One Sunday at a Time Read online

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah, blah, blah, blah,” was absolutely what Deborah had on her heart to say to the cheerful usher who stood outside the closed sanctuary doors and greeted her. But instead, she got her flesh under control, smiled, and said, “Good morning.” She went to open one of the doors, but the usher continued to block it.

  “Elder Ross has already started prayer. You know pastor doesn’t like any movement or walking around during prayer or when a prophesy is being given.”

  I know church rules. I been in church long enough to know that, Deborah thought, fussing in her head. Who do you think you are, giving me the rundown, when I have been a member of this church and have known Pastor for quite some time, while you was still sliding down poles over at the Dollhouse Strip Club? Ooh, if only Deborah could say with her mouth what she was thinking in her head. Her spirit woman was already being convicted for just thinking it. She could only imagine the type of conviction that would fall on her if she actually said the words out loud. So she opted to say nothing. Just nod and smile, Deborah. Nod and smile.

  Deborah wished she had gone with her first instinct and had not even taken the baby to the nursery and Tyson to children’s church. But she had wanted to lay eyes on Helen and perhaps do a little inquiring, and of course, she’d needed the boys in tow to do that. She would have looked ridiculous if she’d gone to children’s church without any children.

  She 100 percent intended only to inquire this time. No laying on of hands, which was how things had turned out the last time she’d called herself going to have a little chat with Helen. As luck would have it, this Sunday Helen wasn’t even volunteering in children’s church. It wasn’t her week, which was what Deborah had been told when she dropped Tyson off. Deborah couldn’t get out of there quick enough after getting Tyson all signed in. With each click of her heels down the hall to the church vestibule and then to the sanctuary doors, Deborah had envisioned Helen spotting Lynox alone in the sanctuary, sans wife, and then making her move on him for old times’ sakes. Ordinarily, Lynox would be strong, able to fight off the clutches of Satan, but this morning he was vulnerable and weak. Deborah didn’t know if he could withstand the force of Helen’s sex appeal.

  As she impatiently waited outside the sanctuary doors, Deborah could feel her heartbeat picking up. Her blood chilled throughout her body. These were all signs she’d experienced prior to her panic attacks. She was only becoming more and more anxious as Elder Ross continued his prayer.

  Somebody needed to speak to Pastor Margie about when Elder Ross was called upon to pray. Deborah wasn’t wearing a watch, and she hadn’t checked the time on her cell phone, but she knew good and well that she had been standing outside the sanctuary, waiting for Elder Ross to finish praying, for at least ten minutes. His prayer had started off slow and smooth. He’d done the normal prayer over the church, the pastor, the leaders, the ministry, and so on. Then he had got all loud and boisterous and had started the “Somebody in here needs prayer for this, and somebody in here needs prayer for that” stuff. Then he had got to speaking in tongues.

  “It don’t take all that,” Deborah said under her breath as she waited impatiently.

  Every couple of minutes the usher would crack open the door and peek inside. She’d then turn and smile at Deborah, with a “Not quite yet” look on her face. If that usher knew what was good for her, the next time she cracked open that door, she’d let Deborah in. The usher might have about fifty pounds on Deborah, but she was going through her.

  Finally, there was clapping and shouts of “Amen,” as if Elder Ross had closed out the prayer. The usher checked to make sure they were sealing Elder Ross’s prayer in a praise clap, then opened the door wide to let Deborah in. By then a couple more latecomers had shown up, and they all entered the sanctuary.

  Inside there were ushers waiting to direct them to seats, as well as to hand them the church announcements. Minister Motley was making her way to the pulpit in order to read scripture.

  Deborah held her hand up when one of the ushers attempted to give a copy of the announcements to her. “That’s okay. I’m sure my husband has one,” she said. “By the way, do you, by any chance, know where Lynox is seated?” Deborah could tell by the usher’s expression that she didn’t have a clue. “That’s okay. I’m sure I’ll find him.”

  The rows of seats appeared to be filled to capacity as Deborah made her way down the center aisle. She looked up and down, from left to right, hoping to spot Lynox. She was his wife. She needed to be there in the sanctuary with him, by his side, blessing the Lord for even giving her someone who could put up with her mess. If only she had womaned up and apologized to him last night, she probably wouldn’t even be going through this right now. Why did she always have to be right instead of righteous? Here she’d pushed the man so far away that he felt it would take Jesus Himself to talk him into allowing her back into his good graces. If that was the case, Deborah would be right there when the conversation took place.

  “Good morning, Sis,” someone greeted as Deborah walked by.

  “Morning,” Deborah threw over her shoulder, clueless about whom she was even giving that halfhearted greeting to. She did that a couple more times before she was about five rows from the pulpit. Still there was no sign of Lynox at all. “Dang,” Deborah said as she bit down on her lip.

  Some members were seated, while others were still standing. The scripture had been read, but praise and worship was next, so some had decided that they might as well remain standing. Between the praise team—especially if Sister Paige was singing a solo—and the musicians, they wouldn’t have been able to stay in their seats, anyway. Of course, all this up and down was making it hard for Deborah to get a clear view down each row.

  Deborah was at the third pew when she realized that she might as well take a seat before she ended up at the altar. “Pardon me,” she said as she scooted down to a vacant seat, still looking around for Lynox.

  “Come on, everybody. Put your hands together, and let’s bless the Lord,” the praise and worship leader said as the musicians played behind him.

  Deborah began clapping only because she’d been instructed to, and not because she was really focused on praising the Lord. Praise songs weren’t designed to be like secular music. With praise music, more than just the beat was supposed to pull the listener in. It was about the words that were being ministered. When it came to praise music, one shouted out, “That’s my song,” because the words rang true to one’s spirit, and not because one could bounce to it, although there was nothing wrong with getting a little Holy Ghost bounce on, especially if it was a good old-fashioned Kirk Franklin or Tye Tribbett song.

  But not one word being sung was registering with Deborah. She was distracted by not knowing where Lynox was. The feeling of distraction in church, unfortunately, wasn’t new to Deborah. It was just that usually she was better at concealing how her mind was drifting off, how she was wondering about other things, such as what she was going to prepare for dinner after church, which manuscript she would start editing next, whether or not she was going to do the laundry today or tomorrow, and whether there was a PTO meeting that week or not. Such mental distractions somehow so easily tore her from what was going on in the Lord’s house. Her mind was so hard to keep under control sometimes, and as last night had proven, so was her mouth . . . and now her hands.

  “He deserves a real hand praise, not a mechanical one.”

  Deborah looked to see if, by any chance, the praise and worship leader was looking dead at her when he said those words. If he was talking to her, it was his right to do so. That flimsy and robotic hand praise she was giving the Lord while she was scanning the sanctuary was shameful. She began to clap her hands harder. In case the praise and worship leader had been addressing her, she didn’t want his throwing of shade to be in vain.

  Within a minute or so, Deborah was clapping her hands and singing the words along with praise and worship. Her clap slowed and her vocals were behind a count whe
n she finally spotted someone she had been looking for. Helen. She was sitting in the second seat from the end of the row that was two rows behind Deborah. She was on her feet, clapping and singing along as if her life depended on it, unlike Deborah, who was just moving her lips, hoping no one noticed she wasn’t singing the right words.

  Standing next to Helen was her teenage son. He was clapping and swaying, leaving the singing to his mother. But he genuinely looked to be giving God the glory. Deborah prayed that her boys would someday worship God in spirit and in truth. Even if sometimes she did feel as if she was going to church only out of routine, she at least hoped that raising her boys in the way that they should go would be beneficial.

  With the thought that she had to be an example for her own children, Deborah decided to turn back around and make a genuine effort at giving God some praise from her heart. As Deborah went to turn her head and face forward, she saw him, Lynox. She might as well have jumped into a pit of fire, because that was how hot she was. There he was, sitting down. He was clapping his hands, but he was not standing like almost everyone else. That was not what had Deborah on fire, though. It was who he was sitting by. Helen!

  Chapter 6

  The ratchet thing to do would have been for Deborah to go snatch Helen up and mop the sanctuary with her. Oh, that would have definitely given folks something to talk about. One thing was for sure: Deborah wouldn’t have to worry about people disliking her for her over-the-top actions. Reality television had proven that the most ratchet, fightingness, least classy, meanest, and most hateful person on the show became the fan favorite, got the highest paycheck, and eventually ended up with a spin-off and a starring role on Broadway. Society had spoken. Ratchet was the new black.

  With Helen’s son on one side of her and Lynox on the other, they looked like the happy little family. Would that be what Lynox’s family portrait looked like soon? The thought alone made Deborah nearly lose her breath.

  “Breathe, girl. Breathe,” Deborah said to herself in a low voice as she turned back to face the altar.

  Back when Deborah used to see her counselor, they used to practice these breathing exercises. Whenever Deborah felt as if she was about to go from zero to ten, she would take deep breaths in and then exhale in order to calm down. Deborah closed her eyes. She inhaled and exhaled. Those on the outside looking in probably thought that she was in worship.

  Deborah did a couple of sets of the breathing in and breathing out. She opened her eyes. She was no longer upset at Helen. Why should she be? She wasn’t married to Helen. Helen had no commitment and had made no promises to Deborah. She should have never been mad at Helen in the first place. It was Lynox who was showing complete disrespect by sitting next to a woman with whom he’d been intimate in the past and whom Deborah could take or leave. So even though the breathing technique had helped her to release her anger at Helen, she was madder than ever. Only now her anger was directed at Lynox.

  Deborah decided to try another exercise her counselor had taught her. She’d count away her anger. “Ten, nine, eight, seven . . .” But by the time she got to one, she still wanted to go snatch her man up and ask him what the heck he was doing, sitting next to that tramp.

  Deborah wanted to kick herself for even thinking for one minute that Helen had changed. Once a tramp, always a tramp. And all that mess Lynox was talking about Helen being crazy and him kicking her to the curb was just a front. It was nothing more than a lie he was telling so that Deborah wouldn’t suspect anything.

  “Ugh!” Deborah said, balling her fist and punching downward.

  “That’s right, Sister. Knock that devil out,” the woman next to Deborah said.

  Deborah looked at the woman as the words to the song being sung registered. It was a song about going into the enemy’s camp, knocking the devil out, and taking back all the stuff he’d stolen. Deborah realized that the woman next to her must have thought that Deborah was acting out the words to the song. Deborah simply smiled and then faced forward. After a couple of seconds she looked over at Lynox again. He was now standing and getting all into the song.

  “That music sure is loud,” he had complained sometimes when he attended church with Deborah.

  It didn’t seem to be bothering him now. Maybe the sweet nothings Helen had whispered in his ear prior to the music starting had softened the blows of the notes.

  Deborah shook her head and turned back around. She grabbed her purse and her Bible bag and slid down her row and out to the aisle while everyone was still standing and clapping. Lynox obviously hadn’t seen her coming, and now he wouldn’t see her going.

  As Deborah speed walked down the center aisle, she couldn’t see any faces, just blurs. That was how fast she was moving. The fact that her eyes were filled with tears didn’t help.

  “It’s gon’ be all right, Sister,” one of the ushers said to Deborah as she burst through the sanctuary doors.

  It was just her, alone on the other side of the closed sanctuary doors, consumed by anger. She was breathing heavily, and tears were streaming down her face. “God, what is wrong with me?” she cried out, briskly wiping the tears away. Why was she so quick to anger about every little thing?

  After catching her breath, she ran out of the church and to her car. She got in her car and began driving. Every now and then she’d beat on the steering wheel. Next, she would cuss, and then she would cry. One time, while sitting at a red light, she even busted out into a laughing fit. Her emotions and her thoughts were jumping all over the place. Breathing hadn’t helped. Counting hadn’t helped. Suddenly, Deborah thought she knew the one thing that would help.

  Even though the church was a fifteen-minute drive from Deborah’s home, she got there in eight, breaking all kinds of traffic laws. Either way it went, she was going to break the law if she didn’t do something to put her mind at ease soon. She was going to break the law by driving back to that church and wearing somebody out, or she was going to get a speeding ticket while driving home. Fortunately, neither happened.

  Deborah entered her house and ran straight into her private bathroom. She opened the medicine cabinet, picked up bottles, looked at them, and then set them back down. “Shoot,” she said after she’d gone through every pill bottle in the cabinet without finding what she was looking for.

  Deborah looked around, in thought. She then began pulling open the bathroom drawers. She rummaged around in each and every one of them and still came up empty-handed. After letting out an expletive, she opened up the cabinet under her side of their dual sinks. Within three seconds the nice orderly contents had been pushed and shoved all over the place. Under usual circumstances, she would not have been able to proceed with her search before putting everything back in its place. Even if the house was burning down and Deborah knocked a book off a shelf while she was running out the door, she’d have to go back and pick it up. Watching the house burn down to the ground would have been more aggravating if she knew a book was out of place. Such disorder would have ordinarily driven Deborah insane, but she was already headed down that road. She’d make a U-turn and clean up her mess after she found what she was looking for.

  Just when she was about to give up on her side of the sinks and go check to see if maybe she’d misplaced it on Lynox’s side, she finally saw it. She’d found what she was looking for.

  “Yes,” Deborah said, clutching the pill bottle in her hand. She double-checked the label. “My happy pills.” She kissed the bottle and pulled it against her chest like it was a long-lost lover. She had to count on two hands how many times she’d carried that very same bottle over to the trash can to dispose of it. She would never need them again, she had always told herself. The times she’d contemplated throwing them away she’d been happy, genuinely happy . . . and without the aid of a pill. And with a handsome husband like Lynox to help her through life and her two amazingly beautiful children, she couldn’t have imagined that she’d ever find herself in a miserable slump again, one where she would need medication
to pull herself out.

  She’d prayed to God constantly to keep her mind, and He had. Well, at least she had thought He had, but now she felt as if she was losing it. And it was the fear of this very moment that had made Deborah change her mind each time she went to throw away the pills. The fear that one day she just might need those pills.

  With the bottle in hand, Deborah walked over to her sink. She opened the bottle and poured one pill into her hand, turned on the water, then threw the pill down her throat and chased it with water. “Ah,” she said, feeling better already, knowing that soon enough that pill would kick in and relax her. She looked at herself in the mirror. She thought for a moment and then said aloud, “Maybe I better take two.” She read the instructions on the bottle. It had been a while since she’d used them. The bottle said that she needed to take only one. But she felt as if her mind was spinning out of control far more than it had been when the pills were first prescribed. Therefore, she felt two would really do the job of getting her right . . . fast! Then maybe she could pitch the bottle for real this time. She’d take full advantage of the effects of the two pills so that she wouldn’t have to take any more.

  With her final reasoning, Deborah threw a second pill down her throat, and this time gulped her own saliva, not even bothering to drink water. She looked at herself in the mirror once again and exhaled. She entered her bedroom, walked over to her bed, and kicked off her shoes. She would lie down until the pills took effect. Otherwise, she might end up back at New Day, raising hell.

  As she went to pull the covers back, she realized she still had the pill bottle in her hand. She placed it on the nightstand and then crawled into bed. She said a final prayer that when she woke up, she would be back in her right mind. All would be well. She’d be back to her old self again, the one whom Lynox had fallen in love with and married. Anxiety, depression, panic attacks, and all her manic thoughts would be a thing of past . . . if there was a God. Because the Word had told her that God would give her, her heart’s desires. Her heart desired to be clean, loving, calm, patient, and whole.