Keeper of My Soul. Keshia Dawn

She just kept her job as a cashier at the Brookshires in Greenville, Texas, and paid bills as they came in. With the small planked house long since paid off, Stoney didn’t have to worry about the roof over her head. If it weren’t for her move to Dallas, no doubt she’d have resided in the house she grew up in.

      Raised under her grandmother’s lax care, Stoney learned at a young age to pay bills, cook, and clean a house, along with saving for a rainy day. On top of that, her grandmother inadvertently instilled in her the importance of an education, and drilled in even more how important it was to plan for the future. The only thing she didn’t teach her was how to heal from the past.

      Over the years growing up in her grandmother’s care, it was a rare occasion when Stoney could bring up her biological mother or ask questions pertaining to why she wasn’t being raised by this mystery woman. On one of those good days, Stoney could hear Grandma Susie say, “Your mama loved you, but I guess the timing wasn’t right. She was angry about lots of stuff.” But if she caught her grandma on a hot, fan-in-the-window type of day, the conversation was always, “She just selfish. Always was and always will be.” and for asking, Grandma Susie would lay into Stoney, telling her, “Stop being so disrespectful. You act like you ungrateful I took ya in or something.” with all of that, Stoney never knew when she would get the truth. But it was all too late now. Passing away in her sleep at age eighty, her grandmother didn’t have a chance to give her history to go on so that her future wouldn’t be repeated. That was her main reason for the move to Dallas: to find her own past.

      Being born and raised in Greenville, Texas, for most folk, meant that all roads led to the closest big city. That was only one of the reasons Stoney followed suit. With the leftover money from the insurance policy, Stoney found herself an efficiency right smack dab in the middle of Dallas and called it home. Her other reason for moving to Dallas was that she planned to scout out her birth mother. Being that she only had a picture to go on, she had to go back to the drawing board on more than one occasion. Nevertheless, the one thing she wasn’t going to do was give up hope.

      Finished earlier than she thought she would be, Stoney scribbled something on a prescription pad and rushed out of the office. Standing in the hallway, waiting for the elevator to arrive, Stoney wished it would arrive sooner than later. One of the young doctors always made it his duty to try to escort her out of the building to her car. Besides being embarrassed about driving her grandmother’s older-than-thou Ford escort, Stoney hated that Dr. Connor flirted with her every chance he could.

      The chime of the elevator’s arrival sounded off. As soon as her heels touched the glossed wood of the compact room, Stoney repeatedly pushed the “close” button.

      “Hold the elevator, please,” Dr. Connor yelled.

      “Dang it,” Stoney grunted. Sweeping her bangs off of her rectangular eyeglasses and giving them their signature push up off of her nose, Stoney stood up straight and tried to look as serious as possible. Vicky had told her that to get someone out of her face, someone she was not at all interested in, looking serious would always do the trick. But to Stoney, Dr. Connor was in a league all his own.

      “Hi there, Stoney,” a lean and toffee-colored Dr. Connor spoke as he entered the elevator. With his white jacket draped across his arm, he stood not too far away from Stoney.

      “Hi, Dr. Connor.” Stoney kept it short while trying to keep the sweet out of it. Seeing him, she suddenly regretted taking her khaki jacket off so soon. Her new off-white camisole she had chosen to wear under her jacket left her cleavage screaming for cover. When Dr. Connor pushed the button for the first floor, Stoney was relieved. Exhaling, she then pushed “G” for the garage, and silently thanked God she wouldn’t have to be bothered with his advances today.

      Right as the elevator started to move downward and Stoney thought she was home free, Dr. Connor, being the overachiever he was, the good doctor, changed his mind.

      “Oh, you’re parked in the garage today? I’ll just ride down with you,” he offered without question.

      “No!” Stoney yelled before she knew the venom that had come out of her mouth. She lowered her voice. “I mean, you don’t have to do that.”

      “Nonsense. I can just take the stairs back up,” he suggested.

      It wasn’t that he was a bad-looking man, or that he came off as a stalker. It was just the mere thought of what Grandma Susie had told her about his kind.

      “Folks who got it easy will see a young gal like you and think they can do what they want to. If ya smart, you’d getcha all the education you can and then take a pick of the man you want. Don’t be no man’s flunkie.”

      With those words embedded in her heart, Stoney only knew what her grandma had told her. As far as she knew, it was the truth. Some may have continued to call her country, and that was all right by her. One thing she didn’t want to be called was dumb. Better safe than sorry was all she knew to be.

      “Got any plans for the weekend?” he asked as the doors opened. Single with no children, the twenty-nine-year-old Dr. Connor had taken a liking to the well-developed and smart (now twenty-one-year-old) college student.

      “You know me, just church and hanging with other young people at the church.” She thought if she often referred to herself as a young lady rather than a woman, he’d back off. So far he hadn’t bought into it.

      She could wear all the skirts—long ones, short ones, pleated ones, or a-line ones—it wouldn’t matter. Stoney couldn’t hide the body that made her age appear to be on the other side of twenty-five rather than next door to twenty. Cornbread fed took a new meaning with Stoney.

      After the elevator’s doors opened, Stoney took off walking at a faster pace to Old Crusty, while Dr. Connor reminded Stoney of an earlier conversation.

      “You know, you really should consider the surgery. If your eyes are giving you problems like they are and your eye prescription is as fluctuating as it is, it seems to be necessary,” he recommended in his expertise. Taking her keys from her hands, Dr. Connor did Stoney the unwanted favor of unlocking her door. “Plus it’s free. You can’t get any better than that. That’s one of the perks of working for doctors: free health insurance.”

      With her inability to control her blinking for the moment, Stoney gave a gentle, polite smile that housed full lips. Nodding in agreement instead of reminding him that she didn’t have anyone to care for her after the surgery, Stoney eased her body closer to her old standby car.

      “You have beautiful eyes, Stoney, and I’d like to see them more often without your glasses.”

      Her uncontrolled and rapid blinking had been a reaction from medications she’d started taking as a teenager. Not bothering to mention it to him, Stoney tried not to acknowledge him at any level. Retracting her keys from his hand once he’d unlocked the door, Stoney moved closer toward the driver’s door. After easing inside, and with the door shut, she threw him a fake wave and blew out the breath she’d been holding in. Through gritted teeth Stoney blew out steamed breath.

      Making her entrance onto the smooth-flowing Central expressway, Stoney drove while reminiscing about her new life. She hadn’t dated at all while being in Dallas. As a matter of fact, she had never dated. Grandma Susie had made sure of that.

      In high school, when young girls were painting toes, doing hair, getting ears pierced, and eager to turn sixteen—the age their parents were dreading but at which they had agreed to allow them to have boyfriends—Stoney wasn’t able to participate. Grandma Susie had made it very clear that Jesus, church, and school were all the boyfriends Stoney needed.

      For the last year since Stoney had made Dallas her home, she hadn’t found anyone who interested her, nor was she really looking. Grandma Susie may have been dead, but her spirit still lived very much in Stoney’s thoughts.

      As she drove, tears ran down Stoney’s face as she allowed her mind to focus on being motherless and not knowing who would remind her when it was okay to date, kiss, or marry. If there was anything she hated, it was not knowing.

      Driving