Forgiven (4 page)

“You listen to me, JT. You will give my
daughter back to me. I won’t have her living with you and your
stupid wife. I want her back.”

“Then you should have thought about that
before you left her on our doorstep. I’ll see you in court next
month,” JT said as he hit the end button to disconnect the call. JT
shook his head at the audacity of Diane Benson. The woman was just
as miserable as his monster-in-law. Neither of them wanted to see
anyone else happy. How in the world had he allowed himself to get
caught up with that woman?

Before he could ponder that question, his
cell phone rang again. Looking at the caller ID, JT recognized the
number. It was Lamont Stevens, his old friend Jimmy Littleton’s
son. It had taken JT three months to locate Lamont, then another
three months to even get the young man to talk to him. But a
promise was a promise. JT owed Jimmy, and since Jimmy would be in
prison for more than a decade, he’d promised to give Lamont what he
owed Jimmy. JT flipped open his phone and said, “Hey, Lamont,
what’s going on?”

“Lamont’s been in an accident, Mr. Thomas. He
asked me to call. He wants to see you,” the female voice on the
other end of phone said.

This cannot be happening. JT raked his hand
through his hair as he asked, “How is he doing?”

“Not good. I think you better get here
tonight.”

Four

As she sat on Dr. Clarkson’s couch for the
second Tuesday in a row, she wondered again how things had gotten
this bad for her. She folded her hands in her lap and sat there
waiting for Dr. Clarkson to say something that would give her
reason to hope again.

“So how did things go for you and your
husband this week, Cassandra?”

Cassandra didn’t like the idea of having to
see a psychologist, but she hated the thought of wasting money even
more. So, if she had to be in this office, she wasn’t going to
waste time playing games. She opened her mouth and told Dr.
Clarkson, “Nothing has changed. JT has been loving and kind to me
since I moved back home, but we still haven’t been able to make
love. I freeze up every time he touches me, and I don’t understand
it; I love my husband. I really want our marriage to work, so why
am I pushing him away?”

“Have you had anymore panic attacks?” Dr.
Clarkson asked her.

“Last night,” Cassandra said in a timid,
small voice.

“How did you feel when it happened?”

Wringing her hands together, Cassandra said,
“Awful. JT thinks that I don’t want to be with him in that way. And
that’s just not true, but I can’t stop my body from freaking out
when he touches me.”

Dr. Clarkson wrote something on his notepad,
he then looked over at Cassandra and asked, “Are you still angry
with JT about the affair?”

“Which one?” Cassandra asked then lifted her
hand. “I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just that JT has had
multiple affairs, and even though I believe that he has finally
changed, I still think about what he did. But if I were still angry
with him, I wouldn’t have moved back home.”

“Then who are you angry with?”

Cassandra was sitting on the edge of Dr.
Clarkson’s couch, but she felt as if she should lie down and
explore that question. Sometimes she was angry with her mom and
Bishop Turner. They’d lied to her since the day she was born and it
wasn’t until last year that she discovered the truth about a man
she had adored as a godfather. But she knew they weren’t the reason
for her panic attacks.

She should be angry with Vivian Sampson, the
woman who stabbed her after having an affair with JT. And she
definitely should be angry with Diane Benson, the woman who left
her and JT’s love child on her doorstep.

If the truth was told, Cassandra was still
too numb to be angry with those two women. She looked at Dr.
Clarkson with new found knowledge in her eyes. “I told you about
the ordeal I went through with not only my husband, but my mother
and father several months back.”

“Yes, you did.”

“Anyone would be well within their rights to
be angry at any of the people in my life. I thought I had forgiven
all of them, but if I’m numb, how do I know if I’ve truly forgiven
them?”

“That is what you need to figure out. It has
been my experience that Christians feel that God is against anger.
But sometimes you need to go through those emotions in order to not
just pay lip service with forgiveness.”

“And that’s what you think I’m doing? Just
paying lip service with forgiveness?

“That’s something you’ll need to figure out.
Look deep, Cassandra. There has to be a reason for your panic
attacks.”

***

All the way home Cassandra kept trying to
find her anger. She scrunched her eyebrows and concentrated on all
the wrong that had been done to her over the years. She even went
way back to old boyfriends and high school friends who betrayed her
trust. But still she couldn’t muster any anger for any of it. Over
the years she had perfected a dutiful silence that got her through
the rough times with JT, but had she allowed her coping mechanism
to turn her into a zombie?

As she pulled up to her house, she noticed
JT’s car in the driveway. She wondered why JT was at home. It
wasn’t even noon, so he couldn’t be home for lunch. Cassandra
parked next to JT’s car and then got out of her car.

JT opened the door, and as soon as she walked
in, without saying hello, he demanded, “Where have you been?”

“Out,” Cassandra said as she walked passed
him.

JT followed behind her. “Out where? Did you
go to the grocery store or the mall?

Cassandra stopped walking and turned to face
her husband. “What’s the big deal, JT? I just went out for a while.
Tuesday is my day, remember? So, I can do what I want.”

“I called your cell phone several times but
it kept going straight to your voicemail.”

Cassandra laughed. “Is that why you’re acting
like a murder has just been committed and I need to come up with an
alibi? My phone died on me. I forgot to charge it this
morning.”

JT backed off and said, “Look, I didn’t mean
to jump at you. Something has happened, though.”

Worry lines etched across Cassandra’s
forehead. “What happened? Is it one of the kids?” She ran to the
phone and picked it up.

JT followed behind her. “The boys aren’t at
your mother’s house. They’re upstairs taking a nap.”

She put the phone down and turned back to JT.
“Nothing is wrong with Lily? Please, JT, don’t tell me anything
else has happened to that little girl?” Cassandra had become very
protective of Lily after she’d been kidnapped by JT’s ex-lover,
Vivian Sampson. But it was more than that. From the day Diane left
Lily on their doorstep, Cassandra knew the little girl would have a
special place in her heart.

JT gently grabbed Cassandra’s hands and
walked her over to the couch and sat down with her. “No, baby,
nothing has happened to Lily. It’s Lamont.”

“Who?” Cassandra asked as if JT were speaking
a foreign language.

“Lamont Stevens, Jimmy Littleton’s son. You
know, the one I’ve been ministering to for the last few
months.”

Recognition flashed in Cassandra’s eyes. “The
one you said seems to be following in his father’s footsteps?”

“Yeah, well he’s been in an accident. I don’t
know if it was a car or that motorcycle of his. The girl who called
me said he’s not doing too well. I need to get to New Orleans
tonight.”

“Oh, JT, I’m sorry. I know how much you
wanted to help turn that kid around.”

“God willing, I’ve still got time. But I need
to leave you with the kids. Is that going to be a problem?”

“Go on to New Orleans, JT. I’ll get my mother
to help me with the kids.”

JT lifted a hand as he shook his head.
“That’s another thing. I don’t want your mother watching our
children anymore.”

Anger flashed in Cassandra’s eyes as her
hands went to her hips. “That’s not right, JT. You already took
Lily from her, now you want to take the boys away.”

“Why do you choose to believe your mother
over me? I didn’t take Lily from Mattie, like she told you. She
refused to keep Lily. As a matter of fact, she told me that no
illegitimate children were allowed in her house.”

Cassandra couldn’t believe that her mother
would say something like that. Not with the knowledge that she
herself was illegitimate. “You misunderstood her, JT. There’s no
way she would say something like that.”

“Did I misunderstand her this morning when
she told my children that I was the devil?”

Cassandra’s eyes bulged. “She said that?”

“And a whole lot more.”

“Why didn’t you tell me any of this was going
on? She gave me her word that she would be nice to you.”

JT lowered his head so that he wasn’t making
eye contact with Cassandra when he answered, “You haven’t been
acting yourself lately. I didn’t want to add to whatever else has
been stressing you.”

Cassandra stood up and protested. “I’m fine.
Just because I don’t want to have sex doesn’t mean I’m a mental
case, and that I have to be treated gently so that I won’t have a
nervous breakdown.”

JT stood. “I never said you were mental.” He
waved his hands in the air. “Look, I don’t have time to have this
discussion with you right now. I’ve already packed a bag, but I
need you to pick Lily up from Ms. Shirley’s. And please don’t have
your mother over here while I’m gone.”

“Not a problem,” Cassandra said while folding
her arms across her chest. She had a couple things she wanted to
say to him, but in traditional fashion, her mouth remained closed
while the minion inside was balling its fist, aching for a fight.
But what Cassandra didn’t understand was why she’d chosen this
moment to be upset with JT when he was only trying to go help
someone.

JT picked his overnight bag up out of the
hallway, walked back over to Cassandra and tried to kiss her.

Cassandra turned her face away from his kiss
and said, “I’ll see you when you get back.”

The look on his face questioned her, but he
said, “I love you, Cassandra. I won’t be gone long.”

She walked him to the door without saying a
word, but as she watched him pull out of the driveway, Cassandra
picked up the phone and called her mother. She asked her to come
hang out with her for a couple of days. JT wouldn’t like it, but
she didn’t care. Cassandra hung up the phone thinking, I really
need to do something about my passive-aggressive behavior.

JT arrived in New Orleans a little before
five o’clock that evening. He took a cab to Charity Hospital. When
he was dropped off, he ran straight to the visitor’s station and
asked for Lamont’s room.

“He’s in ICU, sir. Only family can see him
right now.”

“I’m a clergy,” JT told the woman. “His
family called and asked me to come see him.”

“Let me call the nurse’s station on his
floor.” She picked up the phone, dialed and then turned her back to
him as she spoke on the phone. When she hung the phone up, she
turned back to JT and gave him the room number.

“Thanks,” JT said as he ran toward the
elevators the woman directed him to. He didn’t know how much time
Lamont had left, but he knew for sure that the boy was still alive.
The nurse on Lamont’s floor wouldn’t have okayed his visit if
Lamont was dead.

As JT jumped off the elevator on Lamont’s
floor and looked for the direction he needed to go in order to find
the room, he heard loud painful sobs. He hated that anyone was in
that much pain, but he prayed that those sobs were not for
Lamont.

He’d promised Jimmy that he would look after
his son, help him become a better man than either he or Jimmy
turned out to be. Lamont was only nineteen years old. His entire
life was in front of him. JT just couldn’t accept that this might
be the end.

As he turned the corner, he bowed his head
respectfully to the men and women lining the walls of the corridor
with tears streaming down their faces. One teenage girl with fat
cornrows in her head, slid down the wall as she screamed, “Why God?
Why her?”

JT wanted to go to her. He wanted to reach
out to each and every one of them, but his place was two doors down
the hallway. No one stood in front of Lamont’s door. If the woman
who called him could be believed, the boy was close to death. Where
were his loved ones?

He opened the door to Lamont’s room and found
it to be just as empty inside as out. Only Lamont was in his room.
He probably would have left himself, if he hadn’t been tied to an
IV and oxygen tank. As JT stood beside Lamont’s bed, he realized
that he could have just as easily been looking at Jimmy when the
two of them were nineteen. He had those same bushy eyebrows and
wavy hair that Jimmy used to say drove women wild.

The girl who’d called said that Lamont had
asked for him just before going into surgery. JT looked at his
watch. Lamont had probably been out of surgery for three or four
hours now, but he was still knocked out. And if the monitor
observing his heart rate was telling the truth, he wasn’t doing too
good. JT put his hand in Lamont’s and gently squeezed it. “Hang in
there, man. Don’t give up.”

JT’s cell phone rang. He took it off the
holder hooked to his jeans and looked at the caller ID. It was
Lamont’s number again. He pushed talk and said, “Hey, where are
you?”

“I had to get out of there. Sonya’s people
showed up, and I didn’t want to be on the same floor with them when
they found out she was dead.”

“Who is Sonya? What’s going on?” JT asked.
But before the girl could answer, Lamont’s door swung open and
banged against the wall. The sound was so loud that even in his
comatose state, Lamont flinched.

This huge man, about 6’9, stood in the
doorway with nostrils flaring. He was staring at JT the same way
Deacon Benson had stared at JT when he attacked him for fooling
around with his wife. But this giant’s anger wasn’t directed at
JT.