Under The Hat

• Religion
• Short story
• Spirituality & New Age
• Drama

								
Under The Hat

By: Faith Moore

I woke up today with the sun blinding my eyes through my bumped-out bay bedroom window. I sleep on a large king-size mattress with satin sheets. I look over to my right side, I see my alarm on my nightstand. Its 7:30am. I look over my right, lying next to me is… I don't really know. I haven't known him in a long time. I guess I’ll call him a devil. Funny, he's not hot, but he's ice-cold. I’ve felt cold every day for the past few years, but our house thermostat is always on 70 degrees. The only warmth I felt in a while was the sun on my face when I woke up. I guess that's a sign God still cares even if my life feels…frozen.

I step out of my bed and walk down my spiral staircase into the kitchen. I pass my halfway mirror upstairs. I look sort of a mess. Hair is wrapped, I have pajamas and no makeup.

Oh, I also have 2 children. A boy and a girl. My son is 6 and my daughter is 2. I make them breakfast and get them ready for Church today. I always get them ready first. Feed, bathe, fix their hair and get them dressed. My children have been my only source of joy in this season. The unconditional love, a Godly love that I get in human form. It amazes me they see and appreciate me fully. God shows his love in that. I pray to the Lord they never change. Change in the way my husband did. He used to look at me like that. I can't pin it, but something changed.

My bedroom is above the kitchen, I hear footsteps. He's awake. He walks downstairs and enters the kitchen. He greets our kids with large smiles and warm hugs and kisses. I'm just cleaning the dishes after the kids eat and fixing my husband's plate. He sits at the table and kisses me as I place his breakfast in front of him. That's it. Our kids left the kitchen and went in the living room to watch TV.

Shows over! My husband leans back in his chair at the table and stares at his plate. I asked was anything wrong. He tells me “no”, eats half of his food and goes back in our room to get dressed for church. As I finished cleaning up everything, I walked back up the spiral staircase. I finally observed all our pictures wrapped around the wall of our staircase. I haven't looked at them in months. It's hard to smile at them with pride. Black and white photos of our wedding, honeymoon, our children's birth and our first family photo. I usually look straight down at my feet walking the staircase or look up towards our chandelier. Our crystal chandelier is very pretty. Pretty enough to be $5,000. With just the correct angle of light, we have a rainbow in our foyer. That another thing that makes me smile. God shows his love there.

Going up the stairs, I go back to my room and enter my closet. It's a double-sided walk in closet. I have a wide variety of shoes, designer dresses and jewelry. You name it, I’ve worn it and have it. Our family usually matches clothes every couple of Sundays, so today is yellow and blue. I put on a yellow maxi dress, with a blue necklace and matching earrings. I believe the set cost about $1,000 from Swarovski. My husband bought it for me some time ago. I didn’t believe it was an act of love but love-bombing to shut up. I believe he gives gifts now for me to forget about the past. It wasn’t always like this. During that time, I fussed about an affair he had. That was a mess. I wish he just does what’s right out of his heart. I miss the old him. Things were great then. What about my wedding ring you asked? Yes it was $900 from Tiffany and co. Yes, the stone is black. It didn't use to be. It was a beautiful diamond that would shine in multiple colors. I believe my husband tried to get upgrades at a weird store, and they changed it to a black diamond by accident. No, seriously, it's fine, that doesn't bother me.

After getting dressed, I fix my hair and do my makeup. I always have a Mac liquid foundation and plenty of eyeshadow palettes. I'm going for the natural look but eyelashes never hurt. It usually takes about an hour for me to get ready in my dressing room. That's all I have time for since I have to get my kids and husband ready for our show…I mean church. Oh, this is my favorite part, it's time to pick out a hat! I have about 50 different kinds. Each is about maybe $50-$100. I look through all the boxes and I find this beautiful yellow hat with a blue sequin ribbon on it. It also has a couple sparkly yellow feathers on it. I grab my hat and put it on in the mirror. As I put it on, I smiled. I wish I could never take this hat off. They wouldn't like what's under here.

I look in the mirror and see someone beautiful, someone to be proud of, someone strong but without it, I am- (husband knocks on bathroom door). Oh shoot, I gotta go to church, or we’ll be late. Service starts at 11, and it’s 10:15 am.

All of us as a cast I mean...family is dressed in our yellow and blue. My daughter has a yellow dress with yellow ribbons and my son has a blue suit with a yellow tie matching his father. I love how put together we are. We all get in the car and pull off from our circular driveway.

We finally arrive to church. Let the show begin. Oh, I didn't tell you we run this place. My husband is senior pastor and I'm his first lady. I wish I didn't have to emphasize “his” so much. But no it's totally fine. The more I say it, the better I feel. I just let the world know. Service goes according as usual. We all greet members and guests with smiles and hugs. I have to keep our children well-mannered. They are 6 and 3, what do you expect? On top of that I have to help manage sound, help the praise team and do opening prayer. I enjoy helping where I can. Usually my husband never lets me do anything. Not to be arrogant, but I’m gifted in other areas besides the business side. Recently we had a women’s day brunch. My husband knows I study the word daily, and I can teach, but he picked someone else. He didn’t even ask me about the event. He only asked me to speak (last minute) at the event 2 days before the brunch because the original speaker canceled. I’m always a last resort. But like church food says “always be ready”. So, I faithfully did my assignment.

When I do other ministry work, he doesn’t fully support me. He’s either not there or extremely late. What’s the excuse? “I had another engagement.” It’s usually either with his friends or church members. Well, I guess other people are more important than his own wife.

After all of that, my husband gets up to preach. He says, “I want to give honor to God and my dear first lady. The sugar to my coffee”. I'm thinking, wow, I've been the sugar to your coffee, but you've been the salt to my wounds.

I used to love hearing him preach. Now I'm just numb. I know how to keep a smile and to press on. Don’t stop dancing until the curtain falls. I would never embarrass him or my family in front of the church. As service progresses and concludes we all leave to go home. My feet are tired from my heels. I get the kids changes in regular clothes and my husband just sits in the living room to watch football.

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