Chapter 23

Yirmeyah

I have no idea how long it was before the phone rang. I know I couldn't focus. I couldn't have worked on my sermon if my life had literally depended on it. I cried, and I got mad, and then I cried again. I went back and forth like that several times. And then the phone did ring.

It was Jason and Katherine's number in the caller ID, so I answered it. I suppose I sounded like I felt, for I certainly couldn't muster the gumption to sound cheery. "Is that you, Yirmeyah?" Jason's voice asked.

"Yeah, it's me. Did you need something?" It wasn't a gracious question, but I didn't feel terribly gracious.

"Cassie's here, and yes, we do need something. We need you to come over and talk."

"Cassie's at y'all's place?" I hadn't heard her leave. I hadn't even heard her come out of the bedroom.

"Yes, she is. How soon can you get here?" He was sounding a lot more like a father than a friend. I suppose he had a right, since he was my father-in-law. But I was used to him being my friend.

"How soon do I need to be there?" I asked.

"As soon as you can be. Yirmeyah, this is about your wife. Now are you coming?"

"Yeah, sure."

I had no idea what Cassie was doing at her parents' place. But I knew I missed her. I knew she'd hurt me too, and made me mad. And I knew that probably I'd done something wrong too, though I couldn't think what. I put on a pair of running shoes and grabbed one of my gimme hats, and got in my truck. And I was at the Morrison place pretty quick.

Jason met me at the door. "Hello, Yirmeyah. We're all in the living room." That surprised me. Generally the Morrisons used the den for everything, and left the living room for formal occasions. I never had learned what they did with what they called the front room. In all the time I'd known the family I'd never known them to use it.

I followed him toward the back of the house, for the building faced the back lot. They lived in the back yard and the house reflected that. Katherine and Cassie were on the sofa, I saw when we got to the living room. Cassie's eyes were red and her face had that uncomfortable look you get from hard crying. Jason sat in an armchair across from them, and I sat in another that was fairly close to Cassie.

"Yirmeyah," Jason said, "Cassie's been talking to Katherine, and then they've spoken to me. Cassie's gotten a lecture on being a wife to you. Now it's your turn to get a lecture on being a husband."

"Excuse me?"

"I know you're a preacher, Yirmeyah. I know – and Katherine knows and has told Cassie – I know that God has to come first in your life. He ought to come first in all our lives, as you've pointed out plenty of times. I listen to your sermons, you see. But Yirmeyah, you can't put God so far ahead of everything that you forget your wife."

"I ain't forgot my wife—""

"She feels like you have."

That stopped me dead. I looked from Jason to Cassie, and saw her head bent and fresh tears on her cheeks. "How's about she tell me so?"

"She will, if she wants to." That was Jason, his voice kind but not relenting a bit.

"Cassie?" I reached toward her, though the chair was just far enough from the sofa that my hand didn't quite make it.

"Yes?" She was still looking down, and I could hear the tears in her voice.

"Cassie, is it true? Do you feel like I'm neglectin' you?" I was trying to keep myself from going completely redneck, but some of it was coming through.

"Yirmeyah, I know you're not. I know it in my mind anyway." I knew she was upset from the way she was speaking in such chopped off sentences. "But I feel like you're leaving me while you go off with God." Finally she looked up at me. "I love you, Yirmeyah. But when you don't even care whether there's supper, or that I worked hard at my job, and then came home and fixed it for you, or that I've been trying to get your attention for two or three minutes – it hurts. I want you to love God. You have to. Mama reminded me that I knew when I married you that you're a preacher. But if you love God so much that you forget me, is that really loving God? And if you do that, do you really love me?" And a fresh flood of tears burst forth.

Her last question hit me hard. I knew I loved her. I'd loved her before she'd loved me. I'd loved her before she was a Christian, when she was a flirty childish woman whose Christianity was just on the surface. But had I been acting otherwise? I realized I had to say something to her, instead of just thinking to myself. "Cassie, I do love you. I tell you all the time, you know that." I knew that wasn't enough. "But maybe I haven't shown it the way I should. Talk to me, Cass – tell me what I can do better."

"I don't know..."

Katherine took a hand. "Yirmeyah, I think it's your concentration that has upset her so. She's told me how impossible it is to reach you when you're working on a sermon. She says it feels like you close yourself off by yourself, and push away everyone and everything else in the world – including her. Now," she said, holding up a palm to forestall me, "I'm not saying that's what you're doing. It's what she feels like you're doing."