But right now my thoughts weren’t on what Jeremy would do. All I wanted to do was stand up and hug Rena. So, I pushed my chair back, moved to the head of the table, crouched down and hugged her. She sobbed into my shoulder.

What surprised me was that no one else moved. Well, maybe not no one because Cecily’s lips began flapping.

Cecily said, “You know this boy set this up.” She held up the first picture. “Look at these closely. In every one of these pictures, he's posing for the camera."

“Unbelievable.”

“Pathetic.”

“Someone is always trying to bring down our husbands.”

“You’re right,” Cecily said to the other women. “And what makes this so deplorable,” she continued as she stuffed all the pictures back in the envelope and then passed it around the table as if she wanted everyone to get a close up view, “is that these people who do this to our men are only doing this for money. It’s all about the Benjamins. Blackmail.”

I stood up and glared at the women. What were they talking about? They were blaming the boy? I said, “No one would be able to blackmail anyone if the pastor hadn’t been in that bed with that boy.”

"I just..." Rena began, speaking for the first time since Cecily had begun her blame-the-victim crusade. Tears trickled down her cheeks. “I just...I mean, he's a boy."

"Who probably told Reverend Bradley that he was eighteen," Cecily countered as if she was Rena’s husband’s defense attorney. "And that means nothing because we don’t know how old that boy is. You know how it is with black folks. Men, women, young or old, you can never tell our age.”

“So what are you saying?” I asked, facing Cecily directly. “If that boy is eighteen, are you saying that Reverend Bradley being in bed with him is okay?”

My words made Rena sob and I wished that I could pull them back. But, it was difficult for me to turn to Rena because I wanted to make sure Cecily understood what she was saying.

"Of course it’s not okay,” Sonya stepped in. Moving closer to Rena, Sonya asked, "Have you talked to your husband about this?"

"No." Rena sniffed. "These came this morning after he left for church. For the last few hours I didn’t know what to do; I’ve just been in bed. I didn’t even plan to come here, but...I just didn’t know what to do.”

“Well you know what you need to do,” Cecily said. “You need to take those photos and before you leave this hotel, find someplace, somewhere to burn them.”

“That’s right,” another First Lady shouted out.

“Amen,” the corner began again.

“What?” I said, the tone of my voice stopping all chatter. “She should burn them? Without her husband seeing them?” I paused and glanced at each of the women. “So then when she talks to him, what is she going to say happened to the photos?”