(Ephesians 5:8)
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Johnnie Mae said as soon as Pastor Landris walked in the house.
“Tell you what?” He leaned down to kiss her; she dodged him, so he missed. “What’s wrong with you today? Bad news? You called me and said I had to get home pronto. I’m here. Let me in on what’s going on, Johnnie Mae.”
“Back in September, after our wonderful anniversary banquet and the special night out you planned for our actual anniversary date, we had the marriage seminar celebration at the Exhibition Hall downtown,” Johnnie Mae said.
He spread his opened hands out to her as if to say: Give me a little more of a clue, please. “Yeah, so we’re going all the way back to September, and I suppose whatever you’re upset about is tied in with all of that? That’s not good.”
“Faith Alexandria Morrell.”
“Oh. So you found out what she and I talked about? I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t want to upset you or make you feel like you weren’t enough. I’m happy with us just like we are. I don’t have to have my own child to be fulfilled. I have you and Princess Rose. Who could ask for more without being just plain greedy?” He made a funny face to try and get her to smile. “How did you find out? Did Faith approach you with the same offer she made me?”
“What offer are you talking about, Landris?”
“Maybe you should tell me what you know, and we can go from there.”
“Maybe we should go sit down and get all of this out on the table. I can’t believe you’ve held something back from me, Landris. I’m getting all kinds of revelations today.”
They went to their master bedroom suite and sat in the sitting area.
“I don’t guess you’d like to go first,” Pastor Landris said.
“Truthfully, I would, but I think it’s best I find out the information you have so I can process everything together.” Johnnie Mae folded her arms across her chest.
“Faith offered to carry my baby for me…well, actually, our baby for us.”
“Oh, she did, huh? And you didn’t think that was something you should have shared with your wife?”
“I thought about it, but I didn’t think it was something I needed to dump on you. I didn’t want you feeling like you were inadequate because you haven’t been able to conceive. I knew if I said something, you might think I was entertaining the idea because I really wanted a baby that bad. But I don’t want another woman carrying my child.”
“Okay. So another woman approaches my husband about carrying his baby and you didn’t want to bother me, your wife, by telling me. Didn’t you realize there was a possibility I might happen to hear about it and it could come out totally different from what you’re saying? All because you didn’t want me, your wife, feeling inadequate because obviously I can’t produce a child for you, my husband, although another woman can. Does that about sum it up, Landris?”
“See, now when you say it like that, you make it sound worse than when I was thinking about it—in a short amount of time, mind you.” He grabbed her hand.
“Landris, I do understand what you were trying to do. I know this baby thing has been hard on both of us. I thought I didn’t want to get pregnant, but I really did. At first I thought you didn’t care whether I did or didn’t, then I could see that it meant a lot to you as well. And that did bother me, because it’s not fair for you not to have your own baby just because I’ve waited too long, or something’s not working right inside of me. How do you think I feel? I have thought about what your baby would look like, and if I can’t have one, then you really wouldn’t ever know unless you have one with someone else—”
“Then I’ll never know. I only want a baby with you. I don’t care about some other woman, even someone you might know, being an egg donor or a surrogate for our child. I want to listen in on what the baby is doing inside your stomach. I want to place my hand on you when I feel the baby kick or move around. It’s about me and you. Together.”
“Landris, I know what you’re saying. And on some level, I understand your reasoning. Let me tell you what I just learned today.” She turned her body more toward him while allowing her hand to remain in his. “Charity has some real problems. She’s not going to be able to take care of my mother anymore, that’s for certain. I don’t know how I’ll ever replace her. What she has already accomplished with Mama is a miracle from God, and I know this.”
“What happened? Is Charity sick? I know you called and said you had to go over to your mother’s and you were in a hurry. Did she have to go to the hospital? What?”
“Let me, if I may, just tell you everything. Then we can go back over it together. There are some things that involve you, Landris. And you’re going to have to make some hard decisions, I believe, once you hear everything.”
Johnnie Mae took a deep breath and released it slowly. She retold the story of Charity, Faith, and Hope.
“Multiple personalities…Sapphire called it Dissociative Identity Disorder. She believes whatever happened when Charity was around seven, traumatized her to the point where she developed two other distinct personalities named Faith and Hope.”
Pastor Landris threw his hands up. “Wait—give me a minute to process this. Faith, who dresses to the max, is pretty much a diva, and can be pushy and rude is also Hope, who is quiet and prefers to fade into the background, out of the limelight and attention, as well as Charity, who will get down on the floor and play jacks with Princess Rose, couldn’t care less about how she looks, and dances around the room with your mother as they sweat to the oldies. And all three of these people are the same person?”
“Trinity. That’s how Faith refers to the three of them.”
“Trinity?”
“Yeah.”
“It gets worse.”
“Is that possible? I mean, this sounds pretty bad so far.”
“Faith was upset with you about whatever you said to her that night at the marriage celebration. She left our church and now attends Divine Conquerors Church.”
“She’s over there with Thomas now, huh? Well, there has to be something good happening to draw so many people in. At least she’s still in church.”
“Yeah, she’s over there with Thomas, all right. According to Faith, she and Thomas are getting married December 4.”
“I doubt that. Faith has to be delusional about that one. I know my brother, and if he were ever going to marry anyone, which I’m starting to doubt he ever will, he would have married Sapphire. Look how long they were together. Sapphire moved here mainly because of him. As much as I would like to think she came here to help me in the ministry, we all know if she hadn’t been dating Thomas, she would still probably be in Atlanta.”
“You do know Sapphire and Thomas broke up? Sapphire says people who are bipolar don’t process things the way most people normally do. It’s very possible Faith is telling the truth.”
Pastor Landris stood up and started pacing. “I’ve got to hurry and get him some help. They can’t get married. From what you’re telling me, they both need help. That’s the classic ‘blind leading the blind’ if I ever heard it. Faith or Hope or Charity or Trinity—how do we even classify them?” He stopped walking. “Who is the real person of the three?”
“Sapphire believes Charity is. And you know, we did do paperwork and a background check on her prior to hiring her. Her birth certificate and all the other information had Charity Alexandria Morrell on them.” Johnnie Mae stopped. “Alexandria Morrell. Why didn’t I notice that before?”
“What?”
“Whenever Faith would say her name, she always said her whole name: ‘Faith Alexandria Morrell.’ With Hope, all I ever knew was Hope Morrell, which was not unusual since sisters who haven’t married often still have the same last name. I thought when I saw Alexandria on Charity’s information, I felt it odd their mother would give them the same middle name, but then there’s George Foreman—all of his sons are named George.”
“I’m going over to see Tho
mas and put a stop to this marriage nonsense.” Pastor Landris started pacing again. “There has to be a way I can get through to him. He can’t marry somebody like Faith.”
“He’s an adult, Landris. Truthfully, he can marry her if he chooses.”
“Then I’ll do whatever I need to do to keep that from happening.”
“Do you think you should just go over there unannounced in your present frame of mind and spring all of this on him? If he’s not processing things logically, do you think he’ll take this very well?” Johnnie Mae said.
Pastor Landris picked up the phone. “Well, I’ll see what his mental state is right now before I go over there.”
“Thomas, hey, this is George.” Pastor Landris looked at Johnnie Mae and watched her as she slowly pumped her hands—palms down, her way of telling him to calm things down.
“Look, Thomas, I want to come over and see you. You know, just to chat, brother-to-brother.” Pastor Landris looked at Johnnie Mae again. She smiled and nodded.
“I know you’re busy, but I really need to talk. You know we have the church’s first service three Sundays from now. I miss you. I thought maybe we could kick it tonight like old times.” He walked toward the fireplace mantel and rubbed his temple.
“I understand. I’m not planning to take up a lot of your time.” He looked up at the ceiling. “When then? You can come over here, if you’d prefer. That way you can leave when you get ready. I just really need to talk, that’s all.”
Pastor Landris balled his fist and gently pounded his forehead. “Thomas, you can’t get married. And you especially can’t marry her. There are things about Faith you don’t know…”
Johnnie Mae stood up and walked over to Pastor Landris. She placed one hand on his upper arm. He started bouncing with frustration as he tried to listen patiently without interrupting.
“I don’t care what Faith told you I said or did, she’s not telling you the whole truth. Thomas, Faith has some serious problems…no, you don’t already know about her problems. Thomas, nobody called you crazy, and nobody’s calling her crazy. You have a mental illness—it’s just like a person who has hypertension, diabetes, cancer…it’s not anything you’ve done that made you or made Faith sick. But you both…need help.”
Pastor Landris walked away from Johnnie Mae.
“I’m not going to let you get married to her. At least, not now. Get some help, get better…then see if you really want to marry her. If you do, I’ll come be your ring bearer if you like.” Pastor Landris tried to laugh.
“Thomas, I know you think you’re making sense lately, but you’re not. You’re messing up your life, and it’s hard for me to sit here and just let you do it. Don’t hang up…Thomas, don’t hang up. Thomas…Thomas!” Pastor Landris clicked the phone off and threw it on the sofa.
“He hung up,” Pastor Landris said as he sat down next to the phone.
“I could tell you weren’t getting through to him at all.”
“He told me not to come over. He thinks I’m just trying to keep him from being happy the way I am. I have you, and he wants someone who will put him and his needs first the way you do mine.”
“Oh, he doesn’t have a clear picture of our relationship, I see,” Johnnie Mae said. “You and I put each other’s needs ahead of our own, which is why our marriage works. If the two of them go into this marriage lopsided, it’s definitely not going to last.”
“Faith told him or led him to believe that I made a slight pass at her. She didn’t make it sound like I physically tried anything, but that I sort of insinuated some things. Then I turned it around and tried to make her out to be the bad guy, when all she was doing was trying to help the two of us out. That’s why, she told him, she had to leave the church like she did. She couldn’t face you after you and she’d become so close.”
“Okay. So you’re going to have to go a different route to reach him. And you don’t have a lot of time to do it. Sapphire said you could go through probate court and file a petition, but the waiting list to pick a person up and get them in the hospital is about sixty days now. She had a patient they were trying to have involuntarily admitted to the hospital, and the family was told it could be sixty days before they would even have a bed available.”
“That’s not good. He’s getting married in three weeks.”
“Maybe if you go down there, you can convince them this is an emergency and they could move him to the top of the list,” Johnnie Mae said. She laid her head on his shoulder.
“I’m sorry. I’m so wrapped up in Thomas and Faith, I forgot there are other things involved with this. You really liked Hope a lot. Now, at least we know the reason why she was missing so often during certain times. It was because of Faith.”
“Faith loves the spotlight. Hope was content to do the work that needed to be done, including what I told you a few months ago about her typing that marriage workbook—”
“That you were sure Hope had done it?” Pastor Landris said, nodding.
“Funny, though. I guess Faith could get credit for doing it if Hope did it and she and Hope are really part of Charity and they’re all one and the same.”
Landris reached over and pulled Johnnie Mae into his arms. “I love you so much. This must be so hard for you. I know you adored both Hope and Charity.”
“Charity is special. I can’t imagine what she’s going through right now. My mother was doing so great with her. I don’t know how she’s going to take losing Charity. By the way, Rachel is thinking about moving to Columbus, Georgia. And my brother Christian is due back to the states in January—they’ve stationed him and his family there for about eighteen months. Really, I think Rachel is just looking for a way out, and now that Charity is gone, she doesn’t want to have to deal with Mama like she said she was coming here to do.”
“What are you going to do about your mother? Now you need a new sitter since you’ve lost Charity.”
“I’ll have to keep praying and listening to God. If I need to get another sitter or hire full-time nurses because I decide to leave Mama at her house, I’ll do that.”
“And if you have to put her in a home?”
“I don’t want to think about that yet. For now, Mama’s not declining any further. In fact, she seemed to have been improving. I’m sure her medication helps. I’ll probably tell her about Charity tomorrow. But I need to find out how to help Charity, too. Sapphire really respects Charity. We’re going to see what options we have and whether or not we can get Charity—or, I guess for now, to simplify we’ll just say Trinity—to let us help her.”
Pastor Landris took his arms from around Johnnie Mae. “One thing for sure: we’re not going to resolve all of this anytime soon. But I’ll go tomorrow to probate court and see about filing a petition to have my brother put in a hospital. You should hear how he sounded when I was talking to him on the phone. He doesn’t want me to come over, because his house is probably a mess—”
“He’s a guy. I’d expect his house wouldn’t be all that clean.”
“No, you don’t understand things about his bipolar disorder. He cleans all the time, but cleaning to him is pulling everything out of the drawers and on top of things onto the floor. That’s a symptom of his disorder. I took a picture with the camera on my cell phone when he wasn’t looking the other week when I was over there.” Pastor Landris pulled out his phone and found the shots.
“Oh, my goodness! It looks like a tornado went through this house,” Johnnie Mae said. “Are you sure he was cleaning and not bulldozing it?”
“He couldn’t talk with me long that day because he said he was cleaning, and I was keeping him from finishing up. I asked him how long he’d been working on it, and he said for the past two or three weeks. That was his results. On top of that, he had a broom, trying to sweep this pile down the hall.”
“Sweep it? That’s impossible. Anybody can look at this and tell you can’t sweep it.”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”
> “Yes, you need to hurry and get him help, ” Johnnie Mae said.
“I just have to do it, and pray I can do it before his wedding takes place. Because if he gets married, she has the legal say-so about whether or not he’s admitted into a hospital.”
“And do you really think Faith will allow that to happen if she marries him?”
“Of course not. But even worse—what happens to Charity if the two of them go ahead with this marriage?”
Chapter 50
Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
(Genesis 2:24)
Thomas and Faith were set to be married the following day. Pastor Landris was trying to stop it. He’d even called Thomas the night Faith had left Mrs. Gate’s house, exposing the whole truth. Faith was sure Sapphire had told Johnnie Mae everything. She could just hear Sapphire saying, “Faith is crazy. She’s planning to marry my ex!”
Faith wondered why women who lost out couldn’t merely slink away gracefully. She hadn’t gone after Thomas; they’d met each other halfway.
Truthfully, Faith did go after him…a little. And she worked that thing. Faith was a firm believer in what the Bible said. Specifically, that Faith without works is dead. She was simply letting the world know that Faith was very much alive. And Faith didn’t play!
The first time she ever saw Thomas Landris, he was in church, speaking on faith. She knew right then and there—he was the man for her. Faith could now see how God was working things out from that very first day, even if the two of them hadn’t known it at the time. Admittedly, Faith didn’t like it when she learned Hope was visiting Followers of Jesus Faith Worship Center. But now, she could see that had it not been for Hope defying her and going anyway, she and Thomas might never have met. And they wouldn’t be about to come together like Velcro®. Faith couldn’t help but smile when she considered everything. All things really did work for the good.
Blessed Trinity Page 27