Preacher's Wifey

by Dishan Washington

  “Would you be helping me if your baby had lived?”

  “Truth is, I don’t know. When my baby died, I put a whole lot into perspective. I want to first apologize to you for disrespecting your marriage.”

  “Oh, girl, please. Byran and I did not have a marriage. It was an arrangement.”

  “It does not matter what you may call it. The two of you stood before God and made vows with each other, and I was completely wrong for stepping into the middle of it. I have constantly asked God for forgiveness, and believe you me, I have paid dearly for it. It is no secret, as I am sure he has told you, that I was in love with him. Byran could have told me the sky was purple and I would have believed it. He has an uncanny way of getting you to believe everything and anything he says—even when you know he’s lying.”

  “When you love someone, you overlook the obvious to believe the unobvious.”

  “That is a good way of putting it. Well, when he first called me after you two got married, I had finally moved on and was beginning to get him out of my system. I could have married him, but I knew it would just be a repetitive cycle of what I was already accustomed to—him cheating. I did not want that life. I wanted to be in a faithful, committed relationship, and I knew if I wasn’t, eventually I would lose my resolve and resort to his same behavior. So, when he called me, I turned him away, and then one night he showed up at my door, confessing his love for me.

  “The first time, I listened and sent him on his way. Then I would wake up in the middle of the night to text messages about being his only love and how he was miserable without me. The second time he showed up at my house, I let him in. And from that night onward, I let him in. It is funny how we worked better when he wasn’t committed to me. When he has to commit, we suffer relationally. Each time he would leave my house, I would sit and wonder how you felt. Even though he told me about the arrangement you had, I knew better than to believe you were over there in that house with no feelings at all. And even if you started out not really loving him, I knew over time you would begin to. When he is being himself, he is an easy person to fall in love with. His charm, his wit, his humor are all adorable traits. I think he genuinely cares about people. I just think his core problems are commitment and selfishness.”

  “I would have to agree with you,” I said.

  “So, when I got pregnant, he made me all sorts of promises. He told me things were going to be different. That day I saw you at your house, I was there because we had gone to the doctor’s office that morning to find out the sex of the baby, and I had to drop him off because he rode with me. At that time, I was still going to a local doctor, and he had not gone to any appointments for fear of being noticed. I was inside your house because I had gotten sick and needed to use the restroom. I remember feeling like a load of crap when I saw the questions in your eyes. That had been me so many times when I was in a committed relationship with him.”

  I knew I must be completely over him, because her words did not sting.

  “Did you know that was the day I went to have an abortion?”

  “You had an abortion?”

  “No, I went to have an abortion, but I miscarried while I was at the clinic.”

  “Wow. I had no idea. I am so sorry. You must have been livid when you found out I was pregnant.”

  “I was. It was his idea for me to get the abortion, because he told me you—the woman he was in love with—were also pregnant and that it was bad timing. So, in an effort to prove to him that I was willing to do anything he wanted me to do, I agreed to it. I was so stupid. I actually believed he would see that as being selfless and would fall in love with me, rather than being in love with you.”

  She dropped her head. “It really breaks my heart to hear this. I cannot believe he would ask such a thing of you. You know, part of the reason I am here is that we as women need to learn how to stick together so that this cycle will not repeat itself with our daughters, sisters, nieces, and friends. We have lost respect for one another, and we do not value another woman’s relationship or emotional well-being. Somewhere along the way we have gotten so desperate to have a man, we tolerate anything.”

  “This hasn’t just started. The Bible is full of all types of stories like this. Abraham, who loved Sarah, made Hagar the first baby momma. We could learn a lot from that story. Look how Hagar got kicked to the curb once they had gotten what they wanted from her. Sure she had some issues when it was all said and done, but if you had been used the way she was, would you not have issues too?”

  Shatrice nodded her head in agreement.

  “And then there is Leah and Rachel, two sisters who grew up together. Who played in each other’s hair, who tried on each other’s clothes, who sang songs together, took baths together, and who found themselves at odds with each over a man. The competition with women started with them. They stayed competing with each other. Leah tried to keep him by having his babies and, after a gang of kids, realized she could not. Rachel found herself envying her sister because she could not have kids. We are talking about two sisters. Not strangers. Two sisters. So how can we really expect anything more when the same situation applies to two strangers?”

  “See, that is what I am saying. We have to do better. We have to change the way we women think so men will start respecting us. We are the key to what could very well start a revolution. If all women banded together and declared that we would respect our bodies, we would respect our fellow sister’s relationship and marriage, we would help each other raise, teach, and train our kids. We would be a force to be reckoned with.”

  “It can happen, Shatrice. You should start a movement.”

  “I might just do that. I do not want to hear of another woman who is contemplating suicide because a man has broken her heart and she is now convinced she is nothing without him. I do not want to hear of another woman who is staying in an abusive relationship because she is getting her bills paid. I want her to know she can tap into the power, gifts, and talents within her to produce the wealth she needs to take care of her kids—herself. We misunderstood the teaching of the older generation. We were never supposed to just depend on any man, but wives were to depend on husbands. But unmarried women think they need a man to take care of them. Wives get that privilege, but not sidepieces, jump-offs. . . .”

  “Or wifeys,” I added.

  “Wifeys?”

  “Yes, girl. That is the new term out here floating around.”

  “What exactly does it mean?”

  “Well, for me it meant one thing, but for most, a wifey is a woman who gets some of the benefits of being a wife without it being legal. For me, it was legal, I was married, but I did not have the respect a wife should get. I had an arrangement, which is how it is with most wifeys. They are in committed relationships, are often proposed to, and often live lives similar to a that of a husband and wife, but it is not sanctioned by God.”

  “Wow. I never knew that. Come to think of it, I think I have heard some men refer to their wife as a wifey, in the same manner a woman refers to her husband as her hubby. I never knew the term had a meaning behind it.”

  “I will never tolerate another man calling me wifey. The Bible does not speak about wifeys. The Bible—in Proverbs chapter eighteen, verse twenty-two—says that whosoever finds a wife findeth a good thing and obtaineth favor of the Lord. So, when a man takes a wife, in turn he receives God’s favor. Wifeys don’t have favor-producing ability.”

  “Man, this is deep.”

  “Yeah, people who say it jokingly don’t realize what they are saying,” I told her. “And sometimes we can be tricked into a mind-set. The Bible talks about husbands and wives. That is it.”

  “True. Maybe I should start a movement and have you teach on this.”

  “I would be honored to talk about this, but you already know Byran will slap me hard with a lawsuit.”

  “Speaking of Byran, the last thing he is expecting is for us to team up. He is so convinced that I love him so hard, I
would stand for anything. And in times past, that was the truth and nothing but the truth. But when my son died, I saw it as a second chance to get my life in order without having any attachment to him. As I lay in ICU for all those days, battling that infection in my body, all I could do was pray, and I promised God that if He spared my life, I would get myself together and do the best I could to right my wrongs.

  “So the first thing I knew I had to do once I got up on my feet was to pay you a visit. Byran confided in me what was going on with you two and how he was basically holding you hostage to a marriage you wanted out of and have every right to be out of. Beyond the death of my son, beyond my battle with an infection, that was the final straw for me. How are you going to make someone stay with you that don’t want to be there? It is the most ludicrous thing I have ever heard. I purposed in myself I would help you.”

  “So what bright idea do you have?” I asked. “All of this sounds good, but how are we going to get Byran to release me from this marriage?”’

  “What is the most important thing to him right now?”

  “The church.”

  “Exactly. The whole reason he wants you to stay in the marriage is so he does not lose his church. He knows how a divorce would look, and he also knows how important it is to the leadership that he be married, which is why he married you in the first place.”

  “Right.”

  “If you expose him, it will backfire on you, and you are right. You will have a fireball of a lawsuit thrown at you.”

  “Right again. Therein is my problem. Besides the fact that he would contest, thereby creating expensive court and attorney fees, I have no money and he took away my access to the money.”

  “I am going to get rid of him for you by blackmailing him. I will threaten to expose him in front of his entire church if he does not let you out of this marriage. That will not only jeopardize his position at Cornerstone, but his reputation will be so tarnished, it would make it difficult for him to go anywhere else and pastor. Now, I would never expose him, but he does not have to know that. Because if there is one person on earth who can expose him, it is me.”

  “But how? It is your word against his. Do you know how many women step forward, claiming to have had a relationship with a pastor? Especially a mega pastor. Hundreds . . . maybe even thousands.”

  “I have proof. I save everything. Texts, e-mails, pictures. Everything.”

  “Smart girl.”

  “I know. Besides that, you do know all medical facilities are covered under surveillance, right? We are on camera countless times, holding hands, walking in and out of the building. I made friends with the security director, and if I ever need them, I could get access to those tapes. Not to mention, he made a very big mistake. He allowed me to list him as the father on BJ’s birth certificate. But even if he had not, I could prove a pretty good case that he is my child’s father with just the information I have.”

  “You are my new best friend, girl,” I said, reaching over to hug her. “I am not interested in him being exposed. I could have already done that, if only out of anger. But the church in general—pastors in general—gets a bad rap. Not all churches have drama, and not all pastors are whoremongers, thieves, or child molesters. So, the only reason I am going along with this is that I do not believe you will even need to actually use this information.”

  “He will be blown away by the fact that I would even threaten to use it against him. I have always done whatever he told me to do. Hopefully, after this he will crawl into a corner somewhere and get himself together. He is too good at what he does to keep down this path. I love him enough to help him. Because, don’t get me wrong, I still love the man. Thus me doing this to help you is my way of helping him. I hope he wakes up, because I have, and there is no way I will ever go to sleep in the bed of naïvete again.”

  “Thank you so much. You have no idea the stress I have been under trying to figure out a way to get out of this mess. I have been praying. My parents have been praying. My friends, everybody . . . has been praying. And the only thing that was left to do was trust God.”

  “When you left Atlanta, he hit the roof,” Shatrice revealed. “You have no idea how upset he was. But I secretly admired you because you found the strength to leave it all without thinking about or being concerned with what others might think. But he was so upset, he could barely contain himself. Of course, when he gets upset, whoever is around him will be his target. Girl, that day you left, he had the biggest attitude. I had to practically knock him upside his head to remind him it had nothing to do with me.”

  “Yep, that describes him perfectly. I had to, Shatrice. I felt like if I did not leave when I did, something really bad was going to happen.”

  “Has he tried to reach you?”

  “Of course. For the first week he blew my cell up. That is why I changed my number. The only people in Atlanta with my number now are my parents and my best friend. I also changed it so he could not track my location through GPS. Either way, even if he had found me, he would have not been able to get to me. I am heavily guarded,” I said, laughing.

  “When I wrote you on Facebook, I had no idea if you would write back. I told God if you did, it would be the sign I needed to confirm that I was supposed to offer my help.”

  “Well, like I said, I am glad you called.”

  “So here is what I was thinking. I am going to go to the church and have a talk with him. At least there I know he will blow up only so much. I will put it to him simply and see how it goes. I will have my proof on deck, so if I need to flash it to prove how serious I am, then so be it.”

  “I want to be there when you go,” I said.

  “I don’t think that will be a good idea. Byran was really upset. I don’t know what he would do if he saw you.”

  “I do not care. There are some things I want to say to him. I want to go.”

  She looked as if she was mulling over the thought. “Okay, if you insist. I am not a small person, but I am no match for him if he charges either of us,” she said jokingly.

  “We will not have to worry about that. I will have some people on standby if I need them.”

  “Oh, okay. You got a little gangsta in you, I see.”

  I chuckled. “No. I am just surrounded by people now who really love me and would go to no ends to protect me.”

  “Isn’t that sad?”

  “Isn’t what sad?”

  “That you have to have people on standby to protect you from the man who vowed to protect you for life,” she said.

  “Oh. Yeah, it is. But I am over that now. I am finally at peace with myself, with my life, and the people in my life.”

  “That is wonderful to hear. I am working on having that same peace myself. I have to first get him out of my system. I really did and do love him, Allyson.”

  “And you may never stop, Shatrice. But sometimes loving someone may mean letting them go. And who knows? You two may end up together again one day—because I do believe he loves you—but first, he has to learn to love himself if he will ever be able to love you correctly and how you deserve to be loved.”

  “You are so right.”

  “So when are we going to Cornerstone to confront Pastor Ward?” I asked, smiling.

  “How soon do you want to be free?”

  I smiled again. “I am already free.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Seth and I rode hand in hand as Louie drove.

  “Are you nervous?” he asked.

  “Why would I be nervous?”

  “A part of your life is ending today.”

  “It does not matter, because a new part of my life has already begun,” I said as I lovingly looked into his eyes.

  He kissed me on the forehead as we turned into the parking lot of the church. I saw Shatrice’s Mercedes already parked there. Byran’s Ferrari was parked in its usual spot. In about an hour people would be coming for Bible Study. We had to get in and get out as quickly as possible. I did not w
ant to answer a thousand questions.

  It felt weird coming to the church after having been gone for so long. When I thought about it, I never really fit in here as a first lady. I had done the best I could as a pastor’s wife, but it was not something that I was meant to do. But for the sake of being with Byran, I was willing to do whatever it took.

  The car came to a stop, and Seth and I got out.

  “I will be right out here waiting if you need me,” he assured me. “Are you sure you do not want me to go inside with you?”

  “I am certain. I need to handle this by myself,” I said.

  “Okay, here are the divorce papers. I expect you to come out of there a single woman,” he joked.

  “Yes, sir,” I said, smiling and placing the papers in my black leather attaché.

  “If you are not out in thirty minutes, I am coming in there, Allyson. I cannot afford to lose you.”

  “Babe, he is not going to act a fool in the church. When we get through with him, he may never act a fool anywhere else again.”

  “Let’s pray so.”

  “Okay, I am going in. See you in a bit.”

  I walked into the church and down the hall. I noticed that the picture of Byran and me that had once hung on a wall of the administrative wing had been taken down and had been replaced with a generic picture. As I approached our office suite, a small amount of nervousness tried to overtake me. I had not seen Byran in a couple of months, and I wondered how I was going to feel when I did.

  I could hear Shatrice’s voice from outside the door to the suite. I punched in the combination to the suite’s lock, and to my surprise it was still the same, and I entered.

  “Byran, the best thing for you to do is to give the woman the divorce,” I heard Shatrice say.