Monica Latrice Weathers. Everyone in town knew her full name. “She’s gonna get outta here and be our shining star,” Mr. Candy would say. He was the janitor at Reverend Weathers’s church. As a preacher’s child, Monica was destined to be something special. She was a top student, a dancer, and even as a child her vocals added a tone to the church choir that many of the lady elders wished they had. Her peers called her a good girl, and all the boys knew that Monica didn’t put out. She had soft tresses that every man wanted to touch and every girl wanted to cut. But good things only last for so long in these parts.
The town started talking after Monica stopped coming to church five times a week. When a storefront church has a lot of activity, coming just for Sunday service is never good enough, ’specially for a preacher’s child.
“Po’ girl can go on a two-week vacation with bags that big,” Sister Clara piped in.
The services went by as such every Sunday, with Reverend Weathers screaming from the pulpit and Monica screaming on the inside. She tried to keep her pain tucked beneath her tongue, but the sisters in the church would swear they could hear her anyway. Some claimed to lay hands on her during service when Monica’s body started to sway back and forth. Sometimes sweat ran down her temples so fast that only a spirit could catch ’em before they touched her shirt. Her shirts always stayed dry. That was my doing.
Monica’s Sundays soon got shorter and shorter. Most times, she got to church after the service started. She’d creep into her regular pew between the mumbles of church ladies who came to be seen, were always heard, and rarely listened. The bags under her eyes got bigger, and her swaying started to shake her pew. Monica grew so far from the church that only her body would come. Even Mr. Candy lamented one day between sweeping, “That girl gone like the rest of ’em.”
It was a Sunday when it happened, and that Sunday wasn’t no diff’rent than the others. The choir sang sweet songs of praise. The collection plate was passed around. Monica slipped in and Reverend Weathers delivered a powerful message about truth and forgiveness. Like most other Sundays, the good Reverend waited for his daughter before he started his sermon. Some days, church let out a whole hour later than usual because he wanted everyone to hear the word. Everyone knew that “everyone” really meant Monica.
Church let out, and the usuals convened in the basement to swap stories and eat doughnuts covered in Sister Mary’s homemade frosting. Monica said her goodbyes and kissed her father on the forehead before she sped off in her graduation present, a brand new Lincoln from the good Reverend. By 2 p.m., everyone was at home taking up their regular Sunday routines. Mr. Candy was preparing dinner for his four young daughters. Sister Joe was nursing her sick husband, who could never find the energy to go to church but somehow made it to the liquor store each Saturday morning to play his numbers. Sister Clara was rewinding her stories so she could catch up on the drama she missed during her 12-hour shifts at the hospital during the week. Reverend Weathers was reading the Word so he could find a passage to inspire the next Sunday’s message. By 4:45, sirens lit up the town.
There would be no laughter for three days following the red, white, and blue lights.
Monica Latrice Weathers climbed up the stairs of the highest building in town. She climbed until her legs ached. The Crowne Hotel on Main St. only had eight flights, but she felt that she had walked forever. After she reached the top, she let herself into one of the rooms. On weekends, she washed the linens, so she had a master key. The balcony door slid open with a soft push of Monica’s shaky hands. She inhaled and exhaled three times and wiped the dust off the railing with the bottom of her shirt as she hoisted herself up. She inhaled again.
The officers at the scene said there was no chance she could’ve made it. Monica was good as gone when her feet were off the surface. Everyone at the hotel gathered around and wondered who that girl was, all bloodied and pressed against the hot pavement. The hotel workers, ’specially the ladies, whispered to each other and some even dialed their friends and family—before Monica was scraped off the ground— to tell them the news.
And news travels fast in these parts.
Reverend Weathers heard the news from a neighbor who heard it from her sister whose granddaughter is best friends with an employee at The Crowne Hotel. She wanted to tell the Reverend before the officials did. She’d lost her husband a month earlier in a horrible accident on the James Pearl Bridge and she knew how
Artist: Mandi Lourenco
insensitive they could be, with all their paperwork and police jargon. When the police arrived, the Reverend and his neighbor, Cisely, were already kneeled down praying.
They both believed in Heaven and Hell. Reverend Weathers preached about the two often. Eternal damnation was a fate that he wanted none of his people to meet. “Upon death, I want the Lord to be the one to greet you,” he said to the congregation regularly. But on that day, he knew that the Lord wouldn’t be greeting his only child by his only wife (who ran away with a bootlegger long ago). He knew that Monica had committed an unforgivable sin.
Monica knew it, too.
So there Monica remains, in between peace and damnation. I got another soul to watch over nowadays, but in this town, it ain’t easy guarding these younguns. Every Sunday, Reverend Weathers delivers his sermons. One the third Sunday of every August, when Monica met death, the good Reverend talks about forgiveness, and how can’t nobody— not even the good daughter of a preaching man—wait until they gets good and ready to be redeemed.
- Ain Drew
