The Morning After (5 page)

“Is it getting any better?” she panted, trying to catch her breath. “I mean, do you see any improvement at all?”

Ever since Angel Stephens recovered from what her doctor diagnosed as postpartum depression coupled with an overdose of dejection resulting from Essie's death, she had become a constant companion for her neighbor on mornings that Elaine went jogging. It was the only time she took advantage of the part-time daycare offered by the learning center two miles from Braxton Park. When the stay-at-home mom wasn't exercising, she relished the opportunity to saturate her son with love and attention. The regular workout schedule had been instrumental in helping Angel lose the pounds that her pregnancy had packed on, but even after reaching her ideal weight, she kept running to maintain her level of fitness.

“He rarely goes anywhere besides work and church, and we haven't argued in months, but what good is it to have him home if he's not being a husband? What good is a loving relationship without the loving?” The lines in Elaine's face were due more to aggravation than fatigue. “It's been over a year, Angel, and Mason is still sleeping on that doggone sofa. I used to love my living room furniture; now it makes me sick just to look at it. I feel like the sofa stole my man. The cushions on the couch get to have him lying on top of them every night, and he ain't been on top of me in ages. Girl, I'm jealous of my own sofa!”

Angel couldn't help but laugh. “Shut up, Elaine.”

“I admit that I screwed up. Angel, I made a colossal mess of things, and I'm not even trying to say that my husband should have forgiven me overnight and been ready to come right back to the bedroom. If he had messed around on me, I know it would have taken me a while. As a matter of fact, if I'm really real about this thing, I can't even say that I would have even stayed with him. But Lord have mercy! If I were gonna stay, I sure wouldn't have been sleeping in separate quarters for this long, especially if I claimed to have forgiven him.”

The conversation paused while the two women took their daily detour, cutting through a path that led them through a quiet community of houses that made up the Windward subdivision. Regardless of how many times Angel saw the houses in this area, she was astonished by their beauty. The massive five-and six-bedroom dwellings carried price tags that ranged from four to six hundred thousand dollars. They were like mini mansions.

Angel never asked Elaine why she chose to cut through the neighborhood, but she reasoned within herself that it was done to purposefully avoid passing the Goodyear shop where the man with which Elaine had had her brief affair, worked as a mechanic.

“Am I being unreasonable?” Elaine's voice forced its way into Angel's mental opinion, and it sounded pleading. “Am I expecting too much of Mason too fast? Tell me the truth, Angel. Am I being selfish? I really don't want to be selfish about this. I mean, when I got caught up in that mess with Danté, I took selfishness to the ultimate level. I don't want to sound like I'm still only thinking of myself in all of this.”

“Okay, stop running.” Angel had reached her limit. She didn't know how Elaine did it, but one thing was certain; Angel knew her lungs hadn't yet achieved the capacity of her friend's. When Angel first began running with her, the entire workout would only be two miles long. Now it was four, and Elaine could run every bit of it without a break. “I'm not the expert on this subject matter, Elaine,” Angel said through huffs of air as they slowed to a brisk walk. “God has forgiven you of your sins, and from all outside appearances, Mason has too.”

“Then why is he still having his love affair with the couch? And why does it feel like God is still punishing me?”

Angel took a quick side glance at Elaine and saw tears in her eyes that sufficiently explained the unsteadiness of her voice. Elaine was fragile, and while Angel knew that she had to be truthful, she was also mindful that she needed to be compassionate. “God is not still punishing you, Elaine. Don't let the enemy make you believe He is, don't let him make you doubt God's forgiveness.”

Angel took a breath, and then added, “Men are so different from women, and just like they can't fully figure us out, we can't fully figure them out either. But one thing is sure; by nature, we are more nurturing and forgiving, and on the broad scale, they are more proud and egotistical than we are. And as long as these traits are used in the manner in which God intended them to be used, their pride and egotism is a good thing. Men need to be that way in order to protect and take care of their families like God intends for them to do. This could just be my own opinion, but I truly believe that because of our different genetic makeup, women can forgive and move on easier than men can. So while you very well might have forgiven Mason and would have moved back into the bedroom with him by now, he just may not be able to pick up the pieces as readily.”

“
Readily
? This isn't readily, Angel, it's been a whole year.”

“I know.”

“And I'm a healthy, vibrant woman.”

“I know.”

“With
needs
.”

Angel sighed and searched for something encouraging to say. “I know, Elaine. And God promised to supply all of your needs according to His riches in glory.” It was the best that she could come up with on such short notice.

“Angel, I don't think God can fulfill this particular need; if you know what I mean.”

“Yes, He can, Elaine. Not physically, maybe. But God made you, so He can adjust your mind and your desires so that you aren't feeling so lonely and empty and—”

“Hot?”

“Elaine!” Angel would have laughed had she not seen the tear that trickled from Elaine's eye.

“Well, that's what it is, Angel. Just call it what it is. My body's fields are on fire, and I need Mason to put out the flames.” Elaine stopped walking, and Angel stopped with her.

“I know this is hard for you, Elaine.”

“No, you don't. You have no idea. You're as clueless as a dumb blonde about this.” The tears were streaming heavier now. “You may understand what it's like to want to be with the man you love, but that's as far as your understanding goes. The man you want to be with also wants to be with you, that's not my testimony. My man can't even stand to get in the same bed with me, let alone
be
with me. You've got this great husband who worships the ground you walk on, Angel. You can't even come close to understanding what it's like to have a husband that treats you like his college dorm mate or some other kind of platonic friend.”

Angel reached out and touched Elaine's arm. She wanted to refute her accusations, and tell her that there had been times in her and Colin's marriage where they'd experienced what she was experiencing with Mason. But it wouldn't be the truth. Colin was always ready and willing. Although lately....

“Angel, I know what I did was horrible.” Elaine's sobs flooded out Angel's reality check. “If Mason had left me last spring, I couldn't have blamed him one bit. But he didn't. He decided to stay, and he agreed that we would work on this together. We made a plan to get back in the church and start praying more. We've done all that. We go to church and worship together every Sunday, and Mason prays just as much as I do. I can't tell you how many times I've walked into the living room and found him on his knees. But even in all of that, he hasn't touched me.”

Angel could feel Elaine's hurt and her sense of abandonment.
God, give me something to say
. Right now, Angel felt useless; like her presence was of no benefit to Elaine's broken spirit. To make matters worse, a feeling of hypocrisy was nudging Angel. How could she encourage Elaine when she had a husband who probably shared Elaine's sentiment? Did Colin feel abandoned too? Angel shook the idea from her head. This wasn't about her; it was about Elaine, and her friend needed encouragement. But Angel had no idea what to say. Elaine, however, was not at a loss for words.

“I thought that if I really made myself desirable, Mason wouldn't be able to resist me. I purchased sexy clothes and racy nightgowns, got myself this sassy new haircut, and even got down to my premarital, pre-pregnancy weight and . . .” Elaine gasped and put her hands over her mouth as if she were just mobbed by a horrid thought. “Is that it? You think he won't touch me because every time he's given me a baby I've lost it, and he just doesn't want to have to go through the disappointment again?”

“No!” Angel said the word as emphatically as she could. It was no secret that Elaine had suffered three miscarriages in her eight-year marriage to Mason, and it was no secret that Mason wanted children. But Angel refused to believe that it had anything to do with his rejection of her. “Now you stop that,” Angel scolded. “You're gonna make yourself sick if you keep this up. You're just looking for a reason to blame yourself for this, and I'm not going to let you do that.”

“Then what is it, Angel? If it's not that God is punishing me, and it's not that Mason hasn't forgiven me for being with another man, and it isn't that he doesn't want to take the chance on impregnating me again only to have me lose the baby; then what is it?”

“I don't know what it is,” Angel blurted. “I wish I knew, but I don't. But one thing for sure is that none of this is your fault.”

“How can you say it's not my fault? I'm the one who—”

“I didn't say you didn't screw up, Elaine. What I'm saying is after apologizing to Mason and after getting forgiveness from the Lord, your husband's decision not to touch you isn't your fault. There has to be a shortcoming somewhere else. Something that hasn't been addressed yet, maybe.”

“There's nothing that hasn't been addressed. Mason and I have talked about everything.” Elaine pointed at her fingers as she listed them. “I told him every sordid detail of my error. He told me why he'd gotten so involved with expensive cars and worthless friends. We talked about how our marriage got off track. I told him how much I couldn't stand his meddling mama, and he stepped in and stopped that old hag from calling me and asking me when I was going to give her a grandchild. He told me what he wanted out of this marriage, and I told him what I wanted out of it. We talked about what God wanted from us and what we wanted from Him. What else needs to be addressed?”

“I can't answer that, Elaine. Only God knows all things, but I really think that the two of you need to get into counseling and talk to a professional. Sometimes things get buried so deep inside of us that we forget that they're there. It's like trying to hide something from someone else, and you hide it so well that you can't remember where you placed it. so basically, you've also hid it from yourself. I'm not saying that's the case with y'all; I'm just saying that if there's a chance that there is a stone that's been left unturned or an issue that hasn't been openly discussed between the two of you, a therapist can probably pinpoint it over time.”

“Mason would never go to a psychiatrist. He's way too proud . . . or way too stubborn. I don't know which it is, but I know he'd never go.”

“What about a marriage counselor at the church?”

Elaine shook her head. “He'd never do it.”

“How do you know? Have you asked him?”

“When we first began reconciling, yes,” Elaine admitted. “But he wasn't feeling it then, said he didn't want to bring nobody else up in our business. I think that as a man, he was just too embarrassed at the thought of admitting to some stranger that his wife cheated on him. And after we started talking and getting along so well, I didn't think the humiliation was necessary either.”

Elaine used her hands to wipe the remaining moisture from her cheeks, and then used the bottom of her shirt to dry her eyes completely. “I thought we'd be back to normal way before now, Angel. Ms. Essie died just days after all of this happened, but when I first told her what I had done, she told me that if I believed in God, He would fix my marriage, and when He was done, it would be better than it had ever been. At first, I thought it was gonna be as easy as it sounded. The morning after she died, when all of us went to church together, Mason knew how much I was grieving. He put his arm around me and comforted me during the service. I thought it was a start, but since then . . . nothing.”

Angel shook off the onset of a sharp pain she felt at hearing Essie's name. She was closer to Essie and had known her for years longer than anyone else in the neighborhood. Yet everyone, except her, had had the opportunity to worship together at the church in Essie's memory and attend her funeral for a proper good-bye. Angel's inability to do either of these things had haunted her almost every day of the past year.

“I just don't know what to do,” Elaine said, breaking the lingering silence.

“Ms. Essie was right, Elaine. All we can do is pray, and while God may not answer the way we want Him to or even
when
we want Him to, He always comes through for us in a way that is best for us. Ms. Essie always told me that God was always on time. His time may not be our time, but His time is
on
time. He knows how much we can bear, and He doesn't put more on us than we're capable of handling.”

“Well, I think He got this one wrong.” Elaine dropped both her arms by her side in despair. “I'm not nearly as strong as He apparently thinks I am. God must've gotten me mixed up with you. If this were you, you'd probably be able to handle it a whole lot better than I can. I know what I did was a horrible, unthinkable thing, and I know it was wrong on every level. But sometimes, Angel . . . Sometimes there are nights when my bed gets so lonely that praying doesn't work. And as wrong as I know it was, sometimes I think about stepping out and—”