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Despite my meltdown outside of the house, I never went to the bar that day. I’d driven down the block and just put it in park; I sat there for hours while I got my thoughts together. I went back into the house and had a long conversation with Melissa in regards to how I’d been feeling about drinking and stuff. She agreed to back off.
I honestly didn’t know what would happen, but I’d somehow been able to make it the entire month without having a drink. We’d gone out to eat a couple of times, and I had no liquor at all. Melissa was proud of me, and I could tell so was KJ.
Despite him being so young, my son was smart. He noticed that I seemed to be around more and was definitely more alert. I wasn’t as groggy and tired as I’d been when I was drinking more consistently. It had definitely been a change for us, and I liked it. One month was just the starting place for me. I knew I could go longer.
I’d gone into church that Sunday expecting it to just be a normal service, but a good one. The church was celebrating the fast and what would hopefully start off a new season for us. Our membership had dropped dramatically, and we were trying hard to bring it back up.
When Pastor Stewart passed the microphone around, I expected to hear the normal stories of people struggling and overcoming them. When Tanya Bell got the mic, I definitely wasn’t expecting her to expose anyone, and it looked like that’s the way she was headed.
Tanya and Melissa were cool, one of the only friendships that Tanya really had inside of the church. I knew that she had a reputation for being kind of a hoe, but Melissa said that Tanya just got a bad rep and wasn’t anywhere close to as bad as people made her seem.
I felt like I was watching a movie or something. I needed popcorn. The wave of whispers grew into a loud storm of conversations at Tanya’s words.
“Do you wanna tell them or should I?” she asked.
I leaned over to Melissa and whispered in her ear. “You know what she’s talking about?”
She shook her head without taking her eyes off of Tanya. “Nope, but I don’t wanna miss anything, so be quiet.”
Tanya was standing in her seat two rows in front of us. I could see the side of her face, and her eyes were staring at Pastor Stewart.
“What is she talking about, Greg?” First Lady Stewart asked. She stood up and walked over to her husband. The talking got quiet again. Everyone was silent, trying hard to hear everything that was being said.
“Perhaps we should discuss this in private,” said Pastor. He cleared his throat and motioned for the usher to take the microphone from Tanya. The usher half-heartedly tried to retrieve it, but she didn’t seem to put up much of an effort. I figured she probably wanted to see what was happening too.
“No, there’s been enough of conversations in private,” said Tanya. “My mother loved this church and she trusted you, and you’ve done us wrong as our pastor!”
“Oh Lord!” someone called out. The whispers broke out again. First Lady looked flustered but maintained her spot next to her husband.
“What is going on, Pastor?” someone chimed.
“I have someone who can tell you the whole story.” Tanya moved out of her aisle and walked to the end of it where she handed the mic to Andre Mattis. Andre stood up and was about to speak when he was stopped by Pastor Stewart.
“Andre!” cried Pastor as his deep voice rumbled. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought he was warning him or something. “Andre, think about this.”
“No Greg, you think about it. Matthew 12:37, ‘for by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.’ You’re supposed to be the leader of this church, and you’re the biggest sinner of us all,” cried Andre.
“Oh shit!” slipped out of my mouth. Melissa nudged me, reminding me that I was still in a church. I couldn’t believe it. It was just too much. Were Andre and Tanya working together? What was going on?
“Look,” Pastor began, but Andre cut him off.
“No, you look. You can’t blackmail me anymore. My wife knows the truth.”
“What truth?” someone behind us called out. Andre looked at his wife and then turned to face the crowd.
“Pastor Stewart is not the man you think he is,” said Andre. If he could see what I saw, he’d have stopped talking though. “He has a gambling problem and has been stealing money from the church for a little under the year. He’s been blackmailing me to help him do it, which is why the church has been having so many financial issue...”
Our church had been through a lot over the past few years. We thought that the big cheating scandal a year ago had been the last of it, but it had just been the tip of the iceberg.
Andre Mattis had his back to the front of the church, so he couldn’t see that while he’d been talking, Pastor Stewart had been making his way over to him and despite what he was wearing, the look on his face was anything but that of a man of the cloth. As soon as he got to Andre, he hauled off and punched him square in the face. The two of them started fighting and had to be separated from one another.
The cops must have gotten called somewhere down the line, because they showed up afterwards and took the pastor and Andre away. First Lady Stewart left right after them, clearly too embarrassed to show her face.
People sat around the church talking for hours, but after a while, trickled out. The day had been more interesting than any of us thought it would be, but we still had a lot of questions about the future.