Forgiven (12 page)

“Hah,” Cassandra said as she laughed. “You
should have been here earlier and you would have seen just how well
behaved your children are.”

JT opened his mouth to respond, but the
doorbell rang. “Let me get this door, and then I’ll be back to
defend my children.”

“Whatever, you aren’t in this house with them
all day long. So you don’t know how b-a-d your children are.”

JT was smiling with his eyes and strutting
with vigor as he looked through the peephole and saw Bishop Turner
and Sam Unders standing on his front porch. He opened the door and
gave both men a bear hug. “Hey, what brings you two out this
evening?”

There was a grim expression on Bishop’s and
Unders’ faces as they stepped into the house. “Hey, JT,” they both
said in unison.

“What’s with the long faces?” JT asked as he
closed the door.

Drying her hands as she walked into the
living room, Cassandra took one look at their guests and stopped.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”

With one look in Cassandra’s direction, JT
could tell that fear was trying to take hold of her again. He
turned to Bishop and Unders and told them, “If y’all gon’ be in my
house, we need to see some smiles on your faces.”

“How are you doing, Cassandra?” Bishop asked
his daughter.

“I’m okay,” she responded with as little
enthusiasm as possible.

“I left you a message earlier this morning. I
was hoping we could do lunch, but you didn’t call me back,” Bishop
Turner said.

“I was busy with the kids.” Cassandra didn’t
make eye contact with her father. She just stood there looking as
if she wanted an escape from this conversation.

“I understand,” Bishop said and then turned
back to JT. “Can we speak somewhere privately?”

“Privately? What’s that supposed to mean… You
don’t want me there? Aren’t you and JT tired of secrets?” Cassandra
huffed and then whirled around and went back into the kitchen.

The last thing JT wanted Cassandra to think
was that he was keeping secrets from her. They had crossed a major
milestone in their relationship this weekend and he wanted them to
continue progressing. He followed Cassandra into the kitchen. They
were standing by the stove while the children sat around the
kitchen table; Lily and Aaron were both in high chairs. JT
whispered in Cassandra’s ear, “I don’t have any secrets.”

“Then why does he want to talk in private?”
she shot back.

“I don’t know. But you are more than welcome
to sit with us. Why don’t you go tell them to have a seat and let
me fix the kids’ plates.”

Cassandra hesitated, but then she handed JT
the towel she had been drying her hands on and headed toward the
living room.

“All right, who wants spaghetti?” JT asked as
he picked up the first plate.

“Me, me,” Jerome and Aaron both yelled.

“Coming right up,” JT said as he fixed the
plates. He handed Jerome his, but chopped Lily’s and Aaron’s food
up. Aaron liked to feed himself, so he just had to feed Lily. “I
sure wish I had some food,” he said to the kids as he watched them
shovel it in.

Jerome laughed. “There’s food in the pot,
Daddy.”

“Okay, I’ll eat after me and your mommy take
care of something,” JT told Jerome.

“Aw man, do we have to take another nap?”
Jerome complained.

“You sure do, young man. So hurry up and eat
your food so you can go to sleep.”

Cassandra walked back into the kitchen and
told JT, “They want to know how much longer you’re going to
be.”

JT was feeding Lily. He looked up at
Cassandra and said, “I was thinking about putting them to bed
before we talked with them.”

Cassandra shook her head. “That’s going to
take too much time. They’re going to fight us all the way. Just put
them in the family room and turn on the television. We can sit in
the kitchen and talk to them so that we can still see the
kids.”

“Beautiful and smart,” JT said, trying to
take the strained look off of Cassandra’s face.

“Are you guys done?” Cassandra asked Jerome
and Aaron without responding to JT’s comment.

Both boys shook their head yes. She grabbed a
couple of wet wipes and wiped the excess spaghetti sauce off their
face and hands. “Go on in the family room. I’ll be there in a
minute,” she said as she took Aaron out of his highchair. She then
handed JT a wet wipe and told him to clean Lily up.

It took about ten minutes, but the children
were soon seated comfortably in the family room watching cartoons.
The kitchen table had been cleaned off and now JT and Cassandra sat
at the table with Bishop and Unders. “Okay gentlemen,’ JT said,
“let’s have it. But please keep your voices down. My children are
in the next room.” Actually the house had an open floor plan from
the kitchen to the family room, so the children were on the other
side of the island.

Bishop cleared his throat and then spoke in
as low a tone as he could. “I hate to come over hear with bad news,
but you’ll know about this soon enough, so I thought it would be
good for us to strategize how we are going to handle this
matter.”

“What matter are you talking about?”
Cassandra asked with a little sista-sista in her voice.

Bishop turned toward his daughter, he put his
hand over hers, and Cassandra moved her hands away. “I’m trying to
handle this as delicately as possible, Cassandra. I know that
you’ve had to deal with an awful lot of late and I don’t want to
cause you extra stress.”

“Why? Do you think I’m a basket case, like my
husband accused me of being last week?” Cassandra asked.

JT didn’t know where all this was coming
from. He and Cassandra had spent a wonderful weekend together and
he honestly thought they had moved past a lot of their issues. But
she was acting as if nothing had changed between them. He wanted
whatever it was out on the table already, so he and Cassandra could
move back to where they had been before he opened the front door
and let his friend and father-in-law in. “Can you just spit it out,
sir? All this beating around the bush is getting Cassandra
nervous.”

With eyes on fire, Cassandra turned to JT and
said, “Do I look nervous? I’m just tired of secrets and hushed
conversations.”

JT wanted to tell Cassandra that she did
indeed look nervous, but that she had no reason to be, because he
hadn’t done anything. Instead, he turned to Bishop and waited.

Clearing his throat again, Bishop said,
“Diane Benson’s attorney has served the church with a sexual abuse
lawsuit.”

“What?” JT exploded as he lifted himself out
of his seat.

“She claims that you misused your position of
authority in order to manipulate her into having a sexual
relationship with you,” Unders told him.

“She initiated the affair. I never
manipulated that woman into anything,” JT said as he lowered his
voice.

“There’s more,” Bishop said. He kept his eyes
averted from Cassandra as he continued. “Margie Milner’s name has
been added to the suit. She is also accusing you of
manipulation.”

JT sat back down and put his head in his
hands. He’d had three affairs on his wife. Diane had approached him
and he’d been only too willing to fall into her trap. But he had
initiated the affairs with both Margie and Vivian Sampson. Vivian
had already been crazy before he’d ever approached her, he just
didn’t know it. But Margie had been dedicated to the Lord. Now she
was an unwed mother, living in sin. And he couldn’t get around the
fact that he was the reason. “So why didn’t I receive the paperwork
for this lawsuit? Why do you two know about it before me?”

Because Diane and Margie want five hundred
thousand each and they want it from the church,” Unders told
him.

“What?” JT exploded again.

“You heard me,” Unders said.

Jerome ran into the kitchen and said, “Daddy,
stop yelling. I can’t hear the TV.”

“Sorry son,” JT apologized. “I’ll keep my
voice down. You go on back in the family room.”

When Jerome turned around to leave, Cassandra
stood up from the table, and without saying a word to JT or anyone
else, she walked into the family room and sat down with her
children.

“I’m sorry, JT,” Bishop said as he watched
Cassandra walk away. “Maybe we should have asked you to come to the
church in the morning, but I have to fly out of here early in the
morning.”

JT waved that comment off. “She would have
found out anyway. It’s best that it’s out in the open.”

Bishop leaned over to JT and said, “She won’t
even talk to me. I know this whole situation is going to hurt her
all over again. But I don’t know what to do. How can I help
her?”

“I wish I knew, Bishop. I thought we had made
progress this weekend. But you saw how she just acted toward me.
I’m in the dog house all over again, so I don’t know what to do
either.”

“May I suggest that the two of you be patient
with Cassandra? She’s had to deal with a lot of changes in the
space of a year, so she’s going to need time to process how she
feels about all of this,” Elder Unders told them. JT had confided
in Unders about everything he and his family had been dealing
with.

“Yeah,” JT whispered. “She’s been seeing a
therapist. So, maybe he can help her deal with her issues.”

Bishop turned to look at Cassandra as she
held Aaron on her lap, with her back toward them. “I sure hope this
therapist can help.”

“When this is all over, I might need an
appointment with him myself,” JT said.

“Me too,” said Unders.

“You know what I don’t understand? Why would
they sue the church when I’m no longer there?” JT asked.

“It’s quite simple, my boy. The church has
the money to pay and you don’t,” Bishop said while stretching out
his legs underneath the table.

***

Cassandra wanted to walk back in that kitchen
and do an unholy dance on her husband’s head. Diane Benson was
never going to leave them alone. She was a mean, hateful and
vindictive woman. JT had brought her into their lives, and at that
moment, Cassandra didn’t know if she would ever forgive him for
that.

This lawsuit wasn’t about the money to Diane.
She didn’t get Lily back when she’d finally decided that she wanted
her, so now she was going to humiliate them instead. Diane would
drag Cassandra’s family through the mud. She could just see that
evil woman on the Oprah show crying about how JT took advantage of
her. And telling the entire world that his wife wasn’t woman enough
to keep him at home.

When Bishop came into the family room to say
good night to her, Cassandra glanced at him and mumbled, “Night.”
She knew she was wrong. But Bishop had introduced her to JT, so the
way Cassandra saw it; he was just as much to blame as JT for the
misery she had to suffer through.

Aaron had fallen to sleep, Lily was in her
playpen quietly playing with her toys and Jerome’s eyes were glued
to the TV. Bishop walked away from Cassandra and gave Jerome and
Lily a hug and then offered both of them a piece of candy.

“They can’t have that,” Cassandra said as she
stood up and asked, “Are you ready to leave?”

“Yes, we were on our way out,” Bishop said as
he straightened up.

“Then let me walk you to the door,” Cassandra
said as she and JT walked their guests to the living room and let
them out the front door. When they were alone, Cassandra turned to
JT and said, “I need to talk to you.” She climbed the steps to
their bedroom without waiting for a response from him. As she
entered the room, she saw JT’s Bible on top of the dresser. She
picked it up and threw it at him as he walked in behind her.

He caught his Bible and looked at her
quizzically.

“What does God tell you to do for me?”

“Huh?”

She pointed at the Bible “That book in your
hand, what does it say? It tells you to love your wife, right? Not
love every and any other woman that you come in contact with.”

He sat the Bible on the nightstand and turned
back to his wife. “Cassandra, I know you’re mad. And you have every
right to be. You shouldn’t have to deal with any of this, but here
we are.”

“No,” Cassandra corrected him with her hands
on her hips. “Here you are. I’m not about to let you drag this
family through the mud like this. So you better fix this and fix it
quick.”

“What do you want me to do, Cassandra?”

“Settle it out of court.”

“How? They want a million dollars.”

“No. They want five hundred thousand a piece.
Offer them a hundred thousand each and settle it.”

“Even if they would take a hundred thousand,
where would I get that kind of money? You’ve seen our bank account
just as well as I have. We don’t have it.”

Cassandra’s foot started tapping as she
stared at JT like he was some slick used car salesman stringing
together one lie after the other. “What about the hundred and
twenty-five thousand in our savings account?”

Now it was JT’s turn to look at Cassandra
crazy. “You know that money belongs to Lamont. How can you even ask
me to spend his money on something like this?”

“You didn’t have a problem spending the money
when it was supposed to go to Lamont’s father. Back then you spent
it on a house and a car and you are going to stand there and tell
me that your wife and children aren’t worth more than a house and a
car?”

“That’s not what I’m saying at all,
Cassandra. But a man should pay his debts. I owed Jimmy that money
and he asked me to give it to his son and that’s what I intend to
do.”

“What about the debt you owe your
family?”

“I owe you all my loyalty, my commitment and
my love.” He walked toward her and attempted to put his arms around
her as he said, “But that money isn’t ours. I won’t steal from
Lamont.”

She pushed him away from her as she glared at
him.