I tried to rush her so we could catch my daddy before he left for work to tell him what happened to Pam, but she ate so slowly. I saw the bus coming down the street and I hurried up, grabbed her half eaten pizza, tossed it in the trashed, and scurried to the bus nearly missing it. It felt weird riding the bus without Pearl but I was on a mission to help my friend. The bus dropped us off two blocks away from my house, so we walked the rest of the way.

Pam no longer seemed to be upset about seeing her mom being slapped by her father. I asked her if she still wanted to talk to my dad, she smiled and said, "Oh yeah, we have to talk to him." I swear it seemed as if she had a little smile on her face as if she was plotting some sort of revenge but I blindly led her right to my daddy, as she placed my mother on the front line. She told him everything, every sordid detail of our parent's affair. I sat there in a state of shock as I watched my daddy's heart break. His face seemed like it went through a series of changes, starting with disbelief, then what appeared to be belief, as he watched me shake my head in agreeance to the things I had witnessed. The grief was written all over his face, which soon shifted to rage once Pearl walked into the kitchen wearing the same necklace that Pam told my dad her father bought for her. I have never seen my dad so angry. Pearl not knowing she just walked onto the battlefield said, "Hey girls, what are yawl doing here?

Shouldn't you be in school?"

Pam looked at my mother with a sort of cynical smile on her face. Suddenly, my daddy jumped up and snatched the necklace off of her neck. Pearl was shocked, grabbed her barren neck and yelled, "Charles, what is wrong with you, have you lost your mind?!"

"Where did you get this necklace from?" He yelled with his hand tightly balled it up into a fist, clinching the necklace.

Pam was smiling so hard at the destruction she caused and I felt nothing but sadness. Pearl looked at Pam and realized that he knew everything, and she had no choice but to tell it all. As she looked around, my daddy got angrier and angrier. I never thought he would ever hit her but his rage surely got him close to it that day. I suspected Pam anticipated he would strike her because of what her dad did to her mom. Pearl instinctively became very defensive and started to blame my dad for her affair. My daddy was a very patient man but I think learning that his wife was sleeping with the pastor of our church swiftly shifted his patience. He and my mother argued for nearly an hour before he walked out the door.

Pam was in a state of shock because she thought the arguing would lead to a physical place, but I looked at her and smiled and said, "My daddy is a real man, he don't hit no woman."

Pearl walked in the kitchen with her eyes red and swollen from crying and said, "I think it's time for you to leave my house little girl, and don't you come back here no more."

Even after what she did to my family, I thought she would at least allow Pam to stay until her mother came and got her, but she wanted her gone, probably because she couldn't stand to see the woman whose life she was ruining. I walked Pam down the street to the bus stop and we sat on the bench in an awkward silence for nearly five minutes before she said, "I'm sorry Danny. I didn't mean to hurt your daddy. I just wanted your mother to feel what my mother felt. My daddy threw us out the house and we don't have a home no more," she said as she started to cry. By this time, I no longer felt angry with her; I only felt hurt and compassion. Three buses rode by us before my daddy came back home and drove us to Pam's grandmother house where her and her mother were staying. When we pulled up, my daddy got out the car and went to talk to Mrs. Shelly, Pam's mother. They talked for a little while and we watched her breakdown in my dad's arms. He walked her to the front porch where he consoled her some more. Pam and I made a pact that night that we would be each other's keepers no matter what happened, we would always take care of one another and so we did.