Men After God's Own Heart (18 page)

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Authors: Dijorn Moss

BOOK: Men After God's Own Heart
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He went on. “And another thing. This is my wife, and she's not going anywhere. Regardless of how you feel about my marriage, I expect all of you to give the first lady the respect she deserves. That means not walking past her on Sunday mornings after service without speaking. That means speaking to her and being respectful, because she has been respectful to all of you.”
To Titus's surprise, he received an “amen” from the women. He was impressed by the way Grace handled herself. For the rest of the event she took questions and answered them with ease. She was not rattled by the criticism she drew from some of the members. Titus believed that his wife realized that the criticism was based on an assumption. It was not steeped in fact. Did this event mean the end of the conflict between Grace and some of the women in the church? Probably not, but the two sides had made a lot of headway. Titus was grateful to God that his house was no longer divided.
Chapter Thirty-three
Chauncey
Chauncey thought only of Rachel. At a moment that he had worked extremely hard for, Chauncey had found something that superseded the minister's exam: Rachel. The exam was a test of his knowledge of the scriptures, and Chauncey knew the Bible backward and forward, but he couldn't get his thoughts to stray away from Rachel. He wanted to call her, but he felt that after twenty voice mail messages, one more would earn him a restraining order.
Chauncey saw Rachel as neither a distraction nor a hindrance. She was who she was, a woman that had rocked Chauncey and his belief system to the core. It was not fair that Chauncey had met a woman who personified everything that he wanted in a wife and yet she did not want to speak to him. Was it really his destiny to remain single? Chauncey had never questioned God or his will, but he prayed that it was not God's will for him to walk alone for the rest of this life. Chauncey was ready to take a leap of faith, and he was willing to take a leap with Rachel. He just needed her to realize that only God could heal her wounds.
“Twenty minutes,” Minister Angela said as she fulfilled her official capacity as the exam proctor.
Chauncey snapped out of his Rachel fixation long enough to look down at his exam and realize that he still had fifteen questions left. That would not have been a problem for Chauncey, except he could not focus, and this exam did not seem that important now that he had received an invitation to the ministers' class.
Chauncey tried to focus on his next question, which was for him to name the twelve tribes of Israel. Chauncey was halfway down the list when his phone started to vibrate. He tried to pretend that it was not his phone that was vibrating, but his tight-fitting gray slacks gave him away as Minister Angela peeked through her glasses at him. The phone stopped vibrating for a moment and then started again. Chauncey was embarrassed, but he figure that whoever was trying to get ahold of him was not about to stop calling.
“Hello?” He answered the phone in a whisper as he exited the exam room.
“Hi. Chauncey? This is Tanya. I'm Rachel's cousin, and I got your number from her phone,” a woman said in a frantic tone.
“What's wrong?”
“Rachel was in a real bad car accident, and she was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital and . . .”
Chauncey heard the words
Rachel
,
car accident,
and
St. Joseph's Hospital,
but the rest of the conversation got muffled. “I'm on my way.”
Chauncey ended the call and rushed back into the exam room and gathered his coat. He would die if for the second time he was not there when someone needed him.
“Brother McClendon, where are you going?” Minister Angela asked.
“I've got to go.”
“But you can't leave in the middle of the exam.”
“Lord, forgive me, but I don't care.”
Chauncey shot out of the church and hopped in his Cadillac. He prayed that he would not get pulled over for going seventy miles per hour in a sixty-five-mile-per-hour zone. During the drive, Chauncey prayed several other prayers, both out loud and to himself. He did not want to lose Rachel. She was so precious that one of his prayers was that God would allow him to suffer hardship in her stead.
Chauncey arrived at the hospital and made his way to the emergency room. He was familiar with the hospital because it was the same hospital that his brother, Henry, had died in. Chauncey kept a quick pace up the walkway and made his way through the double doors. He scanned the lobby, looking for anyone who could point him in the right direction. He made his way to the front desk, where the receptionist was doing data entry into the computer.
“I'm looking for a girl named Rachel!” Chauncey said.
“Chauncey!” a woman called, and when Chauncey turned around, he assumed that the woman was Tanya, Rachel's cousin, by her voice.
Chauncey made a beeline toward her, but then a man who was a giant stood up and stepped in front of her.
“Is this the guy who's responsible?” the man asked and started to make his way toward Chauncey.
The man was dressed in a mechanic's suit. The grease on his hands was not what made Chauncey nervous. It was the fact that his hands were balled up, as if the man had the intention to strike. Chauncey could not explain from where the urge arose within him, but he felt his fists ball up and had a desire to go to war.
The man drew closer, and all of a sudden Chauncey turned into the Terminator and infrared circles fired off in his mind and he saw a clear target. When the guy got within striking distance, Chauncey remembered what Will had shown him a while back. Chauncey cocked his hand back and let it fly. His fist landed on the guy's nose, and both of them hollered in pain. The guy grabbed his nose and held it, and Chauncey felt a sharp pain in his hand.
“Oh my God!” Chauncey said.
“Hey, man, what is wrong with you?” the guy asked.
“I thought you were going to attack me,” Chauncey replied.
“No, I was going to give you a hug. Rachel thinks very highly of you. I don't know why now. What's wrong with you?” the man said, his hands still covering his nose.
“I'm so sorry. I am so sorry.”
“I didn't know my cousin was dating a thug!” Tanya said when she reached them.
“I'm not a thug. I'm a deacon,” Chauncey insisted.
“What kind of a church you go to?” Tanya and the guy said in unison.
Chauncey thought about lying and making up some church to avoid bringing shame to the house of Greater Anointing.
“I'm going to press charges on you,” the guy said.
“Oh, Lord Jesus. No, Jesus,” Chauncey said at the thought that he could be going to jail.
“Oh, Clyde, you watch boxing. Protect yourself at all times,” Tanya said.
“Is there a problem?” the security guard asked. He'd abandoned his post outside the ICU.
“No, sir. Everything is fine,” Tanya said before she gave the guy, Clyde, a pop on the head.
The security guard went back to his post outside the ICU.
“What happened?” Chauncey asked after the security guard left.
“She was really upset about the argument you two had last night, and I just think she wasn't paying attention while going to work today. She slid into the back of a car. The car was badly damaged,” Tanya said.
“Why would she do that?” Chauncey asked.
“For a deacon you're not very perceptive, are you?” Clyde said.
“You're all she talks about. She talks about how smart you are, how funny, how spiritual, and how handsome you are. I mean, she really cares about you.” Tanya looked Chauncey up and down.
That marked the first time Chauncey had ever heard a woman speak so highly of him. He regretted the argument that he and Rachel had had, and prayed that he would have a chance to make things right with her.
A nurse approached them, and she made eye contact with Tanya.
“Is she okay?” Tanya asked the nurse.
“She's stable. We're letting her get some rest and periodically checking in on her to make sure she is okay.”
“Can I see her?” Chauncey asked.
“In a little while. Right now she's resting,” the nurse said.
Chauncey took a seat in the waiting room and started to pray.
Lord, I pray right now for your mercy and your strength. Please allow Rachel to have a full recovery. And when
she comes out, let her know that it is because of You and You alone that she made it through
.
Chauncey continued to pray for what must've been hours, because when he looked up, the day had retired and the night was in full bloom. Clyde, Tanya's husband, was watching sports highlights on the TV in the waiting room. Tanya sat there half asleep. Chauncey headed to the nurses' station.
“Is there any news?”
The nurse checked on her computer. “She has been moved to the fourth floor, to room four-twelve. You can go see her now,” the nurse said.
“Okay. Thank you,” Chauncey told the nurse before returning to the waiting room and sharing the news with Tanya and Clyde.
“Chauncey, why don't you go ahead and see her first? I'm sure she would like that,” Tanya said before she yawned.
No man on earth could convince Chauncey that God did not answer prayer. Without hesitation he made his way to the elevator and headed to the fourth floor. When Chauncey arrived on the fourth floor, he searched for room 412. His heart rate increased when he saw the room. He wondered if Rachel would be awake or asleep.
Chauncey walked into the hospital room, and as he expected, Rachel was asleep. He took a seat next to her bed, and his heart started to ache at the sight of the woman that he was drawn to with IVs in her arm and connected to a machine. Chauncey was moved to pray again, but this time he touched her warm hand and knew that God would bring her out of this valley. He prayed until he saw Rachel's eyes open.
“I knew you would come,” Rachel said with tears in her eyes.
“Of course. I'm not going to leave your side.”
“But what about the ministers' class?”
“I've found something more important.”
“But all you ever wanted to be was a minister. That's all you've talked about,” Rachel said.
“I just wanted to feel important. I thought being a minister would make me important, but I didn't realize that I was something special this whole time. I allowed selfishness and ambition to cause a strain in my relationship with my family. But there is nothing more important than being here with you.” Rachel could not hold back the tears, and Chauncey comforted her with a kiss on the forehead. “I love you!”
“I love you too, Chauncey, and I want to be with you. I prayed to God to give me another chance with you, and He has answered my prayer of finding love.”
Chauncey was overwhelmed to hear Rachel say that she loved him. He knew that he was not an easy person to love, so for Rachel to love him willingly was amazing.
“I'm sorry about the other night. I've got a tendency to be a little high and mighty,” Chauncey said.
“I know, but I love you, anyway,” Rachel said as she winced from trying to sit up. Chauncey helped her adjust her position. “I want to come to church with you when I get out.”
Chauncey leaned in and put his forehead gently against Rachel's and prayed with her. Chauncey was ready to take a leap of faith, and Rachel seemed to be ready to take that leap with him.
Chapter Thirty-four
Quincy
The retreat revealed a lot of lingering issues that Quincy thought a year of refocusing and renewed passions had resolved. He now accepted the fact that he had set his standards too high for Sasha. She was a bright girl, but everyone was capable of folly, and everyone needed a chance to better themselves. Sasha had decided not to return to school until after she had the baby. For Quincy, it was another twist of the knife, but a wise decision. College was a stressful environment, and being pregnant with a full load of courses was too much. Quincy planned to take Sasha back to school to clean out her apartment.
The weekend revealed to Quincy that Dwight was scared, but he was not a malicious person who never intended to have a serious relationship with his daughter. They both had acted stupidly and irresponsibly, but when it came to the child that they had conceived, they could not afford to be irresponsible. The stakes were too high.
Quincy could not say that he was ready to embrace the next chapter in his life, being a grandparent. He felt he had too much swagger to be a grandpappy. Of course, Quincy envisioned that twenty years down the road, he would still have more swag than the average man.
Given Quincy's inner turmoil, he had wanted to ditch the original plan of going to Palm Springs and instead pilot a G-V jet and go to Vegas. Jamal had given Quincy the honor of planning his bachelor party, or at least Quincy had given Jamal the honor of accepting his request to plan the bachelor party. In the end Quincy decided that Palm Springs was a great place to hold the event.
Recent revelations had made Quincy feel anything but festive. It was hard to have a different frame of mind when the body still served as a reminder of the pleasures it had once endured. Quincy lived between extremes. It was an innate personality trait of his to see things as either black or white, no in between. But the journey from the wrong way of living and thinking to the right way of living had left him in a dangerous middle ground that could go either way. Quincy found solace within the confines of his office.
Karen did her usual knock on the door and entered without waiting for Quincy to say “Come in.”
“Baby, I don't know about you going out with the guys. I know it is the guys, but I' m worried about you,” she said.
“Who knows? Maybe I might meet Sasha's baby daddy out there. You know, instead of worrying about me, maybe you should be more concerned with your daughter, who left this house, as well as her standards, behind.”
“Don't get defensive.”
“What do you expect? The women in this house do whatever they want, and they have the audacity to come at me sideways for wanting to have a little relief.”
“You've come too far to mess up now.”
“Don't preach to me. You have my heart, but you have no idea what my soul has been through and how tired I am of trying to walk right despite getting kneed in the gut.”
Karen embraced Quincy. Her embrace was warm and genuine, and Quincy could not reject his wife.
“This isn't easy for me or for Sasha. She knows what she's done, but we have to be there for her. I just don't want to lose you in the process.”
“You won't. I just want to go out with my guys and have fun.”
“Promise me that you won't drink.” Karen pointed her finger like a concerned parent.
“Promise!”
“Oh my God!” Sasha yelled from downstairs.
Paternal instinct kicked in, and Quincy shot down the steps and felt Karen hot on his heels. The image downstairs started off blurred, but as Quincy got closer, he clearly saw Sasha, and there was Dwight on one knee with an embarrassingly small ring in his hands.
“Oh my . . . ” Karen said from behind Quincy.
“God!” Quincy added.
Quincy watched as Sasha's emotions attacked her nervous system and she cried to the point where she started to shake. A closer examination brought Quincy to the realization that Sasha's tears were not of joy.
“I love you, baby, and I want to be a good man and a good father. I want to spoil you and my baby,” Dwight said.
Quincy applauded Dwight for his resolution to be a better man. He still wished he had never met Dwight, but Quincy was starting to like him.
“I'm sorry.” Sasha bolted upstairs and slammed her bedroom door.
“I'll go talk to her.” Karen did a light jog up the stairs.
Quincy was left with a shocked Dwight, who was still on one knee with the ring. He couldn't wrap his head around what had just happened.
“Well, you might as well get off that knee and come into the living,” Quincy said with his hands in his pockets as he walked into the living room.
Quincy entered his living room and plopped down on his couch. Dwight had a seat next to him. The Thursday night football game was already in progress, and the Steelers were dominating, as usual.
“That's not the response I expected,” Dwight said, finally finding his voice.
“Rarely is anything in life what we expect,” Dwight said.
“Quincy,” Karen shouted from the staircase.
“I'll be back. Sit tight, okay?” Quincy asked, and Dwight nodded.
Quincy got up and walked out of his living room and up the stairs to Karen, who almost seemed upset at him. “What is it?”
Karen did a hand gesture to silence Quincy. “Just go inside.” Karen pointed at Sasha's room.
Quincy entered Sasha's room, and Sasha was still in tears. Despite his brilliant analytical mind, Quincy did not know why Sasha was crying.
“Baby girl, what's wrong?” Quincy asked.
“I really messed up,” Sasha said between sobs.
Quincy wanted to congratulate his daughter on having a firm grasp on the obvious. He should've rejoiced in Sasha's revelation, but something told him that she was not done with her confessions.
“You don't want to marry Dwight?” Quincy asked.
“No, I do, but I just can't lie to him anymore.” Sasha buried her face in her hands.
Quincy did not like where this conversation was headed, and a coldness swept through his body.
“When I first came back to school, Dwight and I were having a lot of problems, and I got the suspicion that since I had gone home for the summer, maybe he had found someone else. So one night, after a bad argument, I went out with my friends and met a guy.” Sasha sobbed even more.
Quincy started to lose his sense of balance.
“Dad, we didn't use protection,” Sasha bellowed.
A sudden burst of rage came over Quincy, and he kept the desire to haul off and slap Sasha at bay with a small amount of self-control. This could not be his daughter, to whom he had given every advantage in life. He now knew that there was a possibility that Dwight was not the father.
“Have you lost your mind?” Quincy asked.
Sasha responded with more sobs. “Mom, can you tell Dwight that I'm not feeling well and I'll call him later?”
Karen, who had quietly entered the room, went to speak, and Quincy put up his hand to silence her. “No. You're an adult, and we raised you to take responsibility for your actions and own up to your mistakes. Now, you go down there and you tell that boy the truth.”
“Dad.” Sasha could barely get the word out.
Quincy put his hand up to stop her and pointed to the door. He closed his eyes, because at that moment he could not stand the sight of his own daughter. When Quincy opened his eyes, Sasha was no longer in the room. Karen remained, equally bewildered.
“What is going on?” Quincy asked.
“Be cool, Quincy,” Karen replied.
“I've been
too
cool. That's the problem. Our daughter done went off to college and became a liar and a wh—” Quincy bit his tongue.
A door downstairs slammed, which was not a shock to Quincy. He walked out of the room and made his way to the top of the staircase. He looked down and saw Sasha at the bottom of the stairs. Sasha was still crying, but for another reason. She had lost a guy who was on the verge of transformation.

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