No More Sunday Mornings

      I stood in the front of the church as tears overlapped my face and the people in the congregation stared at me waiting for me to say what I had been told to say. Some of them whispered to one another and shook their head. I couldn’t hear what these people were saying about me now but I had heard what they had been saying for the past few weeks. I had confided to Mother Bradley and knew she deserved to know that there would be an extra mouth to feed beside the fact that I couldn’t hide it anymore I was definitely starting to show. I was no longer 5”4 110 pounds I was gaining weight and was now up to 128. Mother Bradley had asked me a few times at the dinner table was I putting on weight so I knew that it wouldn’t be long before she flat out ask me my condition.

      “Baby, you know I am here for you. Your mother wouldn’t have it any other way,” she smiled rubbing my hand. “But where is the father honey?”

      “I don’t know. He ran off the moment I told him I was pregnant,” tears filled my eyes. “I’m going to take care of my baby myself.”

      “My God,” she shook her head. “Well, baby you don’t have to worry about a thing. My doors are opened to you and that little baby. I know that if one my grandchildren needed help when Ruth was alive she would have done the same thing. And your mother was indeed one of God’s holy saints.”

      “Thank you so much Mother Bradley you don’t know how much that means to hear you say that.”

      That was the furthest thing from the truth. Mother Bradley went to the Pastor and whoever else as soon as I told her. I later found out when I was called to a meeting by the Pastor that she had felt it was her Christian duty to inform him of my present condition. Pastor Foster said that in order to receive the help I needed I must repent before the entire congregation and to God first. I saw his lips moving but surely he hadn’t said what I thought my ears had heard. I looked at him and felt like he was a stranger instead of the man that had just eulogized my mother five months ago. I decided to do what was asked of me since I had no other choice. I was alone.

      That Sunday I stood there to tell all of my business to the busy bodies of Calvary Church and I felt nauseated. I stood there palms sweating as another bead of sweat slid down the side of my head. I heard the Pastor clear his throat waiting for me to confess my sins and that’s when I knew I couldn’t do. I knew I wouldn’t do. These people who were looking down there nose at me now, were the same people that allegedly loved my mother so much.  These were the people that embraced us at the funeral telling us they would always be there if we need them, now ready to crucify me. This was the very church I had grown up in since I was a little girl and had despised being forced to attend as a teenager. This church my mother served so faithfully and now they are putting her youngest daughter on Front Street to bear all her sins to the entire congregation. I felt like that woman in the book the Scarlet Letter all I needed was a big A on my sweater. The Pastor cleared his throat again to signify that they were all still waiting for me.