Happily Even After - Marilynn Griffith Mills & Boon Steeple Hill

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adequate for the moment, so I ran a hand up my husband’s arm instead, thinking of how good he was to me, even before I lost the weight. His mother would have flipped if she’d seen me then. Ryan saw me, though, all of me. And he looked at me then just like he was looking at me now. Words came to me in a rush as we headed back to our room. “You look good this morning, too. Maybe we should take a few minutes to thank the Lord for what He’s made.”

      Ryan opened the door to our room and pulled me inside. “I think that’s a wonderful idea.”

      “Babe, can you do something with Lily? I can’t drive with her screaming like that. Seriously.” Ryan switched lanes and took a back street before stealing another glance at his watch. Late is not in my husband’s vocabulary. Unfortunately, when you look up that word in the dictionary, you’ll find my face beneath it. Though abstract concepts come easily to me, I’m often easily confused by the basics, like the location of the only skirt I can currently fit into. It’s a cute skirt, thank goodness, but since we lingered too long over our thanksgiving for one another this morning, Ryan’s probably done with me for a while. At present, he’s a man with one mission—getting to church before his mother.

      He didn’t have to worry about me fighting him on this one. For once, I had his back. I prayed like crazy on the passenger’s side, all the while reaching back to comfort Lily in her car seat. Things seemed much easier when she was tiny and still facing the back. I guess there’s a limit to how much black leather a kid can look at, because she always fell asleep in spite of herself. Now, with a whole blaring world in front of her, there was a lot to be fussy about.

      Her daddy seemed to think so, too. “Oh, come on. Get out of the way. That’s not even a parking space. What in the world is wrong with this guy? Can’t he see that I’m trying to get around?” Ryan honked the horn and hung his head in disgust.

      I did the same, minus the honking. When Ryan’s like this, there’s no room to give, not a second to spare. If he could, my husband would leave the car right here and sprint to the sanctuary just to keep from being a few minutes late for service. Knowing how painful this is for him and that’s it’s pretty much my fault, I touched his elbow, made him an offer. “Sweetheart, I’ll park and bring the baby in. You go on ahead.”

      His head snapped up. “You sure?”

      See? I know him so well…in some ways. “Absolutely,” I said, though I didn’t sound totally convincing, even to myself.

      Ryan picked up on it, too. He sighed. “Thanks, but no. You’re just trying to help and I appreciate it. We’re a family. We should go in together, late or not.” His jaw set into a tight line.

      I got out of the car, still stuck behind the line of traffic in front of us, and walked around to the driver’s-side door. I opened it and tugged at Ryan’s arm, gave him a kiss on the cheek. He didn’t respond in kind. It’s okay. I know he was just worried about the time. In my head, I was thinking of Adrian, Dana’s husband. He’s a model guy, the kind of man women want their daughters to marry, but he can’t stand being late, either. He’ll leave Dana at home on a Sunday morning in a minute. Ryan could have easily done the same. “Go on in, honey. I’ve got the car.”

      He looked relieved as he got out, but then the cars moved and he saw it. We both did. A salmon-colored Lexus parked in the pastor’s space.

      Queen Liz had struck again.

      My first Sunday at my husband’s church, I’d been amazed at the procession of ladies. It was amazing to watch, no matter how many times I saw the women file into Promised Land Worship Center. The first row curved in sharply, much shorter than the others. Those seats were reserved for Pastor Dre and First Lady Hyacynth, along with the other ministers, full-time staff people and their families. The first lady’s friends, the special ladies of the First Ladies and Friends Society, sat there also, usually in matching hats. On occasion, my stomach lurched at the sight of them.

      My mother-in-law, on the other hand, looked as though her mouth watered when she saw those women. Ryan had told me before he married me that his father had served as an interim pastor of this church for a few years, but that another man had been sent to take his place. The son of that man served as pastor now and Queen Liz didn’t seem too happy about it. Once one had a taste of the first row, evidently, it was hard to take being moved back. And moved back she was.

      Row number two was what I like to call the Mama and ’nem section, reserved for all the cousins, aunties, parents and assorted other relatives of the pastor and first lady. The only person I could point out on that row was Pastor Dre’s mother, who despite her advanced age would sport a pair of stilettos and a fierce suit in a minute and walk better than me while doing so. I need to get to know her better….

      The third row, Auxiliary Alley, I call it, is for the older women of the church who did most of the work: the Altar Club, Missionary Circle and Women’s Auxiliary all sat there, though none of us had any idea what most of them did. Queen Liz sat prominently on that row, even though no one, including her pewmates, was sure which ministry she belonged to. Personally, I thought she belonged to the I-ain’t-sitting-back-no-farther-than-this club, of which she was both founder and president.

      All the other ministries, groups and programs filled in the remaining seven rows that comprised the top ten. To try to pose your way into one of those rows was to invite scorn that could last a lifetime. I’d tried to shake hands with a woman at the restaurant we went to after church and Liz had almost karate chopped my wrist. “She’s that woman who lied about being in the choir. Don’t fool with her.”

      It turned out that the incident in question had occurred when she was in the fifth grade. Church drama dies hard. So does the ill will my mother-in-law sends my way every Sunday when I take my seat with Ryan in the back near the door. It’s as far as I can get from the Queen and still be in the sanctuary while also offering the option of quick exit. Best seat in the house. Although there is a place in the balcony that would be just perfect….

      Ryan won’t hear of it, though. He tries to act like he’s so different from his mother, but he has a thing about the balcony. “That’s for latecomers, sleepers, visitors and other nonessential folk,” he’d told me in the only imitation I’d ever heard him do of his father. The message hit home. I was all of the above except maybe a sleeper. Pastor Dre wasn’t boring, that much was for sure. If his preaching didn’t keep you up, the reflection of the lights off his cuff links, watch, bracelet and other assorted bling could definitely do the job.

      And Hyacynth? Well, let’s just say that though all that stuff in my bathroom was a joke to me, the first lady probably had the real thing in her house. Howard undergrad, Harvard graduate school, Miss Black America two times over. Yeah. That’s what I was dealing with. The few times I’d talked to her she seemed pretty down to earth, though. For a beauty queen, anyway.

      There I was, being ugly again and in the house of God at that. My real problem wasn’t with any of these people, but with my scale and my mother-in-law.

      Your real problem is with God, I dared to think for just a second. That would have to keep for later, especially with my husband next to me about to break into a sweat.

      “Why did Mama have to park in Dre’s space? Can you tell me that? Sometimes I think she just wants some attention.”

      You think?

      For my husband to be such a computer genius and great businessman, he could be a little dense when it came to his mother. Okay, a lot dense.

      I settled myself down into the movie-theater-type chair, wondering for a moment if I’d have been able to fit in it a couple years back. Probably not. Black folks need pews. Room for your butt, your purse, your program and of course, a few inches to swing your mortuary fan if it came down to it. We had fans here. I’d seen them, but I’d never seen anybody use one. It was all about climate control these days.

      The service started and no one noticed as I sprang the trapdoor on my nursing blouse. Lily gulped once or twice, but the music was too loud for anyone to hear. Everything seemed to lift off me as the choir sang, that

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