You Get What You Pray For by E.N. Joy Read Free Book Online

five-second pause, Jacquelyn, another one of the dance moms, stepped in to throw water on the flames before they turned into a wildfire.
    â€œAnd we all know your dear Gabby is the most talented dancer on the competition dance team,” Jacquelyn told Ivy.
    â€œThanks, Jacks. I’m glad someone recognizes that.” Ivy put her nose up in the air, too stuck on herself to realize that Jacquelyn was being sarcastic. “Some of these other moms don’t get that my Gabby is special . . . all by herself.” Ivy turned her attention back to the girls, who were still practicing.
    Jacquelyn, who was sitting on the other side of Ivy, on the burnt orange–colored bench, which matched the burnt orange walls, simply looked at Lorain and rolled her eyes.
    â€œBut, Lorain, I hate to admit that your girls have great potential.” Ivy added, starting up again. “Outside of the whole twin thing, which can take away from a real dancer’s true talent, your girls have wonderful posture and those long legs. . . .” Ivy looked Lorain up and down. “Funny, neither you nor your husband are above average in height. They must get it from somewhere else in the family tree.” She shrugged, almost knowingly. Or maybe it just appeared that way to Lorain.
    Lorain tensed up. This Ivy chick was really trying her holy nerves, sitting over there with that snooty look on her face, acting like she knew things about Lorain’s family. But what can she possibly know? Lorain asked herself. Nothing. How can she? Lorain was friendly with the dance moms, but she wasn’t close enough to any of them to hang out and tell them her business. Upon coming to that conclusion, Lorain relaxed her shoulders a bit. Ivy might try to get under Lorain’s skin, but Lorain was going to fight tooth and nail not to let her. Lately, she’d been doing so well at keeping her cool and staying in control of her emotions. Now along came a spider . . . named Ivy.
    It was as if God had seen how well Lorain had been doing in dealing with folks and their wicked ways, and now He wanted to test her by siccing Ivy on her. God had to be behind this. How else would Ivy know that the very buttons she did not want to push were the ones that had something to do with her daughters?
    Heaven and Victoria were Lorain’s pride and joy. They were her life. Her second chance at motherhood. And only a handful of people knew that biologically, they were her granddaughters and not her daughters.
    When Unique first shared with Lorain the fact that she was pregnant with the twins, who were her fourth and fifth children as an unwed mother, she was set on giving the babies up for adoption. At the time she’d already had three sons by three different men, and on top of that, she was living in her sister’s basement with the boys. Unique wasn’t even making ends meet in her current living situation, so adding two more mouths to feed could possibly land her on the streets. Besides, she was a babe in Christ and was teetering the fence, backsliding, or whatever church folks wanted to call it, every now and then. The last thing she needed was for them church hens to be pecking at her and challenging her Christianity. A single mother of three with all them baby daddies, she’d already given them enough to talk about.
    At least when she was pregnant with the twins, she didn’t have to deal with a fourth baby daddy, as Unique’s pregnancy was the result of a drunken one-night stand she’d had with her oldest son’s father. But he hadn’t even been half taking care of the son she already had with him. He’d been too busy trying to make a dollar out of fifteen cents by selling dope. To this day, Unique had never even bothered to tell him that he was the father of the twins. He’d never asked.
    Lorain expressed her disappointment that Unique was hell-bent on adoption. Knowing that Unique was her biological daughter, she