“You’re speaking at a conference and...you forgot?”
There were two things that bothered me about this as I
folded my arms. How did one forget speaking at a conference
and why was this happening so much? Maybe ‘so much’ was
an exaggeration, but in the last three or so months, Jeremy
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had come home tel ing me about some emergency trip he had
to take—because he’d forgotten more than a couple of times.
“Yeah, babe. I forgot.” Jeremy lowered his eyes away from
mine and rubbed his brow. “Sorry, but I real y need you to
sit in the meeting for me this time. They’re voting on taking
the irrigation funding project to the board, and that’s not
something I want to do. You have to be there to sway the
discussion and then make sure they vote my way. I want it
nixed.”
I shook my head. “No, I can’t do that, Jeremy.”
He lifted his gaze and now, looked at me with a frown.
“What do you mean?”
“I...can’t...do...it. I can’t drop everything because you have to speak at a conference that you forgot. You forgot, Jeremy, not me. So you need to either cancel the board meeting or the
conference. Either one, it doesn’t matter to me.”
“You know that’s not possible.” He sighed with
exasperation. “I can’t cancel the ministers meeting. Reverend
Lewis is flying in from Los Angeles.”
I inhaled. That was true. The man who’d been the assistant
pastor at Pilgrim’s Rest had turned out to be a valuable
resource and mentor to Jeremy as we were building New
Kingdom. Right away, Jeremy had asked and Reverend Lewis
had agreed to be a part of his ministerial team, even though
he didn’t live in D.C.. But that hadn’t mattered. For the last ten years, Reverend Lewis had mentored Jeremy from afar
and flew in once a quarter for these meetings.
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“Well, you’re right,” I said, nonchalantly. “You can’t cancel
the ministers meeting, so I guess it’s the conference that’l
have to go.”
He squeezed his face into a frown as if he didn’t understand
my English. “You want me to give up a ten thousand dollar
speaking gig? Do you know how ridiculous that sounds?”
“It sounds as ridiculous as you asking me to disappoint
all of those girls in there.” I pointed toward the family room.
“And I’m not going to do that. This job fair is important to
them. It’s important to ME. It’s as important as anything
that’s on your calendar.”
“I’m not asking you to disappoint them. That’s why we pay
Dru. She can cover for you. What are they going to be doing
anyway? Just walking up and down a couple of aisles, surely,
you don’t have to be there for that.”
Those words, his belittling what was so important to me,
took me from zero to one hundred in three seconds flat. The
only reason I didn’t go off was that we had a house full of
people and we were still the Pastor and First Lady of New
Kingdom Temple.
“Maybe we need to talk about this later,” I said before I
ignited into a rage.
He shook his head. “No time. That’s why I came home.
I’ve got to pack now. I’ve got about an hour before Dana will
be here and....”
“Wait. Hold up. You’re leaving now? And you’re leaving
with Dana?”
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He looked at me as if I’d just asked a stupid question.
“Yeah, now and yeah, Dana. She’s going with me.” It must
have been my expression that made him hold up his hand.
“We’re not going to have that conversation,” he said. “Before
you ask, Dana is going because she arranged this conference
for me a year ago.”
“That’s part of her job description. To get publicity for
the church and that includes speaking engagements,” I told
him as if he’d forgotten. “But what’s not on her to-do list is to travel with you. And this is the second time, Jeremy.”
His sigh sounded weary. “This is so bizarre. The way you’ve
recently become so...jealous.”
“I am not jealous.” I felt like I was in the middle of a
temper tantrum. “I don’t have anything to be jealous about.”
He threw up his hands as if I’d just made his point. “That’s
what I’m saying.”
“It’s just that you and I decided a decade ago how we were
going to handle our church. And traveling with a woman was
not on that list.”
“Well things change.”
With my eyebrows and my voice raised, I asked, “What
changed?”
“I have a reputation already. It’s set. People know that I’m
not caught up in any affairs, anything that’s improper. I’m just taking care of God’s business and I thought that’s what you
signed up for, too.”
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“What I signed up for first,” I held up my left hand and
wiggled the five carat ring that now graced my finger, “was to be your wife. And as your wife, I feel all kinds of disrespected right now.”
“Well, you need to find a way to get over it because those
people are expecting me, Reverend Jeremy Wil iams, to be in
Atlanta to speak tomorrow.” He snatched his computer bag
and moved toward the steps. “The ministers meeting is at
noon, as it always is.”
His back was to me when I said, “And like I told you, I
have plans.”
But Jeremy kept walking as if his word was the last word.
When I heard his footsteps trotting up the stairs, all I could do was squeeze my hands into fists.
It had been a long time since I’d been this angry and the
challenge was, when I got like this, there was no telling what I would do.
Chapter Twelve
“You didn’t go to the meeting!”
My chest heaved, I was breathing so heavily as I paced
the width of our bedroom.
“I can’t believe you didn’t go to the meeting.”
I squeezed my cell phone as if I were trying to break it
with my bare hand. But better the cell phone than Jeremy’s
neck, which was what I would’ve been breaking if he’d been
standing in front of me. He had one more time to shout at
me and I would click off this phone, right in the middle of
his rant.
“Why didn’t you do what I told you to do?”
With those words, I pulled the phone away from my
ear and stared at it. Had Jeremy Williams really just asked
me that? Was he truly speaking to me like I was Jasmine or
Jayden?
“I’m talking to you, Ginger. Do you hear me?” Jeremy
shouted.
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152 | Gizel e Bryant
“The real question is,” I said, speaking my first words
since I’d answered Jeremy’s call, “do you hear yourself? You’re talking to me like I’m one of your children and you need to
calm yourself if you want me to stay on this phone.”
I heard his deep sigh and then after a few moments, he
said, “Look, I’m sorry. It’s just that Lizzy sent me the minutes from the meeting and I’m blown away because that meeting
“I know it was. Just like my plans were important to me.
But you know what, Jeremy, even though you’d pissed me off,
even though you didn’t give any consideration to what I had
to do, even though you acted like the world revolved around
you, I still went ahead and changed my plans.”
“How can you say that? You didn’t go to the meeting.”
“You’re a man of God, so you need to stop lying.” I paused,
giving him a moment to calm down so that he would hear
me. “I changed, not only my schedule, but the girl’s schedule, too. I went to the job fair early, didn’t stay as long as I would have liked and I made it to the church before the end of the
meeting. If you have the minutes from Lizzy, you know that.”
“You didn’t make it in time. They’d already taken the vote
to bring irrigation project to the board and you know that’s
not what I wanted.”
“Wel , I’m sorry about that, but this is just one reason
why you and I need to get back on the same track. You can’t
take me for granted the way you’ve been doing. I have a life,
too. I’m trying to make a difference in my own way and you
need to understand that or we’re gonna have some problems.”
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There was so much tension in the silence that followed,
but I didn’t care. I’d always been the stand-by-my-pastor-man
chick, but I’d never done that silently and I wasn’t going to be quiet about what I was feeling now.
“All right,” he acquiesced. “I’m sorry, Ginger. I didn’t mean
to go off. It’s just that vote...never mind. Just know that I’m sorry.”
This would have been the moment for me to just accept
his apology. And in the past, I would have done that. But
Jeremy was beginning to feel a little different to me. Like he was a bit off-kilter, moving away from everything we’d built
our relationship on. It was like he’d somehow started to rise
above me, as if we weren’t equals.
It didn’t feel like it was time for me to ring the alarm, but
there was definitely a yellow caution sign in my heart.
Finally, I said, “Jeremy, it’s fine....”
He breathed.
“But we’re really going to have to address this because
something’s going on.”
“What do you mean?”
I flopped onto our bed. “You’re different. You’re changing
in everything and in every way. In our relationship, the way
you handle things with the church.”
“I’m not changing, at least not any way out of the normal.
People change, we grow. We’re not different, we’re better.
Look, I really want to talk to you about this, but uh, I’ve got to get down to the conference. I’m speaking today.”
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I frowned. “I thought you were speaking yesterday. I
thought that was why you had to miss the meeting.”
“Uh, yeah. Yeah, I spoke yesterday, but I’m speaking at...a
workshop, this morning.”
Was Jeremy stuttering?
“Look, I’ve gotta go, but I promise you we’ll talk about
this when I get home.”
“Okay, I’ll see you tonight.”
“No, tomorrow morning.”
My frown deepened. “I thought you were coming back
tonight.”
“I never said that. I knew I’d be speaking yesterday and
then again today. And I’m going to attend the dinner here
tonight.”
“Well we have a dinner tomorrow. Did you forget we’re
having dinner with the Douglases?”
“Ah, I did forget,” he said. “But that’s no problem ‘cause
I’m going to fly out first thing in the morning and I’l be there before you get out of bed. I promise, babe. And I love you. I
love you so much.”
He hung up before I could tell him the same. Something
didn’t feel right about that call. Jeremy stuttering and then
what was up with his change of plans?
But then, I paused. Had there really been a change of
plans? I squinted, trying to remember what Jeremy had told
me. But now that I looked back, he hadn’t told me anything.
I’d been so angry when he’d returned to the living room a little
My Word | 155
less than an hour after our blowup, I hadn’t even acknowledged his presence, not even when he’d kissed my cheek goodbye.
He’d texted when he landed and then texted again to tell
me goodnight. I hadn’t responded to either and hadn’t spoken
to him all day yesterday.
So maybe this wasn’t a change of plans. Maybe it was just
that he hadn’t told me—which was a change in itself.
“Stop it,” I whispered. I didn’t want to be that woman.
The one who anticipated the worst. Being away from home
and traveling with Dana didn’t automatically mean that was
trouble. Jeremy wasn’t like that and I wasn’t going to will him to be. For ten years now, he’d been faithful; it would be crazy for him to change now. Plus, the least attractive woman to a
man was a crazy, jealous wife.
Pushing myself up from the bed, I glanced in the leaning
mirror and gave myself a nod of assurance. Everything was
fine with me and Jeremy. We just had to straighten out some
stuff.And we would do that. When Jeremy got home.
Tomorrow.
d
Like Jeremy promised, my husband returned home this
morning before I’d had a chance to roll over. The sun was just beginning its rise when I did and as my eyes fluttered open,
my husband came into focus. He was standing right there as
if he’d been waiting for me.
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It would have been shocking, if it hadn’t been such a
pleasant sight. Jeremy stood wearing nothing but his double-
dimpled smile. And oh, his body saluted me, a clear indication that he’d missed me.
Without saying a word, Jeremy climbed into our bed,
pushing the duvet aside. Then, he held himself in a plank
over me and covered my face with the softest of kisses, his
apology inside each one.
I parted my lips and my legs, accepting all of him, all
that he wanted to say, all that he wanted me to feel. And
as we made slow love, every doubt inside my mind faded
away. Why had I been concerned? As I became faint with the
overwhelming feeling of pleasure, I just couldn’t remember.
There was no need for me to worry. Jeremy and I were as
connected as we’d always been.
Through the rest of the day, the memory of this morning
had stayed in my thoughts. In my office, I could hardly
concentrate, my mind constantly took me back a few hours,
especially every time I saw Jeremy. Even as he was standing
in the hallway talking to Lizzy, all I could see was that sight of him this morning, naked as the day he’d been born.
More than a few times, Dru had asked me if I were okay.
And after Lizzy had called my name a couple of times and I
hadn’t heard her, she told me that maybe I needed to go home
and take a break.
But the best part of the day (after this morning) had been
Dana. The woman who daily, sauntered into the church offices
&
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as if she owned my world, today wore only a scowl. I’d even
caught her once rolling her eyes at Jeremy after he’d asked her for a report and then turned his back.
What happened between them?
Whatever, I now felt at ease.
I sighed.
“You okay, babe?”
Glancing over at my husband behind the wheel, I wanted
to tell him I was more than okay. I wanted to tell him to pull over so we could have an encore to this morning in the back
seat of this Jag. But all I did was squeeze his hand that held mine as he steered the car with his other. I hummed, “Mmm-hmm,” letting him know that I was fine.
“This has been a good day,” he said and I agreed. He
added, “Does it make up for the other day?”
I gave him a long look before I said, “We’re on our way.”
I still wanted to talk to my husband; I didn’t want to ignore
all that I’d been feeling.
He nodded. “I agree and I’m going to do everything I
can to get us back on track. And we’re gonna start with this
weekend.” He lifted my hand, kissed my palm, then released
me as he used two hands to exit I-395.
This weekend. I shivered with a bit of anticipation. Jeremy
had asked Dru if the kids could stay with her this weekend
and she had readily agreed. Jasmine and Jayden had been
excited, too; they cheered so much like they always did, I
began to wonder if she fed them ice cream for breakfast.
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But with the kids with Dru all weekend, Jeremy and I
could spend all of our time not only making love, but talking
so that we could fix the cracks that I was beginning to feel.
A few minutes later, he rolled the Jag to a stop in front of
the Jefferson condominiums. As an attendant opened Jeremy’s
door, he grabbed his cell from the console while another one
opened the passenger door for me.
“Good evening,” the attendant said. “Who are you
visiting?”
“Reverend and Mrs. Sonya Douglas,” Jeremy answered
as he came around to my side. He took my hand and led me
through the huge glass doors. As Jeremy checked in with the
concierge, my eyes circled the lobby and like the last time I’d visited, I appreciated the marble floors, glossy stark-white
walls and the chandelier that hung in the center of the space.
A light lavender scent filled my nostrils, making me feel like I was inside a spa.
This was only my second visit to First Lady Sonya and
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