“The real question is,” I said, speaking my first words since I’d answered Jeremy’s call, “do you hear yourself? You’re talking to me like I’m one of your children and you need to calm yourself if you want me to stay on this phone.”

I heard his deep sigh and then after a few moments, he said, “Look, I’m sorry. It’s just that Lizzy sent me the minutes from the meeting and I’m blown away because that meeting was so important to me, Ginger.”

“I know it was. Just like my plans were important to me. But you know what, Jeremy, even though you’d pissed me off, even though you didn’t give any consideration to what I had to do, even though you acted like the world revolved around you, I still went ahead and changed my plans.”

“How can you say that? You didn’t go to the meeting.”

“You’re a man of God, so you need to stop lying.” I paused, giving him a moment to calm down so that he would hear me. “I changed, not only my schedule, but the girl’s schedule, too. I went to the job fair early, didn’t stay as long as I would have liked and I made it to the church before the end of the meeting. If you have the minutes from Lizzy, you know that.”

“You didn’t make it in time. They’d already taken the vote to bring irrigation project to the board and you know that’s not what I wanted.”

“Well, I’m sorry about that, but this is just one reason why you and I need to get back on the same track. You can’t take me for granted the way you’ve been doing. I have a life, too. I’m trying to make a difference in my own way and you need to understand that or we’re gonna have some problems.”

There was so much tension in the silence that followed, but I didn’t care. I’d always been the stand-by-my-pastor-man chick, but I’d never done that silently and I wasn’t going to be quiet about what I was feeling now.

“All right,” he acquiesced. “I’m sorry, Ginger. I didn’t mean to go off. It’s just that vote...never mind. Just know that I’m sorry.”

This would have been the moment for me to just accept his apology. And in the past, I would have done that. But Jeremy was beginning to feel a little different to me. Like he was a bit off-kilter, moving away from everything we’d built our relationship on. It was like he’d somehow started to rise above me, as if we weren’t equals.

It didn’t feel like it was time for me to ring the alarm, but there was definitely a yellow caution sign in my heart.