Heaven Forbid (4 page)

Mama Max hummed a lively tune of “Old Time Religion” as she prepared another loaf of banana nut bread. The revival had ended, and to everyone’s profound relief, it had been a huge financial success, partly due to an anonymous donation of twenty thousand dollars that Nettie had confided to Mama came from her son, Gospel Truth’s former pastor, Nate Thicke. Nobody could question that the revival was timely and had led to financial prosperity, as least for the time being. Mama Max knew that only time would tell whether it would lead to spiritual prosperity for the Gospel Truth members and whether such growth was temporary or permanent.

“Give me that old time religion,” she sang as she squished the last of the bananas and began folding them into the batter. “Old time religion like it used to be. Yes, Lord.” Mama Max felt good this morning. This feeling was much different than it had been just a month ago, when collectors threatened to turn off the church’s electricity, or a week ago, when she fretted over who might or might not come to the revival, and definitely different than the sinking feeling she’d had after the Reverend Doctor preached his first sermon as pastor of Gospel Truth.

Mama Max had had gas all morning on that particular Sunday, a sure sign of trouble if there ever was one. Nevertheless, she’d dressed up in her Sunday best, a spiffy long dress bursting with flowers in primary colors, and a red straw hat boasting flowers as well. She was greeted warmly, probably reminding more than a few attendees of their grandmothers. The church was almost full, she remembered, and the choir had “sang their way on up to heaven” as Mama Max’s father used to quip. But shortly after the side door opened and her husband entered the sanctuary, the atmosphere changed. Mama Max had immediately gotten the sinking feeling that things weren’t going to go over very well. That her husband walked into the church carrying an oversized broom was her first clue. The title of his sermon, “Sweeping Satan out the Church,” was her second.

Nobody would argue the point that the reverend doctor being back in the pulpit agreed with his health. Until he was called out of retirement, Reverend Doctor O seemed to have one ailment after another: high blood pressure, heart palpitations, arthritis, back pain. But from the time Nettie Johnson called with the request that Mama Max’s husband come out of retirement to save a church, Obadiah had been the picture of health.

That first Sunday Obadiah preached was no exception. He brought forth the word of God with fervor, shaking the rafters with his booming voice. Looking back, Mama Max thought he would have hailed down fire and brimstone for real if he’d been able to. As it was, his sermon sufficed, as he admonished the people to “get right with God or get left behind.” But when he brought out the new Gospel Truth Member Manual, the massive document that even she hadn’t known about, well, that’s when Mama Max’s gas started acting up for real!

“Whew, it’s long,” Nettie had leaned over and whispered as she began thumbing through the pages. When asked by the reverend, she’d offered her advice on what she felt were the “dos and don’ts” of godly living. She knew others had been questioned and had contributed their two cents as well. Nettie had no idea, however, that their suggestions were going to become a behavioral bible of sorts, a rules-and-regulations manual to be followed without question. But Reverend Doctor O was making this fact plain, bellowing the threat that members were to adhere to the Word, or else. Nettie swallowed hard as she read some of the page headlines, knowing even as strict as it appeared, the handbook was probably for the best.

“Lord have mercy,” Mama Max said softly as she read the table of contents. “Even Jesus better stay up in heaven. ’Cause if he comes down here to Gospel Truth Church, the Reverend Doctor might not think him holy enough to get back in!”

It wasn’t the “known sins” Mama Max read that she had a problem with. Nobody wanted to go against the Ten Commandments, and everybody knew that fornicating and masturbating and most other kinds of “atings” were abominations before God. Nobody had to think twice about homosexuality and pornography. Anybody with an ounce of home training didn’t have to be schooled about these.

But some of the other ones on the list were bound to cause problems, items added to the list—according to the reverend—to “help with housecleaning.” Mama Max enjoyed an occasional splash of Baileys Irish Cream in her coffee, but the rules outlawed any and all forms of alcohol, including beer, wine, even NyQuil. Smoking anything except some meat on a grill was forbidden, as was cursing (
I’m sure as hell going to have problems with that one,
Mama Max thought with a giggle), gambling (including the lottery, bingo, and card playing…and Mama sure liked a scratch-off now and then), wearing makeup, and watching television (except a list of shows sanctioned by the Gospel Truth Moral Board). For women, dresses had to be worn loose and hang below the knee, and arms were to be covered to the elbow, even in summer. For men, ties were required at all times, except when involved in physical labor, such as repairing or cleaning the house of God, and jewelry was limited to watches, cuff links, and sensible chains. Earrings on men—forbidden. Hair for both sexes was to be neat and trim, and tattoos, especially new ones done after hearing the word of God as delivered by Obadiah Brook, were expressly forbidden. Hugging between male and female church members who were not married to each other was no longer allowed, and when conversing, a distance of two feet must be maintained at all times. The new Gospel Truth Member Manual, passed out to members at the end of Reverend Doctor O’s first sermon, was fifty pages long. Many of the members who read it—the table of contents, much less the whole book—hadn’t bothered to attend the following week, and ever since, attendance had continued to dwindle.

Mama Max set the last loaf of banana bread into the oven, took out the two that had been baking, wiped her hands on an apron, and looked at the clock. “Reverend!” Mama Max went into the hallway and called again. “Obadiah!” A slight frown creased Mama Max’s forehead as she walked toward the study.
That man has been closeted away in there for hours.
She stopped in front of her husband’s home study. Just as she raised her hand to knock, she heard a low moan.

“Reverend, you all right in there?” Mama Max tried to open the door but it was locked. “Obadiah!”

“Oh, God,” she heard her husband whisper.

Mama Max pressed her ear against the door. “Got some warm banana bread out here whenever you’re ready.”

Mama Max listened for another moment but hearing nothing more, shook her head and walked back to the kitchen. Obadiah had always had a strong relationship with God. For years, his study had been his sanctuary, and for the most part, Maxine left him alone when he was preparing to deliver the word of God. But it seemed like ever since they moved to Texas, Obadiah had been spending more and more time cloistered behind those doors. Mama Max wasn’t one to get in the way of the Lord’s work, but she worried about how hard her husband was toiling to save, she sometimes felt, ungrateful saints.

She worried about other things, too, but most of the time was able to chase away the devil’s thoughts. “That rascal’s even been plaguing my dreams,” she’d recently confided to Nettie. And while Mama Max tried to do her part in aiding the ministry, and was delighted to be living close to her good friend Nettie, she still had to admit one thing—she was lonely. Back in Kansas, she had any number of church members she could call and gossip with or invite over for coffee. Once or twice a week, sometimes more, she’d gone to the gym or out to the movies with her daughter-in-law, Tai, and her grandkids were always stopping over. She hadn’t thought she’d miss them so much. But she did.

“Now, you just shape up, Maxine Fredonia Brook. God has been too good to you to even think about sulking.” Maxine began bustling around the kitchen, cleaning up and thinking about Passion and the marital problems she was having. For the most part, Maxine was satisfied. She decided to be thankful that things were as well as they were, and after finishing up the dishes, picked up the phone.

“Nettie, this here’s Maxine.”

“Hey, Mama Max!”

“Girl, I got a loaf of banana nut bread over here that will make you slap your mama and some ice-cold milk to go along with it.”

“What kind of nuts did you put in it?”

“Black walnut, child. Ain’t no other kind of nut for banana nut bread. Should I cut you a slice?”

“I’m on my way.”

Obadiah leaned his head back, thankful for the cool leather of the navy blue sofa in the library portion of his study. This small room was his sanctuary, filled with books, about a dozen different Bibles, study guides, concordances, tapes, and DVDs—everything a man might need to prepare to preach. But this room also contained other things, things that had nothing to do with Obadiah’s fiery sermons, things that nobody, not even Mama Max, knew anything about.

Obadiah reached up and wiped the sweat from his face, closed his eyes as his breathing returned to normal. Once his heartbeat slowed and the shaking stopped, Obadiah got up, put everything back in its secret place, scanned the room to make sure all was in order, and went to break bread, banana bread to be exact, with his wife.

Princess Brook stared long and hard at her grandmother’s number. “Grandmama Max will understand,” she whispered, trying yet again to convince herself to make the call. She picked up the receiver and had punched in nine of the ten numbers needed to complete the call before she hung up the phone and placed her head in her hands. “Father, Mother, God,” she prayed, “please give me the strength to do Your will.”

God’s will.
This was whose will she’d been trying to live by for the past two and a half years, ever since she’d closed the door on her own desires and declared herself to be “God’s Princess.” Ever since leaving college in shame and after a summer surrounded by her father’s sermons and her mother’s love, returning in victory. Princess walked to the minifridge in her cluttered UCLA dorm room, grabbed a soda, popped the top, and remembered.

The future had looked bright that sunny day in August three and a half years ago, when her mother and father had driven her to Kansas City’s international airport for her LA-bound flight. She was leaving home for the first time, shaking with excitement at the prospects of her first year as a freshman at UCLA and at the blank canvas called “adult life” that stretched before her. Those first days of college had been all that she’d dreamed and more. And once she hooked up with basketball star, campus heartthrob, and almost-a-cousin-but-not-quite Kelvin Petersen, Princess’s life had never been the same.

The ringing phone jolted Princess out of her reverie. She looked at the caller ID and smiled. “No, I haven’t called,” she answered.

“I knew it!” Joni screamed. Joni was Princess’s best friend, former roommate, and former favorite party partner. When Princess decided to turn her life around and live a Christ-like lifestyle, she figured her days with “ole Joni girl” were numbered. But Joni had surprised her. Joni had not given Princess a hard time for “finding Jesus,” and after seeing the change in her former roommate, Joni had allowed Princess to lead her to Christ some months later. The shocks continued when, during their junior year, Joni confided that she had led someone else to salvation, her former weed-smoking, pill-popping boyfriend, Brandon. Joni and Brandon were now married, with plans to start a family after Joni graduated college. Brandon, who came from old money and had bypassed higher education, was already making a name for himself in the world of finance.

“I’m going to call her,” Princess whined. “I just know that once I tell her—”

“Yeah, yeah, the entire world will know. Or, more specifically, Tai and King Brook will find out that at one time you were a very, very bad girl!”

“Quit playing,” Princess admonished, but the reprimand was halfhearted. At one time, she
had
been a bad girl. And outside of Kelvin; Brandon; Joni; Kelvin’s mother, Tootie; and a few people in Germany, nobody knew just how bad Princess had been.

“Look, you’re always telling the girls that who the Lord sets free is free indeed. Am I right? Well, you’re not going to be totally free of your past until you are ready to not only face your history but also
embrace
it. You know that there are other girls out there just like you, suffering from the guilt and shame of their secrets. These are the same women who look up to you, because in their eyes you’ve got it so together. Just think of how much more they will respect you once they find out how far you’ve come. They’ll figure that if you did it, turned your life around, then they can do it too.”

“I agree with everything you’re saying. It just seems so hard to put everything out there. Grandmama Max will be so disappointed. And I don’t even want to think about Mama, or Tee…”

“That’s exactly who you should be thinking of. The best way for your baby sister not to follow in your footsteps is for her to know about the path that she shouldn’t go down.” Joni softened her voice. “Princess, you can do this. You’ve got to do it. Because only then can you follow the voice of the Spirit…and write that book.”

After a few more minutes, Princess disconnected from Joni and dialed her grandmother. She paced the floor, waiting for the phone to be picked up on the other end. After five rings, she was about to give up. What she had to say could not be left on voice mail.

“Hello?” Mama Max sounded out of breath as she answered her phone.

“Hey, Grandmama.”

“Princess! Child, as I live and breathe, I just asked Tai about you this morning. Whew, let me catch my breath. I was just coming in from the store.” Mama Max was quiet for a moment, taking off her shoes and fanning herself with a hastily grabbed newspaper. She plopped down on the sofa and took a long swallow from the ever-present glass of water on the coffee table. “Now, that’s better. Okay, baby. You’ve been coming to me in my dreams. I was wondering when you were going to call and tell me what’s what.”

Princess smiled in spite of her nervousness. “Well, since you knew I’d call, do you know what I’m calling about?”

Mama Max’s pause was short. “My guess is that it involves God, men, and probably some stuff you either should or shouldn’t have been doing with one or the other. How right am I?”

Too right.
“I’ll have to talk to God about His sharing my business with you. But since you’ve pretty much sketched out the general picture, you might want to sit down, Grandmama Max. Because I’m getting ready to color it in for you.”