Page 16 of Wait For It

I forced the thought away, unable to dwell on anything other than the silent way I was being assessed. Keeping my face blank, I focused on the area of skin between his eyebrows. It was a trick I’d learned from Ashlynn growing up—a way of making it appear as though I was looking him in the eyes while keeping myself safe.

Ashlynn.

My eyes stung, but I refused to break. Not while Tristan was on a mission to slow-blink his way into my head.

It only hurts if you let it…

His eyes flashed with amusement as he pulled his cell phone out. “Thought you’d like a preview of next Sunday’s message. It’ll be my first time back on stage since your accident.”

It wasn’t a weapon—it was a phone. I released the breath I’d been holding and nodded,

I’d been granted a reprieve.

This time.

“Now, you know I usually like to start with something lighthearted and funny, but this time I’m going to lead in with the story of your accident,” he declared while reading through the notes on the phone screen.

“There comes the point where medicine runs out and faith steps in. Now, I believe we serve a Mighty Healer, and we’re about to come into a season of miracles. It works as a segue, right?”

When I didn’t respond, Tristan cleared his throat and continued. “We all go through things that aren’t fair, and it can leave us with bitter hearts. Maybe someone got the promotion at work you felt like you deserved, or you’ve had to watch a loved one suffer through illness. Church, I have to confess something. I’ve been bitter. When I learned the severity of my daughter’s condition, I felt despair like I hadn’t felt since losing my beloved wife, Colleen.”

Mama.

My vision blurred, and I shifted my attention toward the window, aimlessly watching the palm trees zip by alongside I-45. He never mentioned her—no one did. As the years passed, it began to feel as though maybe she’d only ever existed in my mind.

“That despair left me angry, and I cried out to God. I demanded to know if he was testing me like Job. Was I meant to lose everything to prove my faith? Folks, how many of y’all have been there? How many of you have been knocked down by life, time and time again?

“Maybe God isn’t punishing you but bringing you into the light. Maybe you got passed over for that promotion because God is opening up bigger doors. Maybe your loved one is battling an illness to strengthen your faith in miracles.”

Like a moth to a flame, Tristan’s charisma pulled me in, and I found myself nodding along to his every word.

He beamed at my reaction, no doubt already basking in the congregation’s shouts of praise. “Once we’ve raised our Bibles, I’ll read from Genesis 22:9. That’s the passage that came to me as I knelt in grief. You remember it, don’t you little dove?”

My mouth went dry as his ‘message’ became crystal clear.

“When they arrived at the place where God had told him to go, Abraham built an altar and arranged the wood on it. Then he tied his son, Isaac, and laid him on the altar on top of the wood.

And Abraham picked up the knife to kill his son as a sacrifice. At that moment, the angel of the Lords called to him from heaven, ‘Abraham! Abraham!’

‘Yes,’ Abraham replied. ‘Here I am!’

‘Don’t lay a hand on the boy!’ the angel said. ‘Do not hurt him in any way, for now, I know that you truly fear God. You have not withheld from me, even your son, your only son.’”

“I was so consumed with the thought of losing my little girl I didn’t see it for what it was,” he preached from memory, never once taking his eyes off mine. “Now, the world will tell you bad things happen to good people and go on about their lives. A man of God will look inward, though, and see where he’s failed. And folks, it’s not sunshine and roses when you’re trying to turn your tragedy into a testimony.”

I wondered if anyone who heard it later would notice that, while he was discussing my injury, the focus was solely on how it had impacted him.

Tristan shifted forward until his head was almost touching mine before lowering his voice. “I put my family above my faith. I stood up in front of my church and demanded they step out in faith while my own heart was tied up in the familiar. I’ve held on to you because it was comfortable. But if I want to come into the fullness and glory of God, I have to be willing to sacrifice what I love the most.”

He’s going to kill me…

Maybe not, but he had made it clear he was willing to hold a knife to my throat. The sermon was a cautionary tale meant solely for my ears—a reminder of what Tristan was ready to do to prove himself worthy.

Was love really sacrifice?

If so, then I was beginning to question whether or not I even knew what love was. I’d never seen Tristan put his family above anything. We were nothing more than scullery maids in his vast kingdom.

As I sifted through the rubble of my memories, searching for details about the accident, something Tristan had said began to gnaw at my mind.

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