One Prayer Away (26 page)

Rev. Inman's eyes immediately shot to Lisa, and in an instant, she turned hers away from him. He restrained himself well, but the preacher felt a level of annoyance brewing in his stomach. He had no doubt that what he believed to be true, was. Lisa had used deceptive tactics to
tear two friends apart, and love had put shields over Chris's eyes, causing him to be blinded to what had really happened.

“Perhaps it would be a good idea to get the three of you in a meeting together to see if we can . . .”

Chris cut into his pastor's sentence with words that were drenched with rage. “I'm not meeting with him!” he said. “And I'm not asking Lisa to have to stomach being in the same room with a man who would do to her what Mitch did. No. We're not meeting with him.”

“Chris, we have to find a way to work through this. You can't avoid Mitch forever. We have to worship together each week. You don't want that kind of tension looming.”

“I ain't worshiping with him either,” Chris said. “In my opinion, a man who is hurting women ought to be banned from the church. I can't believe you're going to let him still come here. What? You're gonna keep this all under wraps like you did with knowing that he had beat his wife?”

“That's enough!” Rev. Inman said, raising his voice for the first time. “If Mitchell Andrews did this to Lisa, then it will certainly be addressed . . .”

“What do you mean,
if
?” Chris asked. “I just told you that he said he did.”

“I don't mean the bruise,” Rev. Inman explained. “I mean the attempt to force himself on her.”

“What? You don't believe me?”

Avoiding Lisa's question, Rev. Inman spoke again. “As his spiritual leader, it is my obligation to hear what he has to say before passing judgment. I cannot listen to one side of the story and draw a conclusion without giving the other party the same courtesy of a listening ear. Knowing about Mitch's past isn't a reason to hand down a verdict. The testimony he's lived since being a member at this church doesn't match what you are accusing him of. It's the testimony in
this
case that decides
this
verdict. Not the one from nearly a decade ago.”

Chris rose from his seat and pulled Lisa up with him. “Well, you know what, Rev. Inman? With all due respect, if you're going to associate yourself with the man who basically tried to rape my fiancée, then I'm not sure you're the right man to perform this wedding.”

Rev. Inman stood in silence for a moment, and then conceded with a slow nod. “Our reasons for saying so are quite different, Chris, but our conclusions are the same. But I hope that you will allow yourself to release this anger so that God can deal with you. Truth sometimes hurts, but ignoring it hurts worse. Lisa, I wasn't there, so I can't accuse you of being dishonest; but as God has given me the spirit of discernment, I can, with confidence, say that
something
is not being revealed. Whatever you need to tell your fiancé, it is only fair that you tell him before the wedding.”

Rev. Inman saw a look of concern gloss over Chris's face, and he knew that he wasn't the only one God had been dealing with. Chris had his own misgivings, and Rev. Inman could see it in the brief moment of silence that followed the advice he'd just given Lisa. But in spite of Chris's doubts, Rev. Inman watched as he headed toward the door, pulling Lisa with him.

As they exited, the bride-to-be looked over her shoulder and caught Rev. Inman's eyes. Turning away quickly as if his stare frightened her, she closed the door behind them.

Rev. Inman shook his head in regret—not for the stand he had taken, but for what he knew was going to be the biggest mistake of Chris's life. As he walked around his desk to prepare for his next conference, Rev. Inman flipped through the pages of his calendar and then picked up a pen from his desk. With a slow stroke of his hand, he drew a single line through the words “Performing the Jackson wedding.”

Twenty-Two

M
itchell couldn't believe that his life had come full circle. But as he lay in his bed and thought of how he'd once again lost the person closest to him, lost his job, and was now looking at a full bottle of vodka, contemplating whether it would help him make it through the agony, he realized that it had.

He'd finally gotten some relief from his physical pain. Monday morning, Mitchell had managed to drive from the office to his home after his altercation with Chris, but it had taken him an hour just to climb from his car and walk from the garage into his house. The pain seemed to worsen with every step. Once inside the house, he collapsed on the living room sofa, unable to go any farther. For hours he lay there aching from his head to his toes and feeling like he was slowly dying. Not even able to get up and go to the restroom, Mitchell endured the humiliation of relieving himself on the fibers of his couch. He kept telling himself that the pain would ease with time, but it never did. To Mitchell, it felt as if his ribs had been shattered and the
broken pieces of bones were lodged throughout his body, piercing his insides every time he dared to try and become mobile.

Around nine o'clock he heard his doorbell ring. Lying still and pretending he wasn't home wasn't a problem. In fact, at the time, it didn't even seem optional. Mitchell wasn't expecting any company, and he knew that there was no chance that he could get up from the sofa to let them in anyway. He thought that if he said nothing, the person would soon leave. Instead, the visitor went from ringing the doorbell to an insistent knocking.

“Go away. Please go away,” Mitchell remembered whispering over and over again.

“Mitch? Are you in there?” It was Barbara. “I see your car in the garage, and I just wanted to stop by and check on you. If you're in there, please let me in. I'm alone, and Chris doesn't know I'm here. I promise.”

Mitchell almost became tearful. He couldn't believe Barbara had come to check on him. He'd figured that Chris had filled her in on all the details, and by now she would be just as angry with him as his friend had been.

“Mitch?” she called again.

“I can't open the door, Barbara,” he said as loudly as his pain would allow him. Mitchell was glad that he'd decided to lie on the couch that was nearest the door.

“You can't open the door?” Barbara repeated. “Why?”

“I can't get up,” he admitted. “I can't move. I'm hurt.”

“You stay right there,” she said, sounding almost as panicky as she had when he'd first entered the office that morning. “Don't you move at all, Mitch. You hear me? I'm gonna get you some help.”

All Mitchell could think about was the fact that his slacks were still wet with urine. “No, Barbara. I'll be all right.”

“No, you won't,” she called back. “You stay right there.”

It had been an embarrassing episode, but Mitchell had survived it. An ambulance, a fire truck, and a police car all arrived at his home in no time. With lights flashing and sirens blaring, they had brought half the neighborhood out to watch them pry the door open and load Mitchell onto a stretcher to transport him to the hospital. Barbara had followed in her car and stayed with him until he was admitted.

Mitchell had refused to give the policeman any details surrounding his injuries. He only told him that he'd suffered a fall. It wasn't the whole truth, but it wasn't a lie either. X-rays showed that there were no broken bones, but Chris's blow and the slams against the wall had left him quite bruised. The doctor told him that a little more force would have resulted in a fracture to his ribs. The damage from the blow to his head near his eye was more severe than the small bruise made it appear. It was the root of the throbbing headache that wouldn't go away. The force behind Chris's fist had been enough to damage Mitchell's iris. The doctor called it iritis and prescribed steroids and anti-inflammatory drops that Mitchell would have to administer daily until his follow-up visit. For precautionary measures, the doctor also advised him not to wear his contact lenses, so Mitchell was forced to wear his eyeglasses for the next few days. The medical staff had bandaged him up, given him some medicine to ease the pain, and then kept him overnight for observation. Barbara had been kind enough to use her lunch hour yesterday to pick him up from the hospital and transport him back home.

During those few hours away, while he was confined to a hospital bed, the stench from his earlier accident had built up in his home. He had thanked Barbara for removing the cushions from his couch and placing them outside on his deck so that they could air out until he was able to get them cleaned. While there, she had sprinkled a carpet-freshening agent throughout his house and then vacuumed
before leaving to go back to work. Not once did she ask him whether he was guilty of what Chris had accused him of. On one hand, Mitchell had hoped for an opportunity to explain the truth of the matter to Barbara, but on the other, he didn't care anymore.

When he awakened this morning, Mitchell found that he was able to move with much less pain. He moped around the house for a while and then became depressed when he picked up his daily paper from his front door and flipped to the classified ads. The thought of losing the job he loved and having to find a replacement was too much for him to deal with. It was then that he dressed himself, climbed into his car, and drove to the nearest package store. The medicine had helped the physical pain diminish, but now Mitchell needed something for his mental anguish.

From his bed, Mitchell could hear his doorbell ringing. He could make it to the door today if he wanted to, but he didn't. So he continued to lie flat on his back, allowing his eyes to scan his surroundings. On a normal day, his room was kept neat, just like he'd kept his office space at Jackson, Jackson & Andrews. But today, clothes were piled in a heap at the foot of the unoccupied side of his bed, and the blue drapes that he normally kept pulled back to allow the sunshine to enter his home were closed shut, making his room dark and dreary, like the feeling he had inside. He didn't want to be bothered. Mitchell had seen the way the neighbors across the street had eyed him when he'd pulled out of his driveway earlier today. They all knew something was wrong, but he wasn't about to give any details. They'd never visited him before, and he didn't want them to start now. To his contentment, the ringing stopped.

As he sat up on his mattress and stared at the bottle that lay on the bed beside him, it was as though Pearl was reminding him of how much she'd helped him before. The bottle was clear, and so was the liquid inside. She looked beautiful and harmless, but they needed no introductions.
Mitchell had lived with her for years. Pearl had cost him everything. She'd cost him his wife. The thought of the price he had paid for the temporary fix infuriated him.

“Nooooooo!”

He'd heard his own voice resonate around him before hearing the bottle shatter into smithereens as it came in contact with the ivory-painted wall in his hallway. Mitchell had picked up the still-unopened bottle of expensive liquor and hurled it with all of his might through his bedroom's open door. Tears broke from his eyes, and Mitchell buried his face between his knees, weeping in a way that he hadn't in years. Several moments passed before he raised his head again, but when he did, his eyes focused on his pastor.

Thinking that he was imagining the figure in front of him, Mitchell grabbed his glasses from the nightstand beside him and put them on, being careful not to disturb the bruise on the side of his eye. “Rev. Inman?” he said, using his sleeves to wipe the moisture from his face.

“That's a pretty good arm you've got there,” Rev. Inman spoke. “I'm glad I was just a few steps behind.”

“I didn't drink any,” Mitchell said, like a little boy who had been caught in the act. “I didn't. See?” he added as he grabbed the dry glass from his nightstand and held it up for his pastor to see.

“I believe you, Mitch,” Rev. Inman said through a faint smile before taking the liberty to sit on the side of the bed. “That's a pretty nice bruise. Did Chris do that?”