by T. E. Price
A large, black-and-white painting of the Eiffel Tower hangs opposite the loveseat. Pastor Noah motions toward the shabby-chic sitting area arranged in front of the rear, brick accent wall with a centered window. “If you can’t tell, my wife decorated this space.” Chuckling, he adds, “She said it would help women feel more comfortable, even though I meet with both men and women from the church here every Wednesday.” I nod as I follow the gray carpet past a small bookshelf to my left and a wooden desk with a closed laptop and a stack of papers on my right. The light blue loveseat invites me as I move one of the two matching throw pillows to the other side, positioning myself close to the tiny, side table that holds a Kleenex box and a potted plant. Pastor Noah closes the door this time. He must be comfortable with his wife roaming freely about the house while wanting to protect the privacy of our session. He settles in the white armchair across from me and says, “At any rate, I’m glad you’re here.”
With a little chuckle, I reply, “I had to use a GPS to get here.”
Pastor Noah tilts his head with a smirk as he lays his phone down on the waist-high filing cabinet next to the arm chair and says, “Most people do, there are really only neighborhoods on this side of town.”
I hesitate for a moment as my stomach clenches. “I really do appreciate your willingness to meet. I told you the worst of it a couple weeks ago, but the conversation seems to have caused a reaction in me that I can’t kick.”
With a gentle incline of the head, Pastor Noah asks, “Why don’t you tell me a little about what you’ve been working through since that meeting?”
Running a hand through my hair, I begin, “I haven’t been sleeping, I’ve become progressively more nervous since I saw Jonathan at church. When I’m all alone or traveling in my car, I feel like I’m waiting for Jonathan to appear at any moment.” Sighing, I add, “And I’ve been dealing with my shame.” I bite my bottom lip, “I’m ashamed that I married him. I’m ashamed of what I let him do to me and how he manipulated me. I’m ashamed that I let it go on as long as it did … that I didn’t get out sooner … before it got really bad.”
Pastor Noah smooths the leg of his black slacks, giving me time to contemplate my thoughts before saying, “You know, Hallie, shame and fear are completely normal responses in matters like this. But I want you to understand that you don’t have to be ashamed of your past. Christ has redeemed you from it, and you don’t have to dwell on those emotions if you’re willing to leave them in the past.”
I breathe deeply. He can’t be more right, so why do I still wrestle with my lack of trust in God? My shoulders slump. God led me to Jonathan. And Jonathan ruined me. I close my eyes, “You don’t know how deep he had his claws hooked into me,” I respond. “He controlled me in some of the worst ways possible … and I let him.”
After a short pause, Pastor Noah asks, “Do you want to share some of the ways he would control you and how you felt about those actions?”
Not really! I don’t want to share all that stuff only to be shamed by them all over again and then find myself even more fearful from the memories shared. But I’m here to get those thoughts out of my head, to stop dwelling on them. I want to be able to finally sleep without the fear that seeps into my subconscious. So, I nod and begin. “Well, one year, on our anniversary,” I start, my gut tightening with a story I’ve been turning over and over in my head, “I booked a resort and spa for the weekend. I didn’t tell him about it because I figured he would say no, but we didn’t do anything the previous year to celebrate our anniversary, so I was hoping he would cave,” I gulp. Of course, we never celebrated—Jonathan wouldn’t have seen that date worthy of celebration. “Anyway, I surprised him that night and told him that our short, forty-five-minute drive to the hotel would be well worth it for the couples’ massage and pampering. He didn’t even waste a second to think it over. He just told me no. And that was that. We weren’t going. It didn’t matter that I had already spent the money and that it was non-refundable. It didn’t matter that we were going to spend the weekend at the house doing nothing. He just made up his mind, and there was nothing I could do to convince him otherwise.” I wrap one hand around my opposite thumb and squeeze it compulsively as I continue, “And I could’ve gone without him. I know it was our anniversary weekend, but that shouldn’t have stopped me. If I was stronger, I would have just grabbed my already packed bag and left … but I didn’t. Instead, I went upstairs and unpacked my bag without a word. I was scared of what he’d do if I made the decision to go without him.”
“Did you do anything that weekend to celebrate? Did he take you out to dinner or buy you a gift?”
With a shake of my head, I feel a flush creeping up my neck as I say, “No, nothing. He ended up leaving that night to go hang out with a friend. I didn’t want to be around him anyway, but his actions still stung. And forget the gift thing, he wouldn’t even buy me a present for my birthday let alone our anniversary.” I lower my gaze. Valentine’s Day is coming up soon, and then my birthday. In a few weeks, I will celebrate with my parents and Ainsley, like I always have … he never had time for it.
“And how did that make you feel?”
With a sharp sigh, I lift my head. “Worthless. It was one thing to demand so much of me, but it was another to not even acknowledge our anniversary, Valentine’s Day, or my birthday. I would always make him a special dinner on his birthday, buy him a gift, make him feel like a king—or at least try.” With a heavy shrug, I say, “One of his birthdays, I made him a stir-fry. I had this new recipe that I was going to try out, and I knew he would like it … or at least I thought he would. I had taken my time finding the recipe, searching for all the ingredients in the grocery store and wanting to have it ready for when he came home from work.” Shrinking into the corner of the loveseat, I grimace, “He walked through the door, asked me why dinner smelled so bad, yanked a beer out of the fridge, and turned on the TV. I tried to tell him happy birthday and lighten the mood with a joke about the food, but he mumbled something about me being stupid and then called me a few ugly names. By the time the food was ready, I was so frustrated with how he had treated me, especially after how much work went into making the night special, that I let my anger come out a little as I plopped the plate down in front of him. A little rice fell off the plate onto his dinner stand. He just looked at it for a second, then flipped the plate of hot rice into my face.” I shudder. That rice had seared my skin, then the plate had broken around my bare feet. All I could do in that moment was stand there, shocked and hurt. But a moment was all I had. “He rose from the couch and pushed me onto the floor. I began crying from the pain while trying to wipe the food off my face, the shards were cutting into my bare legs. He stared down at me with repulsion, told me to clean up the mess, then took off toward the front door. He left. He said he needed to go shoot something. When he slammed the door behind him, I was left completely humiliated. All my acts of kindness had been turned into a shattered mess. And after all the work I had just done, he left me there, alone and crying in the mess of it all. He didn’t come home that night.”
“I’m so sorry, Hallie,” Pastor Noah says with a softened voice. “When you say he didn’t come home that night, do you think he was spending it with another woman?”
I shrug, “I really don’t know. At that point, I hadn’t known anything about his ex, Jessica. He may have left to see her, but he had a lot of other friends, sketchy guys—most of them were drug dealers, just like him, so he may have stayed with one of them. But I did know he was being unfaithful to a degree.”
“What do you mean?”
Clearing my throat as my heart begins to race, I explain, “He was, uh, making me do some pretty gruesome things in the bedroom.” I shift in my seat and turn my gaze downward, “These things made me really uncomfortable, but he didn’t seem to care. It wasn’t always like that, so I thought something must have changed, and I soon found out why. I … um,” I stutter a little, heat tingling my face, “I caught him w
atching porn one time. But after a few moments, I realized it wasn’t a recording … it was live. The girl in the camera was actually talking to him.”
With a shake of the head and a grimace, Pastor Noah says, “These things happen in marriages, Hallie. More than you know. And what I’ve discovered is that the woman often feels like it’s her fault. Like she isn’t enough for her spouse. But that’s a lie—the repulsiveness of this reckless habit goes far deeper than the wife’s image or actions. I want you to know that this didn’t happen because of you.”
Struggling to meet Pastor Noah’s gaze, I stare at my feet. “I guess,” I reply. “It just made me feel so dirty every time he would say something or demand something that I knew was coming from this live site. I never told him I found out about it, he would have hurt me if he knew. But he really made me feel insufficient and … gross. It got to the point where I would try to avoid being in the bedroom with him, and for the most part, he seemed okay turning to his live feeds over me.” I bite my bottom lip, “Clearly, I wasn’t enough for him.”
“Did you feel insufficient in other ways?” Pastor Noah asks politely, skirting over the pornography. There’s nothing Pastor Noah can do to change this part of my past. My body language says it all. We’re through with this topic.
“Yeah,” I respond. “In little ways, I guess. He would always comment about how stupid I was. When his friends would come over to the house, he would laugh at my job and tell them how I wasn’t smart enough to have a real job—that lifting weights was all I could do.” I start picking at my chipped fingernail polish, desperate for a physical distraction while recounting the endless conversations he would have with his buddies as he belittled me, over and over again. “You know, sometimes,” I say, focusing all the while on my nails, “when we were standing in a circle with friends or his family, he would purposely angle his body so that he was standing completely in front of me. After a few times finding myself somehow pushed out of the circle, I finally realized that he was doing it on purpose, he didn’t want me to engage in conversations with his people. He was embarrassed by me, not physically—he didn’t mind parading me around like the silent trophy wife he had proudly purchased with a big ring—but intellectually.” Shaking my head and clenching my fist, I add, “He’s really smart, he was top of his class at his private high school, and he graduated with a perfect GPA from university. He probably would have gotten his masters, but then he met me, and I became a burden. I guess he felt like I held him back, probably in more ways than one.”
“Did he ever mention anything about leaving you, Hallie? Did he want out of the marriage, too?”
Shaking my head, I say, “No. He was always firm about our marriage. It was weird, he was embarrassed of me and he always told me how much he hated me—but then he would threaten me if I ever hinted at leaving him. I know it was, in part, his family’s doing. He was brought up to believe that no matter how bad a marriage is, the vows were till death do us part.” Oh gosh—I shiver. Pastor Noah inspects my involuntary reaction with a raised eyebrow. Looking out of the window, I clench my teeth together, then exhale sharply as an icy burst of fear runs the length of my body. “He told me one time after watching a horror film how he would kill me.” My legs grow weak from the memory, “He tried to say it jokingly, but something about his tone and his crafty plan made me realize he had thought about it before, maybe even multiple times—that maybe there was something to it that was serious.” The quaking begins to climb up my body. “He said that he would shoot me. That he would have all the cleaning products to cover it up, and that he would bury me over by Mills Pond, where that abandoned house is, way back in the field. And then he would tell everyone how I left him for another man. How he tried to fight for me but that I was too selfish, so I just disappeared one night. He said it wouldn’t be too difficult to plant evidence of my affair, and that he would be so convincingly depressed that everyone would believe him. He laughed after he told me his whole plan, at how he would sit back in his recliner and drink a beer after it was all said and done.” Running my tongue across my lips, I add, “He terrifies me.”
Poised forward in his seat, Pastor Noah inquires without hesitation, “Are you afraid he might try to find where you live and hurt you?”
A couple blinks move me out of my trance, “No, I’m pretty sure I’m safe now. He doesn’t know where I live, and he’ll never guess. He’s tried to follow me home once, but I’ve been really careful ever since. Like I said, I’m always looking over my shoulder, and I try to stay in public places when I’m out so that even if he does find me, he can’t hurt me.”
Pastor Noah twists his mouth, like he’s going to press the matter, but he pinches his lips, then says, “Well, you’ve definitely been through a lot, Hallie. And I know we chatted briefly on Sunday, but how did you feel at the service with him there?”
“I only caught a glimpse of his face in the back row as I was leading worship, but I didn’t react to it. Surprisingly, it was a relief knowing that you were there and that you were aware of everything that happened between us … of that night. I feel like I don’t have to pretend anymore. And although it was weird not having Chip there to lead worship, that was a big relief, too.”
“I’m glad. Listen, Hallie—I think you need to know that Chip has decided to step down from his position as Worship Leader at Connect Church.”
My hands fly to my gaping mouth as I jump forward in the loveseat. “Oh gosh, this is my fault.” Tears prickle my eyes. “I shouldn’t have gotten involved. I shouldn’t have told you about the issue with Becca—”
“No, no. Please don’t draw any conclusion from this,” Pastor Noah interrupts. “This isn’t your fault. When I met with Chip and Becca, it became clear that Chip’s ideas for the church and his determination to push for those ideas really didn’t match what Becca had in mind for their future.” He sighs, then adds, “I think they need to take some time to process what they both want for their future, and they agreed. Their marriage is fine, they will recover from this—there’s no doubt in my mind. I think the issue is related to Chip’s role in ministry and how Becca is feeling about that more than anything else.”
With a shaky inhale, I ask, “So, they won’t be attending Connect Church anymore?”
“No, last I heard, they broke the rental contract and moved out a couple of days ago to be closer to her parents. So, we’ve started interviewing for the job. I have this one really great connection who’ll probably be our hire, and with my sabbatical coming up, I know I need to hire someone who can lead worship and preach.”
I nod as the back of my throat tightens. “I still feel like this is all my fault.”
“It’s not. Chip made the decision to prioritize his job over the wellbeing of his wife. He may have had a vision for the worship team, but he needed to let his wife in on those plans before he tried to drag you into the mix. He broke Becca’s trust, and in the midst of it all, he broke your trust too, Hallie.”
With an empty exhale, I reply, “I’m starting to feel like this is becoming a pattern. When I start to place my trust in someone, it doesn’t take long for them to break it.” I still have Ainsley and Harrison, but it seems like the number of people I can actually trust has diminished with each passing month.
Pastor Noah and I bring our hour-long meeting to a close, and he walks to the living room to say good-bye, but movement on the beige couch just past my shoulder sends us both checking. I swivel my eyes back to Pastor Noah’s twisting face as he tilts his head. “Rita,” he questions looking at his wrist watch, “I wasn’t expecting you for another hour.”
My eyes narrow in her direction as Rita shoots me a disgusting smirk, then replies, “Yeah, I know, but you said on Sunday that you had a new appointment at eleven—you didn’t say anything about you’re twelve o’clock slot. I was on this side of town already, so I thought I would just drop in early.”
Pastor Noah raises an eyebrow as he says, “Well, twelve is when I take my lunch br
eak.” With a deep breath, he claps his hands together as he rocks onto his toes and picks up his chin. “But I suppose, since you’re here now, we can meet.”
Rita places the book she was flipping through on the table beside the couch before she rises and hikes up her skin-tight jeans. Pastor Noah issues me a quick good-bye, and I wave just as Rita passes between us, her eyes never leaving me as her glare darkens with each stride. Once the two are finally behind the closed door, I stay a moment and focus on the muffled noises inside. Well, that confirms it—I’m unable to pick up on any of their words, so Rita couldn’t have been able to hear our counseling session. I roll my eyes. Who knows how long she was there. With a shake of my head, I zip-up my jacket and brace myself for the cold.
* * *
Preparation for the worship practice before the Sunday service is about to begin when I enter through the front doors and run into Ainsley. “You’re here early,” I say.
“Miles woke me up at six this morning, so we had plenty of time to get ready for the service. Besides, I wanted to see what the new worship leader was like.”
I lean in closer, dart my eyes around, and lower my voice to ask, “And?”
“He’s a looker,” Ainsley starts. “Tall, African American with a real artsy style. Fit, young, smells good, and … he’s single,” she winks at me just as I roll my eyes.
“Seriously, Ainsley—you know I don’t care about that. What’s his voice like? Does he play the guitar?”
Ainsley offers a sly smile, then shrugs, “Yeah, he plays. I heard him warming up a while ago, and he sounded alright.” She grabs for her cell in her back pocket then adds, “Wanna go check him out? We’re due in there in a few minutes anyway.”
Just as we pivot to face the auditorium with the rest of the worship team still mingling by the front doors, someone hustles out of the dark auditorium and calls, “Hey everyone, if you serve on the worship team, please follow me to the stage now.” This stranger then turns on the spot and struts back into the auditorium.