God Only Knows (21 page)

Cassie looked into Julia’s eyes, appreciation pouring forth. “Won’t it feel good to finally have clean hands about all this?”

“Yes,” Julia agreed, nodding and patting Cassie’s hand again. “The spiritual relief will be great. I’ll be able to focus more
on what’s most important again —Amber, Christian Light —and who knows? Maybe I’ll be able to think more clearly about Maxwell.”

“Maxwell?” Cassie jumped in her seat, and her flustered tone reminded Julia that she had just revealed more than planned.
“What you got to be thinking about Dr. Maxwell, Julia?”

Julia bowed her head, letting it fall into her open hands. “You did not hear that.”

“Oh, please, girlfriend, I sure did —”

“Ladies?” The tall oak door to the pastor’s study swung open suddenly, revealing Reverend Barbara O’Neal. Peering out at Julia
and Cassie through a pair of stylish glasses with black frames, she beckoned them with the wiggle of a finger. “Sorry to keep
you busy professionals waiting. Let’s get this show on the road.”

“We appreciate you agreeing to see us with late notice, Pastor,” Cassie said as they removed their coats and settled into
seats at the large round table adjacent to Pastor O’Neal’s desk.

“Not a problem,” the pastor said as she grabbed a large leather Bible from an end table. “You know I value the contributions
—in time and finances —that you each make to our congregation. It’s in our interest to provide spiritual insight whenever
you need it.” Taking a seat at the table, she reached for each woman’s hands. “Let’s pray.”

Silence descended for several seconds once Pastor O’Neal completed her prayer. It took a light kick in the shins from Julia
to get Cassie to open her mouth. “Pastor, Julia and I have agonized over this, but we felt moved by the Spirit to get your
guidance regarding a very sensitive issue from our respective pasts.”

Julia practiced what was for her remarkable restraint as Cassie continued with an account of the tragic facts, from the moment
of Eddie’s initial attack on her, up through Pete Whitlock’s harassments. They had agreed that the best way to lay it out
for a new observer would be to have one person tell the foundational story.

Once Cassie had accomplished that, Julia took over. “Pastor, now that we have obtained legal representation, we’re looking
at what to do as the rubber meets the road.”

“Let me be sure I understand,” Pastor O’Neal said, rocking back and forth in her chair. “Your criminal defense attorneys are
going to contact the Dayton district attorney, and enter your accounts as confessions?”

Julia nodded. “Yes.”

The pastor frowned. “And was this the counsel of your lawyers, that your accounts have to be shared with the authorities?”

“Oh, no,” Cassie replied. “Our attorneys have to treat any information we give as confidential, unless we release them to
share it. But Julia and I agreed, we wanted to confess to our involvement in that terrible night’s events. We just couldn’t
live with this secret any longer.”

“Well, I can’t argue with any action that’s in support of telling the truth,” Pastor O’Neal said, crossing the legs of her
pants suit. “I obviously have no legal training —so what exactly is at stake here?”

Julia glanced at Cassie as she said, “Both of our attorneys are of the opinion that —as it’s clear that the injuries that
incapacitated Eddie Walker were related to the truck that ran him down —our confessions to injuring him in self-defense wouldn’t
have earned major sentences even when the case was fresh.”

“Hmph.” Pastor O’Neal’s eyes flickered with a dizzying combination of protective sympathy and insistent scolding. “Four black
girls, in the eighties, admitting to involvement in an episode that ended with the near-death of a white boy? They would have
tried to throw the book at you.” She sat up straighter in her seat, seemingly catching herself. “That’s not to say you shouldn’t
have come forward with the truth then, of course.”

“Yes, Pastor,” Cassie replied. “You’re correct, and I think Julia agrees that if we could go back in time, we’d have trusted
God to protect us, and just told our parents the whole truth. Believe me, we have prayed for forgiveness more times than you
could imagine.”

“Well,” the pastor replied, “you’ve sat up under enough of my teaching to know that Jesus doesn’t require us to ask forgiveness
multiple times. You confess to him once and ask for forgiveness and cleansing, and know that He has done it. More important,
though, you marry confession to restitution. And you are clearly taking that step now. Two questions.”

Julia nodded. “Go on.”

“How will your confessions impact the other two women who were with you that night?”

“This is the most uncomfortable aspect for us,” Julia replied, “and one of the main reasons we wanted your insight. I believe,
personally, that God holds each of us accountable for how we deal with sin in our lives, and that we ultimately answer to
Him only with respect to making restitution. Am I on the right track?”

Pastor O’Neal nodded grimly. “Absolutely, Julia. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could delay confession and restitution of wrongs,
by saying we’re waiting on everyone who was involved to take the same steps with us? There is no evidence in the Word of God
expecting us to operate that way. Every sin we commit grows out of our individual decision to depart from God’s way, not anyone
else’s. So while it’s great that the two of you are on one accord about this confession, you certainly should not wait on
your other friends to do the same. You should, however, let them know what you are doing.”

Cassie and Julia looked at each other across the table, and Julia mentally replayed her many unsuccessful attempts the past
month to reach Toya. Terry had at least responded to Cassie’s message that they were seeking counsel from defense attorneys;
Terry had insisted she had no money with which to retain counsel, but to keep her posted on whatever decision they made about
how to move forward.

“What will Terry do?” Cassie’s question was met with silence as Julia looked into her lap.

Pastor O’Neal cleared her throat before saying, “I suggest you two simply contact both of them and let them know this is what
you are doing. They can decide how to proceed for themselves.” She looked over at Cassie and patted her hand. “If Terry is
more open to it when she learns what’s coming, maybe you two could pay her legal fees. Now, for my other question.”

Julia wiped sprouting tears from her eyes. “Yes?”

“Let’s say that it turns out that there is no significant penalty associated with your confession. Will you feel that sufficient
restitution has been made?”

“To be honest, Pastor,” Cassie replied, standing and walking over to comfort Julia, “we were hoping you could help us answer
that question.”

M
axwell was in constant motion, darting back and forth between his bedroom and bathroom in a rush to keep an appointment to
see Nia, when someone buzzed his intercom. “I’m in your lobby,” Julia said, her tone as close to sheepish as he could imagine
from her.

“Come on up,” he said, hitting the appropriate button without hesitation. Not like he had a minute to spare before heading
down to Mason to get Nia, but something told him this was no time to put her off.

“I owe you an apology,” she said as he pulled his door open. Stepping insistently past him, she paused in the foyer, her neck
craning up toward the vaulted ceiling. “Oh,” she said, her voice sounding weak with desire. “Maxwell, these are really nice.
I mean, from the street they look impressive, but —”

“You want it?” His hands in the pockets of his baggy jeans, he smirked. “If you’ll pay me what I spent to get into it, it
would make my life easier.”

“Let me think about that,” Julia replied, a smile teasing her lips as she stepped down into his sunken front room, full of
nothing but glass and stainless steel as far as the eye could see. “Live in a place like this, or send Amber to college? I
think I’d rather place my bets on her being able to take care of me in my old age.”

“Smart woman,” he said, laughing and ushering her to a seat on his couch. “To what do I owe the pleasure, ma’am?” He didn’t
bother sharing his shock that she’d called him, much less come for a visit after their recent spat.

“Like I said, I felt I had to clear the air with you, in more ways than one.” Julia sat with her hands folded in her lap,
her hips on the edge of the couch. “Maxwell, I spent some time this week talking with Cassie about our falling-out.”

Maxwell tried to sound as dispassionate as he could. “Really.”

“Yes, and she helped me see that I needed to stop managing my image with you. I think one reason I was so defensive the other
night is that I’ve been so twisted into knots about some things I really need to share with more people. And because I value
your friendship —whether it ever becomes more than that —I want to be transparent with you about them.”

“Julia,” Maxwell said, scooting a little closer to her but swinging one knee up onto the couch to show he was respecting boundaries,
“why don’t I address your concerns from the other night first? About whether I’ve ever dated black women before?” He was ready
to go there now; when she had blatantly questioned whether he had ever dated another sister, he’d recoiled primarily at the
“yes or no” nature of her question.

Though Julia began to shake her head in gentle protest, he lay a hand to her arm and kept speaking. “I have been attracted
to plenty of black women in the years since we graduated high school,” he said. “I have been out on dates with a half-dozen
sisters over the past decade, and I’ve even made out with a few of them. But that’s it. The most serious, deep relationships
I’ve had, the ones where the attraction was balanced and mutual, such that it led to a long-term arrangement that could have
led to marriage? All with the fair-skinned sisters.”

A distracted look clouded Julia’s eyes, but she nodded patiently. “So I was technically right,” she said, cracking a weak
smile.

“It’s just how things happened to go down,” Maxwell replied, rubbing her arm lightly again. “Julia, this may surprise you,
as one who succumbed to my charms at seventeen, but, historically, I’ve not been thuggish enough to excite the interest of
most black women.”

Julia pursed her lips, and a light entered her eyes for the first time, warming Maxwell’s insides. “You know what? A lot of
my ‘sisters’ are idiots when it comes to what excites them. I really appreciate your candor, Maxwell, but, frankly, your history
is beside the point.” She settled back farther into his couch. “Getting caught up in all that just takes my eye off what matters.”

She stammered a bit as she asked, “Can I just tell you about what’s going on with me, Cassie, and a couple of girls I think
you’ll remember?”

“Sure,” he replied, preparing to listen. “My ears are wide open.”

“Do you remember Eddie Walker?” Clearly catching the fact that blood had begun to drain from his face, Julia continued. “Of
course you do. I’ll bet all of us had nightmares about Eddie for years, wondering whether God ever answered our prayers.”

His voice sounding hollow to his own ears, Maxwell nodded as he spoke. “I think for those of us with relatively simple childhoods,
it was our first time encountering a stubborn situation, one of those where prayers didn’t seem to work.” Unable to play at
nonchalance as the sneering face of Pete Whitlock danced in his head, he asked, “But what does that have to do with you and
Cassie, twenty years later?”

“I need you to let me talk,” Julia said, “and when I’m finished, I’ll answer any question you have.”

For nearly an hour, Maxwell sat rapt as Julia recounted the pivotal night’s events, from Eddie’s attack on Cassie, to the
girls’ defiant defense of their classmate, up through her and Cassie’s decision to obtain legal counsel.

His ears ringing, brow filmy with sweat, Maxwell finally spoke his piece. As Julia sat wide-eyed, he recounted his decision
months earlier to hire Edna Morrison, his daily observation of her faithful response to such tragedy, and his recent confrontation
with Pete Whitlock.

Still seated on his couch, staring one another down, Maxwell and Julia exchanged silent, dazed expressions. With little background
noise to fill the space, Maxwell found the wait agonizing, and wondered whether Julia felt the same way. He was so full —full
of shock, fear, and fierce protectiveness —he was nearly overwhelmed. After another minute of silence, though, the protective
impulse won out and he slipped his hands under Julia’s armpits, pulling her to him.

“Thank you for telling me,” he whispered. “How could I have ever told you what I knew about Edna and Pete?”

Julia buried her head into his right shoulder for a beat before pulling back to meet his gaze. “You don’t have to sugarcoat
it, Maxwell,” she said. “You must think so little of us now, knowing that we hid our knowledge of what happened all these
years, while Edna was nearly devastated.”

His hands rubbing Julia’s back, Maxwell felt himself swell with determination. “I’m not sugarcoating a thing, do you hear
me? Julia, don’t forget, I was
there.
I know what the Christian Light culture was like back then. I don’t even want to think about what would have happened if
you and Cassie had come out with the truth then. You wouldn’t have been lynched, but in legal terms it would have been nearly
as dramatic.” He hugged her closer. “I doubt any of us would have done anything differently, given the situation.”

“I’m trusting that all the drama is finally about to end,” Julia whispered back, her lips poised inches from his now. “I just
had to talk this out with someone else, and now I see that God meant for us to discuss this all along.”

“Understand this,” Maxwell said, taking her chin in one hand. “I have a loyalty to Edna, and if you weren’t confessing to
what happened, I would encourage you to do so. But you’re doing the right thing already. All that matters now,” he said, “is
making sure you’re protected legally. I know you have an attorney already, Julia, but will you let me make a few calls? Between
Lyle’s connections and a couple of my cousins in Columbus, I want to make sure you have the best attorneys in the state.”