Forgiven (3 page)

Mattie opened the door with a broom in her
hands. She looked at Jerome and Aaron and said, “Hurry up boys, run
in the house so I can sweep this devil off my porch.”

Fed up, JT held onto his sons as he turned
back around and started walking toward his car.

“Where are you going with my grandchildren?”
Mattie demanded.

JT turned back around and told her, “I’m not
going to allow you to fill my children with hate. I will find
someone else to watch them.”

“You can’t take my grandchildren away from
me. Not after I went through twelve hours of labor bringing their
mother into this world.”

JT put his sons in the car and buckled them
back in. “This is it, Mattie. I’ve allowed this to go on for far
too long as it is.” He closed the passenger side door and walked
around to the driver’s door.

“So you’re back to wearing the pants in the
family, huh? You done spent a month kissing and making up to
Cassandra and now you think you got the power to take my grandkids
away? Well I got news for you… It will take a lifetime for you to
make up for all the sleeping around you did on my daughter. Do you
hear me, JT?” Mattie held the broom in the air as if it were a
spear that she was aiming at JT’s heart. “You got a lifetime of
mess to make up for.”

JT got in his car without saying another word
to Mattie.

From the back seat, Jerome asked him, “Daddy,
why do you act like the devil when we go to grandma’s house?”

JT shook his head feeling powerless. “Son,
I’m not sure why your grandmother said that. But I try real hard
not to act like the devil.”

“That’s not what grandma says. She told us
that she treats you so mean, because you always acting like the
devil.”

JT put the key into the ignition as he
watched Mattie walk her hateful self back into her house. “I don’t
really think your grandmother means the things she says,
Jerome.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Jerome said as he
leaned back in his car seat and then continued. “Grandma says
you’re a cheat too, but I’ve never seen you cheat at anything.”

Aaron picked that moment to laugh his head
off. But JT didn’t find anything funny. He wished that he could
tell his sons that he had never cheated at anything in his life.
But that wasn’t true. He had cheated on his wife, time and time
again. He broke Cassandra’s heart and would probably never forgive
himself for all the pain he inflicted on the one person he’d
promised to love and cherish. But all that was in the past. As JT
drove down the street he declared that he was a new man now, and
with the help of God, he would never be a cheat again.

Stepping out of her bed, Cassandra stretched
and yawned. Her body ached as if she had been lying on rocks all
night long. The house was quiet as it normally was on Tuesdays. She
wanted to climb back in bed, stretch out and bask in the peace. But
she had an appointment this morning that she couldn’t
reschedule.

She hurriedly showered and threw on a pair of
no-name jeans, a purple and black striped turtle neck and black
pumps. Cassandra picked clothes that she liked and that looked good
on her. She never concerned herself with labels. She was one of
those women who looked like a million bucks in whatever she put on.
Cassandra didn’t need the help of designers to look
model-fabulous.

The phone rang as she picked up her purse.
Cassandra looked at the caller ID and almost didn’t answer it. But
then she reminded herself that she was trying to work this
relationship out. “Hey,” was all she said after lifting the
receiver to her ear.

“Hey yourself,” he said.

It was Bishop Turner, the man Cassandra had
loved and adored because she thought he was her godfather. But last
year she discovered that Bishop Turner was actually her father and
their relationship hadn’t been the same since. “What’s up?”
Cassandra asked, trying to hurry the conversation along.

“Susan and I will be in town next month and I
was hoping that we could take you, JT and the children out to
dinner.”

“I don’t know,” Cassandra said hesitantly as
she tried to come up with an excuse. “JT’s been working real hard
trying to rebuild his ministry, so we might be busy when you come
into town.”

“He told me that you all had outgrown the
basement and that the community center he works for was allowing
him to use their gym for Sunday services.”

Cassandra didn’t respond.

“Well, I’ll tell you what. I’ll give JT a
call and work out the details with him.”

“Okay.” Cassandra glanced at her watch and
then said, “Look, can I talk to you later? I’m running late for an
appointment.”

“All right, I’ll talk to you later, Baby
Girl.”

She hung up the phone, gritting her teeth at
the audacity of Bishop Turner. To refer to her as ‘Baby Girl’ was
like slapping her. As a child she wanted nothing more than to be
his little girl… used to pray about it every night. Please, God, I
wish Bishop was my daddy. And all the time, he was, but nobody ever
let her in on the secret. Now she understood why it had been so
important to Bishop that he not only marry her and JT, but that he
walked her down the aisle as well. Her wedding album was full with
pictures of her and the bishop. How she wished that she had known
he was her father on that day. It would have been so much more
special to her.

Cassandra waved away those thoughts as she
walked out of her house and got into her 2008 Mazda. She didn’t
miss the mansion size home she and JT owned less than a year ago,
nor did she miss her Lexus or JT’s Bentley that had been sold in
order to pay off their debts. The way they used to live had never
impressed her. She could take it or leave it; which ever way the
wind decided to blow. Cassandra was content with what she had.

But content didn’t mean happy. And lately,
Cassandra wondered what happy looked like. She understood that she
was living in a new reality. One in which her husband was no longer
pastor of a prominent church in Cleveland, but was now rebuilding
his church by using the gymnasium of the community center he worked
at during the week as a Community Organizer and Youth Counselor.
Her new reality also included a baby that JT had by another woman
that she was now responsible for raising. But Lily wasn’t the
reason she was unhappy… right? The fact that she was now first lady
to a twenty five member church, rather than the three thousand
member one they were thrown out of didn’t really bother her… did
it?

Cassandra couldn’t pinpoint the reason she
was having such a hard time adjusting to her new normal, and for
that reason, she was now parking her car in front of Dr. Michael
Clarkson’s office. She turned off the ignition and found herself
staring at the small unassuming yellow brick building. It was a
one-story building that Dr. Clarkson shared with a dentist. There
was only one door in the front of the building. Patients walked in
and either went right to sit in the dentist chair, or left to lie
on a couch and explain why life had stabbed them in the back.
Cassandra opened the door and went left.

***

Once a month, JT met with his boys, Pastor
Max Moore and Pastor Samuel Unders. The three of them served as an
accountability team for each other. Pastor Samuel Unders had been
an Elder at Faith Outreach Church when JT was the pastor there. But
after the scandal that JT caused at the church, he felt compelled
to resign and Unders took his place. Pastor Max Moore was the
founder of True Vine Church, a fellowship that strived to be in
tune with the voice of God.

Mattie’s house was right around the corner
from the Marriott he was supposed to meet Max and Sam at. He wanted
to take the boys back to Cassandra before going to the Marriott for
breakfast, but he was already late. So he pulled up at the
restaurant side of the hotel, took his sons out of the car and made
his way into the restaurant. JT asked the waitress for a highchair
and a booster seat and then walked over to the table with his
friends.

Max laughed as JT sat down. “Man, I knew this
would happen. Cassandra’s got you on such a short leash, you can’t
even have breakfast with your boys without bringing the kids.”

“Shut up, Max-a-million,” JT said, using the
name that he’d given Max a few months back when his congregation
had grown to five thousand. Funny thing was, Max took the status of
having a megachurch in stride. He didn’t puff up and start
demanding stuff that even Jesus wouldn’t ask for. Whether he had a
million dollars or two dollars to his name, he was the same lovable
guy as always, and JT admired him for that.

“Okay now boys, don’t start acting up before
I can get a little coffee in me,” Unders said.

At sixty-seven, Sam Unders was the oldest of
the group. He provided the wisdom that JT and Max sometimes needed.
While at forty-two, Max was closer to JT’s age and served as JT’s
friend and confidant. “I’m sorry I’m late, Mattie couldn’t keep the
boys this morning,” JT said.

Then Jerome added, “She thinks Daddy is the
devil.”

Max had been drinking some orange juice. But
Jerome’s comment made him spit it out. He looked at JT. “She really
said that?”

JT playfully hit Jerome in the back of the
head. “Thanks for spreading my business.” He turned back to Max and
said, “Every chance she gets, that woman is always downing me. I
just couldn’t take it no more. I told her that she wouldn’t be
watching our children anymore.”

“Did you talk to Cassandra about this?”
Unders asked.

“Man, the woman called him the devil… in
front of his children. That’s just something Cassandra’s gon’ have
to understand,” Max said.

“I’m with you, Max. I told y’all how she
talked about Lily and refused to watch her,” JT said.

“I would have gone off right then and there.
You get extra points in heaven for not going to jail that day,” Max
said.

“I might have to agree with y’all on that
one. I don’t know what I’d do if someone attacked one of my
children when they were helpless babies,” Unders said.

They were saved and pastors of churches, but
they still would bleed if you cut them. And right now, JT was cut
all up. He didn’t know what to do anymore, didn’t know how
Cassandra was going to act – but he needed her to be on his side.
Thinking out loud he said, “I’m taking the kids home after our
breakfast, so we’ll see what she says.”

Max covered Jerome’s ears, leaned over to JT
and said, “Look, I know you’re still trying to get some
b-e-d-r-o-o-m,” he spelled out bedroom just in case Jerome could
still hear him and continued, “action going on, but there’s only so
much a man can take. You need to put your foot down on this
one.”

When Max let go of Jerome, he looked up at JT
and said, “What did he spell, Dad?”

“He was talking to me, Jerome. Not to my
nosey four year old son. Sit there and eat Mr. Max’s toast until I
order you something,” JT said as he picked up the menu and found
something he, Jerome and Aaron could share. JT knew he wouldn’t get
full, but his funds stayed low these days, and he and Cassandra
were getting used to being on a budget again.

The three men caught up on each other’s lives
and the things going on in their ministries as they ate breakfast
together. JT couldn’t talk about his personal issues because he had
Jerome with him, and he knew that his son would repeat everything
he said.

When they finished eating, JT gathered his
sons, put them back in the car and drove home to hand them over to
Cassandra so he could go to work. He hated to bring the kids back
to Cassandra on her free day, but he couldn’t take the kids to Ms.
Shirley right now - he just couldn’t afford it this month. He took
the boys out of the car and they ran up to the front door. JT
figured that Mattie had already called Cassandra, so she was
probably in the living room waiting on him. He opened the door and
hollered, “Honey, we’re back.”

When there was no response, JT ran up the
stairs and went into their bedroom. But Cassandra wasn’t in the
bedroom. He came back downstairs and looked on the refrigerator to
see if she’d left him a message about an errand she had to run. No
message.

“Can we go play in our room, Daddy?” Jerome
asked for him and Aaron.

“Yeah, go ahead. I need to figure out where
I’m going to take you guys for the day if Mom doesn’t return soon,”
he said as he helped Aaron up the stairs.

As he was putting the child proof gate
against the stairway, his cell phone rang. He didn’t recognize the
number, so when he opened his flip phone and put it to his ear he
asked, “Cassandra, is that you?”

“One time when we were laying in bed together
you called me Cassandra. I didn’t like it then and I don’t like it
now,” the caller told JT.

“Who is this?” JT demanded.

“You know, JT, I’m really offended that you
don’t know the voice of a woman you have shared so much with. I
mean, after all, we do have a child together.”

JT still didn’t recognize the voice. So with
an arched brow he said, “Diane?”

“Unless you’ve had more kids outside your
marriage, I would say you can stop guessing.”

“Where have you been?” JT wanted to know.

“Miss me?”

“Diane, you left Lily with us for eight
months without calling or anything. What kind of mother does
that?”

“Don’t you start lecturing me, Pastor.” She
said the word pastor as if she were calling him a pimp or a drug
dealer.

“What do you want, Diane?”

“Nothing much. I just called to tell you that
I’m back in town and that Joe and I want you to bring Lily back
home. We don’t need you to babysit anymore.”

“Over my dead body! You abandoned Lily, and
I’m not about to give her back so you can leave her God knows where
the next time you decide being a parent isn’t a good fit for
you.”