Reverend Feelgood by Lutishia Lovely Page B

going to get attached to a baby just to have it taken away from me? I don’t know, Auntie. I don’t think I can go through losing anything again. Plus, I can’t have any type of controversy around me. You know I’m thinking about running for mayor.”
    “Ain’t nothing controversial about loving a child. And you don’t have to look at it as losing, son. You can look at it as gaining, like gaining a niece or a nephew. Even after Nate and Destiny get married, you and Simone can still be a big part of the child’s life. And I don’t think Simone is thirty yet. Y’all could have a child of your own. Will you at least think about it, about the possibility of meeting her?”
    Mark had answered, after a pause long enough to drive a train through. “I’ll think about it.”
     
    Mama Max digested the incredible news Nettie had just told her. “That man has a crown in glory,” she finally said.

13
Gonna Be All Right
    “Selling Simone wasn’t as easy,” Nettie continued, as she exited the highway where one of Mama Max’s favorite restaurants was located. “But after I’d done my job, it was time for Katherine to do hers.”
     
    “Marry who?” Simone looked stunned.
    “Mark,” Katherine had answered calmly. “Nate’s cousin.”
    “You have got to be kidding. I’ll take care of Destiny’s child until she and Nate get married, but when I get married, it will be for love.”
    Katherine was silent. Sometimes you’re too much like me for your own good, she’d thought. It was Katherine’s pride and desire to get the things she wanted the way she wanted that had her still living as a single woman at the age of fifty-three—that and Nate Thicke.
    “Just meet with him, that’s all we ask,” Katherine coaxed. “What harm is there in having dinner with the man?”
    “I’ll eat with him,” Simone responded. “I just won’t marry him.”
    And then she’d met him, and found a man who was thoughtful, intelligent, and easy on the eyes. There was something in his quiet strength that made Simone feel protected and special. The ice around her heart, and the idea of an arranged marriage, melted just a little at this first meeting, and a little more in their subsequent telephone conversations.
    “Aside from taking the fall for my daughter, why should I up and marry a man I hardly know?” she’d asked during one of their late-night discussions.
    “I’ll make you happy,” was Mark’s answer. And he believed he could, and would, had felt that way from the moment he’d laid eyes on her. He’d make Simone Noble happy—or die trying.
    But as usual when it came to Simone, Nate was the one for whom she’d finally made the decision. When weeks had passed and Simone had still not agreed to this cockamamy idea, Nate had called and asked one simple question: “Will you do it for me?” That’s when she’d said yes. Because for Nate, Simone would do anything.
     
    “Plans moved pretty quickly after that,” Nettie continued. “Simone and Destiny will move to Baton Rouge. Well, Destiny is there already, taking summer classes. She’ll continue her education at a private school, and after having the baby, will stay in Louisiana until an appropriate time for Nate to announce their engagement. After their marriage, when Destiny is say, nineteen, twenty years old, the child can become a part of their household.”
    Mama Max looked at Nettie as if she’d lost her mind. “Some people ain’t working with the sense God gave ’em. How in the hello Mississipppi are y’all going to explain how Simone’s baby suddenly disappears on one hand, and newly married Destiny appears with a three-year-old on the other? Folks going to put two and two together and get four for sure!”
    “We’re not going to put the pregnancy and birth in the Sunday bulletin, Mama. But Gordon said we shouldn’t hide it either. Once Nate and Destiny are married, we’ll simply tell the truth.”
    “Hmph. Ain’t nothing simple about that