Church Folk - Michele Andrea Bowen [71]
Essie had seen some bold women cross her husband's path, but this one was both bold and rude. She moved further into the foyer, as if she meant to push past Essie. A mischievous voice within Essie whispered, "Let her go."
She allowed the woman to elbow her aside and shove her way into the living room. There Theophilus sat, not in a chair, but on the floor, leaning against the couch, draped in a quilt, but obviously just as naked as his wife. The woman blinked hard in disbelief, stammering, "Oh, oh, Rev. Simmons, I needed to give you this but Essie—"
"Who?" Theophilus demanded. "Are you referring to Mrs. Simmons, the First Lady?"
"Well, I—" The woman couldn't bring herself to honor Essie, standing there half naked, with her proper name and title.
"I'm not taking those papers," Theophilus said. "You had a chance to give them to Miss-us Simmons"—he stretched over the syllables—"but that wasn't good enough for you. So, now you can come to my office during church business hours like a whole lot of other folks been doing lately."
He put his hands behind his head and closed his eyes to show the woman that their conversation was over.
Sister Clayton had warned the woman that the Pastor wasn't as nice as he seemed. But he had a lot of nerve trying to throw her out like that.
"You think you bad, don't you, Pastor. Well, keep on thinking that. Just keep on until the day Sister Clayton kicks you out of Greater Hope."
Theophilus knew that the threat was idle. The only one with the authority to remove a pastor in this denomination was a bishop. But it didn't surprise him that Willie Clayton had been telling her people that she was going to get him kicked out of his pulpit.
For the second time that day, Essie was compelled to put a troublemaker out of her house. She pointed to the door, and when the woman didn't move, she said, "If you don't want to see the heifer in me y'all always talking about come out, you better get going."
As she marched out, the woman stopped to shake the papers in Essie's face. Essie snatched them out of her hand, opened the front door, and tossed the papers outside, leaving her to scramble after them as she slammed the door shut. Then she returned to the living room, where Theophilus was sitting with his head tipped back against the couch, with his eyes closed.
She sat down next to him and said, "Theophilus, sugar, you all right?" She took his hand in hers and rubbed it comfortingly, as the tears began to creep from under his closed eyelids.
"Did Mr. Jarvis go home to be with the Lord this evening?"
He nodded yes, putting his head in her lap, and sobbed, telling her how much it hurt that he would never be able to sit and laugh over a Pepsi with Mr. Jarvis anymore.
Essie stroked his hair, thinking that the church was a heavy weight for one man to carry on his shoulders all the time. She sat on the floor holding Theophilus until he fell asleep. Then she put a pillow under his head, covered him up with the quilt, and going into her sewing room, got down on her knees and prayed.
"Lord, the only thing I love more than that man asleep on my living room floor is You. But You know and I know that it's gonna take a whole lot to be the kind of wife You want me to be and the kind of wife he deserves. Help me not to fall short. Teach me, Father, teach me to be the kind of wife You had in mind when You invented wives. Teach me to be the perfect helpmeet. When your son Theophilus is sad, I'm sad, too, Lord. We are one, Father, just as You would have it. I cast all of this pain onto You, Lord, just like the Bible tells me to do. Take this yoke, this burden, and replace it with your peace. Please, Lord, please show me the way to be a good wife."
Chapter Sixteen
ESSIE WAS IN HER SEWING ROOM RIGHT BEFORE SHE left for church, surveying all the unfinished projects hanging on the beautiful purple-painted wooden rack. She loved all colors in the purple family. And there was plenty of it all through the house—lavender, violet, blue violet, magenta,