Forgiven (2 page)

When JT walked from the kitchen into the
living room, the boys ran to him. He bent down and Jerome and Aaron
jumped on him. “Daddy, Daddy, guess what?” Jerome said.

Laughing, JT said, “I can’t guess, so please
hurry up and tell me.”

“We’re home for good!” Jerome shouted.

“You are?” JT asked playfully.

“Yes, Mom said so.” Jerome turned to
Cassandra and asked, “Isn’t that right, Mom? No more sleeping at
Granny’s house during the week and here on the weekends. We get to
be here with Daddy all the time now, don’t we?”

The excitement in her son’s voice brought
tears to Cassandra’s eyes. How she wished that she had never moved
him away from his father, but at the time, she had no idea that she
would ever come home again. So she and JT had agreed on shared
custody. Just as Jerome had said, she had the boys during the week
and JT had them on the weekend. “Yes, honey, we are home for
good.”

JT smiled as he stood and walked over to
Cassandra. “I made dinner.”

“You did not,” Cassandra said as she put down
her suitcase and walked into the kitchen. Not once, in the nine
years she and JT had been married, had he ever volunteered to fix
dinner. He expected his meals to be on the table the minute he was
ready to eat, but he didn’t bother to help with anything remotely
related to kitchen duties.

As Cassandra lifted the lid on the skillet,
JT said, “It’s just Hamburger Helper.”

“No,” Cassandra said as she grinned from ear
to ear, “what we have here is a miracle.”

“Do you think the boys are ready to eat?” JT
asked Cassandra.

“They haven’t had anything since lunch, so
I’m sure they’re ready. What about Lily, is she sleeping?”

“Yeah. I put her down for a nap a while ago
though, so I better go check on her.”

Cassandra put her hand on JT’s arm as she
said, “No, let me go check on her.”

“Okay, if you’re going to get Lily, I’ll help
the boys wash their hands.”

“Mr. Helpful, huh? Be careful, JT, I just
might get used to this,” Cassandra told him as she headed
upstairs.

Lily was sitting up in her baby bed. Her big
brown eyes were filling with tears as she opened her mouth to
proclaim that she was awake and didn’t appreciate being left alone.
Cassandra took her out of the baby bed and held her close as she
rocked the screaming child.

“There, there, Lily, it’s not that bad.”
Cassandra sat down in the chair next to Lily’s bed and continued to
hold the child until her sobs subsided. She saw JT’s features in
Lily, just as she saw them in Jerome and Aaron. Funny thing was,
looking at Lily and knowing that JT was her father didn’t bother
Cassandra anymore. Now she knew for sure that she was ready to be a
mother to Lily. She began to sing to her, “There’s a Lily in the
valley and you’re bright as the morning star.”

JT hollered up the stairs, “The boys are
starving, are you two coming down so we can eat?”

“Sounds like your daddy is starving and
trying to blame it on the boys.” Cassandra bounced Lily on her lap
and then said, “Come on, honey, let’s go eat,”

JT was standing at the bottom of the stairs
waiting on them. “What were you two doing up there?”

Cassandra rubbed JT’s stomach as she put her
feet on the bottom step. “Sorry, I forgot how hungry you get.”

“I’m a growing man. I need to eat on the
regular.”

The boys were seated at the octagon shaped
table that was only big enough for four chairs. Cassandra placed
Lily in her highchair and then told JT, “We need to pick up Aaron’s
high chair from my mother’s house in the morning. He really isn’t
big enough to sit at the table.” Only six months had passed since
she last lived with JT, so the children hadn’t grown all that much.
Jerome was now four years old, Aaron was eighteen months and Lily
was ten months.

“Yeah, he does look a little awkward in that
chair,” JT said as he watched his son’s legs dangle in the air.
They were about two feet away from the ground, so there was no way
that Aaron would be able to get out of that chair without help. JT
put a plate of Hamburger Helper in front of each child.

“You help Aaron and I’ll feed Lily,”
Cassandra told JT.

Dinner was a big hit. The boys absolutely
loved it. Lily’s noodles and hamburger pieces had to be chopped up,
but she loved the meal as well. After dinner, the family watched TV
in the family room until bath time. Cassandra was bathing Aaron and
Lily when JT walked into the bathroom with her suitcase.

“This was still by the front door. Does it
have the boys’ stuff in it or yours?”

Cassandra pulled Lily out of the tub and
started drying her off. “Some of my clothes are in that suitcase. I
knew the boys had clothes here, so I figured we could go pack up
their stuff together.”

“That’s fine. I’ll just put your suitcase in
our bedroom.”

Alarm registered on Cassandra’s face. She
lifted her hand to halt JT. “Let me finish up with the kids before
we make any decisions.”

With a raised eyebrow, JT said, “What
decisions?”

She finished drying Lily, handed her to JT
and then took Aaron out of the tub and dried him off. “Let’s put
them to bed and then we can talk.”

They put the kids’ pajamas on and then laid
them in their beds. Jerome had already bathed and was sound asleep.
JT grabbed Cassandra’s hand and pulled her out of Jerome and
Aaron’s room. “Let’s talk.”

They walked into their bedroom. Cassandra saw
her suitcase in the corner and froze. JT gently pulled her the rest
of the way into the room. “What’s wrong?” JT asked.

“Nothing’s wrong, I just thought that we
might want to wait a little while before I moved back into our
bedroom.”

“Where are you going to sleep, Cassandra? We
only have three bedrooms in this house and they’re all taken.”

Wringing her hands and looking everywhere but
at JT, Cassandra said, “I thought I would sleep in the room with
Lily for a little while.”

JT sighed as he let go of Cassandra’s hand
and sat down. He looked at his wife as he said, “That’s not going
to work for me, Sanni.”

There had been a time when Cassandra had
asked JT not to refer to her as Sanni anymore. That nickname meant
a lot to Cassandra. It made her feel special and like she really
mattered to JT. When he had done all his dirt, she no longer felt
special, but times were different now.

“I don’t plan to sleep in Lily’s room
forever. I just want to make sure this is going to work between
us,” Cassandra reasoned.

JT shook his head as he stood up and walked
toward Cassandra. He put her hand in his. “I want a real marriage,
and that includes you sleeping in here with me.”

“But… but what if something happens? What if
we can’t make a go of this?” Cassandra asked with fear in her
eyes.

“I know I let you down before, Sanni, but I’m
a different man now. I will never hurt you like I did before.”

What had Cassandra said to her mother
earlier? Something about forgiveness being a choice? Maybe trust
was a choice also. Maybe she needed to throw caution to the wind
and just lean in. She wanted to forget about the past and move
forward with JT as if nothing had ever gone wrong in their
relationship.

When she didn’t answer, JT said, “Have a
little faith, baby. We are going to make this work.”

Mattie was screaming inside Cassandra’s head,
telling her to look before leaping. She tried to deny the voices in
her head and go with the feeling in her heart. “Okay, JT,” she
said. “We will have a real marriage.” Cassandra then closed her
eyes and allowed herself to be swept into JT’s arms. She loved this
man and wanted to spend the rest of her life making love to him.
Cassandra silently prayed, Please, God, if this is a dream, don’t
let me wake up.

JT woke up frustrated, just as he had for the
last month since Cassandra moved back in with him. He looked over
at his wife and smiled as he noted that she was still in bed with
him. But the smile quickly dissipated as he realized that his wife
had now been back in his bed for twenty nine days and they still
had not consummated their reunion.

He believed her when she said that she wanted
to make love with him. But when they would get down to it,
Cassandra would have a panic attack. And what man wanted to make
love to his wife after she freaked out from his touch. So again
this morning, JT was leaving his bed unfulfilled, but determined to
hold on.

He couldn’t blame Cassandra for the way
things were between them now. Heck, if she had been the one
sleeping around, and then one of her former lovers stabbed him, JT
couldn’t honestly say he would have forgiven Cassandra, let alone
reconcile with her. Not that he was mentioning any of that to his
wife. He was just grateful that he had been the one to receive
forgiveness rather than the one who had to give it. He didn’t know
what he would have done and he never wanted to find out.

JT jumped in the shower and then went into
his office to read his Word and commune with God before his family
woke up. He had always been an early riser, but now he used his
time to seek the Lord’s guidance for his life rather than sneaking
in an early morning booty call. “Thank you, Lord,” JT said as he
bowed his head. “You have blessed me with a wonderful family. I
just wanted You to know that I appreciate them a lot more these
days.” JT continued praying and reading his Bible for almost an
hour. He then went into the boys’ room to wake them up.

Tuesday was Cassandra’s day to herself, so JT
dressed the children and took them over to Cassandra’s mother’s
house. Actually, he only took Jerome and Aaron to Mattie, the
wicked one, because Cassandra’s mother absolutely refused to watch
Lily. JT’s heart still ached over the conversation he’d had with
Mattie the first time he dropped the kids off at her house.

“Only legits can stay here,” she had
said.

“Excuse me?” A look of confusion crossed JT’s
face as he attempted to carry Lily inside Mattie’s house.

Mattie pointed at his daughter and said, “I’m
not watching her.”

“But I thought you told Cassandra you would
keep the children on Tuesdays so that she could have some time to
herself?”

“I sure did say that I would watch
Cassandra’s children. She deserves a break after putting up with
you all week long. But I did not, under any circumstances, say that
I would do a favor for the likes of you.”

“I don’t want to take Lily back to Cassandra,
Mattie. This is supposed to be her day of rest.” JT tried to reason
with Mattie one more time.

With scorn and contempt in her eyes, Mattie
said, “Look here, Playa-Playa, I’m sure you have a chick on the
side who can watch ol’ Illegit, so that my daughter can have a
break from your nonsense.”

JT was so tired of his mother-in-law. She had
the audacity to stand there and preach about Lily not being
legitimate when Cassandra’s father was a married man also. She was
a hypocrite and JT would have loved nothing better than to
enlighten her to that fact. But it wasn’t worth the argument he and
Cassandra would have later once Mattie, the wicked one, told
Cassandra what he’d said to her. He turned away from Mattie and
said, “Her name is Lily, not Illegit.”

“Whatever,” Mattie yelled at JT as he walked
to his car. “Don’t bring her over here no more and you won’t have
to worry about me calling her nothing.”

JT wanted to pull his boys out of Mattie’s
house. The venom escaping that woman’s mouth was toxic and he
feared what Jerome and Aaron might be internalizing. But Cassandra
said that the boys loved their grandmother and would be devastated
if they couldn’t spend time with her. JT had his doubts, but he’d
left with Lily that day and never brought her back.

An elderly woman at JT’s new church agreed to
watch Lily on Tuesdays for a hundred dollars a month. Ms. Shirley
Miller had been struggling financially since her husband passed.
She’d lost weight because the food stamps given to her by the
government didn’t allow for a full month’s worth of food. The last
couple of days of the month Ms. Shirley had nothing but soup and
crackers if she had that. Even though money was now scarce, JT
didn’t mind parting with a hundred dollars a month for Ms. Shirley.
The woman had filled the role of a grandmother for Lily, and for
that he would forever be grateful.

JT got the children dressed and then went
back into his bedroom, kissed Cassandra on the forehead and then
left the house. When he got in the car, he realized that he didn’t
have his cell phone, so he rushed back into the house to get it. If
Cassandra couldn’t get in touch with him, she always left him
messages that tore at his heart. It wasn’t so much what she said on
his voice mail, it was the fear he heard in her voice. As if she
was picturing him some place he didn’t belong – like with another
woman, while she was leaving the message.

He’d tried to reassure her. But no matter how
she tried to hide it, JT saw the worry in her eyes. So he limited
time away from home and answered the phone when she called no
matter what he was doing. At times he felt like a prisoner, but
he’d do whatever it took to win back Cassandra’s trust.

He dropped Lily off to Ms. Shirley first.
Even though Lily was still too young to understand grown up
conversation, he never wanted Lily to hear the things Mattie, the
wicked one, said about her ever again.

However, the boys were a different story.
They got to watch their father get castigated on the regular. JT
had had his fill of Mattie’s antics. He’d already told Cassandra
that if Mattie pulled another one of her stunts, he would not leave
the boys with her. “Okay boys, we’re here,” JT said with a fake
smile on his face as he parked in front of his monster-in-law’s
house. He unbuckled Jerome and Aaron and then walked them to the
front door.