Читать книгу Happily Even After - Marilynn Griffith - Страница 9

“T he changing table is over there. There’s a rocking chair and baby swing in the corner. There are footstools under most of the chairs to use when you’re nursing. There are some nursing pillows over there,” the deacon’s wife said, pointing to a stack of pillows and blankets in the corner. “If the baby falls asleep, you can walk her down to the nursery and put her in one of the cribs. They’ll call you if she wakes up and starts to cry. The number will flash right out there.”

Sister Hawkins pointed toward the panel of glass running across the front of the room. Beyond it was my new church family, milling about and shaking hands. High above their heads was a black square with blinking red numbers, each one assigned to a different child when they signed in to their classes. I saw a woman duck through the crowd and rush out the side door.

I pushed Lily upright and over my shoulder to keep from showing my disappointment. The woman who’d run out had a three- or four-year-old, so this separation thing wasn’t as temporary as Sister Hawkins made it seem. What if Lily felt the same way about the toddlers’ class as she did the nursery? Would I be stuck in here for the next five years? Maybe I had it all wrong. I hoped so. “It’s very nice. All of it. I was just wondering, though…How long do I have to stay in here?”

Sister Hawkins gave me her signature look of disapproval. Her children probably knew it well. “It’s not a prison sentence, dear. It’s an honor. Being a mother is a beautiful thing. It’s a pity more young women don’t realize that. Again, we ask that you use the Cry Room as long as you’re breast-feeding your baby or whenever your child is crying during the service and not in the nursery. You’ll like it so much, though, you won’t want to leave. I’ve been in here seven years myself, ever since they built the new church.”

“Yeah, this is her own personal pulpit,” someone whispered, followed by a few giggles.

“Hush,” the woman said in the sharpest, sweetest tone I’d ever heard. “Here, honey, sit down.” She offered me a seat between her and another woman, who was the head of the Planning to Homeschool group or the Mothers of Many ministry, one of those women that I found both amazing and intimidating. I considered taking the seat she suggested to try to get to know that woman better. Rainy Styles was her name. I was sure about that. Ryan and I had been reading up on home-schooling and all other aspects of child rearing and I had a ton of questions to ask.

Still, I wasn’t ready to spend my first Sunday that close to Sister Hawkins’s scrutiny. Instead, I smiled at both of them and took a seat on the end of the back row in case Lily started crying and I needed to make a quick exit like that other woman had done. “Thanks, but I’ll sit here for now.”

The deacon’s wife looked a little insulted before fixing her smile, so much like my husband’s a few minutes earlier, firmly in place. The church mask, my old roommate used to call it as we set out on Sunday mornings. She’d tug at her cheeks and forehead, determined to leave all fakeness behind. I had no name for the false Sunday smiles, but I hated them. Church for me was a place to be vulnerable, not a place to cover up and be perfect. There was the rest of the week for that.

Attending the church that Ryan had grown up in, the church where his mother still attended, gave me plenty of opportunities to need Jesus. My old friends had wondered how things would go with me coming to a church where Ryan had a past and I didn’t, but Rochelle had said it best: “Go where your husband goes. God will go with you.”

I had amened the sentiment then, but sometimes now I wondered if God had gotten lost in the move. My mother-in-law didn’t just attend this church. From the way she’d had me kicked out of the sanctuary this morning with my husband’s approval, it seemed as if Liz just about ran the place. Now she’d have a whole team of women trying to whip me into a suitable wife.

Sister Hawkins attempted to whisper to someone about me. She didn’t do very well with it. She needed to take hissing lessons the Queen. “They’re talking about making her husband a minister, but I don’t see how it’s going to work with her acting a fool like that. Talking about her old pastor and such. Doesn’t she know how things work around here?”

Evidently I didn’t know much of anything at all.

The only light in the room came through the glass in front of us, so it was hard to make out who she’d been speaking to, but I knew that the speaker was the woman who’d escorted me in. My jailer. The pastor wanted to make my husband a minister? Surely this lady was confused, or at least I thought so at first, but after recounting Ryan’s nervousness this morning, I quickly realized she might be right. Gossips like that might get the details confused, but they generally got the big things right. Ryan was being considered for something. Why hadn’t Ryan told me anything? Maybe he had….

I’ve got to get back inside….

Hmm…

Dana’s husband, Adrian, was a minister now, though at the Messianic fellowship they attended, it wasn’t necessarily called that. Rochelle’s husband, Shan, was a deacon at his church, too. Still, my friends were real. Honest. Did I have to become some kind of Christian robot in order for my husband to become a leader?

I hugged my baby closer and shut my eyes before they stung with tears. Maybe Sister Hawkins was right. Though I felt I had a point, the sanctuary wasn’t the place to prove it. I should have just come into the Cry Room like I’d been asked and talked to Ryan about it at home. The thing was, we didn’t talk at home. Ryan barely talked to me at all, and when he did, that stupid cell phone seemed attached to the side of his head, or his BlackBerry, laptop or some other piece of equipment was in front of his face.

Lily pushed forward with her feet, digging her heels and toes into the cup of pudding that had once been my abdominals. I’d almost laughed when the woman mentioned nursing pillows. I didn’t need any—I was one. Though I’d stood up at my wedding almost two years ago with a stomach flat enough to cook on, giving birth to a ten-pound baby had stretched me into some kind of rag doll. Body parts had left their original positions and shifted to new locations. Where my six-pack had once lived, there was now an empty Hefty bag, hanging over with just a little bit of trash in it. Or at least that’s the way my husband described it right after the birth. I laughed with him then, but it wasn’t funny anymore. Nothing was, especially not this room.

Lord, I love being a mother, but does this mean I have to stop being a woman? A person?

A pregnant woman on the other side of the glass paused in front of us, checking her hair. She smiled at herself in what she must have thought, as I once did, was a mirror. I bit my lip remembering how my own face had stared back at me from that glass when I was pregnant. I’d finger-combed my little Afro and kissed my lips together thinking how cute I was, just like this woman was doing now. I wondered if she knew what awaited her on the other side of the glass, a life of watching other people worship through a window, of running out of God’s presence when your number blinked red. I wondered if she had any idea what this new motherhood was all about. I certainly didn’t.

“She’s missing the corners,” the woman next to me whispered. “I love when they use it for a mirror, but I always want to turn up the lights real quick and wave so that she can see there’s, like, thirty women in here watching her check her lipstick. We used to have fun in here, but that was before…”

I choked back my brewing tears and smiled, squinting a little to see the woman beside me more clearly. From her voice and sense of humor, I knew she was the one who’d made the crack before about this room being the other woman’s own personal pulpit. I wasn’t quite sure what she’d meant by that, either, but if I got to know this lady better, I’d be sure to ask. With her blond curls clearly in view, I realized with a shock, this must be the model-thin mother all the men spoke about, the one who always wore her old jeans back to church after each baby. The one husbands compared their wives to. Perhaps I should have taken the seat next to the other woman after all.

A friend must show herself friendly.

I sighed. Over and over, I’d prayed for friends at the church and every time, this scripture came to my mind. Today, I needed to suck it up and obey. I’d made enough messes for one morning. “You used to do stuff like that before? Before what? It sounds like this used to be a fun place.”

The woman moved closer, extending both hands. Her baby must have been the little boy in the swing. “It was a fun place. But like I said, that was before…all the cliques, all the rules.”

“Shh! Please be quiet back there. The Word of God is about to go forth. Have some respect,” the deacon’s wife said in a much less friendly tone than she’d started with in the hall.

The woman next to me laughed quietly. “That means her service is about to begin. Listen up, you’ll get an earful. I have a feeling you’re going to be our object lesson for the morning. Don’t let it get you down, though. And don’t let this room get you down, either. It used to be called the Breathing Room. It’s only the Cry Room if you let it be.”

“Quiet, puleeeeeze!”

Lily started crying at the sound of Sister Hawkins’s loud voice, the same way she did at home lately when Ryan screamed into the phone while talking to his business partners. I tried to hush her quickly so I wouldn’t be sent out of yet another room. I’d thought myself so blessed when I got married. Ryan had what every good girl dreamed of, especially one who’d been fat all her life and never had a date.

He was a Christian, a genius and fine, to boot. No other guy loved computers the way I did, and talking with him about open-source software and graphics programs had taken many of our dates long into the night. What had never come up was his workaholic tendencies. Oh, and his freaky relationship with his mother. That one was most definitely left out of the equation.

As Dana pointed out, though, I should have had a clue when his mother took over all the wedding planning and ordered those ugly pink bridesmaids’ dresses. Straight out of Gone with the Wind those things were. I think back now and know how good my friends were to even wear them. I wasn’t thinking about my friends at the time, though; I had only one thing on my mind, becoming Ryan’s wife.

Lily tugged at my shirt and I gladly obliged her hunger. At least I could meet someone’s expectations today. Slightly louder than the music had been, the pastor’s voice filled the room. The baby grabbed my finger at the sound of the man’s rich timbre, one she’d heard often when I replayed sermons in the house.

If I was honest, Pastor Dre, the younger son of the Reverend Redding, the man who’d pastored during Ryan’s youth, was a much better orator than my pastor back in Leverhill. This young pastor’s sermons were lively and contemporary and he had a great sense of humor, but like many other up-and-coming pastors I’d met, he didn’t seem to know how to connect with people. Sometimes he seemed so focused on his programs that I wasn’t sure he even liked the members, let alone loved them.

The people seemed to regard him more as a prince than a servant, and the gold lacquer thrones that he and his wife sat on behind the pulpit had almost sent me running out of the sanctuary my first Sunday here. Still, this was my husband’s church, and somehow, I had to make it mine, too. Even if it meant losing me in the process.

“We see through a glass darkly,” the preacher said. “We look in the mirror and think we see who we are, but we’re not looking in God’s mirror, we’re seeing the reflections of other people and who they want us to be. You need to take a look in the mirror of God’s Word and see what things are really looking like. That nice suit might be looking good in the natural, but in the spiritual, well, you could be wearing rags. You might look in the mirror and see a mother with dark circles under her eyes, but when reflected in God’s Word, you are a beautiful woman, wise and valued far above rubies.”

The tears I’d been holding back broke free and streamed down my face. I’d been looking at myself, at this church, at my husband through the mirrors of everyone but God. Sure, Ryan was different from my friends’ husbands, but I was different from them, too. So breast-feeding had made me gain weight instead of lose it as everyone said it would. I was doing something good for my baby. Maybe this room, this place I’d fought tooth and nail to stay out of, would be a blessing, too.

My neighbor’s fingers reached out for mine. She held my hand tightly for a few seconds and then let it go. She didn’t turn to look at me or even say a word, but it meant so much just to have someone touch me, to have someone care.

The room blurred as I held my baby closer and let the pain of the morning run out of me with hot, wet tears. Unfortunately, Lily was used to my silent crying and she finished her feeding quietly. The morning had started off with me on the pew next to Ryan, praying he’d notice my new perfume and the prepregnancy skirt I’d worked out every day the week before to squeeze into. (Again, there was elastic in the waist, but still…it counted for something.)

I tried to remind myself that Ryan had fallen in love with me while I was heavier than this and he loved me now that my pregnancy pounds seemed stuck to my frame.

But today, he didn’t notice my skirt. He didn’t notice me at all. He’d spent most of the time before service explaining to his mother why I didn’t usually pass Lily down the row to her and the other older women.

“Lily will start to spend more time with you as she gets older. For now, though, Tracey’s trying to be a good mom and I think she’s doing a great job.” He’d actually sounded proud of me in that moment and I remember smiling and feeling beautiful. Feeling strong.

Those feelings were short-lived.

Ryan was the king of church etiquette now that we’d moved back to his home church, though he’d been a free spirit when we were both in the singles’ group back at Broken Bread Fellowship in Leverhill. No matter how much you think you know a person, you never really know every part of them. You’re lucky if you really get to know yourself. Dana tried to tell me that, too. Oh well.

Although the embarrassment of being ushered out of the sanctuary by my own husband weighed heavy on my mind, it was his words that pressed the hardest against my heart, not his actions.

Get over it.

It was the same thing he told the managers of his company all the time. Still, he’d never said it to me.

Until now.

“Church family, please welcome the newest member of the ministerial team here at Promised Land Worship Center, Ryan Blackman! Many of you will remember his father, Robert, who served here for many years. Ryan is an accomplished businessman, as well. Some of you are running his software on your computers at home. His wife is back there with the baby, but you can shake both their hands on the way out today. Ryan will be heading up the youth division of Christian Education. Give him a hand!”

My tears stopped and the Cry Room came into view again, this time allowing me to see my husband approach the pulpit. Say what? The minister of whom? My heart seemed to stop as Ryan took a seat behind the pulpit, next to the pastor. I could hear Sister Hawkins groaning from where I sat. My heart seemed to stop, but I knew it couldn’t have, because I was still breathing. (I was, wasn’t I?)

“All these years that my Reginald has been a deacon here and then Pastor goes and puts another young guy on the ministerial staff. Well, that’s how it goes, I guess.” Sister Hawkins looked over at me, no longer beating around the bush. “You’d better get your act together though if you’re going to deal with those ministers’ wives…they’ll eat you alive, honey.”

“Like she would know,” my new friend the next seat over whispered, barely moving her lips.

I could only watch in shock as my husband was congratulated. Youth? Was this some kind of joke? Ryan barely had time for his own daughter. How could this be happening?

The woman next to me extended her hand again. (Why couldn’t I remember her name? Probably because I’d been calling her Skinny Woman in my mind since coming here.) Brenna Ross. I’d seen her name and face on the screen as one of the ministers’ wives. Her husband was the minister of music, a dark-haired hunk who all the visiting college girls went crazy for. At least I didn’t have that to deal with. She pulled me toward her and hugged me.

“I hope you were listening to the sermon,” Brenna whispered. “Get the tape and hear it again. See yourself as God sees you. You don’t have to look good in anyone else’s mirror. Keep your eyes on Christ. He’s got his eyes on you. Call me. I’m in the directory.”

I nodded and swallowed hard as she let me go, thankful for what seemed to be my first real friend since coming here. Thankful too that the glass separating me from my husband, the glass that I’d once thought was a mirror, seemed to have a different purpose after all—to make me see a new me, a woman made into Christ’s image instead of her own.