Dr. Jennings studied her quietly. “You know, Francine, this anxiety is not a bad thing. You do have some challenges ahead of you, and recognizing them will only make you better equipped to meet them. Now, back to the therapist. Did you find one with a Christian orientation?”
“Dawn had a couple on her list, but I didn’t pick one of them.”
Dr. Jennings leaned forward. “Why not? Your faith has been a large part of your life for all of your life, Francine. It’s reasonable that what’s happened has caused you to reevaluate a lot of what you believe, but if you’re going to be whole again, you’re going to have to work through the faith issues in a rational way.”
“You may be right,” Francine said, “but I’m not ready for anyone to explain what the Bible means to me, or to interpret what God is saying. I did that with Bishop Payne and look where it got me. Thank God, I know now that’s something I have to do on my own.”
“Not all religious people are like Bishop Payne or the others at Temple Church.”
“I know that in my head,” Francine said, “but my heart is another matter. I have to do this my way.”
“All right,” the doctor said. “I’m not going to push.” She glanced at her pad again. “I guess that ends our session for today. We’ll meet again before your Sunday discharge.”
~ ~ ~
As Sylvester Ray entered his home Friday evening, he rubbed his hand across the back of his neck, trying to wipe away the stress of the day. As manager of Amen-Ray Funeral Home, the family business he co-owned with his wife and sister-in-law, he had a lot on his shoulders. Though the business had recovered the ground it lost during the fallout of Francine leaving town, things were not going as well as he knew they needed to go in order for the funeral home to thrive. A quick solution would be to sell out to Easy Rest, the public company that had taken over a large number of smaller funeral homes in the Southeast, but he wanted that to be the answer of last resort. He knew that a move like that at this point in time would more likely than not lead to the end of his marriage of four years. He had no doubt that his wife, Dawn Amen-Ray, would consider such a decision the last straw. So Sylvester was left to find another solution if he wanted to keep his wife. And he did want to keep her. Doing so just seemed to get more difficult every day.
On his way through the kitchen, he opened the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of mineral water. He drank it as he walked past the closed door of the upstairs bedroom that was now his wife’s and on to the master bedroom that was now his alone. His eyes widened in surprise and welcome when he saw Dawn standing in the doorway of the closet they had once shared, their bed littered with her clothes. His heart quickened at the sight of her in a pair of denim cutoffs too short and too worn for her to wear anywhere but in the house. The sight of her and her long, sleek, cinnamon-toasted legs made him yearn for the times when things had been good between them. Then he would have pulled her into his arms and they would have spent the rest of the evening making very good use of their king-sized bed. But things weren’t good between them and he had as much a chance of getting her into that teak bed as he did of finding a million dollars under one of the pillows.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
She turned to him, her bright brown eyes full of the accusation they usually held for him these days. “What does it look like I’m doing?”
He sighed as he walked fully into the room. He drank the last of his water and then tossed the bottle into the teak wastebasket in the corner of the room. How many times would he have to ask for forgiveness? Would she ever forgive him? Did it even matter? “It looks like you’re putting your clothes in that closet, but I’m sure that’s not the case since you no longer consider this room yours.”
She turned away from him and continued with her clothes. “You know Francine is coming home.”
He dropped down on the edge of the bed. “So that’s what this is about? You’re going to put on a happy face for Francine. You don’t want her to know we’re not sleeping together.”
She turned a glare on him. “Do you?”
“Why should I care what Francine thinks about our marriage? I care what we think about it. I care what you think about it.”
She turned away again. “There was a time when you cared a lot about what Francine thought.”
Yes, he’d been devastated when Francine had deserted him, but out of that devastation had come his relationship with Dawn. “That was a long time ago, Dawn. We’re married. I love you.”
“So you say.”
He got up, went to her, and turned her to face him. “I do love you. What do I have to do to make you believe me?” He read her answer in her eyes and dropped his hands away from her. “I can’t undo it, Dawn. I made a mistake. Can’t you forgive me?”
“It’s so easy for you to say. Forgive me, Dawn. I love you, Dawn,” she mimicked. “But you know what? It’s not easy for me to believe you’re sincere. You were telling me you loved me for months, and loving me physically, while you were having an affair right under my nose, with somebody I knew. How can I believe anything you say? Would you believe me if the tables were turned?”
Sylvester felt the resentment rise up in his throat. Dawn often taunted him with the idea of her and another man. “I would want to. I would want to believe that we could get back what we’d lost. I’d want to believe that.”
“But could you? Would you really want me if you knew I’d been with someone else for months, that I’d been with you and somebody else for months?”
Sylvester turned away from her. The idea of her with another man turned his insides. He didn’t even like to think about it. His repulsion at the idea of her being with another man was the only thing that kept him holding on to a marriage that seemed, at times, unsalvageable. He could imagine the hurt, betrayal, and yes, anger, he’d feel if she’d done what he did, so he was willing to give her time to forgive him. He just didn’t know how long he could hold on without some sign of encouragement from her.
“I didn’t think so.” Dawn stomped into the closet. “Men! I can’t believe you. You go out and do what you do, not expecting to get caught, and when you do, you expect to be forgiven. You tell me I’m being cruel, but I know for a fact that I’m treating you a million times better than you’d be treating me if I’d had an affair.”
“You don’t know how I’d react.”
Dawn propped her hands on her hips and stared him down. “Puh-leez, Sylvester. I remember how you reacted when Francine left town with that traveling minister. She was out of your system so fast it made my head spin. I still wonder if you didn’t go after me to get back at her.”
She’d questioned his motives when he’d first begun to pursue her. He’d convinced her then that what he felt for her had nothing to do with the feelings he’d had for her sister. Now all of her insecurities were coming back, and it was his fault. He still didn’t know why he’d done it. Why had he put his marriage in jeopardy for a few hours of sexual release with a woman he didn’t even really care about?
Dawn tapped one slender foot against the plush carpet. “Tell me, Sylvester, do you still have feelings for Francine? Am I going to come home one day and find you and her—”
“Don’t say it, Dawn. She’s your sister, for goodness’ sake. If you don’t have any faith in me, at least have some in her. Besides, if you’re so worried, why’re you inviting her to stay with us?”
“You know why. It’s her home and she has nowhere else to go. You know she has no money and no job. She gave all her money to that church and she lost her job a long time ago because she was too busy ministering to go to work.” She dropped her hands to her sides. “And I was supposed to be the irresponsible sister. Who would have ever thought it would turn out to be Francine?”
“Not me, that’s for sure. Francine was as predictable as Wednesday night Bible study.”
“Until our grandparents died.”
Sylvester felt the grief his wife still carried for the grandparen
ts who’d reared her and Francine. Both women had taken the deaths hard. Dawn had settled down and tried to become the granddaughter they’d always wanted her to be, while Francine had broken out of the mold they had for her and had begun to spread her wings. Though Francine’s actions had been more self-destructive in the end, Sylvester knew Dawn had her own set of demons. He knew she had many misgivings about her relationship with the older couple, many wrongs she wished she’d righted before they died, but she hadn’t had the chance and that haunted her. He saw it in her eyes now, the regret, making him want to pull her into his arms and tell her that it would be all right. But he didn’t have the right. She’d push him away as she’d done many times before. He stripped off his slacks in preparation for bed. “Are you sleeping in here tonight?” he asked as he passed her on the way to the bathroom, though he knew the answer.
“I’ll sleep across the hall until Francine gets here.”
“Surprise, surprise.”
Ignoring his comment, she said, “I’m going to leave to pick her up straight from the Leadership Team meeting tomorrow morning, so we’ll have to go in separate cars.”
He turned back to her. “Are you sure you don’t want me to go with you? I can still get away.”
She shook her head. “I can handle it on my own!”
Sylvester grunted his assent as he closed the bathroom door. Though he loved his wife and knew he had to pay for his mistakes, he didn’t know how long he could continue to live in a loveless marriage.
Chapter 2
Sylvester sat forward in intense concentration. He hadn’t been too enthusiastic when he’d heard a representative from BCN, Black Christian Network, a newly founded cable television station, would be speaking at the Leadership Team meeting this morning, but now that the guy was talking, Sylvester was more than interested. Not because of what the rep said about BCN, but because of the idea that the guy had given him for Amen-Ray Funeral Home. The speaker, whom Sly had nicknamed Mr. Slick partly because he wore his graying hair slicked back like Al Sharpton and partly because of the used-car-salesman cadence to his voice, overwhelmed the quaint and homey environs of the banquet room of Rob’s Country Buffet with his grandiose multimedia presentation. But Sly had to hand it to the man, he definitely had his ducks all in a row.
“So that’s our proposal for BCN,” Mr. Slick said, wrapping up his presentation. “Are there any questions?”
Sylvester had a few, but since none of them related directly to BCN, he kept his mouth shut. Rev. Thomas, the dapper sixty-year-old pastor at Faith Central, spoke up first. He flipped through the fancy package of color slides Mr. Slick had given them. “So you’d fund this station through individual donations, selling programming time to churches and other black Christian groups, and advertisements?”
“That’s right,” Mr. Slick said. “That’s three sources of revenue. Our projection has most of our initial funding coming from individual donations and selling programming time but then by year three moving to a situation where most, if not all, of our funding is from advertisements. As that percentage grows, we’ll decrease the amount we charge churches and other groups for programming.”
Rev. Thomas nodded. “I’m a bit concerned about these individual donations. What do people get in return for donating?”
“The blessing of giving.”
Rev. Thomas laughed. “That’s a good one, but if Faith Central is going to even consider being involved in this, we’d have to see the donors getting more in return. We’ve seen too many ministries built on the backs of working Christians that have, in the end, only served to line the pockets of those in charge. We can’t be a part of anything that would abuse people that way.”
“We don’t look at it as abuse,” Mr. Slick said. “It’s an opportunity for people to help in spreading the gospel. That’ll be their reward.”
“What will be your reward?” Rev. Thomas asked, leaning back in his chair, his fingers steepled across the bridge of his nose.
“Of course, I’d be on the payroll and collect a salary based on the role I play in building the business.”
“I’d like to see the donors reap a similar benefit,” Rev. Thomas said, looking around the circle of now-bare banquet tables at the deacons, trustees, and ministry and lay leaders constituting the Leadership Team at Faith Central. “If their donations are going to serve to get the business built, those donors should reap financial benefits once the station becomes profitable. It’s only fair. Are you open to discussing these types of benefits?”
Mr. Slick didn’t look as though he wanted to open a discussion on the issue, but he was smart enough to know that such an answer would effectively end all possibility of Faith Central participating in the venture. From the way Mr. Slick had described it, the station would live or die based on the support of small- to medium-sized congregations like Faith Central. The larger churches with the larger budgets could afford existing broadcast outlets, so they really had no incentive to participate in something like BCN. Smaller congregations like Faith Central could benefit from a collective of many churches participating in such a venture.
It was the idea of the collective that intrigued Sylvester. He saw direct application of that concept to the funeral home. Small family-owned funeral homes like theirs were struggling today, due in large part to market pressures being exerted on them by the larger corporate funeral homes seeking to take over the business. If the smaller funeral homes could bind together, maybe they could form a collective that could better battle the corporate guys than they could as individual funeral homes. It was definitely an idea worth pursuing.
“Does anyone else have any questions or comments?” Rev. Thomas was asking the group. Sylvester didn’t have to look around the room to know there would be no more questions. As usual, Rev. Thomas had quickly cut to the heart of the matter. If his pastor had one pet peeve, taking money from church folks was it. Sylvester knew then and there that Faith Central would not be a part of BCN, not the way it was currently organized.
Rev. Thomas looked back at Mr. Slick. “I think we understand your plan, Rev. Campbell. Unfortunately, in its present form, it doesn’t look like a match for where we see ourselves going at Faith Central.”
“Don’t you see that this station could broaden your ministry?” Mr. Slick asked, spreading open the jacket of what Sly guessed was a two-thousand-dollar suit and slipping his hands into the pockets of his slacks. The challenge in his stance matched the challenge in his voice. “Just imagine how many new souls you could serve. One day BCN will be as big and as effective as CBN.”
“It could,” Rev. Thomas agreed, “and I pray it does, but other things could happen as well. I’ve seen Christian nonprofit startups turn into major profit-making entities.”
Mr. Slick’s jaw twitched. “Do you have something against solid business decisions, Rev. Thomas?”
“Not at all, but if anyone is going to profit from this venture at any point in the future, there have to be provisions in place for the donors to reap their fair share. Without such a provision, you’re building a business on the backs—and pocketbooks—of working Christian men and women, many who would give beyond their means. Despite the benefits that might accrue to us by our involvement with BCN, Faith Central can’t be a party to taking the money of poor people and giving them nothing in return.”
“You’d pass on this opportunity because of that?” Mr. Slick asked, looking around the room as if waiting for someone to say no. All he got was nodding heads.
As if sensing sure defeat, Mr. Slick dropped his hands to his sides. “We came to Faith Central because you’re the type of progressive, forward-looking church we want involved with BCN. I’ll take this issue under consideration with my team and get back to you.”
Rev. Thomas accepted the compromise with a nod of his head. “We’ll be happy to listen to the options that you come up with. In fact, we have some folks here today who can help you work through those issues if you’re looking for some input. Stuar
t Rogers”—he inclined his head to the left, toward the bespectacled young deacon seated two tables away from him—“has done a lot of legal work with nonprofits, looking at exactly this point. I’m sure he’d be willing to share his experiences with you.”
Sylvester slid his gaze to Stuart, his close friend and prayer partner, who was already nodding his assent. Now Mr. Slick’s feet would be held to the fire. Between Pastor and Stuart, the guy would show his true colors. If his interest was ministry, then that would be quickly seen and Faith Central and BCN might be on the verge of a long and spiritually profitable association. Likewise, if his interest was strictly money, then that would be seen even more quickly and all discussions would end.
Rev. Thomas dismissed the meeting shortly thereafter with a group prayer. Dawn brushed against Sylvester as she stood and took her place in the prayer circle next to him. She put her hand on his forearm to steady herself and flashed him a loving smile. All a show, he knew, so none of their friends would know of the problem in their home. As Rev. Thomas prayed for the work of Faith Central, Sylvester prayed for his marriage. Afterwards he and Dawn followed the crowd out. As he walked Dawn to her car, he saw Stuart corner Mr. Slick and had to grin.
“What are you grinning about?” Dawn asked.
“Stuart just cornered that BCN guy.”
She gave him a smile and leaned up to press a wifely kiss on his cheek. Weary of the playacting, Sylvester pulled her into his arms and kissed her as he’d wanted to kiss for the last month. This time she didn’t pull away. Though he knew the only reason she didn’t was that others were watching, he didn’t care. If this was his only chance to touch her, he’d take what he could get.
“Hey, you two,” Rev. Thomas called. “You’re worse than the newlyweds. This is a parking lot. Haven’t you heard of Christian decorum?” he teased.
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