Free Forgiven by Vanessa Miller Page A

hurt her like that again.”
    That was the Erica he knew from high school;
straight forward and to the point. JT lifted his arms in surrender.
“You don’t have to worry about me. I’ve learned the hard way. I’ve
only loved two women in my life; you and Cassandra. I let you get
away, but I don’t ever want Cassandra to leave me. I don’t know
what I’d do if that happened.”
    Erica looked at her watch. “I’ve got to get
back to work, but I will pray for Cassandra. Don’t worry about
that.” She stood up and took her tray to the trash can before
leaving the cafeteria.
    Remembering that he had a message, JT picked
his cell phone back up, opened it and clicked on the message. It
was picture mail. JT rolled his eyes as he wondered about the
people who spent their day picture mailing folks. He normally
deleted picture mail so fast that it didn’t have time to register
with Sprint that he’d received such a thing. But for some reason,
JT couldn’t make himself hit the delete button. He’d seen this cell
number pop up on his phone before, he was sure of it. But he’d
obviously not talked to the person enough to remember whose number
it was. Curiosity got the better of him and he opened the picture
mail.
    For a moment, JT thought his eyes were
playing tricks on him. The woman in the photo looked like
Cassandra, but she was holding hands with a man that JT didn’t
know. That couldn’t be his wife… could it?
    He dialed Cassandra’s cell phone, and of
course it went straight to voicemail again. This time JT left a
message. “Cassandra, I need to talk to you. Call me back as soon as
you get my message.” His tone was demanding, but at the moment JT
didn’t care.
    He hung up and dialed his house. His evil
mother-in-law picked up the phone again. JT got right to the point.
“Put my wife on the phone now!”
    “And just who do you think you’re talking
to?” Mattie asked.
    JT could picture hands on hips and the neck
roll that he was sure was being displayed on the other end of the
phone. So he gave back just as much attitude as he was getting. “I
don’t want to talk to you at all. I want you to stop answering my
telephone or do as I say and get Cassandra to the phone this
minute.”
    “Boy, I don’t know what woman you are out of
town with that has given you the courage to call here talking
crazy. But Cassandra ain’t here, and if she was, I wouldn’t put her
on the phone to take abuse from you,” Mattie informed him and then
hung up in his face as usual.
    JT shut his eyes as he hit the end button on
his cell phone. He couldn’t deal with this. He knew from deep
within his heart that although he had done his wife wrong multiple
times, he wouldn’t be able to take her cheating on him. He looked
to heaven and asked, “Why is this happening to us now, Lord?”
    He could have understood if Cassandra had
cheated on him while he was disrespecting and cheating on her. He
wouldn’t have been able to deal with that fact then either, but he
would have understood why she would do such a thing. But now, when
he was trying to be a better man? When he was struggling through
her panic attacks and no sexual relations with his wife… why would
she do this to him now?
    His eyes misted with tears as he thought
about losing his first daughter and how that had torn him away from
God. JT had promised God that nothing would ever separate him from
His love again. But this…? If God allowed Cassandra to cheat on him
while he was trying to do the right thing, JT didn’t know how he
would recover from something like this.
    ***
    Cassandra found two dresses and a pair of
slacks that she really liked at the mall. She and JT had agreed not
to spend any money outside of paying bills for the next two months.
But JT would just have to deal with it. She was still smarting from
that comment Diane made about calling JT’s cell phone. Cassandra
had decided not to go off the deep end until JT came home and was
able to explain the