Mariah fastened the last button on the crème-colored silk blouse and tucked it inside her black linen skirt. Now she wished she’d bought the skirt in at least two other colors, because the wide waistband slimmed her down more than usual. She’d found it at Saks several months ago, and since she and her friend Vivian were planning to go shopping in a couple of days, it wouldn’t hurt to see if they still had them.
She did a once-over in the mirror to confirm that her makeup was intact and to see if her hair was still in place. She glanced at her watch and saw that she had ninety minutes to get to the church. Every Wednesday she oversaw and advised a teenage group called YGM, an acronym for Young Girls Ministry. In any given week there were usually twenty to thirty attendees, and Mariah loved working with them. They came from all walks of life and not all of them were actual members of the church. Wanting to make a difference in the community, she’d started the ministry right after marrying Curtis. She’d told him that there were so many underprivileged children with problems in the city of Chicago, but that she wanted to concentrate on teenage girls, ages seventeen through nineteen. Specifically those who came from broken homes, those who had already had a baby or had had an abortion, and those who had lost all interest in going to school. She was proud of what she was doing, because the ministry had only started out with five or six girls.
Mariah lifted her Louis Vuitton tote from the dresser, slid her Bible inside, and grabbed her car keys. After setting the alarm system, she left the house and drove out of the driveway. Even with traffic, she would arrive at the church almost an hour early, but that was how she’d planned it. The YGM gathering always ended about a half hour before weekly Bible study, and she could easily speak to Curtis in between, but she wanted to have a short talk with him beforehand. He hadn’t come home until well after nine again last night, and she was really starting to get worried.
Last Monday it was the writing of his sermon that had kept him out late. Last Tuesday he’d had a meeting with the deacons and trustees and then had to go sit and pray with the Wilsons because of a death in their family. It seemed like there was one excuse right after another, and with the exception of four days ago, when he’d taken her to a Saturday matinee and then dinner on Sunday, she hadn’t seen very much of him. Yes, he’d made love to her on each of those days, but he hadn’t touched her on Monday or last night. She’d questioned him about his whereabouts, but when she’d noticed how irritated he was becoming, she’d stopped. She’d decided that it was best to sleep on everything she was thinking and then discuss it with him this morning. But by the time she woke up, he was already showered, dressed, and on his way out. She’d made another attempt at questioning him, but he insisted he had an early morning meeting, and that they would have to speak later.
She drove into the church parking lot, parked her car, and then headed straight up to Curtis’s study.
“Hi, Whitney,” Mariah said to Curtis’s secretary.
“Hi, Sister Black. How are you?” She stood and hugged Mariah.
“I’m well.”
“Same here. Are you here to see Pastor?”
“As a matter of fact I am. Is he in there?”
“Yes.”
Mariah knocked once and entered Curtis’s study.
“Do you have a few minutes?” she asked.
“What kind of question is that? Because you know I have all the time in the world for my beautiful wife.”
He stood, walked toward her, and kissed her on the lips.
Mariah pushed his door shut and wondered why his tone was much more pleasant than it had been over the last couple of weeks. She wondered if he was just putting on airs for Whitney, wanting her to think their marriage was perfect.
“Well, Curtis, it really doesn’t seem like that lately,” she said, sitting down in front of him.
He leaned against his desk. “I know, baby, but it’s truly been a very rough month for me. I’m preparing sermons every week, trying to get the officers to agree with some of the things I’m proposing, and you know all the other responsibilities I have with the members. I know I haven’t been spending as much time with you, but, baby, duty calls.”
“I understand all of that, but still something seems different. You’re different.”
“Different, how?”
“You’re staying out much later than normal and you act like you don’t even have the same desire for me.”
“Only because I’m tired all the time. And it’s not like I’m twenty years old anymore. I’m thirty-eight.”
“You were also thirty-eight just a few weeks ago, but it didn’t seem to be a problem.”
“But I just told you, I’ve been very tired.”
“I know that, but I’m still worried about our marriage.”
“Well, I don’t know what to tell you, baby, except that I love you and that you and Alicia are the two most important people in this world to me.”
“But, Curtis, I’m sure she’s feeling neglected, too, because you really don’t spend much time with her either. And I’m sure she thinks I’m the reason you don’t, and that’s why she doesn’t have much to say to me.”
“Alicia knows that I love her and that being a pastor means I can’t spend as much time with her as I’d like to. Even when I was pastor at Faith, she always understood that. She was only a little girl, but she even understood it better than her mother.”
“Look, I know you have a lot of responsibilities here at the church, but I just didn’t know it was going to take you away from me day and night. It wasn’t like that in the beginning, so that’s why I’m trying to figure out what’s going on now.”
“Look, I’m sorry that you’re unhappy, but this is pretty much how it’s going to be. I won’t always be as busy as I was this past month, but being a pastor is a twenty-four-hour job. You never know what’s going to happen or when you’re going to be called.”
“Then I guess I don’t have a choice but to get used to it. Is that what you’re saying?”
Curtis pulled Mariah up from the chair and held her hands. “It’s not that you don’t have a choice, baby, but I need you to stand by me. I need you to support what I’m trying to do as a minister. And more than anything, I need you to keep loving me.”
“I do love you, Curtis. You know that. But I still feel like something is missing. I mean maybe it’s time we started thinking about a baby. I know you said you wanted to wait awhile so we could have some time alone, but I think it’s time for us to start right now.”
“Yeah, but the thing is, you still really haven’t bonded with Alicia, and now with the way she’s acting, she’ll really be upset if we brought a new baby into the picture.”
“But how am I supposed to bond with her when she’s only around every other weekend? And even then she doesn’t say any more than what I ask her.”
“I don’t know. But I still think having a baby will push her away even further. So it’s just not the right time,” he said, walking away from her and back around his desk.
“Well, when will it be?”
“I don’t know. Maybe next year. Maybe sooner.”
“What difference is a few months going to make?”
He was really starting to anger her and she couldn’t help wondering if Alicia was the real reason he wanted them to hold off on having a baby.
“A few months can make a world of difference when you’re talking about the emotional well-being of a child. You know Alicia hasn’t been herself, and now she’s all of a sudden having problems at school. So the last thing I want is to make her even more rebellious.”
“So that’s your final decision? We have to wait until next year?”
“I’m sorry, but yes.”
“Fine, Curtis.”
Mariah grabbed her tote and turned toward the door. It was all she could do to keep from crying.
“Baby, wait,” he said, walking toward her. “I know you’re upset, but I really need you to understand why we have to take our time with this.”
She turned and faced him, tears flowing down her cheeks. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so unhappy.
Curtis pulled her into his arms. “Baby, why are you crying? I mean, is having a baby right away that important to you?”
“Yes. It is.”
Curtis sighed deeply. “Okay, I’ll tell you what. Give me a few months to see if I can help Alicia with whatever it is she’s going through, and then we’ll start trying.”
Mariah still didn’t see why they had to wait. Especially since she knew he wasn’t going to make any real attempt at rebuilding his relationship with Alicia. These days he seemed to have an excuse for everything, and Mariah wondered when the man she married was going to show up again. She wondered because this certainly wasn’t the same man she’d fallen in love with and made a commitment to.
“Is that okay with you?” he asked. “Can you at least wait that long?”
“Fine. Whatever you want, Curtis.”
“It’s not just about me, because I want us both to agree on this.”
“If we have to wait, then we have to wait.”
“Thank you, baby, for being so understanding. And I promise you, it won’t take as long as you think.”
If that were true, then why was her intuition telling her something different?
Why was she feeling like things were only going to get worse between them?
“The only thing my mother ever cared about was smoking her crack pipe,” Ebony said to Mariah and the other twenty YGM members in attendance. They were sitting in one of the classrooms located on the educational wing of the church and had been for thirty minutes.
“She never kept food in the house and she never did anything for me or my brother and sister,” Ebony continued. “And because I’m the oldest, I had to make sure they had something to eat and clothes to put on their backs. I had to do whatever I could, and that’s why I ended up dropping out of school.”
“You shouldn’t have had to take on your mother’s responsibilities, but you will definitely be blessed for taking care of your siblings,” Mariah said.
“But, see, that’s what I don’t understand, Sister Black. I don’t understand why I had to be born into this situation to begin with. I mean, why couldn’t I have had a mother like you or some other woman who cares about people? Why couldn’t I have been given two parents who are married to each other and who are working hard to take care of their children?”
These were the types of questions that always bothered Mariah because there were never any real answers. It especially bothered her when the questions came from someone like Ebony, a highly intelligent eighteen-year-old who was currently enrolled in a GED program but clearly belonged at a top university. It was hard to explain that everything happened for a reason, and that joy really did come in the morning the way the Bible promised.
But Mariah tried to answer as best as she could. “I don’t know why you ended up with the life you have or even why I grew up the way I did, but I do know that if you stay prayerful and keep your faith in God, everything will work out the way it’s supposed to. I’m a living witness to all that I’m saying. I grew up on the West Side of Chicago with five brothers and sisters and we barely had food to eat. And it wasn’t because my mother didn’t care about us or because she did drugs. It was simply because she had six children and never got help from either of the two men she conceived us with. But she’s the first one to admit that she never should have kept having children, knowing that the men in her life were no good and that she wasn’t married to either of them. My life back then was hard, but it still didn’t stop me from doing the best I could in school or from going to college. And even though we were poor, that ended up being a blessing, because that’s how I qualified for all the financial aid I received. I majored in accounting and eventually became the director of grants and funding at the largest social service agency here in Chicago. And of course, that’s where I met my husband.”
“And now you’re livin’ as large as you wanna be,” Rayshonna said. “And married to that fine ole Pastor Black.”
All the girls laughed at Rayshonna. She was the comedian of the group and the liveliest.
“You’re terrible,” Mariah said teasingly.
“I’m just callin’ it the way I see it, Sister Black. You got it like that, and you know I’m tellin’ the truth.”
“Well, I appreciate your observation, Miss Rayshonna,” Mariah said. “But I will say this, it’s not just about money and material possessions, it’s about being happy. I always dreamed of having nice things, because I went without so many necessities when I was a child. But being happy and content is what’s truly important.”
Mariah wanted to make sure they understood that having a beautiful home, nice clothing, and a luxury vehicle didn’t mean a thing if you weren’t happy. She’d known that for years, but now she was learning it firsthand, in her marriage to Curtis. Although she hoped they were just going through a phase and that it would pass pretty quickly.
“I just hope I’ll be able to go to college, too, once I get my GED,” Ebony said. “I only have one more test to take next month, and then I’ll have it.”
“Good for you,” Mariah said, and everyone applauded.
“Way to go, girlfriend,” Rayshonna said, giving Ebony a high-five.
“I heard that,” Shamira, a seventeen-year-old mother of two, said.
“We’re going to celebrate big-time when you get it,” Carmen insisted.
“That we will,” Mariah guaranteed. “I’m not sure what we’re going to do exactly, but we’ll make sure it’s something special.”
“Now I can’t wait until I get mine,” Carmen said, smiling.
“You will,” Mariah said. “You’ll be finished with it before you know it.”
Mariah’s heart went out to all of the girls, but she had a very special place in it for Carmen. She was such a sweetheart and an amazing survivor. Her father had shot and killed her mother right in front of her when she was only five, and she’d lived with an aunt who physically abused her until she was twelve. Carmen had even shown everyone the print of an iron on her back, which was a result of her aunt chasing her. But eventually her aunt was reported by a neighbor and the authorities removed Carmen from the home. Then, as fate would have it, she was assigned to Sister Fletcher, a foster mother who was a member of the church. Sister Fletcher’s husband was deceased and her biological children lived out of state, so she gave Carmen all the love and attention she needed. But when Carmen turned seventeen, she still dropped out of school. Sister Fletcher had told Mariah about it three months ago, and Mariah had suggested that Carmen attend the ministry meetings. Now she was doing a lot better emotionally and was attending an alternative school, working to complete her GED.
The girls spoke among themselves and Mariah noticed that it was almost time for them to end their session.
“I have something that I want all of you to read before our meeting next week,” Mariah said, passing out booklets to each of them. “It’s a book that specifically discusses how to find success in all areas of your life. It talks about the fact that you have to first believe in God, then believe in yourself, and then believe in whatever you’re trying to accomplish. Because if your ability to believe manifests in that order, you’ll quickly start to see positive changes in your life.”
Everyone flipped curiously through the material and Mariah was glad they seemed interested.
“I think you’ll enjoy reading this, and the other thing I want to keep encouraging all of you to do is stay prayerful. Prayer is very powerful when it comes from the heart, and I think you’ll see God making a major difference in your life as you continue to communicate with Him. Prayer can give you so much peace, and regardless of what you are going through, God does hear all that you ask for.”
“Then why doesn’t He answer all the time?” Ebony wanted to know.
“Actually, He does, but it’s just that He doesn’t always answer when or in the way we want Him to. But He does always answer when the time is right. Sometimes we want what we want when we want it, but certain things aren’t right for us. And then sometimes we want things to happen instantly, when it would be so much better if they happened at a later date. But that’s just human nature, and it’s perfectly normal to feel that way.”
“I hear what you’re saying, but it’s still hard to understand sometimes,” Ebony said.
“I know, but as you continue building your relationship with God, your understanding of Him and how He works will improve more and more.”
“I agree,” Carmen said matter-of-factly.
“Well, girls, unless you have something else you’d like to share this evening, I think it’s time we dismissed.”
Everyone agreed, the girls hugged Mariah and each other and then left the room.
Mariah couldn’t help thinking about the advice she’d just given Ebony. Especially since she hadn’t taken it herself when she met Curtis. She’d prayed over and over, asking God to make Curtis her husband, and it had happened. But now she wondered if God had actually blessed her with Curtis or simply allowed the marriage to happen because she wanted Curtis so badly. At the time, she hadn’t cared about any possible consequences or even considered the fact that some people weren’t nearly who they claimed to be, and she hoped she wasn’t going to be sorry for it. She was such an optimist and had been told many times that she was much too trusting of people in general, but she couldn’t help who she was. She’d always tried to do the right thing, and she always treated people the way she wanted to be treated. She couldn’t understand why Curtis or anyone else would want to take advantage of that.
But maybe she was blowing her problems with Curtis way out of proportion. Maybe she was being too hard on him about all the time he was spending away from home, too. Because it wasn’t like he had a normal nine-to-five. It wasn’t like he could leave his work at the office when he was senior pastor of a church like Truth Missionary. The man had weekly sermons to write and preach, prayer service and Bible study to teach, the sick and shut-in to see, and sometimes he did revivals for outof-town churches when they requested him. Of course, sometimes he received help from his associate ministers and deacons, but he really did have a whole lot of responsibilities. Maybe Curtis really was as busy as he claimed. Maybe she was expecting far too much from him and needed to find other things to do with her time, just as her mother had suggested. Her mother had also told her not to keep nagging Curtis, but that’s exactly what she’d been doing. And it wasn’t like he was staying out till the wee hours of the morning, anyway.
She decided that she wasn’t giving up on him or their marriage. She was going to have faith in the love they shared and trust that everything would work out in the long run.
She decided it was best to stay positive and give her husband the total benefit of the doubt.