“I know,” I said, keeping my voice soft and soothing because Jeremy was so agitated. But he was right. Reverend Robinson had founded Pilgrim’s Rest Missionary Baptist Church in the eighties and over the last two decades had grown the membership from a couple of hundred to just under three thousand.

“I just...I just...I just....”

“Okay, Jeremy. Breathe.” I rubbed my hand over his back.

He inhaled slowly, then exhaled the same way.

“It’s going to be okay,” I told him.

“How can it be?” Jeremy shook his head. “The world won’t be the same.”

I thought that was a little dramatic, but I understood my friend’s sentiments. Jeremy and I had been friends since we’d met in Charlotte at MEAC. And for the last two years, everyone called us a couple, though we truly were just friends. True friends who could laugh together and cry together and study together. Best friends who’d visited each other’s homes and met each other’s families during school breaks. But our real bond came from our love for the Lord. We prayed and read the Bible together. Nothing was more intimate than that to me.

It felt so good to have a guy in my life who wasn’t trying to get into my panties. Jeremy never crossed that line; it was like it never occurred to him. I was his sister-in-Christ and that was all that mattered.

The friendship zone was perfect for me because Jeremy wanted to be a pastor and if there was one thing I would never be, it was a pastor’s wife.

“Ginger, I don’t know....”

I looked around the vestibule to make sure no one was within listening range when I asked, “Do you think he got involved with a man?”

It wasn’t that I’d ever heard anything like that concerning Reverend Robinson, but my thoughts were that if he’d just been smashing a woman, it wouldn’t be all that serious... unfortunately. If he’d had an affair, he’d apologize to Lady Robinson, then keep it a secret and keep it moving. He wouldn’t have walked away from the church.

Jeremy shrugged. "I have no idea what it is."

"Well," I began, then paused as one of the doors to the sanctuary opened and a matriarch of the church, Mother Madeline Logan wobbled on her cane toward us. Mother Logan always left about five minutes before the service was over, so that meant soon the lobby would be filled with parishioners, all talking about what had gone down in church this morning.

Mother Logan stopped, leaned her cane against the wall, then took Jeremy's hands into her own.

"You all right, Suga?” she asked, cranking her head back so that she could look into Jeremy’s eyes.

Jeremy half nodded, half shook his head.

“I know Reverend Robinson is like a father to you,” she said. “It's a shame what just happened in there.”

Jeremy nodded. "Yes, ma'am. A shame, but I'm fine,” he lied.

Mother Logan reached toward his neck, though her reach ended somewhere around Jeremy’s chest. Still, she hugged him. "You stay strong. We know all things work together for good to them that love God.”