Mama Max’s face was fixed into a frown as she basted the rump roast with the succulent juice at the bottom of the pan. Eight hundred miles away and almost three weeks later, and she was still very angry at Obadiah Brook. It had taken her exactly forty-eight hours to pack up some clothes and her favorite cooking utensils and fly back to Kansas, forty-eight hours after finding the doll, confronting Obadiah, and demanding that he get that filth out of her house immediately.
Mama Max didn’t have to put him out of the bedroom that night. They’d been sleeping in separate rooms for almost fifteen years. It started when they moved into their latest, three-bedroom home. Mama Max had set up a “sanctuary,” a place where she could do her crocheting, knitting, and sewing. But very quickly, the bed she’d bought for guests became the one she slept in each night. After falling asleep there after a late-night prayer session, she realized she appreciated a sound sleep uninterrupted by Obadiah’s loud farts and even louder snores. She didn’t have to worry about him pawing on her or waking up to find something hard and long poking her in the back.
The decision to stop having sex was never discussed. Obadiah kept asking, and Mama Max simply kept having a headache, or a backache, or a don’t-feel-like-it ache. Once he stopped asking, Mama Max was so thankful for the silence that she never questioned why. The thought of him cheating came up from time to time, but as they both grew older, and with no evidence to suggest the validity of such a thought, those worries faded. Mama Max thought Obadiah had finally reached the place she’d been for years, done with intimate encounters. Their lives had settled into a peaceful pattern. During the day, Obadiah spent a considerable amount of time in his study, while a majority of her time was spent in either the den watching television or the kitchen. Several times a week, Obadiah met with a group of seniors who played golf at a nearby course, and occasionally he’d grab a fishing pole and go in search of catfish, black bass, bluegill, or perch. They’d eat most of their meals together: breakfast between five-thirty and six-thirty, lunch around noon, and dinner at seven. Afterward, they’d usually watch a television show together, normally one from the sixties or seventies on TV Land or a religious channel, and they’d discuss various goings-on of the day and within the family. After that, Obadiah would retire to his study or bedroom, and Mama Max would fall asleep watching television, before finally going to bed around nine-thirty. She’d thought theirs was a simple life, but a good life. Now she didn’t know what to think.
Mama Max had just put on a pot of coffee when the phone rang. Without even realizing it, she wished it was Obadiah telling her that he’d thrown the trash out and purchased her a ticket back to Texas. She was half right: the caller was in Texas.
“Hey, Nettie.”
“Mama Max, how you doing?”
“Tolerable, can’t complain.”
Nettie had been worried about Mama Max since before she’d left Texas, and while Mama Max tried to keep up a strong front, Nettie heard the strain in her voice. And she’d dreamed about her too. “I saw Reverend Doctor last week. Took a casserole over to your house, a pan of corn bread and an apple cobbler. He seemed real appreciative, Mama Max. He’s lost without you around.”
“Might be lost, but he ain’t lonely. Was the girl still there?”
“Even if she was, I don’t think he’d have her in either the living room or the kitchen, and that’s as far as I made it into the house. But I can tell he misses you, Mama Max. It seemed like he wanted to talk, but he just wouldn’t open up, beyond church matters.”
“Who wants to open up about the type of stuff he’s doing?”
Nettie paused, looked out her window, and watched two sparrows fly in and out of the two large oak trees that framed her window. The birds chattered as they danced along the leafless branches, seemingly content to simply enjoy the beauty of the day. If only man could be more like the animals in God’s creation: taking no thought for the morrow, knowing that each day was sufficient unto itself. Mama Max was already making plans for something that hadn’t happened—a divorce.
“His eye is on the sparrow,” Nettie found herself saying out loud. “And I know God is watching over you and this situation, Mama Max. I don’t need to tell you that tongues are wagging. People are naturally wondering where you are, especially since you’ve been at the church practically every time the door opened since y’all got here. The reverend doctor hasn’t said anything from the pulpit, and I don’t think it’s my place to say anything either. But people know we’re friends…and they’re asking.”
“Lord have mercy.” Mama Max sighed. “This whole thing is a hot mess. But I’m not ready to come back, not until the reverend changes his ways.”
“There’s one more thing you should know,” Nettie continued after a slight hesitation. “Dorothea has been over to your house—at least twice.”
35
It’s Her Fault
Obadiah looked at the frozen dinner in disgust. He’d never eaten such a meal in his life, but even at the age of seventy-two, he was discovering that there was a first time for everything. It wasn’t like he couldn’t have eaten a home-cooked meal. Nettie had called earlier and asked if he needed anything, and one of the church mothers had invited him over for dinner. But he didn’t feel like talking to anybody who knew Maxine, didn’t feel like fielding questions or coming up with explanations regarding her abrupt departure and continued absence from Gospel Truth. He’d passed several fast-food places on the way to the store, but for Reverend Doctor Pastor Bishop Mister Obadiah Meshach Brook, Jr., such an establishment was out of the question. He could count the times on both hands that a Big Mac, a Jack or anybody else in a box, or a slice of pizza from a hut had passed his lips. He’d always felt sorry for folks who thought that such fare was good eating. The only reason they did, he knew, was because they’d never had Maxine fix them a burger. He thought that the colonel did all right with a piece of chicken, but even that bird, made with “twelve secret ingredients,” was only good in case of emergency. So for the first time in five years at least, the reverend doctor had gone into a store and walked up and down its aisles in search of food. The experience had promptly given him a headache, which is why he’d gone to the frozen-food section, picked up a “gourmet” meal of Salisbury steak, gravy, mashed potatoes, and green beans, and was now standing in a kitchen he also rarely visited, using a stove he’d rarely used, to cook his dinner.
“Let me see,” he said, putting on his glasses to read the box. “Preheat the oven to three hundred fifty degrees.” Obadiah peered down at the knob in the center of their industry-sized steel range. “I guess this is it.” He bent down farther so he could better see the numbers. “Yes! This is it. Here’s three fifty, right here!” Obadiah smiled as if he’d discovered a cure to cancer. He turned the knob until the desired number was lined up exactly with the line on the stove.
After reading the rest of the instructions and having frowned severely at the suggestion that he could microwave the meal, Obadiah pulled the platter out of the box. He pulled back the plastic covering the food and frowned again. “This looks just about good enough to feed a dog,” Obadiah mumbled to himself. “’Course, Maxine would probably think that just about appropriate.” He shook his head and looked at his watch to see if the required ten minutes were up, the time the box suggested the oven heat before placing the food contents into it. He had another five minutes to wait and decided to check the refrigerator for the umpteenth time to see if he could find a Maxine-cooked-it leftover. There were none, so instead he settled for a handful of cookies and a glass of milk. It seemed that since Maxine had been gone, he was hungrier than he’d ever been. And it wasn’t just Maxine Brook’s cooking he missed. He missed Maxine.
A few minutes later, Obadiah placed the tray in the heated oven. He sat down at the kitchen table to wait for his dinner, rubbed a weary hand over his equally tired eyes, and tried to figure out how he’d gotten to this place. He recalled the evening two weeks ago, when he’d come home to find
his companion sprawled on the living room floor, surrounded by his porn collection. He’d been taken aback, to say the least, and more than a bit embarrassed. Yes, he’d acted indignant, accused Maxine of wrongdoing for going into his private domain, but Obadiah couldn’t blame his wife for how she’d reacted. Discovering a dildo in Maxine’s underwear drawer would probably elicit an equally appalled response.
But what does she think I’m supposed to do, shrivel up and die just because she don’t want loving anymore? Obadiah munched down hard on the chocolate-chip cookie, anger quickly replacing guilt. I’m her husband, and she ain’t been with me in almost twenty years! I’m the fool here, because I should have been demanding my rights this entire time! Reducing me to using a doll—this is all her fault! “This is your fault, Maxine! At least it was a doll and not another woman!” Obadiah’s voice boomed off the soft yellow–colored kitchen walls. “All the women throwing themselves at me and I’ve remained faithful! Except for Dorothea. Having that thing there was the only way I could.”
The one-sided conversation sounded good to Obadiah, so much so that he decided to try Maxine’s number again. Here she was acting all sanctimonious, all high and mighty, and she had a hand to play in what had gone on in their house as well. She had abandoned her wifely duties, been disobedient to her husband; in short, she’d abdicated her wedding vows. Obadiah felt a new resolve to get in touch with his wife, to fly to Kansas if he had to. It was time to talk some sense into that woman and bring her home!
He was just about to pick up the phone in the kitchen when two bells rang at once: the food timer that he’d set for the frozen dinner, and the doorbell. He decided to get the doorbell first.
“Dorothea, I thought I told you not to come here no more,” he said, once he’d looked through the peephole and opened the door.
Dorothea was nonplussed as she ignored Obadiah’s comment. “Is that any way to greet the woman who’s brought you dinner?”
Obadiah hadn’t even noticed the tote bag at Dorothea’s side. “I’m making my own dinner,” he sighed. “But come on in.” Instead of waiting for her, he simply left the door open and walked back into the kitchen.
“Smells kinda good,” Dorothea said, looking around. Her eyes widened as she eyed the frozen dinner box sitting on top of the trash. “Obadiah Brook! Don’t tell me that’s what I smell in the oven.” But he didn’t have to; she saw it for her own eyes as he pulled the sorry-looking contents from the oven. “Lord, have mercy,” she continued, placing her tote on the table and pulling out its contents. She sat down a salad, a loaf of garlic bread, and a container of spaghetti on the table. “You know I don’t cook much, but I’ll place my spaghetti up against anybody’s—and especially up against that pitiful-looking steak.”
Obadiah retrieved a fork from the drawer and poked the meat suspiciously. He shrugged his shoulders, went back to the drawer for a steak knife, and cut a small piece from the end of the meat. His bite was tentative. “Jesus!” he exclaimed after he’d chewed and swallowed. “People actually eat this stuff?” He looked at the meal that had cost him five dollars and almost threw the entire contents away right then. But he’d come up during the Depression and always cleaned his plate. So with a sense of loathing, and in the span of about five minutes, he forced down the white paste they called potatoes and the piece of shoe leather that passed for steak. But when it came to the string beans and the lump of peaches and flour that they dared call a pie, he’d reached his limit, and for the first time in well over sixty years, threw food in the trash. “Okay, let’s see what you’ve got here so I can get that nasty taste out my mouth!”
Dorothea, who’d heated up the spaghetti while Obadiah scarfed down his food, looked at him with a mixture of compassion and desire. “You always had quite an appetite.” She made herself at home in Maxine’s kitchen, looking from cabinet to cabinet until she found the dishes. She fixed both herself and Obadiah’s plates and joined him at the table.
“Where’s Jenkins?”
“Home, asleep.”
“It’s barely seven o’clock, woman!”
Dorothea sighed. “Believe me, I’m well aware of what time it is, on many levels.”
“He still ain’t satisfied you, huh?”
“He can’t, poor thing. A wet noodle is stiffer than his little dick. He tries to make up for it with material things, and while I’m extremely appreciative, I need more.”
“You can’t keep coming over here, Dorothea. I told you that the last time you showed up at my door unannounced. Neighbors around here are nosy, and somebody from the church could stop by. I don’t want folks talking more than they already are.”
“What’s wrong with a sister-in-the-Lord bringing you by a plate of food? Didn’t Jesus admonish us to feed the hungry?” Dorothea rested her hand on Obadiah’s thigh. “And I know you’re hungry.”
Obadiah moved Dorothea’s hand off his thigh. “Stop that now. Ain’t nothing going to go on here in Maxine’s house.”
“Fine, I understand.” Dorothea thought while she chewed a forkful of food. “I think I saw a Quality or a Hampton Inn when I went shopping the other day. I know there’s a Holiday Inn not far from here, but maybe we should go for something less conspicuous, a motel on the other side of town that would have little or no chance of being frequented by anybody either of us know.”
“You know how small this town is, Dorothea. Ain’t no place safe here. There’s liable somebody watching every move you make. Which is why…”
“Why, what? Why we can’t be together?”
“That, too, but it’s why…” Obadiah looked at Dorothea for a long moment, a plan forming in his head behind the thought he’d just had. “I need your help with something, Dorothea.”
“Anything, just ask me.”
“Let’s finish eating first. Then I need to show you something.”
Thirty minutes later, Dorothea followed Obadiah to his study. Short of a sermon outline, she couldn’t think of anything in his office that he’d want to share with her. When he walked to what looked like a library wall, pushed against the end, and walked into a smaller, secret room, Dorothea followed. And then stopped short. Obadiah’s companion stared at her with sightless eyes, its large breasts displayed prominently, like two ripe melons, the lower part of her body covered with one of Maxine’s knitted throws.
Dorothea recovered quickly. “Oh, my precious Obadiah,” she said, walking over and putting her arms around Obadiah, who stood rigid before her. “Your marriage has come to this? Oh, baby, we can’t have you resorting to this madness. Let me help you, right now.” She stepped back, put her hands behind her back, and started to undo her skirt.
“No,” Obadiah said, staying her hands with one of his large, powerful ones. “That’s not what I meant when I asked you for help. This”—Obadiah pointed to the rubber doll—“is the reason Maxine went back to Kansas. She won’t come back until it’s out of the house, but I’m scared to take it any place for fear of somebody seeing me or, worse, taking a picture of me trying to get rid of it.” The scandal of Gospel Truth’s last pastor was never far from Obadiah’s mind, and the last thing he wanted to do was bring more shame to his church. “But people aren’t watching me like they’re watching you. Do you think you can help me get rid of it?”
Dorothea looked from the doll to Obadiah and back again. “I’ll help you, Obadiah. But what do I get out of the deal?”
Thirty minutes later, the deed was done. Dorothea was gone, and so was the monstrosity that had sent his wife fleeing for the land of Oz. For some reason, moving the sixty-pound doll had been more taxing than usual for Obadiah, possibly because other than her arrival, shortly after arriving in Texas, he’d never moved her more than a couple feet. By the time he’d helped get the doll in Dorothea’s car and his accomplice had left, a sheen of sweat covered Obadiah’s face and arms. He watched until Dorothea’s taillights turned the corner. Then he hit the button to lower the garage door, walked back into the house, and straight
to the phone.
As had been the case the last few times he’d tried his wife’s number, he got voice mail. But it didn’t matter. He had news, and Obadiah was sure this news would make the difference. Slightly irritated, he hit the pound key to bypass Maxine’s recorded message. As soon as he heard the beep, he spoke into the phone. “Maxine, everything is outta here, and God is not pleased with how you’re acting. You need to come home. Now.”
36
Sleep Don’t Come Easy
Passion was tired. She’d been counseling church members all day long, and the conversations hadn’t been easy ones. One member was a single mother dealing with unruly children, one of whom she suspected of being in a gang. The second counseling session had involved a woman battling guilt. She’d had to move her mother into a home last year, because of her mother’s increased dementia. Now it looked as though she might have to quit a job she loved to take care of her full-time. The member was torn between wanting the best for her mother and wanting the freedom to continue living her own life. There were a few less serious but no less harrowing counseling sessions before she began the final session of the day, the member who was now in her office. This member, about the same age as Passion, was considering divorce from her husband. She believed he was a sex maniac, outside of the will of God, because he wanted to make love every night, sometimes more than once in a night. Passion only wished she had this woman’s “problem.” After realizing Passion wasn’t going to condone the woman getting a divorce on these grounds, the woman huffed out of the office. Passion was glad to see her go.
“Lady Lee, you have a call,” her assistant said over the phone, just seconds after Passion sat back down at her desk.
“Take a message.”
“I tried, but the woman said it was important.”
Passion hesitated, not sure if she could speak to one more woman today about her problems. “Who is it?”
Heaven Forbid Page 16
