Forgiven (18 page)

“What’s wrong with her?” Mattie asked as she
walked passed them.

“What do you care?” JT answered Mattie with
scorn in his eyes.

“I care. I’m her mother.” Mattie walked to
the side of the table closest to Cassandra and started calling her
name. “Cassandra, Cassandra!”

Her breathing was normalizing. Cassandra
lifted her head, stared at her mother with contempt as she said,
“Get away from me!”

The bailiff stepped up and told JT, “Your
wife needs to leave the courtroom. If you won’t let me take her
out, both of you need to go.”

JT stood up and started gathering his note
pad and pieces of paper he’d scribbled notes on.

Cassandra grabbed JT’s arm. She was ashamed
of the way she had freaked out. She knew that at least one of them
needed to remain in the courtroom and fight for Lily. Tears were
streaming down her face, but she managed to say, “Sit back down,
JT.”

With his papers in his briefcase, he grabbed
Cassandra’s hand and stood her up. “Come on, Sanni, Tom can handle
this without us for today.”

She snatched her hand out of his. “No, JT.
You stay here and fight for our baby.”

“Are you sure, Sanni? I don’t want you by
yourself while you’re this upset.”

Cassandra regained as much of her composure
as possible and then said, “I’ll be all right. Lily needs you more
than I do right now.”

Mattie was still standing by Cassandra’s
side. She put her hand on her daughter’s shoulder and asked, “Do
you need me to sit with you?”

“I want you to get away from me.” Cassandra
removed her mother’s hand from her shoulder and walked out of the
courtroom without looking back.

***

As Tom got for up the cross-examination, JT
could tell that Mattie had been shaken by Cassandra’s outburst. But
she recovered well enough by the time Tom asked his first question.
“So, Ms. Daniels, you don’t like your son-in-law very much do
you?”

“Nope,” she answered without giving it a
second thought.

“Why not?” Tom prodded.

“For one thing, he’s a dirty no good cheat. I
didn’t like him way before he started pushing up on all the sisters
in church.”

“Well then, what basis did you have for not
liking your son-in-law if he hadn’t done anything wrong yet?” Tom
asked.

Mattie hunched her shoulders as if the logic
of the matter didn’t much concern her. “I got a problem with a lot
of people, some I don’t even know. I just didn’t like him. Simple
as that. He ended up proving me right.”

“Have these problems,” he did air quotation
marks and then continued, “that you have with a lot of people ever
caused you to get on a witness stand and lie?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,”
Mattie said defiantly.

Tom pointed toward the exit and said, “Your
daughter is distraught. She has been removed from this room with
tear filled eyes because of the lies you just told.”

Mattie folded her arms against her chest.
“Cassandra will be all right.”

“How, when you’ve just accused her of
mistreating a child that she loves with all her heart?” Tom
demanded to know.

“She shouldn’t have to mother a child that’s
not hers,” Mattie mumbled.

JT thought the worse was over after Mattie
got off the stand. But Diane wasn’t through with them. Her
therapist brought out the pictures she’d taken of Cassandra at
lunch with her attorney and accused Cassandra of running around on
him. Mattie was still sitting in the audience when Diane’s attorney
started passing around those pictures. She jumped out of her seat,
outraged this time. “That’s a lie! My daughter ain’t never cheated
on that man. And y’all not gon’ lie on her like that.”

The judge gave Mattie a scornful look and
said, “Ma’am, you’re here as a witness for the defense. Please sit
back down.”

“Not anymore I’m not. Y’all got me twisted,
bent and all broke up if you think I’m gon’ stay in here listening
to this bunch of bull.” She grabbed her purse and strutted out of
the courtroom.

JT saw her rub her jaw as if it ached, and
wondered if just because he thought about slapping the taste out of
her mouth, had God actually done it for him? JT hoped so. And he
willed his mind to slap her again.

By the end of that day’s hearing, JT knew
that they were in trouble. Tom tried to reassure him by saying,
“Tomorrow’s another day, man. They may have lied in here today, but
we’ve got the truth on our side.”

JT hoped that the truth would be enough. He
found Cassandra and walked to her car with her. “Give me the keys.
I’m going to drive you home.”

“What about your car?” Cassandra asked.

“My car is still at work. I rode here with
Tom.”

She took the keys out of her purse and handed
them to JT. “Thanks, I didn’t feel much like driving.”

As JT drove off Cassandra asked him, “What
happened to make my mother storm out of the courtroom?”

“You saw her leave?”

“Yeah.”

“You didn’t talk to her?”

A look of anger clung to Cassandra’s eyes as
she swore, “I will never speak to that woman again. But that
doesn’t mean I don’t want to know what happened. So spill it.”

JT glanced at his wife. She looked so
distraught, he didn’t know how much more she would be able to take,
but he didn’t want to lie to her. He was still working on restoring
the trust she’d once had in him, so if he lied, even to protect
her, Cassandra’s faith in him might be shaken again. “You were
right when you told me that Diane was going to use those pictures
of you and your therapist against us. Her attorney showed those
photos after your mother got off the stand and accused you of being
too busy having an affair to take care of Lily.”

The tears started falling again. Cassandra
leaned against JT’s arm and said, “We’re going to lose our
baby.”

“No we’re not, Sanni. Don’t say that.”

“It’s true.”

“It looks bad. I agree with you on that. But
we have to trust God.”

She opened the glove compartment, took out
some tissue and blew her nose. “My own mother put the nail in our
coffin. How could she do that?”

JT wished he had an answer for Cassandra. But
the only thing that came to him was that Mattie did what she did
simply because she had the devil in her. But did he really want to
tell his wife that he thought her mother was pure evil?

They picked up the kids and went home. The
rest of the evening JT noticed that Cassandra held onto Lily a
little longer than usual. She would change her diaper and then,
instead of sitting her back down with the boys, Cassandra would
rock Lily in her arms and kiss her forehead before putting her
down. If Lily cried for any reason, Cassandra ran to her, picked
her up and held her so tight that Lily cried to be put back
down.

JT ached for his wife. It was as if with each
hug, Cassandra was fighting against her mother’s lies. After the
third attempt to cater to Lily’s every whim, he sat Cassandra down
and asked her, “What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” she said, oblivious to her own
actions.

“You haven’t spent any time with the boys
since we got home. They’re going to start wondering why you’re only
holding Lily.”

Tears bubbled in her eyes as she said, “My
mother accused me of neglecting Lily, now you’re accusing me of
neglecting the boys?”

He wanted to tell her that nobody with any
sense believed a word her mother said. But he knew his words would
not take the pain she was feeling from her mother’s betrayal away.
So he left it alone and let her do what she needed to in order to
get through the evening.

As he and Cassandra were putting the kids to
bed, Bishop called. “What’s up, Bishop? I’m helping Cassandra get
the kids ready for bed so I can’t talk long.”

“I’m not going to keep you. I just thought
you should know that I received a subpoena today.”

“What? She subpoenaed you to our custody
hearing too?”

Cassandra came running out of the boys’ room
and into their bedroom where JT was on the phone. “Who else did she
subpoena?”

“I didn’t get a subpoena for your custody
hearing. This one is about you manipulating her into having sex,”
Bishop responded.

“I did not.”

“You didn’t what? And who else has been
subpoenaed?” Cassandra asked as she stood beside JT looking
anxious.

He turned to his wife. “Bishop received a
subpoena. It’s not for the custody case though.” JT couldn’t bring
himself to name the other case just then. But he saw from the look
in Cassandra’s eyes that she understood.

“Oh.” She turned around and walked back out
of the room.

“You’re going to have to learn how to speak
low so Cassandra doesn’t hear everything you say,” Bishop said.

JT rolled his eyes. “I’ve kept enough secrets
from Cassandra, Bishop. I’m tired of hiding from the truth.”

“And I guess you think telling the truth is
going to smooth things over with you and Cassandra? How do you
think she’s going to feel when she hears about that deposition you
just gave?”

“I don’t think she wanted to hear something
like that from me, but I already confessed everything to Cassandra.
The way I see it, if my marriage is going to work, it’s not going
to be because I lied my way back into Cassandra’s good graces.”

“Well, if you want my opinion, you’re going
about this all wrong. You’ve tied the church’s hands. I don’t know
how in the world we are going to be able to help you with a
confession like that on record,” Bishop said.

“I’m sorry if my confession puts the church
in a bad light, Bishop. But I can’t turn back now. That’s what
happened. I wish it hadn’t, but it did.”

“All right then, my boy. I have to come to
town next week so our lawyers can help me work on my statements, so
I guess I’ll see you then.”

“Okay, Bishop, I’ll talk to you soon,” JT
said and then hung up the phone.

That night when they went to bed, Cassandra
asked JT, “Why do you suppose my father hasn’t admitted to what he
did to my mother?”

“I don’t know, baby. Maybe he’s ashamed of
what happened, and can’t deal with it himself, let alone admit it
to other people.”

“Maybe he’s worried about losing his nice
cushy bishop title. Maybe he’d rather be called bishop than father
by someone like me.”

They were facing each other as they lay in
bed talking, but that comment made JT sit up. “What do you mean,
someone like you? What’s wrong with you?”

“Parents don’t always love their children
like they’re supposed to. Look at how my mother treated me today.
That was not love and nobody can convince me of anything
different.”

“Your mother has issues, but I think what
happened today had more to do with her hatred of me than her lack
of love for you.”

“Okay, then what about my father? He won’t
even claim me. He’s always been a good father to his other
children. So, something must be wrong with me.”

“I’m not going to let you do this to
yourself, Sanni. You are the most lovable person I know. I did you
wrong, your mother did you wrong, and yes, your father is wronging
you by not telling the world that you are his. But none of this is
a judgment against you.” He pulled his wife into his arms and
continued. “We have a whole lot of repenting to do, Sanni, but not
you.”

And like a river, the tears flowed as she
held onto JT. Every so often he would whisper in her ear, “It’s
going to be okay, Sanni. I promise you, it will be better in the
morning.”

Late into the night, she curled up against
him and went to sleep as he promised her yet again that things
would be better in the morning. But unfortunately, by morning,
things got worse.

Twenty-Two

The phone rang at seven in the morning.
Because of the fitful night’s sleep he and Cassandra had, JT was
tempted not to answer it. But he turned over and stretched out his
arm to pick up the phone anyway. “Hello,” he said groggily.

“Is this Cassandra’s house?” the woman on the
other end asked.

JT rubbed his eyes. “Yeah, but she’s
sleep.”

“I wouldn’t have called so early, but Mattie
had a heart attack.”

“What? Who is this?” JT asked as he sat up in
bed.

“This is Joyce, Mattie’s neighbor. I called
the ambulance for her. And Mattie told me to call Cassandra. She
was mumbling something, but all I could make out was sorry.”

“Okay, I’ll tell her. Thanks so much for
calling.” JT hung up and nudged Cassandra.

She hit his hand and mumbled, “Five more
minutes.”

“Cassandra, get up, honey,” he said as he
nudged her again.

She tossed and turned and then finally laid
on her back looking up at him. “What’s so important it can’t wait a
few more minutes?”

“It’s your mother, Sanni.”

“Was that her on the phone? You should have
hung up in her face. I told you I’m not talking to that woman again
in life.”

“Sanni, don’t say that.” He rubbed her arm
trying to figure out how to comfort her.

Cassandra sat up. She wiped the sleep from
her eyes and asked, “What’s wrong, baby?”

She was calling him baby again. And all it
took was for her mother to betray her. “It’s your mom. She’s in the
hospital, honey. She had a heart attack this morning.”

“What?” Cassandra asked, looking at him as if
he’d just spoken in tongues and she was waiting on the
interpretation.

“We need to go to the hospital. You get
dressed and I’ll take care of the children.” JT jumped out of bed
and headed toward their bedroom door.

“JT?”

JT stopped and turned back to face his wife.
The look on her face was horror stricken.

“Is my mom dead?”

JT tried to remember what Joyce had said.
Something about the ambulance and the hospital. He didn’t think she
would have said it like that if Mattie had died before the
ambulance got to her. “No, baby, I don’t think so. Let’s just get
our clothes on and go find out what’s going on. Okay?”