Right Package, Wrong Baggage

by Wanda B. Campbell

  “Marlon, if you leave this time, don’t come back. I’m tired of this!”

  He threw his hands in the air and just that fast, the gentleness was gone. “Whatever, Pam. I am not changing. You knew how l liked to live before you married me. If you can’t accept me the way I am, then maybe I should leave you. Marlon’s pager went off; he looked down at the number. Pamela sat disheartened by his ultimatum while he answered the page. “Sorry . . . I know . . . I can’t wait to see you either . . . I’m on my way.”

  Marlon stopped before walking out of their bedroom and turned back to her. “Tomorrow, you, me, and the kid can have a picnic in the park,” he said, then left. That was the last time she saw him alive.

  Pamela closed her eyes and shook her head. “Why am I thinking about that now?” she mumbled. “Why am I thinking about Marlon when I’m here with Micah?”

  Suddenly, she understood why. Watching Micah pack his toiletries brought the realization that he was leaving in a few hours for Chicago. She panicked as the past and present collided with an explosive bang and distorted her reality. Marlon had left, her and now Micah was going to Chicago. Marlon left her to be with other women, and now Micah was leaving her to see Richard Lewis, his former lover. Once again, Pamela was being left behind and tossed aside for someone else.

  “Are you going to sleep with Richard?” she asked before she could stop the words from rolling off her tongue.

  At first, Pamela’s voice startled him, and Micah stopped what he was doing. But as he digested her words, anger overtook him, and for the first time, he allowed his anger to flow freely against her. “What did you just ask me?” he yelled.

  Pamela wished she could take back those seven words, but it was too late. “I mean, are you ready to see him?” she asked nervously.

  “You meant what you said the first time!” Micah snapped.

  “But I didn’t mean it that way.” Pamela wrapped her arms around herself in attempt to shield herself from his wrath.

  Micah shook his head. “You are amazing! My mother just died. I’m going to Chicago to bury my mother. I can’t believe you have the audacity to ask me if I’m going to have sex with Richard!” He couldn’t stand to look at her. Micah brushed past her and went into the living room. She followed a step behind him.

  He stopped abruptly and turned, causing her to bump into him. “What is it going to take for you? When are you going to let my past go?”

  “Micah, I didn’t mean to say it like that.” She tried to explain again. “I—”

  He cut her off. “Just how did you mean to tell me that you still don’t trust me? How did you mean to tell me that you think I’ve been lying to you all this time? How did you mean to tell me that you can’t let go of my past? And exactly how did you mean to tell me that I have been wasting my time with you?”

  Pamela had seen Micah sad and hurt before, but this was the first time she experienced his anger. She knew she deserved it, but begged for mercy anyway. “Please just listen to me. I—”

  “No, Pamela!” He cut her off again. “I’ve seen it in your eyes since the first night I told you my complete history. When you said you wanted to resume our relationship, I tried to ignore it, but it was still there. That look that says, I want to accept you, but I just can’t.’ I have done everything possible to make this relationship work, but that’s still not enough for you. You don’t want me.” He pointed at himself. “You want someone perfect.”

  “No, I do want you.” Pamela grabbed his arm. “I just have a hard time separating the past from the present,” she tried to explain. Pamela knew he didn’t understand because she didn’t quite understand her rationale.

  Micah exhaled deeply, then turned his back to her. His heart had never ached as much as it did at this moment. The loss of his mother and now Pamela was unbearable. He felt like taking a running start and jumping from the third-floor balcony. “Devil, you are a liar!” he yelled.

  Deep down he knew this pain would never completely go away, but he would survive. He would survive this just like he’d survived his father’s death, his mother’s neglect, and Richard’s trickery. Knowing that did nothing to dull the pain. Micah had opened himself up completely to her. He loved Pamela with everything he had in him—only to be rewarded with rejection again. It was time to let her go and move on.

  He turned back to face her. “When I come back, I’ll have a talk with Matthew.”

  Pamela leaned against the wall and wrapped her arms around her body. “What will you tell him?”

  “That you’ve decided to return your present.”

  The finality in his tone caused Pamela to shake and gasp for air. “Why would you tell him that?” she asked nervously.

  “Because it’s the truth,” Micah answered matter-of-factly. He tried to sound strong although his insides were shattered. “Of course, I won’t use those words. I’ll explain it to him where he can understand.”

  Pamela’s knees grew weak, and she had to grip the wall to keep from falling. This is not what she wanted. It really wasn’t. “Micah, you don’t have to do that now.” Her voice was so low, she barely heard herself speak.

  “Yes, I do. I have to do what’s best for me, not you.” Micah closed his eyes and massaged his temples. “Pamela, let me explain something to you. Seven weeks ago, my mother called out of the blue just to say that she loved me and wanted pictures so she could show me off to her new church members. She apologized for being a bad mother and told me that she was proud of me. I hadn’t heard my mother in a sound frame of mind in years, but then seven weeks ago, she told me I was the only good thing in her life. She said she was turning her life around and wanted to come out here to be close to me. After neglecting me for most of my life, she wanted to be a part of my world.” Micah swallowed hard. “That was seven weeks ago, and today my mother is dead. Her experience has taught me that life is too short to waste time on destructive behavior and relationships that aren’t going anywhere.”

  Pamela blinked back the tears threatening to gush through and slide down her cheeks. “You think our relationship is destructive?”

  “The way it is now, yes.” Micah answered plainly. “To be honest, we haven’t had a relationship since that awful night I made the mistake of trusting you with my indiscretions. Since that time, no matter how hard you try, you haven’t been able to get close to me. You can barely look me in the face anymore. No matter how much we talk or how much I reassure you, it’s not enough for you. No matter how hard you try, you can’t open yourself up to be with me. Over all that, what hurts the most is that you really believed I would violate Matthew.” Micah felt the hurt and frustration he’d been holding in since Matthew’s ordeal resurface, and this time, he didn’t suppress it. Tears flowed down his cheeks. “How many times and in how many ways do I have to prove to you that I love Matthew like a son? God knows I love you. I would never do anything to hurt either of you. I would give my life for both of you.” By the last sentence, Micah’s voice trembled.

  His words broke the dam. Thick tears clouded Pamela’s vision. “I love you too,” she whimpered and slid down the wall.

  “But you can’t get past my past, and that’s destroying me. That’s what destroyed us, your unwillingness to love me in spite of my faults.”

  Micah waited for her to contest, but she didn’t. He watched her slide down the wall until she sat on the floor. Pamela lowered her head and cried hard, hot tears, but unlike before, her sorrow didn’t stimulate his compassion. Micah sat on the futon with his elbows perched on his legs and his fingers laced underneath his chin.

  “Pamela, life is too short for me to stay in a relationship that isn’t going anywhere. And it’s too short for you to stay in one just because you don’t know how to fully let go.”

  “What if I don’t want to let go?” She finally gave him the eye contact he’d been longing for, but it was too late. Micah pressed on as if she weren’t crying, as if her tears didn’t move him.

  “I know withou
t a doubt that you, Pamela Roberts, are the woman God created for me. I love you so much it scares me, but I have to let you go. I don’t believe I’ll ever love anyone as much as I love you, but that’s a moot point. It’s not healthy for me stay in a relationship with someone who doesn’t really want me, so I’m ending this charade now. For the most part, it was a nice ride, but here’s where I get off. It’s over, Pamela, and that’s final.”

  She maneuvered to her knees and crawled to him and leaned back on her legs in front of him. “Micah, please don’t say that. We can work this out.”

  Micah ignored her outstretched hand. “Pamela, I gave you the best I have to offer. I gave you me, but you can’t accept me. I told you about my past, not to hurt you, but because I didn’t want any secrets between us. I wanted to be honest with you. I didn’t want you to accidentally find out later from someone else. I trusted you, Pamela, and I thought you loved me for the person I am now.” Micah placed his hand on his chest. “I opened myself up and let you into my heart, and you broke it. In every way I could think of, I expressed my love for you. If you wanted something, I got it for you. When you were sad, I made you laugh. When you were tired, I allowed you to rest. When you were afraid, I comforted you. I did everything for you, but for some reason, that wasn’t good enough for you. You insist on judging me by my past. Doesn’t my present count for anything?” Micah questioned. “Doesn’t all the time we spent together show you that who I am today is not the person I was in my past?”

  “Micah, I’m afraid,” Pamela admitted for the first time. She was afraid of being hurt again, but Micah didn’t know that. She’d never shared that part of her life with him.

  Micah stood and threw his hands in the air. “You don’t think I am scared?” he asked incredulously. “Pamela, no matter how wonderful I am, or how great of a person I am, or how many times I testify how God has delivered me and turned my life around, people still hold my past against me, just like you do. I’m afraid to start friendships in and out of the church because I know as soon as I say I slept with a man, people will ostracize me. It doesn’t matter that I was seduced into the lifestyle by my pastor. The only thing people will see is that I yielded. Do you think it’s easy for me to listen to drug dealers, prostitutes, alcoholics, adulterers, and even murderers declare their deliverance and everyone celebrates with them? Everybody accepts them. But if I stand up and say I’ve been delivered from homosexuality, I’ll be treated like dirt. How do you think I feel knowing that no matter how clean I am, I’m still unclean in the eyes of people? Even through your eyes, I’m dirty and nasty.”

  The hurt in Micah’s eyes was more than she could bear. The hurt in his tone was more than she could stand to hear. Pamela closed her eyes and shook her head and tried to block out the evidence of the pain she’d caused the man God sent to her.

  “Micah, I don’t think you’re nasty. I just—” Pamela started.

  His anger returned, and he wouldn’t allow her to finish the statement. “You called me a fagot! You scrubbed your face after I kissed you that night! And let’s not forget, you chose to leave Matthew in the care of a child molester over me!”

  Pamela didn’t have any words. Micah had said everything, and it was all true. There was no rebuttal, no closing argument to persuade the jury. Pamela did the only thing she could do—cry.

  Micah’s jaw flinched as he tried to hold back his own tears. He couldn’t cry, not now and not for her. His mother was lying on a cold metal slab somewhere on the south side of Chicago. Putting her to rest in peace was his first priority. Grieving over what could have been with Pamela would have to wait.

  “Pamela, it’s late, and I have to finish packing. You should leave now.”

  She wanted to stay, but Micah walked briskly past her and opened the front door signaling her dismissal.

  Pamela remained quiet except for her labored sniffles. Silently, she stood to her feet and collected her purse from the kitchen. Then slowly she moved toward the door. She tried one last time to make eye contact with Micah, but he refused to look at her. Before clearing the door, she made one last attempt to say everything that was in her heart, but he wasn’t having it. Before she got the first word out, Micah held up his opened-palm hand.

  “Pamela, it’s over,” were the last words she heard before he closed the door on her.

  Chapter 21

  Pamela’s vision was so blurred that she could barely see directly in front of her. She didn’t bother waiting for the elevator. Needing to distance herself from the reality of what had just happened, she headed straight for the stairs. Pamela had to hold on to the rail to keep from tumbling down the three flights of stairs at Micah’s apartment building. Her reckless movements nearly knocked down a young child, but she refused to stop. She had to get away from Micah’s rejection.

  Once inside the confines of her car, Pamela cried loud sobs and unleashed hot tears that soaked her blouse. The same blouse Micah’s tears had soaked hours earlier. This official breakup with Micah was more than she could handle. Micah was right, she needed to let go. But it wasn’t him she needed to let go of; it was the darkness of her own past that snared her, not his. Micah Stevenson was her love, but then so was Marlon Roberts. And no matter how many promises he made to her, Marlon always reverted back to his old self. Micah could do the same thing to her one day. She could compete with Marlon’s women, but she was no match for a man.

  Her late husband paraded his infidelity like a badge of honor. Micah had never given her any indication that his heart wasn’t sincere. She realized that now, but it was too late.

  She merged onto Interstate 880 with questions pounding the inside of her head. Was Jessica right? Was she judging Micah by Marlon’s actions? Was she sitting in the seat of God, saying who can be delivered and who can’t? Had she become a self-appointed judge? The true answers to those questions were more than she could stand. The answer to every question was a resounding yes. Pamela pulled over to the shoulder and wept violently. Her body shook, and her shoulders heaved. The pain in her abdomen intensified and caused her to hunch forward.

  She needed something to take the pain of her reality away and to give her back the temporary peace of her perfect world. The world before Micah dismissed her. She wanted to laugh at commercials and tell jokes with him again. She wanted to make a peach cobbler for him and listen to him moan his appreciation as he savored every bite. She wanted to feel the curl of his eyelashes brush against her forehead when he held her.

  “Oh God!” she screamed out loud and swerved to miss hitting a car as she merged back into traffic without signaling. “I can’t stand this. Please make this pain go away!”

  The pain not only continued, but grew worse. By the time she exited on Ashby Avenue, Pamela couldn’t stand the heartache and the throbbing migraine anymore. It only took seconds for her to remember how she numbed the afflictions caused by Marlon. She would do that this time. It worked then, and she knew it would work now.

  Pamela became antsy with the thought of having it. She knew it would make her feel better if only for a short time. She had to have it, and right now she needed its calming therapy. She needed something to help her stop missing Micah. Instead of going to an empty house, Pamela went in search of an old friend.

  She found a bag of her former grass companion on a corner not too far from her town house complex. When the guy without a name or a face walked over to her window, she had second thoughts, but Micah’s words continued to replay over and over in her head like a scratched record. “You called me a fagot! You’re not good for me! You gave me back! It’s over!” She had to make the cold hard truth go away, it hurt too much. Besides, if God didn’t want her to use marijuana for its therapeutic effects, He wouldn’t have created the herb, she reasoned. Pamela handed the twenty-dollar bill over, took the plastic bag, and then sped to her town house. The gearshift was barely in park before she opened the car door and ran to her front door.

  “God, help me to understand why I pushed Mic
ah away.” Pamela was so disorientated, she didn’t realize she was praying to God and preparing to smoke a blunt at the same time. “Lord, I need you to show what’s wrong with me.” She continued talking to God while she searched the kitchen drawers.

  The more she prayed and the longer it took for Pamela to find something to roll her friend in, the more she didn’t want the false comfort, and the more she comprehended she was making a big mistake. She looked down at the plastic bag and started crying. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t destroy her relationship with God; it was too important. It wasn’t God’s fault she pushed Micah away. It was hers and the state of denial she had allowed to rule her life.

  “Why did you allow me to fall in love with a homosexual?” she cried after she dumped the green leaves down the garbage disposal.

  The same reason I allowed Micah to love a drug user, the still voice answered.

  “I am not a drug user,” she yelled at the ceiling. “You delivered me from this a long time ago; I just got weak. You know I didn’t mean to buy this. I love you too much to choose this over you.” Pamela threw the little plastic bag unto the floor, and then leaned over the sink.

  Micah is not a homosexual. I delivered him from that just like I delivered you from your habit. If I can deliver you, why can’t I deliver him? Are you better than he? Is my power not strong enough for him? If I can take the taste of marijuana from you, can I not heal him and change his life?

  Pamela argued with the voice. “But God, Marlon—”

  If any man be in me, he is a new creature. Old things are passed away and behold I make all things new. Marlon was never in me; you can’t compare the two. Micah is my servant. You don’t have the right to judge my servant by someone who was never mine. Whom I call clean, you don’t have the right to call dirty. Whom I call holy, is holy. Whom I have freed, you don’t have the right to keep in bondage.