again.â
By now I could hardly understand what Ms. Daniels was saying because she was crying so hard. This was his first suicide attempt, to her knowledge, so I could tell she was in complete shock and disbelief. Neither Dub nor I had ever shared with her his hanging attempt. Maybe if we had, she could have gotten him the help he needed before he made this second attempt.
âI donât want to lose my baby.â She sniffed and got herself together. âI was thinking, maybe if you could just go see him, you know, to calm him down, that would help.â
âMs. Daniels, Iââ
âWhoâs that on the phone?â I heard my mother call from the dinner table, where weâd been sitting and eating before the phone rang. âTell them youâll call them back. Youâre eating dinner. Your food is getting cold. You can gossip later,â my mother huffed.
âLook, Ms. Daniels, I have to go,â I told her, relieved that my mom had come to the rescue for the second time today.
âDub told me everything that went on,â Ms. Daniels said, beginning her plea, âbut I know you wouldnât want him to die, would you?â There was no way I could answer that question candidly. So I said nothing. âIf you donât go see him, thatâs exactly whatâs going to happen. Heâs going to kill himself. So please, Helen, just go see him for a minute, will you please? Please, Helen. Heâs my son.â
âMs. Daniels, Iââ
âPlease, Helen, youâre the only one who can help him.â
âHelen, did you hear what your mother said?â my stepfather called out.
âI really have to go,â I told Ms. Daniels.
âFine. Iâll let you go,â she said, âbut just tell me youâll do it.â
The pressure was on. My mom started yelling from the kitchen again, while Ms. Daniels cried in my ear.
A decision had to be made.
Stone Number Twelve
âSo youâre the one whoâs causing my baby all this pain,â the nurse said to me as I entered Dubâs room at the Hilltop. She was standing over his hospital bed, rubbing his forehead in a comforting manner.
I just looked at the chubby little brown woman with gray hair and black-rimmed glasses. Had she really just said that to me, and in front of him?
I looked at Dub, and when his eyes locked with mine, he immediately broke down in tears.
The nurse shook her head and continued rubbing his forehead. âItâs going to be all right, baby. Keep your head up. Godâs gonna keep you,â she told him.
God was keeping him, indeed, from the angel of death. Heâd made his second attempt at taking his own life, and God had spared him yet again. Why? I just couldnât understand it. Dub was far from a saint. I mean, I wasnât a saint, either, but dang. What was so special about Dub? But then I recalled a scripture, something about God not being a respecter of man. What He did for the saved Heâd do for the unsaved. If that was the case, I figured why bother trying to do good if God was going to bless a person, anyway, even in their sin?
âIâll leave you alone with her, because I know thatâs what you want,â the nurse said to Dub, giving me the evil eye. Evidently, it wasnât what she wanted to do, leave him alone with me. She acted like I was going to finish him off or something. I could see it in her eyes as she brushed past me. If she could have things her way, Iâd be the one tied down somewhere.
âIâm so glad you came,â Dub cried. âI knew you would come. I knew you would.â He said it with somewhat of a sinister grin on his lips. As if he had no intentions of actually dying. He just knew that it would have to be practically over his dead body for me to ever be in the same room with him again. He had probably even timed everything just right, waiting to take all those pills at just the right
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