One Sunday at a Time

by E. N. Joy

  Pulling the covers up to her neck, Deborah said, “Okay, God. Do your thing. I’m going under. Now operate on me while I’m in a deep sleep, the same way you did on others in the Bible. In Jesus’s name. Amen.”

  ***

  “Deborah! Deborah! Get up! Are you serious right now? You’re sleeping?” Lynox was enraged as he paced at the foot of their bed. With each fist balled at his side, he was seeing red. He was about to start seeing black, because if the Holy Ghost didn’t hold him back, he was going to black out on his wife. He stopped in his tracks and tried to calm himself down. “Deborah.” This time, in his attempt to remain calm, he didn’t yell her name, but she did not respond. He looked to see if Deborah was still sound asleep. “Deborah.” He said it a little louder this time, trying his best to keep the edge off his tone.

  She sighed, as if she was having the best sleep in the world. And if he wasn’t mistaken, she had a little smirk on her face.

  “Well, I’ll be . . . ,” he said as he stood there looking at her, shaking his head. He could not believe she was at home, sleeping, without a care in the world. That was it. He couldn’t contain himself any longer. “Deborah, get up!” he yelled as loud as he could, snatching the covers off of her.

  Deborah began to squirm and wipe her eyes. She let out a couple of grunts and sighs as she desperately tried to pull herself out of her deep sleep. Her mind was telling her no, to stay asleep, that she needed the rest, but her body wanted to get up. It was a struggle that Deborah found herself caught in the middle of.

  “Woman, I’m not playing with you!” Lynox snapped.

  Deborah managed to pull herself up into a sitting position in bed. “What, Lynox? What’s going on?” She was all discombobulated and confused. She patted her hair down.

  “The boys! That’s what’s going on.” Lynox began to pace again.

  Deborah sat there, confused. “What about the boys?”

  Lynox stopped and looked at Deborah as if his look alone could shake some sense into her. “What about the boys?” he repeated. He angrily put his hands on his hips. “Where are they, Deborah? Where are your children?” Lynox waited impatiently for Deborah to reply.

  “Well, aren’t they . . . they are . . .” Deborah had to think real hard. “With my mother?”

  “Is that a question? Because I’m asking you,” Lynox said.

  “They spent the night with her, didn’t they?”

  “Yes, where they were safe and sound before you picked them up this morning.”

  Deborah scrunched her face up. She hadn’t picked the boys up from her mother’s. As a matter of fact, she had planned on texting Lynox and telling him to go pick them up. “Didn’t you get my text? Didn’t you pick them up from my mom’s?”

  “No, I did not!” Lynox said through gritted teeth.

  “All right, okay,” Deborah said, swinging her legs out of the bed and onto the floor. “Calm down. I’ll go get them myself.” She looked at Lynox. “What? Did Mom call and fuss about them being there so late?” Deborah stretched and yawned.

  Lynox stomped over in front of Deborah. “They are not at your mother’s!” He slammed his fist down on the bed next to Deborah, causing her to flinch. “You picked them up already. You took them to church. Don’t you remember?” Lynox stood up straight and walked away, slapping his hand across his forehead and wiping away the sweat.

  Deborah sat on the bed with her mouth wide open. Had Lynox not just mentioned it, she would have honestly forgotten all about picking up the boys from her mother’s and checking them into children’s church. That part of the day had been completely lost from her mind.

  “Oh, my God! The boys. Church!” Deborah looked over at the clock as she hopped to her feet. It was almost five in the evening. Church usually let out around one o’clock. “I gotta . . . I gotta get back to the church.” She went to rush past Lynox.

  Lynox grabbed Deborah by the shoulders, stopping her.

  “Let go of me!” she yelled, totally flipping out. “I gotta go get the boys.”

  “Will you stop it?” Lynox said, fussing. “I got them. After failed attempts to get in touch with you, the church called me. Unfortunately, I went to get something to eat after church with Brother Maeyl and his family. I left my cell phone in the car. I checked my messages afterward. It was Pastor Margie. They were worried sick, Deborah.” He shook her slightly. “Worried sick. They tried calling your phone, the house phone. They said they even drove by and rang the bell.”

  “I . . . I . . .” Deborah placed her hand on her forehead. She walked away, trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together. “I must not have heard the phone or the doorbell or . . .” Her words trailed off. She was so embarrassed. So ashamed. “God, my boys. Tyson must have been scared to death. Where are they? I’ve gotta go see them.” Deborah ran toward the bedroom door.

  “Wait a minute. They’re not—”

  “Tyson! Tatum!” Deborah ran out the door and down the hall, calling for her sons.

  “They’re not here,” Lynox called out as he chased her.

  Deborah was oblivious to the words her husband had just spoken. “Tyson!” She opened the door to Tyson’s room, only to find his race car twin bed with drawers at the bottom empty. “Tyson! Tatum!” She turned to leave the room and head to the nursery. That was when she smacked right into Lynox’s chest, almost knocking the wind out of herself. “Ugh,” she said.

  “They’re not here,” Lynox told her.

  This time the words registered in Deborah’s head. “What? But I thought you said—”

  “I did get them from church, but then I took them back to your mother’s. I was afraid of what I might find when I got back to the house, or of what I wouldn’t find. I didn’t know if I was going to have to drive around and call hospitals and the police station, looking for you. Because I figured something god-awful had to have happened for you to sign our kids into church and never show back up to get them. So imagine both my surprise and, I suppose, my relief when I came home and found you in bed, sleeping like a baby. Deborah, seriously, what is going on with you? Do you think that maybe you need to—” Lynox halted his words. He wanted to be very careful about what he said. The last time he said something his wife didn’t like, he ended up getting slapped across the hand and then the face.

  Deborah’s eyes began to water. “Do I need to what? Just say it, Lynox.”

  As Lynox looked into his wife’s eyes, his anger started to decrease. And he started to become sympathetic, almost to the point where he felt sorry for her. She seemed lost, overwhelmed, and confused all at the same time. He didn’t know what she needed at the moment, but it probably wasn’t him making her feel any worse than she already did. All he could do was shake his head.

  “What? Say it!” Deborah cried. “Do I need my happy pills again? Is that what you were going to say? Well, just so you know . . .” Deborah stomped off toward their bedroom. “I’ll show you.” She raced into their bedroom. At first she headed for the bathroom, but then she realized that what she was looking for was on the nightstand by the bed. She headed over to the nightstand and grabbed the bottle of pills. She turned around as Lynox entered the bedroom. “See!” She shook the bottle of pills at him. “I have my happy pills, and for your information, I took them already. I was only trying to do the right thing. I felt so bad about putting my hands on you last night. I wasn’t myself. I wasn’t in my right mind,” Deborah explained.

  “I was too proud to apologize last night,” she continued. “Then you left for church this morning . . . without me.” She swept her hair back with her hand. “I had all these crazy thoughts about you, and then my mom called and asked if I was taking the kids to church. I told her no at first, and then I wanted to go see about you, see if you were okay,” Deborah lied. “And so I decided to get them and take them to church too.” Deborah was rambling on hysterically. “I tried to find you at church. I couldn’t find you at first, but then I saw you. You were sitting next to her, and I . . . I co
uldn’t take it. I had to get out of there before I went postal. I didn’t even think about the boys. I needed to get away. I don’t even remember how I got home. But when I got here, I needed something. So I decided to take my pills, since they helped me before. I guess I shouldn’t have taken two, but—”

  “Deborah, you took two?” Lynox said, finally able to get a word in edgewise.

  Deborah stood there, nodding like a small child. It was like she’d gone from almost forty years old to four years old.

  “Baby, why would you do that?” Lynox said, now completely empathetic toward his wife. “You could have hurt yourself. What if you hadn’t woken up? What would I have told the boys?”

  Deborah put her head down in shame. “I’m sorry. I just wanted to be better and happy and to make you happy. I want to be better.” Deborah began to weep heavily, her shoulders heaving up and down.

  Lynox walked over and embraced his wife. “It’s okay. You’ve been stressed and overwhelmed. I think you need to slow down a little. Take a little time out for yourself.” He pressed his wife’s face up against him and rubbed her back. “Had you stayed for today’s service, it would have been right on time for you. Pastor Margie preached about God blessing you even while you’re resting. She talked about how some folks can’t even sleep and rest well, because they are already thinking about all the stuff they have to get done the next day.”

  Boy, oh, boy, if that didn’t describe Deborah. She tossed and turned in her sleep at night, thinking about the next day’s tasks. Even if it was three o’clock in the morning, she’d sometimes get out of bed and do a task, just to get it off her mind.

  “Pastor Margie said God wants you to sleep and be renewed and refreshed. Instead of worrying about all of the next day’s problems, you should sleep soundly, trusting that God has already blessed you in that area,” Lynox said, reiterating today’s teaching. “She said that when a person is anxious and worried, it’s difficult to hear God’s voice. But when they stop and rest, they can hear and recognize His voice.”

  Lynox’s words were truly resonating with Deborah. She wished she had stayed at church and received the Word. She’d let the devil run her right out of that church and away from her blessing.

  Lynox pulled away a little from Deborah and looked her in the eyes. “God will refresh and restore you even in your sleep, so maybe that’s all you really need to get back on track again. Some sleep, some rest, some downtime, or just a relaxing time out with friends.” He ran his hands through her hair.

  “Well, Klarke did say something about wanting to get together this week,” Deborah said.

  “I think that would be good for you. I’ve never known you to have any girlfriends to hang out with and do stuff women do. Having someone to talk to like Klarke might be exactly what the doctor ordered. Even better, that may be why God put her in your life.”

  Deborah sniffed, then looked up at her husband. “You think so?”

  He pushed her hair behind her ears. “Yeah, baby, I do.”

  “But is she saved? Do you know if their family attends church or anything?”

  “Does it matter? I wasn’t saved when I met you, and I half attend church now.”

  Deborah shrugged. “You have a point.” Deborah had honestly never looked at things that way. She didn’t automatically count folks out because they weren’t practicing Christians. It was that she didn’t really let them in if they didn’t have that in common with her. It was that she tried so hard to be holy. Lynox respected that about her. Deborah wasn’t sure that someone who was worldly and didn’t know her would, though. She was having enough trouble around saved people, so the thought of trying to get better around the unsaved was daunting.

  Lynox kissed Deborah on the forehead. “So just think about hooking up with Klarke. You never know. If she’s not already saved, who’s to say God doesn’t want you to be the one to lead her to the throne?”

  That put a smile on Deborah’s face. She felt good knowing that even though she’d acted like the devil, Lynox knew her heart well enough to know that she was still usable by God.

  “Now, why don’t you go get out of your clothes and get showered, and I’ll get the boys?” Lynox suggested. “I’ll stop and grab pizza or something so you won’t have to worry about cooking anything. Okay?”

  Deborah nodded. That sounded real good to her. “Okay.”

  “All right then. I’ll be back soon.” Lynox kissed Deborah one more time before releasing her. He walked over to the door. Before exiting, he turned around and asked, “Are you gonna be okay?”

  Deborah nodded and smiled. “I am now that I’ve got my husband back.”

  “Girl, I never left,” Lynox said. Lynox returned the smile and then exited, pulling the door closed behind him.

  As soon as that door closed, both the husband’s and the wife’s smile faded. Apparently, neither of them believed that Deborah was going to be okay.

  Chapter 7

  Deborah had just left the library. She’d met with a prospective client in one of the smaller conference rooms. Deborah didn’t like bringing any ole body to her home office, so she quite often reserved one of the public library’s conference rooms to hold her meetings.

  The meeting had gone well. Deborah was excited about the possibility of beginning work on a project for the aspiring author with whom she’d met. It would involve Deborah doing some editing and adding content to beef up the project. It was a nonfiction work that consisted of several little inspirational stories the author had pulled from her own life. Talking to the woman had inspired Deborah. She had such wisdom and was extremely positive. Deborah was so moved by some of the stories the woman had relayed verbally, she actually would have done the project for free. That was how certain Deborah was that the writer’s words would bless her spirit and anyone else who read the book.

  Deborah hadn’t even realized the meeting had gone over by a full hour until the librarian knocked on the door and told them the parties who had reserved the room next had arrived. Had that librarian not interrupted them, there was no telling how much longer Deborah would have sat there and gotten more than her fill of the woman’s sagacity and inspirational nuggets.

  That extra hour was a setback timewise for Deborah. Now she sat in her car in the library parking lot, trying to figure out how in the world she was going to be able to prepare the meal she’d originally planned. She definitely needed to have started the meal an hour ago in order for it to be done at a decent time.

  She’d served dinner at eight o’clock at night in the past, after not being able to pull herself away from a project. Or perhaps something else had delayed. Like the one time Lynox had needed her to search his computer for a document he couldn’t remember the name of and e-mail it to him. That had frustrated her to no end. She had had to search for forty-five minutes and had cracked open dozens of documents before she found the one he wanted. For the millionth time she’d given him a speech about handling his own business, being prepared, and being organized. As always, though, it had gone in one ear and out the other. The very next day he had called her, wanting her to look all over the house for a piece of paper he’d written a number down on.

  Although it wasn’t likely, Deborah wondered whether Lynox had taken the liberty of starting dinner once he saw that it was getting late and she hadn’t returned home at the time she’d estimated. She pulled out her cell phone and dialed his number.

  “Hey, wife,” he answered through the cell phone. “What’s up?” He sounded all happy and excited, like he’d had a pretty good day.

  “Nothing,” Deborah replied. “Just getting out of this meeting. It went longer than I had anticipated, which is why I am calling. I was checking to see if maybe you had started dinner.”

  “No,” Lynox said. “You should have told me to, and I would have.”

  “Well, I figured that when you saw it was getting late, you would take the initiative and do it yourself so that Tyson wouldn’t have to eat at midnight.” A mi
nute ago Deborah had felt so light and refreshed after speaking to her future client with all that positive energy. The snappishness in her voice showed that a dark cloud was slowly but surely making its way over to the sun.

  “My bad,” Lynox said, his voice no longer as chipper as it had been when he first answered the phone. Deborah had wasted no time at all figuratively pissing in his Cheerios.

  Deborah instantly felt convicted. She’d had a good day; he’d had a good day. Why mess that up? Besides, she didn’t want to be accused of stealing her man’s joy. She quickly changed her attitude for the better. “It’s okay. I’ll stop and get something. I’ll make tomorrow what I had planned on making tonight.”

  “Well, Tyson is about to go have pizza, cake, and ice cream next door, anyway. It’s CJ’s birthday today.”

  “Oh, yeah. That’s right,” Deborah said. “Wait a minute. I thought it was tomorrow. Oh, well. Anyway, I wrapped his present and left it out. It’s downstairs on my desk. I didn’t bring it upstairs, because I didn’t want Tyson snooping around and finding it.” Deborah kept a mini store in their basement. After Christmas, she would wait until all the stores marked their holiday merchandise at least 70 percent off; then she’d go to town. She’d purchase warm holiday pajama sets, snowflake bath sets, mug sets, and so on. She had bins in their basement that she had labeled women, men, boys, and girls. Items that didn’t look like they were strictly related to Christmas, she would place in a separate plastic bin. From there she would retrieve gifts for birthdays, anniversaries, baby showers, graduations, and whatnot, and that was where she had got the Spider-Man bath set she had all wrapped up and ready for CJ.

  Time didn’t always allow Deborah to drop everything and go out and grab a gift, and if it did, she’d spend way more money than she liked. That was what usually happened when a person didn’t have time to compare prices. Even though she and Lynox were well off financially, there had been a period of time in Deborah’s life when she hadn’t been. She’d been alone and struggling on her own. She never wanted to revisit that time, so she made sure she always got the most for her money and never spent frivolously.