Forgiven (10 page)

When she came back in the house she noticed
that the light was flashing on her answering machine. She walked
over to it and pushed the button to listen to her messages. The box
told her that she had five unplayed messages. The first, second and
third messages were from bill collectors. Didn’t they know she was
retired and on a fixed income? She had been working part-time at a
local dress shop. But when so many people started losing their
homes to foreclosure, the business at the dress shop dried up.
Guess people didn’t care about looking good when they were living
out of their cars.

The next call was from nosey old Sister Ellen
at the church she had been attending. “Hey, Sister Mattie, I was
just checking on you. We haven’t seen you at church in a few
Sundays and the Senior Saints missed you at our outing last
weekend. I’d sure like to hear from you. Well, I’ll be praying for
your strength in the Lord.”

“Pray on, Sister Ellen, pray on,” Mattie said
as she deleted the call. She was sick of attending church and
making nice with all them hypocrites. The only reason she joined
that church in the first place was because Cassandra wanted to be
in a house of worship while she and JT were separated. Once she
went back home to him, she started attending his little broke down
church.

When the next message played, Mattie had to
sit down and take it in. Maybe there was a God and He was finally
giving her a reason to keep on living. Diane Benson’s voice boomed
through her answering machine. “Miss Mattie, I know you don’t like
me. But you need to know that what happened with me and JT is over
and done with. I just want my daughter back and I was hoping that
you might be willing to help me.” Diane left her telephone number
and then said, “I have a plan, but I’m going to need your help to
make it work.”

A smile crept across Mattie’s face. She would
walk a mile on nails, swim from Cleveland to Timbuktu if it meant
getting Lily out of Cassandra’s house. Yes, she would help Diane
with whatever plan she had concocted. Cassandra would be mad at
first, but she would come to understand that she shouldn’t be
raising some other woman’s child. She had plenty enough on her
hands raising them two boys and that good-for-nothing husband of
hers.

Eleven

JT was angry when Cassandra hung up the phone
in his face. That had clenched it for him. He knew from experience
how to evade and avoid questions and that was what Cassandra was
doing now. If she wasn’t guilty and didn’t have anything to hide,
she wouldn’t have been avoiding him all week.

Facing the facts, he told himself that his
wife was cheating on him. It wasn’t in his wife’s nature to be with
more than one man at a time. That was one of the reasons he’d
married her. After catching his first wife in bed with another man,
JT had wanted a woman who would be true to him. For eight years,
Cassandra had been that woman. Why would she throw what they had
away after everything they had already been through?

Cassandra wasn’t having panic attacks when he
touched her because she couldn’t stop thinking about JT’s
unfaithful past. She was having those attacks because she didn’t
want to be touched by anyone but her new lover. Now he knew the god
awful truth and it hurt even more than when his first wife had
betrayed him.

JT had never loved Mona. He’d married her
because he thought she had been pregnant with his child. But that
proved to be a lie. So when he found her in bed with another man;
that became JT’s one-way ticket out of a bad marriage. He’d never
looked back. But this was Cassandra. The mother of his children and
the love he had waited a lifetime for. Could he walk away from her
without looking back?

“What’s eating at you?” Lamont asked as JT
walked back in the hospital room with him.

“What are you talking about?” JT asked while
putting his cell phone back on his hip clamp.

“You look like your woman just ran off with
the mailman.”

JT tried to laugh, but it sounded forced. He
jokingly said, “My kids run my wife in too many circles for her to
have time to say more than three words to our mailman.” JT bent
down and picked up his duffel bag. He turned back to Lamont. “My
flight leaves in a couple of hours.”

A sorrowful expression appeared in Lamont’s
eyes. JT wanted to hug the boy, just as if he was his very own son.
They had come a long way from the day Lamont blew him off in that
restaurant.

“Now what are you looking all sad for? You
don’t even have a wife, so no mailman stole her away from you.”

“I think I’m going to miss you hanging around
here,” Lamont said honestly.

JT pointed a finger at him. “You just
remember your promise. The minute you finish the rehab for your
arm, you’re going to get on a plane and come stay with me and
Cassandra.”

Lamont nodded. “You’ve got my word on that.
This accident convinced me that I need to change my life. I also
figured that I need to start hanging around a better class of
people.”

“Amen to that.” JT walked closer to Lamont,
shook his good hand and then said, “I’m glad I met you. You’re a
good guy.”

“All right, all right, enough with all this
touchy feely stuff. Get on home to your wife before she forgets
what you look like.”

Another toneless laugh escaped JT’s mouth as
he walked out of the room. In truth, JT was sick at the thought
that another man might just have wiped his memory out of
Cassandra’s heart. On the plane ride home, JT told himself over and
over again that he wouldn’t be able to deal with Cassandra cheating
on him. He’d left Mona the minute he discovered her cheating ways
and JT feared he would do the same if Cassandra confirmed his
suspicions. Men were built different than women. JT had had
sleepless nights ever since he opened that god awful picture mail.
Every time he tried to close his eyes he would picture Cassandra in
another man’s arms.

Now he knew for sure the awful pain of
rejection and uncertainty that he’d put his wife through with his
unfaithful actions. He would buy her a thousand roses, pluck the
petals off of each one and lay them at her feet to thank her for
taking him back. After going through the agony of betrayal he’d
endured this week, he honestly didn’t know how Cassandra had found
it in her heart to forgive him.

But had she really forgiven him? Wasn’t that
why she had those panic attacks when he tried to touch her? Maybe
Cassandra couldn’t forgive either. Maybe that’s why she took up
with this other guy… to forget the pain and misery he’d brought
her.

When he got off the plane he walked toward
the baggage area like a man on death row, walking his last mile.
His heart was so heavy; he’d almost convinced himself that he
didn’t want to know the truth. He wouldn’t ask Cassandra anything
when he got home, they’d just go on living the way they had been.
But he knew he couldn’t do that. His pride wouldn’t allow him to
live like that.

JT then realized that the prideful part of
him had been whispering in his ear ever since he saw that picture
of Cassandra. Hadn’t Cassandra relinquished her pride when she took
him back?

He picked up his bag and turned to go get his
car out of the long term parking lot as an older couple caught his
attention. They didn’t look ageless or beautiful. They looked tired
and worn out, like they had weathered many a storm, but the way
they held hands and smiled at one another told JT they had been
victorious. And now as they entered the twilight of their lives
they were at peace with each other.

It was at that moment that JT decided his
pride would not cost him a lifetime with the woman he loved. He
would grow old and wrinkly with Cassandra even if he had to forgive
her for infidelity. Maybe he would have a few panic attacks like
Cassandra had been doing lately, but they’d get through that as
well. With renewed vigor, JT headed toward his car. His mind was
set. He was going home to fight for his marriage.

***

Cassandra had taken to her bed with weeping
and moaning. She was miserable and she couldn’t even call Dr.
Clarkson for an appointment for fear that Diane would be lurking
someplace, trying to take another picture of them. Everything was
going wrong. Her mother was mad at her, JT was mad at her. But on
the other hand, she was mad at her mother and she was mad at JT,
also. It was a vicious circle that was taking her round and round
and Cassandra didn’t know how to stop the ride and get off.

She continued to weep silently into her
pillow as she curled up in a ball on her bed. The night Diane did
her heavy breathing on her telephone, Cassandra had figured out
what the problem was. She was so bound up with fear that JT would
break her heart again that she couldn’t move forward.

Cassandra wanted her marriage to work, but
how could it when she was so afraid all the time? The minute JT
walked out the door, she found herself wondering if he would meet
someone and have another affair. If he was late getting home or
didn’t answer her call, she imagined all types of illicit activity
going on. She was tired of it and knew she couldn’t live like this
much longer, but she had no one to turn to, and didn’t know who
could help her. And then for no particular reason at all in between
sobs Cassandra began to hum the words to a Mary Mary song. She
hummed and cried, hummed and cried until she got to the part that
said, Maybe you’re confused about who I really am… I’m God.

Cassandra sat up and lifted her head as
though she was looking at heaven and began to pray. “Is that it,
Lord? Am I going through all this misery because I’ve been trying
to lean on everyone but You? Please help me, Lord. What do I need
to do?”

She continued to sit in the spot she was in,
hoping that none of the children would wake up kicking and
screaming as they normally did. Right now she wanted the Lord to
have her undivided attention. “I want to love JT. But he broke my
heart and I’m so afraid that he’ll do it again.”

Trust. She heard the Lord speak that word
into her heart.

A smile began to creep across Cassandra’s
face. “So are You saying that if I trust JT, I will be able to give
him my heart?”

No answer came, but a peace began to wash
over her at the thought of trusting JT with her heart. And if this
would result in letting go of the fear she carried around with her
day in and day out, then so much the better. She got off the bed
and found that Mary Mary CD she was just thinking about. JT had
bought her that CD a couple of weeks ago and she’d listened to it
so much that it seemed as if it was finally sinking in. She turned
the first song on. The words “I’m a believer” shouted through the
speakers as Mary Mary sang the words of Cassandra’s heart. She
danced all around her room, enjoying the Lord.

Jerome burst open her bedroom door. He stood
there for a moment with a puzzled look on his face and then asked,
“Wha ‘cha doing?”

“I’m praise dancing, baby. Come join me.”
Cassandra grabbed Jerome’s hands and spun him around.

He laughed. “Do it again, Mommy.”

Cassandra picked him up and danced across the
room with her little man. She and Jerome were in such high spirits
as they laughed and danced that they didn’t hear the front door
open. Nor did they hear the foot steps on the stairs. Cassandra
swirled around with Jerome and almost dropped him when she saw JT
leaned against the doorpost watching them.

JT rushed over to help hold Jerome in her
arms so he wouldn’t fall. Jerome appeared oblivious to the fact
that he’d almost landed on the floor. “Dance with us, Daddy,” he
shouted.

“You two are in good spirits,” JT said as he
moved to the music with them. They danced around the room and then
Jerome wanted to be put down.

As soon as Jerome was on his own two feet, he
danced his way out of their room. Nervous to be left alone with JT,
Cassandra asked Jerome, “Where are you going?”

“To get a toy,” he said as he kept dancing
down the hall.

Cassandra tried to follow behind her son, but
JT put his hand on her arm halting her. “Where’s your mother?”

“I sent her home,” Cassandra told him.

“Why’d you send her home?”

She didn’t look at him, too ashamed of her
hardheadedness. “You were right, JT. My mother is just too bitter
right now to be around the kids.”

JT hugged her. “Thank you, Cassandra,” he
said, and then as he pulled away he asked, “Can I talk to you for a
minute?”

His eyes were so full of love for her. She
wanted to just lean in and let the loving begin, but so much had
happened, and she and JT still had so much to iron out. She didn’t
blame JT though. Cassandra was beginning to think that she had
moved back in with him too soon. She hadn’t healed from all the
pain he’d caused her. Funny thing was, at this moment, she wanted
to be healed. She wanted to just let go and let God work this out
for her.

She could do this. The Lord would help her.
She nodded, getting ready to say okay, but then Lily woke,
screaming and crying and Aaron followed suit. She turned toward the
door and said, “Let’s talk tonight. I need to see about these kids,
okay?”

JT followed behind her. He went into Aaron’s
room and picked him up while Cassandra picked up Lily. They all
went downstairs and into the family room. Cassandra put Lily in the
playpen and then went into the kitchen to warm up dinner.

JT walked up behind her and turned her
around. He lifted her chin so that she was looking into his eyes.
“You’ve been crying,” he said.

“Yes,” she answered honestly. “But let’s talk
about it tonight.

They were in their bedroom. Cassandra was
seated on the stool in front of her vanity and JT had just stepped
out of the shower. He had on loose fitting, cotton pajama pants and
a t-shirt. He saw Cassandra watching him and he hoped that look in
her eyes meant what he thought. But he had to get something
straight before he could even go there.