T
he next morning Cassidy brushed her teeth and tongue, eliminating the taste of the veggie omelet she had for breakfast. She’d eaten the whole thing. Had a glass of juice, a slice of toast, and a dish of honeydew, too. Another emergency room visit was the last thing she wanted, so hungry or not, no stress or stressed-out, she was going to eat. She’d already taken steaks out of the freezer for lunch.
A mint-flavored tingle in her mouth, she strolled from the bathroom and straightened the sheets, making the bed. The pillows in place and the bedding smooth, Cassidy ambled in front of the bureau mirror and untied the scarf she’d worn to prevent her braids from frizzing as she slept. She swept the cloth from her head and combed her fingers through the braids, gently lifting them and letting them swoop back to her shoulders. She’d showered before eating, and now she removed her robe and dressed in the white T-shirt and panty set Trevor had given her on their honeymoon. “A gag gift,” he’d teased as they both remembered and laughed about the time he walked in on her in the bathroom.
A furry coat wrapped around Cassidy’s ankle, and she glanced down. She still would not brand herself a cat person, but this one had found a place in her heart. She stooped and massaged Poopie between the ears. The cat purred appreciation and strutted out of the room.
Cassidy finished dressing, adding only a pair of checkered lounge pants to her ensemble. It was a stay-at-home-and-do-very-little Saturday. She had canceled out of the senior center for today. She needed the rest. She needed to meditate. She reached for her Bible. Last evening Clement had given her and Trevor a list of scriptures to study, independently and as a couple, and she thought she’d read over a few of them. It was the perfect morning to spend time with God. The house was empty. Trevor had gotten up early, taken the kids out for breakfast, and then he was driving them to the church to a special Kidpraise event before he went to Seconds.
Cassidy sat on the side of the bed and read from her Bible. She let the words sink into her heart, then closed the book and placed it next to her. She extended her arms, flattening her palms on the mattress. The sun entered through the windows and balcony door, laying tracks of light on the rug. From where Cassidy sat, she could see a piece of the sky, and in a matter-of-fact tone, she blurted, “So here I am, God.” Cassidy relaxed her shoulders and grew still, more reverent, as her lids floated shut. “Okay, here it is, God. I’m scared. Trevor is a man who adores his children. So what will he think of a woman who turned her back on her baby? What will he think of a woman who kept such a terrible secret from him and who also let him believe she was a virgin when they married?” She swallowed emotion. “I’ve already lost so many people—my mother, my baby, Aunt Odessa.” Cassidy didn’t doubt she could survive on her own. But Trevor and the children were her loved ones now. She cherished them, and she couldn’t imagine life without them. “I don’t want to lose Trevor and the children, too. I don’t want them to leave me.”
I’ll never leave you.
“I know that, God.” She opened her eyes, focusing on His sky. “You’ve already proved it.” The times in her life when she’d pulled away from God, God remained and waited for her return. “So what do I do now, Lord?”
Tell him. Tell Trevor everything. And trust Me to take care of the rest.
Cassidy sighed, tired of running from God’s will and ready to do the right thing. “I choose to stand still and trust You,” she surrendered as tears began to ease down her cheeks. “I don’t understand all of Your ways, but I believe You want what’s best for me. My hope is in You, and I know You’re not through with me
.
There are things You want me to learn, things You want me to do. My life has a purpose . . .”
Cassidy remained on her knees, slumped over the bed, as Trevor walked into the bedroom and knelt beside her. He laid his hand on her back. “Are you all right?” he asked, a ridiculous level of worry in his eyes. And then she realized there was nothing ridiculous about it. Not when it was yesterday that he’d found her in the emergency room.
“I’m all right. I was talking to God. We had a lot to talk about, and I got all emotional.” She glanced down at the crop of crumpled tissues on the bed, then snatched a fresh one from the box, also on the bed. She dabbed beneath her eyes. “I must look a mess.”
His crooked grin was charming. “You look beautiful.”
Trevor had on a black T-shirt and black jeans. He was scheduled to work this Saturday, and it now dawned on her that he would have dressed differently for work. “Why aren’t you at Seconds?”
He clutched her hand. “I took the day off so I could spend it with you.”
This is it, Cassidy. Tell him now.
Cassidy sucked in a sharp breath and let it out a bit at a time, the nervous pebbles in her stomach expanding into rocks.
Do not be afraid. I am here with you. I will help you.
She stared at Trevor. His head bowed, his eyes closed, his lips slightly moving, he prayed. She sensed right away his inaudible prayer was for her. “Trevor,” she whispered.
“Yes,” he answered without delay, as if he’d been expecting her call.
“I’m . . . I’m ready to talk to you.”
Trevor squeezed her hand and nodded. “Whatever you tell me won’t change how much I love you.”
Cassidy had doubts, yet she began speaking. “I had . . .” She pointed her waterlogged vision toward the bed and a teardrop wet the bronze-colored bedspread as the confession came fast, breathless, on the wing of a whisper. “I had sex with Minister.” The room was stiff with silence as if the walls were shocked and waiting for her to say it wasn’t so. Too ashamed to pursue an eye-to-eye exchange with Trevor, she looked at their hands. The strength of Trevor’s clasp had not weakened, and he began easing his thumb back and forth over her skin. “There was a baby,” she panted through the heaviness pressing her chest. “Minister and I decided not to keep him . . . so . . . so we left him just inside the hospital entrance.” The image zoomed from foggy to clear, and Cassidy could see her swaddled infant as he lay in the laundry basket. He had stopped crying, and he stared up at her as Minister grabbed her wrist and tugged her away from him.
Then the questions came, a pelting rain that poured on her each morning before she rolled out of bed and each time she passed a baby on the street or someone with a baby sat close-by. Each night as she closed her eyes, the same questions rained.
Is he safe? Is he happy? Is he loved?
Cassidy clamped her teeth shut, confining the sob that wanted to free itself as one loud mournful wail. She pulled her hand from Trevor’s and hugged herself as sorrow and shame, guilt and regret, gripped and strangled her harder than ever before. She flopped to her backside, drew her knees to her forehead, buried her face inside her folded arms, and finally, freely, wept aloud the grief she’d stored for too many silent years.
Trevor rose to his feet, and Cassidy accepted that one of her fears was about to come true. Trevor would not be able to love someone like her—a woman who’d rejected her own flesh and blood. Her husband would ask her to leave. He would forbid her to see the children. He would never want to look her in the face again. She was about to go into another “he would” when strong hands clamped over her shoulders and powerful fingers curled beneath her underarms, and he lifted her until she stood. Cassidy continued to shield her face, catching her sobs with her hands while Trevor sat on the bed’s edge and pulled her down to sit on his leg, her legs between his thighs. Agony persisted, inflicting upon her stabs that sliced deep. She tied her arms around his neck and held on for support until her cries faded into a blend of gulps and pants that jerked her shoulders. Trevor reached behind his back and brought forward the tissue box. She pulled the last two and blew her nose. The tissues too damp to absorb more, she stuffed them into the empty box and began drying her face with her hands when Trevor clasped both of her hands with one of his, pulled them to her lap, and held them there as he continued the job of removing her tears with his lips. Kisses made of satin brushed against her cheeks and chin and the corners of her eyes.
She sniffled through a stuffy nose. “Why are you kissing me?”
“Because I love you,” he whispered, and pressed his lips to her neck.
Instead of rebuking her, he was rewarding her. Instead of punishing, he was pleasing. While his kisses accumulated along her jaw, she slid her hands up the hard pack of his arms and gripped his shirt midchest. Her cheek against his, her concern quietly drifted into his ear. “I don’t understand how you can still want me.”
“You’re the greatest woman in the world. Why wouldn’t I want you?”
His voice was a whisper that intersected with her soul, and she flattened her hands over his ears, holding his head, halting his movements, observing him with all the amazement she felt inside. For several seconds, she was unable to see clearly through the new lakes of tears. “But didn’t you hear what I told you?” She squeezed the words out, a hand still plastered to each side of his head.
A smile gleamed in the dark set of his eyes, and with gentle force, he seized her hands and carried them to his shoulders. He clasped her head as she had clasped his, and he tenderly kissed her mouth. Cassidy’s chains of resistance loosened and melted, and she whispered his name between his lips as the kiss continued and he moved backward, pulling her with him. They lay sideways on the thick bedspread, within the sanctuary of each other’s arms. Their deep kiss subsided into a delicate parting, and Cassidy opened her eyes, a small portion of her logic expecting to see some measure of repugnance, some crumb of judgment, in the eyes studying her so intently. But all she witnessed was the same love that had been there all the time.
His fingertip traced her ear to the earring-free lobe before dropping to her shoulder and caressing the length of her arm. “Your bracelet is missing.”
“I removed it last night when we arrived home from the session with the pastor.” Her arm felt strange, the jewelry no longer there. Cassidy braced on her elbow and leaned her head on her palm. She had come this far, and she was going all the way. It was time to tell the truth about Dunbar. “I felt sick yesterday morning, so I took the day off from ACES. Dunbar called and asked if I wanted to go to the park, so I went, just to get out. I thought it might be relaxing.” Still congested, she sniffed. “That’s why I was with him, and he was the one who drove me to the hospital.”
Trevor’s emotional withdrawal felt like the chill left behind when the sun suddenly disappeared behind a thick cloud and stayed hidden too long. Vulnerability showed in his eyes as he stared beyond her head, and Cassidy realized he wasn’t merely jealous, he was hurt. She cradled her hand to his neck. “You were right about him. When we were at the park, Dunbar held my hand. Holding his hand was no big deal when I was single, but yesterday it didn’t feel right. I asked him how he felt about me, and Dunbar admitted he had strong feelings. I told him we shouldn’t hang out anymore, and I wouldn’t be comfortable receiving any more presents.”
“I owe Dunbar a big thank-you.”
Cassidy lifted her brows in question.
“If Dunbar had told you how he felt before I married you, you’d be Mrs. Smith.”
“I’ve never felt anything other than friendship for Dunbar,” she said honestly. “I’ve never loved Dunbar the way I love you.” Her hand glided to Trevor’s chest, and he caught it. “This morning I read a few of the passages Pastor Audrey suggested. One of them was Ephesians, chapter 5.
Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
I apologize for how cold I’ve been in our bed.” Residual moisture trickling down the back of her throat, she swallowed hard. “I was wrong.”
“That chapter also says,” Trevor responded, “
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church
. So I need to apologize, too, because I haven’t been the man God wants me to be. Pastor Audrey was right. I should be praying with you every day. I’ve been married before, and I know what happens when joint prayer and Bible study get pushed out of the relationship.” He paused under Cassidy’s regard. “I almost lost Brenda because there was another woman in my life. Her name was Seconds. I spent a lot of time there because I loved it so much, but in the process, I neglected my wife. Whenever she asked me to study the Bible with her, I was too tired. And I really was. There was no balance to my life. So one day Brenda packed up the girls and they left. They were only gone for a week, but it was one of the longest weeks of my life. And the wake-up call I needed.”
Cassidy lowered her head to the bed, continuing to face the man she loved as he lifted a handful of her thin braids, then laid them back on her shoulder. “What happened after you left the baby?” he asked.
It saddened Cassidy to remember, but Trevor had a right to know. “The report of an abandoned baby was on the late news that night. The reporter urged the mother to come forward. I thought about it, but the following day the news said dozens of families had expressed interest in the baby. I decided he should be with one of those families. Minister kept saying it was best for the baby, and at the time, I believed it, too. I loved Minister, and I thought he loved me. But now, as I look back, I can’t recall him ever telling me he loved me.”
“When did you break up with him?”
“He broke up with me,” she admitted. “About two weeks after I gave birth, Minister called and said he needed a fresh start, and it didn’t include me.” A grudge invaded her voice, and she didn’t care if Trevor heard it. “I soon realized the only reason Minister and I remained a couple throughout the pregnancy was because he wanted to make sure I didn’t keep the baby . . . and no one would ever find out the baby was his.”
There had been no formal face-to-face good-bye, no real closure between Cassidy and Minister, and there were moments she was positive Minister’s decision to leave her was because she’d actually gone along with him and abandoned their child. It was possible he viewed her as pathetic, the way she viewed herself at the time.