Mama B - A Time to Mend (Book 4) (11 page)

Against all odds, I was hoping
Mr. Allen would get home and retrieve his son before Frank came home from work
and I had to tell all the Allen business I knew. Just so happened, they pulled
up in our driveway one after the other, Frank first.

I watched from behind the
glass screen as both men stepped out of their cars. Frank from his Range Rover,
and Mr. Allen from his BMW. I was gonna wait until all of us talked before
calling Jeffrey away from the television in the den.

My husband got out, heitched
up his pants at the waist. His body was stiff as he waited for Mr. Allen to
walk the few steps toward him.

“Frank.”

“Michael.”

Mr. Allen was a few inches
shorter than Frank, something I could clearly see now that they were
face-to-face. And Frank wasn’t ever lying. The grim posture of their faces
screamed animosity.

Michael shoved his hands in
his pockets. “Well, good doctor, looks like you’ve succeeding in finding a way
to send my second wife packing, too.”

What?

“Why are you here?” Frank
didn’t react to Mr. Allen’s accusation.

“My son. Your wife watched
him today since, apparently, Julia was intimidated by the child protective
services that
someone
sent to harass us.”

“
We
didn’t report
you.”

“Yeah, well, don’t worry.
I’ve got it handled.”

“Good. I’ll have B send
Jeffrey outside.”

“I’ll be waiting in the car.”

Soon as Frank turned, I
hurried up and called Jeffrey to grab his jacket so he could leave. “Your
father’s here.”

Jeffrey hastened to grab his
coat and present himself to his dad. “Good-bye, Mama B.” He breezed past me to
Michael’s car.

Frank closed the front door.
Locked it.

“What was that all about with
you and Mr. Allen?”

Frank ignored my question,
walked straight into the bedroom without even speaking.

Well I’ll be…

Chapter 14

One thing I know about men:
They kinda slow processing feelings sometimes. When they get confused, they
need a little time to collect their thoughts. No need in tryin’ to make a man
talk when he ain’t even figured out what to say yet.

I went ahead and made dinner.
Prayed as I cooked. “Lord, you know what’s bothering my husband deep down
inside. I come against whatever it is disturbing his peace. Father, help Frank
to resolve this issue and show me how to help him through. In Jesus’ name,
Amen.”

Since I was making a stir-fry
dish with chicken, broccoli, carrots, cabbage and a little pasta, it didn’t
take long to prepare our meal. I fixed two bowls and did my best to make a lot
of noise setting the table so Frank would hear that dinner was ready.

When he still didn’t come
out, I blessed the food and started eating. Of course, the enemy tried to play
with my mind. Told me Frank was dysfunctional. Told me I could have done bad
all by myself—I could have stayed in my house if I was going to eat
dinners alone. Too bad I didn’t even have a house to return to. Plus, I had
done obviously run Julia out of her house, too. And if Jeffrey ended up abused
and misused in foster care that would be my fault, too.

Y’all know how the enemy do
when he want you to start feeling sorry for yourself. But you got to talk to
him back when he start mess. I held my fork in the air and told him, “Looka
here, Satan. I don’t receive none of this foolishness you tryin’ to bring into
this house tonight. What God has joined together, you can’t put asunder. I plea
the blood of Jesus over Julia and Jeffrey. I’m ‘bout to finish this here
supper, so I resist you, and you
must
flee!”

And just like that, he left
me alone.

A few minutes later, Frank
finally entered the dining room. He asked, “Were you talking to someone?”

“Just kickin’ the enemy out
of my mind.”

Frank chuckled as he sat.
“Guess he must have come in here after I kicked him out of our bedroom.”

“Well, he is pretty busy,” I
agreed, happy to see Frank with a smile on his face.

He bowed his head, prayed
over his food, then complimented me for another healthy meal. “I might make it
to a hundred with your skills.”

“A hundred and ten.”

I let him get some food on
his stomach and get the small-talk out of the way first. Then I asked,
“Sweetheart, what’s the matter between you and Mr. Allen? Whatever it is, I’m
sure you two can work it out.”

Frank shook his head. “Well,
B, I guess I might as well tell you. You remember when I told you about my
mid-life crisis?”

“Yes, I recall.”

“Allen’s first wife was one
of the women.”

My word, Frank, you slept
with the neighbor! You broke up a home!
True enough, he had done already told me about
how he was unfaithful to his first wife when he temporarily fell into an
I’m-the-man
spell. Somehow, it never crossed my mind that he’d had relations with a
married
woman.
That’s despicable!
“Mmmmm,” I moaned.

In my head, I started doing
the math. Jeffrey would have been about two or three at the time. His mother
was probably overwhelmed with caring for a special needs child. I imagine
Michael had always been a work-a-holic, never home. Frank being a doctor, he
and Julia probably started talking about Jeffrey’s care one day while she was
strolling down the street with her baby.

And Frank had always been a
handsome man, I knew from pictures. Tall. Pretty smile. Wouldn’t take much for
them to start flirting with one another. But they must have had to do an awful
lot of sneaking around since—

“B?”

“Huh?” I snapped back to the
present.

Frank stared at me. “Did you
hear me?”

“Um…yeah, about the affair
with Michael’s first wife.”

“No, about all the stuff in
their house,” Frank said.

“I’m sorry, no. I didn’t,” I
admitted. “What you said earlier caught me off guard. But you right—you
already told me how the Lord delivered you from the enemy’s lies.”

“Thanks be to God,” Frank
praised.

“Right. Now what did you say
about all the mess?”

“The junk belonged to his
first wife, Chelsea.”

I don’t know why, but I
didn’t want to put a name to this woman. “The affair happened, what, ten years
ago?”

“Yes, but she didn’t leave Michael
right away. Our fling was long over before she actually told him about it and
they divorced. Chelsea had a lot of psychological problems, which is why
Michael ended up with Jeffrey. Chelsea was the hoarder. I’m willing to bet the
stuff in their house was there before Julia ever moved in.”

“Still don’t explain why
Julia hasn’t cleaned it up, though.”

Frank shrugged. “Your guess
is as good as mine.”

Frank continued devouring his
food. Chewin’ all normal, like he didn’t just drop a bomb on me with this revelation
about Chelsea and Michael. I wanted to ask him why would he be so triflin’ as
to cheat with somebody down the street? What an insult to his first wife! And
his kids might have witnessed him coming in or out of that house while they was
ridin’ down the street on a bicycle!
Just stupid!
Men don’t have no kind
of sense when they cheatin’. Seem like they
want
to get caught.

“B?”

Once again, Frank had
interrupted me while in the middle of my imaginative replay of what must have
happened between him and Michael’s wife. “What?” I barked.

“I’m sorry. Maybe I should
have told you earlier, but I didn’t want to see the look you have in your eyes
right now.”

Instantly, I became conscious
of how my face must have appeared to him. Condemning. Disgusted. Appalled. I
tried to relax the tension in my muscles. “I think you’re right. Maybe you
should
have explained before.”

“What I did was
incomprehensible. It was wrong. It was sin. But Margie and I worked through it.
God forgave me. I forgave myself. And I really didn’t want to revisit that part
of my life again, let alone take you there with me. I want to do with it what
God did—throw it as far as the east is from the west.”

“It’s wonderful what God did
with our sin, Frank, but
man
don’t do the same.”

“I don’t care what Michael
does with my sin. I do care what
you
do with it, what
you
think
of me.”

Frank was sittin’ there with
that sad puppy-dog face, hoping I wouldn’t hold it against him even though I
wasn’t the one he cheated on. I understood perfectly, then, why he didn’t want
to drudge all this up again. Don’t nobody like bringing their dead skeletons
back to life. “Frank, I’m sorry for putting you in this position.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“I know, but maybe if I’d
stayed out of their business like you said—”

“Hey.” He smiled. “I married
you because you love God and you love people.”

We sat there going back and
forth apologizing to one another, forgiving one another, doing our best to
out-love one another. And then we prayed again for the Allens. Our neighbors.
They needed Jesus as much as we all do.

Chapter 15

Son and my girls said they
were going to do Thanksgiving with their in-laws. My youngest, Otha, was going
on a cruise for the holiday. Frank’s daughter, Eva, was spending the day with
her significant other. Frank Jr. and his wife were also going out of town. I
had asked Frank if he wanted me to cook a traditional dinner for the two of us.

“You cook every day. Let’s do
something different for Thanksgiving.”

I thought “different” would
mean finding one of the few open restaurants, but Frank’s idea was much
greater. His church had a ministry where they went to downtown Dallas, under
one of the highway overpasses, and gave away clothes and served a Thanksgiving
meal to the homeless.

It was chilly that day, but
my heart warmed as I imagined how it must have been when Jesus fed five
thousand with two loaves of bread. First, we went to Frank’s church and had an
early morning breakfast and a worship service. Then we loaded into busses and
got set up to serve.

There were so many people who
needed to eat. More than they’d had in years past, according to one of the
ladies in the serving line with me. (Frank was in the clothing area helping
distribute coats and blankets).

The outside kitchen consisted
of three long rows of serving lines, had to be about seven people at each serving
line piling turkey, dressing, gravy, sweet potatoes, green beans, and cake on
every plate that came by us. Once they got their plates and drinks, the crowd
sat at tables under tents and fellowshipped with one another as well as the
members of Frank’s church. The prayer ministry was busy praying for the
people’s needs and the evangelism ministry was sharing the gospel of Christ in
a casual way.

One thing I like about
Frank’s church: They reaches out to the community way more than any church I’ve
ever been a member of. In the church where I grew up, when somebody say she a
missionary, that just mean she sit on the front row at church. Missionaries at
Frank’s church be gone on an actual mission, sometimes for months and years.

Anyhow, I was stationed to
serve the turkey in my line. Now, I’ve served people before at the food pantry.
But at the pantry, they come
inside
. They pick up pens and pencils and
they not intimidated by the system.

But serving outside on the
streets, not behind the counter at the food pantry office, was different
indeed. Watching people—most of them younger than me—come through
with missing teeth, weather-worn faces, clothes tattered, hair matted up, eyes
looking lost…it blessed me to serve as I imagined Jesus would.

Made me even more grateful.
What
did I do to deserve to be on this side of the serving line?
But for the
grace of God, it could have been me.

But then this one man had the
nerve to get mad at me. “I wanted a leg, not a thigh!”

Our group leader had told us
not to argue with anybody, so I didn’t bring up the fact that the food was
free
or that he didn’t inform me he wanted a leg. I just said, “Yes, sir. A leg you
can have.” I piled a leg on top of the thigh. “Happy Thanksgiving.”

He grumbled and went on down
the line. I had forgot all about the man, but when the pastor announced on the
outdoor speaker system that people could come get in line for seconds, the man
got back in my line again.

This time, I saw his face and
immediately put another leg on his plate.

He gave me the biggest grin.
“Thank you.”

And in that moment, the Lord
showed me how to deal with Ida Mae. I was going to overlook her foolishness and
love her hard. Give her the love God gave me until one day, she’ll have to look
up and ask, “Why do you love me so much?” And I’ll say, “Because God loves you,
too.”