Free Heaven Forbid by Lutishia Lovely Page A

dressed up as he was now in his Sunday go-to-meeting clothes. Two, unlike other men his age, Stanley Obadiah still stood an unbent six feet tall. All of that preaching had kept his paunch to a minimum, although he put on some pounds with his sicknesses a while back. But he still had a head full of gorgeous gray hair, eyes that twinkled, and except for a crown and bridge on the back right side, all of his own teeth. Yes, her husband still cut quite a swath. Unfortunately, she knew she wasn’t the only one who thought so.
    “Coffee’s on,” Mama Max said over her shoulder while reaching up in the cabinet for the sorghum molasses.
    “Um.”
    So you ain’t gonna tell me, huh? Mama Max began to hum as she set a bowl of sugar and a carton of half-and-half on the table. Jesus keep me near the cross. There’s a precious fountain…
    “Somebody might be at church this morning,” Obadiah began in his deep, raspy voice. “You ain’t gonna like it if she shows, but I want you to know she might be there.”
    “Who is it?” The wicked witch of the south? “I know you’re not going to say Dorothea Bates. Ain’t no husband of mine would have the nerve to come in here and tell me that.”
    Obadiah sighed heavily before taking a drink of coffee. Mama Max pulled the biscuits from the oven and slammed the tin down on the stove. Obadiah jumped.
    “Now, Maxine, I’m telling you so you don’t go off. She wants to come praise the Lord, thank him for bringing her through some things. How could I deny her the right to come to God’s house?”
    “Why can’t she praise Him somewhere else? What’s she doing here, Obadiah?”
    “She’s here to see Jenkins—the two of them have been…courting.”
    This news stunned Mama Max into silence for a moment, and she decided she’d have to digest what she’d heard before talking about it. “Then why ain’t she heading to his church this morning?”
    “First Baptist don’t have early morning service, and Jenkins has been a little under the weather, or so I hear.”
    Mama leaned back against the counter, crossed her arms, and glared at her husband. “You heard it from Dorothea, no doubt. How long have y’all been communicating, Obadiah? And why did she feel the need to tell you her business?” In her anger, Mama Max began wiping off an already clean counter. “She’s got nerve, coming in my face.”
    “Maxine, what happened between y’all was a long time ago. Let it rest.”
    Mama Max brought over a homemade sausage biscuit, piping hot, and set it in front of Obadiah. “I’ll let it rest, Stanley Obadiah. Question is, will you?”
    An hour later, Mama Max sat next to Nettie on the front pew. She swore to herself that she wouldn’t turn around, but rather, she’d watch her husband. If Dorothea Noble Bates showed up at church this morning, the news would be written all over Obadiah’s face.
    The headline came across his forehead about thirty minutes later. Any other time, Mama Max would have thought it funny how Obadiah tried to keep his face neutral. But she saw it: how his eyes narrowed, just the littlest bit, and how his lips went into a hard line. There weren’t that many people at early morning service; she guessed around a hundred. So it wouldn’t be hard to see Dorothea when the chance to turn around came. Not that it would have mattered, Mama Max thought wryly. Could have been a thousand people in this here building and Satan would still stick out like a sore thumb.
    The choir stood as the offering was lifted. Nettie resisted the urge to cringe. She knew that the Lord could use anybody, but the truth of the matter was, most of the good voices had been swept out of the church with Obadiah’s broom. Those in the stand now were the ones who wouldn’t have had a shot when Nate was around. “It’s all right anyhow,” she said with fervor, as the off-key soprano soloist began a Baptist classic:
    There is a Name I love to hear,
    I love to sing its worth;
    It sounds