A Mighty Love

by Anita Doreen Diggs

Genres: Literary Fiction; Romance

Synopsis

“A fast-paced, compelling story about love and its power to both heal and redeem” from the acclaimed author of A Meeting in the Ladies' Room (Kim McLarin, author of Womanish).

Mel and Adrienne Jordan have the kind of marriage most couples only dream about. Mel feels lucky to have the smartest, sexiest wife a man could want, while caring for their infant daughter and tending to their lovely home in New York City keeps Adrienne busy and content. Landing a recording contract had once been her greatest ambition—but not anymore. Life is that good.

Until the day a tragedy changes everything. Convinced that he is to blame, Mel returns to the mean streets of his youth—and indulges in the drugs, drink, and women he finds there. Adrienne works long hours at a tedious job, desperate to get ahead—even though she's not really sure where she's going. As they drift further into their grief—and away from each other—Mel and Adrienne start to wonder if they can ever reclaim what they had. And they soon realize that their greatest challenge will be trying to save the one thing they had always taken for granted: their love.

“A heart-stopping story about the power of love . . . The characters are richly drawn and complex. The use of language is stunning . . . A dynamic new writer is on the scene—readers, make room on your bookshelf and in your hearts for A Mighty Love!” —Yolanda Joe, author of Video Cowboys

“Entertaining.” —Booklist

Release date: June 12, 2012

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 256

Sample

“Wake up, fool.” Debra Jordan shook her brother’s shoulder. “Your wife is on the phone.”

Melvin groaned and pushed his head deeper into the pillows. What the hell did Adrienne want now?

“Tell her I’m just walkin’ out the door,” he said.

Debra shook harder. “What you talkin’ about? She say you was supposed to meet her this afternoon. Now git up and talk to her. I got company.”

Six months after the fire, Mel lay on a thin mattress on a single bed that was much too short for his lanky frame. He had never bothered to decorate these sleeping quarters, so his back room in Debra’s thirteenth-floor housing-project apartment was practically bare. One scarred bureau held a broken mirror, a rickety lamp, and a cheap clock that didn’t work most of the time.

Mel sat up and shook his head in confusion. “I just lay down for a minute. What time is it?”

Debra sucked her teeth on her way out the door. “Nighttime, fool. It’s just after eight.”

Mel groaned. He had been supposed to meet his wife at 1:00 P.M. to see an apartment. “Damn! Adrienne must be boilin’ mad.”

The sounds of the Mississippi Mass Choir were blaring. Debra played gospel music every Sunday. She also held a card game in her apartment every Sunday night to pick up extra spending money for the coming week. It didn’t matter which players won or lost, because the house got five dollars per game. Debra was a big woman with a toothy grin and dyed red hair, which at this moment was standing straight up on her head, her black roots showing.

It sounded as if there were a hundred people in Debra’s living room, but Mel knew that it was the same half dozen who played blackjack and bid whist and drank rum there every Sunday night. He pushed himself up off the bed and went out into the noisy, smoke-filled living room.

There was a new face at the card table. A woman who looked to be in her late thirties, with caramel skin, full hot pink lips, and wearing a low-cut hot-pink dress to match. Her dark-brown hair was all twirled up in a fancy style. The thin gold bangles that decorated both her arms jingled as she played cards. Mel had not planned to join the game, but the beautiful unknown female in the living room changed his mind. He knew he’d be playing his last five dollars as soon as Adrienne finished telling him off.

It didn’t bother him that Adrienne was annoyed. Sooner or later, she was going to have to face the truth, and then she would dump him anyway. When he and Adrienne first separated because she blamed him for the tragedy, he had prayed for God to take him to his mother so that he wouldn’t have to think about his lost wife and daughter.

With nowhere else to go, he had arrived on Debra’s doorstep, mired in grief and anger. For the first few weeks he didn’t sleep for more than three hours a night. The bus company had forced him to take a three-week leave of absence after a cop found him sobbing at the wheel with a load of irate passengers and other drivers honking their horns and shouting obscenities in the traffic around him.

The truth was that her husband was a street guy who had turned his life around, only to find out that God was determined to return him to the gutter where he belonged. God had killed his baby, driven his wife almost insane, and returned him to his sister’s house, where nothing mattered but the next card game. Mel no longer believed he could have the American dream, but he would not risk Adrienne’s mental health by telling her that. Sooner or later she would realize it herself. Until then, he’d just go along with the charade.

He winked at Hot Pink, who was sitting between Ann and Ann’s mother, Belle, Debra’s coworkers. From Tuesday through Saturday, Debra worked in Harlem as a barmaid for an illegal dive that couldn’t be seen from the street. The owner paid the cops off every week to keep them from shutting the place down. Everyone prospered except the semiliterate women who worked there. Most of them were middle-aged high school dropouts, who worked for the less than minimum wage plus tips because they couldn’t get a job anywhere else.

Big Boy, a three-hundred-pound fool with only five teeth left in his mouth, took up the whole sofa, which had been pulled up next to Belle. He was an asthmatic who chain-smoked cigarettes. He had also started more than one feud in the projects, yet always emerged with his few remaining teeth intact. Mel didn’t understand why no one had killed his ass yet. Big Boy slapped an ace down on the table and noticed Mel at the same time. “If I was as ugly as you and somethin’ that pretty was on the phone for me, I’da been outa that bed long before now.”

Everybody thought this was real funny. Mel ignored the laughter while he shuffled through the room and picked up the receiver, which was lying facedown on a washing machine that hadn’t worked in more than twenty years. Debra refused to get rid of it, because, aside from some old pictures, it was all they had to remind them of their mother.

“Hey, Adrienne, what’s up?”

“What do you mean, what’s up? I waited at the token booth for over an hour.”

Normally, Adrienne’s voice was low and husky, but right now it had a shrill quality to it.

“I’m sorry, baby. I laid down and fell back to sleep. Debra just woke me up.”

“Are you lying to me?”

“Naw, baby.”

“Look, Mel, if you’re not going to meet me halfway, then this is not going to work,” Adrienne said angrily.

“Come on, Adrienne. I’m sorry. Don’t be like that.”

“Dan and Charlene haven’t said anything, but I know they must be tired of me pulling out their sofa bed to sleep on every night. I’ve been here for six months and it’s time to move.”

Mel knew that Dan’s living room was crammed with Adrienne’s clothes, books, and toiletries. Everything was stuffed into supermarket crates because there was no extra closet to hold them.

“Yeah, yeah. I know. Do you have any more appointments set up?”

It was amazing how quickly time had passed. Two weeks after Delilah’s funeral, Adrienne had sunk into a severe depression. Her grief and anger had been almost palpable, and she had had trouble eating and sleeping. It was three months before she could bring herself to talk to anyone, especially Mel.

“Yes, there’s a two-bedroom apartment available on West Thirty-ninth Street. The rent is only fifteen hundred a month.”

Mel understood why Adrienne wanted to stay in Manhattan, far away from the tragedy, but now they would be paying twice as much as they had in the old apartment. New York City was becoming more expensive each year. Neither one of them would be able to pay $1,500 alone since neither made more than $30,000 per year. Mel sighed. What if one of them got laid off? Surely Adrienne could find less room for less money.

A lump formed in Mel’s throat. “Why do we need two bedrooms?”

“I thought maybe . . .” she hesitated.

“Thought what?” he asked gruffly.

“Nothing,” she said quickly.

Mel switched the phone to his other ear. If Adrienne was going to look at two-bedroom apartments, it meant she was thinking about getting pregnant. That scared him.

“Are you working tomorrow?” Adrienne asked.

“No. Why?”

“I’m looking at the apartment on my lunch hour. Meet me outside my job at twelve.”

“Okay. I love you.”

“I love you, too, Mel.”

He hung up and turned around. Everybody was looking at him. Debra had a grin on her face. She started clapping.

“My brother, the actor.”

Everybody in the circle laughed and clapped along with her. Mel couldn’t help grinning. Debra and her friends always acted so stupid. He dragged one of the kitchen chairs over to the circle.

“I’m playin’.”

Big Boy poured half a glass of straight rum and took a gulp. “Let’s see your money, muthafucka.”

Mel took out his last five dollars and threw it on the pile on the coffee table.

“Adrienne think she so cute,” Debra started. “Just cuz she light-skinned. Hell, she tall, skinny, and got a flat ass like a white girl.” She shook her head from side to side, then gave her brother a teasing smile. “And Melvin ain’t no bargain in the looks department either!”

“Sheee-it, I’m the finest brother out here.” He punched her playfully on the arm.

“That’s a damn lie,” Debra chuckled.

“Debra, if I wasn’t your brother, you’d be callin’ me all the time, too. In fact, you woulda just hung up and jumped on in a cab to come see me.”

Debra was shaking with laughter along with everyone else.

“I doan know your sister-in-law,” said Ann.

“That’s cuz she never visits me,” Debra said tartly.

“Isn’t she that yella girl that Mel left Rose for?” asked Belle.

“Yeah,” said Debra, after taking a long pull from the beer bottle on the floor beside her. “That’s Adrienne, all right.”

Melvin stole a glance at Hot Pink. She was hanging on to his sister’s every word.

“Debra, find somethin’ else to talk about,” he said tightly.

“Don’t tell Debra what to talk about. This is her apartment,” shouted Big Boy.

Debra slapped hands in agreement with the giant and continued.

“Adrienne’s brother is even worse. Think he hot stuff cuz he live in Midtown instead of up here in Harlem. Hell, it’s just a goddamned tenement.”

Mel laughed this time also.

“He got a nice place?” asked Ann.

“I only bin there once for a birthday party before he got married. Dan had a nice dining room table, but he prob’ly got the rest of that shit from the Salvation Army. Plus, the living room window opens on a back alley full of stray cats. It stunk like hell in there when he opened the window. And those cats was makin’ all kinds of noise. Screaming, mewing, fighting, screwing.”

“Sounds like Big Boy’s house!” shouted Hot Pink.

Everyone laughed until they cried, and Melvin was relieved to find that his wife and brother-in-law had been forgotten.

“Debra, you need to stop lying,” Mel said while picking up his cards. He smiled across the table at Hot Pink. “My sister has left her manners in the kitchen tonight, pretty lady. I’m afraid I don’t know your name.”

“It’s Lillian, you rogue.”

Mel thought her laugh was pretty as she spoke.

“Tell me who brought you here tonight, Miss Lillian, so I can thank ’em properly.”

Debra groaned and rolled her eyes toward the ceiling.

“I’m Big Boy’s cousin.”

Melvin was momentarily taken aback. Quickly regaining his composure, he showed Lillian his dimples before answering. “That’s not possible. The man is not even human.”

“Fuck you,” said Big Boy.

Mel slapped an ace on the table.

“Twenty-one!” he shouted.

He ignored the grumblings of those who had lost their money, and scooped up his winnings. About thirty dollars. Just one more win and he’d be able to go out and get high enough to forget about sad wives, dead babies, and his own heavy heart for a little while.

He had been a fool to think he could leave this seamy world and find happiness with a good woman on a quiet suburban street. There was that thing called karma, which he had not factored into his plan. Mel had hurt a lot of women before meeting Adrienne. As payback, God had given him a brief taste of happiness, then snatched it back. Mel knew when he was beaten. The gutter was beckoning, and who was he to fight God’s will?

Big Boy took out a cigarette and crumpled the empty pack in his gigantic hand. He leered across the table at Debra and then focused on Mel. “So, when you goin’ back with your wife, boy? When you movin’ out?” Big Boy gave Debra another meaningful leer.

Melvin looked at his sister, who was staring fixedly at the cards in her hand. So, she was fucking Big Boy now. He gave Big Boy a warning glance. Back off. The huge man grunted and let it go. He had made his point to Debra.

Mel won the next two games. After slowly counting out a profit of sixty-five single dollar bills under Big Boy’s malevolent stare, he rose and winked at Hot Pink. “I’ll see you soon, Lillian.”

In the 1980s Mel had sniffed coke just for fun, but then the drug scene started to bore him, and he gave it up for over a decade. In the dark days after Delilah’s death, when his wife would not speak to him, Mel had gone searching for the white powder again. The drug scene had changed. There was nothing fun about it now. Teenage dealers had replaced grown men. They didn’t chitchat while doing business, and most of them were tense and dangerous.

Mel grabbed his coat out of the hall closet, kissed Debra on the cheek, waved good-bye to the rest of the crowd, and left the apartment in a hurry.

There was a ten-minute wait for the only rattling, piss-stained elevator that was working, and Mel tapped his foot impatiently. As he rode down to the lobby, he felt a moment of panic. Suppose Little Jimmy had been arrested? Or worse, what if there had just been a whole sweep of the area, and there was nothing left to buy? Mel left the building and walked quickly through the cold winter night until he reached 106th and Amsterdam. He turned the last corner and breathed a sigh of relief.

Little Jimmy was in his usual spot. Mel’s aunt had raised Mel and Debra in the same building where Little Jimmy’s parents used to live. Mel easily remembered the day the boy was born.

Little Jimmy’s father had just been arrested for armed robbery, and while his mother stood in front of the patrol car, begging the police to let her husband go, her water broke right there in the street. They placed Little Jimmy’s mother on her back in the front seat of the car, and she lay there moaning and groaning until an ambulance arrived. Her husband went off in one direction and the ambulance in another.

Both Little Jimmy’s parents were dead now, and he supported himself by selling drugs on the corner. The kid would have to be about eighteen years old, but Mel didn’t know for sure. Little Jimmy didn’t like to talk, and he never smiled. Mel pulled out fifty dollars of his winnings and palmed the bills into his fist.

“How many?” asked Little Jimmy.

“Half a gram.”

The transaction was completed in seconds.

Mel had barely slipped the envelope in his pocket when a young woman who had been leaning against a parked car started toward him. She smiled hesitantly, but when Mel gave her an impatient jerk of the head, her walk turned into a semi-jog. Mel was relieved. Ducking alone in doorways to blow was no fun at all. There was nobody to talk to, and every footstep sounded like that of a cop.

“My name is Juana,” she said.

Mel shrugged. “Where we goin’?”

“My girlfriend’s house down the block.”

“She home?” Mel asked.

The woman nodded. They passed under a streetlight, and Mel got a good look at her. Juana couldn’t have been more than twenty. At one time she had probably been a good-looking Puerto Rican girl, but now she was just a burnt-out crack whore. Mel felt in his pocket. Shit! He didn’t have any condoms. There was no way he was going to share his stuff without getting something in return. “We gotta stop and get some beer,” Mel said.

They ducked into the nearest bodega, which was surprisingly crowded for a Sunday night. It was a tiny store with four aisles, crammed with dusty cans of food and cleaning products. The young man behind the counter was selling loose cigarettes to a line of teenage boys who were rapping, roughhousing, and trying everything else they could think of to impress the baby-faced girls who hung on their arms.

Juana stood with them, never taking her eyes off Mel as he sped down an aisle and picked out four quarts of cold malt liquor. The teenagers pushed and shoved one another out of the store as Mel reached the counter. The clerk rang up the beer.

“Let me get four rubbers,” Mel said.

The man turned around and counted out the condoms from a huge box behind him. He threw the foil-wrapped packets on the counter and spoke rapid Spanish to Juana. Mel thought he heard the word negro but wasn’t sure.

“Mind your business,” Juana said to the counterman in English.

Juana’s face was red as they left the store. Mel carried the bag, and she fished around in her pocketbook until they reached a dilapidated four-story building half a block away. She pulled out a key and turned to face him. “You got cigarettes ?”

He nodded.

She opened the door and started running up the stairs. Mel closed the front door, waited for the lock to snap in place, and followed. Juana was unlocking the door to the second-floor rear apartment. When she put the key back in her pocketbook, Mel took out his knife and put a finger to his lips. Juana looked bored with the routine, but Mel didn’t care. He had not forgotten the rules. This could be a setup. He pressed his ear against the wooden door but there was no noise inside.

“Where’s your friend?” he asked.

Juana shrugged. “I guess she went out.”

“Open the door . . . slowly.”

Juana obeyed. He kept his knife out as they entered.

Mel found himself standing in a medium-size room with dirty white paint on the walls. A ragged red sofa stood against the left wall, and a TV with a hole in the screen was on the right. Juana locked the door and turned on a floor lamp. Mel sat down on the ragged sofa. There were used pipe sc. . .