How Do Homes Become Hallowed Shells? An Excerpt from 'And... The Mirror Cracked' by Monica Handy

Reverend Rodgers stood in the doorway, looking at Lee-Roy through sunken, watery eyes. He never even attempted to smile. It was unsettling to see the definition of his father's age so deeply etched in his unflinching features.

“Aren't you gonna let me in pops?”

"Pops?” Taken aback by the reference. “Where've you been?" he responded. "You've been out of that facility for six months. I received no phone call, no correspondence, nothing! And you just show up at my doorstep?”

Lee-Roy evaded the questions all together by side-stepping his father into the mahogany and red brocade entryway. As his eyes drank in the familiarity of his home, he began to feel an embrace similar to that of a well-worn shoe. But something was missing… There was a lack of substance in the place he used to call “home.” Suddenly, it occurred to him that there were no aromatic smells coming from the kitchen, no church songs being belted out in a billy-goat timbre, no shuffling of house shoes across the aged wooden floors. And no lipstick smudged greetings from orange, stained lips!

“Where is she, Daddy?!”

“Where is who?”

“Mother Juna! Where is she?”

Slowly, he walked to the den, taking a seat and crossing his legs. Gripping the arms of his chair was a sign that he was ready to be forthcoming. “She’s gone…Ran off with some fella who joined the church two years ago.”

“And you let her?” Lee-Roy responded with pained amazement!

“I’m no jailer! I oversee a church. People have the right to come and go as they please!”

Lee-Roy felt overwhelmed, like he might explode! Usually his father was given the last word on any given subject—like it was some sacrificial peace offering. But as of this moment, he realized that he’d become a different Lee-Roy while locked away, and he just didn’t feel like sacrificing anymore!

“Daddy, that woman loved you! She was faithful to you in her service. She wanted to do more than cook and clean for you!”

Uncrossing his legs signified that Lee-Roy had just crossed the line! “How dare you come in my house and question me about my decisions! That woman was a harlot! All that jewelry and makeup was a sin before Christ! She’s lucky I let her work here for so long-Who else would have had her with all those psychedelic clothes? She looked like a hippy!”

“Daddy, you were lucky to have her!" Now this house is an empty shell.”

“Boy, don’t you raise your voice to me! And I’ll tell you another thing-this house belonged to your mother! No one else will ever fill her shoes! NO ONE!”

Lee-Roy dropped his head wondering how one who led and fed so many didn’t even know that he was starving for love and affection. He decided to abandon the subject for another one, hoping to make peace.

“So how are plans coming for Easter service? I can imagine the choir raising the roof off the building…”

“Lee-Roy,” he said through a pained expression, “a lot has changed since you’ve been gone. When you first went away, support poured in from the community and other churches, out of respect for my plight-Not loyalty, but 'respect.' But after folks found out that Dennis Reeves was never gonna recover and go on to be a star quarterback, people began to leave. Oh, of course they did it with smiles and excuses, but, just the same, they left. A few stayed on, like Sister Vicky and Brother Bob, but the church is just as empty as this house.” And then with words as sharp as the knife he’d stabbed Dennis with, his father said, “I’m just glad that your mother wasn’t around to suffer such indignities.”

“What indignities, Daddy?”

“So you want me to spell it out?!” came the rhetorical question. “Ok, I will! The indignity of your persuasion!”

“I never said I was gay, you did! I stabbed Dennis in self-defense because HE was trying to rape me!” Tears began streaming down his cheeks when his father broke eye-contact and turned away.

“All the evidence points toward you!” thundered his father’s pulpit voice. "I swear, you and that Melody Baxter must have been cut from the same cloth! The two of you were raised in the church, for God's sake!”

Interrupting his father’s tirade—"So, you never believed me?”

Reverend Rodgers, turned to him with tears in his eyes, “I had always hoped you’d turn out different… Be like the other boys… But you were soft and gentle, like your mother. No matter how I told her to stop babying you, she wouldn’t listen—just kept right on…”

“My mother loved me and nurtured my strengths! You, on the other hand, suck the life out of every living thing around you, using Jesus as a vacuum! Well, Reverend Rodgers,” holding up his arms to display the surroundings, “Welcome to your tomb!”

With that, Lee-Roy strode to the front door and didn’t even look back as he said, “Good bye, Daddy.”

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