Forgiven (15 page)

“Look, Dr. Clarkson, I’m flattered by the
fact that you are attracted to me. But I’m not interested in ending
one relationship just so I can begin another.”

She walked out of his office and got in her
car. As she sat behind the wheel, she slowly exhaled and looked to
heaven. If she was honest with herself, she had been tempted by Dr.
Clarkson’s proposal, but God had made a way of escape for her.
“Thank you, Jesus.”

She drove home feeling as if she had more
insight into how JT had sunk into adultery. Things were going bad
at home, and so when the opportunity presented itself, he went for
it, assuming that the grass would be greener. Cassandra had only
imagined that her life might be better with Dr. Clarkson for a
moment. She now could see how someone could be tricked by the
devil. But she needed to hear it from JT’s own lips. She now wanted
to know how each affair began.

She knew this knowledge would hurt, and
didn’t know for sure whether it would be the thing that helped her
move forward in her marriage or the thing which dotted all the i’s
and crossed all the t’s in her divorce decree.

“Are you sure you want to know this?” JT
asked Cassandra when they were alone later that night.

“I don’t want to know, JT. I need to know.
See, when Dr. Clarkson propositioned me this afternoon, I was
tempted, but by the time I reached my car, I knew for a fact that
God had helped me resist that temptation. So, I need to know why
God hadn’t been able to help you, and can I trust that you will
allow Him to help you in the future?”

“Okay, well have a seat, because I can
guarantee you’re not going to like my answers, but I promise to be
truthful.”

Cassandra sat down on the couch in the family
room and waited for JT to begin his saga.

“The first time I cheated on you was after
our first child, Sarah, died. I was in so much pain and so angry
with God that I didn’t take time to think about what my actions
would do to you. I just wanted the pain to go away. So when I
started working with Margie on one of our church programs, I
noticed how lonely she seemed.”

“So you took advantage of her just like Dr.
Clarkson tried to take advantage of the turmoil I’m going through?
Maybe I should cut a page out of Margie’s and Diane’s playbook and
sue Dr. Clarkson.”

“I don’t think you can, babe. As much as I
hate to admit it, he was honest about his feelings and even
recommended that you see another therapist. That’s more than I did
for Margie. I lured her into an affair by playing on her emotions.”
He saw Cassandra wince at his words and wished that he could take
not only his words back, but also his actions. “I’m sorry honey,
but it’s true. If I’m going to face facts, the truth is, I wronged
Margie more than either of the other women I slept with.”

“O-kay,” Cassandra said slowly. “What about
Diane. How did your affair with her begin?”

JT sat down across from Cassandra. He didn’t
want to sit on the couch next to her in case she decided to haul
off and punch him like she did last night. “You see how she dresses
in those short skirts and tight shirts that leave her breast
exposed for all of the world to see, right?”

“Yeah, I noticed that she looks like a
hooker. But are you saying that I need to be worried about every
scantily clothed woman that comes into the church?”

JT waved that suggestion off. “I’m not
dressing it up, defending it, or trying to make it look like
something it’s not. I have more self-control than that. But Diane
would come into my office bending over so I could see everything
the Lord blessed her with. Then she started whispering in my ear. I
told her time and time again that I wasn’t interested.”

Cassandra twisted her lips as if she didn’t
believe a word JT was saying. “Why weren’t you interested?”

“I was trying to keep my word to you. After
you found out about Margie, I promised you I wouldn’t cheat again.
And I really tried. But my relationship with God still wasn’t
repaired, so after months of telling Diane I wasn’t interested, I
finally gave in. It’s been down hill for me ever since. The affair
with Vivian even started as a result of Diane.”

“And how was that?” Cassandra asked
snippily.

“I told you that you weren’t going to want to
know all of this.”

“Just keep going.”

“All right, but I’m begging you to keep in
mind that you asked me to tell you this stuff.”

Cassandra rolled her eyes, but said nothing
else.

“All right, the simplest way to say this is,
Diane told Vivian about our affair so Vivian approached me. She
wanted to know if I was through with Diane and if I wanted to start
something with her. I was way off God’s path by then and didn’t
know if I even wanted to find my way back, so I just let it happen.
And now Bishop wants me to say that Margie came on to me just like
Diane and Vivian did.”

Cassandra scoffed. “He’s probably still angry
because you admitted that Lily was your child. We all know how he
handles situations like that.”

JT put his hand over his wife’s in an attempt
to comfort her. “He loves you, Sanni. Why won’t you give the man a
chance to prove it?”

Rolling her eyes, she removed her hands from
JT’s hold. She sat in silence for a moment then turned back to JT
with another question. “Can I ask you something, JT?”

“Are you going to throw anything at me?”

Cassandra laughed. “Not tonight. I think I
broke up enough of my stuff the other night.”

“Laughter looks good on you, Sanni. I wish I
had been able to put a thousand more smiles on your face.”

In spite of herself, she blushed. “Don’t try
to charm me, JT.”

“Okay. What’s your question?”

“Do you think that since Diane and Vivian
came onto you, that you are a victim? Or can you tell me who the
real victims are?”

“If Diane hadn’t pursued me the way she did,
I never would have cheated with her. So in a way, I want to say
that I’m the victim. But I can’t let go of the fact that I was her
pastor and therefore should have raised up the standard that she
needed to follow.” He shook his head and then looked to Cassandra
with questioning eyes. “I don’t know, Sanni. Can we both be victims
of the same crime, or does there have to be one victim per
crime?”

“Wrong answer,” she said as she stood up and
walked out of the room.

Margie was distraught. Things were spiraling
out of control and she didn’t know how to stop them. She wanted to
talk to her mother and just sit and listen as she imparted wisdom
like she did when she was a little girl. But her mother had told
her not to call until she had come back to her right mind. The
thing was, she couldn’t call her mother anyway. Margie’s phone had
been turned off. And when she and Marissa arrived home today, she
discovered that an eviction notice had been taped to her front
door. She pulled it off the door and went inside.

Tony was lying on the couch resting from his
busy day of being a TV critic. He had refused to leave her
apartment, claiming that he needed a few days to find a place. She
laid the eviction notice on the dining room table and went into her
bedroom.

Tony followed her into the bedroom and took
Marissa out of her arms. “Hey little one, how was your day?”

Marissa smiled brightly. “Daddy!”

“That’s right baby, Daddy’s home.”

Where else would he be, Margie thought as she
rolled her eyes heavenward. It wasn’t like he was out working, or
heaven forbid, looking for work. And if she heard him say one more
time how there just weren’t any jobs out there when she saw help
wanted signs every day as she drove passed McDonalds and Burger
King, she would lose her mind.

“Hey, did you see that eviction notice?” Tony
asked her while bouncing Marissa on his hip.

“Sure did,” Margie said as she opened the
closet door and took out her suitcase.

“Do you think we could ask your mom for some
help? She might be a stubborn old lady, but I doubt that she would
want to see her grandchild on the street.”

“That’s what I’m hoping,” Margie answered as
she opened her top drawer, took her undergarments out and then
threw them in her suitcase. She then started pulling clothes out of
her closet and stuffed as much as would fit.

“Why are you packing? We just got the
eviction notice. They have to take us to court before we have to
leave this place.”

He would know. When she met him, he had just
been evicted. He’d confided that he’d been evicted from three
previous places. Her heart had gone out to him then, thinking that
no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn’t get a break. Now she
knew that a person had to go out and make their own breaks. Breaks
don’t just knock on the front door while you’re sitting in the
living room watching TV.

She went into Marissa’s room and took her
suitcase out. She repeated the same process of throwing
undergarments and whatever clothes would fit in her suitcase.

“What are you doing?” he asked again.

She looked at him as she pulled Marissa’s
suitcase off the bed, but didn’t respond. She then grabbed her
suitcase and took them both to her car. She came back in, picked up
her purse and held out her hand for Tony to give Marissa to
her.

“Answer me,” he said as he refused to give
Marissa to her.

“Give me my baby, Tony.”

“Give me an answer. I have a right to know
where you’re taking my daughter.”

She put her hands on her hips. She thought
about refusing to answer. But she didn’t want to prolong this thing
with Tony any longer than she needed to. “I’m going to do as you
suggested; ask my mother for help.”

“Then why’d you pack suitcases?”

She snatched Marissa out of his arms as she
said, “Because I need her to help me and Marissa, not you.”

“Oh, so it’s like that, huh? You gon’ leave
me when the chips are down after all I’ve done for you?”

“More like all you’ve done to me,” she said
as she turned and walked out the door.

He followed her to the car, screaming and
yelling at her for all the neighbors to hear. She didn’t care.
Margie was determined, that if she got away from Tony today, she
would never come back to him. This was it for her. She was chocking
this up as a life lesson and moving on.

Marissa was crying as Margie strapped her
into her car seat. She closed the back door and turned back to
Tony. “Can you please stop yelling at the top of your lungs? You’re
scaring Marissa.”

To his credit, Tony looked in the back seat,
saw the tears running down Marissa’s face and then lowered his
voice. However, what he said was just as mean as when he had been
yelling. “Go on, then. I don’t need you. I got plenty of women and
they all look better than you ever could.”

She walked around the car, trying to get away
from his insults. Tony grabbed a handful of her hair and yanked.
“Stop Tony, that hurts,” she said as she tried to get his hand out
of her hair, but he kept yanking it. “Stop, I just want to
leave.”

“You’ll leave when I tell you to leave,” he
said with his mouth pressed against her ear. “I only hooked up with
you because you looked lonely and pathetic. I knew you would take
care of me and you did.”

“Is he bothering you?” Her next door neighbor
came out on the porch with cell phone in hand. “Do I need to call
the police?”

Tony let her go then. “You need to mind your
own business,” he told the woman.

Margie took that opportunity to jump in her
car and lock the doors. She waved and mouthed thank you to the
woman as she started her car and drove off. Marissa was still
crying. She reached back and touched her daughter’s leg as she
drove. “There, there, sweet baby, we’re okay.”

But then as she thought about how life had
turned so wrong on her, she changed her statement to, “I hope we’re
going to be okay.”

Life had been so much simpler when she was in
church; before she started sleeping with JT. If she had to pinpoint
when things started going wrong for her it would have been that
first night JT talked her into having sex with him. Things looked
fine at first. Margie thought she had gotten rid of that lonely
feeling that she seemed to be carrying around. But when JT had to
get up and go home to his wife, she was lonely all over again.
Sleeping with JT hadn’t fixed anything for her, it just made it
worse. She came to a red light, stopped the car and hit the
steering wheel with her fist as she thought about the fact that JT
never even apologized to her for making her believe that they could
ever have a life together when all the time he knew that he would
never leave his wife.

But how had she fallen for all his tricks in
the first place? If she had been as sold out to the Lord as she
thought she had been, would JT have been able to seduce her? She
pulled up in the driveway of her mother’s home. She pushed all
thoughts of her own culpability out of her mind as she thought
about the fact that the affair with JT had been the beginning of
her strained relationship with her mother.

Betty Milner was the sweetest woman on earth.
She’d taught Margie how to cook and how to love the Lord her God.
Her mother had taken her on trips around the world because she
wanted Margie to experience life outside of Cleveland. And when the
time came, Betty Milner gave up vacationing in order to pay
Margie’s college tuition.

Tears sprang to Margie’s eyes as she thought
of the day her mother told her that she wouldn’t step foot in her
house again until she got right with the Lord.

“Why can’t you accept me the way I am?”
Margie had asked.

“I will never accept the fact that a child of
mine is dead set on spending eternity in hell.” Betty picked up her
purse and said, “Call me when you get right with God and throw that
bum out of your house.”