When the Fairytale Ends Read online

  Greg appreciated her words of wisdom, even though he didn’t understand it all. He definitely wanted to have children with Shania one day. Right now, though, he enjoyed their time alone together, and he especially loved the spontaneity of their relationship. He liked the freedom they had. They could make love anywhere in their house, no matter what time of day or night. When they wanted to get up and go, they could. Besides their honeymoon on the island of St. Croix, most of their trips weren’t planned in advance. They’d simply pack a bag, gas up the car, and decide where they wanted to go. The two of them had taken mini vacations, as they liked to call them. The trips ranged from weekend getaways to five-day excursions. So far they had gone to Destin Beach and Disney World in Florida, Charleston and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Savannah, Georgia. There was never a dull moment. With Shania, he had fun—not to say that having children would dampen that fun, but it would definitely make things different. And right now, he liked things as they were.

  “Thanks for the advice, Mother,” he said with sincerity, and touched her elbow as he glanced at her trembling chin and misty eyes. “Are you okay?”

  She clamped her lips together and nodded. He knew she wasn’t okay, but he didn’t press the issue. Once Mother Washington pressed her lips together, that was a done deal. He couldn’t squeeze a word out of her anymore than he could squeeze the very last drop out of a tube of toothpaste.

  Greg walked her to her self-assigned seat at the front of the church, leaned forward and kissed her rogue cheek, then told her he’d see her in a little bit.

  Still wondering what had made Mother’s mood change so quickly, Greg tried to momentarily push those thoughts away as he hurried downstairs. As soon as he opened the doors to the youth department, he could hear music blaring through the halls. One of the associate youth pastors had already started getting the kids hyped up. Greg felt like dancing and found himself bobbing his head when he heard Kirk Franklin say, “Put ya hands up.”

  As soon as Greg entered the room filled with teenagers, he was met with laughter. He could tell that the kids were having a good time by the way they were singing along and dancing. He looked around and wished that he could freeze that moment in time. The boys had on jeans that fit, not sagging down to their ankles and showing their underwear, and the girls looked like little girls. They weren’t wearing makeup and many had childlike hairstyles. Such a refreshing change from what he normally saw on the street.

  Greg walked to the front of the room and high-fived the other youth pastor. The guy turned down the music, and Greg welcomed the kids.

  “How’s everybody doing today?” he asked, and the room filled with chatter as the kids began to shout their responses at him. “Okay, okay,” he said, waving his hands for them to simmer down. “Who remembers what I said the topic for today would be?”

  The freckle-faced kid raised his hand and Greg pointed at him. “Depression?”

  “That’s right,” Greg told the class. “Depression.” He took a seat at the edge of his desk. “By a show of hands,” he clarified, “can someone tell me who they think was the most depressed person in the Bible?”

  “Jesus,” one of the younger kids in the classroom yelled out, and the class started laughing. The little boy shrugged down into his seat with a look of embarrassment.

  “Don’t laugh at him,” Greg said, hitting a ruler against his desk to quiet the class. “I understand why he would think Jesus. Look at what all Jesus went through, all he had to suffer for our sake. For the average man, that could be a bit depressing, and even for Jesus, I’m sure it got difficult at times. But not once did he ever sin, and since we want to become more Christ-like, we need to learn how to go through our hard, depressing times sin-free. Easier said than done, this I know. But you have to start somewhere.”

  Greg held his ruler high and circled it in the air. “Somebody give me another name from the Bible who you think suffered from depression.”

  One of the older young ladies in the group held her hand up and Greg pointed at her. “Job,” she said softly.

  “Job,” Greg repeated loudly. “That’s the first one that came to my mind. Who knows the story of Job?”

  They spent the next twenty minutes or so reading passages from Job and discussing the obstacles he had to face in life. Greg made all the kids stand to their feet, and with the associate youth pastor’s help, he assigned them different roles: one person was to be Satan, the others God, Job, Job’s wife, Job’s three friends, the messengers, and Job’s children and cattle. They reenacted the scene from the Bible to make the story more realistic for them.

  Afterward, he asked the kids to retake their seats, then said, “Does anyone know why Job’s story is relevant to you guys?”

  For once, the class was silent, and no one raised their hand.

  Greg cleared his throat and walked around the tables as he talked. “Job’s wife continually told him to curse God and die. Basically, she told him to kill himself. After all he had been through, after all he had to suffer through, the average man would’ve probably done just that—killed himself. That’s why I chose Job’s story.” He looked around and stared at each pair of eyes, making sure the kids were listening to him. “Sometimes, life can get so depressing that you might desire to take your very own life. Youth suicide is on a rise, and this is nothing but the enemy doing his job. Stealing, killing, and destroying young lives. I don’t want anybody to raise your hands, but I can guarantee you that somebody in this room has seriously considered or at least thought about ending it all at some point in time in their life.”

  For the next hour, Greg talked to them about teenage suicide, and why that was never a good idea. He explained that life was only temporary, and that circumstances were temporary too. The children openly discussed their thoughts of suicide and battles with depression. Hearing about some of their home lives saddened Greg. It broke his heart to hear their various stories. Some of them had one or both parents addicted to drugs or alcohol. Others had parents in jail. Many were being raised in single-parent homes. Some had headed or were on the verge of heading in the same direction that Jonathan had taken. Their plights seemed never ending. Even still, Greg tried to be a beacon of light and told them that no matter what they were going through, God knew about it, loved them, and cared about what happened to them. He finished up with a group prayer, but offered individual prayers as well.

  After services were over, Greg laughed and joked with some of the students. Interacting with the youth made him feel energized and alive. He felt his iPhone vibrate in his pocket and saw that it was Shania. She must’ve been looking for him. He answered as he made his way down the hall and up the stairs to meet his wife. He told her that he was en route and ended the call.

  When he walked into the church vestibule, he had to stop and greet one member after the other. It wasn’t until a woman with a familiar face caught his eye that he thought about the woman from the bike dealership, the one with the body carved out of a fantasy. He stared at the brown-eyed, black-haired woman for the longest time and could almost swear that it was the woman from the dealership. But something about her looked… different. This woman didn’t have that look of danger in her eyes. And plus, the woman at the dealership had curly brown hair with blond highlights. This woman’s hair was jet-black. And even in the modest white dress she was wearing, he could tell that she had a nice shape, but it was nothing like the hourglass figure that had turned every head at the dealership.

  To his surprise, he watched as the woman headed over to Mother Washington, and he watched as Mother Washington hugged her tight, rocking her from side to side, as though she had known this woman for a very long time. With unanswered questions eating at him, Greg continued staring at the woman until her eyes just happened to catch his. In her eyes, he saw no recognition. There was no way this could be that same woman from the dealership. She had recognized him from the church instantly, even in his casual weekend gear. So he knew she wo
uld recognize him in the congregation.

  Perturbed, Greg decided to drop the issue and scanned the congregation for his wife and Franklin. Franklin was still nowhere in sight, but Sister Catherine and her three kids were already sitting on the fourth row from the front. He saw his wife standing in the hallway, accompanied by Jonathan and Cheyenne. He greeted a few more members, making sure to give the women innocent church hugs, then made his way over to his wife. All the while he couldn’t stop thinking about that woman. He wondered who the woman was that looked so much like the woman from the dealership. Or was it the same woman? If it was her, what kind of game was she playing with him?

  Five

  “Greg’s on his way,” Shania explained to Cheyenne and Jonathan.

  They stood in the hallway outside of the sanctuary next to the water fountain. Shania observed people as they entered the church. Some of the older women were dressed in colorful suits and hats of varying sizes. Most of the men wore dress shirts with slacks; a few had on suits and ties. She saw a cute little boy wriggling his hand, trying to free himself from his mother’s grip. She smiled as she imagined herself in a similar predicament one day with the son she hoped to have.

  Turning away, she spotted Greg walking toward her with a troublesome expression on his face. She hoped that the kids at youth church hadn’t been too hard on him. Dealing with the youth could be unpredictable. Those kids tended to be more moody than a woman going through menopause.

  “There’s Greg,” Shania announced.

  Cheyenne and Jonathan looked in his direction.

  “I hope you guys weren’t waiting too long,” Greg said as he approached. He then kissed Shania on the cheek.

  “Not that long,” Shania assured him. “You all right?”

  He took a sip from the water fountain and dabbed his mouth on his shirt sleeve. “Yeah, I’m okay.” He exhaled. “We talked about some heavy stuff today in youth church.”

  Shania gave him a half smile, but something in his expression still worried her. “It’s tough being a kid these days. They’re forced to grow up so fast.”

  Greg nodded his head. He touched her lower back, sending a shiver up her spine, and ushered her into the sanctuary with Cheyenne and Jonathan following behind. Something in his demeanor still struck her as disturbed and distant, but she decided to let it go. At least for now.

  They took their seats in the front row, greeting the people sitting around them. Services started with praise and worship, followed by the congregational scripture reading. When they finished, it was time for altar prayer. After a couple of songs performed by the choir, the congregation acknowledged visitors and gave their tithes and offering. Then the pastor came out and delivered a powerful sermon titled “The Kind of Friends That Are Dangerous.” The pastor preached from the book of Job and gave a breakdown of Job’s friends. He then told the congregation to walk in integrity wherever they were, because God saw what they were doing. He encouraged the people to hold on and trust God. If people waited on God, He would go after their adversaries.

  Shania stood to her feet and shouted, “Preach, Pastor!” She knew that he was speaking the truth.

  After services ended, they hugged some of the members and wished them well before heading out. Greg walked with Shania, Cheyenne, and Jonathan to Shania’s Range Rover, and he held the door open for her. He leaned in and pecked her cheek, then said, “I’ll meet you at the house later.”

  She frowned at him. “Where’re you going?”

  Greg reached across her and buckled her in. “Franklin didn’t come to church today, so I’m going to swing by there and check up on him.”

  “Really?”

  He frowned at her. “Are you mad?”

  She wiggled her hands in the air. “No, I’m not mad, per se. I’m just not feeling this aura, this vibe you’re putting out in the air. What’s wrong with you? You’ve been acting strange all morning.”

  “And what’s wrong with you?” he tossed back. “You’ve been having a real funky attitude lately.”

  Shania glared at him and ignored the gasps and whispers that reached her ears from the front and backseat passengers. “Move out of my way so I can close my door, please.”

  “Babe,” he said and reached out for her hand. He held her hand and gave it a squeeze before placing a kiss across her knuckles. “I’m sorry, okay? I just . . . I have a lot on my mind.”

  She tilted her head to the side. “You want to talk?”

  “Maybe later.” He thumped the roof of the car, then stepped out the way so he could close the door. “I’ll meet you at the house later.”

  She knew that whatever was on Greg’s mind would eat at her until they finally talked about it and put it out in the open. For now, she would let the situation rest.

  During the drive home, Shania struck up a conversation with Cheyenne. Although they talked on the phone daily, having Cheyenne at home meant the world to Shania, even if it was only for the weekend. She missed having her sister around since she had gone off to college. As much as she knew she needed to let her go, it was difficult to do. The twelve-year age gap between the sisters seemed to lessen as they got older. The more mature Cheyenne became, the better their relationship got. To Shania, they were beginning to feel more like sisters instead of the mother-daughter role they had been thrust into.

  The thought of Cheyenne being a sophomore in college spoke volumes about God’s favor. Shania was even more surprised that Cheyenne decided to major in engineering. She had always pictured Cheyenne majoring in journalism or English, because she loved writing poetry. She had to admit, though, it pleased her that Cheyenne went for a male-dominated profession; she wished that more women would challenge themselves and not be intimidated by professions that required heavy math or science concentrations.

  “So,” Shania began, and glanced at the passenger seat to make sure Cheyenne was listening to her, “how’s school coming along?”

  Cheyenne whistled and let her hand glide through the air. “It’s a breeze. I’m making As in all my classes and passing all my exams. Thanks to my hubby”—she glanced over her shoulder at Jonathan and they shared a smile—“who stays on me all the time and makes sure I start on my papers well ahead of time.”

  “Oh, how sweet,” Shania wanted to say, but refrained from doing so because she knew it would come out sounding very sarcastic. So instead, she plastered a strained smile on her face and said, “How are you liking your new apartment?”

  At first Cheyenne lived in the dorms. After getting married, Shania had helped her sister move into a cute one-bedroom apartment in a gated community near the campus. Shania even went to Valdosta to help her decorate and make sure she was settled in.

  “We’re loving it,” Cheyenne said with an even bigger smile, and Jonathan and she shared googly eyes again.

  At the sound of “we’re,” Shania visibly cringed, and at the sight of their googly eyes, she felt like throwing up. For the life of her, she couldn’t understand where this bitterness and attitude were coming from. This was not like her; it must’ve been getting pretty close to that time of the month.

  Trying to be nice, Shania looked at Jonathan in the rearview mirror and asked, “Have you thought about what you want to major in?”

  He grinned, revealing a chipped tooth in the front of his mouth. “I wanna major in finance.” She was impressed until he said, “Somebody’s gotta help Cheyenne manage all of that money she’s gonna get when she graduates from school.”

  Shania’s eyes bucked, and she almost ran off the road. She wouldn’t be surprised if smoke tendrils were escaping her nose. Her fingers dug into the steering wheel as she navigated the car to the side of the road and slammed on the brakes, causing everyone inside to jerk forward. She placed the car in park. Whipping her neck around like a scene from the horror movie classic The Exorcist, she looked Jonathan straight in the eyes.

  Without blinking, flinching, or smiling, she said, “I know that you and Cheyenne are married. I get
that. But there’s one thing I want to make perfectly clear.” She held up her index finger to express her point even though she really felt like sticking up the middle one. “I’m the executor of my parents’ estate. That means Cheyenne doesn’t get a dime without my approval. I don’t know what Cheyenne told you, but she will not receive all of the money in her trust until she’s thirty-five years old. So, if your whole purpose for eloping was to get her money and run, you can forget that.”

  Cheyenne gasped. “Why would you even say something like that, sister?”

  “Because you know it’s true!” Shania hit the steering wheel and rolled her eyes. “When he saw you, he saw dollar signs, and you know it.”

  She knew that her statement about Cheyenne not receiving all of the money in her trust until she turned thirty-five wasn’t completely true. She really said it for shock value. The truth of the matter was that their parents had left them $2 million; each parent had a million-dollar life insurance policy. Her parents had planned their estates so well that they even had a mortgage pay-off in the event of their death, so Shania and Cheyenne didn’t have any mortgage payments. Their house had been paid for.

  Because Shania was the oldest, she had control of the money. In her parents’ will, they left instructions for the money to be divided equally between the sisters. Since they didn’t want to risk the girls losing the money, they put stipulations on the distribution. Shania received $400,000 right away, because she had met the age requirements. She received $200,000 more when she turned twenty-five, and another $200,000 payment on her thirtieth birthday. Her final payment would be received in three years, on her thirty-fifth birthday.

  Shania used some of her money to start a catering company, Eat Your Heart Out. She remodeled her basement and turned it into a commercial kitchen. In the seven years that her company had been in existence, she had become quite successful. She catered everything from private parties to weddings to corporate events. With her company consistently turning a profit, she hadn’t needed to spend any more of her inheritance money. Instead, she invested in land, real estate, bonds, and CDs to diversify her portfolio.