My name He almost never called me Mary. He called me Mags, like everyone else did. My father used to call me Mary, but he’s been dead a long time. Jesus called me Mags. That morning though, he spoke my name. People say all sorts of stupid things about Jesus and me. Always have and probably always will. A genuine friendship between a man and a woman doesn’t have to mean they’re an item. We were friends. And yes, I love him, and I believe he loves me, but we were not lovers. I’ll admit there was a time – or times – I thought about it. It’s difficult to be that close to a person without the thought of the physical creeping in. Feeling loved, listened to and understood are genuine aphrodisiacs. I can’t tell you if he ever felt the same. He was human. Maybe he did. But he was also … he was Jesus. All I can say is that I knew there were boundaries that could never be crossed. Mine and his. He was here for a reason and that reason made some things impossible. Anyway, loads of people loved him and loads of people wanted him. Men and women. He kept himself apart. He had to. He gave so much of himself to so many people and, if I was allowed a certain closeness, a friendship that let me see slightly more than some others, then I am grateful. I will never forget. Like Jonno, like Kay, like Darren, like so many others he healed or touched or influenced, my life changed the day I met him. I was a mess back then. I’d been a mess for as long as I could remember. I hated myself and I wasn’t that much fonder of anyone else. I’d only gone to listen to him because I was so sick of my mother asking me to. She was probably sick of me being a grump and just wanted me out of the agency for a while. We owned a Real Estate agency and we were good. Dad had started it with mum, and I think they’d both wanted to, but when dad died early of a stress-related heart condition, mum went 114
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