Right Package, Wrong Baggage

by Wanda B. Campbell

  Pamela had to walk on that statement. The only thing that disgusted her more than Micah having sex with a man was the image of him making love to a woman other than herself.

  “Ms. Roberts, is there anything else you would like to discuss?” Micah asked when he caught up with her.

  Pamela shook her head. They walked the last quarter mile in silence. From time to time, Micah would look over at her and try to find a glimpse of hope in her facial expression, but he couldn’t.

  Pamela wasn’t angry anymore, but she wasn’t ready for things to go back to the way they were. She also wasn’t ready to remove Micah completely out of her life. What if he weren’t completely through with that lifestyle? What if he weren’t telling her the truth?

  “It was a nice ride, wasn’t it? he asked at the end of the trail, preparing for the inevitable.

  “What ride?”

  “You and me; it was nice. I’ll always remember our time together.”

  “Who says it’s over?” Pamela questioned.

  “You did last night.”

  “I also said I love you. That hasn’t changed, but I need some time to figure this out.” She finally looked him in the eyes. “I heard everything you said, and I think I understand, but I don’t know if this is right for me. Plus, I have Matthew to think about. I have to be careful about what I expose him to. He’s my son, and I have to do what I feel is best for him.”

  Micah braced himself for her next blow by stepping toward his vehicle.

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea for the two of you to continue spending so much time together, at least not until I figure this out. I’m going to ask my neighbor to pick Matthew up from after-school care on the days I’m running late and also to take him to practice. I’ll explain to Matthew that it’s only temporary. There’s only a week left in the season anyway.”

  Micah didn’t say anything, just unlocked his SUV.

  “You and I should cut back as well. You do understand, don’t you?” she asked just before he started the engine.

  “Ms. Roberts, I understand completely.” Micah left her standing alone in the parking lot watching his taillights.

  Pamela clicked her seat belt a second before her cell phone vibrated. She checked the caller ID before answering. It was her mother.

  “What’s the latest with you and Micah?” Dorothy asked.

  “Nothing, Mama.” Pamela tried to sound upbeat. She didn’t want her mother to worry about her.

  “Then why did you send Jessica to pick Matthew up?”

  “We needed to talk, that’s all.” Pamela wasn’t ready to share the last twenty-four hours with her family.

  “Is everything all right?”

  “It will be. I’ll call you in a couple of days.” Pamela hung up before her mother started in with her twenty questions.

  That night Pamela couldn’t sleep. Micah’s story replayed constantly in her mind. She wanted to believe him, but it was too incredible. The pastor of the church seducing young men? Pamela couldn’t believe a man of God would jeopardize his family and use the Word of God to justify it. Why would a man who likes men marry a woman and keep a boyfriend on the side in the church? Micah was lying, he had to be. That’s what men do when they get caught; they lie. That’s the only thing that made sense to her. She guessed this Richard Lewis character didn’teven exist. But what if he did?

  Pamela sat at her home workstation and turned on her computer. She opened the search engine and typed in Pastor Richard Lewis in Chicago. To both her surprise and relief, she found multiple articles about the Pentecostal pastor. Pamela clicked on the link to his church’s Web site.

  “Oh my God,” she said as his image downloaded. Pastor Richard Lewis looked just as sanctimonious as any preacher she’d ever seen. He was tall and majestic in his purple and gold robe. She read his bio; single father of two adult children with a Ph.D. in psychology. One of his major accomplishments included the creation of a mentoring program for males ages sixteen to twenty-five. She clicked the icon and browsed the photo gallery. That’s when she saw it.

  In an old photo of the grand opening ceremony of the church’s new job training center, Pastor Lewis posed with the Mayor of Chicago and several other civic leaders. In the background off to the right was a young man holding an overcoat and a briefcase. The man wore a black casual suit and white dress shirt. Every face in the picture bore a smile except his. His face looked sullen and sad. That man was Micah.

  “Micah is telling the truth,” she whispered. “What am I going to do?” Pamela stared mindlessly at the screen so long, the screen saver photo of her, Micah, and Matthew popped up. The content face smiling back at her was a big contrast from the gloomy guy on the Web site photo. Micah wasn’t the same person he was back then, but just how different remained to be seen.

  Chapter 12

  Matthew skipped into the kitchen and sat down at the table for breakfast. “Good morning, Mommy.”

  “Hey, baby.” Pamela placed a plate of pancakes with sausage and a glass of apple juice in front of him and then stood back and watched her son eat his breakfast. She didn’t want to tell him that he wouldn’t be spending time alone with Micah anymore, but she had to. She was his mother, and it was her job to protect him.

  “Matthew,” she began, “Mr. Larson is going to pick you up from after-school care and take you to practice when I’m running late.” She’d spoken to her overfriendly neighbor earlier that morning, and he readily agreed.

  Matthew swallowed the piece of sausage he’d been chewing, then asked, “What about Micah?”

  Pamela chose her words carefully. “Mr. Larson lives closer to the practice field. He can take you without getting stuck in traffic.” That didn’t even make sense to her. The direction of the practice field was opposite commute traffic.

  “Micah doesn’t get stuck.”

  Pamela forgot her son was smarter than the average six-year-old. She’d have to come up with something better than that. “I know, but Mr. Larson wants to help out.” That was true. He’d been offering his assistance to her for months.

  “We will still have dinner together with Micah, right?”

  Pamela hadn’t thought about that. “I don’t know.”

  Matthew continued eating, but Pamela could tell he wasn’t happy about this new arrangement, but she wasn’t going to change her mind.

  “Matthew, what kinds of things do you and Micah do when I’m not around?” Pamela had to be certain Micah hadn’t violated her son.

  “We talk and play games.”

  “What do you talk about?” she pressed.

  Matthew finished off his pancakes before answering. “School and baseball. We talk a lot about my homework. Sometimes we talk about you.”

  “Me?” Pamela seemed surprised.

  “Micah says he loves you very much.” Matthew giggled.

  Pamela pushed that thought to the back of her mind and focused on her fact-finding mission. “What kind of games do you play?”

  Matthew twisted his face as if he were trying to remember something important. He used his fingers to count. “We play catch . . . the song game . . . um, the word game, and numbers.”

  Pamela decided to use a direct approach. “Matthew, does Micah touch you in any way?”

  “He touches me all the time.” Matthew smiled, but Pamela’s heart skipped a beat.

  “Exactly where does he touch you?” she asked in a controlled tone.

  “You know, Mommy,” Matthew giggled. “He rubs my head and holds my hand. We hug. I ride his shoulders. My favorite is when he tickles me.”

  “Does he touch you in any other way?”

  He thought for a moment. “No.” Matthew then put his plate and glass into the sink and ran upstairs.

  Pamela stood over the sink and said a prayer of thanks. Her son hadn’t been molested by Micah, and she would see to it that he never would be.

  Micah went through his day trying unsuccessfully to keep his thoughts away from Pamela. He check
ed his watch for the third time in the last hour. If it were last Friday, they would have talked twice by now and it wasn’t even noon. He would have told her how much he loved her, and she would have repeated the same sentiments to him. Between service calls, he would have driven by her office building and attached a love note to the windshield of her Altima. Later, Pamela would call him, giggling over the sweet written words. But it wasn’t Friday, it was Monday. Just two days without Pamela and Matthew and his heart refused to stop aching for them.

  Yesterday at the marina when Pamela said she still loved him, Micah had a brief surge of hope. But that spark was extinguished in the next breath when she treated him like a registered sex offender and a pedophile.

  The more the weekend replayed in his mind, Micah realized Pamela really didn’t know him at all. Six months of quality time together and she didn’t know him. She really didn’t if she honestly believed he would violate Matthew, especially after he explained how he had been taken advantage of. He also realized Pamela left him in limbo in regards to their relationship. Micah didn’t know if they were still in a relationship or not. She wasn’t clear about anything with him, except that he stay away from her son. Micah pondered her request out loud.

  “She wants time, but she didn’t say how much time. She loves me, but she wants to limit our communication.” Micah didn’t know if he should call her or speak to her at all. Since he didn’t know what to do, he decided to do nothing.

  Finally finished with recording multiple transactions all morning, Jessica stepped into Pamela’s office and sat down. “Now we can talk. How did it go yesterday?”

  Pamela shrugged her shoulders. “We talked. He explained everything to me, but nothing has changed.”

  “What did he say?”

  Jessica listened to Pamela repeat the prevalent details of Micah’s unbelievable, but apparently true story. “That’s so sad,” Jessica said. “What type of person would prey on innocent victims like that? What type of man would sacrifice the welfare of his family like that? What pastor would deceive God’s people like that?”

  “See for yourself.” Pamela pulled up the Web site, and then turned the monitor so Jessica could view it.

  “Girl, he looks like the devil himself!” Jessica exclaimed.

  Pamela shook her head and shrugged her shoulders. “He looks normal to me.”

  “Girl, please. Look at those beady eyes and the way his eyebrows almost touch each other. I wouldn’t trust him as far as I can throw Anthony Combs.”

  Pamela laughed, but she still didn’t see what Jessica saw. But then again, she wasn’t the best judge of character when it came to men.

  “At least you know the truth. Now you and Micah can move forward.” When Pamela didn’t respond, Jessica asked, “You are going to move forward, aren’t you?”

  Pamela sighed deeply. “I don’t think so,” she finally answered. Since Jessica’s mouth was already gaped open, she decided to just lay it all out. “I also asked him to keep his distance from Matthew.”

  “What?”

  “Jess, I don’t want to be married to a homosexual,” Pamela answered honestly. “And I don’t want my son molested.”

  Jessica planted her palms on the desk and leaned forward. “Pam, did you hear anything Micah told you? He’s not a homosexual or a child molester. Lust doesn’t control him anymore.”

  “I know, but that’s now. What happens two years or five years from now when his desires change? What happens when he craves a man, and Matthew is the only male around?”

  “What do you mean? Micah is healed,” Jessica insisted. “He’s not going to crave a man, and he loves Matthew. He would never hurt him.”

  “But Jess, you’ve heard the stories. Homosexuality is a hard, if not impossible, thing to break free from.”

  “So is fornication, drugs, alcohol, gambling, abuse . . . shall I go on?” Jessica asked. “Everything is hard without God, but everything is possible with Him.”

  “Homosexuality is different,” Pamela contended and threw her hands up. “It’s unnatural and nasty.”

  Jessica refused to back down. “It’s also nasty to give our bodies to everyone who comes through the drive-thru. It’s unnatural to pollute our bodies with drugs and alcohol. It’s very unnatural and deadly, I might add, to beat another human. But God forgives us for those sins every day.”

  “And every day, people fall,” Pamela contended. “You remember Eugene and Cassandra. Eugene swore up and down he was free, but after Cassandra married him and had their daughter, he left her and went back to his homosexual lifestyle; even moved in with his lover.”

  “Pam, that’s different. Pastor Jackson warned Cassandra over and over again about marrying Eugene. He even refused to officiate the wedding,” Jessica explained.

  “It still proves my point. He did fall, didn’t he?”

  “Did you fall back into your mess?” Jessica snapped.

  “What?” Pamela didn’t know what her past had to with the conversation. “What I used to do is irrelevant.”

  Jessica stared long and hard at her friend of twelve years. “Pam, you know you’re my girl, so I can come real with you, right?”

  Pamela leaned back and folded her arms. “Go ahead.”

  “Pamela, you are judgmental and self-righteous.”

  “What?” Pamela slapped her palms onto her desk and leaned forward.

  “Have you forgotten that you didn’t fall out of Jesus’ lap? Have you forgotten that since salvation, you’ve messed up in one area or another? I know you remember how God delivered you and brought you out of destructive behavior. Do I need to take you on a trip down memory lane?”

  “Of course not!” Pamela snapped.

  “If God can heal you and you never go back to destroying your body, why can’t He heal Micah and sustain him?”

  “That’s different,” Pamela said, and to emphasize her point, rolled her eyes. “I didn’t lust after a woman!”

  Jessica’s next statement not only infuriated Pamela, but it pulled the scab off an old wound.

  “Micah’s past is no different from the lust that controlled your late husband.”

  Pamela’s face flushed. “What are you talking about?” Her volume caught the attention of a coworker out in the hallway.

  Jessica promptly went and closed the door. “Marlon slept with everything walking, and you always took him back,” she clarified after she returned to the desk.

  “Marlon did not sleep with a man!”

  “How do you know? He wasn’t sleeping with you.” Pamela moved her mouth, but she couldn’t deny the raw truth. Jessica continued. “How is it that you can accept the lust in a man who sleeps around and cheats constantly? You can accept a man who purposefully hurts you time and time again. You can tolerate a man who didn’t care enough to show up for the birth of his own child. You can accept a man who didn’t try to do right by you or by God. You can marry a man who loved himself and probably never loved you. You can accept all that, but you can’t accept Micah?”

  Pamela stood to her feet. “How dare you compare my late husband to Micah Stevenson?” Her voice trembled.

  Jessica met her stance and locked eyes. “You’re right, Pam, there is no comparison. Micah is saved, and he loves you. He cares enough about you to tell you the truth and open his heart to you and allow you to see his vulnerability and weakness. To top it off, he’s a great father to Matthew. But that’s not enough for you. Do you know how many women would love to have someone love them half as much as Micah loves you? I know I would. If a man like Micah wanted to marry me, I’d do it and treat him like a king.” Jessica folded her arms and rolled her eyes.

  “Then you can have him!” Pamela stormed out of her own office and ran down the hall into the restroom. Once secure inside the stall, she cried the tears she’d been fighting to keep at bay.

  Why did Jessica have to bring up all the mess she’d been trying hard to forget? Ever since Micah left Saturday night, she’d been suppressing
the feelings she’d buried deep down inside when her husband died five years ago. Marlon wasn’t a good husband. He was worse than lousy and an even worse father. The one thing he did teach her was that a person’s behavior is repetitive. People rarely changed.

  Later that afternoon, Pamela called her mother, but that didn’t yield any relief from her mental anguish. After she heard the story, her mother felt the same way as Jessica.

  “Pam, he is not like that anymore,” Dorothy told her. “He’s free now.”

  “Momma, how do you know?” Without meaning to, Pamela yelled at her mother.

  “Pamela Ann, I will reach through this phone and beat the devil out of you if ever raise your voice at me again! Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Mama; I’m sorry,”Pamela mumbled, knowing there was no possible way her mother could make good on such a threat.

  “I know this is not what you expected, but it’s not as bad as you think. Micah is honest, saved, and he loves you. I know that’s why he told you.”

  Pamela was growing tired of the “Micah Stevenson Cheerleading Squad.” “Mama, I don’t want to be married to a down-low brother.” Pamela thought that would quiet her mother, since her closest friend’s husband had revealed he was sleeping with men after being married to his wife for over twenty years.

  “Correct me if I wrong. I don’t have junior college education like you do. Doesn’t the term down-low in itself imply that someone’s trying to hide something? Micah’s not hiding anything from you. Micah poured his heart out to you.” Pamela had to admit that was true. “Can I ask you something?”

  Pamela knew her response didn’t matter. Dorothy Jacobs was going to say what was on her mind. “Yes.” Pamela barely got the one syllable word out before Dorothy began grilling her.