Forgiven (9 page)

“Hey sweetie,” Cassandra said as she picked
her up. She bounced her around and gave her a big hug. And then
kissed her on the cheek, hoping that would make up for the
affection she hadn’t received this afternoon. She sat down with
Lily on her lap and said, “Sorry, I took so long. I had this urge
to buy something at the mall. I would have called, but my cell was
dead.”

“So that’s why.” Mattie said, more to herself
than to Cassandra.

“That’s why what?”

“Oh, nothing. Did you find something pretty
while you were out?” Mattie asked.

Cassandra smiled. “I sure did. I’m ready to
kiss winter goodbye, so I purchased two spring dresses. JT is going
to be mad because we’re not supposed to spend any money for the
next two months, but he’ll get over it.”

“Girl, I don’t know how you put up with that
broke man. I mean, when the boy had money, I could at least tell
folks that you didn’t care nothing about that flim-flam man. I told
them that you were a gold digger.”

“Mother!”

“Well I did. Now what can I say? I’m stuck
for the reason my daughter is stupid enough to stay married to such
a… a-”

“Once again, I must remind you that you’re
saying this stuff in front of my children. Could you please
stop?”

Mattie rolled her eyes as she said, “Y’all
got too many rules in this house. Don’t want nobody truth talking,
so I’m just gon’ shut up.” She put her fingers to her mouth and
acted as if she had a key and was locking her lips.

“You are such a drama queen,” Cassandra said
while shaking her head. “Anyway, did anybody call while I was
gone?”

Mattie looked at Cassandra but didn’t
respond.

“Mother, did anybody call me?”

Again, Mattie did not respond.

Cassandra got up from the couch and took Lily
upstairs with her. She turned her phone on so that she could check
her messages while it was charging. That’s when she noticed that JT
had called her five times already. She listened to the messages and
could tell that he was angry. His last message even accused her of
avoiding his calls. When she finished listening to all five of JT’s
messages she hit end on her cell phone and started to dial his
phone, but then realization struck her.

Diane must have sent that photo of her and
Dr. Clarkson to JT. Cassandra stood up and paced around the room.
Could her husband really believe that she was cheating on him? What
was she supposed to do? Call JT back and tell him that she’s not
cheating, but seeing a therapist? She was uncomfortable about going
to a therapist anyway, and she never wanted anyone to know that she
had to talk to someone other than God about her issues.

She couldn’t just let JT think she was a
cheater, could she? Cassandra paced back and forth as she decided
her course of action. What she really wanted to do was to go find
Diane and beat some sense into that woman. Hadn’t she done enough
to her when she slept with her husband and had a baby by him? Did
Cassandra really have to deal with this woman spying on her as
well?

“Why haven’t you returned any of my calls?”
JT asked on Friday morning when Cassandra finally answered the
telephone.

“Hello, JT, thanks for asking, I’m doing
well. How about you?”

“This is no time to be cute, Cassandra. We
need to talk.”

“If talking to me was so important, you’d be
home by now. But you’re not, are you? Probably not even down there
with Lamont. Probably got some woman in New Orleans.”

“That’s not even funny, Cassandra. But I know
you’ve been in the house for days now with your mother, so it’s no
telling what she’s filled your head with.”

As soon as she said it, she wanted to take
those words back. She knew how important it was to JT to help
Lamont get his life together. And to find out that the boy had been
hanging onto life by a thread had to be devastating to JT. “I’m
sorry about that. How is Lamont doing?”

JT’s smile could be heard through the phone
as he said, “The doctors say that he’s out of the woods. He looks a
lot better too, Cassandra. And above all of that, he’s finally
agreed to come to Cleveland with me. I’ve been trying to call you
to tell you that.”

Now she felt bad for ignoring his calls.
She’d thought that he wanted to talk with her about the pictures
Diane took of her and Dr. Clarkson on Wednesday. And all this time,
he’d just wanted to share his good news. “I got your messages, but
my cell phone died on me. By the time I got it charged, the kids
needed dinner and then their baths and time just got away from
me.”

“I understand. But why didn’t you call me
back yesterday. I left you messages on Thursday also.”

“I didn’t even check my messages yesterday,
JT.” That was true. She knew that JT had called seven times,
because she was either in the room while her cell was ringing and
didn’t answer it. Or she’d seen that she received a missed call
from him. But not once yesterday did she check her voicemail.
“Anyway,” she said, changing the subject, “I’m glad Lamont has
changed his mind about moving here.”

“Yeah, me too.” There was silence on the line
and then JT asked, “How are the kids doing?”

“They’re doing good. Driving me up a wall as
usual.”

Again, an uncomfortable silence on the line
and then JT said, “We need to talk, Cassandra. My flight leaves in
an hour. Can you make sure that your mother is not there when I get
home?”

“Are you planning to tell me about all the
phone calls that Diane Benson has been making to your cell phone?”
Cassandra said defiantly. Now she knew for sure that JT had
received those pictures from Diane but she wasn’t going to let them
make her feel bad. They were the ones that needed to answer for
their actions.

“Diane called on Tuesday. She asked me to
give Lily back to her. I told her that wasn’t going to happen.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that you talked to
her? How am I supposed to trust you if you hide things from me?”
Cassandra demanded.

“I didn’t have a chance. I got the phone call
about Lamont before you got home and hadn’t given Diane another
thought.”

“Mmh.”

“It’s the truth, Cassandra. I’ve been trying
to show you for months now that I can be trusted. I do understand
why it’s taking you a while to see that I’ve changed, but can we at
least be reasonable with each other?”

Cassandra held the phone but didn’t respond.
She knew that she hadn’t been acting like a rational person of
late, but what did he want from her? She was trying to get over his
betrayal and the hurt it had caused. Some days were just harder
than others.

“We’re getting off the subject,” JT said. “I
need to ask you about a picture I received-”

“Ask me when you get home,” Cassandra said
testily and then hung up the phone. She stood there for a moment
with her hand on the receiver. She should call JT back. Cassandra
wasn’t sure why she had responded that way to him. Why didn’t she
just let him ask her about the picture so she could tell him who
the guy was? She took her hand off the phone and turned to go check
on the kids.

“Trouble in paradise?” Mattie asked when
Cassandra turned around.

“Were you standing there listening to my
conversation?”

“It’s not like you’re in the bedroom and I
had my ear up against the door. You’re standing right here in the
living room.”

“There is such a thing called common
courtesy,” Cassandra said as she rolled her eyes and tried to walk
away from her mother.

“Don’t you get snippy with me just because
that husband of yours is out cattin’ around. I didn’t do this to
you. I tried to warn you. I said, ‘Don’t marry him, Cassandra. He’s
going to unload a world of misery on you’.”

Cassandra rolled her eyes as she walked into
the family room and sat down.

Mattie followed. “Every time I think about
you and JT it reminds me of this joke I heard a TV preacher
tell.

Cassandra groaned and buried her head in her
hands.

Mattie continued, unfazed by her daughter’s
lack of interest. “It went like this… The devil interrupted this
church service when he stood behind the pulpit and glared at the
congregation.

“The congregation went wild. Everybody jumped
out of their seats and fled the church. Everyone except for one
lady who remained in her seat, looking toward the pulpit as if
nothing out of the ordinary had just occurred.

“The devil looked at the woman and said,
‘Everyone else has fled, aren’t you afraid of me too?’

“She smirked as she continued to stare at
him, ‘Why should I be afraid? I’ve been married to your son for
thirty years.’”

Cassandra stood up and faced off with her
mother. “That’s it. I am having enough trouble in my marriage
without help from you.”

“It’s not my fault that you married that
devil.”

“JT is not the devil. He is trying to be a
better man. Anyone with eyes can see that.”

Mattie harrumphed as she said, “I don’t know
what kind of vision you got, Cassandra Ann. But I see a snake and a
devil every time I look at your husband.”

Maybe that was the problem. Cassandra could
see now that her mother didn’t want JT to change, so she would
never see the truth. She would never see the man that JT Thomas had
become… A loving, affectionate family man. But Cassandra saw the
difference. She had lived with the man for eight years. She knew
when JT was on the right path with the Lord, and had prayed every
day for his deliverance when he’d gone all wrong.

Nobody could tell her a thing about her
husband that she didn’t already know. She was married to a good
man, and the only time she didn’t believe it was when she was
listening to her mother. “You’ve got to go,” Cassandra said with
finality in her voice.

“So you’re throwing me out of your house
again, huh?”

Cassandra knew her mother was referring to
the time when JT got so fed up with her put downs that he told her
to get out of their house, and Cassandra didn’t stop him. She had
felt guilty about allowing her mother to be thrown out of her home
that day. But her mother was a bitter and unhappy woman and
Cassandra couldn’t be around her right now. “I’m sorry, Mother. But
this is the way it has to be. Until you can respect my husband, you
can’t be around the children anymore either.”

“What?” Mattie exploded. “I love my
grandchildren and they love me. You are wrong for this,
Cassandra.”

“How many grandchildren do you have,
Mother?”

“I have two, Jerome and Aaron,” Mattie
answered without a moment’s hesitation.

“That’s the problem,” Cassandra told her.
“Because I have three children. Lily has become just as much a part
of me as Jerome and Aaron. And I won’t let you mistreat her
anymore.”

“You cannot take my grandchildren away from
me,” Mattie screamed.

“I don’t want to, Mother. But the things you
say about their father around them are not helpful at all. I can’t
allow that anymore.” Somebody must be praying for her strength,
Cassandra thought. Because she didn’t even know where all of this
‘truth talking’ as her mother called it, was coming from. She
normally allowed her mother to get away with saying just about
anything, thinking that if she ignored her, she would stop. But
something inside of her clicked when she hung up the phone with JT.
It was as if God himself allowed her to see that she wasn’t giving
him a fair shake. Cassandra knew one thing for sure right now – she
wanted her marriage to work. And if that’s what she wanted, she
would have to stop spending so much time rehashing the past. “I’m
going to pray for you, Mother. You’ve got too much bitterness
locked inside you right now. You can’t see it, but watching you
carry that bitterness around is draining me of all the strength I
have.”

“Oh, so I’m a bitter old woman, am I?” Mattie
opened the closet, grabbed her overnight bag and her purse. She
then went up the stairs and into Jerome and Aaron’s room. She
kissed them while they slept. As she came out of the room she
angrily turned her back to Lily’s door and marched back down the
stairs. “This bitter old woman knows how to leave a place where
she’s not wanted.” She opened the front door and then turned back
to glare at Cassandra. “You just remember this, girl. I changed
your diapers and put food in your belly. I put a roof over your
head and gave your children a place to stay when you left that no
good husband that you’re standing there protecting.” She pointed at
her as she said, “You’re not going to keep my grandchildren away
from me.”

As Mattie slammed the door, Cassandra sat
down on the bottom step in the entryway and cried. She loved JT and
she loved her mother. Why did the two of them always force her to
choose?

***

Fuming from ear to ear, Mattie cursed like a
sailor as she drove home. She hadn’t asked to come over to their
raggedy old house. Cassandra had called and asked her to spend a
few nights with her. If she was that bad of a person, why would
Cassandra want to spend time with her in the first place?

First JT took the kids away from her on
Tuesday and now her own daughter had the audacity to say that she
wasn’t welcome there and that she couldn’t see her grandchildren,
like she was poison or something. Did they think she would infect
the kids with words? Or were they just afraid to hear the
truth?

“Cassandra has turned her back on me one too
many times. And for a baby that’s not even hers,” Mattie fussed as
she turned into her driveway.

She parked the car, got out and stomped all
the way to her front door. When she opened the door an odor caught
her attention and she rushed into the kitchen to find that she had
forgotten to take the trash out. Now she was really mad with
Cassandra. Trying to do something for that ungrateful girl, she’d
left all this stanking trash in her house and now she was going to
need to deodorize the place. She grabbed the trash bag and walked
it to the trash can outside.