“Reverend Julian told you to take Cassie and the children here?” I asked incredulously. “Maud you are lying!” I shouted. “No, I am speaking the truth.” she said tearfully. “ I wanted to tell you the truth but Reverend Julian begged me not to say anything to you.” "Tell me the truth now and nothing but the truth!" I said to her through clenched teeth. Maud began to spill her guts. She told me something that I was unaware of, that Reverend Julian
was also a Social Worker. At the time of Cassie's first pregnancy she was under the legal age of consent to have sex therefore the matter was reported, to the Centre for Sexual Offences and Child Abuse (CISOCA), by the hospital. Her babyfather was arrested and the court ordered that a Social Enquiry Report be done. Reverend Julian was the Social Worker assigned to the case. During the course of doing the report Reverend Julian felt sorry for her when he learned her story. Cassie was growing up without a mother, she didn't know her father and her Grandmother saw her as a burden. She was always left unsupervised hence it was very easy for her to be 'led astray' by the man who eventually became her babyfather. Reverend Julian gave a favourable report to the court with the assurance that he would become her mentor. The court agreed and he was authorised to become her foster parent. Reverend Julian was more than a foster parent to Cassie, he became the father that she never had. He was the only person, apart from Maud that she trusted. He was the unofficial Grandfather and godfather to the children and was always there for Cassie. After the death of the babyfather and when the TreTre gang members started their harassment he and Cassie quickly came up with the plan to let her come and stay at my house. According to Cassie, it was her father's house so she had a right to be there. I gasped at the audacity! Maud said that Reverend Julian coached them in what they were to say and how they were to behave. What stumped me was when Maud asked me if I did not think it strange that Reverend Julian showed up at the house the same day as Cassie and the children? It was not a coincidence, it was a part of the plan. Come to think of it, if Reverend Julian hadn’t been there, playing on my emotions, I would not have opened my gate and let the ‘migrants’ into my yard in the first place! I could not believe what I was hearing. I could not believe that these two persons that I trusted had conspired to trick me! I said as much to Maud and she responded with “Oh no Sister CeeCee, it was never like that, we never conspired to trick you.” “So what do you call your actions to deceive me in my own home?” I asked. She hung down her head in shame and said she was sorry but they were just trying to help Cassie and her children. I asked her if Cassie didn’t have any other relatives that she could have gone to stay with. Maud shook her head and said no. She said that the community Cassie lived in was a tightly knit one where everybody knew each other and every family had a family member who was a member of the TreTre Gang and it was just a matter of time before they would have known where she was. “Just like how they found out that she was here.” I sneered. It was Cassie, Maud said, that made them know where she was. She made a phone call to one of her friends, not knowing that the friend had a boyfriend who was a member of the TreTre Gang. The boyfriend overheard the conversation and told Rajah who decided to come and threaten Cassie that night. The more I listened to Maud the more I felt like strangling her but I was a good Christian woman. I was not afraid of going to prison for murder, I was just afraid of going to hell because of it! I heard Conroy give out a cry so I hurriedly went inside to check on him. “Stay here, I am not finished with you yet!” I said to Maud. When I reached inside my bedroom Conroy was sitting up in the bed. When he saw me he stretched out his little hands towards me and cried out, “Mommy! Mommy!” I lifted him up and hugged him tightly, he was obviously having a nightmare, poor thing. I comforted him gently and he went back to sleep. After laying him down on the bed I went back outside. By this time Maud had gotten up off the floor and was sitting in the chair. “What if I had ignored Reverend Julian’s request and not let Cassie and the children into the yard? What would you have done?” I asked her. She sighed heavily and said that Reverend Julian was sure that I would not turn them away. “Why was he so certain that I wouldn’t do that?” I asked. Maud said that Reverend Julian was so sure of me doing the right thing because of my love and respect for the Lord. I opened my eyes wide. Reverend Julian actually told her and Cassie that all he had to do was ask me to do something and because he was a man of God, and asking me to do something as a man of God, I would do it. “Say what! What the hell!” I exclaimed. “How dare he say that! How dare he play upon my love for the Lord and abuse this love! To think all this time I thought he was a real Christian gentleman! A man of integrity! He’s no better than satan! If he thinks I am going to be destroyed he has another guess coming!” I was so furious that if someone stuck a pin in me I would not bleed! My God! This man was the proverbial wolf in sheep clothing! I could not wait for Sunday morning, I told Maud, because I was going to confront him right there at the altar! “Ahem” said Maud. “I have something else to tell you” “Lord Jesus! What more could there be?” I asked. “The story that Reverend Julian told you about Charles and Charlotte are not true, he made it up.” “What!” My mouth was now on the ground! Maud said that Reverend Julian did spend some time with my Grandmother Charmaine when she was sick and she did tell him a few stories but nothing like what he told me. “But-but-but what about the story in the ledgers and Charmaine's diaries?” I asked. “They are all fake” said Maud. What was real she said was that Reverend Julian found the ledgers and diaries in an old trunk in the church office, but they were all blank, he was the one who wrote in them. Knowing that I was an avid reader and a romantic at heart Reverend Julian devised the plot to keep me occupied so that I would not have to focus too much on Cassie and the children being around me. “Are you saying that Reverend Julian is the person that wrote in the ledgers and Charmaine diaries? There is no Stanley Wharbucks, no estate in Montego Bay, no Charles, no Charlotte?” I asked. “Nope.” said Maud. “He made it all up. Everything is fictional except for you and I and Cassie being sisters. ” I could not believe it! I felt like my whole world was tumbling down. “But how did he come up with so many details?” I asked. Maud asked me if I had forgotten that Reverend Julian was a member of the LTM Pantomime Committee and had written many pantomimes. He had written this particular story for the previous year’s pantomime and when it was not selected he decided to transfer the story to the ledgers and diaries as a backup to his computer files. Oh my God, Reverend Julian was a real Anancy!
Just then my cell phone rang. Reverend Julian’s name came up on the caller ID.
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